Page 1 of Sighs of the Highland Wind

THE LAIRD’S SCARRED SERVANT

PROLOGUE

Kenna’s eyes were full of dust, and she could hardly see the path ahead of her because of her tears. She had tried to run at first, but in the end she had crept under the trees and waited until the bad men went away. She was too afraid to go back to her house after she saw one of them knocking her mother down, then her father.

She heard her sister, Bella, scream from inside the barn, and that was when she began to run away. Kenna was only four years old, although she would soon be five, and the long grass was too tall and thick for her to run through.

At last, she got down on her hands and knees and began to crawl, but eventually she had to stand up again because she could not see the way ahead. She was afraid—very afraid—because she knew that the bad men were still around somewhere, and she did not want to be hurt like the rest of her family. All Kenna wanted to do was sit on Mammy’s lap, feel her strong arms around her, and hear her gentle voice.

She wanted to hear Da’s deep voice singing to her as she went to sleep, and she wanted to cuddle her rag doll Betty, but most ofall, she wanted to get away from the bad men on their big horses. Kenna shuddered as she thought of their cruel, ugly, snarling faces. She did not quite understand what being dead meant, but she knew that once you were dead, you went somewhere nice, but you never came back from that place, and nobody ever saw you again.

Are Mammy an’ Daddy an’ Bella dead?she thought, and suddenly she was even more scared than she had been before.

It would be dark soon, and Kenna was alone and hungry, with no idea where she was. She began to weep bitterly. She was only wee, and she needed her family. What was happening to her?

“If I get ahold o’ them swines, I will tear them limb fae limb!” Jack Johnstone yelled as he surveyed the remains of the little cottage.

Three dead bodies lay there, each having been done to death in the most brutal way. There was a man and a woman in their thirties and a girl of perhaps twelve years old, all their lives snuffed out in their prime. And for what? They had so little, and Jack was sure they would have gladly given it all up to the bandits just to stay alive, but they had been murdered anyway. Jack was so angry he was shaking.

“Is there no’ a wee lassie that lives here an’ a’?” his colleague and friend Frank Young asked as he draped bedsheets over the corpses, trying not to look at them in the process.

Jack tapped his chin thoughtfully. “I think ye might be right, Frankie,” he agreed. “We had better look for her, but I dinnae know her name.”

“Poor wee thing is likely terrified,” Jack remarked. “If she is still alive, that is.”

They searched around the cottage for a long time but saw no sign of her, and eventually they mounted their horses to go back to Invercree Castle, where they were employed as guards.

“Those bandits are becomin’ a curse,” Frank growled. “A whole family wiped out, just like that! An’ they wilnae be the last. Somethin’ will need tae be done!”

Jack gave a cynical laugh. “Our laird isnae exactly the type that does things in a hurry,” he remarked.

Suddenly Frankie pointed to something in the distance. It was a child walking very slowly, weaving from side to side.

“Is that her?” he asked, urging his horse forward.

As soon as she heard the horse’s hooves, the child screamed and tried to run, but she had gone no more than a few yards before she fell over.

Frankie and Jack dismounted from their horses and approached the little girl cautiously. She was trying to edge backward away from them, whimpering, her eyes wide with terror.

“Dinnae hurt me,” she begged. “I’m only wee.”

The two men’s hearts filled with pity for the poor, frightened little creature.

“We are no’ goin’ tae hurt ye, sweetheart,” Jack said gently, as he knelt down beside her. “We want tae take ye somewhere safe.Are ye hungry?” He took out an apple from his pocket and held it out to her.

After a moment’s hesitation, she took it, bit into it, and began to eat it as though she was starving. Jack put out a hand to stroke her hair and she flinched but did not pull away.

“Would ye like tae come wi’ us?” he asked. “We have plenty o’ food an’ a nice warm bed for ye tae sleep in.”

The girl, still munching her apple, looked at him doubtfully, then nodded.

“What is yer name, sweetheart?” Frankie asked.

“Kenna,” the little girl replied.

“Would ye like a ride on my horse?” Frank asked.

Kenna nodded and allowed Frank to take her hand and lift her up on his big horse.