Page 5 of The Highlander’s Hunted Wife (Legacy of Highland Lairds #2)

5

“ Y e look as though they’ve just thrown a bunch of green lads into the yard who have barely picked up a blade in their lives,” a bright voice teased, heralding the arrival of Flynn Guthrie.

A tall, wiry man with a ruddy complexion, he was the closest thing Hector had to a new man-at-arms.

The position would have to be filled at some point, but Hector wasn’t yet ready to put his trust in someone again.

“They’ve grown idle,” Hector muttered, turning his back on the disappointments.

He leaned against the wooden fence that bordered the training yard and stared up at an overcast sky, feeling strangely uneasy. No matter how much work he had to plow through or what complaints had been sent in his direction or what whisperings of unrest were coming from other territories, the yard offered him peace. Ordinarily.

Let her stew. She willnae dare to trespass again after I’m done with her.

“Are they nae allowed to enjoy a slice of peace?” Flynn asked, joining his Laird, with his back to the soldiers, who sparred and battled wooden dummies and ran back and forth behind them.

Hector cast a grim sideways glance at the man. “There hasnae been peace in this part of Scotland for decades, Flynn. Ye ken that as well as I do.”

“And that cannae change?” Flynn quirked an eyebrow. “Is that nae why ye signed that peace treaty in the first place? Or did ye write beside it, in parentheses, och, only jestin’ ?”

Hector shook his head. “What are ye botherin’ me for? I still havenae decided who’s goin’ to be me man-at-arms, so ye can cease houndin’ me.”

“Houndin’ ye?” Flynn grinned. “Nay, M’Laird. Ye must consider this a suit. I’m tryin’ to woo ye. I intend to be as bothersome as a young’un who’s found himself in love for the first time.”

On an ordinary day, Flynn’s unusual sense of humor might have coaxed a restrained smirk from Hector’s lips. But it just served to make him think of the lass down in the dungeons and her younger brother, who had fled, probably regretting his decision to leave her behind.

There is another one, I’m certain of it. Another sister. Younger. If Lyall didnae make it back, will she go hungry?

He shook the thought off like a wasp in summer. What did it matter to him? It wasn’t he who had cast them out of their village. It wasn’t he who didn’t offer any work or coin. It wasn’t he who caused stolen chickens and empty bellies. He could have done worse, but he had let them be… until they had come into his castle and intruded on his private domain.

“Och, it must be bad,” Flynn remarked. “What’s nippin’ at yer heels, eh?”

Hector appreciated Flynn’s perceptiveness when it came to battles and strategy, but he didn’t like to see it used on him outside of war.

“ Ye are, and if ye dinnae head off and make yerself useful elsewhere, I’ll have the lads practice their swings with ye instead of that wooden post.”

Flynn threw his hands up. “Aye, M’Laird. Ye dinnae have to ask me twice.” He lowered his hands. “But ye cannae blame a lad for bein’ concerned when ye told me ye were goin’ to attack yer pile of correspondence, but I have it on good authority that ye were seen runnin’ off into the woods instead.”

“There was… an incident,” Hector grumbled. “It has been dealt with.”

“Is that ‘incident’ why ye’ve suddenly decided that peace isnae goin’ to last?” Flynn pressed. “Is it the Marsdens? The truce was a ruse, and they’re about to ambush us?”

A muscle twitched in Hector’s tense jaw, his mind once again turning to the lass and her brother. The things they had said about Johnson. The doubts they had seeded, which needed to be quashed immediately.

Does she honestly think I havenae considered all of that meself? Does she think I wouldnae have raised Hell if I’d had any uncertainty at all?

Sometimes, the truth was difficult to swallow. The lass would do well to learn that.

“All is quiet,” he replied. “It was a thief, nothin’ more.”

Flynn shrugged and began to walk away. He waited until he was at a safe distance before he looked back and flashed a grin. “A very pretty thief, or so I heard. Let’s hope she hasnae come to steal yer heart, eh?”

Adept at maneuvering around Hector’s moods and any sudden retaliation, Flynn darted off before Hector could swipe the silly remark off his face.

Hector glared after him, his hands curled into fists. He should have known that the lass’s presence in the castle wouldn’t go unnoticed for long; the guards and soldiers were worse gossips than the old women at the market.

Katie…

He blinked at the thought, her name coming to him at last, dredged up from the part of his memory that he kept trying to pile burial dirt onto. All the conversations he’d had with the man who had killed his sister.

Katie Blake. She’s Katie Blake.

There were no windows in the depths below the castle to tell the time by, but Katie guessed it had been at least a few hours. Maybe more.

She had made a decent attempt at sleep, but her mind had stubbornly raced with worry for her little sister and brother. She had sung a bit to cheer herself, but the sound was dull in the subterranean dungeons. She had told herself a few of her favorite stories of selkies and kelpies and changelings, but it had only made her miss the cottage and her siblings more.

So, she had resorted to picking up a stick she had found in her cell, drawing a mountainous landscape in the dirt, adding people and animals, an osprey swooping over a loch. Anything to pass the time.

“Goodness, have there always been so many stairs?” The feminine voice outside the thick dungeon door made Katie’s head snap up from her masterpiece.

A gruff male voice mumbled incoherently in response—one of the guards who had been stationed outside the door. Katie had heard at least two of them talking to one another while she slowly lost her mind, their voices hushed like they knew she might find some entertainment in their conversation.

“I just heard what happened from a maid,” the feminine voice continued. “Appallin’ that a guest has been treated so poorly, but me dear grandson wasnae to ken. I’m gettin’ absentminded in me advancin’ years; I must’ve forgotten to tell him that me companion would arrive today.”

Grandson?

Katie frowned, hurrying to the bars of her cell and pressing her face against them to get a better look at the entrance.

Guest? Is she… talkin’ about me?

“Come on, now—get yer keys out and start wigglin’ them in the lock,” the woman’s voice insisted with an intimidating thrum of impatience. “I dinnae have all day, and I’m eager to unruffle any feathers with me dear companion.”

There was a moment of silence. A hesitation.

Katie waited with bated breath, her heart leaping as she heard the blissful sound of a key turning in the lock. The door swung open on creaky hinges, and in breezed an older woman. A formidable being of surprising height, excellent posture, and a lively gait that belied the wrinkles and silvery-white hair of an elder.

Her gray-green eyes were similarly, conflictingly youthful as they swiveled toward Katie, set within a face that still radiated immense beauty, despite the fact she must have been at least sixty. Katie imagined that this older woman must have had at least three-quarters of Scotland’s eligible men vying for her hand when she was young, but she was unknown to Katie herself.

“There ye are!” the woman crowed. “Ye must forgive me for this unfriendly welcome—it’s all me fault. I could’ve sworn I told Hector ye were arrivin’. Truly, I pray ye can forgive me.”

Katie frowned, bewildered. “M’Lady,” she whispered. “I think ye have mistaken me for someone else. I’m nay guest here. I?—”

“Play along, lassie,” the woman whispered back with a wink. “Guards, would ye hurry yerselves! Am I to break down this door with me bare hands, eh? Shall I bend them with me sheer force of will, hmm?”

One of the soldiers came running, keys at the ready. “Apologies, M’Lady.”

“Aye, well, apologies are just the start for this companion of mine,” the older woman remarked, stepping back to let the man open the door.

As soon as Katie’s freedom lay before her, the silver-haired woman held out her hand. “Come, me sweet lass. Ye must be exhausted after hours and hours of travelin’ to get to me, and ravenous too, I’d wager? I dinnae suppose these boys have given ye aught to eat, have they?”

The soldier bowed his head, looking sheepish.

“Nay, I thought nae,” the woman muttered, seizing Katie’s hand. “Well, we’ll soon have ye nice and comfortable in a bedchamber of yer own, with somethin’ warm to eat and drink. Ye must be frozen stiff after bein’ kept down here for so long.”

Katie gulped, uncertain of what to say. She wasn’t a natural liar or a natural thespian.

“See, the lass cannae even speak—she’s in such shock!” the woman scolded, tutting at the closest guard.

A moment later, she was urging Katie out of the dungeon hallway and up the staircase to the main body of the castle. There, a crosshatched window revealed to Katie that it was much later in the day than she’d thought, the sky golden with the fiery hues of sunset.

Lyall will be back at the cottage. He’ll have had the sense to fetch Bonnie and Pipkin. They’ll be just fine without me until I can safely return to them.

She prayed silently as she followed the older woman, confused as to why this ferocious lady had broken her out of her prison. After all, if Katie’s assumptions were correct, this was Hector’s grandmother.

“I dinnae suppose ye could let me go, could ye?” Katie asked quietly, her gaze flitting this way and that, fearful that they might cross paths with Hector. “I’m terribly grateful, but I should be goin’ home.”

The older woman shook her head. “Tomorrow, we can discuss it. Ye’re safer here tonight. Trust me.”

She steered Katie down a very narrow passageway, walking single-file until they came to another steep staircase where they could walk two abreast again.

“And before I can consider turnin’ ye loose, I have a question or five,” the woman continued, gripping the rope that served as a banister. “Let’s start with a simple one. Who are ye?”

“Katie Blake.”

“A pleasure to make yer acquaintance, Miss Blake.” The woman hesitated. “Ye’re nae married, are ye?”

Katie blushed and shook her head. “Havenae yet found meself a man foolish or brave enough.”

“A wise lass.” The woman winked. “I’m Isla Morris. Ye can call me M’Lady if it’s more comfortable for ye, but I prefer Isla, and never Mrs. Morris. I’m the Laird’s grandmaither. On his maither’s side.”

Katie dipped her head. “Lovely to meet ye, M’Lady. And… thank ye again for gettin’ me out of those dungeons. I dinnae much like bein’ somewhere without bein’ able to see the sky.”

“Which brings me to me second question,” Isla said, taking the steep stairs at an effortless pace, while Katie floundered a little. “What happened this mornin’? How did ye end up in the dungeons? I ken that’s two questions, but I imagine they’re one and the same.”

As sweat began to bead on her brow, the exertion of climbing the stairs thawing her out, Katie told Isla what had occurred earlier that day with Lyall and Hector.

“I suppose he thinks he cannae trust the sister of a killer,” she concluded. “So, it was the dungeons for me, ‘til he decides what to do with me, what punishment to deliver.”

Isla pursed her lips. “Aye, well, he’s nae doin’ that. I cannae see that ye did anythin’ wrong. Yer wee braither, aye, but… he’s young, he’s sore of heart. He’s bound to do a few stupid things, and it’s right to be merciful to those who are sufferin’ through nay fault of their own.” She hesitated. “Me grandson cannae be too angry about it if he let ye live.”

“That’s me hope,” Katie confessed, never more grateful for the gossip of castle residents.

News had clearly reached Isla somehow, and Katie doubted it had come from Hector himself.

The two women reached a doorway, passing through it and into a drafty hallway. Burnished light gleamed in through tall windows, spilling bronze onto the flagstones, chasing off the gloom.

Katie followed Isla halfway down the hall, where the old woman abruptly stopped in front of an arched doorway, producing a key from a pouch that hung at her waist.

“Now, one last question,” Isla said, folding the key into her hand like she only meant to give it to Katie if she answered correctly. “Do ye work?”

Katie almost laughed. “Aye, M’Lady. If ye dinnae work, ye dinnae eat.”

“Quite right, lassie. Quite right.” Isla paused, studying her more intently. “And what, pray tell, is it that ye do?”

Nothin’ at the moment, since almost the entirety of me village has decided they despise me.

Katie plastered on a nervous smile, replying, “I’m a seamstress, M’Lady, but?—”

“Excellent!” Isla clapped her hands together and whirled around, opening the door to the bedchamber before Katie could utter another word.

And once Katie saw inside, she didn’t want to.