Lamont turned away. He didn’t seem to expect a response and Gregor didn’t have one to give him. What could he say? It was true. The blackened bodies they found at each holding left no doubt.
Rage replaced some of his horror. No more, he vowed. Once Bruce was on the throne, nothing like this would ever happen again.
The importance of this mission to Bruce was evident by the man who spoke next. Tor “Chief” MacLeod, the leader of the king’s secret band of elite soldiers known as the Highland Guard, hadn’t left the king’s side for more than a few hours in recent weeks. Personal bodyguard, enforcer, protector, advisor, MacLeod was everything for Robert the Bruce. Yet the king had sent his most trusted man to check on the loyal villagers who had given a handful of his men shelter after the worst disaster of a short reign that had been filled with disasters.
The fearsome West Highland chief cursed, his stony expression revealing a rare glimpse of emotion. “For once I wish our informants had been wrong.”
Gregor nodded. “As do I.”
They’d come as soon as they heard the first whisper of rumor that the English had retaliated against the village that had given the “rebels” aid. Leaving their temporary base in the hills and forest of Galloway, they’d raced the forty miles or so east through Dumfries to Lochmaben. But they’d never had a chance to prevent the slaughter that had taken place here.
As soon as MacLean rejoined them, MacLeod turned to him and his partner, Lamont. The two Guardsmen were among the handful of men who’d escaped the disaster at Loch Ryan and taken refuge here. “No one could have foreseen this. This is not on you—either of you. Do you understand?”
His voice was hard and commanding, without a hint of compassion or reassurance. Lamont and MacLean were warriors; they understood orders, not coddling.
Neither man responded for a moment. They exchanged a glance, and then Lamont gave a short nod, one that was mirrored a moment later by his partner.
“Good,” MacLeod said. “Then let us give the villagers a proper burial and return to the king to tell him what we have found. But do not doubt that what has been done here will be avenged.” He turned to Gregor. “Gather the bodies and bring them here.” They were standing in what had been the village kirk—identifiable by the scraps of the robe left on the body of the priest. “The three of us will dig.”
Gregor nodded and began the grim work of gathering the charred remains of the dead.
Someone will come for me …
Cate dreamed of knights from troubadour’s tales. Of strong, handsome warriors on white chargers with shimmering mail, colorful tabards, and banners streaming in the wind as they rode in to the rescue. Noble knights. Valiant knights. The knights of her childhood. The knights she’d once believed in. A knight like her father.
“My father is the greatest knight in Christendom!” The boast she’d made when the other children teased her about being a bastard had only provided more fodder for them after he’d left.
“Where’s the greatest knight in Christendom now, Caty?” they’d taunted.
Not here.
She woke with a start. Delirious with hunger and thirst, barely strong enough to unfurl from the ball that she’d been rolled in for God knew how long, at first the sound of voices confused her. She’d prayed so hard and for so long without response that when it finally came, just when she’d resigned herself to her fate, it seemed a cruel taunt of her imagination.
But then the voices grew stronger. Men’s voices. Was it the English soldiers? Had they come back to torment her? To finish what they’d started?
A fist of irrational fear gripped her, and her raw lips—which had parted to cry for help—clamped shut. But then she realized she had to take a chance. If the men were friends, it might be her only chance of rescue. And if they were English …
Perhaps they would put her out of her misery.
She opened her mouth to cry for help, but in some kind of cruel, twisted irony, her voice strangled in her throat. Tears of desperation and frustration sprang to her eyes. She willed her voice to work with everything she had left, but it wasn’t enough for more than a faint whisper. “Help! Please, help me.” She started to cry at the futility, precious fluid rolling down her cheeks. “Help me.”
God, this couldn’t be happening! She was strong. She wouldn’t give up. She didn’t want to die.
She thought of her mother, of the brother or sister she would never have a chance to know, of her friends and neighbors she’d known her whole life. Someone had to remember them. Someone had to see that the men who did this paid.
She tried again. “Help!” It was louder this time. Not much, but enough to give her encouragement. She sat up a little straighter, looked up through the tunnel of light, and tried again. And again.
Her efforts were rewarded by a shout, a voice that seemed to be coming closer to her. “I think someone is down there.”
It wasn’t her imagination. She cried out again, sobbing with both hope and fear. Don’t go … Please don’t go! I’m here.
With a burst of energy, she wobbled to a stand, using the mossy stones of the wall to help keep her upright. She looked up as a shadow crossed over her head. A man’s face appeared above her, peering down.
She gasped. Blinked. Felt her knees grow wobbly—and not from exhaustion or starvation.
From his face. The most perfect she’d ever seen.
Sunlight blazed behind him like a halo, bathing his tawny hair in golden light. His nose was straight and strong; his jaw firm, lightly clefted, and not too square; his cheeks high and sculpted; and his mouth … his mouth was wide and full of sin. His eyes were light in color—blue or green, she could not tell—set below brows arched like the wings of a raven. There wasn’t one part of him, not one bone or one inch of golden skin, that had not been put in exactly the right position.
Dear Lord, he wasn’t a man, he was an angel.
And that meant …
I’m in heaven.
It was her last thought as the ground rose under her feet.
“Is she alive?”
A deep voice pulled her from unconsciousness. She had the sensation of floating. Nay, of being carried. A man’s arms were around her. Arms that were strong and safe.
He put her down on the ground. The gentle warmth of his breath as he leaned over her caused her eyes to flutter open.
Their eyes met: hers and her angel’s.
“Aye,” he said softly, brushing a clump of matted hair from her forehead. “She’s alive.”
The gentleness in his voice made her chest swell with emotion. She opened her mouth to speak, but all she could do was lick her dry lips. The next moment a skin was brought to her mouth and the first precious drops of water slid down her parched throat. She drank hungrily—greedily—until he murmured for her to slow; she would make herself ill.
When he pulled it away a moment later, she would have tried to snatch it back had she not been distracted. He was cradling her against his chest, and his heavenly face was so close, all she had to do was reach up and touch it. Green. His eyes were green and framed by the thickest, most glorious lashes she’d ever seen. Unfair—even for an angel.
Alive? She frowned as his words penetrated. “But you’re an angel.”
She heard what sounded like a sharp laugh coming from behind her. “Hawk is going to have fun with that one.”
Her angel shot an angry glare in the direction of the man who’d spoken, but his words and gentle voice were for her. “You are alive, child. And safe.”
The reminder of what had happened made her clutch at him in renewed terror. With her head pressed against his leather-clad chest—a very hard and broad chest—she glanced behind her, for the first time seeing the three men standing there.
She gasped, shirking in fear. They were massive. Clad in black leather cotuns studded with bits of steel and darkened nasal helms (her rescuer’s was on the ground next to her, she realized), the tall, muscular warriors made her shiver. Good t
hing she hadn’t seen them first or she might have thought she’d died and gone rather south of heaven.
Who were they? Not English, she knew by the soft burr in her rescuer’s voice. She looked again, seeing the dark plaids they wore around their shoulders. Highlanders. But which side were they on? The clans from the Highlands fought on both sides of the war: some with Bruce and some, like the MacDougalls, against him, making them reluctant allies of Edward of England, the self-proclaimed “Hammer of the Scots.”
Were these men with the English?
Her rescuer seemed to sense her fear. “It’s all right, lass—we are not your enemy. We were sent by King Robert to help when he heard the English had retaliated for the shelter your village gave to his men.”
Help? Her mouth drew tight. Bruce was the one who had put them in this position. He was the one who’d done this.
But these men were proof that Scotland’s would-be king hadn’t completely forsaken them. Not that it gave her much comfort; Bruce’s men had come too late.
And there were only four of them! Her heart started to race again, pounding against her chest like a drum. “What if they come back?”
“Who?” he asked. “Who did this, child?”
Tears streamed down her cheeks and a fierce sob tore from her lungs. “English soldiers from the castle. The Earl of Hereford’s men. They …”
She started to cry harder when she remembered what they’d done. He drew her closer to his chest, soothing her with soft words, telling her it would be all right.
But it wouldn’t be all right. It would never be right again. Her mother was gone, and Cate had no one. Unconsciously, her fingers gripped the steely muscles of his arms harder. Except him. This man who looked like an angel sent from God to save her from certain death. As long as he was holding her, she had him. And Cate didn’t want to ever let him go.
Gregor thought he might need Robbie Boyd (or at least his fellow Guardsman’s inhuman strength) to pry the lass’s bloody fingers from his arms, but eventually the mite grew so exhausted from weeping, she dozed off, enabling him to help the others finish their grim task.
But he kept a close eye on her where he’d left her, wrapped in his plaid by the horses. The wee lass was traumatized, and as he was the one who’d found her, he felt strangely responsible for her. Strangely, because it was an entirely new experience feeling any sort of responsibility toward a woman—even one who was still a child.
But when he thought of what she’d been through, it roused every protective bone in his body. Bones he hadn’t even known existed.
God’s blood, how long has she been in that hellhole? Four days? Five? She’d been close to death—was still close to death. Without food and water for so long …
He grimaced. It would be bad enough for a grown man, let alone a young girl with little meat on her bones to spare. Her shredded fingers from trying to climb out of the well were evidence of the torture she’d endured and how desperate she’d been to escape.
He’d thought he’d seen just about every injustice and barbarous cruelty the English could mete out. But who could do something like this to a child? It seemed calculated and almost personal.
Gregor didn’t have much experience with young lasses, but he did have two younger brothers, and she couldn’t be more than eleven or twelve. Still more young girl than young woman. One side of his mouth curved up, recalling the breeches he’d been surprised to discover under her skirts when he’d carried her over his shoulder to climb out of the well.
She weighed next to nothing. Practically skin and bone. Fragile, but with a surprising strength to her skinny limbs. Aye, the lass was a fighter. With what she’d survived, she had to be.
It was MacLean who finally asked the question they all were thinking. “What are we going to do with her? We can’t take her back to camp. It’s too dangerous.”
That was an understatement. They’d been back in Scotland for less than a month after being on the run in the Western Isles for the past six. Bruce’s army had won one minor victory against the English at Turnberry, but they were one lost battle away from being forced to flee again. After the disaster at Loch Ryan, where over two-thirds of Bruce’s force had been killed, they’d been left with fewer than four hundred men in the entire army.
A lost cause it might seem to some, but they didn’t know Robert the Bruce. Gregor would fight by his side for as long as it took, even if they were the last two men standing.
“Was she able to tell you anything that might help?” MacLeod asked.
Gregor shook his head. “Nothing more than what we’d already guessed. It was Hereford’s men.” Though Lochmaben was part of the Bruce ancestral lands of the Lordship of Annandale, its castle was again in English hands after being retaken by Bruce last year. King Edward had given it to Sir Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, and the earl and countess (one of King Edward’s daughters) had arrived not long ago to occupy it. “She is still in shock. She couldn’t even tell me her name. She just kept crying over and over that he killed her mother, and now she was alone.”
Lamont winced. “She witnessed her mother’s death.”
Gregor turned to him grimly. “Aye, it sounds like it.”
“Poor lass,” MacLean said. “She’s too young to have seen something like that.”
An odd look crossed MacLeod’s face. It took Gregor a moment to realize it was compassion. “I was ten, probably only a couple of years younger than her, when I witnessed my mother raped and murdered. I still remember every damned moment of it.”
The men were silent. Apparently Gregor wasn’t the only one to be strangely affected by the lass’s suffering; it had penetrated the stony shell of one of the most feared swordsmen in Scotland—hell, probably in Christendom. Until MacLeod’s marriage last year to Christina Fraser, Gregor didn’t think the Chief of the Highland Guard was capable of smiling.
“Perhaps she has relatives nearby?” Lamont asked.
“No!” The lass’s voice rang out, and the next moment she’d launched herself into Gregor’s arms. Her raw and bloodied fingers were digging into his arms again, clutching tighter if it were possible. “Please, you can’t leave me here. They’ll find me and kill me.”
“Shhh,” he soothed, stroking her head. “No one is going to leave you here. But isn’t there someplace we can take you? An aunt? An uncle?”
She shook her head furiously. “There is no one. My mother is my only family.”
He didn’t correct her tense. “What about your father?”
A hard look crossed her face. “Dead.” From her tone, he gathered her memories were not fond ones. “At Methven.”
One of the many disasters that had felled Bruce’s and his men last year. “What’s your name, lass?”
She hesitated. “Caitrina.”
“And your father’s name?”
Another pause. “Kirkpatrick.”
A common enough clan name around these parts. “You have no brothers or sisters, Caitrina?” Gregor realized it was the wrong question to ask when her face collapsed in grief.
“My mother was eight months pregnant. He was hurting her. I had to try to make him stop.”
Gregor felt rage flare inside him, suspecting the kind of “hurting.” Sick bastards! He squeezed her tighter, though he knew there was no comfort he could give her that would take the pain away.
“I hit him with the hoe, but I missed, and then he …” Tears glimmered in the big brown eyes that dominated her small face. She was a cute little thing (even beneath the dirt) with a wide mouth, slightly upturned nose, softly pointed chin, and dark hair and brows to match her eyes. “He killed her. It was my fault. He killed her because of me.”
Gregor’s voice turned hard as he shook her by the shoulders and forced her to heed him. “It was not your fault,” he said in a voice that brooked no argument—much like MacLeod had spoken to MacLean and Lamont earlier. “You fought back and gave her a chance no one else in this village had.”
“
But I wasn’t strong enough.”
“You were strong enough to try, and that’s what counts. Fighting isn’t just about physical strength. Quickness and knowing where to strike can compensate for size.”
She eyed him skeptically. “But I’m a girl.”
He mocked disbelief. “I must have been confused by the breeches.”
A fiery blush stole up her cheeks. “I just wear those sometimes to make it easier to move around.” She paused and looked at him. “Do you really think I could learn to defend myself?”
He nodded, guessing the direction of her thoughts—to prevent a man from doing what had been done to her mother. “I’m certain of it.”
Her dark brows gathered across her nose, and her mouth screwed down tightly in an expression that was oddly fierce. “Then I’ll do it. Will you teach me?”
Ah hell. He looked to his companions for help, but they gave him a look that told him he’d gotten himself into this.
“Please,” she begged. “Can’t you take me with you? I’ve nowhere else to go.”
She looked up at him with such hope in her eyes, he instinctively wanted to turn away. No one should pin their hopes on him.
There had to be someplace he could take her. A church? Perhaps a home for foundlings in Dumfries?
But something inside him rebelled at the idea. What would become of her? Who would protect a young girl? And what would happen to her when she wasn’t so young?
Not your concern. Not your responsibility.
He grimaced. She wasn’t, but he couldn’t force himself to turn away. No matter what MacLeod said, they all bore some guilt for what had happened to this lass and the other villagers.
Perhaps there was somewhere he could take her. Someplace where she would be welcomed—loved, even. His mother had always yearned for a daughter. Since the death of his father and two older brothers, she’d been so lost. He knew his softhearted mother would take one look at the lass, hear what had happened to her, and melt.
“Please,” the lass said with just enough desperation to make his chest pinch.