Highlander Enchanted(15)

Niall paced away to the window, rubbing the back of his head in what Cade knew to be frustration.

Cade would never place his clan in danger; why was he considering Lady Isabel over the MacDonald lass, when he knew not to trust the English noble? How had she bedeviled him? Or was his wild spirit not yet ready to settle? His private concerns should not matter in the face of his clan’s survival. Was this his fear directing him?

Lady Isabel had arrived with nothing of value. No proper English noblewoman would travel as she had. She was hiding more than the writs. Was it possible she stole them from their rightful owner?

“I canna explain it,” he voiced at last.

“Beauty will do that t’ye.”

“Nay, cousin. When I look in her eyes, I see something.”

“Love?” Brian laughed.

“What I saw when I looked in yer eyes in the Saracen prison.”

The light in Brian’s face vanished.

They shared a long look.

“No man or woman deserves t’suffer as we did,” Niall said at last. “If this is so, yer honor bound to help. Is that no how it’s always been?”

“She has Lord Saxony. Isna my place t’rescue her.”

“Wasna yer place t’rescue me, but ye did,” Niall said from his place near the window.

“Yer my kin, Niall. I couldna leave ye behind.”

“Ye ken as well as I do that kin meant not a thing in the Crusades. Fathers abandoned sons. Sons slay fathers. Ye didna leave me because yer heart isna so black as they say. I learnt t’be strong from watchin’ ye, Cade.”

Cade snorted. “Saxony may not agree.”

Uneasiness crossed Niall’s features. “Yea,” he whispered and then shook his head. “There canna be a connection. There must be a thousand men in Saxony. We ken one.”

“A noble one.”

No one spoke for a moment. The English knight they had left in the Saracen prison went by the name Saxony. While he never confirmed his real name, he was too similar to the nobles and knights commanding the Christian armies: educated in the bible, history and the names and hierarchy of nobles. He spoke several languages, to include Latin and French, and could read and write as well as a priest or scholar.

The man had been broken when Cade stumbled upon him, near the point of madness. After seeing him fight, Cade had nonetheless adopted the fierce knight and taken him into the band of Highlanders who answered to him. But the madness would not be kept at bay long, and soon after they were captured, Saxony’s mind left him. None of Cade’s seillie healing magic could save the Englishman.

But he tried, and in doing so, drew the madness into himself and crossed into the Dark Court. The deeds he committed under the influence of madness were in his dreams every night, reminding him what he was, what he had lost, how he had fallen to evil and was condemned to forever fight its influence.

“Methinks I need t’talk to the noble lass,” Cade said. “She ken where t’find me and comes from Saxony.”

Niall was grim.

“And t’sort this mess.” Cade waved a hand at the scrolls. “Two letters, two betrothed.”

“D’ye think ye should ask?”

Cade heard the unspoken sentiment that he should throw the English out before there was trouble. He began to think, though, that there was already trouble, and Lady Isabel’s arrival was the harbinger of something greater to come. “I need t’ken who sent her my way.”

“Just t’ken?” Niall’s eyebrows were raised.

Cade ignored him and turned away. “Father Adam, make haste with that writ.” Without waiting for a response, he left them and walked across the hallway to the door marking his bedchamber. Not about to knock on his own door, he opened it and paused.

The English noblewoman was lying across his bed, her soft snores deep.

Cade closed the door quietly and went to the bed. She was on top of the coverlets, her wavy auburn hair fanning out around her head and more bruises on her face. Her beauty, marred by Lord Richard’s heavy hand, only solidified the sense Cade was already involved in what danger she brought with her. He inched up the leg of her trews to see her swollen calf. It was worse. She was certain to fall to fever soon, if he did not see the wound treated.

Rather than wake her, he crossed to the pendants dangling in the window with their subdued colors. The flickers of magic captured within each glowed brightly at his approach, and wind laden with rain swept into the chamber. He touched the talismans out of instinct and was greeted by the faint sizzle of magic each contained and the sparkle that companied his touch.

“Tell me if she is t’be saved,” he whispered to the magic.

A pink pendant dazzled him with sudden brightness.

Cade lowered his hand, pleased by the quick answer. She was to be saved, according to the playful magic dangling in his window. Magic did not understand truth or lies. It only knew what was in one’s heart, and the pink light thought well of his guest.

He sealed the open space to prevent rain from entering and went to the bed once more.

“Verra well, lass,” he said to her quiet form. “I have little t’offer aside from protection, but I give it freely.” Troubled, he left her alone and went to find his own place to sleep this night.





Chapter Nine