The Hunter (Highland Guard #7)(102)

“You remember?” Mary asked.

He nodded.

“You were fortunate in the location of the wound,” Sutherland said. “Angel decided that it would be more dangerous to take your leg because of where the injury was than to let you fight the festering in the bone.”

But it wasn’t the fact that he’d nearly lost his leg that had turned his blood cold. “Why didn’t someone go after her?”

“Striker and I did,” Sutherland said. “We only returned last night. We thought we picked up her trail going north on the road to Glasgow, but then we lost it.”

“Glasgow? Why the hell would she go there?” But he knew before he’d even finished the question. Bloody hell! She’d taken his lessons to heart.

He sat up and would have lost the contents of his stomach had there been anything inside. He swayed as nausea and dizziness fought to take him right back down.

“Wait!” Mary cried, trying to push him back down. “What are you doing? You can’t get up.”

Ewen gritted his teeth. “I have to find her. It’s all my fault.”

The door opened and three people burst into the room. “We heard voices …” Helen let out a gasp, but she recovered quickly. Her eyes narrowed. “I see it was a mistake to untie you.” She shot her husband, who’d come up next to her, an I-told-you-so look.

But it was the third person who’d entered the room that caused Ewen’s heart to sink and a sheen of sickly sweat to gather on his brow.

Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland, fixed his dark, razor-sharp gaze on him. “Where is Janet, and why is it your fault?”

Twenty-three

Rutherford Priory, Scottish Marches, December 14, 1310

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t toss you in a pit prison right now!” the king had demanded.

“Because you need me to find Janet and make sure she is safe,” Ewen had answered.

But he couldn’t even manage to do that. Five bloody days! For five days he’d scoured the countryside, turning over every rock—every leaf—with no sight of her. Janet had proved a better pupil than he could have imagined, using the skills he’d taught her against him.

This was his last lead—hell, it was his only lead. With St. Drostan’s approaching, he was back at the priory in Rutherford, hoping that whatever reason she’d had for wanting to return by this time would bring her back.

But from his position in the trees a few dozen yards from the entrance to the priory, he could barely make out the faces of the nuns passing through. He clenched his fists at his side, fighting for patience that had run out days ago. “I can’t see a damned thing. I’m going in there.”

MacLean stepped in front of him. “You won’t do her any good if you are caught. Remember what the king said: stay out of sight, observe, and don’t interfere unless necessary. I don’t think tearing apart every church between Roxburgh and Berwick counts as necessary.”

“Or terrorizing merchants unfortunate enough to sell sugared nuts,” Sutherland quipped dryly from his position behind him.

Ewen grimaced. That had been a mistake. But the merchant had been a provoking bastard, and Ewen had been fed up with his smart-arse answers. Before he knew it, his hand had been wrapped around the man’s neck and he had him pinned against the wooden wall of the shop. Not surprisingly, the man had then been far more forthcoming in his responses to Ewen’s questions. Inelegant perhaps, but effective.

“This is my last lead,” he said through clenched teeth. “I won’t take the chance of missing her. Get the hell out of my way.”

“Use your head, Hunter,” MacLean said.

But Ewen was beyond reason. He stepped around MacLean—rather than push him aside as he was tempted to—but another one of his brethren, or rather his former brethren, blocked him.

“You aren’t going in there,” MacKay said.

“I sure as hell am,” Ewen said, muscles flaring with readiness for the fight MacKay was going to get if he didn’t move out of his way. Over the other man’s shoulder he noticed another handful of nuns emerge from the priory. But none of them was the nun he wanted.

“What the hell do you plan to do?” Mackay challenged. “Walk in there looking like that? The nuns will take one look at you and run screaming. You look as feral and wild as a wolf.” He shook his head. “You might want to try to get a few hours of sleep or eat something that doesn’t come from a skin. Your leg is far from healed, and you aren’t going to do the lass any good if you keel over and die. I’m beginning to think Helen was right. We should have kept you tied up.”

Even knowing he spoke the truth, Ewen didn’t give a damn. He’d spent his entire life trying to avoid being compared to his father, and right now he was every bit as crazed and unhinged as Wild Fynlay had ever been. “Unless you want to put on a kirtle and have me call you ‘Mother,’ my sleep and eating habits aren’t your concern. I don’t have bloody time for this!”

MacLean assumed that he was referring to the king’s upcoming journey to Selkirk for the peace parley. “We will only be gone a few days. The negotiations won’t last long. Bruce will demand to be recognized as king, Edward’s lackeys will refuse, and we will be on our way again. If the lass has not returned by then, we can try again.”