The Hunter (Highland Guard #7)(106)

She wasn’t here. Damn, he’d been so sure she would be.

“I have to be back by St. Drostan’s Day,” she’d said.

So where the hell was she? Not at the priory. Nor at the hospital for that matter. Ewen had left Sutherland to watch the priory and followed the group of nuns who’d walked to the hospital after the morning prayers. Orders or nay, his role as an observer had ended last night, the moment he realized the priest was having her watched. Posing as a traveler on the road, he examined every person in that hospital: leper, nun, traveler, the ill or infirm—even the group of ladies from the castle who’d arrived to give alms on the saint’s day.

But she wasn’t there.

He was running out of rope. Running out of ideas. He’d never felt so damned helpless, never been so lost. The one time he really needed to find someone, his skills had failed him.

Worse, he couldn’t escape the feeling that he somehow should have known. How could he not have realized someone was watching her? He should have realized the soldiers from Douglas could not have tracked them that fast. He’d blamed her for carelessness when he’d missed the signs himself.

It was after dark when he left the hospital to rejoin Sutherland at the priory. MacLean and MacKay had left late the night before, after attending to some business in the forest, and not without some argument.

“The king isn’t going to like it,” MacLean had said. “He ordered all of us back tomorrow. You don’t even know that she is here. You can be back by tomorrow night if you ride hard.”

Ewen’s mouth clenched. He wished to hell she wasn’t here, that she was someplace safe and far away. But he knew Janet. If she thought it was important, nothing would keep her away. “She’s here,” he said flatly. “I don’t give a shite about orders.” His partner lifted his brow at that, but Ewen ignored him. “You three go and return when you can. I’m not leaving her.”

MacKay looked skeptical. “You sure you know what you’re doing? If you’re wrong, the king won’t be happy.”

The king wasn’t happy now. And Ewen wasn’t wrong. “Would you leave your wife?”

MacKay didn’t say anything.

“In a heartbeat,” MacLean said flatly.

Ewen threw him a disgusted look. “Well, I’m not leaving her.”

None of the men stated the obvious: she wasn’t his wife, nor was she ever likely to be.

In the end, it was MacKay and MacLean who’d ridden away to join the others and report to the king what had happened. Sutherland had insisted on staying with Ewen. “If I leave and something happens to her, my wife will never forgive me. I think I’ll take my chances with Bruce.”

Knowing Mary, it was probably a wise decision. But Ewen was glad for the extra sword—and the extra pair of eyes.

He whistled to let Sutherland know he approached. The newest member of the Highland Guard, a man who could fill in just about anywhere and had taken over the dangerous job of working with black powder after the death of one of their brethren, responded with a hoot before jumping down from a tree ahead of him.

“Anything?” Ewen asked.

“Nay. The prioress locked up about an hour ago. I’ll assume from your tone that you didn’t have much luck either.”

Ewen shook his head grimly. “Did the lad show his face?”

A flash of white appeared in the moonlight as Sutherland grinned. “After last night? I don’t think he’d step within a mile of this place, even if you weren’t paying him to stay away.” He chuckled. “I didn’t realize we had so many admirers in the ranks of English spies.”

“The lad didn’t know what the hell he was doing.”

Last night, before MacKay and MacLean had left, they’d waited for the lad to leave the castle, followed him, and surrounded him in the forest. There were times that their phantom reputation came into good use. The lad, probably sixteen or seventeen, had been terrified initially. He’d blurted out what he was doing for the priest almost before they’d finished asking the question. For over a month, he’d earned a penny a day to watch the new nun in the priory and report to the priest immediately if she went anywhere or did anything. The boy hadn’t understood why he was still watching the place when the nun had left with a man a fortnight earlier, but he was happy collecting his money for as long as the priest wanted to pay.

He’d been stunned to learn he was spying for the English. “I’m not a traitor,” he’d insisted. “I’m a Scot.”

The lad had been so offended, so ashamed, that Sutherland was right—Ewen probably didn’t need to pay him. But he thought it best to ensure the lad didn’t have second thoughts.

They’d instructed him to stay away from the priory, but keep reporting to the priest every night as before. Afterward, he was to meet them, and he would be paid a shilling—more than his family probably earned in a week.

Once it was clear they did not mean him any harm, the lad had acted like he was in the presence of demigods, peppering them with questions until they’d been forced to send him away. “Can you really appear out of the mist?” “Do your swords really come from Valhalla?” “Do you have heads under the masks or do your demon eyes glow out of emptiness?” “Where do you go to when you disappear?”