The Hunter (Highland Guard #7)(112)

“Please,” she said. “You must do this for me. I beg you.”

His eyes searched hers. “Don’t ask this of me. You’re hurt. Jesus, Janet, you’re covered in blood, and your face …” His voice caught. The moonlight almost made his eyes look shiny with tears.

She managed a wobbly smile, though it hurt. “My face will heal and the blood is not mine.” At least most of it wasn’t. “But I need to find Robert as soon as possible, and I cannot do so unless I know the person in the castle is safe.”

“Viper will see to it,” Ewen said. But he must have read something on her face. “This is important to you?”

She nodded. “The parley in Selkirk is a trap. The English plan to break the truce.”

More than one of the men swore at her news. “You are sure?” Ewen asked. “The breaking of the peace at a truce is beyond even the normal course of English treachery.”

She nodded. “I am sure. The proof is in that missive.”

The mean-looking one with the appropriate name of Viper interrupted. “We need to go if we hope to catch them before they arrive. It isn’t far to the castle.”

Still, Ewen hesitated. He didn’t want to let her go.

Her heart squeezed. “It will be all right,” she said softly. “My brother-in-law will keep me safe. Won’t you, Sir Kenneth?”

Mary’s husband smiled and stepped forward. “As I would my own wife, my lady.”

Sir Kenneth held out his hand, and reluctantly, Ewen released her. “I’ll hold you to that, Ice,” he said fiercely.

Ewen, Viper, and a man she recognized as MacLean started to move off, but Magnus stopped them. “Bàs roimh Gèill.” Death before surrender, she translated. “And Hunter.” Ewen turned to look at him. “Hurry back. I think there’s something you forgot to tell us.”

Ewen’s expression turned grim—God, how she’d missed that!—and he nodded. With one last look to her that spoke of things left unsaid, the three men rode off.

Selfishly, Janet wanted to call him back. She wanted his strength around her. She wanted to bury her head in his chest, curl into a ball, and let him make it all go away.

But they both had a job to do.

When it was over …

For the first time since she’d left him that night at the stable, Janet had hope.

Twenty-five

Dunstaffnage Castle, Lorn, Scottish Highlands,

Christmas Eve 1310

Janet sat on the trunk at the foot of her bed. The maidservant had just finished arranging her hair in a circlet of gold when a knock rapped on the door.

She bid the person enter, and her twin sister, Mary, walked into the room. Their eyes met. Mary shook her head in response to her unspoken question, and Janet’s shoulders slumped.

The strange, wordless communication that she and her sister had shared as children had come back within hours of their being reunited. Being with her sister again …

Emotion swelled in her chest. Janet hadn’t realized just how much she’d missed her twin, until Mary had rushed into the room where she’d been brought on arrival to be tended by Lady Helen, Magnus’s wife. They’d taken one look at each other and burst into tears. It had been quite some time before Helen had been able to resume her ministrations to Janet’s face, ribs, and the broken bone in her wrist.

Janet still could not believe that her sister had forgiven her. Actually, if Mary was to believed, she’d never blamed her. She hadn’t realized how much her sister’s forgiveness meant to her. It felt as if a great weight had been lifted. To Janet’s surprise, talking about what had happened that night—the explosion, Cailin’s and the MacRuairi clansmen’s deaths, Janet’s disappearance—had been strangely cathartic. She would mourn and regret the deaths that night for the rest of her life, but she was ready to put them to rest.

Despite her joy in seeing her sister, however, Mary’s shake of the head made her chest squeeze with disappointment. “There is still no sign of him?”

It was less a question than a plea. Not long after Janet had successfully intercepted the king only a few miles before he reached Selkirk, warning him of the treachery that lay ahead, Viper—what she now knew was the nom de guerre for Lachlan MacRuairi—and Eoin MacLean had caught up with them. Their mission had been a success. They’d retrieved the missive for the king and ensured the safety of their informant. Ewen, however, had left them at Roxburgh, bound for a destination he would not name. He’d given them a message for her—that he would return as soon as possible—but after more than a week, Janet was beginning to lose hope.

She didn’t understand. She thought when he’d found her in the forest, when he’d held her in his arms, when he’d looked in her eyes with such tender, poignant emotion, that he’d changed his mind. That he realized he cared for her and intended to fight for them.

But where was he? Why hadn’t he come for her? Had something happened?

Learning about his leg and how close he’d come to death haunted her. She couldn’t believe she’d mistaken his fever for drunkenness and left him when he was so ill.

Mary shook her head again. “Kenneth spoke to the king, but no one knows where he is. Not even Robert.”

Janet made a face and winced, having forgotten about her injuries. Though Helen said she would heal with little to remind her of her ordeal but a few small scars, the cuts and bruises were still tender.