The Hunter (Highland Guard #7)(55)

“I think she has no idea of the danger she is in.” Ewen’s eyes narrowed. “Edward’s men will not go easy on her if they discover what she is doing. The fact that she is a woman will not make a difference.” He didn’t need to remind MacLean of what had happened at Lochmaben; he’d been there. “I can’t believe you are defending her. Would you allow your wife to do what she’s doing?”

A dark shadow crossed MacLean’s face. It wasn’t often that any of them brought up his wife. But perhaps it was time for him to remember that he had one.

MacLean’s mouth fell in a hard, angry line. “Aye, I just might. If it would mean I’d be rid of her sooner.” He paused, giving Ewen an appraising look. “Interesting comparison to make though.”

Ewen didn’t like the way his partner was looking at him, as if he knew something. “I only thought to remind you of your own, since you seem to have forgotten.”

He shrugged. “I like Lady Janet. She’s easy to talk to.”

Bloody hell, he knew that. Ewen clenched his fists. “She’s not for you.”

MacLean gave him a taunting smile. “I didn’t realize that you’d staked a claim.”

Ewen took a step toward him. They’d been partners for five years and been through hell together. He’d never thought that he would feel so close to striking him. “I haven’t. You know very well that the lass is meant for someone else.”

Ewen’s voice must have revealed more than he intended. MacLean immediately backed off, the taunting smile replaced by his usual dark expression. “Aye, but the lass doesn’t know that. She is doing this for you, you know. She’s trying to make you jealous.”

Ewen was stunned. Was it true? His eyes narrowed at the man he thought was his closest friend. “And you went along with it?”

MacLean shrugged unapologetically. “As I said, I like her—and she is easy to talk to—but I wanted to see if it worked.” He gave him a long pitying looking. “By the look on your face the past few hours, I’d say it did.”

Much to his disgust, Ewen realized MacLean was right. She’d gotten to him.

“What are you going to do?” MacLean asked somberly.

What could he do? “My duty.”

“Perhaps you should tell her and give the lass a choice?”

“Women of her station do not have a choice.” And neither did he.

“I had one.”

Ewen was stunned once again. From the way MacLean acted, Ewen would never have thought he’d wanted to marry his MacDowell wife. “You did?”

Something dark and angry and so full of hatred crossed MacLean’s face it almost made Ewen take a step back. “I made the wrong one because I thought …” He clenched his jaw. “Perhaps you are right. Deliver the lass to Bruce and don’t look back. You’ll save yourself a whole hell of a lot of trouble.”

His friend walked away, and Ewen wondered whether he was talking about Ewen or himself. Perhaps it didn’t matter, because either way MacLean was right: Janet of Mar was a whole hell of a lot of trouble. The kind of trouble that could cost him everything, if he wasn’t careful.

Why was Janet going to so much effort for a man who spoke to her as if she were five years old?

She had no idea.

The narrow-minded Highlander had made it perfectly clear that he didn’t think she had any part in the war. Fine. But she knew differently, and his opinion wasn’t going to change anything. She had every intention of finishing what she’d started. As long as the king needed her, as long as she could be of use, she would put herself in as much danger as she wanted. He had no right to tell her otherwise. He could glower and chastise until he was blue in that obnoxiously good-looking face of his, but she didn’t have to heed him. He wasn’t her father or her husband.

Thank God.

Was it so difficult to understand that what she did was important to her? For the past few years she’d had a purpose. Something that she not only enjoyed and was good at, but that also made her feel as if she mattered. She didn’t have anyone looking over her shoulder telling her she couldn’t do something. She’d been able to turn what her father had thought of as a character flaw in a woman—the propensity to make a man see he was wrong—into a useful skill.

And the more she helped, the less she thought about the past, and the thoughtless young woman who’d tried to be a hero but had only ended up causing so much trouble. She owed it to Mary, but most of all to Cailin. Though she’d never forgive herself for his death at least she could see to it that it meant something. But Ewen wanted to take that away from her.

She would never think to ask him to stop being a soldier. It was what he did. Presumably, and from what she’d seen, he was good at it.

Not that he would ever see the comparison. To him, women were pretty accessories. A wife was someone to birth his children, tend his castles, and never raise her voice in protest.

Well, that wasn’t her. And Janet had seen what happened when a woman who had her own opinions married a bull-headed, overprotective man who assumed he knew best. Janet had no interest in following Duncan and Christina’s example. Or her mother’s, for that matter. Strife or serfdom, neither was appealing.

None of which explained why her heart squeezed when Ewen left the cave not long after they finished eating their second meal of dried beef, ale, and oatcakes.