The Knight (Highland Guard #7.5)(24)

But his thoughtless comment wasn’t the only problem. Jo was sweet and kind to a fault, always seeing the good in people, which they sometimes took advantage of. It wasn’t naïveté, he knew, but stubbornness. And that worried him. What if she was stubborn about marriage? What would he do then?

Damn it, he had to make her see reason. Men in his position didn’t marry for love. It was an alliance. A transaction. A contract between families to increase their wealth and prestige. But for him it was more than that. His family’s honor was at stake. He couldn’t let his father down.

But the thought of losing her drove him half crazy. Hell, more than half. He couldn’t lose her. Joanna was everything to him.

He felt like he was being torn in two different directions, with duty on one side and his heart and soul on the other. He had to find a way to put them together.

The castle had barely fallen before he was chomping at the bit to return to Douglas. But before he could go, he was ordered on another mission. This time, Bruce needed him in the Ettrick forest west of Selkirk. The English were attempting to woo the Scots in the area, and Bruce wanted James to make sure their oft fickle supporters in the Borders weren’t tempted by false promises. Bruce needed control of the forests, which would serve as their base of operations to mount their surprise attacks against the English troops when Edward renewed his campaign in the summer.

James sent word to his stepmother and sister, explaining the delays and asking Beth to tell Jo he would return as soon as possible, but it didn’t ease his anxiousness.

The mission took longer than James expected and required quite a bit of “convincing.” Randolph and Seton were clearly uncomfortable with the duties of enforcing the king’s will, whereas he and Boyd fit naturally into the role. Fear, force, and intimidation. The war would not be won without them. It might not be pretty, but to defeat the mightiest army in Christendom, ruthlessness was bloody well necessary.

Still, it started to grate every time a villager shrank from him in fear. And when a young girl, no older than seven or eight, burst into tears at the mere mention of his name, James had had enough.

“You handle it this time,” he said to Randolph, walking away from the small tower house. They’d been told the girl’s father, David Somerville, the baron of Linton, had received a communication from his cousin Roger, lord of Wichenour, in England, and they wanted to make sure Linton wasn’t inclined to join his cousin.

Randolph could do the dirty work for once. Let him get credit, James didn’t give a shite. He was tired of being cast in the role of ogre while Seton and Randolph shined their bloody armor. It had never bothered him before, but James couldn’t help wondering if the reputation he was fighting so hard to build was making him the man Jo feared.

As the weeks wore on, and his return to Douglas was delayed yet again—this time to accompany Bruce as part of his personal retinue on a march south to Galloway to put down yet another threat from John MacDougall, Lord of Lorn—James’s temper grew blacker and blacker. With what seemed like half the members of Bruce’s Highland Guard away to see their wives or attend the birth of yet another child, refusing the mission was out of the question. The king couldn’t spare him.

So here he was nearly three months after he’d last seen Jo, deep in the forests of Galloway, not far from Glen Fruin where they’d won their first key battle against the English four long years ago, wishing he were miles away. Never had he been so anxious to be somewhere else. He couldn’t relax until he apologized and set it right.

He couldn’t escape the feeling that he was missing something important, and that if he just kept looking at it, he would see it. But no matter how many times he rehashed what had happened, it escaped him.

The unease perhaps explained the unaccountable relief he felt when he walked out of the tent that had been set up as a makeshift hall and nearly ran into a man he might otherwise have wished to avoid.

He didn’t know what the hell Thom MacGowan was doing in Galloway with Edward Bruce’s men, who had just arrived at camp, but his old friend reminded him of home and for a moment James was glad to see him. He was a connection to Jo when he needed it most.

But the moment didn’t last long. MacGowan looked at him with such an expression of raw hatred on his face, it took James aback. What his old friend did next, however, surprised the hell out of him.

James had barely gotten out the words “What are you doing here?” before MacGowan’s fist landed on his jaw.

James didn’t know whether it was the shock of being struck or the force of the blow, which felt akin to being hit by a sledgehammer, but he didn’t react right away or attempt to defend himself. He was too stunned, and his head felt like a bell was clanging against his skull. Christ, the blacksmith’s son could give Boyd a contest in raw power.

MacGowan hit him again, this time in the gut. As James wasn’t wearing armor, only a surcoat, he took the full force of the blow, and it brought him to his knees. The two men had been in more than a few fights in their youth, but they were no longer youths. MacGowan might not have been trained as a warrior, but he had the instincts of a brawler and the raw strength of a man who wielded a blacksmith’s hammer for a living.

Still, James should have easily been able to defend himself, but his former friend managed to get in four or five solid blows before someone pulled him off.

Or tried to pull him off. It took two men to pin MacGowan’s arms back, and he was still spewing fire. “You f**king bastard! I should kill you for what you’ve done!”