The Recruit (Highland Guard #6)(57)

Would they be able to tell in the darkness it was only a lad? The boy was tall already, and with his mail and helm …

Ah hell.

“Get back!” Kenneth shouted, but the boy was too far away and the din of battle too loud for him to hear the warning.

Realizing the danger, Felton had moved his men around to protect the boy. The added men were making it harder for the three guardsmen to break through and giving Percy the delay he needed.

“Don’t let them escape!” Percy shouted, ordering the rest of his men to circle around from behind.

MacKay, Boyd, and the wounded Seton were fighting their way forward, but they needed to hurry up. The rest of the army was closing in fast. They only had a handful of seconds to get away.

One by one, they cut through the men standing before the boy. The earl was trying to back up, but he wasn’t moving away fast enough. Felton was doing his best to fend off MacKay, but the others were no match for Boyd, and even an injured Seton.

Finally, they had their hole. Seton and Boyd slipped through and headed for the edge of the hillside.

“Stop them, Felton!” Percy shouted. “They’re getting away!”

Percy’s champion was good, but MacKay was better. He feigned a swing of his sword from the right, but at the last minute dropped his hands, spun, and delivered a blow from the opposite side, sending Felton careening to the ground on his arse.

Kenneth didn’t have time to enjoy the moment, however. MacKay was past Felton and headed for the others when he saw the lad—except he didn’t know it was a lad. He thought he was just one more soldier in his way.

Kenneth was almost there.

MacKay lifted his sword.

“Nayyyy!” Kenneth shouted, leaping through the air, his own sword raised to block the blow meant for David.

His gaze met MacKay’s shocked one as their swords clashed right before the terrified boy’s face. Unfortunately, due to the angle and the fact that Kenneth was flying through the air, the swords did not meet squarely, and the blade of MacKay’s two-handed long sword skidded sharply off the blade and into Kenneth’s arm.

The shot of pain and hot pulse of blood told him the powerful slice of MacKay’s blade had found a narrow gap between the sleeve of his habergeon and gauntlet and penetrated the padding underneath to find flesh. Quite a bit of flesh, he suspected, feeling the amount of blood seeping through as he tried to staunch it with his gauntleted hand.

Kenneth hoped he was the only one to hear his brother-in-law swear and mutter a hasty apology in Gaelic before disappearing into the darkness.

Moments later, Kenneth heard a splash below and knew his friends were safe.

Not surprisingly, not one of the Englishmen attempted to jump off the cliff to go after them.

Thirteen

For the better part of two days, Mary had plenty of time to consider what she should do. With Sir Adam in constant attendance to the Earl of Cornwall and Davey having accompanied Lord Percy, Sir John, and—to her surprise—Sir Kenneth on some last-minute journey to Roxburgh (at least she thought it was Roxburgh, though Sir Adam had been unusually vague), she’d been left largely to herself.

Although she was certainly eager to avoid Sir Kenneth, and truth be told Sir John as well, she wanted to tell Sir Adam and Davey of her plans to return to Ponteland as soon as possible.

Her chest squeezed at the thought of leaving so soon after arriving. It wasn’t fair. She’d just begun to make inroads with her son, just started to get to know him, and he had to show up and ruin everything.

Mary’s first instinct had been to toss a few items in a bag that night and find the nearest ship to take her to France. But once the initial shock of seeing Kenneth Sutherland in all his too-handsome glory in England had passed, she’d calmed down. Well, at least enough not to run to the stables and jump on the first horse.

There was no reason to be scared, she told herself. No reason to overreact or do anything rash. Perhaps he did not mean to stay long?

But Mary knew that even a few days was too much to risk. She would return to Ponteland on the pretext of attending to a matter with the estate and return to Berwick and Davey as soon as she was able. As soon as he was gone.

After that …

Her chest squeezed again.

After that, she would see.

Her hands instinctively went to her stomach. She would do whatever she had to do to protect her unborn child.

The child she hadn’t planned for.

The child she’d never allowed herself to think was possible.

The child that for one moment she hadn’t wanted. What would she do? She wasn’t married. The babe would be branded a bastard and she a whore.

But those few moments of fear had faded quickly and joy had set in. Joy that permeated every bone, every fiber of her being. Joy at the miracle she’d been given. A baby. A second chance to be a mother. In the face of such a gift, no matter how illicitly given, everything else had seemed secondary.

Mary may not have been able to prevent them from taking her first child, but this one would be different.

She did not delude herself that it would be easy, nor did she minimize the difficulties that needed to be overcome, but she was determined to do whatever was needed to keep her child.

It would not be the first time a woman had given birth out of the bonds of wedlock. As long as she was careful, as long as there was a pretext to believe in, they might whisper and wonder, but what else could they do?