The Saint (Highland Guard #5)(127)

She wrinkled her nose. “I know how sensitive you are about him. He is rather distracting to be around—with that face and all—but perhaps there is someone not quite so attractive who could protect me? Although from what I’ve seen of the men in this army, I fear one is just as distracting as the other. I suppose there’s always my brother.”

He knew she was teasing him, but it didn’t quite stop the dark flare from sparking inside him. “I’m not sensitive about MacGregor, damn it. I’m sensitive about you. And if you think I’d let that hothead of a brother watch over you—the only person who’s going to protect you is me.”

He couldn’t believe he was agreeing to this. It went against every bone in his body. But Helen’s uniqueness—that wildness of spirit—was the very thing that had drawn him to her. He knew that if he tried to quash it, tried to keep her locked up in a castle somewhere to keep her safe, it would kill the very heart of her.

The smile on her face stole his heart. “Does that mean you’ll agree?”

“With some conditions.”

She looked at him with marked—and well-founded—suspicion. “What kind of conditions?”

“A long list of them.” He tipped her chin from his chest, drawing her up closer to him. “But the first one is the most important. If I’m to have a new ‘partner,’ it’s going to be as my wife. Marry me, Helen.”

And at long last, she gave him the answer he’d been waiting for: “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.”

It wasn’t until much later that she heard the rest of his conditions. By then, she was too well sated to put up much of an argument.

Epilogue

Six months later

Helen turned to her husband, who was riding beside her with a deepening scowl on his face. Not coincidentally, Dunrobin Castle had just appeared on the horizon ahead of them.

She laughed. “It won’t be that bad. It’s only for a few days.”

He mumbled something that sounded like “a few days underwater.”

She shook her head. “I haven’t seen Muriel and Will since we were married.”

He grumbled something else.

“I don’t see what the problem is—you never disliked Will as much as you did Kenneth, and you and Kenneth are practically brothers now,” she managed to say without bursting into laughter.

He shot her a deadly glare. “Your brother is an arse.”

“So you’ve said a few times,” she said with a grin.

In some matters he was still as stubborn as he’d always been. In others …

She thought of the past six months of acting as a healer for the secret army known as the Highland Guard. As he’d seen how it could work, gradually Magnus had loosened up on some of his more ridiculous “conditions”—as if she could promise to never scare him or get so much as “one bruise”! Others, well, she was working on them. She knew perfectly well how to follow a command—in the right circumstances.

She smiled. The Saint and the Angel. MacSorley had overheard Magnus call her m’aingeal one day and couldn’t resist teasing the “holy” pair. Not surprisingly, the other Guardsmen had taken to calling her Angel. But recalling how he’d put her to bed last night and woken her this morning … perhaps sinner and harlot were more appropriate?

So far the danger had been minimal. But King Edward was moving on Scotland again. War would find them soon enough. But first the king had given them a few days to visit her family, and she intended to enjoy every minute of the time, grumpy husband or not.

Muriel and Will were in the barmkin, waiting to greet them as they rode in. After hugging her brother and new sister-in-law, she glanced down at the curious set of eyes peering from behind Muriel’s skirts.

Helen’s heart constricted. At her wedding, Muriel had shared with her the tragedy of her past. She knew how much this child who’d come into their life so unexpectedly must mean to them both.

She bent down. “And who is this?”

Gently, Muriel eased the little redheaded child out from behind her. “This is Meggie. Meggie, say hello to your aunt and uncle.”

Her brother made a choking sound at the reminder of Magnus’s place in the family, and Helen glared up at him sharply before turning her attention back to the shy child.

The lass was three years old and had been left an orphan after both her parents were stricken by a fever. The little girl had nearly died as well, but Muriel had nursed her back to health. With no relatives willing to take the child in, Muriel and Will had welcomed her into their home and into their hearts. Her austere, formidable brother … who would have thought?

“You have hair just like mine,” the little girl said, reaching out to clasp a handful between her chubby fingers.

Will groaned again, and Magnus laughed with far too much pleasure at his expense.

Ignoring them both, Helen smiled at the little girl and gave her a conspiratorial wink. “Only the luckiest little girls have red hair, you know. It means the faeries have blessed you.”

“Have they blessed you, m’lady?”

Helen gazed up at her husband, meeting his gaze. “Aye, very much.”

She had everything she wanted. She’d found her more.