The Saint (Highland Guard #5)(88)

Was it also one of the things that was keeping Magnus from admitting his love for her? Was he trying to protect her? Her heart swelled.

She stepped closer to him, until their bodies were almost brushing. “I don’t want your protection, Magnus. I want your love.”

His expression was fierce in the moonlight, almost as if she had him on the rack. He was waging some kind of horrible war inside himself that she didn’t understand. He shook her off. “Nay. I promised to protect you, damn it, and I will.”

Her heart caught mid-beat. She stilled. Promised? A horrible premonition crept up inside her. “To whom did you make this promise?”

He seemed to realize he’d made a mistake and wished the words back, but it was too late. She could see the apology in his gaze. “To Gordon. I vowed to him that I would protect you.”

Helen let out a very slow breath through the hot vise fitted tightly around her chest. “Is that why I am on this trip? Is it so that you could watch over me?”

He tried to avoid her eyes, but she stared at him until he met them. “Aye.”

She nodded. “I see.” And she did. Clearly. Without the blindness of illusions. It was duty that had forced his nearness, not that he’d softened toward her.

Stung, hurt, and not a little angry, she started to walk away, but he caught her arm, preventing her. “Helen, wait. It’s not like that.”

Her eyes blurred. Hot tears pressed against the back of her throat. “Oh really, then how is it? Are you here—am I here—because you love me, or because you want to protect me?”

His silence was all the answer she needed.

It was a long night. Magnus, MacGregor, Sutherland, and Fraser rode for hours patrolling the forests, mountains, and countryside near their camp at the eastern end of Loch Glascarnoch, trying to find any sign of the interloper. But whoever it was had vanished without a sign.

There were few inhabitants in the area—only a handful of stalker huts and bothies—and so far no one they questioned reported seeing or hearing anything since the king’s party had traveled through. No suspicious men, no riders, no armed warriors, no brigands, nothing. Of course, it would be a hell of a lot easier if they knew exactly what they were looking for.

They were just returning to their horses after wresting an unhappy cottager and his wife from their beds when Sutherland fell into step beside Magnus.

Magnus tensed, the muscles at his neck and shoulders bunched in anticipation.

“Are you sure someone was there?” Sutherland asked. “Perhaps it was an animal.”

He gritted his teeth. Coming from anyone other than Sutherland, the question wouldn’t have riled him so much. But he couldn’t look at the bastard without seeing that damned sword and feeling the blood-chilling moment of uncertainty when he hadn’t known whether he was going to be able to get Helen out of its way.

Sutherland’s hot-tempered recklessness had been inches away from costing his sister her life. Only the knowledge that the bastard had cause for his anger—and Magnus’s own guilt for what had nearly happened with Helen—prevented him from fully regretting his decision to let him go. But he was waiting for an excuse to shed some of that too-hot blood and didn’t doubt Sutherland would give him one.

“It wasn’t an animal. Someone was there. I heard the ting of metal on metal.”

“It could have been someone from camp.”

Fraser had overheard Sutherland’s question. “But why wouldn’t they make themselves known?”

Magnus and Sutherland exchanged angry glares in the darkness, both thinking the same thing: perhaps the person had been too embarrassed to interrupt what was happening.

“It wasn’t someone from camp,” Magnus said flatly. He didn’t know how to describe it, except that he’d felt the weight of malevolence in the air and it had been aimed at him—or them, he didn’t know which. It was that extra sense. The primitive instinct that detected danger and set every nerve-ending on edge. His gut told him someone was there and that person was a threat. And his instincts had helped him survive too many times for him to ignore them.

“We can’t take any chances,” MacGregor said, sidestepping Fraser’s question.

“But you aren’t certain my sister is in danger?”

Magnus’s mouth fell in a flat line. He knew Sutherland wasn’t satisfied with the little he’d told him of the King’s message—simply that there was a vague rumor of Gordon being connected to the secret army—but that was all he needed to know. Hell, he already knew too much. With MacRuairi and Gordon’s unmasking, and Sutherland and Helen’s suspicions about him and MacGregor, the identities of the Highland Guard were fast becoming one of the worst-kept secrets in Scotland. “I’m certain of nothing.”

“There is also the king’s safety to consider,” MacGregor pointed out.

Sutherland shook his head. “So we have an unspecified target from an unspecified threat?”

Magnus clenched his fists, which were itching to connect with the other man’s jaw. He was sure as hell earning his war name in having to put up with Sutherland right now. “You wanted to come along tonight. If you don’t want to be here, you’re free to return at any time. Join your friend Munro on the watch. But I intend to make damned sure your sister, the king, and everyone in that traveling party is safe.”