Becca St.John (6 page)

“Deian?” Seonaid called. “Are you very deep?”

“It’s up to my knees,” he warbled, but it could be so much worse, so very much worse, especially when their progress forward depended on watching every step.

Finally, the torch flickered across the lad. Seonaid ran to him. Still, Padraig reached him first, pulling him straight up out of the bog, his stockings left behind in the sucking muck. Padraig planted him down on solid ground, shook his shoulder. “You were told not to walk about. You knew better.”

“I want my mama,” he sniffed, and threw himself into Seonaid’s arms.

Her arms. He wanted her rather than Padraig
.

“He’s safe, isn’t he?” She sniffed herself, unbidden tears rising with his rescue.
Safe
.

“Aye, safe now.” Padraig acknowledged as the lad, now snug in his mama’s arms, looked at him. “You were told not to walk about, now, were you not?”

Deian nodded, as Seonaid countered. “He’s wet and cold.”

“I want to go home,” Deian whined.

“You’ve no one to blame but yourself,” Padraig reminded him.

“No one was there and I had to pee.” Deian lifted his head, scowled at Seonaid.

She hadn’t been there, off instead with Padraig. She scowled in turn at Padraig, dared him to say anything.

“Then you call out. We’ll never be far, lad. Never far.” He reached to stroke the boy’s head. Seonaid pulled him out of reach.

“I’m cold,” Deian griped.

And so was she, from deep inside.

“Let’s get you out of these wet clothes.” Seonaid followed the light of Padraig’s torch, the only light on this dark, dark night with no moon and cloud cover so low no stars could be seen, and she thought of all the terrors that could have met Deian, of how far he could have wandered if the bog hadn’t stopped him. Nothing to guide him back to camp. Animals hunted at night.

And she’d been out playing wild with a man.

She knew better. Had always known better. There was no future for her with Padraig. He was a clansman, his heart would always be there. He would leave them when they reached a boat for passage. He would leave them.

It was just her and Deian. No other. Just her and Deian.

All slick, slippery muck, he squirmed to be free.

“Stop your thrashing!”

“I don’t want you!” He pummeled her, “I don’t want to be here! I want to go home! I want Ingrid!” And again, words that slew her: “I don’t want you!”

Seonaid fought to keep her hold on him lest he fall, unable to argue against his wants. He had the right of it.

But Padraig stormed in, his face right up to Deian’s, startling them both. “And who pushed you to climb into a loft and left you? And who got you out of there?” Padraig argued.

Rigid, Deian glared at him, but stopped his squiggles. It was not a time to remember. Seonaid slew Ingrid’s sister. She’d had her revenge.

“Enough!” Padraig’s command broke the stillness. Deian dropped his head onto her shoulder, away from Padraig’s stare.

“Poor little lad,” she crooned, as she crossed to what was left of the fire, Padraig ahead of her to stoke it. “Shivering and quivering with cold.” Her hands gentled and soothed as he hiccupped. “No, my sweet lad, no shame in tears.” She forced the words out by the threat of her own. “Go ahead and cry now.” She settled him on his feet.

“I won’t cry.” His breath hitched, as he swiped an arm across a runny nose.

“Of course not.” Hands shaking, she reached for the brae ties. “Why would you be crying now? You’ve only been lost in a dark hole without another soul to know.” She pulled his shirt over his head. “You’ve only been taken from your friends. You’ve no reason…” Her own voice hitched, as she wrapped him in the blanket Padraig passed to her. “No reason…” Tears blurred her words.

“Can I hold your brooch?” he asked.

She studied him, her brave little boy, so stoic despite fear raging inside. And she knew it did, for he asked for the brooch, for the first time in forever, he asked to hold the one thing she had of her mother’s. A circle of gold around the silhouette of a full sun and the ribbon of words “I burn but am not consumed.” The symbol and motto for the clan Macleod of Lewis. When Deian was no more than a wee mite, frightened by a night filled with ominous shadows and dreams that robbed him of sleep, she’d put this piece of jewelry in his hand, his talisman for courage.

As always, she wore it near her shoulder, to hold her tartan in place. She removed it, secured the pin so it wouldn’t prick, and placed it in his open palm.

As his fingers curled around it, stoicism turned to ferocity.

Brave little man.

She wrapped him warm, pulled him close, onto her lap, and stopped him when he tried to push away. “I need you close, for me. To share your strength.”

He relaxed then, into her hold, didn’t fuss when she rocked, with him in her arms, mother and son, back and forth, bonding in emotion restrained.

Exhaustion overrode all else and he slept. It was the darkest point of night, just shy of sunrise. She tucked them both into his pallet.

Rocks and dirt shifted, as Padraig climbed onto the top of the boulder at their back. He would keep them safe, for now. Only for now. She must send him away. No point relying on help that wouldn’t last.

“Is the lad asleep?” His whisper reached her.

Aye. Asleep. So easily led to comfort and safety with the adults around him. Another shift of dirt and stone and Padraig was there, crouching, stroking Deian’s head as he’d done earlier for her.

“That’s the second time he’s been in grave danger since you left.” He met her eyes.

“That was my fault.”

“And if something happens to you?”

“What are you saying?”

Deian shifted in his sleep. She eased away from him, out of the pallet to cross to her own. Padraig followed.

“He’d be safe at Glen Toric.”

“And wounded a thousand times, with all those nasty barbs and whispers.” The words burbled out, tight and tremble-y. “He’s a good lad, a fine lad, but they will poison him. He’ll become as bad as his father if he goes back there. The cruelty will make him cruel.”

“No,” Padraig argued, but she knew the truth of it. He’d never been on the outside. Lived with the spitefulness of children.

He didn’t know.

But she did. They would not turn back. The dangers of their travels were nothing compared to the dangers of the truth running rampant at home.

CHAPTER 6  ~  DESTINATIONS

Fortune—or luck—rode with them for three days. Not that Padraig felt terribly lucky. He’d been in a state of arousal all three of those days. Worse than before Seonaid discovered and forgot passion.

Worse because he now knew the taste of her.

She blamed them both for Deian’s wandering around alone at night. No chance of that happening again, yet here he sat, upon his steed, fighting a desperate and greedy need.

Every little movement flamed his want. Her smile slipped straight to his gut. Her temper enflamed his need. Deian received her gentle touches, but the vision reached Padraig as a velvet touch to his nethers.

All too much. She’d as good as told him to go. “You’ll be leaving us soon enough,” she’d griped.

He refused to look at her, for fear she’d see the sappy hunger in him.

Fine. He would leave. Tonight, once he knew they were tucked in and safe. Except who would watch over them as they slept?

He would not leave tonight. Tomorrow morning, perhaps?

They weren’t that far from where he would put them on a ship. He’d not try to get her to turn around anymore. She’d made up her mind. She didn’t trust him to take care of her, of the lad.

She didn’t want him.

But he knew that was a lie. She
did
want him, a powerful want. He’d tasted it, felt it. One of the grandest moments in his life and he’d not even ridden it to the end.

Aye, she did want him.

He’d have to do something about that, work it to his advantage. Get her to return home, build a life together with him.

“We’ll have to stop for a day,” he told them. “Hunt and plan our travels.” He looked over to Deian. “You need to know how to keep yourself safe in these wilds, lad. That’s up to you.”

Deian nodded, chuffed to be considered old enough to hunt for something larger than a rabbit.

Seonaid’s back stiffened and he knew just what she was thinking. Hunting was a dangerous sport. Adults were not invincible. Something could always go wrong. A wee bit at five, Deian might be left alone, or worse, with a badly injured adult. People died in all manner of ways.

She wasn’t stupid; she knew she risked her son’s life to save it. All good and well if plans were met, but if they weren’t?

“There’s a village  near two days ride from here.”

vvvvvv

Seonaid’s head snapped up, eyes fixed on his. “A village?”

“Mostly Reahs, branch of the MacKay’s.”

“Kin.”

“Aye.”

She turned away, turned back, torn by the thought. To be in a community again, even as an outsider. But they would know. Some boat would have pulled into port, full of the goings-on at Glen Toric.

And then there was Padraig. A woman and child traveling with a great strong virile man would cause speculation enough.

“They may know about the men on the beach. May have known them, might even recognize the horses,” he said.

Just like that, he turned her thoughts to other dangers, worries.

Just as quickly, a plan formed; rough in its newness, but possible. “You go with young Deian. Go, have a good night. Good strong food and a dram or two. I’ll stay behind, with the horses.”

“You’re daft!” Padraig reined in his mount.

“They don’t need to know who he is,” she argued.

“And how do I explain traveling on my own with a wee mite?”

“As easily as you’d explain traveling with a woman and a child.” Though she already knew it didn’t matter. If word spread, it would have included the tale of her leaving and his following.

She carried nothing but difficulties.

“We all go or none go.”

She snorted at his orders. Too full of them these days.

He lured her, with promises for her boy. “There will be other kiddies in that place.”

Other kiddies for Deian to play with. Lads his own age. Oh, he downed her with that one.

His ire softened. “I don’t want to go without you.”

“We’ll see.” She spent her life standing tall, refused to allow shameful secrets to bow her. But they weren’t secrets anymore. By now the whole of the highlands would know the evil her brother had wrought.

She could damn the shame, ignore the stares and whispers, but she’d not force that fate on her son.

“Give the lad that much.” Padraig murmured. She slew him with a glance.

She’d give Deian the world and the skies and all the oceans if she could. She’d give him her life, but life wasn’t like that. Life was hard and punishing and threw punches when you were down.

Seonaid knew all about getting through life. She didn’t know about enjoying it.

That’s the gift she wanted for her son. The joy of life. He laughed with Padraig, but not with her.

Padraig and joy.

Traitorous heart allowed thoughts to slip in, of taste and texture and longing for a man. Of Padraig. The feel of him. Hunger dousing shame.

She bit at that apple, allowed moments to dream. Too much time spent, the three of them. A family. Mother, son, and loving father.

She’d built a fortress around herself, protection from brutality, too strong and sturdy to let the light of love seep beyond the chinks.

She’d not left chinks.

Padraig wanted her to go back. She couldn’t go back any more than she could return to childhood and the precious time when her ma’s love was her world, or to a time before her brother destroyed her. She couldn’t go back and change the moment she stopped The Bold from killing her brother. She should never have done that. Let Lochlan be a renegade, she’d thought. They’d be done with him, he’d not hurt anyone anymore. But he had. He’d kidnapped lasses from all over the highlands, because she’d stayed her laird’s hand. She couldn’t go back and change that.

She couldn’t go back, no matter how hard Padraig tried to change her mind.

Impossible to save her son from the names people would call him. There was no taking him back, but she could offer him a new life. A life with a different ma and pa. A life where no one knew his name. She could do that. She could look forward for Deian.

She could give him a chance.

She would, even if it broke her heart. She would give him a new start, in a new place, without her.

But how? How could she send them off? How could she get Padraig to help?

She looked to the sky, felt the drizzle hit her face. The rain hadn’t stopped for days, but Deian hadn’t complained. Of course he wouldn’t; she was a fool for fretting about it. The boy was a Scot; he knew about hardship and rain and how to hold one’s tongue.

She sighed. So many things she needed to learn, to know, about how to raise a young lad. Too late for that. He’d fare better without her.

She didn’t say anything. Kept her plans to herself, as she soaked in everything she could of Deian and, truth told, of Padraig. Every little movement, gesture, expression she tried to memorize, to play back when they were gone, to their new life, without her.

“So, here’s where we are,” Padraig explained, using stones to make a map, “here’s the Reahs’ keep and here’s the water between us and them.”

Seonaid studied the locations. “And where are we heading? That’s not the far western shore.”

He shook his head. “No, we’ve a ways to go.”

“So you’re saying we have to go south, then back north to reach the Reahs?”

“Aye, but they will give us oats and dried meat.” They’d run out of both in the last day.

Rising, shielding her eyes from the sun, she looked for Deian. He’d gotten better about staying close. He was busy practicing with the leather that wrapped around his boots to keep them from slipping down. Padraig had taught him three knots, and he was determined to master all three.