Highlander's Reckoning (The Sinclair Brothers #3) (10 page)

Despite the quiet, gentle morning that filtered
through the trees of the Galloway forest, Rona couldn’t shake a feeling of
unease. She’d used the postern gate this morning rather than the main gate
since the portcullis had still been lowered. But she hadn’t had any problem
chartering a boat to the village from a fisherman headed there. And the village
had been filled with its normal morning bustle.

Yet even now she couldn’t resist the urge to look
over her shoulder. Of course, there was nothing there but dark green pine
trees, scattered leafless branches, and low shrubs.

Perhaps it was the knowledge that Daniel had sent
someone to follow her yesterday. If she wasn’t more careful, she wouldn’t even
get an opportunity to tell Daniel her secret—someone would see her, and then
her life as she knew it would be over.

She quickened her pace when Ian and Mairi’s cottage
came into view in the distance. A cheery curl of smoke twined from the chimney,
which soothed her nerves somewhat. She would explain everything to them—how she
thought she could trust Daniel, how she longed to share their secret with him,
and how she wanted their blessing to do so. And if she could get Mairi alone,
she would confide in her about what had transpired last night.

When she reached the cottage, she gave a light rap
on the door. Mairi’s cheerful voice beckoned her in.

The cottage was warm and snug as usual. Mairi was
moving about the small kitchen on the back wall while Ian laced up his boots on
a stool nearby.

“We weren’t expecting you today, dear!” Mairi said
over her shoulder.

“I’m sorry to disturb you…”

“Nay, dear, not at all! I’d just assumed from our
talk yesterday that you might not be coming around as much.”

Though the cottage normally set Rona at ease, she
began pacing inside the door. “I probably shouldn’t be here, but I want to ask
you both something, and it’s important.”

Both Ian and Mairi paused and looked at her.

“I was just on my way to the village,” Ian said.
“These rabbit pelts will fetch a nice price this time of year.” He held up a
string of rabbit furs. “Is this one of those talks that is best kept for the
ears of womenfolk?”

Despite her unease, Rona smiled at Ian’s discomfort.
“Nay, Ian, it’s not one of those talks. But it does have to do with Daniel.”

Mairi approached and took Rona’s hands in hers.

“Sit, dear, and say what’s on your mind.”

She guided Rona to one of the cottage’s two wooden
chairs, and then sat across from her. Ian remained on his stool, though he
pulled it closer to Mairi.

“I’ve been a fool to think that I could keep my
activities from my husband,” Rona began. “I suppose a part of me had hoped that
life could go on as it always had, with me coming here whenever I pleased to
see you two and Bhreaca.”

Mairi nodded in understanding, so she went on.

“But I see now that things have to change. I can’t
keep so much from Daniel and…and still have the kind of marriage I want. The
kind you two have.”

A smile spread across Ian’s face. “Are you sure this
isn’t womenfolk talk?” he teased. Mairi swatted him, but her eyes glowed
happily as she shifted them back to Rona.

“I want to tell him,” Rona said simply, sobering.

Mairi and Ian exchanged another look, and something
passed between them that Rona didn’t understand. Then they both turned back to
her, and Mairi opened her mouth to speak.

Suddenly, the cottage door exploded inward, slamming
against the wall with a deafening bang. Mairi’s unspoken words turned into a
shriek of terror.

Rona jumped from her chair and whipped her head
around to the door, but before she could see what was happening, Ian shoved her
behind him next to Mairi.

“What goes on here?” barked a voice from the door.

Rona craned to see around Ian’s tall frame, which
stood as a protective wall between Mairi and her and the intruder at the door.

But then she caught a glimpse of the invader, and
her heart froze in her chest. He took up nearly the entire doorframe with his
tall, broad frame. One hand gripped the enormous sword on his hip
threateningly, and his fierce face was set in stone.

“Daniel?” she breathed. “What the hell are you doing
here?”

Daniel’s eyes quickly scanned the small cottage,
making sure no one else lurked in the shadows. Then he turned his gaze on the
large man who stood shielding Rona and another woman. Protectively. He nearly
growled.

Keeping his eyes on the man in case he made any
moves, he answered Rona.

“I should be asking you the same question, lass.”
Though his blood pounded through his veins, he kept his voice icy calm.

“Did you follow me?”

“Aye, I did.” He wasn’t going to apologize this
time. Not when her secrecy was potentially putting Loch Doon and the entire
Scottish cause in jeopardy.

Rona pushed past the man shielding her, her face
transformed into a mask of fury.

“How dare you? How dare you violate my privacy like
this! I told you that I wanted to keep this secret, and instead you followed
me?”

Something about her unbridled rage snapped his icy
resolve.

“How dare
I
, Rona? I am charged by the King
of Scotland to protect Loch Doon. If your actions threaten the castle or
Scotland in any way—”

“You think I’m some sort of spy?” she shrieked.
“First you accuse me of cuckolding you, and now you think I work for the
English?”

“What am I supposed to think?” he bellowed back.
“You slink and lie and disappear, you are seen with this man alone in the
woods, and then this morning you sneak out of my bed before dawn to—”

“Ahem,” the man behind Rona coughed loudly. “Forgive
me, my lord. I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I am Ian Ferguson, and this
is my wife Mairi.” The man gave a little bow, and the woman bobbed a curtsy.

A long and strained silence stretched inside the
cottage. Daniel slowly felt his rage draining from him. He would have laughed
at the ridiculousness of the whole situation if he weren’t still so ill at
ease.

Rona, too, seemed to be getting a handle on her
temper. She was panting in anger, but her hands were slowly unclenching at her
sides.

“Ian and Mairi are my friends, Daniel. My
Scottish
friends,” she said finally. “This is where I’ve been coming when I disappear.
In fact, I’ve been coming here almost the entire three years my father and I have
lived at Loch Doon.”

She seemed suddenly exhausted, for she crumpled into
the wooden chair behind her, no longer looking at him. The two peasants, Mairi
and Ian, still stood, looking back and forth between the two of them.

As calmly as possible, Daniel closed the cottage
door. “And why do you come here, Rona?”

Rona glanced up at the other woman, who gave her a
little nod of encouragement. Despite Mairi’s gentle gesture, Rona sank her head
into her hands.

“I come here to fly Bhreaca, my peregrine falcon.”

Daniel’s mind, usually so quick and calculating,
ground to a halt.

“You…your…what?”

Absently, he took a seat on the stool Ian offered.

“You see, my lord, I taught Rona how to hawk,” Ian
said. “The tradition has been in my family for generations, though we have
never lent our skills to the noblemen who like to keep falcons.”

His brain began to work again, though it felt like
his thoughts were moving slower than honey. “But isn’t that—”

“Illegal,” Rona finished for him. She still cradled
her head in her hands, her shoulders slumped forward in abject surrender.

“Would you like some tea, my lord?” Mairi said
softly, a sad smile on her kind face.

“Aye, please, madam,” Daniel replied. For some
reason he found the short, dark-haired woman soothing. He turned back to Ian.

“How did your family come into the tradition of
falconry?”

“I’m not sure, my lord. All I know is that we’ve
done it for as long as anyone can remember. But we don’t do it for wealth or
show,” Ian added quickly. “We only keep birds to hunt and put food on the
table.”

Daniel nodded absently. “I have heard of some Kings
on the Continent who keep more than one hundred white gyrfalcons, just to
display their wealth and power.”

Ian smiled ruefully. “And what good is one hundred
white gyrfalcons when one is all a reasonable man can use?”

“Ian, don’t jest,” Rona said desperately.

But Ian turned back to Daniel. “You see, my lord, I
myself am the keeper of a white gyrfalcon named Fionna. Rona has only been
trying to protect us.”

This was too much. Daniel was doing his best to keep
up, but his jaw slackened. “You have a white gyrfalcon?”

“Aye, my lord, and I took her from the wild and
trained her myself.”

Despite the damning words, Ian held his head up with
a note of pride.

“Ian, don’t!” Rona leapt to her feet, but this time,
fear rather than anger transformed her face.

“It’s all right, Rona,” Ian said to her, patting her
paternally on the shoulder. “You wanted to tell him. Well, now he knows.”

Daniel thought back to the lessons on falconry he
had given Will, his young cousin and ward. Actually, he hadn’t taught him
anything about falconry personally. Daniel’s uncle William kept a master
falconer, as most Lairds did, for hunting excursions. Falconers, like the
falcons themselves, were kept by powerful men so that it remained a sign of
elite status to possess trained birds of prey.

If Daniel was remembering right, it was not only
illegal to fly birds above one’s station, but it was also illegal to take
falcons from the wild and train them unless the falconer was sanctioned by the
King himself. It was all a tightly controlled tradition. And punishable by pain
of dismemberment or even death.

“The punishment for flying a bird above your status
is to have your eyes taken out,” Daniel said slowly, looking back and forth
between Rona and Ian. “And the punishment for taking a bird from the wild is to
have one or both of your hands cut off.”

“Please, Daniel,” Rona whispered, taking a step
toward him. Tears shimmered in those strikingly blue eyes.

“This is the secret you’ve been keeping from me.
You’ve been protecting yourself and your friends because you fly falcons,” he
said levelly.

She tried to lower her eyes, but he placed a finger
under her chin, tilting her head back to meet his gaze. He made her watch as he
intentionally softened his face.

“It’s all right, lass,” he said quietly. “Bloody
hell, I thought—well, I thought it was a lot worse.”

He let out a shaky laugh, and she looked at him in
disbelief. This he could handle. If she’d been disloyal to either him or their
King…but she wasn’t. In fact, the more her actions sank in, Daniel realized
that she was very loyal to and protective of those she cared for.

“What do you mean,
it’s all right
?” she said
as first one tear and then another slipped free from her eyes. “Ian and Mairi
and I—we could be in real trouble.”

“Not if I don’t tell anyone.”

Her eyes widened, and he suddenly felt like he was
being swallowed whole into their blue depths.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because you are my wife!” He breathed a half-sigh
of relief, half-chuckle at her befuddled expression. He glanced over her
shoulder at Mairi, who was moving about the kitchen preparing tea, and saw that
the other woman hid a smile behind her hand.

“And because I am not just the keeper of Loch Doon.
I am a husband now, and that means that I must support and protect you.”

“But if you know, you’ll be held accountable along
with us if anyone finds out about this,” she said, eying him warily. Apparently
she still wasn’t convinced that he could stand behind her in this matter.

“We’ll deal with that when or if it comes up,” he
said calmly. “But as it stands, I am the keeper of the King of Scotland’s
ancestral castle and lands. He personally appointed me, so I operate on his
behalf and in his name. That’s security enough for now.”

Rona exhaled a long breath.

“Even though this should be Scottish land, we’ve
lived under English rule here in the Lowlands for so long that King Edward’s
laws are often observed and feared. It’s…it’s still hard to believe in the
Bruce’s power to free us from England’s rule.”

Daniel felt his face darken slightly. “Aye, but
hopefully that will be changing soon.”

He wouldn’t say more in front of Ian and Mairi, but
eventually he wanted to tell Rona about the second part of his mission in the
Lowlands. He’d secured Loch Doon and married her, but he still needed to
recapture Dunbraes and oust the English—and Raef Warren especially—once and for
all.

He’d have to wait to tell her until he could be sure
that she would be safe with the information, though. If an information leak had
sprung from the castle, as he suspected, Rona could be in danger if she knew
too much.