The Rogue: A Highland Guard Novella (The Highland Guard) (22 page)
Read The Rogue: A Highland Guard Novella (The Highland Guard) Online
Authors: Monica McCarty
The name fit, probably more than they realized. Most of the time she felt like a shadow. There, but not really there. Seen, but unseen. Unable to touch or be touched, and incapable of feeling.
The ladies stopped to return her greeting but did not invite her to join them on their walk. As this is what Joan expected, she wasn’t disappointed. It was a lesson she’d learned a long time ago. If you don’t expect much of people, it won’t hurt when they don’t give it to you. Her father had been her first example, but many more had followed.
Realizing that it was getting late, and that her cousin would be looking for her soon to help her pick out what to wear for the evening meal (a process that seemed to take most of the afternoon), Joan started to make her way over the portcullis of the interior moat to the inner ward.
As the guardian of the castle for the king, de Beaumont had been given the largest suite of rooms on the top level of the new two-story tower that only had been completed a handful of years ago. As companion to her cousin, Joan had a small antechamber off the “lord’s chamber.” It wasn’t large, but it had a window directly overlooking the countryside beyond the east wall, and most important . . . it was private. Unfortunately, her cousin intercepted her, and it was hours before Joan was able to seek the solitude of her chamber.
At first, she didn’t notice anything amiss. She tossed the plaid she wore around her shoulders on the bed, kicked off her slippers, pulled the pins from her hair, and threw them on the small dressing table before moving to the window.
She froze. The tiny piece of silk thread that she’d tied to the latch on the shutter had been snapped.
Excitement burst through her.
Finally!
She had him. It was a game between her and Lachlan. Known for his ability to get in and out of anywhere without being seen, he’d been surprising her for years—and she’d been trying to catch him.
Trying
. Unsuccessfully, at least, until now. A rare smile turned her mouth. The feeling that filled her chest was so foreign she almost didn’t recognize it: happiness.
Moving swiftly to the ambry door, she pulled it open. “Hello, Father.”
Calling him Father had started out as a jest to make him feel old—he’d just turned forty to her twenty—but she knew it wasn’t just that anymore. The man her father had called a bastard, brigand, and pirate was much more of a parent to her than her own had ever been.
She heard a very un-fatherly curse before the big warrior materialized from behind her gowns. He scowled, although for a man with the war name of Viper there wasn’t much behind it. “How did you know?”
She folded her arms across her chest and quirked a brow the way he did to her. “You don’t expect me to tell you all my secrets, do you?”
Many people who knew him would be surprised to see how easily his mouth curved into a smile. The mean brigand with the black heart had changed, though he’d probably die before admitting it. He had a reputation to uphold after all.
“Not bad, little one. If all my men were so easily trained, my job would be a hell of a lot easier.”
She grinned. Then realizing that she might actually be beaming, she sobered. “As much as I look forward to our little family reunions, I’m assuming for you to have risked climbing through that window your reason for being here is important.”
He nodded and motioned for her to sit. She sat on the edge of the bed and he took a seat opposite her on the stone window sill. He shot a meaningful glance to the door. She shook her head. “My cousin and Sir Henry are still in the Hall.”
He nodded and continued. “Carrick plans to make an attempt on the castle tonight here along the east wall.” He gave her a dry look. “I know it goes against your nature—God knows it’s against your mother’s—but try to stay out of danger and not go running toward it, will you?”
She laughed. “I’ll do my best, and I appreciate the warning. But I hope the earl has a good plan. The English are tired of Bruce taking back all of his castles—they’ll not give up one of their most important without a fight. I don’t have to tell you how well defended it is.”
“Nay, I had a devil of a time—” He stopped, his eyes narrowing. “If that’s a trick to try to get me to tell you how I got in, it isn’t going to work.”
She blinked at him innocently, which he didn’t believe for a minute.
“Christ, now I know where she got it from!”
Her brows drew together questioningly.
“Your sister. Christina gives me that look every time she’s done something naughty—which seems to be a daily occurrence.”
Joan couldn’t prevent the tiny pinch in her chest. She’d never regretted the decision not to return to Scotland with her mother after Lachlan had rescued her—Joan had chosen her path and knew it was a solitary one—but she did regret not knowing her young half siblings. She had three now: Erik who would be five in a few months, Christina who was three and a half, and Robbie, who was almost eighteen months.
“You know what the Bible says: ‘as ye sow, so shall ye reap.’”
Lachlan shook his head with a sigh. “That’s what your mother says.”
She smiled.
He told her what he knew of Edward Bruce’s plan to take the castle, which in her opinion—and Lachlan’s from the sound of it—seemed to be more a “why not take a shot as long as we are here” than a well-thought-through operation.
“So the bulk of the men will attack the main gate, while a small force in black cloaks to blend into the night will attempt to slip over the curtain wall behind the kitchens?” she summarized. “It seems like I’ve heard something like that before,” she added dryly, referring to James Douglas’s taking of Roxburgh Castle and Thomas Randolph’s taking of Edinburgh Castle, which had used similar tactics.
Lachlan shook his head. “The king’s brother will never be accused of inventiveness. But I think he is tired of hearing about Douglas and Randolph and wants to have his own ‘miraculous feat of warfare.’ Just see that you are no where near the kitchens after midnight.”
“No late-night snacks for me, I swear it. Even if the cook makes apple tarts.”
He shook his head and chuckled. “Now you sound like Erik. Don’t turn your back on your sweets with that one around.”
She smiled, but when their eyes met, she suspected he’d guessed what she was thinking—there was little chance she’d get that opportunity. At least not while the war was going on and while she remained undiscovered. She was too valuable here. If she were discovered . . . well, they both knew what would happen then.
“That reminds me. I have something for you,” Lachlan added.
“A tart?” she jested, trying to cover the oddly emotional moment.
It didn’t work. “Nay,” he said seriously. “This. You are one of us now, and since a tattoo isn’t appropriate, I thought this might suffice.”
He handed her a gold bracelet. It was about two and a half inches wide and in the shape of a cuff. It opened with a hinge on one side and two tiny latches on the other. It was beautifully designed with a carved ornate pattern on the outside that reminded her of the old crosses in the churchyards back home in Buchan in the northeast of Scotland. But it’s what she saw on the inside that made her gasp.
She looked up at her stepfather with her heart in her throat. The design lightly etched on the inside of the cuff was familiar to her, although she’d never seen it. The Lion Rampant and spiderweb was the mark tattooed on the arms of the members of the Highland Guard. Hers was personalized with something else that was important to her—two tiny roses. The pink rose had become a symbol among the people to protest her mother’s cruel and barbaric punishment.
She didn’t know what to say. She feared if she said anything, he would know how much this meant to her, but hiding her emotions was part of the armor that enabled her to do her job. “It’s beautiful. Thank you,” she managed. “This means . . . a lot.”
Maybe understanding more than she would have liked, he nodded. “Rock made it.” Joan had heard of the newest member of the Highland Guard—and the feat he’d performed in climbing Castle Rock to help take Edinburgh Castle. “I don’t need to tell you to be careful with it. Enough people know what that means.”
She slipped it on. “I will.”
“Leave it with the priest at St. Mary’s if you ever need me.” He looked at her for a few moments longer as if undecided about something. “I should probably go. The others are waiting for me.”
She nodded. It was hard when he left. She always felt so . . . alone. Most of the time she liked it that way. But the short, infrequent meetings with Lachlan were the only time she could talk to someone without being on guard.
Lachlan pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to her. “I probably shouldn’t be giving you this, but here is the powder you requested from Helen.”
Helen MacKay—known as Angel—was the de facto physician of the Guard.
Joan tried not to wriggle under his intense scrutiny, but those eerie green eyes had a way of penetrating. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping,” she explained.
She thought he might call her lie right there, but he refrained. “Helen told me to remind you not to mix it with spirits—the effects are intensified.”
“I’ll remember that,” she said blankly.
He wasn’t fooled. “You better be careful, Joan. If your mother finds out what you are doing . . .”
She lifted her chin. “I can take care of myself, Lachlan. I’ve been doing so for six years.” Eight if she counted back to when her mother left.
“I don’t ask you how you discover all this information—”
“Good,” she said, cutting him off. “It’s none of your concern.”
He ignored her warning. “But I’m hearing rumors.”
She stiffened and gave him a hard look. “You better than anyone know better than to listen to gossip.”
The lies that were spread about him were far worse than anything they might say about her.
“Maybe so, but I also know there is usually a little bit of truth to them.”
She pursed her mouth closed, signaling that she wasn’t going to talk about it anymore.
He sighed. “You keep your thoughts hidden better than any warrior I know—your mother used to do the same thing—but don’t think I haven’t noticed how sad you seem lately. I can’t remember the last time I saw you smile.”
“I’m fine,” she assured him. But seeing that she hadn’t convinced him she added, “I know you are worried, but you don’t need to be. I know what I’m doing.”
Whatever it takes so that no one else ever has to see her mother in a cage
.
…End excerpt from
THE GHOST
© 2016 Monica McCarty
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THE GHOST
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COMPLETE MONICA MCCARTY BOOKLIST
The following titles are available in electronic format.
The Highland Guard Series (in order)
THE KNIGHT
(e-novella)
THE HIGHLAND GUARD FIRST 9-BOOK BUNDLE
The Campbell Trilogy (in order)
CAMPBELL TRILOGY 3-BOOK BUNDLE
The MacLeod Trilogy (in order)
Monica’s paperback books on Amazon:
The Highland Guard Series (in order)
The Campbell Trilogy (in order)
The MacLeod Trilogy (in order)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Monica McCarty is the
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author of twenty Scottish Historical romances and two Regency romances. Her books have won and been nominated for numerous awards, including the Romance Writers of America’s RITA & Golden Heart, RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice, the Bookseller’s Best, and Amazon’s Best Books of the Year. Known for her “torrid chemistry” and “lush and steamy romance” as well as her “believable historical situations” (Publishers Weekly), her books have been translated and published throughout the world. Monica’s interest in the Scottish clan system began in the most unlikely of places: a comparative legal history course at Stanford Law School. After a short, but enjoyable, stint practicing law, she realized that mixing a legal career with her husband’s transitory career as a professional baseball player was not exactly a match made in heaven. So she “traded” in her legal briefs for Historical Romances with sexy alpha heroes. When not trekking across the moors and rocky seascapes of Scotland and England, Monica can be found in Northern California with her husband and two children.
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