“I must see him. I thank you for coming to my rescue.”

The men laughed and slapped the rump of his mount. The horse trotted forward, carrying him toward his tower, Kintalon Castle. Mist had risen from the loch and now cloaked the castle.

Inside the high-walled barmkin, he dismounted and handed the reins to a stable lad who gaped at him slack-jawed.

Shouts of “Alasdair!” and “Laird MacGrath!” rang out around him. He smiled and greeted his clan.

Several of his overjoyed clansmen lifted and carried him up the spiral stone staircase in the attached round tower.

Once inside the candlelit great hall, they set him down. The familiar smells of baking bread and spiced ale calmed him. Home. He limped to a chair and stood behind it. The room of thirty or more people fell silent. He scanned the pleased faces of his kinsmen and women before him. Gratitude and pride in his clan tightened his chest.

“I’m thankful to be home this day. I have a few minor injuries, but I’m alive.”

Their boisterous cheer resounded off the two-story high ceiling.

His brother, Lachlan, descended the stone steps. His gaze lit on Alasdair, and his face paled. “By heaven! Alasdair? You live!” He rushed forward and pulled Alasdair into a rough hug. Lachlan, the same size as him but two years younger, did not realize his own strength.

Pain shot through Alasdair’s chest and abdomen, but he didn’t even grunt. “Aye, mo bhràthar.”

Lachlan pulled back. “Thanks be to God. We thought you dead and buried in a bog, or sunk in the loch.”

Alasdair grinned. “A bonny MacIrwin fairy saved my life.”

The men’s laughter bounced off the stone walls. But concern for Gwyneth weighed heavily in Alasdair’s mind.

Would Donald MacIrwin find out she’d saved his life? He’d been nowhere near the cottage when he’d been spotted, so surely they wouldn’t make the connection.

Unless they backtracked him.

***

The entry door of Irwin Castle burst open. Chief Donald MacIrwin glanced up from his wooden bowl containing his meager supper of bland porridge, annoyed they were near out of oats and ale or anything else to eat. He hesitated to have more of the cattle or sheep butchered, else they’d have none. They’d need to raid a nearby clan soon.

“What is it?” he demanded of his four clansmen striding forward, their wild hair windblown as if they’d ridden hard, and their plaids askew. He’d set them to guard the border betwixt his land and MacGrath’s. “And more importantly, what the devil are you doing away from your posts?”

“Alasdair MacGrath was here, m’laird,” Burgin, one of his best guards, said.

Donald bolted up from his chair, rage blazing through him. “Alasdair! The chief? Where?” He reached for his sword at his side, then realized the weapon was in the armory, being cleaned and sharpened.

“Aye,” Burgin said. “He knocked Charlie out and stole his horse. Then he fled across the moor onto his own lands. We tried to stop him but Charlie’s horse is fast. He had reinforcements waiting at the border.”

“Damnation! What was he doing here? The chief would not come alone.”

“He must have been here since the other skirmish. He’d been hiding in the wood, waiting to attack one of us and make good his escape.”

“That whoreson.” Donald felt like overturning the whole table, but held his temper. How could MacGrath have hidden in the wood that well for almost two days? “Was he injured?”

“He did not appear to be injured as he fled but mayhap he was. We thought we’d seen him fall during the first skirmish. Red John remembered striking him, but then we couldn’t find his body.”

Something strange was going on. Had a member of the MacIrwin clan helped this MacGrath bastard?

“At first light, find out where he was hiding in the wood. Edward is a good tracker.”

***

The next day, Gwyneth set down her herb basket at the crest of a hill and once again murmured a prayer that Rory’s little friend would not mention the enemy warrior to anyone. Rory assured her he hadn’t said the MacGrath name to the other lad or that the man had been hiding in their byre. Still, Gwyneth’s stomach had been upset all night and she had gotten little sleep.

She inhaled the calming scents of the pungent herbs from her basket and the clean breeze as she gazed out over the rolling brownish Cairngorms toward the east. The sheep and cattle dotting the lower green hills were not MacGrath livestock. Their holdings lay beyond the meager wood and beside the loch in the distance reflecting the blue late afternoon sky. Apparently the high mountain blocked her view of their castle.

Though she did not want to admit it, she’d spent the day missing the big, teasing Scot. His devilish smile and lingering midnight gaze had disrupted her mundane life. Now, her only entertainment was her memories.

And the memories did crowd in on her. He’d said she was lovely as a spring morn, and he’d looked at her as no man had in years. As if…had he not been injured and they had been at a banquet, he might have asked for a dance, or a walk in the garden. Or a kiss.

Imagining what his lips might feel like on hers—warm, firm and smooth, she realized she had taken too close a notice of his mouth.

She pressed her eyes closed. I’m a wanton. No wonder I’m stuck here in the godforsaken Highlands.

But it wasn’t just his dark good looks that appealed to her. He appeared to have a good and compassionate heart.

She had to believe he’d made it home, where he would be safe from Donald and his men. Home, where he would heal and live to fight another day.

Yes, it was best he’d gone. She hated war, but that was his life.

From the small pouch attached to her belt, she withdrew her only remaining memento from England—her mother’s pelican-in-her-piety pendant.

Just before Gwyneth had left her father’s house, over six years ago, her mother had slipped this piece of jewelry into her hand as she’d embraced her the last time. The pendant was pewter and not very valuable except for the small ruby at the pelican’s breast. Legend said that if the pelican was unable to find food for her young, she would peck at her own breast and draw forth blood with which to feed them.

At first Gwyneth had thought her mother had given it to her as a reminder of her faith, the pelican representing Christ. But years later, she came to realize that perhaps her mother’s message meant something else—that as a mother, Gwyneth must be willing to sacrifice all for the sake of her son.

And if she had to, she would.

She closed her fingers over the worn surface of the pelican and her three chicks. She missed her mother terribly, but her father would not allow them contact. What would her mother think of Rory? Surely she would love her grandson, born in shame or not.

Gwyneth returned the pelican to her pouch and picked up her herb basket. I will not dream of things I cannot have.

“Come, Rory,” she called to her dawdling son. “Tell me, what is this herb?” She bent and fingered the rough green leaves.

He frowned. “I do nay ken,” he said in a strong accent like MacGrath’s.

“Where did that Scots brogue come from?”

Rory shrugged.

“I think you spent too much time with Master MacGrath.”

“You mean Angus?”

“You are not to call him by his first name. ’Tis not respectful.”

“He said I could.”

“I do not care what he said.”

Rory pouted. “I wish he would come back.”

She knelt before Rory. “Listen, son, you are not to mention Angus MacGrath’s name to anyone else. Do you understand? Donald will kill Master MacGrath if you do.”

Rory’s eyes widened.

So she’d told a little fib. In truth, Donald would kill Gwyneth and Rory if he knew.

“I can keep a secret,” Rory said with a solemn expression.

“Good.” She hugged him, kissed his forehead and straightened. “Time to go home. Evening will be upon us soon, and we must milk.”