The Guardian (Return of the Highlanders Series #1)

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The Guardian

Forever

PROLOGUE

ISLE OF SKYE
Scotland
1500

Teàrlag MacDonald, the oldest living member of her clan and a seer of some repute, let her good eye travel slowly from boy to boy. Visitors to her tiny cottage at the edge of the sea were rare.

“What brings ye lads to come see me on this blustery night?”

“We want to know our future, Teàrlag,” young Connor said. “Can ye tell us what ye see for us?”

The boy who spoke was the chieftain’s second son, a strapping lad of twelve with the pitch-black hair of his mother’s side.

“Are ye sure ye want to hear?” she asked. “Most often I foretell death, did ye not know?”

The four lads exchanged glances, but none took a step toward the door. They were braver than most. Still, she wondered what led them to be crowding her cottage and dripping rain on her floor this particular night.

“Ye feared I might die before I foretold somethin’ about ye, is that it?”

She fixed her good eye on the youngest, a lad of ten with black hair like his cousin Connor’s and eyes as blue as the summer sky. The lad blushed, confirming her suspicion.

“Well, I don’t expect to die as soon as ye think, Ian MacDonald.”

Ian raised his eyebrows. “So ye know me, Teàrlag?”

“ ’Course I know ye. The three of ye,” she said, pointing her finger at Ian and his cousins Alex and Connor, “are my blood relations.”

Learning they were related to a woman with one eye and a hunched back did not appear to please them. She chuckled to herself as she turned to toss a handful of herbs on the fire. As it crackled and spit, she leaned forward to breathe in the tangy fumes. She could not call upon the sight at will, but sometimes the herbs made the vision clearer.

As soon as the boys entered her cottage, smelling of dogs, damp wool, and the sea, she had seen the orangey glow about them that signaled a vision was coming. It was unusual for her to see the glow around more than one person at a time. She suspected it was because the lads were close as thieves, but it was not for her to question her gift.

“Ye first,” she said, curling her finger at Ian.

The lad’s eyes grew big, but when one of the other boys gave him a shove, he came around the table to stand beside her.

Quick as a wink, she slipped a small, smooth stone into his gaping mouth. The stone did not help her see, but it added to the mystery and would keep him quiet.

“Don’t swallow the stone, laddie,” she said, “or it’ll kill ye.”

Ian turned wide eyes on his cousin Connor, who gave him a reassuring nod. She rested her hand on Ian’s head and closed her eyes. The vision, already forming from the moment he passed through her door, came quickly.

“Ye shall wed twice,” she said. “Once in anger and once in love.”

“Two wives!” Alex, the one with the fair hair of his Viking ancestors, hooted with laughter. “That will keep ye busy.”

Ian spit out the stone into his hand. “I didn’t want to know that, Teàrlag. Can ye not tell me something interesting… like how many battles I’ll fight in… or if I’ll die at sea?”

“I can’t command the sight, lad. If it chooses to speak of love and women, then so be it.” She looked to the others. “What of the rest of ye?”

The other three made faces as if she had given them one of her bitter-tasting remedies.

She cackled and slapped the table. “No so brave now, are ye, lads?”

“It is no fair for ye to hear about my two wives,” Ian said to the others, “unless I hear about yours.”

Alex gave the other two lads a lopsided grin and exchanged places with Ian.

“I don’t need the sight to know ye were born to give trouble to the lasses.” She shook her head. The boys would all be handsome men, but this one had the devil in his eye. “Shame, but there is nothin’ to be done about it.”

Alex grinned. “Sounds verra good to me.”

“Ach.” She popped a second stone from the dish on the table into Alex’s mouth and put her hand on his head. ’Twas good luck she had gathered pretty stones from the shore that morning.

“Tsk, tsk, this is no good at all. One day, ye’ll come across a woman so beautiful as to hurt your eyes, sittin’ on a rock in the sea.” She opened her eyes and thumped Alex on the chest. “Watch out for her, for she might be a selkie taking on her human form to lure ye to your death.”

“I’d rather have a selkie than two wives,” Ian grumbled from across the table.

For a MacDonald of Sleat to put away one wife to take another was common as grass. It seemed the way of it for them to break the hearts of the women who loved them.

Teàrlag closed her eyes again—and laughed so hard it made her cough. Ach, this was a surprise, for certain.

“Alex, I see ye courtin’ an ugly, pockmarked lass,” she said, wiping her eyes on her shawl. “I fear she is quite stout as well. And I don’t mean pleasing plump, mind ye.”

The other boys doubled over laughing until they were red-faced.

“I think ye are having fun with me,” Alex said, looking sideways at her. “Since I’ve no intention of marrying, I am sure that if I do, the lass would have to be verra, verra pretty.”

“I see what I see.” She gave Alex a push and motioned to Duncan. He was a big, red-haired lad whose mother had served as Connor’s nursemaid.

“This one has the blood of both the MacKinnon Sea Witch and the Celtic warrior queen, Scáthach, so mind ye keep him on your side,” she said, wagging her finger at the other three. To Duncan, she said, “That’s where ye get your fierceness—and your temper.”

Duncan stood still, his expression serious, as she put a stone in his mouth and rested her hand on his head.

Almost at once, a powerful feeling of loss and longing stole over her and weighed down her spirit. She lifted her hand, being too old to bear it for long.

“Are ye sure ye want to hear, laddie?” she asked softly.

Duncan gave her a level look and nodded.

“I fear you’ve sad days before ye,” she said, squeezing his shoulder. “But I will tell ye this. Sometimes, a man can change his future.”

Duncan spit out the stone and gave her a polite “Thank ye.”

The chieftain’s son was last.

“What I want to know is the future of our clan,” Connor said around the stone in his mouth. “Will we be safe and prosper in the years to come?”

His father had come to ask her the same question not long ago. All she had been able to tell him was that one day he would have to send this son away to keep him safe.

When she put her hand on Connor’s head, she heard the moans of the dying and saw men of her clan lying in a field soaked in Scottish blood. Then she saw the four lads as strong, young men, on a ship, crossing the sea. She grew weary as the visions continued, one after the other.

“Teàrlag, are ye well?” Connor asked.

When she opened her eyes, Alex handed her a cup of her own whiskey, saying, “A wee nip will do ye good.”

She narrowed her good eye at him as she drained the cup, wondering how he’d found it.

“I see many perils ahead for all of ye,” she said. “Ye must keep each other close, if ye are to have any hope of survivin’.”

The lads appeared unimpressed. As Highlanders, they knew without foretelling that their future held danger. And as lads, they found the notion more exciting than worrisome.

They were young, and a wise woman did not tell all she knew. After considering what might be of use for them to know, she said to Connor, “Ye want to know what ye must do to help the clan?”

“Aye, Teàrlag, I do.”

“Then I will tell ye,” she said, “the clan’s future will rest on ye choosin’ the right wife.”

“Me? But it’s my brother who will be chieftain.”

She shrugged. He would learn soon enough of the sorrows to come.

“Can ye tell me what woman I must choose, then?” Connor asked, worry furrowing his brow.

“Ach, the lass will choose ye,” she said, and pinched his cheek. “Ye just must be wise enough to know it.”

She looked to the cottage door just before the sound of the knock. Alex, who was closest, opened it and laughed when he saw the little girl with wild, unkempt red hair standing there.

“ ’Tis only Ian’s wee friend Sìleas,” he said, as he pulled her inside and shut the door against the cold.

The girl’s large green eyes took in the room, then settled on Ian.

“What are ye doing wandering alone outside in the dark?” Ian asked her.

“I came to find ye, Ian,” the girl said.

“How many times must I tell ye to be careful?” Ian tightened his mantle and turned to the others. “I’d best take her back to her da.”

The old woman thought the lass’s da should be skinned alive for letting the wee bairn wander about as he did. But he was not the sort of man who had much use for a daughter.

“Were ye no afraid the faeries would snatch ye?” she asked.

Sìleas shook her head. Ach, the poor child knew that the faeries steal only the children who are most precious to their parents.

“Come on, then,” Ian said, taking the wee girl’s hand. “I’ll tell ye a story about a selkie as we walk.”

Sìleas looked up at the lad, and her eyes shone as if God himself had sent the strongest and bravest warrior in all the Highlands to be her protector.

CHAPTER 1

ISLE OF SKYE
Scotland
1508

Sìleas’s outstretched hands bumped and scraped against the rough earthen walls, touch replacing sight, as she raced through the blackness. Small creatures skittered before her, running in fear as she did.

But there was no echo of footsteps behind her. Yet.

A circle of gray light appeared ahead, signaling the end of the tunnel. When she reached it, Sìleas dropped to her hands and knees and crawled through the narrow opening, mud dragging at her skirts.

Brambles scratched her face and hands as she scrambled out the other side. A burst of clean sea air surrounded her, blowing away the dank, new-grave smell of the tunnel. Sìleas sucked in great lungfuls of it, but she had no time to stop.

Startled sheep stared or trotted out of her way as Sìleas clambered up the hill. She prayed that she had not already missed him. When she finally reached the path, she flattened herself behind a boulder to wait. Before she could catch her breath, she heard hoofbeats.

She had to be certain it was Ian. With her heart thudding in her ears, she peeked around the boulder.

As soon as the rider rounded the bend, she shouted his name and jumped out onto the path.

“That was dangerous, Sìl,” Ian said, after pulling his horse up hard. “I nearly rode over ye.”

Ian looked so handsome on his fine horse, with his dark hair flying and the glow of sunset shining all about him, that for a long moment Sìleas forgot the urgency of her trouble.

“What are ye doing out here?” Ian asked. “And how did ye get so filthy?”

“I’m escaping my step-da,” Sìleas said, coming back to herself. “I came out the secret tunnel when I saw them turn ye away at the front gate.”

“I was going to stay the night on my way home,” he said, “but they told me half the castle was ill with some pestilence and sent me away.”

“They lied to ye,” she said, reaching her hand up to him. “We must hurry before they notice I’m gone.”

Ian hoisted her up in front of him. Though her back stung like the devil, she leaned against him and sighed. She was safe.

She’d missed Ian these last months when he was off at the Scottish court and fighting on the border. This felt like old times, when she was a wee girl and Ian was always helping her out of one scrape or another.

But she was in trouble as never before. If she’d had a doubt about how dire her situation was, seeing the Green Lady hover over her bed weeping was a clear warning.

When Ian turned the horse back in the direction of the castle, she jerked upright and spun around to face him. “What are ye doing?”

“I’m taking ye back,” Ian said. “I’m no going to be accused of kidnapping.”

“But ye must get me away! The bastard intends to marry me to the worst of the MacKinnons.”

“Mind your tongue,” Ian said. “Ye shouldn’t call your step-da a bastard.”

“You’re no listening to me. The man is going to make me wed Angus MacKinnon.”

Ian stopped his horse. “Ye must be mistaken. Even your bastard of a step-da wouldn’t do that. All the same, I promise I’ll tell my da and uncle what ye said.”

“I’ll tell them myself when ye take me to them.”

Ian shook his head. “I’m no starting a clan war by stealing ye away. Even if what ye say is true, there will be no wedding soon. You’re a child yet.”

“I’m no child,” Sìleas said, folding her arms. “I’m thirteen.”

“Well, you’ve got no breasts,” Ian said, “and no man is going to want to marry ye until ye do—Oof! No need to jab me with that pointy elbow of yours just for speaking the truth.”

Sìleas fought against the sting in her eyes. After all that had happened to her today, this was hard to bear—especially coming from the man she planned to marry.

“If ye won’t help me, Ian MacDonald, I’ll walk.”

When she tried to slide down off the horse, Ian caught and held her. He took her face in his hand and rubbed his thumb lightly across her cheek—which made it devilishly difficult not to cry.

“I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, little one,” he said. “Ye can’t go off on your own. It’s a long way to the next house, and it’s near dark.”

“I’m no going back to the castle,” she said.

“I suppose if I take ye back, you’ll just sneak out the secret passageway again?”

“I will,” she said.

Ian sighed and turned his horse. “Then we’d best move fast. But if I’m hung for kidnapping, it’ll be on your head.”

Ian stopped to make camp when it grew too dark to see. If he didn’t have Sìleas with him, he’d be tempted to continue. But his family’s home was a fair distance yet, and it was risky to ride in the black of night.

He handed Sìleas half of his oatcakes and cheese, and they ate in silence. There would be hell to pay for this, all because she let that imagination of hers run wild again.

He glanced sideways at her. Poor Sìl. Her beautiful name, pronounced with a soft “Shh,” like a whisper in the ear, mocked her. She was a pathetic, scrawny thing with teeth too big for her and unruly red hair so bright it hurt the eyes. Even once she had breasts, no man was going to wed her for her looks.

At least she’d washed the mud off her face.

Ian rolled out his blanket and gave her a warning look. “Lie down and don’t say a word.”

“ ’Tis no my fault—”

“It is,” he said, “though ye know verra well no one is going to blame you.”

Sìleas scrunched herself into a ball on one side of the blanket and tucked her feet under her cloak.

Ian lay down with his back to her and wrapped his plaid around himself. It had been a long day of travel, and he was tired.

Just as he was drifting off to sleep, Sìleas shook his shoulder. “I hear something.”

Ian grabbed his claymore and sat up to listen.

“I think it’s a wild boar,” she whispered. “Or a verra large bear.”

Ian flopped back down with a groan. “ ’Tis only the wind blowing the trees. Have ye not tortured me enough for one day?”

He couldn’t go back to sleep with the wee lass shivering beside him. She had no meat on her bones to keep her warm.

“Sìl, are ye cold?” he asked.

“I am near death with it,” she said in a weak, mournful voice.

With a sigh, he rolled onto his back and spread his plaid over both of them.

Now he was wide awake. After staring at the tree branches whipping in the wind above him for a long while, he whispered, “Sìl, are ye awake?”

“Aye.”

“I’m going to be married soon,” he said, and couldn’t help grinning to himself. “I met her at court in Stirling. I’ve come home to tell my parents.”

He felt Sìleas stiffen beside him.

“I’m as surprised as you,” he said. “I didn’t plan to wed for a few years yet, but when a man meets the right woman… Ah, Sìl, she is everything I want.”

Sìleas was quiet for a long time, then she asked in that funny, hoarse voice of hers, “What makes ye know she is right for ye?”

“Philippa is a rare beauty, I tell ye. She’s got sparkling eyes and silky, fair hair—and curves to make a man forget to breathe.”

“Hmmph. Is there nothing but her looks ye can say about this Philippa?”

“She’s as graceful as a faerie queen,” he said. “And she has a lovely, tinkling laugh.”

“And that is why ye want to marry her?”

Ian chuckled at Sìleas’s skeptical tone. “I shouldn’t tell ye this, little one. But there are women a man can have without marriage, and women he cannot. This one is of the second kind, and I want her verra, verra badly.”

He dropped an arm across Sìleas’s shoulder and drifted toward sleep with a smile on his face.

He must have slept like the dead, for he remembered nothing until he awoke to the sound of horses. In an instant, he threw off his plaid and stood with his claymore in his hands as three horsemen rode into their camp and began circling them. Though Ian recognized them as his clansmen, he did not lower his sword.

He glanced over his shoulder at Sìleas to be sure she was all right. She was sitting up with his plaid pulled over her head and was peering out at them from a peephole she had made in it.

“Could this be our own young Ian, back from fighting on the border?” one of the horsemen said.

“Why, so it is! We hear you had great success fighting the English,” another said, as the three continued circling. “It must be that the English sleep verra late.”

“I hear they wait politely for ye to choose the time and place to fight,” said the third. “For how else could a man sleep so soundly he doesn’t hear horses before they ride through his camp?”

Ian gritted his teeth as the men continued enjoying themselves at his expense.

“The English fight like women, so what can ye expect?” the first one said, as three more riders crowded into their camp.

“Speaking of women, who is the brave wench who is no afraid to share a bed with our fierce warrior?” another man called out.

“Your mother will murder ye for bringing a whore home,” another said, causing a round of laughter.

“I want to be there when she finds out,” the first one said. “Come, Ian, let us have a look at her.”

“I’ve no woman with me,” Ian said, flipping back the plaid to reveal the girl. “It is only Sìleas.”

Sìleas yanked the plaid back over herself and glared at all of them.

The horsemen went quiet. Following their gazes, Ian looked over his shoulder. His father and his uncle, who was the chieftain of their clan, had drawn their horses up at the edge of the camp.

There was no sound now, except for the horses’ snorting, as his father’s eyes moved from Ian to Sìleas, then back to Ian with a grim fury.

“Return home now, lads,” his uncle ordered the others. “We’ll follow shortly.”

His father dismounted but waited to speak until the other men were out of earshot.

“Explain yourself, Ian MacDonald,” his father said in a tone that used to signal that Ian was in for a rare beating.

“I don’t know how I could sleep through the approach of your horses, da. I—”

“Don’t play the fool with me,” his father shouted. “Ye know verra well I’m asking why ye are traveling alone with Sìleas—and why we find ye sharing a bed with her.”

“But I am not, da. Well, I suppose I am traveling with her, though I didn’t intend to,” Ian fumbled. “But we are no sharing a bed!”

His father’s face went from red to purple. “Don’t tell me I’m no seeing what’s plain as day before my eyes. There can be but one explanation for this. You’d best tell me the two of ye have run off and married in secret.”

“Of course we’ve not married.”

All the way home, Ian had imagined how his father’s eyes would fill with pride when he heard of Ian’s exploits fighting the English on the border. Instead, his father was speaking to him as if he were a lad guilty of a dangerous prank.

“We were no sharing a bed in the sense ye are suggesting, da,” Ian said, trying and failing to stay calm. “That would be disgusting. How could ye think it?”

“So why is the lass here with ye?” his father asked.

“Sìleas got it into her head that her step-da intends to wed her to one of the MacKinnons. I swear, she was going to run off alone if I didn’t bring her with me.”

His father squatted down next to Sìleas. “Are ye all right, lass?”

“I am, thank ye.” She looked pathetic, her skin pale against her tousled red hair and huddling like a small bird under his plaid.

His father gently took her hand between his huge ones. “Can you tell me what happened, lass?”

This was too much. His father was speaking to Sìleas as if she were the innocent in all of this.

“ ’Tis true that Ian didn’t want to help me. But I forced his hand because my step-da means to wed me to his son so they can claim Knock Castle.” She dropped her eyes and said in a shaky voice, “And it wasn’t just that, but I don’t wish to speak of the rest.”

Sìleas was always one to exaggerate. If she didn’t have Ian’s father in her hands before, she surely did now.

“ ’Tis a lucky chance the lass learned of their plan and got away,” Ian’s uncle said. “We can’t let the MacKinnons steal Knock Castle out from under us.”

His father stood and rested his hand on Ian’s shoulder. “I know ye didn’t intend to, but you’ve compromised Sìleas’s virtue.”

Ian’s stomach sank to his feet as he felt disaster coming. “But, da, that can’t be true. I’ve known Sìleas all her life. And she is so young, no one will think anything of my spending the night in the woods with her.”

“The men who found ye already believe the worst,” his father said. “ ’Tis bound to become known to others.”

“But nothing happened,” Ian insisted. “I never even thought of it!”

“That doesn’t matter,” his father said.

“This isn’t about Sìleas’s virtue, is it?” Ian said, leaning toward his father with his fists clenched. “It’s about keeping her lands from the MacKinnons.”

“There is that as well,” his father owned. “But ye have ruined Sìleas’s reputation, and there is only one way to set that aright. The two of you will be wed as soon as we get to the house.”

Ian was aghast. “No. I will not do it.”

“What ye will not do is shame your mother and me,” his father said, his eyes as hard as steel. “I expect honorable behavior from my sons, even when it is hard. Especially when it is hard.”

“But I—”

“Ye have a duty here, to the lass and to your clan,” his father said. “You’re a MacDonald, and ye will do what is required.”

“I’ll gather the men,” his uncle said. “I don’t expect the MacKinnons will be pleased when they hear the news.”

Sìleas was crying soundlessly, holding Ian’s plaid to her face and rocking back and forth.

“Pack up your things, lass,” his father said, giving her an awkward pat. “Ye must be wed before the MacKinnons come looking for ye.”

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Excerpted from The Guardian by Mallory, Margaret Copyright © 2011 by Mallory, Margaret. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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