The Highlander’s Promise (The Highlands Warring Scottish Romance) (A Medieval Historical Romance Book) Read online

  Nicholas charged through the townspeople, wheeling his horse right and left, and then making for the stake. He had no idea what he would do, how it would break him, if he found the stake alight and someone screaming on it, but the wood was still unlit, and he drove straight for it. The people split before him like reeds on a stream bed.

  In a matter of seconds, he came upon a thin young boy with his hands bound behind him, a bewildered look on his pale face. For some reason, Nicholas felt his heart skip a beat, and then the young man broke into a grin, running toward Nicholas when everyone else had run away.

  "Cut my hands," he shouted, turning his back to Nicholas. "I'm useless to you until they're free."

  His words woke Nicholas from his frenzy, and he drew his long dagger from his belt. He leaned over, cutting the ropes with a quick slash that never touched the man's skin. He started to reach for the prisoner, but the boy spun and scampered up behind him like a spider. Nicholas was startled by how light he was and how quickly he moved.

  Why, he can't be more than a boy. What in the blazes were these people doing?

  He didn't have time to do more than wonder, however, because the people were circling, staring, and Nicholas knew that two could fit a stake as easily as one. He paused, uncertain of the way, and the boy leaned forward to reach his ear.

  "To your left. Straight down between those two large houses. That will take us back to the main road. There are people in the houses, however, and they might pitch things or have bows. Can this nag run?"

  "Well, we'll find out."

  The young man yelped with glee as Nicholas clapped his heels to the horse's sides, sending him into a fast lumbering that probably passed for a gallop. The townspeople, probably sensing that their prey was escaping, gave chase, but a slow horse was still faster than a fast human.

  The boy behind him clasped one arm around Nicholas's waist, something that sent a strange and unlooked for thrill through him.

  Really? he had time to wonder, before the youth leaned all the way over to pluck a light spear from a gaping villager.

  The boy used the spear to fend off the people to either side, so Nicholas concentrated on getting the horse to run toward the road rather than away from it. There was a dicey moment when someone grabbed the horse's reins, but the boy leaned forward, bringing the spear down like a club, and the reins were released.

  They passed between the two houses the boy had indicated, and in a short time, they had left the shouting behind them.

  "Left," the boy directed, and Nicholas, shaking a little by this time, did as he was told. It was a good thing the boy was there to give him directions, because otherwise, he might have steered them straight into a ravine.

  The night closed around them, and silence did, too. Nicholas pulled the horse to a trot and then finally to a walk. For the first time in what felt like hours, he thought he could breathe.

  The boy behind him was laughing almost deliriously.

  "I cannot believe you did that! I thought I was a goner, and then they were parting for you as if you were the specter of death himself. I have never seen anything like that. I owe you my life, sir, and... and what's the matter?"

  Nicholas started to ask him what he meant, but then he realized that his teeth were chattering together too hard for him to reply. He twitched, his hand jerking on the rein and making the lathered horse whinny in offense.

  Have to get it together, I might steer us into the ravine yet...

  He was still trying to still his trembling hand when the boy slipped off the saddle, coming down to take the horse's reins and use them as a lead.

  "Come on. We need to get off the road."

  The moon had risen, and there was plenty of light to see by. The clearing behind the hedge was small, but it was sheltered, and then the boy was pulling him out of the saddle, speaking to him gently as if he were a wounded dog.

  I'm not the one who needs that, Nicholas thought with some offense. I wasn't the one who was about to... about to be burned...

  He barely made it down from the saddle in time. His knees went, and the only reason he didn't end up in a pile under his horse's hooves was because of the boy.

  The boy shoved his shoulder under Nicholas's arm, laughing a little more ruefully now.

  "All right, come this way. You're heavier than you look, and I can't haul you far."

  Nicholas tried to say something, but the boy, in his own way, was authoritative. He had bound up his shirt until it was something a little more like a garment, and he settled Nicholas down at the base of a tree before going back to the horse to rummage through the saddlebags for supplies. He came back with some tinder and a flint, and soon enough, there was a merry fire dancing in front of them.

  Nicholas felt something relax in his mind, but obviously it wasn't enough, because when the boy came to sit down next to him, Nicholas dragged him close. He was acting on pure instinct, like he had in France. The winter grew cold enough that the men huddled together like peas in a pod. It was the only way to keep warm in the face of the cold. It was the only way to stay sane after what they had been through.

  The boy yelped, but after a moment, he eased, sitting still, and allowing Nicholas to cling as long as he wanted.

  They passed some timeless moment like that, and Nicholas calmed to where he could notice a few things. The boy didn't feel right pressed against him, and then he remembered like a flash of light what he had seen when he had ridden up and the boy's tunic was still torn and hanging.

  "Are you a girl?" he asked blankly.

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  chapter 3

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  Ava sighed. She had hoped that in the madness of his admittedly impressive rescue, the man hadn't noticed what was under her shirt. It seemed as if her luck was still bad at the moment, however, and the man was now looking down at her with an expression of utter confusion.

  “Did they dress you like that before they were going to burn you? What in all the blazes is going on in Scotland?”

  The statement finally let her hear his accent properly for the first time, and she stared at him.

  “I think being an Englishman is a worse problem than being a girl, if you ask me,” she said, and he frowned at her.

  “That's neither here nor there. Are you going to call down Robert the Bruce on me?”

  “Seeing as I cannot whistle him out of the bushes like a hound, no.”

  “Then I'm not too worried. Why are you a girl?”

  “Who knows who decides these things?” Ava snapped. “Who told you it was compassionate or polite to ask personal questions of people you have just met?”

  “I think that when I have just saved them from being... from being burned, that that might offer me some license.”

  Ava sighed, because whether she liked it or not, she did owe him a debt for what he had done for her. She had lost her sword, but she still had her belt pouch hanging down by her side. She could give him some of the money she had there, and she was almost about to offer, but then she realized he was still shivering.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Fine. I'm fine.”

  “That doesn't sound fine. You sound like you're sick.”

  “I'm not sick.”

  “You sound like a nine-year-old boy saying he's fine to stay up a little longer. Stay there.”

  She rose from the man's side to go to the saddlebags again. This time, she unsaddled the horse and used the hobbles she found to pen him for the night. He was a tall and broad animal, with a sleepy, easy patience to him that made her think of the plow horses she had known most of her life. She stroked his velvety nose for a moment.

  “Maybe you could teach your master some patience?”

  Rummaging in the bags brought up a thick wool blanket, and she brought it back to the fire. The man looked up blankly as she knelt and wrapped it around his shoulders. There was something in his eyes, or perhaps, she thought, there was somethi
ng missing there. Since he wasn't asking her questions that were none of his business for the moment, she decided she liked him a little better.

  “What's your name?” she asked, smoothing the blanket over his shoulders. By the flickering light of the fire, she couldn't tell his eye color or his hair color, but she could see the harsh lines of his face. She reckoned he was some five or six years older than her own twenty-two, though she imagined he would look a bit younger if he smiled.

  I don't know if that's something this man does a great deal of...

  “My name,” he said, and he sounded oddly fuzzy. “My name is Nicholas. Whitfield. Of... Well. I'm not. Anymore.”

  “Well, that's a shame.” Ava nodded and rose to her feet. She didn't have much, but she knew which way not to go at least. The man likely wouldn't die before he recovered from whatever fit this was, and given the way he was shaking slightly, he wasn't in the best of shape to run after her, nor to get his horse saddled again.

  She didn't have much, having lost her sword and some of her gear, but she still had her money and a short slender dagger slid down into her boot. That would see her well enough until she could get to the coast, and from there, perhaps she would go north. It didn't matter. It was away.

  She started to turn away into the dark, but then his hand grasped hers. It didn't hold her tight, but for some reason, the man's touch—Nicholas's touch—sent a strange thrill through her. It started low in her body and traveled up her spine. It was such a singular sensation that she simply stared at him instead of trying to shake him off. When Ava looked down into his eyes, they looked as deep and dark as the lochs at night, as if she could drown in him.

  “Please,” he said. “Please do not go.”

  There was nothing else to it. No pleading, no bullying, nothing but a naked human request that for some reason struck her straight to the heart.

  Ava wavered, because she knew that the right thing to do, the smart thing, was to get as far away from this man as possible. He may have rescued her, but he was a man, and sooner or later, men tended to get offended by what she was or entitled to her because of what she was. She didn't want to deal with either of those behaviors tonight, not after she’d had such a bad time already.

  It only made sense to leave this man and to continue making her way north.

  Instead, driven by a compulsion that Ava didn't quite understand, she squeezed his hand gently.

  “Will you stop asking me stupid questions?”

  His lips twitched a little, almost as if he were trying to remember how to smile.

  “I'll try. Will you tell me your name?”

  “All right. I'm Ava Fitzpatrick.”

  When he didn't flinch from that, she sat down on the ground next to him, scooting close and tugging at the blanket.

  “Here, give me some of that. Don't be greedy.”

  When Ava was properly under the blanket, she blinked in surprise.

  “How are you so cold?”

  “Wound. I was wounded not that long ago. I think this is why they... tried to keep me at the abbey.”

  “Ah, an escaped monk. I see. But maybe you could have stayed until they declared you healed?”

  He shook his head, almost as if he wanted to clear out the cobwebs that were stopping him from thinking so clearly.

  “No. No. I can't wait. Waited too long already. I have to... I have to find her.”

  “Her?”

  “Catherine,” he said, and his voice was so full of anguish and grief that Ava winced. She had heard things like that when the fighting with the English was still going on in full force. Clan Blair was never a part of the battles, safe up in their stronghold on the mountain, but they never came down into the mud and blood. She was of Clan Blair, of the laird Patrick Blair himself, but that didn't mean she stayed with them, and she had seen a great deal. She remembered that desperation, and it usually meant something terrible.

  Catherine, whoever you are, I hope you're there to be found.

  Outwardly, all she did was nod, reaching down to squeeze Nicholas's hand again.

  “It's all right. It will be well, and if not, you will make it well, won't you?”

  He laughed at that, and the desperation in his voice made her flinch a little.

  “I have made precious little well in a long time,” he muttered, but at least he went quiet.

  Ava didn't think he was truly ill. There was no heat rising from him, no sweat pouring from him. It wasn't the wound fever that had carried off so very many men during the fighting. She guessed that given his weakened condition and the drama with which he had pulled off her rescue, he was only overtired, and his body was making its displeasure with that known.

  “We shall see what some sleep might do for you,” she said. “Will you lie down?”

  “With you?”

  The incredulity in his voice made her flinch for some reason. She had been born a bastard with no place in or out, and she had spent so much time being seen as something other than a proper woman that she had quite a thick hide. Something about the way Nicholas said it, however, stung, but she kept her voice light when she answered.

  “Of course, me. Unless you want me to fetch your horse over here and to see if you like him better.”

  To her surprise, Nicholas laughed a little.

  “No. But tell me your name. I don't sleep with people whose names I don't know.”

  “I told you my name already. Did you forget?”

  “Tell me again, and I will remember.”

  She sighed.

  “All right. It's Ava. Will you lie down now?”

  He moved so quickly that she barely had time to get out a squeak of dismay before he had his arms wrapped around her and was pulling her to the ground, the blanket still wrapped around them. In a moment of panic, she thought that she had misjudged him entirely and that things were going to get much worse for her.

  Then she realized that he was only holding her against the nighttime chill, and that he had even let her be closer to the fire. She relaxed, letting out a breath, and then she shivered when he whispered to her, his lips close to her ear.

  “Good night, Ava.”

  “Good night, Nicholas,” she sighed, and she tried to get some sleep.

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  chapter 4

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  Just before dawn, Nicholas awoke with a dry sick heat in his body that made him wince. Brother Michael had been right. He hadn’t been ready to leave the abbey yet, but that didn't mean he could go back. His thoughts were interrupted by a second realization. There was a woman in his arms.

  There was enough light for him to look down at her, and he wondered how delirious he had been last night to think she was a boy at all.

  Ava's dark hair was cut short and worn loose like a boy's, but her face was delicate, her black brows finely arched. Her skin was darker than a noblewoman would ever want her skin to be, but it was flawlessly smooth, and a delicate smattering of caramel freckles across her nose made her look achingly endearing.

  Pressed against her like two spoons stacked together, he could feel how soft she was. She was strong. He had seen that last night as she had wielded the spear as easily as a soldier would, but there was a kind of sweetness to her as well that made something inside him ache.

  She would be a shockingly beautiful woman if she dressed the part, Nicholas decided, but instead, she was fascinating, a strange mystery that only became stranger the more he thought of it. How had she ended up in that village? Where were her people? He thought uneasily of the fighting that had ceased for barely a year and that was likely going to start up again. Had she lost her family? Was she traveling to try to get to them?

  “You're staring.”

  Nicholas jumped a little as Ava spoke, her lips curving into a slight smile even as her eyes stayed closed.

  “I'm sorry.”

  “It's fine. I'm a novelty.”

  “A novelty?”


  “It sounds better than saying freak, doesn't it?”

  “I wouldn't call you that.”

  “That's nice. What are you doing up so early? We could sleep a little longer.”

  “I shouldn't,” he said with a wince. “I have to be up to. Well. I have business.”

  “Does it have to do with Catherine?”

  That made him tense, and it didn't help when Ava chuckled a little.

  “Don't look so very alarmed. You were talking last night, and maybe your tongue ran away without you. You mentioned a Catherine. You need to find her.”

  “Well, yes, I do.”

  “Nothing for me to use against you. Nothing for me to concern myself with.”

  Nicholas waited for what she was going to say next, but after a moment, he realized that she was drifting off to sleep.

  “You are entirely too unwary,” he snorted, and then he blinked as she opened her eyes to look at him.

  Something in her gaze took his breath away. It had been impossible to get a good look at her in the night. With the light coming stronger, he could see now that her eyes were a bright and sparkling blue, like the sky in May, stunning as a diamond found in the mud.

  “Too unwary?” she asked, her voice slightly mocking. “And why would I be that?”

  Nicholas wondered for a moment if her eyes held a witch's charm. He wanted to look into them longer, found it harder to speak around a thicker tongue. He blinked and shook his head.

  “Look at you now,” he said gruffly, concealing his surprise. “Last night you were being menaced by that lot of hooligans in the valley, and today you are lying as close as eggs in a nest with a man who is only a stranger to you.”

  Instead of being abashed, her eyes narrowed with a glint of amusement in them that made her glance as sharp as glass.

  “Oh, poor little me,” she said sweetly. “So very helpless.”