Highland Destiny (22 page)

Thomas nodded. “There is no doubt.”

“So, lass, welcome home.”

Maldie sighed and stared blindly out over the high walls of her uncle’s keep. She had been fully accepted by her new family, joyously so. Despite her past, despite all she had done or tried to do, the Kirkcaldys were honestly happy to have her with them. She had been surrounded by comfort and kindness for two weeks. She should be the happiest she had ever been, but she was not. The moment she left the warmth of her family, the moment she was alone with her own thoughts, she grew sad, and all the pain she had tried so hard to ignore swelled up inside of her. Yet she continued to try and find moments where she could be alone, and that made no sense at all to her.

“Who are ye yearning for, lassie?” asked her uncle as he walked up and leaned against the wall at her side.

“And why should ye think I am yearning for anyone?”

“I am five and thirty, lass. I have seen a wee bit of yearning in my time. E’en suffered it myself for my wife, may God cherish her dear soul. Ye are yearning. Now, if I was a wagering mon, I would wager that ye are yearning after the laird of Donncoill.”

Maldie tried not to look as surprised as she felt. She tried to think over all she had told her uncle to see where she may have given herself away, but it was impossible. She had been talking for almost two weeks. It was possible that she had somehow given herself away simply in the way she said Balfour’s name. It was also possible that her
uncle was just guessing.

She sighed again. It did not matter if he knew. In fact, she was hungry for someone to talk to. Although she had been alone for most of her life, had sorted out all her problems by herself and mended all of her own hurts, this was something she seemed incapable of dealing with.

“Mayhap I am,” she finally said, “but it doesnae matter.”

“Are ye sure?” he asked gently.

“He isnae here, is he?”

“Nay, but that need not say anything of importance. How did matters stand when ye parted?”

“Not weel.”

He patted her on the shoulder. “Why dinnae ye just tell me it all from the beginning? Sometimes that can give the teller a clarity of mind. I may even be able to see what ye cannae, simply because ’tis your heart involved.”

There was enough truth in that to inspire Maldie to confess everything. If there was even the smallest chance that her uncle could help, she was willing to risk his censure over the way she had behaved. As she finished her tale, however, she saw the hard look of fury on Colin’s face and wondered if she had just killed the joyous welcome she had been enjoying for the last fortnight.

“I suppose I have followed in my mother’s footsteps,” she murmured. “I am sorry that I have disappointed you.”

“Nay, that is not why I am angry. I was just wondering how soon I could reach Donncoill and kill its laird.” He watched Maldie closely as she paled.

“Nay,” she cried. “Ye cannae do that.”

“Why not? He has dishonored ye, hasnae he?”

“I would rather not think of it as dishonored,” she said, wincing slightly even as she said the word, for she knew that would be the way everyone else saw it. “I just thought I could be—”

“What? A mon? That ye could taste your pleasures where ye wished and walk away?” He smiled crookedly, taking a few slow, deep breaths to get his anger at Balfour under control. “Ye may have more spine than many a mon I ken, but I fear ye havenae become a mon. Fair or not, a lass cannae just go about bedding any mon who stirs a heat in her. Nay, not if she wishes to hold to her good name. And, if she isnae a whore at heart, she cannae do it without cost to herself, without hurting herself. And that is what ye did, isnae it?”

“Weel, aye, I may have a wee bit.” She scowled at him when he laughed. “Oh, all right then, without a lot of pain. Aye, I foolishly thought I could just enjoy the passion and then leave.” She blushed a little. “It was a verra strong passion, ye ken, and I decided why not? It felt verra good and I was weak enough to want to enjoy feeling verra good for a wee while.”

He briefly hugged her. “No one deserved it more than ye. I just wished ye had thought a wee bit more of the consequences.”

“I did think of the consequences, but at the time I was also still thinking of killing Beaton. I was beginning to think that I wouldnae survive the fulfillment of my vow to my mother, so what did consequences matter? ’Tis not Balfour’s fault that I felt more than passion,” she added softly.

“Nay, but ’tis his fault that ye were given a taste of that. Ye couldnae feel it on your own. He saw it in you, he kenned that ye felt it, and he helped himself.”

“Nay, it really wasnae like that.” She told him about Balfour’s fears of acting like his reckless father. “He was as unsure as I. I had just hoped that more would come of it, and that was my own foolishness. Balfour is a mon who believes deeply in the truth, and I didnae deal in the truth verra often while I was at Donncoill.”

“It sounds as if ye dinnae expect the mon to come after ye.”

“I dinnae. What I hoped is that ye might be able to tell me how to stop looking for him.”

Colin smiled and shook his head. “That is something ye must do yourself. ’Tis a cure that is hard to find and ’tis one that is hidden inside of you. There is no salve for a broken heart.”

“They say that time can heal it.”

“Aye, but I often wonder if
they
have e’er suffered one.”

Maldie smiled. “Ye arenae helping.”

“There are only two things I can think of to do for ye. One is to kill the bastard, and the other is to go and fetch him and drag him here to wed you.”

“’Twould hurt me more if he was killed, especially if he was killed by my kinsmen. And I want no mon who has to be dragged to the altar by force. I only want one who sets himself there willingly.”

Colin slipped his arm around her shoulders and started to lead her down the steps and off the walls. “I could go and talk sense to the lad.”

“Somehow I think that would be much akin to dragging him back here at swordpoint.”

“I am sorry, lass.”

“’Tisnae your fault. ’Tisnae Balfour’s either. Fate decided that I must give my heart to a mon who cannae abide a liar at the verra time I was sunk in lies. Nay, I must accept that I lost this gamble. That even though passion became love for me, it remained only passion for him.”

“Then he is a fool.”

“Mayhap I will soon think so, too, and I am sure that will help cure me of yearning for him. ’Tis hard to ken that ye could love someone so much and they dinnae feel the same, mayhap ne’er can. ’Tis even harder when ye ken that it may weel be all your own fault.”

“Your sins werenae that big, lass. If the mon loves ye, he will forgive the wee lies ye told. If he doesnae forgive, then ye are better off alone. And although I have only kenned ye for a fortnight, I can say without hesitation that he will be the one who loses the most.”

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Thank ye. I will nay waste away hoping for him to come for me. Dinnae fear for that. My mother may have been a poor mother, but she did teach me one thing, how to survive. ’Tis one thing I can do verra weel indeed and even Balfour Murray, fine, handsome knight that he is, willnae defeat me. It may take me awhile, but I will push that mon out of my head and my heart.”

“If ye dawdle about much longer, that lass will have cured herself of wanting ye,” said Nigel, sitting on Balfour’s bed and watching the man pace his room.

“And what makes ye think that she still wants me?” Balfour asked as he stopped and stared at Nigel.

He had tried very hard in the last three weeks to get Maldie out of his head and out of his heart, and he had failed miserably. Worse, everyone seemed to know that he had. Eric and Nigel never lost an opportunity to try and persuade him to go after Maldie. They had no sympathy for his fears, for the terror he felt over the chance that he would go to her only to be pushed away. Even James had muttered a suggestion or two. Balfour was beginning to wonder if they were right and he was wrong.

“And what makes ye think that she doesnae?” asked Nigel.

“Oh, mayhap the fact that she isnae here.”

Nigel swore softly. “She wasnae going to wait for ye to decide what ye did or didnae feel about what she told you. The fact that ye said nothing for so long made her sure that whatever ye might say would be all bad. How many times does that have to be said before ye understand it?”

“Ye make her sound like a timid lass, one who would run at the fear of a harsh word. Maldie is nay a timid lass.”

“She didnae run from fear of
any
harsh word, but from fear of
yours
. That should tell ye something. What I begin to wonder is what are
ye
running from?”

Balfour sighed and sat down on the end of his bed. “A hard question.”

“But mayhap one ye should ask yourself. Aye, and mayhap one I should have asked sooner.”

“I dinnae wish to ride there and present myself, heart in hand, only to discover that she left because she was done with me. I have wronged her so many times from accusing her of crimes she hadnae committed, to killing her father.”

“She was intending to kill the mon herself,” Nigel said, nearly shouting as he fought the urge to shake some sense into Balfour.

“Aye, because she gave her mother her oath. Weel, I robbed her of any chance to fulfill that oath.”

“Which is a good thing.”

Balfour nodded. “I think so, but will she?”

“I think so, but ye will have to ask her.”

“Ye willnae leave it to rest, will ye?”

“Nay.”

“I would have thought that ye would prefer me and Maldie not to wed,” Balfour said quietly, watching Nigel closely.

“Weel, I willnae dance at your wedding, but I do want ye and her to be happy. Even though I may wish it to be otherwise, that will only happen if the two of ye are together. I kenned that early on. Ye are mates. Fate chose weel when she sent Maldie to you.”

“Do ye think she is still at the Kirkcaldys?” He frowned when Nigel looked a little guilty. “Ye have heard from her, havenae ye?”

“Weel, Eric and I have heard from her. We asked to ken if all went weel with the Kirkcaldys. Our reason was twofold. If it didnae go weel, we hoped she would tell us where she would go next. After all, we needed to ken where she was so that we could send ye in the right direction when we finally talked some sense into you. And it seems that her mother didnae tell the truth about her kinsmen, either.”

“They would have taken her in?”

“Willingly, happily. That mother of hers denied her a far more pleasant childhood than she had. There was no need for her to have lived fighting to eat and watching her mother become the whore of Dundee. And she would have had people to give her the caring her mother was incapable of.”

Balfour cursed and rubbed the back of his neck. “The lass has had more than her share of misery, and I didnae do much to ease that, did I? And, now, from what ye tell me, if I go to her, I will have to meet all of them as weel.”

“Dinnae try to use that as a reason to linger here and be miserable.”

It surprised him a little, but Balfour laughed. He wondered if, by deciding to take the risk and go after Maldie, he had somehow freed himself of the grief he had suffered since she had left. There was still a chance that he had lost her as he feared he had, but, somehow, the thought of going and trying to woo her gave him back a little of the hope he had lost. Balfour doubted he could hurt any more than he did now. And if he did go after her, he could at least cease to torment himself with questions about what would happen if he did. Good or ill, he would finally have some answers to all of his doubts and questions.

“I will leave for the Kirkcaldy keep on the morrow,” Balfour announced, and ignored Nigel’s exaggerated sigh of relief.

“Do ye want me to ride with ye or will ye take James?”

“I will go alone.”

“Alone?”

“Aye, alone. If Maldie can do so, then so can I. And if all she does when she sees me is spit in my eye and wish me straight to hell, I would prefer to suffer that humiliation alone.”

Balfour inwardly cursed and took a deep drink of the spiced cider he had been served with reluctant hospitality. He had had a long, tiring journey to get to the Kirkcaldy keep, and all he wanted to do was find Maldie and drag her back to Donncoill. Instead, he sat in a very clean, tapestry-draped great hall surrounded by what appeared to be dozens of Maldie’s kinsmen. If that was not discomforting enough, they were all staring at him as if he was a threat to her, and many of them had the same striking green eyes that Maldie did. The most imposing Kirkcaldy was their laird and Maldie’s uncle, Colin, a huge man with bright green eyes and the same thick, unruly black hair his niece had. He looked as if he would like nothing more than to run a sword through his heart, and Balfour wondered just how much Maldie had told the man.

“I thank ye for the drink,” he said as he set his empty goblet down on the well-scrubbed oak table. “It has washed the dust of travel from my throat. Now, if ye would be so kind as to tell me where I might find Maldie, I should like to speak with the lass.”

“About what?” demanded Sir Colin Kirkcaldy, rubbing a hand over his broad chest as he stared hard at Balfour. “Ye have held the lass at Donncoill for months. I am thinking ye had more than enough time to say whate’er ye wished to her. Aye, and more than enough time to say some things ye should ne’er have said at all.”

“Mayhap, sir, while she was there, I didnae ken exactly what I wished to say.”

“And, mayhap, now that she has been returned to her kinsmen, she doesnae wish to hear it.”

“Aye, true enough. But what harm in letting me speak my piece? I believe wee Maldie has the spine to tell me
aye
or
nay
or bluntly wish me gone from her sight.”

“The lass has more spine than some men I know.” Colin frowned at Balfour and softly drummed his long fingers on the table. “The child has had a hard life and I dinnae think she will e’er tell us all she had to endure. She was cast aside by her father, though that was truly for the best, and treated poorly by her mother. My sister had more pride than wit. She should have brought herself and that wee bairn home, not hidden herself away from us until we all thought her dead. An even larger crime to my way of thinking was how she raised that child to believe that we all wished for such a separation.”

“Nay. The woman’s worst crime was raising Maldie to be her sword of vengeance.” Balfour smiled coldly when Colin and some of the other Kirkcaldys stared at him in surprise.

“Ye ken that, do ye?” Colin refilled Balfour’s goblet, watching the man closely as he did so.

“I should like to boast that I guessed it all upon my own, that my wits were that keen. Howbeit, they arenae, and I was too all-consumed with Beaton, with stopping his constant crimes against my clan and with retrieving my brother Eric.”

“Maldie’s brother.”

“Aye,
and mine
. Ye cannae cast aside thirteen years of fostering a child, of calling him brother and believing it, just because his blood proves to be of another clan.”

Colin scratched the gray-spattered beard stubble on his chin. “Ye didnae say that when ye were first told the truth. I was told that ye didnae say much of anything.”

Balfour leaned back in his chair and felt his confidence slowly return. Colin Kirkcaldy was willing to give him a chance, to hear him out. He briefly wondered why Colin needed to know anything about his relationship with Eric, then inwardly shrugged.
In some ways Eric’s future and well-being could be of interest to the Kirkcaldys, since the boy was blood kin to Maldie. The way the boy was treated now that all knew he was Beaton’s son could also tell the man something. And although he could rightfully declare such things a private matter, Balfour certainly had nothing to hide and did not want the Kirkcaldys to think he did.

“I rode up to Eric and Maldie heady with the sweet taste of victory. Ere I could speak I was told that not only is the lass I want the daughter of the mon I had just killed, but so is the boy I have called
brother
for thirteen years. Mayhap I am not as quick of wit as others, but I found such news enough to steal away both speech and thought. Aye, especially since the reason for the long, bloody feud was that all thought my father had bedded Beaton’s wife and got her with child, and now Maldie was telling me that it wasnae true. Weel, not all of it leastwise. She then added to my shock by telling me the true reason she had been on the road to Dubhlinn, that she had come to murder her own father. Aye, and she added that she had planned to use me and mine to achieve that vengeance. I needed time to think o’er all I had been told and she gave me none, fleeing Donncoill ere we had cleaned our weapons of the blood of the Beatons.”

“That was nearly a month past, my friend. ’Tisnae that long a ride from Donncoill to here.”

“I have slow horses,” Balfour drawled, then inwardly cursed when Colin just grinned while a few of the many other Kirkcaldys crowding the hall softly chuckled. “She gave me no reason for why she was leaving. She just left. No fare-thee-weel, no explanation, not even a
thank ye for helping me exact the revenge I sought
. I was left to find my own answers for all she had done, for why she had fled, and none of them suggested that she would wish me to follow her. If naught else, I had just killed her father.”

“She cared naught for the bastard.”

“So she said. So everyone kept reminding me. But even if that were true, then there remained the fact that I had robbed her of the revenge she had been seeking for so long. She had made a deathbed vow to her mother, a blood oath, and I had just stolen all chance for her to fulfill it.”

“If that had troubled the lass, ye would have kenned it. She wouldnae have quietly slipped away. Nay, though I have kenned the lass for less than a month, I can say with confidence that she would have let ye ken she was angry.” Colin crossed his arms over his chest. “Do ye ken what I think? I think ye were sulking. Did ye really expect our Maldie to sit about and placidly wait for ye to decide what ye did or didnae feel about all she had just told you? Or what ye did or didnae feel about her?”

“I felt she should have given me a day or two to swallow all she had told me. ’Twas a belly full. My lover was my enemy’s child, my brother wasnae my brother, a long, costly feud had been based upon a lie, a bairn had nearly been cruelly murdered because of that lie and might still be deprived of his birthright because of it, and the lass I trusted admitted that she had lied to me from the beginning.”

“Ye didnae trust her the whole time she was there.”

“Ye seem to have won the lass’s confidence,” Balfour murmured, a little surprised that Maldie had told the man so much. “Nay, I didnae, and in the end it was revealed that I was right to wonder what game she played. She had a lot of secrets and she had lied to me. I but guessed the wrong game. Now, although I can understand your concern for your
niece, our discussing all of this only keeps me from seeing her. I have told ye all I mean to. Whate’er else needs to be said must be between me and Maldie.”

“She is on the east side of the loch.”

Balfour tried not to gape at the man as he slowly stood up. “That is it? No more questions? Ye arenae e’en going to ask me what my intentions are?”

Colin just smiled. “I feel they must be all that is honorable or ye wouldnae have chased the lass down. Ye certainly wouldnae have sat here trying to patiently answer my questions, some of which were most impertinent. And if ye just mean to further shame the lass, ye will ne’er leave my lands alive. Now, see if ye can get the fool lass back here for the evening meal. She hasnae been eating as she should.”

Balfour almost laughed as he stared at the man. “Maldie may not have been raised amongst her kinsmen, but I begin to see what is meant when people say blood will tell.” He could hear Colin laughing as he strode out of the great hall.

As soon as he mounted his horse it took all of his willpower not to gallop out of the Kirkcaldy keep and race for the loch. The thought that Colin might see him or hear of his haste and have a hearty laugh gave him the strength to act as if he felt no real urgency. Balfour also suspected that approaching the loch at a headlong gallop could easily warn Maldie, giving her time to hide or flee. The last thing he wished to do was to spend more precious time hunting her down. It was past time she ceased to guess at his thoughts or feelings and sat still to listen to what he had to say.

Maldie sighed, baited her fishing line, and dropped it into the water. Since arriving at her kinsmen’s lands she had spent many days lying in the soft grass at the loch’s edge, pretending to fish. A few times she had actually caught something, but it had been by accident. She only claimed to be fishing so that she could be alone. Her uncle Colin was a very clever man and she suspected he had guessed her game, but he said nothing. At times she caught a fleeting glimpse of one of her many kinsmen so she knew she was being watched, but she did not really mind. The guards her uncle set around her never disturbed her solitude, so she felt no urge to complain.

Most of her was still delighted beyond words to have found her family and be warmly accepted by them. There was a small part of her, however, that found such a large family very difficult to adjust to even after a month of trying. She was accustomed to being alone, to having no one save her mother to speak to and, quite often, her mother had been either sullenly silent or sharp-tongued and angry. Those ill moods had grown so frequent in the last year of Margaret’s life that Maldie had rarely spoken to the woman. Now, suddenly, she was surrounded by people who loved to talk, boisterous, friendly people. There were times when she had to escape to the quiet of the loch, had to steal a moment to be alone with her thoughts.

“Although why I should continually seek that when they arenae verra pretty ones, I dinnae ken,” she muttered to her reflection in the still, clear water. “I should be running away from the cursed things.”

Balfour still remained prominent in her thoughts and that angered her. It had been a month since she had seen him, longer since she had been kissed or held by him. He should not be haunting her, not so strongly or frequently. She loved him but that love had not been returned, had not even been acknowledged by either of them, and it had not been strengthened by word or touch or even sight of the man in weeks. Maldie did not
understand why her stubborn heart was so reluctant to let the man go.

It hurt, and she could almost hate him for that, except that she knew it was not Balfour’s fault, not completely. He had made her no promises, never once speaking of anything but the passion they shared. She had tried to talk sense to herself time and time again, but her heart simply refused to listen to reason. It had decided that it wanted Balfour Murray despite her better judgment, and it now refused to let him go.

A soft noise in the grass pulled her from her dark thoughts and she looked behind her, gaping up at the man standing there. As she stumbled to her feet she wondered wildly if her mind or her heart was playing tricks on her. She then thought of running, but sternly told herself not to be such a coward. Maldie straightened her shoulders and tried to calm the rapid beating of her heart.

“Why are ye here?” she asked, inwardly cursing the tremor in her voice, for she did not want Balfour to guess how tumultuous her emotions were.

“I have come for you,” he said, stepping closer and effectively trapping her between him and the loch. “Ye left without saying fareweel, sweet Maldie.”

He watched her closely but, except for a darkening of his fine eyes, she could not read his expression. To her astonishment she could not sense any emotion in him at all. It was as if he had shut himself away from her completely. Maldie wondered when and how he had gained that skill. It was a very inconvenient time for him to learn how to shield himself. She shivered, feeling chilled by the loss of her ability to touch him in that way.

“No one likes the bearer of bad news,” she muttered. “How is Eric?”

“The lad is hale. All of his bruises have healed. What did ye think I would do to him?”

“Nothing bad. Truly.” She dragged her fingers through her hair and grimaced. “I was just worried about him. He had suffered an ordeal. All he had once thought was true had been shown to be a lie. A mon he had been taught to hate, a mon who had tried to cruelly murder him ere his life had truly begun, was shown to be his true father. Aye, and although he told me that all was weel, I did wonder how ye and the others might truly feel about that.”

“Eric is my brother.” He shrugged. “I cannae change what I have felt and believed for so many years simply because I have discovered that the lad and I dinnae share a blood kinship. Until Eric told me how the truth had been revealed, I did, for a brief time, wonder how ye could have been so cruel as to tell him something he didnae need to know, something that could only hurt him. After all, the mark ye two share isnae one all can see with ease. It has to be uncovered. Then, all I had to try and understand was why ye had lied to me, and why ye lacked the courage to stand and face me.”

“I didnae think ye would wish to see me again after I had deceived you.”

Balfour reached out and took her by the hand, tugging her into his arms. “Did ye not once think that I might wish to hear the why of it all?”

“I told ye the why of it after the battle.” She tried to remain taut, to resist the allure of being back in his arms, but it had been too long. Slowly she rested against him, encircling his trim waist with her arms. “I told ye everything.”

“Oh, aye, and ye started with the worst news, the most shocking. After ye told me that ye were Beaton’s daughter, that your own mother had made ye vow to come to Dubhlinn and kill your own father, and that my brother wasnae truly my brother, can ye be so verra surprised that I wasnae listening too closely to anything ye said after that?”

She looked up at him and tried to think back to the day of the battle. It was hard, for what she wanted to do was savor the beauty of him, kiss those firm lips, and roll about on the soft grass in naked passionate abandon. Maldie pushed those thoughts aside, certain they would return with a vengeance, and relived the moment she had told him the whole ugly truth. She had thought the still, wide-eyed look upon his face had been shock and anger, but now realized that he had been stunned. The truths she had told him had hit him like blows to the head, each one scrambling his wits until he simply heard no more. She had not actually felt anything from within him, had not really been aware of his emotions at all. Maldie realized that she had decided how he would feel, and had never looked any further. She had also been too concerned with her own turbulent emotions, desperate to keep them tightly controlled, to even try to touch upon what Balfour had been suffering.