The Reluctant Highland Groom (4 page)

“Everything dies,” Connor said. “Even you and me.”

“But Cherub was a good boy.”

“Aye, that he was. And you’ll always have memories of him being a good boy.” Connor knelt down in front of her, placing his hands on her small shoulders. “This is why we must always be kind to one another, and to those we know, Cara. They could be gone so very quickly.”

Tears dripped down her cheeks. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye to him.”

“I know.” He hugged her, and she took comfort in his great strength. Connor was not all that much older than her, but he was so
strong.
So big and strong. Nothing would ever gear near her, so long as her big brother was there to protect her.

The next day, they had brought out a particularly round and shiny apple, filched carefully from the larder when the cooks weren’t looking. They had left it beside Cherub’s small cross, and she quietly asked her four-legged friend to come and enjoy it, if he were able.

When she came back the next day, the apple was gone.

She had run to Connor, overjoyed that his plan had worked, and had promptly gone looking for more apples. For better than a year, she left them by her pony’s grave, and without fail, they were gone by the next day.

Only later had she realized that Connor must have been taking the apples. Did he eat them all? She wasn’t sure. Maybe he handed them off to hungry locals, or fed them to his own horse.

But he had done her a kindness, and she had never forgotten.

Oh, Connor, why did you leave?

***

She awakened beside her brother’s cold, still body, and turned away from his staring eyes.
Gone too soon, my dear brother. Gone too soon.

Hours passed, though she was unaware of how long she stayed there. Cara gave little thought to the fact that whoever had slain her brother and his men might return, but when she heard voices nearby, and saw the faint glow of torches through the trees, she sprang to her feet.

Terror ripped through her, and her breaths were ragged and painful. Were they returning for her, too? Did they realize they’d missed the last of Zeke McHugh’s children?

The sky was gray, and to the east Cara saw the beginnings of a sunrise. Had she been here all night? She bent and grabbed Connor’s sword from where it had fallen. Though she struggled beneath the weight of it, she’d held a sword often enough to be able to heft it at whoever came through the trees to kill her.

Cara backed up against a tree and waited—the sword held straight toward the voices growing closer. Any moment now, they’d show themselves and she’d join her family in the afterlife. She tried her best to look brave, knowing Connor would want her to be brave.

Steady. She held the sword aloft, and through new tears waited for her end.

***

Alec’s mount carried him faster through the thick underbrush than his brother’s other guards, though he did not know why he was in such a hurry. The lone guard who had made it back to their keep to alert them of the attack on the McHughs had died before his boots had touched ground. He’d merely been able to mutter the word “yews” with his last breath before dying in Alec’s arms.

Yews. Surely he’d meant the yew grove between the Munro and McHugh lands. Nobody needed to say it--Gunns. It had been too quiet these past months, and now whatever their age-old enemies had planned was being unleashed.

He knew it was unlikely, but the thought that Cara might have survived spurred him on. When he saw the first body, he knew he was close and he stopped running, trying to prepare himself to find Cara among the carnage. As the sun’s first rays plied through the leafy treetops, he spotted her.

Though bedraggled and covered with crimson blood all down the front of her yellow gown, Cara stood with her back against a tree holding a man’s claymore in her shaking hands. She pointed it at him as Alec approached, and she let out a guttural, anguished cry. Her eyes were glazed over in terror, and she swung at Alec when he stepped too close. She didn’t recognize him.

“
Cara, lass,” he whispered, putting his hands out in front of him. It took her a moment, but eventually her eyes met his, and her face instantly crumbled as the terror and agony she’d held back came free. Her knees wobbled and before she could collapse, Alec scooped her up in his arms like a tiny ragdoll. She buried her head in his chest and cried the entire ride back to the keep.

“
Connor,” she kept whispering. “They killed Connor...”

“
Hush, lass. Save your strength.”

Even after they were safely inside the walls, Alec did not leave Cara’s side. Women came to clean her and wash her bloodied hair, and still he did not leave. She slept for nearly three days and Alec maintained his vigil by her side, pausing only to confer with his brothers.

“
Few survivors,” Logan reported, after a reconnaissance ride with Ramsey to the McHugh settlement. “Nearly seventy-five dead. The granary and the stables both burned. The great house survived, but parts were burned to the ground.”

Damn.

“
And they were already facing trouble for the winter,” Ramsey added. “This may be a death blow.”

Alec gritted his teeth. The McHughs were a vulnerable clan since Zeke’s death, and now with Connor’s murder, the remaining families wouldn’t make it through the coming winter. And there was no space readily available on Munro land to take the survivors. Nearly forty families would die before the spring if left on their own.

It was a wicked, albeit masterful stroke by the Gunns. They had struck hard and swift, and doubtless thought they’d eliminated any resistance the McHughs might provide in the future.

Meanwhile, the last McHugh clung to life.

“
What can we do?” Alec asked, thinking of the woman lying in bed upstairs. “It might do the folk well to see Cara alive. Do they know she’s survived?”

“
Not yet,” Logan said. “We thought it best to let the Gunns think the McHughs gone entirely. If they learn they missed one, who’s to say they won’t launch an attack on us next, or worse yet, leap upon her when she does at last travel home?”

“
Then you leave her people without hope.”

Ramsey sighed. “What would you have me do, brother?”

Alec had no better suggestions at the moment, though he thought there must yet be some way to turn the situation to their advantage.

Damn the Gunns! How had they been allowed to grow so strong and do so much damage? “Why have we not struck against them before? How could this happen?”

“
We grew complacent,” Logan growled.

Ramsey spun around. “We did no such thing! We can hardly help that their numbers are greater than ours—and that they’ve enjoyed good harvests while we’ve struggled. If Da were here, he’d…”

But their father was not there, and had not been there for years. The Gunns had taken him, too.

Alec closed his hand into a fist. “They will pay one day,” he said quietly. “They will. The rivers will flow with the blood of the Gunns, and Scotland will be better off for it.”

“
Aye,” Logan murmured.

Ramsey didn’t say anything, but he nodded slightly.

Alec let out a heavy breath and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll see to the lady,” he said.

“
She needs rest, Alec…”

“
She also needs to know what happened to her home.”

Alec could think of a great many things he’d rather do than make this particular visit. Enjoy a cup of wine by the fire, for one, or perhaps indulge in a much-needed ride across the hills.

For now, though, he had unhappy tidings to bring to Cara. She was awake and asking about her home, and while the healer advised him against it, Alec could not bring himself to lie to her any longer. She needed to know.

It was not a good conversation.

She did not take the news well, and had to be restrained and given a sleep draught when she had tried to walk back to her home, ill health and all. The night in the damp, cold weather had given her a fearsome fever and chills that left her beautiful face ashen and clammy.

But when Alec had gently explained to her all that had happened to her people that fateful day, she pushed the covers away and tried to knock him aside when he blocked the doorway.

“
To hell with you, Alec Munro,” she said in a broken whisper, her voice frail from the sickness. “My people need me and you’ll not keep me here any longer.”

“
Cara, you must rest. You’re still healing...”

But she pushed him aside, staggering out of bed and toward the door. He gaped after her, astonished that she’d made it a foot, much less all the way across the room. She had courage, this one; courage, and a will to go on.

Of course she does.
She’d been brandishing a claymore when he found her, hadn’t she? She didn’t know how to properly wield it, but he’d no doubt she would have done some damage out of sheer desperation.

Even her will could not carry her into the hallway, though, and Alec was there to catch her when her legs finally gave out. “Sabrina!” he called, and his brother’s wife hurried down the corridor. “She’ll need another draught, I believe, lest she run out on us.”

“
Poor child,” she murmured, helping Alec tuck Cara back into bed.

Cara tried to push Sabrina’s hand aside. “Let me go. I need to go home—need to...need to...”

“
In time, sweetling,” Alec said, smoothing a hand over her forehead. “Rest. I beg you.”

“
You know what you can do with your begging, Alec?”

He waited for her to tell him exactly what he could do with his begging. Cara, no doubt, would not mince words. Her body, however, did not back her threats, and succumbed to exhaustion and the herbs quickly.

Sabrina let out a sigh. “We’ll have to keep dosing her, if she’s to be like this. Stubborn as a mule, this one.”

“
She’s right to worry, though. We must see to the McHugh lands, and sooner, rather than later. The people there...” Alec pursed his lips.
And Ramsey sent men south to help his wife’s uncle.
They could scarcely spare to send someone else to oversee the McHugh land. They hadn’t the time, nor the men.

Surely the Gunns knew that.

He looked down at Cara, her face so peaceful in sleep.
When did she become so strong? She was a wee little lass, irritating at that, and now...

Now she was something else entirely.

Alec was beginning to wonder if denying a marriage with her was all that good of an idea. Surely he could have done far worse, and besides, if he’d said yes, Connor would not have ridden off in a huff, would not have led them back to the McHugh lands...

Alec shook his head. There was no sense in troubling himself over this now, not with all that went on.

***

Nearly a sennight had passed with little improvement in her condition.

“
Her body won’t heal,” Sabrina said one afternoon, closing the door behind her. She’d been in to check on Cara and try to force broth on the girl. Cara was wasting away from her inability to hold any sort of food down. “She’s dying of a broken heart.”

Alec went inside and sat down next to Cara’s bed. Her eyes were closed and her breathing shallow. He watched the short, quick breaths she took. After the weeks caring for her, he’d memorized the planes of her face. He knew the delicate tilt of her chin and her pouty lips. He gingerly stroked her cheek with the back of his hand and was surprised when her face turned toward the caress.

“
He’s dead because of me,” she whispered. Her eyes were closed, but Alec did not miss the single tear that slid down her cheek and landed on his knuckle. “Had I not lost my temper, he would not have ridden off in anger. I caused this, Alec. I deserve to die. Why do you keep fighting this fever?”

His throat constricted at her words and he grasped her face in his hands. She opened her eyes and looked at him when he spoke.