Highlander Betrayed (Guardians of the Targe) (21 page)

Her hand on her lips kept a moan from escaping. She was a Highlander. She might have allowed herself a moment of weakness with Nicholas—several moments, if she was honest with herself—but now Rowan knew the truth, and she would do whatever it took to make sure neither Nicholas, nor Archie, got any information to Edward Longshanks in England.

And that meant getting back to the castle immediately. She had to warn Uncle Kenneth. They had to hunt down the two traitorous spies. She could not think about what the punishment for spying would be. It was earned, deserved. She rubbed the heel of her hand against her chest, trying to ease the ache that burrowed there.

She needed a plan. If she went straight back to the castle one or both of the spies would likely be waiting for her, recapture her…

She wouldn’t think about that either.

She knew these woods and bens better than either of them did. She had the advantage there. She knew the castle, its people, and the rhythms of their days better than either of them, too. Another advantage. She glanced up, peering at the sky through the dense foliage of the spring forest. It was not yet midday. Her best chance was to approach the castle under cover of night. It would be daft to think at least one of the spies wouldn’t be keeping watch and easily see her if she tried to return during daylight.

But she couldn’t stay here. She’d run quickly, but she had no doubt she’d left a trail behind her for them to follow. She needed to move, and she needed to cover her tracks.

And this was where her years of exploring the bens would come to her aid. She quickly oriented herself. There were several burns that ran down this face of the ben and one was not too far to the west of her hiding place. She listened carefully, not just for the footfalls or voices of men, but for the creatures of the forest whose hearing surpassed hers. When she was sure no one was close by she stood and made her way to the burn, carefully avoiding as many things that would betray her passing as possible. When she got to the burn she stepped into the water and quickly made her way up the ben.

N
ICHOLAS
’
S FIST POUNDED
into Archie’s face, sending him spinning deeper into the water, flailing and spluttering as he found his footing. Nicholas backed out of the loch onto dry ground, then quickly scanned the clearing to make sure Rowan had done as he’d told her and run. She was gone, and relief mixed with remorse in a thick band about his chest.

“I knew you were hiding something from me.” Archie charged out of the water, hatred etched on his pinched face. Nicholas stepped to the side at the last minute and swept a foot out to trip the man,
sending him sprawling face-first in the dirt. Nicholas knew Archie was more brawler than disciplined fighter. In this especially, his early training in the ways of Highland warriors served him well.

“We were partners.” Archie stood, brushing bits of gravel from his scraped-up face. “But no, you’ve gone soft on that Scottish whore.”

“She is no whore.” They circled each other, each looking for an opening.

“You are a stupid man.” Archie’s eyes shifted left, then right. He pivoted and sprinted for the forest.

Nicholas sprinted after him, diving and grabbing him about the legs, the two of them tumbling to the ground. Archie bucked and twisted but Nicholas did not release his hold.

“You are the stupid man. You told her everything!” Nicholas managed to straddle Archie. He grabbed the man’s hair and pulled his head back until Archie went stone still. “You betrayed our mission, you betrayed the king.” His conscience crackled in his head. Archie had done what Nicholas was contemplating, betraying his partner and his king for the sake of a woman, but he’d not tell the man that. “It is done and ’twill be your head on a pike, not mine.” He had to take the position of loyalty to the king if he had any hope of getting out of this alive.

Nicholas shoved Archie’s face into the ground and leapt to his feet, putting himself between the man and the forest, protecting Rowan as best he could. Archie carefully got to his feet, swiping at the blood that trickled from his nose.

“Not if I take your place inside the castle, another traveler in search of a dry bed and a warm meal. Not if
I
retrieve the Highland Targe and take it to the king myself.”

All the ramifications of this ran through Nicholas’s mind, all settling on one certainty.

“You would kill me and then Rowan? Do you really think Kenneth will welcome a stranger into their midst after his own niece has been murdered?”

“If the two of you disappear they will think only that you have taken their woman, and if I claim to have seen the two of you
together… well, I will be the only one who can set them on the right path to track you down and they will be overjoyed to take me into the bosom of their castle.”

“What makes you think you can kill me?” He filled his voice with all the derision and hatred he held for this man, goading him to attack again. “You were not even strong enough to keep hold of Rowan.”

Archie tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. He stilled, focusing inward instead of on Nicholas. His head lifted and he rocked back on his heels as he often did when he was thinking hard. “She threw me off without so much as touching me. One minute I was about to take her and the next I was flying backward into the water.”

Nicholas took a step toward Archie, but the man was so focused on what had happened he didn’t even flinch.

“Perhaps there is more to Rowan than you have told me, old friend. A weak, mewling woman has never thrown me off before. She defended herself without a weapon.” Archie took a deep breath and a smirk spread over his battered and cut face. “
She
has the Highland Targe. I did not believe the stories, but how else to explain what she did? It must be small, not a true shield at all, but some symbol, some relic. She must have it on her person to throw me off so forcefully. You have had the Targe within your reach, within your embrace, and you either did not know it, or could not bring yourself to do your duty to your king, lost between the lusty wench’s thighs.”

Nicholas took a slow breath. Rowan had thrown the man off… he’d known it, but hadn’t stopped to consider how she had managed it. Regardless, she was not the keeper of the targe, he was certain of that—as certain as he could be with no real information—but his instinct and what he had observed told him Elspet was the one. Regardless, he could not let Archie believe it or Rowan would be in even more peril than she was at this moment. His dream seemed more prophecy now than simple nightmare.

“Nay,” he said slowly, clearly, “Rowan is not the one we seek. Lady Elspet is.”

“You lie to me again!” Archie snorted. “I am not blind, Nick. You wish to keep her for yourself? The question is: Are you really
addled by this woman?” His face hardened, his brow a solid line over suspicious eyes. “Or were you planning on cutting me out?” He drew his dagger and lunged at Nicholas, aiming for his gut but Nicholas spun away, grabbing for his own dagger and preparing for Archie’s next attack.

“You know I am better at this than you are,” Nicholas said, circling the other man.

“No, but perhaps Rowan will be the judge.” Archie slashed at Nicholas again, feinting right, then slicing down, drawing blood from a shallow cut along Nicholas’s arm.

Nicholas engaged Archie in feints and lunges, moving back toward the loch, away from the forest edge, letting the man think he had the upper hand. When he reached the rocky verge of the loch, he struck fast, again and again, parrying Archie’s moves with ease, and turning the fight until Archie’s back was to the dark waters. The two of them stared at each other, their breaths coming fast and hard with their efforts.

As Nicholas looked upon Archie, he stared at his past, the greed, the violence, the betrayal he had handed out again and again in service to the king. It was a life he’d been proud of.

But not anymore.

Something about this place, these people—Rowan—had reminded him of who he wanted to be so long ago: a Highland Warrior who protected those who could not protect themselves, who put family and clan above all else, a man of honor. He had not thought he’d had a choice in leaving that behind, in learning to survive in less honorable ways.

But he did. He had a clear choice in this moment. Archie was all he had been. But not all he would be. Archie had already spoiled the trust that had been building with Rowan but that didn’t mean Nicholas could go back to his old life. He wasn’t the same man he was a fortnight ago. He didn’t want to be that man anymore.

He’d not let Archie take Elspet or Rowan. He’d not allow the Targe to fall into Edward’s grasp.

His choice was made.

Nicholas attacked, moving quickly, forcing Archie out onto the narrow peninsula of rocks that Uilliam had said was good for fishing. He pushed and struck, drawing blood from cut after cut until Archie stood at the end of the spit of land. With a quick feint and a backhanded attack, Archie’s dagger flew out of his hand and into the water. Nicholas shoved his own dagger into its sheath as he lowered his head and rammed it into Archie’s chest, sending them both flying into the loch.

The shock of icy water broke the anger that was driving Nicholas. He pushed away from the grasping, flailing hands of Archibald of Easton, only then realizing how deep the loch was even this close to shore. Archie couldn’t swim. Nicholas knew he should let the man drown. It was the best way to solve this problem, but something would not let him swim away from the man who was the closest thing Nicholas had to a friend all these years. He knew, were their situations switched, Archie would have no trouble letting Nicholas drown.

He watched as Archie slapped the water, coughing, and crying out to Nicholas to save him. Nicholas sighed, shoved his dripping hair away from his face, and knew himself for a fool.

He neared the floundering Archie, avoiding the man’s grabbing hands. Nicholas grabbed Archie by the collar of his tunic and dragged him back to shore with sure, strong kicks that pulled them both through the inky water.

When he could touch the bottom, he stood, still dragging a now limp and coughing Archie up onto dry land. He dropped the man facedown on the rocks, planted a knee in his back, and grabbed his dagger from its water-filled sheath. He held the point of it to the back of Archie’s neck.

“One move and I’ll drive this into your spine. If you don’t die immediately, you’ll lie here unable to move until someone finds you or I push you back out into the water to drown. Do you understand?”

Archie started to nod but instead gave a strangled grunt.

“Good. I have a new mission for you.” Nicholas gritted his teeth and forced himself not to slide the dagger home as he considered the
best way to appeal to Archie’s pride and avarice, the best way to get him to leave Scotland and conceal the truth from anyone else, especially the king. “Go to the king and tell him—”

“Tell him what?” Archie croaked out the words. “That you have thrown him over for the favors of a Highland barbarian?”

Nicholas ground his knee into Archie’s back, eliciting a startled groan from the man.

“If you convince the king that you found the targe, and that you found it somewhere far away from Dunlairig, you will have the king’s reward, you will not share it with me, and, if I am out of the way, you will be the king’s favored spy.”

“Bollocks. He’ll have my head on a pike. Why would I lie to the king for you?!”

“Because if you do not, you will die here. Now.”

Archie was silent, considering his options, no doubt.

“You would not kill me,” he said, his voice full of bravado. “You could have left me in the loch to drown but you did not.”

“I’m finding that was a poor decision on my part.” Nicholas let the point of the dagger pierce Archie’s skin just enough to let a pearl of blood well up, then run down the side of his neck.

“I do not have the Targe,” Archie said. “How am I to take it to the king when you do not even know what it looks like or where it is?”

“I will find it and get it into your keeping.”

“All this for a wench?” Archie spat the words out.

Nicholas pressed the dagger in a little more. Blood now ran in a steady stream over Archie’s neck.

“I’ll do it,” Archie whispered. “I’ll do it,” he said louder.

“Your word.”

“You would trust my word?”

“Nay, but I would have it anyway.”

“My word. Release me and I will do as you wish.”

“You will await me in Oban,” Nicholas said, trying to figure out what he could give Archie that would make for a believable Highland Targe if the man kept his word.

“Oban, fine, but you only have a fortnight at most before I must report to the king.”

“And you will tell the king?”

“I shall tell him your lies convincingly, you can be assured. If I dared tell him what has passed here he would have my head for not killing you on the spot.”

“Aye, that he would. I fear he will be very disappointed with me but if you tell him I am dead—convincingly—he will reward you for completing the mission.”

“Indeed. Now let me go. You have my word I will do as you wish.”