Logan had first seen Woodburn’s daughter when he’d separated from his cousins’ camp in the woods beside the river Teith to look for breakfast.
He had spotted a fairy instead. She was bending to a rabbit in a sunlit clearing, her delicate profile lit by a healthy glow. Two butterflies fluttered around her halo of pale yellow waves swaying softly in the summer breeze. He’d tried to stay away. But on the second day, when he should have been concerned with the enemy Covenanter, he found himself back at the clearing, watching from behind the trees for her return. She never saw him, either the first morning or the next.
But her father had. Woodburn’s men had surrounded him and fought with him. Sixteen to one. Finally, after he’d felled most of them, Woodburn stabbed him in, or near his heart. He hadn’t known at the time. But he still could remember the sensation of fading away. They beat him when he was dying and helpless and took him to Dunley Keep and to the baron’s dungeon.
He’d woken up twice while he was chained up there. Once, to realize that, sadly, he was not dead. And then once more when he dreamed that, at last, he had died and woken up with an angel.
He didn’t remember much after that—not until he’d woken up in Tor Castle with his kin around his bed.
From how they told it, his cousins had found him in Woodburn’s dungeon after discovering the baron’s men he’d fought in the clearing. They had arrived at the Covenanter’s holding, found Logan, and burned down the keep.
He knew he had much to be thankful for, but he was not always filled with gratitude. The lass he had almost died over was now dead herself. The enemy’s sword hadn’t pierced his heart but did more damage to his left arm and shoulder.
It left him unable to fight again.
“My sister, Scout, wants to wed an Irishman,” Jamie said when Logan entered the Main Hall.
“Why are ye tellin’ me and no’ my father?” Logan asked him, pouring a cup of water for Steafan and himself. “Marryin’ an Irishman isna as bad as weddin’ a Covenanter. I doubt the lochiel will refuse to allow it.”
Jamie’s smile brightened. “That is what I was hopin’ ye would say. Scout seems mightily taken with him. She would be heartbroken if the union was denied.”
“Is he a soldier?”
“Aye,” Jamie told him, popping another egg into his mouth.
“Then she will have enough heartache.”
Steafan agreed, and then, after another moment, Jamie agreed, as well.
All their mothers paid the price for having husbands who were soldiers. Logan remembered the nights his mother sat around the great hearth at Tor Castle waiting for her husband to return from fighting for the king. Thankfully, none of the Camerons or MacDonalds perished in the battles of those days.
Constantine Cameron had always returned home to his wife and bairns. Of the latter, there were three who lived to adulthood: Logan, his sister May, and Logan’s younger brother, Ealar. Three sisters had died early in their mother’s womb, and two brothers, Ailig and Alistar, had died of illnesses before they turned one. His mother, Ismay was strong; most at the castle whispered about her. Now that Logan was a grown man, he realized how delicately crafted his mother was. Aye, her will was strong to match her fiery hair, but it was the love Logan’s parents shared that strengthened her to continue to carry her husband’s bairns, despite losing so many.
Logan often thought about exchanging his life with Ailig or Alistar. He would do it if given the chance. One of his brothers would not destroy his life because of the sight of a lass. Logan had wasted his life and now he almost didn’t care about gainingit back. He was tired of training, tired of fighting his useless arm and teaching it to obey him again.
“I ask again,” Jamie said, putting down the bowl of porridge he’d scooped from a pot hanging over the hearth fire to pout at him, “ye will have a word with yer father fer Scout’s sake?”
How long ago had he asked the first time, Logan wondered.
He gave Jaime a reassuring smile and nodded. “Aye, after I meet the lad.”
“Why do ye have to meet him?” Jamie whined. “Ye will be too hard on him. Remember when that foolish Gerald of Dundee came to court yer sister? Ye put a snake in his bed!”
“Twasna venomous,” Logan pointed out.
“Do ye think that mattered to him when he ran oot of his bed and his house?”
Logan looked at Steafan and the two exchanged a grin. “How else was I to know if the man who wanted to wed my sister was a coward or no’?”
Jamie pouted harder. “Can ye no’ just take my word fer him? Why do ye have to meet him?”
“Because, if I am goin’ to vouch fer him, I willna do it blindly.”
Jamie sighed but nodded, knowing his cousin well enough to know that arguing further was useless.
They heard horses approaching and believing it was Ewen returning, they hurried outside. Instead of their fearsome cousin, they faced a small band of men armed with every form of weapon, quivers of arrows, dirks, Claymores, and pistols.
“All this fer me?” Logan muttered as he stepped out under the sun.
