Page 2 of His Secret Highland Bride

He had possibly saved her life, her virtue for certain, but he was even more imposing than the two lads who had attacked her. He’d held the large claymore as if it were no heavier than the stick in her grip.

Actually, the stick was becoming quite heavy as she attempted to hold it out from her body. Her hand shook either from fatigue or the reality of the situation settling in. In the end, it wasn’t the fact that he’d sheathed his giant sword, or that he was holding out his hands unthreateningly, or even that she grew too tired to hold up the stick.

It was the smile he offered that made her stand down and relax.

She instantly felt silly, for a smiling man could be as deadly as a sneering one. Perhaps even more so. But this man’s smile, despite the emptiness of it, spoke of safety. Shane. His brown hair and moss-green eyes had disarmed her of more than the stick. She blinked rapidly, trying not to allow the tears building in her eyes to fall. She didn’t want to seem weak, but if this man knew all the things she had endured in the last month, he could never think her weak.

Lindsay, daughter of the Wallace laird, looked nothing like she had when she’d left her home a month ago. Her mother had sent her to the MacPherson clan with a maid and a retainer to care for her mother’s sister, who was ill. But when Lindsay arrived, she’d learned her aunt had already passed. Her uncle begged her to stay on to help him tend to his three motherless boys, but as soon as the retainer left to return home to Riccarton, everything descended into chaos.

Her maid ran off in the middle of the night, taking Lindsay’s gowns and jewels with her. Her uncle’s lingering gazes unsettled her. The boys were sheer demons who, like their father, treated her like a maid. When she wrote to her mother requesting safe passage home, she was denied for reasons she still couldn’t accept. Her father planned to marry her to the heir of the MacPherson clan. She couldn’t think of a greater disgrace than becoming a member of this horrid clan.

Except, perhaps, returning home to tell her father she had rejected yet another betrothal he had arranged for her. Last summer, she had refused Robert Fletcher, the heir to the Fletcher Clan, and caused great embarrassment for her father.

She shivered at the memory of seeing such disappointment in her papa’s eyes. But, surely, he would need to understand why becoming the mistress of the MacPherson Clan was entirely unacceptable.

“Are ye a MacPherson?” she asked, her chin lifting as if she could tell if he offered a lie.

“Aye, though I’ve not been here in five years. I’ve only just returned today.” He frowned at the man lying on the ground, who was still breathing but unconscious from the knock to the head she’d delivered.

“It appears my clan has declined in recent years, if these two are any testament to the men tasked with protecting the people here.”

She sniffed. “I’ve not seen many better than these two.”

“And yet you go about the forest unaccompanied.” His frown showed his disapproval, but she saw something else as well. Worry. For her? Still, his reproach ruffled her feathers greatly.

She wished she hadn’t tossed away her stick, for she would have pointed it at him for greater effect. “Do ye think to judge me for taking a moment to sit on a rock alone in the middle of the woods? Why should I not be safe here? This is how the MacPhersons treat their women?”

Once again, Shane raised his hands in forfeit. “You have the right of it, Valkyrie. You should be safe to go anywhere you desire. I apologize for my clan that it isn’t so. May I offer my escort?”

She looked back to where the village lay beyond the forest. She wasn’t yet ready to return to the cottage with her uncle and the wee devils. She’d come to the woods for a bit of peace and had gotten just the opposite.

“I would request a moment to sit in silence before I return.”

He gave a single nod and gestured toward the rock where she’d originally hoped to find refuge. It looked out over a river that was swelled and rushing from the melting snow flowing down the mountains.

“I’ll wait until you are ready to depart and ensure no one bothers ye.”

He took a seat on a nearby stump and seemed content to wait for her no matter how long it took.

Shifting on the rock to find a comfortable position, she allowed the July sun to soak into her back as it sifted in through the trees to warm her. She looked down at her hands, red and chapped from the work she’d been made to do.

She wasn’t against labor. She enjoyed helping the Wallace women in the kitchens, and she took pride in what they accomplished by providing a hearty meal. The pleased grunts from her clan and the scraping of trenchers were her reward. But here, it was different.

Her uncle barked orders and forced her to do everything while he and his sons watched and made cruel jokes. They made her tasks more difficult for their entertainment. Tripping her while she was carrying wood. Bumping into her and making her spill the water she’d collected to make their meals.

She was exhausted most nights but feared sleeping too soundly for needing to keep watch. Her uncle had made no move to act upon his glances, but Lindsay worried it wouldn’t be long before he worked up the courage to do so.

“You would have been better not to have come here,” she said, breaking the easy silence between them. “Wherever you were, it was surely better than this place.”

He sniffed and frowned. “I don’t wish to argue, but, as I said, I’m a soldier. I’ve been fighting in France and Spain for the past five years. These two mutts don’t bother me compared to a line of French muskets.”

She recognized the pain swirling in his green eyes and wondered at what horrors he must have seen. Still, he wouldn’t find much peace here. “Ye haven’t been in the village yet, I assume.”

He laughed at that and then shook his head. “What is your name, lass?”

She rather liked the name he’d given her. After all, Valkyries were women of power and prestige. At least the Norse knew to respect their females. “Lindsay,” she said, pausing before providing her surname.

This man, honorable as he seemed, was a soldier just returned from war and most likely hurting for coin. Would he turn his back on honor if he learned who she was? The daughter of the Wallace laird, promised to the MacPherson chief, would bring a high price in ransom if given the opportunity.