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8
At that moment, Keira’s fury knew no bounds. She barged into the armory, where the guards’ weapons were kept, and helped herself to a longbow, one of the smallest of the hundreds that were there. Despite Keira’s arms being well-muscled for a woman, she could not pull the same load as a powerful man like Murdoch or Dougie. However, for her purposes, a small weapon was enough. She was not going to use it to kill anyone—not yet, anyway. Her father might yet force her to change her mind, however.
A number of the guards tried to stop her, but her anger had lent her strength, and she shoved them away furiously.
Keira rode into the trees as far as a large pine tree on which a sturdy wooden target had been nailed a long time ago. It had been put there by her mother’s lover, Malcolm, so that both she and her mother could practice and improve their archery skills. Her mother had become quite adept at using the longbow, and Malcolm had begun to teach her how to use both a dagger and a short stabbing knife too. However, in the end, it did neither her nor Malcolm any good at all since they had both died at her father’s hands.
Keira felt a fresh surge of fury as she thought of it. She had had nightmares for years because of the experience of seeing Malcolm dying in front of her, and she still had them even now, though much less frequently.
Her mother should have been there with her to guide her in her passage into womanhood and teach her the subtle art of becoming a lady. She should not have been left to lie moldering in a churchyard. It had been ten years since she had died, but Keira still missed her every day, and her hatred of her father had grown more and more intense during that time.
Keira had been brought up by Moira and educated by a series of tutors because Laird McTavish did not want his daughter to be illiterate. This was not because he cared anything about girls’ education, merely that it would reflect badly on him if his girl was seen to be an idiot. Yet Keira was not an idiot, and she had become a very intelligent woman, well-versed in the classics, fluent in French and Gaelic, and a superb horsewoman.
She had been practicing on her own with her bow and arrow ever since the death of her mother, having learned the basic skills by watching her and Malcolm. Her remarkable memory had enabled her to remember the skills she needed. She had also taught herself quite a bit about military strategy, first out of curiosity, then because it became useful to her.
Now she stopped at her special place, a clearing among the towering pine and spruce trees, her special place where she came to let off steam, particularly when her father was at his most odious. Here she could imagine that her target was Archie McTavish’s face. Since he had been growing more and more irascible and unreasonable in recent months, Keira had spent much more of her time here. She was about to suggest teaching Adaira how to use a longbow and dagger too. Somehow she knew that her father’s wife would welcome the chance to point a bow at her tormentor, even if she never fired it.
The target had been pockmarked over time with the strikes of hundreds of bowshots since Keira had been coming to the same spot for years to remember her mother and the kind and patient young man who had loved her.
Now she stood in front of the target, steadying her breath. As she let loose the first arrow, she cried: “Die, Archie McTavish!” in a voice that carried out to the edge of the forest. She poured all her anger, hatred, and spite into that roar, but strangely, she did not feel any better after she had loosed the arrow. Her neck was still sore, and she was beginning to feel the first pangs of a headache behind her eyes. Giving vent to anger, she had found, sometimes caused more pain, never lessened it.
Keira sighed, reflecting that the day had not started well and showed no signs of becoming any better. She sat on a tree stump and rested her head on her knees for a while, then stood up and looked at the target again. Her last arrow had landed wide, almost missing the target, and she was determined to do better this time.
She stood up again and loosed another arrow, this time hitting the target dead center. Keira smiled, then lined up another one, which landed just beside the previous one. She carried on, her movements becoming faster and more fluent until she was no longer thinking about them. It was wonderful; every rational thought had left her head, and there was only her, the bow, and the target.
She had used up all her arrows and moved forward to retrieve them, but at that moment, she heard the loud snapping of a twig behind her, the noise like a cannon shot in the still woods. She had already plucked out one arrow, and she fitted it swiftly to the bow, then whipped around at once, only to see the last person she had expected or wanted to see.
* * *
Murdoch, having a day off from his duties, had decided to take a leisurely walk in the woods around the castle. In this part of the country, the trees were sparse, and it was easy to see through them to the other side. He was walking slowly, breathing deeply of the fresh spring air since the weather had decided to cooperate for a change and bless him with sunny weather on his free day. He looked up at the blue sky between the treetops, trying to think of something else but Keira, but it was impossible.
Murdoch’s mind was full of her. She haunted his dreams at night, but on the frequent occasions when she passed him during the day and they caught each other’s eye, she would nod at him coolly and walk on. He meant nothing to her, of course. She was a laird’s daughter, and he was merely a guard, even if he was the highest ranking one in the castle. She had no idea how much he wanted to sweep her off her feet and do unspeakably wonderful things to her.
He could see the image of her now, her hips swaying provocatively as she walked in front of him. Then, abruptly, she turned around and stopped in front of him with a teasing smile on her face. He smiled back, and less than a moment later, she was in his arms. He could feel her fingers teasing the hair at the back of his head, then her gaze dropped to his lips.
Nothing was said, but their lips were moving toward each other, closer, then closer still. However, when they were a hair’s breadth away from touching, he heard the loud twang and thud of an arrow being let loose from a bow and hitting its target. He jumped, startled, and immediately the vision before him disappeared into thin air. He felt a plunging sense of disappointment; the daydream had been so real and so sensual that it had left him painfully aroused, and he had to stand still for a moment to collect himself.
Presently, he turned toward the sound of another shot, then another, and another. This was no ordinary archer since the ability to fire arrows at such a rate was not a skill that was learned quickly. No, this was an expert who had been honing his skill for years and years.
Murdoch, driven by insatiable curiosity, crept into the trees to find the source of the sound. He did not quite know why he was being so cautious because he knew every archer in the area.
However, a bow was not a farmer’s weapon, and the chances were that it was no more than one of the guards from the castle honing his skills, yet something told him to be very, very careful.
He managed to get within ten yards of the bowman, then his mouth dropped open in astonishment. It was none other than Keira McTavish who was deftly pulling arrows out of a quiver on her back. She was fitting them to her bow before firing them in such quick succession that it seemed as though her movements were one continuous flow. Quiver, bow, loose. Quiver, bow, loose. She collected the arrows from the target every few moments and began the whole sequence again, and he was stunned by the accuracy of her shots and the rhythm of her movements. She looked as though she had been born to do this.
This was a side of Keira McTavish that Murdoch had never seen, and he wondered why she had chosen to be so secretive about her skills. Did she have something to hide? He thought of her father; she had often looked at him with murder in her eyes. It was perfectly clear to everyone, except perhaps the laird himself, that she hated him with a passion, and since Murdoch knew Laird McTavish rather well, he was not a bit surprised.
He edged closer, partly covered by undergrowth, and he became so absorbed in watching her that he forgot to watch his footing and stepped on a twig. He winced as the noise pierced the silence of the clearing, then screwed his eyes shut for a second at the sound, knowing he had given himself away. When he stood up, he was not surprised to find himself looking at the tip of an arrow no more than a yard away from him that was pointing straight between his eyes.
Keira’s eyes were blazing with fury, and at that moment, Murdoch genuinely feared for his life. “Are you spying on me?” she hissed. “Perhaps for my father?”
He could think of nothing to say for a few seconds, then he shook his head.
“No, of course not,” he replied as calmly as he could. “Why would you think that?” He pretended to be puzzled.
“Because I can think of no other reason for a man to be skulking around in the bushes watching a woman!” she shouted. For a time, while shooting at her target, she had calmed down, but now her anger was back in full force.
“No, I was not spying,” he replied. “I was merely admiring your skill.”
