Highland Destiny Read Online Free Page B

aye, he did. If he had sent an herald he couldnae have said it clearer. He stole away my young brother Eric, sent his curs onto my lands whilst the lad was out hunting.”
    “And so he was expecting you to come clamoring at his gates.”
    Balfour nodded, embarrassed by what he now saw as his own stupidity. “Aye, he was. I kenned that our attack was a mistake even as we rode onto the clearing before his keep. Then, I called to him to speak with me, to try and settle the matter without bloodshed. He led me to believe that he would do so, and, blind fool that I am, I drew nearer. It was a trap. He but wished me near enough to kill with ease and to make my men less watchful. It almost worked. Howbeit, his arrows fell short of their mark, and my men were wiser than I. They ne’er trusted Beaton’s plea for peace.”
    “Yet ye lingered there so that he could glean your forces.”
    “Ye dinnae understand, lass.” Balfour briefly wondered why he was taking the time to explain himself and the battle to her, then realized that he simply liked speaking to her. He suspected that he was also trying to explain the whole bitter failure to himself. “My men were enraged by this low trickery and wished to extract blood for blood. They are as weary of this constant war as I am, and their fury possessed them. It took but a moment to see that the day was lost, but men caught tight in the grip of battle and bloodlust arenae easy to reason with. When Nigel fell they came to their senses long enough for them to heed my calls for retreat.”
    “And Beaton still holds fast to your brother.” Maldie felt a wave of sympathy for the man, but did not want to. She did not want to become concerned with his trials and tribulations. She had enough of her own.
    “Aye, but at least wee Eric now kens that the Murrays will fight for him.”
    “And why should he think otherwise? He is your brother.”
    Balfour grimaced and hesitated, then decided there was no need to be secretive. “Eric is but my half brother. My father bedded one of Beaton’s wives. Beaton discovered the liaison. When Eric was born he had the bairn set upon a hillside to die. One of our men found the lad. It wasnae hard to discover who he was and why he had been cast aside.”
    “And thus began the feud.”
    “Aye, thus began the feud. E’en my father’s death didnae end it. Now it takes on a new shape. Beaton tries to claim Eric as the son he could ne’er breed on his own. He means to use the lad as a shield ’twixt him and all those who hunger for what he has. We must rescue Eric ere Beaton’s illness makes him too weak to fight off the wolves, or finally takes his life.”
    “Beaton is dying?”
    Maldie bit the inside of her cheek until tears stung her eyes. She did not need the swift narrowing of Balfour’s eyes to tell her that she had reacted suspiciously to that news. Her voice had been too sharp, too full of emotion. The thought that Beaton’s age and illness might rob her of the chance to gain her revenge infuriated her, even alarmed her. Beaton dying on his own would leave her unable to fulfill her vow to her mother. Maldie knew all of that emotion had been clear to hear in her voice. She prayed she could talk away Sir Murray’s blatant curiousity.
    “Aye, ’tis what I have been told,” Balfour said, watching her closely, confused by the sudden flare of emotion on her lovely face and its equally sudden disappearance.
    “I ask your pardon, sir,” Maldie said. “For one swift moment all I could think of was that ye had taken up your sword against an ageing, dying mon. Then I recalled your brother’s plight.”
    “Ye dinnae have much faith in the honor of men, do ye, lass?”
    “Nay. I have ne’er been given much cause to believe in such a thing.” She stared at the huge iron-studded gates of Donncoill as they drew within feet of them. “Surely there is a healing woman within such a fine keep, and thus ye have no real need of my skills.” She looked