The Virgin Spring. Debra Lee Brown

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СКАЧАТЬ room from the small, high windows, and riddled the stone floor with a tapestry of light. He tilted his face up and let the sun bathe him in its warmth. “If only I could have saved them,” he whispered.

      Unbidden, memories of the fire came crashing in on him. The desperate cries of his uncle and aunt, the roar of the blaze, and the heat—the stifling, hellish heat. Gilchrist raised his hand instinctively to his brow as if to block the visions that raced through his mind.

      “Ye did all any man could have done,” Hugh said.

      “Did I?”

      “Aye, ye did.” Hugh’s expression softened. “Ye did all but die with them. And who would that have served?”

      The stony faces of his kinsmen swam before his eyes. “Mayhap everyone,” he whispered.

      Footsteps sounded on the threshold. Gilchrist looked up to see the elders, all save Murdoch, enter the hall. He stood tall and quickly slipped his burned hand into the folds of his plaid.

      “Thomas, Donald,” he said and strode toward the older men.

      “Ah, there ye are,” Thomas said. “We’d have a word with ye.”

      “Aye, we would,” Donald added.

      Gilchrist joined them in the doorway and Hugh moved swiftly to his side. “So, what is it ye wish to discuss?”

      The elders exchanged a brief look, then turned to him. “The Macphearson,” Thomas said.

      “Aye, The Macphearson,” Donald repeated.

      Gilchrist knit his brows. “What about him?”

      “Alex thinks we should no trust him,” Thomas said. “That we should move against him afore he moves against us.”

      “Aye,” Donald said. “Afore he moves against us.”

      “Alex said this?” Gilchrist caught Hugh’s I-told-ye-so look out of the corner of his eye and frowned.

      Both men nodded.

      “And do you, Thomas Davidson, think we should no trust him? And you, Donald?”

      The elders exchanged another look before Thomas spoke. “Weel—”

      “And why should we no trust him?” Gilchrist said, his patience wearing thin. “What has The Macphearson done to us that we should make war on his clan?”

      “But Alex said—”

      “Does The Macphearson no wish to join us at the gathering this summer?” He turned to Hugh. “Did ye no tell me this less than a sennight ago?”

      Hugh nodded. “I did. Our scouts carried the news from the western border where they’d met up with a Macphearson hunting party.”

      Gilchrist leveled his gaze at Thomas. “They may wish to join the Chattan. The alliance. Did ye no think of that?”

      “That’s exactly what I’d thought, at first,” Thomas said. “But then Alex—”

      “Aye, Alex said—” Donald repeated.

      Gilchrist silenced the both of them with an upraised hand. The elders stared at it, wide-eyed. He realized then, he’d raised his burned hand. To hell with the both of them. He was sick to death of concealing it.

      “Think of it,” he said. “The Chattan, the four—Davidson, Mackintosh, Macgillivray, and MacBain. The alliance my father worked his whole life to see, and that my brother, Iain, at long last forged.” He paused to let his words sink in. “And now Macphearson. We could be five. Five Highland clans at peace instead of war.” Gilchrist nodded slowly and looked from Thomas to Donald, then let his gaze fall upon Hugh.

      “Aye,” Hugh said, nodding agreement. “And Alex would destroy it before it’s e’er begun.”

      The elders were quiet. Gilchrist leaned against the stone portal of the keep and looked out across the bailey which bustled with activity.

      He caught sight of Rachel, arm in arm with Alex, making their way up the hill from the village. He didn’t like the way Alex was smiling at her, nor the way he occasionally patted her hand with his.

      “And what about her?” Thomas asked, nodding in Rachel’s direction.

      Gilchrist gritted his teeth. “What about her?”

      Hugh shot him a cautionary look, which he immediately ignored.

      “What will ye do with her?” Thomas asked.

      “Aye, what will ye do, Laird?” Donald repeated, much to his annoyance.

      God’s truth, he had not a clue. His gaze fixed on Rachel, he answered in slow, carefully chosen words. “I promised to keep her safe, and that I intend to do.” He glanced briefly at all three men. “D’ye have a problem with that?”

      A shout went up among the workmen.

      Gilchrist shot from the doorway and stood on the top step of the keep, scanning the bailey for the source of the commotion.

      “There,” Hugh said and pointed east, past the village.

      A small group of Davidson warriors rode up the hill toward the keep. Nothing unusual about that. As they passed the village, one by one, they turned off toward their cottages. Only one man remained. He rode his own mount, a horse Gilchrist recognized, but led another—a white mare. ’Twas small and did not bear the Davidson livery.

      “Look!” Hugh cried and pointed toward the village.

      Gilchrist froze.

      Rachel was trying to free herself from Alex’s grasp. She wrestled in his embrace and shouted something Gilchrist could not make out.

      “Bluidy hell,” he breathed and started down the steps toward her.

      “Wait!” Hugh said. “Look.”

      The warrior led the white mare past the struggling couple. He appeared only mildly interested in their quarrel.

      Rachel suddenly lurched forward and shot from Alex’s grip. Gilchrist’s stomach tightened as Alex lunged for her, then missed. She raced up the hill, after the warrior and the strange mare. Alex followed.

      Gilchrist sprang from the steps with Hugh in his wake. He snaked his way through the knot of workmen and clan folk choking the bailey, and met them at the opening in the curtain wall.

      He stopped short when he saw Rachel, her gray-green gaze fixed on the white mare.

      “My horse!” she cried, eyes glazed and wide. “My horse!”

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