Whenever Gillian was frustrated or restless, she went out at night to hunt, alone. Few people knew she did so, save for one or two of her clansmen—Callum MacLeod and his brother Tam had found her in the wood one night with a brace of pheasants over her shoulder and a smudge of blood on her cheek. They hadn’t asked any questions. They’d simply accompanied her and made sure she was safe. They saw at whose doorstep she left her kill. Then they followed her home, silently, without questioning why or how she knew that particular household needed food and was too proud to ask the Fearsome MacLeod for help.
She was always back in her bed before anyone knew she’d been gone.
Callum didn’t tell her father. On occasion she found him waiting for her, and he’d silently go along with her—or he’d simply let her pass when he sensed she needed her solitude.
She loved the wood at night, was truly invisible in the darkness, yet more alive than she was by day, at home, embroidering or reading or listening to her sisters’ endless advice.
And now she needed a chance to run through the dark with her bow in her hand, her dirk hidden away in her sleeve, to have time to think, to be out under the moon and stars with the night wind cooling her face. She had no fear of being caught or harmed on Sinclair land. She was quiet as a mouse.
All she could think of was John Erly, how he’d looked at her as if he really saw her, not her expensive clothes, or the fact she was Donal MacLeod’s daughter or Fia’s sister. He’d looked at her the way a man looks at a woman. There was none of the careful deference the MacLeod men showed her. And there was none of the slight dismay she’d read in the eyes of Edinburgh strangers when they’d seen how carefully her father and sisters protected her, stayed by her side, and answered questions for her, as if she was slow-witted or so shy she might break in half if she had to speak aloud on her own.
Even when she was asked how she liked her tea, the nearest person would reply without consulting her. When she was with her father, she drank it plain and strong, because that was how he liked his own. When her sister Laire was nearby, Gillian was served tea with milk, but no sugar. Gillian wondered if they’d think her rude if she contradicted them, asked for her tea the way she liked it—with sugar and no milk, and not so terribly strong it could melt the silver off the teaspoon.
Nay, out in the dark wood alone, she was free to make her own decisions, choose her own path, and she was perfectly capable of keeping herself safe.
She wondered where John Erly was at this moment—probably with a woman, though he hadn’t left the hall with any of the lasses he’d teased with a wink and a smile. Perhaps it had been more of a signal, a secret arrangement, a promise of more, later.
Gillian shivered and drew her dark cloak around her, but she wasn’t cold. She was curious. Fia said John Erly was a rake and a rogue, a lover of women—and if he could arouse such curiosity with just a look, what would it be like to kiss a man like that, lay with him? There was a lump in her throat and she swallowed. Now she was too warm, and she loosened her cloak.
The snap of a twig made her drop to a crouch. Out of habit she stayed still and scanned the dark, looking for the source of the sound.
She saw the gleam of blond hair in the moonlight and held her breath. She knew him by his lean silhouette. He moved so carefully she might have missed him, if not for the twig. But then, he didn’t know she was here, watching. She saw him stop, check a snare, find a rabbit, and collect it. Then he walked on.
Gillian frowned. Now why would Dair’s captain of the guard be out hunting at night? Perhaps it was a reason like her own, that he was lonely and restless.
She followed him, moving soundlessly down the path after him. She kept him in sight because he knew the tracks here and she did not. She should turn, go back before she lost her way, but she was curious. Perhaps he was going to a lover after all, bearing a gift.
He moved through the dark with the confidence of a man who knew exactly where he was going. Did he do everything that way? She stopped when he paused near a small cott in a clearing. Gillian could hear the cow lowing mournfully in the lean-to beside the house, the wail of an animal in need of milking.
Gillian watched from the shadows as John picked up a pail and a stool and milked the cow. He patted the animal’s side, covered the pail, and left it by the door to the cott, though he did not knock. He laid the coney beside the pail, and he took a loaf of bread and a pair of candles out of his pouch and left those as well.
Silently, he backed away from the cott. When he reached the shelter of the wood, he crouched in the undergrowth and let out a sharp whistle.
He stayed low as the door creaked open a fraction of an inch. To Gillian’s surprise, it wasn’t one of the lasses she’d seen him flirting with. This woman was old, white-haired, and wary as she peered out into the dark. “Who is it?” she called.
John didn’t answer. He was so quiet she wondered if he was still there at all.
Then the old woman looked down and saw the bounty on her doorstep. She let out a cry of surprise and looked around again. “Is it the fairies?” she said. She lifted the bread and held it to her nose, sniffing the oaten loaf, holding it reverently. She picked up the rabbit as well and held it in her arms like a beloved child. Her tears sparkled in the moonlight. Gillian could hear the rattle in the woman’s lungs as she laughed for joy.
She took the food inside, her gait slow and limping, her back stooped with age and illness. The pail of milk was a problem—the old woman hadn’t the strength to lift it. She left it by the door and went back inside. She reappeared with a half-grown lad with a twisted foot, who was rubbing sleep from his eyes. Together they lifted the brimming pail and took it inside.
Still John didn’t move. A moment later, the lad was back. Awkwardly, he bent and set a crust of the bread and a small bowl of milk back on the ground as payment for the fairies.
Only when they’d gone in and all was quiet did John rise and walk away.
Gillian’s chest contracted. John wasn’t visiting a lover. He was helping a family in need, folk that were likely too proud to ask for help from their neighbors, or even from Fia, their lady. Perhaps they were outcasts, shunned for some reason, alone and hungry.
She followed the path John had taken, keeping him in sight. He walked to a lonely wee cott on the edge of the village, separate from the others. He went inside and didn’t come out again.
Gillian returned to the castle, found her way back to her room, and climbed into bed. Fia was wrong—John wasn’t a rogue at all. Of course, she didn’t know who lived in the second cott. One of the warm, willing widows Fia had mentioned, perhaps.
She curled under the coverlet and stared into the darkness. Whatever else he was, John Erly was the most interesting man she’d ever seen.
* * *
John walked home after visiting Tira Fraser’s cott.
Many folk at Carraig Brigh thought that Will Fraser’s crippled foot was the devil’s mark, that his mother’s death at his birth and his father’s death a year later were the signs of evil, that old Tira was a witch. But only she stood by her grandson, cared for him—and kept him hidden. She was a proud woman and would not take help from those who’d mock or shun Will. Fia had tried to help—she had a limp herself—but the old woman was stubborn. John had found that if the aid came from the fairies, then Tira Fraser was happy enough to accept it. So by night John played the lad’s fairy godfather and kept the Frasers fed.
Of course, Will was old enough now to train with the other lads, and as the captain of the guard, John intended to see that happen. It would give the boy confidence, and the skills to hunt and farm and help others to see him as one of their own, a clansmen. If, of course, John could keep everyone from running in terror from the lad’s twisted foot and evil eye, and his gran’s sharp tongue. Tira was quick with a curse, folk said.
Tomorrow, when they were fed, John would go and fetch the lad, tell Tira that Dair had ordered her grandson to train with the other lads. If Will didn’t make a soldier, perhaps he’d make a sailor, and Angus Mor Sinclair could teach him, if he could be convinced to see Will as just a child and not the spawn of the devil.
John smiled as he walked. Will’s plight was almost as bad as being a Sassenach.
He went to his own small cott, given to him by Dair so he had space of his own, privacy. He had a garden, a small plot of turnips, onions, and carrots. If the other men thought it odd or dangerous, or just Sassenach, he was man enough to let them whisper behind his back.
And they all whispered about him. Lasses claimed he was their lover, and honor—that damned inconvenient honor that had been bred into him and still sustained him—prevented him from confirming or denying the salacious tales. The gossips would no doubt be surprised to know that while he certainly didn’t live like a monk, his amours were not nearly as numerous as rumor suggested.
He undressed and climbed into his bed.
His last thought as he went to sleep wasn’t about Elspeth or Will Fraser. It was about the mysterious and untouchable Gillian MacLeod. He remembered the way her hair had risen around her in the wind, her quiet beauty and grace at her sister’s table. She drew his eye, and his interest, like a moth to a very dangerous flame.
He rolled over and stared into the dark. Surely it would be a simple matter to avoid her while she was here. It was a fortnight, perhaps, a few weeks at most, and then she’d be gone.