Lachlan’s blood was fire and he didn’t know who among his own men he could trust. So he rode out into the woods with his horse and his sword and the rage that fuelled him.
There was a sign, easy enough for even a casual tracker to follow. Evidence that a horse had gone this way recently. And it could be from any number of men, it was true. But he had to trust that it was leading him to Penny.
Penny.
And what if she died? What then?
He had told her, revenge was not a dream, it was a plan. And that was what he had tried to fashion out of his life. A plan.
A goal divorced from feelings so that he did not become his father.
So that he did not become his mother.
There was too much at stake.
But it did not insulate him now. Because somewhere along the line Penny had become a dream. She had slipped beneath his skin, beneath his defences. And though he hadn’t wanted it, it was so.
He followed the path that William had set him on. When he came to the end of the trail he stopped and saw the broken branches just off there. He knew that he’d found them.
He drew his sword and rode into the clearing.
And there she was. Bound.
Suddenly Paden was behind her, his sword at her throat.
The smile on the man’s face was savage. ‘There you are. I was expecting you.’
‘I will gut you like the treasonous dog you are,’ Lachlan said.
‘I don’t think you will.’ Disquiet filled Lachlan’s gut. ‘I’m not sad to be found by you, Lachlan. I have men in wait. Did young William send you this way? Your man. It may shock you to learn that your own man betrayed you.’
That hit him with the force of a bullet.
‘No,’ Lachlan said.
‘Oh, yes. Young William is from Clan MacConnell. His mother left home when there was nothing left, went to Clan MacKenzie for protection. Your father killed her.’
Fire swept through his veins. ‘I’ve nothing to do with what that bastard did.’
‘It doesn’t matter. William wanted revenge. I do have it. At my hand.’
‘Leave Penny be.’
‘I have no quarrel with your woman. If it weren’t for you, she would be nothing. She wouldn’t be here. But I also have no fear over cutting her neck.’
He pressed the blade against her throat, drawing blood. Penny’s eyes were wide and fury rose up in Lachlan’s veins.
‘Drop your sword, my Laird.’
He tightened his grip on the weapon. ‘You play a dangerous game.’
‘You can let me kill her. And while I finish you could easily kill me. It is only a problem if the lass is worth your life.’
And here it was.
Weakness.
Because he could not let them harm Penny. Because he should care about the clan, only the clan. And his own life mattered only as far as it benefitted the well-being of his people.
But she mattered. She was the sun and the stars. The way he could guide himself. Without her, he was only a blade. Nothing more. Without her, he could not be the leader that he needed to be. Without her…
It didn’t matter. None of it did.
Without her it was lost. Whatever he’d been trying to win. What did the clan matter—rock and dirt and tradition—if there was no heart?
And Paden was right. He had identified his weakness. For his weakness was this woman.
This was love.
And love was exactly what he’d feared.
Still, in the face of it, in the face of the very reason he’d sought to keep his heart free of love, mercy and forgiveness…
He dropped his sword.
Penny let out a short scream, a tear trailing down her cheek.
Two of his men came out from behind the trees, wielding their swords.
Lachlan held his hands out. ‘Release her.’
‘No,’ Paden said. He kept his sword at her throat and the men began to advance on Lachlan. In a flash, he knew exactly what he must do. The blade bit deeper into Penny’s throat and blood trickled down her beautiful skin.
He saw red.
He would have only a breath, then he would lose her.
But he would not allow her to be lost.
He roared and charged at Paden and the man froze, clearly unwilling to kill her quite yet as she was his only means of controlling Lachlan.
A mistake.
Lachlan wrapped his fist around the blade, ignoring it as it sliced into his palm, and wrenched it away from her throat, pulling it from the man’s grip. Bloody, he pushed his fist into Paden’s gut. And when the man fell back he took up his sword by the handle and separated his head from his shoulders in one fluid movement.
By then, his men were on him, but Lachlan rounded on them. One blade went through his shoulder and he let out a vicious yell as he turned and drove his sword first through one man, then the other.
And he waited. Waited to see if there were more.
And through the clearing, he saw him.
William.
The lad standing there, holding his own sword. He did not have the posture of a warrior, in spite of having been a soldier. He looked like what he was: a boy. Narrow in the shoulders and fearful in the eyes.
Lachlan felt not one moment of regret for ending Paden, or the other two. But running William through did give him pause.
‘Don’t,’ Penny said. ‘He’s a boy.’
‘I was a man when I was his age. And he nearly cost us your life.’
‘Lachlan…this is what revenge does.’
Those words caught him in his chest. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘And he will learn what happens when your revenge does not go as planned.’
‘He can’t do anything to you.’
He ground his teeth together. ‘I don’t show mercy.’
He approached the lad and William began to tremble.
‘My mother…’ he said.
‘I did not lay a hand on your mother, lad. And if you wish to quarrel with me, then you will quarrel with me. But my wife’s blood has been spilled and if you think that I will give forgiveness for you trying to avenge your mother by spilling the blood of my wife…’
‘I’m sorry,’ William said and dropped his sword.
‘I cannot abide a coward,’ Lachlan said. ‘You should at least fight me. Stand in your convictions.’
‘Lachlan, please,’ Penny said.
‘Why?’ Lachlan asked. ‘Why should I spare him?’
‘Because he doesn’t know another way. That’s all this is. Vengeance in fighting and violence. He was never given another way.’
‘I saved his arse. I brought him back home. If it weren’t for me he wouldn’t be here. He was given another way. He chose vengeance.’
‘So did you. You used me for your vengeance. Don’t be so prideful that you don’t see that.’
Mercy.
He looked down at his sword, red with the blood of men he could not allow to live. He had lived his life without mercy.
Except for the babe he’d tried to save.
Except for the bird.
And the bird and the babe had given him more than killing ever had. He could not explain it, only that he felt changed.
For he had stared down the worst of what it might mean to have a heart and he’d chosen to love.
And in his weakness, he’d been most powerful of all.
Lachlan lowered his sword. ‘Where is your clan?’
‘I didn’t lie to you in England,’ William said. ‘They’re gone.’
‘Then you’ve nowhere to go. Because if you come back to Clan MacKenzie, it’s a cell that will be awaiting you.’
‘Laird…’
‘I’m sparing your life. But you will not show your face in Clan MacKenzie. And do not even think about spreading poison to the other clans, because I will make it known what has happened.’
The boy looked as though he might weep.
‘I didn’t want her to be hurt,’ he said.
‘You only wanted me killed.’
‘Paden said there would be money and power enough for everyone. And you keep all the power to yourself.’
‘Look what you’ve done with a small amount of it. Ask yourself if every man ought to have power. Or if some of you do not possess the fortitude to wield it.’
The boy lowered his head. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve nowhere else to go…’
All of a sudden he saw the boy differently. He saw himself. Reckless and angry and willing to make sacrifices of the innocent in order to see his vengeance played out.
For had he not done so with Penny?
She had not transgressed against him, but he was happy to catch her up in his revenge against her father. For anger was a sword being swept broadly across a battlefield, catching all in its path as enemies.
And there was only one cure for it.
He had seen it in Penny. The way she treated the members of the clan, those who lived in their household. The way she had given so much to Mary. The way she loved Camden as her own.
The way she was with him. For she had no reason to be a wife to him, no reason to show him care when he had swept her up in his vengeance.
Love.
Mercy.
He had been bound and determined to show none, but more punishment, more anger…would not heal this boy. And he might have set out a consequence, but what would he gain? What would the world gain?
This was what Penny had shown him, from the beginning, only he’d been too stubborn to take it in.
Sometimes you saved the bird. Because whether it lived or not, you had tried. Because whether it got you anything in return, it was good for your soul.
And only Penny had ever worried for his soul.
‘Return to the castle,’ Lachlan said.
‘Laird…’
‘Tell Rona you’ve need of food and sleep.’
Tears filled the boy’s eyes. ‘I betrayed you…’
‘And we are not dead. None of us. So we have a chance to change course. William, I have never been a man to show mercy. I have seen the world as a merciless place. It can be. But if I am not willing to show mercy in it, how can it ever be more?’
The boy nodded, his expression grave. ‘Go back, lad,’ Lachlan said.
The boy did not have to be asked twice.
Then Lachlan turned to Penny and ran. He knelt down on the ground beside her, gathering her up against him as he undid her bindings.
‘Lachlan,’ she said, weeping against his chest.
‘You’re safe, lass,’ he said.
He looked at the bodies around them. Safe. She was safe. ‘William sent me here,’ he said, grimly. ‘Knowing that they were waiting.’
‘He knew that he could use me to make you drop your weapon.’
‘Because even Paden saw what I did not,’ Lachlan said.
‘What is that?’
‘How much I love you, lass.’
‘Love?’
‘Aye,’ Lachlan said, his heart feeling as though it had nearly been ripped in two. ‘I do love you. And I realised just how much when I had to face the fact that he could use you to get to me. There is no denying it. There is no protecting my heart. It would be better for The MacKenzie to have no vulnerability. It would be better for him to feel nothing. For I should’ve thought of the clan and nothing more. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I love you. And right when I realised what a grave mistake it was, I accepted it.’
‘Lachlan…’
‘I sent William back to the clan.’
‘You did?’
‘Yes. I have never shown mercy, not in all my life. But you have shown me that…lass, I cannot make a world that is safe. One that will shield you or me or the bairn from all harm. But I can create a world around us that is better. I thought only the sword, anger and revenge could bring about change, for I thought they were the strongest forces. But that is not true. You have shown me this. Change comes in small ways. In giving chances and choices. Mercy. In loving when it is too much to bear. I love you in that way. It is too much to bear.’
‘I love you, too,’ she said, the words coming out on a sob.
He brought her into his arms, lifted her up off the ground.
‘You can’t carry me all the way back.’
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘But I can.’
‘You were stabbed in the shoulder!’
He shifted, feeling the sting and tear of the wound. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t much matter. Not when you’re all right.’
‘How did you know you could do that? How did you know you could defeat all those men?’
‘I didn’t. But I survived ten years battling the French. And while a Scot was always going to be a greater challenge… I’ve done well surviving to this point.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And I had nothing to live for then. Nothing but a vague idea of revenge and honour. Now I have you. I have you to live for, Penny. And I had your life to save. So there was no choice.’
‘I knew you would come. I was also afraid.’
‘I wonder if it would’ve been kinder for me to leave you. You would’ve never had to be afraid with your Duke.’
‘No. But I would never have loved him either.’
He stopped walking for a moment. ‘Penny,’ he said. ‘I didn’t have a lot of faith in the world to begin with. But what little I had the war did a good job of taking away. And I thought…if I could save that bairn…’
‘But not even that.’
‘Not even. And somehow I got it in my head that not having feelings would protect me. That it would protect everyone. But my father loved nothing. He loved nothing but power. And that’s what allowed him to act as he did.’
He kissed her lips, softly. ‘But I love you. And it’s what allowed me to do what I did tonight. I love you and it makes me stronger. It makes me weaker. It makes me vulnerable, but you’ve shown me that perhaps a leader must be vulnerable sometimes in order to truly lead.’
‘You let William return to the clan.’
‘Aye. And if not for you, I wouldn’t have even let him live.’
‘He’s only a boy.’
‘And I wouldn’t have cared.’ He cleared his throat. ‘And truth be told, what I said to him echoes in my own heart. That the woman I used…the woman I used for my own dark revenge loves me and wants my life saved. That counts for something.’
‘You’re a good man, Lachlan Bain. And I always knew that part of you was still there.’
‘It wasn’t,’ he said, taking hold of her hand and putting it over his chest. ‘It wasn’t there. It was with you. All this time. I’m starting to wonder if I came back to your father’s house to collect my heart. For I think I left it there a long time ago. And you took care of it in my absence. I want you to continue to care for it because you have it.’
‘I love you,’ she said. ‘And I never even knew that I wanted love.’
‘I knew that I didn’t. But you’ve changed me. And you’ve shown me that love is what makes the world matter. Because without it…there is revenge and there is honour. But there is no joy.’
‘No.’
‘Do you want to go back to England? I don’t want you to go, but I feel as though I have to give you a choice. Because I took it. Now I need to give it back.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I choose you. I choose this. I choose the clan.’
‘And I choose you,’ he said. ‘Not for revenge. For love.’
And as they walked back to the castle, the anger and pain of the last years began to fall away. For all that hurt, all the loss, had made him. And love had never been part of the future he planned for himself. But now he knew that it was what he needed.
Penny was what he needed.
Lachlan Bain was a patient man. But he had no real idea of what he’d been waiting for.
It had taken a chattering Englishwoman to show him.
He could only hope she had the patience to continue showing him.
‘We must get back,’ he said. ‘To our son.’
Her blue eyes filled with tears. ‘Yes. We must.’