Clara’s Vow by Madeline Martin

Author:Madeline Martin [Martin, Madeline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

13

“I know ye’re back there,” Clara called out behind her.

No one replied. Not that she had expected them to.

Whoever they were, they’d been trailing her for the last four days as she journeyed over the straw-yellow grass, going first to the Hamiltons, then to the Maxwells, and later to the Stirlings. Her adherent didn’t attack, nor did they interfere with her visits. They simply followed.

She hadn’t seen them fully yet, only a shadow from time to time or the rustle of leaves deep in the woods. But they were there. And that prickling unease at the back of her neck crawled with the awareness that there was indeed someone watching.

The forest thinned away into a clearing with a village at its center. Just beyond the thatch-roofed homes, and clusters of people going about their daily lives, rose yet another castle.

Clara had been so hopeful when she’d first gone to the Hamiltons, certain they would believe her when Lord Tavish had not. However, without the missive, they afforded her even less trust than did Lord Tavish.

The problems began with the muted Scottish burr in her accent, flattened by her time in England. Her inability to produce proof of what she claimed as Lord Tavish had kept the missive added to that. And the final nail in her coffin was the fact that she was a woman.

Never had being of the fairer sex been more of a hindrance than in the business of warfare and saving lives.

She looked up at the castle whose shadow fell ominously over her as she approached. The soldier guarding it would need convincing that she was worthy of an audience with the laird of the keep, the same as they all did. All that to inevitably pass back through these very gates without success. Again.

Exhaustion gripped her and begged her to turn back, to go through the forest and to Paisley Abbey, where she could accept her ultimate defeat.

Reid would be recovered by now. He would be able to go to Dumbarton, and they would finally have to say their farewells. It was where their paths would split, for him to continue to live his peripatetic life, and she to devote her time to the abbey until they agreed to allow her to remain with them and later take her vows.

She would never see him again.

Her thoughts shifted once more to the futility standing before her. The castle, the guard, knowing she had to try with the Montgomeries. They were the last clan she planned to speak with. She could go farther south and speak to the Muirs, but time was a persistent issue nipping at her mind and rose more forefront with each passing day. Indeed, she hoped she was not too late, that the English had not already attacked.

Mayhap the Montgomeries would say yes where the others had cast her aside. If they did, there would be one more army to help protect the villagers outside of Dumbarton Castle.

The possibility was slight, but she had hope, even if it was foolish to do so.

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