Page 3 of My Warrior
“There’s no unity among the clans,” Laird Angus said, “and there never will be.”
“But the Bruce—“
“Tried and failed.”
The wind swept out of Cambria’s sails. “Will you side against them then—Robbie and Graham and Jamie and all the others? If it comes to war, will you raise your sword against your own kin?”
“Robbie and the others betrayed the clan,” the laird snarled, his eyes trained on the path ahead. “They’re no longer Gavins. They abandoned their home. They abandoned their family. For God’s sake, they abandonedyou, Cambria.”
She winced at the reminder. He was right, and the sting of that betrayal was like a thistle in her heart.
Silently she padded homeward beside her father, along the winding path they’d trod together from the time she’d taken her first steps. Any other day, she would have delighted in the songs of the wakening thrushes and sparrows and breathed deep the pungent fragrance of the towering pines.
But today, all she felt was a tight knot in her chest. The canopy overhead became a green blur as she fought back tears, clenching her hands into fists. She didn’t dare let her father see her cry, couldn’t let him doubt for a moment that she was strong enough to inherit the lairdship.
Laird Angus cleared his throat several times along the way, but she didn’t encourage him to speak. She had a feeling she wouldn’t like what he intended to say.
At long last he stopped, leisurely uncorking the jack of ale at his hip and taking a long pull at it, then staring off into the wood. He offered her a drink, but she waved it away.
“Cam, lass,” he said, stuffing the cork back into the jack, “I’m far too old to be fighting battles I can’t win. Nay, don’t shake your head at me. We both know it’s true.”
She hated it when he spoke this way. He wasn’t growing old. He couldn’t grow old. He was all she had.
Laird Angus pressed his thumb into the palm of his hand, rubbing away the stiffness that had plagued him for the past several years. “I don’t intend to spend the last moments of my life engaged in war.”
She frowned. Wasn’t that what every warrior wanted? Surely these weren’t the words of the man who’d taught her to fight—sword, dagger, and fists—with her last breath, for every inch of Gavin land.
The laird continued more vehemently, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I want to know my family line will continue. And I want them to live in peace.”
She only stared at him, struck dumb. Was her father becoming soft with the advancing years? Not only did he suggest betraying his mother country, but he was hinting rather broadly—again—that he expected grandchildren from Cambria. She groaned inwardly. It was a point they’d argued to death.
She was ill-suited to be any man’s wife. Everyone knew it. She was the laird’s only child, and she’d been raised by her father and Malcolm the Steward to enjoy leadership, trained to inherit the Gavin clan and its responsibilities. There had been no time for courting, even if she’d had any inclination toward it, which she didn’t, and even if anyone had shown any interest in her whatsoever, which they hadn’t.
It wasn’t that she was uncomely. She’d seen her face often enough in mirrors to know that she bore no ugly marks or scars. It was just that the men who knew her looked upon her as the future laird of the Gavin—the land and the people—a woman of power, proud and unbiddable, qualities most undesirable in a wife.
Robbie had understood her. He’d respected her strengths and her intellect, and he’d shared her fascination with politics. But even he had never regarded her with anything save brotherly affection. The truth be told, Cambria herself rarely glanced twice at a man, except to admire his prowess on the battlefield or to assess his loyalty to the clan.
Her father had brought up marriage in the past, but their altercations had always flared quickly and subsided, like pine needles on the fire. Now, as she looked into his suddenly weary eyes, she felt a queer misgiving in the pit of her stomach.
“What’s this about, Father?”
He said something foul under his breath, then jutted out his gray-whiskered chin and spoke decisively. “Tomorrow a company of English knights will come to meet with me and our men, seeking my oath of allegiance to Balliol as king of Scotland.”
She sucked in her breath. She couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d admitted to possessing two heads. It wasn’t marriage he was bullying her into after all. It was something far worse.
“Balliol?” she whispered in shock. “King Edward’s puppet?”
Angus closed his lips firmly in legendary Gavin stubbornness.
“Of course you’ll refuse,” she said, trying to convince herself that the laird hadn’t lost his wits. The twinge in her stomach told her otherwise. “Father?”
The laird wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“Father,” she bit out, trying to reason calmly with him, “you’re tired. Once you’ve slept on it, had a chance—“
“Cambria,” he chided.
Her temper snapped faster than a kindling twig. “But Balliol is not even Scots!”
