He gave her a slight nod, as if he were afraid to admit it. “But not when it comes to your father.”

  “Aye.” She agreed with him, of course. “Because my father is innocent.”

  “Aye.”

  “Tristan promised not to lay a finger on him if he is innocent.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “I do,” she replied without hesitation. Did she believe it? Obviously, she did. “I think he is already leaning toward father’s innocence.”

  “And if, in the end, he believes otherwise?”

  Rose shook her head. She didn’t want to think on that. “Tristan seems fair. He…” she paused for a moment. “He has honor, for a killer. I believe he will realize the truth and—”

  “And what?” the captain asked. “Do you think your father will allow you to marry a man who kills for a living? You do love him, do you not? Aye, I can see it, Rose,” he said gently.

  “He is…” What? What could she say to describe what Tristan was to her? He was elemental, primal, savage, and determined to keep his heart guarded. But he’d faltered and broke down before her eyes. She watched him surrender himself to her and instead of giving her a sense of power, it humbled her. Who was she that she could win such a man? He was better than any trait on her list. He let her in.

  “He is my beloved, aye,” she confessed with a surge of conviction. “As for him being a man who kills for a living, soldiers do the same thing because another man orders it. Did you not agree to kill Tristan because my father told you to do it?”

  “Aye,” he agreed. “I understand your point, Lady, but the fact remains, he will never allow you to wed MacPherson.”

  She didn’t care. She would marry whom she pleased—and that was Tristan. If he asked, that is. She didn’t tell the captain though. He might agree with what Tristan was doing but he was first and foremost her father’s man.

  “Captain?”

  “Aye, Lady?”

  “If I am not mistaken, you sound as if you admire Tristan.”

  He said nothing.

  “It must pain you to know that he is ill because of you.”

  He nodded. “I did not aim for his heart as I told your father. I did not want to kill him. He chased me, but he let me go. I do not know why.”

  To return to me. Rose wiped her eyes then glanced at the captain. Her friend. “I’m glad he did,” she said softly.

  “So am I. Mary would never forgive me if I got myself killed.”

  Rose gave him a curious smile. “You are an excellent swordsman, Captain. Do you think the outcome of an altercation between you and him is so certain?”

  “From what I hear, perhaps,” the captain told her. “He is quick, quiet, and deadly. Have you seen him fight?”

  She had seen him fight and kill. She nodded. As skilled as the captain looked when he practiced, Tristan had overtaken twelve men with stealth, savagery, and complete surprise when he’d fallen out of the trees. “I have seen him fight.” She didn’t tell him about Governor Walters or the woman he rescued from her kidnapper.

  “And?” he pressed.

  “What you have heard is true.”

  They were quiet for a time and then he slowed and looked at her again.

  “What happened to him? Did the wound become infected?”

  “Aye,” she told him, guessing that, as a soldier, he knew about these things. She told him about Nel and the mixture she’d gone to get when she had met up with him. She was surprised and glad when the captain remarked that he hoped the mixture helped.

  “Captain?” She stopped him before he picked up his pace again.

  “Aye, Lady?”

  “I do not remember you being in the castle the night my mother was killed. Where were you?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Tristan opened his eyes. Then closed them again. Everything hurt. He felt as if he’d been running for days. His chest and back felt as if…as if he’d been shot. He tried to sit up. Pain went through him. He ignored it.

  Rose.

  “Rose!”

  “There now, dear.” An older woman’s voice sounded close by. “There now.”

  Who was it? Where was he? He took a moment to let the cobwebs clear from his mind.

  Nel. A healer. He’d been here several times in the past when he’d been shot with an arrow or two and stabbed. Nel always fixed him up fine. Why was he here this time?

  Rose had brought him here. “Where is Rose?”

  Nel’s expression fell. “She had to leave. She—”

  “Leave?” He tried to step out of bed, but she pushed him back. She was surprisingly strong for her age, which was about fifty years.

  “Ye mustna try to move aboot too soon,” she warned. “Ye had a nasty infection. Ye almost died.”

  “Where is Rose?” He didn’t care about almost dying. He remained sitting up and pushed her hands away when she tried to get him to lie back down. “What do ye mean she had to leave? Leave where?”

  “She didna say,” Nel told him, much to his disbelief. “She asked me to take care of ye and that is what I intend to do!” Her voice rose to a roar and she practically threw herself on him to get him to lie down.

  “Woman, get yerself off me!” He tried to push her off and didn’t have the strength. Suddenly, he realized where he would end up if he left his sickbed now to go after Rose.

  He stopped fighting and remained still. His breath was heavy.

  Nel lifted herself off him and patted his cheek.

  “How long will it be before I have my strength back?”

  She shrugged her beefy shoulders. “Who is to say? But ye are strong, Tristan. Ye will be up and aboot verra soon.”

  His belly knotted and twisted until he wanted to groan out loud. “How long? When did she leave?”

  “’Twas some time yesterday—there, there now. Oh, poor man.” She wet a rag in a small basin of water on a table by the bed and placed it across his forehead. “I will get ye well, and then ye will go find yer Rose.”

  He closed his eyes, letting a tear escape him. She didn’t leave on her own. She didn’t know which way to go. Someone had come for her. Most likely, the same someone who tried to kill him. Possibly the same person who burned down her house and killed her mother. Tristan clenched his teeth and held back a scream that would have shaken the foundations of the inn had he let it escape him.

  Did the killer have her now? What if he tried to burn her? What if he…he wandered off into a dream of fighting a dragon. Of course, Uncle Torin was in this dream, sitting by a cave hearth telling him a story about a saint and a dragon. Tristan was no saint. He was more like the dragon. Then ye would be fightin’ against yerself, his uncle told him. Are ye?

  Tristan woke from his slumber to a dark room. He sat up. Rose. He had to find her. He moved his arm, his torso. He felt a little stronger than when he’d been awake with Nel. Today? Yesterday? He looked at the window at the pre-dawn sky. Yesterday. Rose had been gone for almost two days now. His heart sank. Tracks would be more difficult to find. Where was Nel? Why had she let him sleep so long? He looked at the door to the room.

  He needed to go.

  He left the bed as quietly as possible and dressed in everything he’d arrived in. It wasn’t wise to walk around in clothes with a hole through them, so he donned his plaid and went to the door.

  He paused before he left the room and took ten pounds out of his pouch. He returned to the bed and laid the money on the mattress. Nel and her husband had done much for him.

  He left the room and tiptoed down the hall to the stairs in the dark. He tried to be as quiet as he could. He doubted Nel would agree to let him go if he woke her.

  He stopped moving when a stair creaked and held his breath. No other sound came to him, so he continued down.

  He opened the front door and stepped into the crisp air. He was thankful for his plaid. Still, his clothes felt heavy and they weighed him down. He realized he was still weak. Mayhap too weak to fight if he needed to but it didn’t matter. He was going. He had to find Rose and make certain she was unharmed.

  His belly twisted. She’d been gone for several long days. If whoever took her intended her harm, it might be too late.

  He reached the stable. Rose’s horse wasn’t in it.

  “Greetings, Perceval,” he said softly, going to his horse. He hadn’t called his horse the name out loud in years. It was a name from his youth, from some of his uncle’s stories.

  Had he dreamed of Uncle Torin last night? Tristan wiped his brow. What was happening to him? He was a cold-hearted savage. It was what he’d become in order to survive, both on the field and off. What was he doing thinking like a knight in a court he used to dream about as a boy? He remembered things about honor and intrigue, courtly love and God’s love and patience, the last from Father Timothy and Brother Simon. It brought a pang to his heart. He missed being home. He missed his kin. It surprised him. The one who barely felt, in truth, felt quite a lot.

  Falling in love with Rose seemed to have opened the rusty gates of his heart. Settling in with a wife and bairns no longer seemed so terrible. He wanted her. No one else would ever do.

  His heart raced and pumped waves of blood through his veins when he thought of her. She was his. Whoever took her from him was going to pay with his life.

  He saddled his horse and thought about how easy it was to talk to Rose about his youth. He’d spent more continuous time with her than he had with any of his men in years. He woke with her and fell asleep with her—and he liked it. He liked her company.

  He heard the sound of an approaching horse behind him and turned to see a man a few years older than him leaving the shadows. He carried himself like a soldier, reaching for a small blade hidden in his coat.

  “Are you looking for a room?” he asked in his best English voice. The man was a soldier—probably an English one, or a Lowlander, which was close enough to English as one could get. Someone shot him three days ago. Unless the devil had been aiming for Rose and missed…no. The direction was off for that. If someone was trying to kill him then they knew who he was.

  “Perhaps.”

  Tristan eyed him. “Do you always ride up to an inn before sunrise and expect the owner to be waiting for you?”

  The man slanted his sapphire gaze to him and let all pretense fall as he dropped from his horse. He wore his golden hair cut close to his head. A blue woolen mantle draped his shoulders. “Do you always leave without paying your bill?”

  “I paid—more than enough if you must know,” Tristan told him, not wanting—or able—to fight. “I enjoy traveling during this time—at the break of dawn. When the earth is waking up.” He gave the soldier a frozen smile. “I did not want to wake the innkeeper or his wife.”

  “Well, you are going to have to wake them now,” he said, dismounting and leading his horse by the bridle. “I need to know if you are who you say you are.”

  Tristan laughed. “They do not know my name. I was with them only one day, and I slept for most of it. Besides, what do you care who I am?”

  “We—”

  He stopped when Tristan looked around for anyone else. Finding no one, he gave the man a curious look.

  “My captain and I separated to cover more ground in our search,” the man explained. “I have been to seven towns and villages in three days with no success.”

  He was a soldier then. Whose? Who were they looking for? Was it his captain who had taken Rose?

  “For whom do you search?” Tristan asked.

  “An infamous killer called Tristan MacPherson.”

  Tristan lifted his brows. “Infamous, you say?”

  The soldier nodded. “So who are you? What are you called?”

  “I am Geraint Ward,” Tristan told him, taking the name he’d often used when he sometimes had to infiltrate an enemy holding and pretend to be an ally. “I am a shepherd from the western hills.”

  The soldier looked him over and then nodded and knocked on the door of the inn.

  Tristan sighed silently and grinded his teeth. He was going to have to fight Nel to let him leave. He wasn’t sure he could. If he had his strength back completely, he would put this soldier to sleep and drag him to the forest. He couldn’t. Yet. But he had a few questions of his own.

  “Who is your lord, Soldier?”

  “The Earl of Dumfries.”

  Tristan felt his legs go soft beneath him. Rose’s father had sent his guards, the few he had left, to find him. How did he know Tristan was on his way? Was Rose with one of the other three guards? Was she safe then?

  He only managed to keep himself upright because the door opened and Nel scowled up at him.

  “What are ye doin’ oot here?” she demanded.

  “Is this man running off without paying you?”

  “Soldier,” Tristan’s voice sounded stronger than he felt. “Why do you not ask this kind woman to check my bed?”

  He hoped that the healer would understand who the man was and sense that Tristan could be in trouble. This man—or the one who had Rose, was the one who’d shot him.

  The soldier motioned with his hand for her to go check the bed. She went but shook her head slightly at Tristan before she turned.

  While they waited, Tristan thought about ways to find out if one of the soldiers had Rose.

  “Soldier—”

  “Jones,” the man corrected. “I’m Jones.”

  “What do ye mean by leavin’ me all this?” Nel appeared, waving the pounds at him.

  Tristan turned and offered Jones a satisfied smirk.

  Jones ignored him and spoke to the healer. “Have you seen a man and woman traveling together? The man is most likely severely injured.”

  They were out scouring the land for him and Rose! How did they know? The one whose arrow had gone through him had likely seen Rose and when he returned to his lord, he was sent back out, with the rest of the earl’s guards to find her. He still didn’t know who had Rose. Jones was his only lead. He hoped the earl’s men had taken her. But he didn’t know. Jones didn’t even know.

  Nel shook her head. She didn’t know much about him, but she knew he did things that could get him hanged. “The only guests we have had are this kind man here and two others, both men travelin’ from Edinburgh.”

  Her gaze shifted to Tristan.

  He gave her the slightest of smiles. “Forgive me for leaving at such an hour. I prefer to travel when the world is asleep.”

  Her expression on him softened. “Ye left before I could pack ye some food and refreshment. It will take but a moment.”

  She hurried off to prepare his provisions, leaving Tristan alone with Jones.

  “I did not know that a shepherd’s purse was so heavy,” the soldier remarked, cutting his gaze to Tristan.

  “I own a large flock of sheep. Three hundred head.”

  Jones nodded. “Well, I will be off, then.” He started to turn away.

  “Where are you headed now?” Tristan asked, stopping him.

  “Back to Dumfries. I shall see if Captain Harper found them and returned to the castle.”

  “Would you mind if I travel with you for a bit?” Tristan asked him with an amiable smile. This could be perfect. He could get an escort all the way to the castle. “I already paid two shepherds to tend the flock for another sennight. I will not be traveling again for years, if ever. I would like to keep going. Your quest sounds like a noble one.”

  As Tristan expected, Jones looked quite pleased. “Can you fight, Shepherd? If we run into MacPherson, you will need to protect yourself.”

  “Not too well, I fear.”

  “Hmm.” Jones gave him a steady look. “You appear more dangerous than what you are.”

  Tristan cocked his raven brow and one side of his mouth. “If he gets too close to me, I will cut out his heart. Is that what you want to hear?”

  “Aye, ’tis,” Jones told him, and then laughed with him.

  Nel returned with a medium-sized sack and a jug and handed them to him with a wink.

  He smiled, surprised at how easy it had become to genuinely do so, now that he’d met Rose. He was almost sure her father’s men had her. She was safe at least. What was she telling whomever she was with? What would she tell her father?

  He had to take her back. He thanked the healer again and bid her farewell.

  He turned back to Jones, the authenticity of his smile fading. “Let us be off then.”

  Tristan returned to the stable and retrieved Perceval. He mounted with a little trouble, for the pain was still rather intense if he moved in certain ways.

  He kept his thoughts on what he meant to do. He would travel with Jones until they got close to the castle. He didn’t hope to be invited inside. They knew he was coming. They’d be waiting for him. One of the earl’s men shot him, so at least one of them knew what he looked like.

  Could he fight five men, including the earl? No. He had to find another way.

  “Who is the woman?”

  “Pardon?”

  Tristan kept his horse at an even pace with Jones’ while he spoke. “You asked the innkeeper’s wife about a woman traveling with a man. The man, I assume, is the infamous killer. I was wondering who—”

  “Do not wonder about her,” Jones replied in a gravelly tone.

  The soldier definitely spoke of Rose. No one was allowed to know the earl’s daughter had lived that fateful night. Very well, Tristan had all the information about her that Jones could give for now.

  “How do you and your captain know this infamous Tristan MacPherson is close by?”

  “My lord was informed that the outlaw had been hired to kill him and was on his way.”

  Tristan listened and leaned over to reach for his saddlebag—not the one that the healer had given him. He pulled from it a hard, leather pouch with a small spout at the tip. He uncorked it and took a swig then handed it off the Jones.

  “What is it?”

  “My own special brew,” Tristan told him with a smile.

  “You brew your own whisky?”

  “I must stay warm in the winter months.”

  “I thought you had sheep for that,” the captain laughed and drank.