Conran raised his eyebrows at the suggestion. “Because I don’t need help.”
“Everyone needs help some time, Conran,” he said solemnly. “For instance, ye need it now with keeping Evina safe. Ye helped each o’ us keep our women safe when ’twas needed, yet now will no’ let us return the favor. Rather than ‘burden’ us, ye’d have strangers to guard the lass. And they’re men ye obviously do no’ trust with the task, else ye’d no ask for so many.”
Conran frowned and shook his head. “I thought ye’d be pleased to be able to relax and enjoy a visit rather than have to stand guard and—”
“And help ye?” Aulay interrupted quietly. “Has it ne’er occurred to ye that as much as ye like to aid us, we might like to help ye in return too? That perhaps we feel we owe ye that help even, and so long as ye don’t allow it, we’re left owing ye?”
“I—” Conran blinked, and then said with dismay, “Nay. I ne’er considered ye owed me anything. I offered me help freely. There were no demands attached, no expectation that ye’d help me in return. And I ne’er even considered ye might feel that way.”
“Good,” Aulay said solemnly. “Because I’d have been sore disappointed if ye understood the unequal footing ye were forcing us all onto, and just enjoyed feeling superior to us with all yer helping.” Smiling, he added, “But now that ye ken how helping us all the time without allowing us to aid ye in return affects us, I ken ye’ll accept our help in guarding Evina and leave off having soldiers do it.”
“O’ course,” Conran said at once.
“Good,” Aulay said with satisfaction, and continued forward saying, “Then we’ll take it in shifts, two brothers guarding Evina at a time.”
“Ye can count me in on that,” Cam announced, falling into step beside Aulay.
“Me too,” Greer growled, following.
“Thank ye,” Aulay said. “That means when Niels gets here we’ll have eight men all told. Four shifts o’ two men. Perfect.”
“Perfect,” Conran muttered, and shook his head as he followed the others. He had no idea how his brother had managed it, but he now felt guilty for trying to save them from having to guard Evina. He even felt guilty for helping out his brothers as he tended to do, as if his motives had been some underhand way to—How had Aulay put it? Set himself on a higher footing and make himself feel superior to them?
“Madness,” he growled under his breath. He helped because they were his brothers and they needed help. As for why he didn’t accept help, he usually didn’t need it. It was that simple. Wasn’t it?
“Conny!”
Conran glanced up at that shout from Aulay and hurried to the front of the group to reach his eldest brother’s side at the top of the steps. “What?”
“The women are gone,” he said grimly.
Conran turned to peer down over the great hall. It was busy, as usual, but it was also noticeably absent of every one of their women. From Evina to Aulay’s Jetta, they were gone. Even Bearnard and the Maclean’s dogs were no longer below.
“Don’t set up such a fuss, Buchanan,” the Maclean said with amusement, coming out of his room with a rolled-up plaid in hand.
Conran recalled Rory’s advice to the man the day before about rolling up a plaid and setting it in a circle that surrounded and would protect his arse in the saddle, and could only assume the man intended to ride out to talk to the men at the gate. He wasn’t surprised. While the Maclean was doing better, his injury pained him when he had to walk any distance.
“The women are all together and Gavin is with them,” Fearghas Maclean continued as he joined them at the top of the stairs. Glancing down into the great hall, he added, “As are the dogs. No doubt the beasts needed to relieve themselves and Evina and the others accompanied them outside to get a breath o’ fresh air.”
Cursing, Conran started down the stairs at a run.
“What the devil!” he heard the Maclean say with surprise. “What’s the matter with him? The lassies’ll be safe enough outside with me nephew.”
“So long as Evina’s attacker isn’t even now in the bailey, notching an arrow to a bow and aiming it at her.”
It was almost like Aulay had read his mind, Conran thought as he heard his brother’s words behind him. They were followed by several exclamations of dismay and the sudden thunder of all the men crashing down the stairs on his heels. Conran ignored it and merely hurried across the great hall. He burst out of the keep doors, fully expecting to find Evina and the others standing about at the foot of the stairs watching the Maclean’s huge deerhounds lifting a leg, but they weren’t there. Not on the steps, and not anywhere near them.
Fear clutching at him, Conran paused to scan the bailey from his elevated position at the top of the stairs, and was nearly sent tumbling down them when the keep doors opened behind him and someone crashed into his back.
“Sorry,” Aulay muttered, catching Conran’s shoulder, and saving him from the fall he’d nearly caused. Moving up beside him once sure Conran was steady on his feet again, he glanced around and asked, “Where are they?”
“That’s what I was just wondering,” Conran said grimly as the rest of the men moved out of the keep to take up position around them. “I don’t see them anywhere.”
“And me horse is gone,” Fearghas Maclean growled with exasperation as he stepped up behind Conran and his brother.
“Well, I can’t imagine Gavin agreeing to an outing outside the walls. Evina is too weak for that yet,” Rory pointed out. “Mayhap there was somewhere within the bailey she wished to go and they used yer horse to get her there to save her exhausting herself with a long walk.”
“Is there somewhere she’d want to go?” Aulay asked, turning to glance between Conran and the Maclean.
“Donnan told me she usually oversees the men at practice,” Conran announced, starting down the stairs.
“Surely she wouldn’t try to do that so newly from her sickbed though. Would she?” Rory asked with concern as he and the other men followed.
“Damned right she would,” Conran and the Maclean said together, and then glanced at each other with surprise.
Grinning, the Maclean slapped him on the back and shook his head. “Ye’ll make her a fine husband, lad. A fine husband indeed.”
Conran smiled crookedly and shook his head. “If she lives that long.”
“Nay, Cormag! Ye’re holding it wrong,” Evina called, frowning at the young man and moving through the battling men toward one with long ginger hair and peach fuzz on his face. He was about Gavin’s age, or a year younger, but hadn’t developed as quickly. He was also a good distance from where she’d been standing with the women, and little Bearnard on the edges of the practice field with her father’s horse and dogs. They had all been waiting at the tables in the great hall for the men to go take a look at the dirty clothes and shorn hair they’d found. Evina had wanted to go with them and be in on any discussion that followed. However, she had been ordered to stay behind by both her father and Conran, who had said it at the same time as if they shared a mind. The order had frustrated and angered her, and normally Evina would have ignored it and followed them up anyway.