by Aileen Adams
Dallas’s brother took note of this and shook his head. “Ye are speaking to the laird of Clan MacPherson,” he explained, sounding as though he wished to knock the guard about the head for his lack of judgment.
He then turned to Boyd with an apologetic smile. “He is new to the guard.”
“Think nothing of it,” Boyd assured all of them. “I have been paying calls upon the Highland clans now that it appears a matter of time before war is declared. Your laird is the last call I plan to make between here and my home. Is he near that I might speak to him?”
“Aye, and I know he will welcome ye gladly. Ye are always welcome here.” The lad rode beside him to the keep, cutting through a large swath of cleared land which was once heavily wooded, leaving the other two behind to do their duty.
“And how is Clan Stewart faring?” Boyd asked as they rode. “It has been too long since I have paid a call, ‘tis a sad fact.”
“As ye would expect,” the lad replied with a shrug. “The days are spent preparing. All any of us can do is wait for word of what is to come.”
“And that is often the most difficult thing to do,” Boyd noted, thinking back to uneasy days spent waiting for word from a commander, or for a report from a scout.
“Aye, it is that.”
“Will ye go, then? Or will ye stay behind to guard the laird?”
He shrugged again. “I will leave that to the laird. I do as he commands.” It was a blessing for the lad, then, that his laird was good and true. Not all were, just as not all guards were so blindly devoted.
Boyd had an idea when the keep came into view, still a good distance from where they rode. It sat upon a slight hill, giving those behind the stone walls which encircled it the advantage of seeing in all directions. Beyond it was the village, where he might have gotten word had he approached from the north, but a guard on patrol might have heard a thing or two, as well.
“Have ye heard tell of an Englishman, a noble, searching for his intended? I met him while visiting Donnan McNair and thought he might have moved north after we parted ways.”
The lad stroked his chin before shaking his head. “Nay, I have heard of nothing like that. I believe I would recall making the acquaintance of an English noble. And he is riding in the Highlands?”
“Aye, he is at that. Or, he was. I dinna know if he decided to continue on, as I say, or if he fled to his native land. To tell the truth, I would rather not meet him again.”
A snicker. “Aye, I can imagine that.”
“There was another rumor which caught my ear in passing,” he continued, and now he was more careful that he’d been. “Of the nobleman’s intended. The lass who ran. Have you heard anything of her? She must either be dead from lack of food and water or hiding somewhere.”
The lad chuckled. “Perhaps dying from starvation is more easily managed than marrying an Englishman.”
Boyd laughed along with him, though his laughter rang hollow.
They parted ways again upon reaching the stone walls surrounding the keep. “What is your given name?” Boyd asked the lad as he brought his palfrey about, intending to ride out to the border once again.
The lad flashed a smile, reminding Boyd of his older brother who had died so suddenly, after fighting so bravely. “Tamhas.”
“Thank ye, Tamhas.”
The lad touched two fingers to his tam o’shanter before urging his palfrey to a gallop, kicking up clouds of dust in his wake.
There was no air of festivity outside Calan Stewart’s keep, as there had been at Donnan’s. No men camped outside the walls, no feasts. Nothing but work. He supposed it would be the same at the MacNair’s by now, as it would be across the Highlands.
Yet this did not mean a lack of warmth on the part of those who made their home behind the castle walls, for out came a welcome sight within moments of his arrival. “Boyd MacPherson, what brings ye here?” called out Calan Stewart, striding from the open gates with both arms extended.
Boyd clasped them, glad to be in the presence of his father’s closest ally even if there was no word here of the lass or her betrothed. It seemed there was truly no finding either of them. Only Calan’s familiar smile kept his spirits from sinking lower than they had since he’d been played falsely by his own intended bride.
“I wished to know if ye had word of the skirmishes at the border,” Boyd explained, allowing his horse to be cared for while his friend led him into the keep. “And if ye are in need of anything before this turns into all-out war.”
“Aye, I had heard of ye riding hither and yon,” Calan replied. “As yer father would, I wager.”
Boyd’s throat tightened at the mention of his father. An entire year had not been enough to soothe that tightening at the mention of the man. Would there ever come a day when he did not react so? “It pleases me to hear it,” he managed.
“Come inside, where we might speak in comfort.” Never would Calan allow a guest to linger long without a cup of ale or wine and something to ease his appetite. “Ye look as though ye have not seen yer home in months, man.”
“It has felt that long,” he admitted upon stepping foot inside the always impressive entry hall with its many tapestries depicting Stewart victories over rival clans through the ages. He could recall gazing at these in wonder during his younger years, when everyone and everything had seemed so much larger than himself.
Never had he imagined entering this house as an equal, a fellow laird with a clan of his own. Not so large or so storied as the Stewarts, but strong and proud just the same.
“We heard tell of yer disappointment with that lass,” Calan intimated as they entered his study. He closed the door on the rest of the household, giving them privacy and shutting out the voices and footfalls just beyond. “A wicked creature, she, and a fool besides. To think! When she might have been the laird’s bride!”
Boyd was frowning as he accepted ale from his old friend, though it was not as much over Innis as it might have been less than a month earlier. For it was not because of her that he had continued riding night and day. In fact, except on rare occasions, he hardly thought of her any longer.
All of his thoughts turned to another woman. Another woman who had run away from her betrothed.
He swallowed the ale in a single gulp, which Calan responded to by pouring a fresh cup. He believed this was all because of Innis, no doubt, and he was welcome to continue believing so as long as he did not ask questions.
He did not, likely because he knew better. Instead, he sat across from Boyd and spoke with him about sending men from their guard into the fight, debating how many men they could spare and how long they believed the fighting would last.
The sky outside the window was darkening by the time Calan chuckled, the fire’s light playing over his craggy features, the deep lines etched by time just as the grey in his thick, black hair. “How many evenings have I spent this way, only with yer da? And ye, seated on the floor. Even falling asleep at times!” he laughed.
“Aye, I did at that,” Boyd recalled. Those endless days—for that was how they had seemed to him as a wee lad, endless days which he might have spent in happier pursuits—had taught him everything he knew as a man.
At least, all he knew about leading a clan. He’d sat at his father’s feet and listened without knowing he was listening, the words soaking into his young mind as water through parched soil. Just as a seed knew not that the water and sunlight were what helped it to grow, nor had he known at the time what those endless days would turn to once he became a man.
“I have a powerful hunger,” Calan confessed. “Come. Have supper with me, take a bed for the night.”
“I might do that,” Boyd admitted, for he was hungry as well. He’d not had a proper meal since passing through an inn the day before. “But ye must give me yer vow here and now to ride out and find me soon, that ye might take supper with me and mine.”
“Tis a promise,” Calan laughed, always in good humor—unless and until a man c
rossed him, when his good humor gave way to a sharp, fearsome manner which could leave a grown man trembling in terror.
There was a reason the Stewarts had solidified their place in the Highlands, and it was not thanks to the generous nature of their lairds.
Rather than join the household, they ate in the study. One of the kitchen maids brought them a platter of roast boar and a soup made from boiled vegetables, along with a fresh jug of ale. Boyd regaled his host with tales of what he had seen while riding, including a recounting of his victory over the other men during the feast at Donnan McNair’s.
Calan roared with laughter. “Och, would that I could go back to those days,” he sighed. “Besting every man in sight and kissing the lass of my choosing. Mind ye, my Greer is the very beating of my heart, but before I knew her?” He laughed again, throwing his head back in glee.
Boyd chuckled, recalling that day more clearly than nearly any other. For that had been the day he’d kissed her. Not the nameless, faceless lass he had chosen in a near-panic, knowing he had to choose someone.
But rather the lass who he now knew in his very marrow he would never see again. She’d been lost to him. He had done all he could, but the time had come to turn his thoughts to his clan and what they needed. That was the way of it, and he could not ignore the duties placed upon him after his father’s death simply because he’d met a lass who had stayed with him long after he’d last set eyes on her.
He stared into the fire as a pair of maids entered the study to clear away what was left of their meal, lost in memories of her. Why, when he had known her hardly a week, was she so firmly lodged in his mind?
And his heart?
A sudden crash startled him, making him turn away from the fire and toward the maid who had dropped the platter holding what was left of the roast.
A maid who stared at him as if she had seen a dead man returned to the living.
A maid who happened to be Olivia Smythe.
13
“Forgive me,” she murmured, again and again, crouching beside the remains of what she’d dropped. “Pardon me, please. I didna—”
“Dinna trouble yerself, lass,” Calan muttered, though there was a tightness in his voice which belied his words. “These things happen, do they not?”
Even so, she might have easily crawled into a hole and died if given a chance. Her humiliation was worse than anything she had suffered until now.
And he was watching her. What was he doing here? Of all places! She kept her eyes downcast that she might clean the floor as best she could, though it had not been precisely clean before—Calan Stewart was a good man with many fine qualities, she was certain, but enjoying his evening meal without dropping great amounts of food upon the floor was not one of his strengths.
He might give her away. Perhaps that was what he intended to do! Yes, he would announce to one and all that she was not as she pretended to be. And he might demand he take her with him, and give her to George.
As she stood, she dared glance his way, hoping he might give her some sense of what he had in mind. What was he thinking? Was he proud of himself for having found her? Or surprised, because he had not expected to find her there?
He gave nothing away. His face was a mask of stone, the expression of a man whose host for the evening was in an uncomfortable situation. There was nothing in his eyes.
Nothing at all.
Because he cared nothing for her. It did not matter to him in the least that he’d found her there, in such a humble position. In fact, he might not recognize her.
Yet just before she turned away to flee to the kitchen, from which she hoped to never emerge, his eyes flickered up to hers and held them for a deliberate moment before shifting away again.
So he did know her. If only that did not make her heart swell so.
She continued to the kitchen, where she left the platter and ruined food on a table while walking straight to the door leading out to the garden. If there had ever been a time in which she’d needed fresh air, it was then.
For her skin flushed painfully hot, her heart racing out of control. What would he do? Would he reveal her? And what would Calan Stewart think? Would he order her off his land, knowing she was English?
She folded her hands over the knot in her belly, one which threatened to make her ill. What could she do? Run away once more? To what? To another several days or more of hunger and fright, hiding herself from any who might see her along the road or in the woods?
No, she did not think she could manage that again.
What else was there for her to do? Marry George? No, she did not want to do that, either. Certainly not. Living alone in the woods would be preferable to returning to England with him.
Someone was bound to find her lingering outside the kitchen. She fled to the stables, instead, hoping to find solace there. If she had to hide among the horses all evening, it would be preferable to seeing him again while in the presence of the laird.
“You can manage this,” she whispered to herself, walking between the stalls, stopping to stroke this or that horse’s forehead or neck. Hoping they would calm her somehow.
When she reached her mare, she stopped and buried her face in that soft, grey neck and let out a shuddering sigh. “What am I to do?” she whispered before tears choked her.
“For one, ye might learn to be a maid.”
His voice was both the last thing she wished to hear and the only thing. She turned her head to find him standing before her, arms folded over a chest even larger than the one in her memory. She swallowed back the lump in her throat.
“I thought I might find ye here,” he murmured, his dark eyes glowing with… what? Warmth? Humor? Anger?
When she did not reply, he continued, “I thought I might find ye in the stables, ye ken. I didna expect to find ye in the household of Calan Stewart—not as a maid.” He snickered. “Ye are not doing verra well at it.”
“Why are ye here?” she hissed, glaring at him as hard as she could as if that might calm the furious beating of her aching, lonely heart. It mattered not that he was even more glorious than she’d recalled. He might destroy everything she had worked so hard for.
“I wished to pay a call upon my friends and allies, the Stewarts. Just as I did upon the MacNairs. And the Frasers, the Kendricks, the Lindsays, and the Bruces.”
He had visited many clans, indeed, and only in a fortnight.
Had he been searching for her? If he had, it was likely only to bring her back to Donnan. Or to George.
She gathered herself, lifting her chin in defiance. “Fine. Ye have visited. Ye might be on your way now.”
He frowned. “Why are ye speaking in such a way? As if ye were Scottish?”
Her eyes rolled skyward, but she slid into her normal way of speaking just the same. “Why do you think? So they might believe me Scottish.”
Try as he might, he could not hold back a grin. “Ye might wish to do better, then, lassie.”
She barely held back a scream. This was what he wished to discuss? This? “No one has spoken a word of my speech before now.”
“Because they are too busy dodging items ye drop, I would wager.”
“Is this why you came out here to find me? That you might laugh at me?” she whispered, looking over her shoulder in case someone was coming. The guardsmen would change soon enough, meaning a great many bodies in the courtyard as weary men dragged their feet through the gates.
Any hint of humor on his handsome face vanished. “Nay, lassie. I wished to ken what ye believe yourself to be doin’, hiding here. Pretending to be one ye are not. Why?”
She drew herself up to her full height, which was still considerably shorter than him. “I do not believe that to be any of your concern. You said yourself you came here to visit with Calan Stewart, so it is not as if I brought you out of your way. Is that not so?”
His brows lowered. His nostrils flared. “Aye,” he grunted. “That is so, lass.”
How it pained h
er to hear it. How she wished it were not so. What a foolish thing she was, believing he would admit… what? That he’d spent a fortnight searching the Highlands for a woman after having done nothing more than kiss her once?
Knowing she was a fool did nothing to lessen the sting. She lowered her eyes, staring at the floor between them. “Do you know whether he is looking for me?
“Ye canna say his name?”
“What difference does it make?”
“It makes a great deal of difference, lass, when a woman is faithless and chooses to run from her betrothed rather than do as she vowed to do.”
Her head snapped up, teeth bared, eyes filling with hot, furious tears. So that was what he thought of her! That she was a faithless woman, the same as the one who had disappointed him! He knew not the first thing about it. Or about her.
“Take care with what you say,” she warned, speaking slowly and distinctly. “I will not allow you to speak to me that way.”
“No? And what will ye do about it, then?” he challenged, hands on his hips. “Ye dinna like to hear the truth. Few people do, lass.”
“It isn’t the truth!” she spat, stomping her foot in impotent fury. That was worst of all. Fury she could do nothing with. She could not strike him. Or rather, she could, but it would be a waste of energy. Like striking a wall. It would likely cause her more pain than it would him.
More than anything else, it was knowing there was nothing she could do or say to make him understand that sent a tightness from her chest and up into her throat, threatening to choke her.
She could stand nearly anything so long as he did not hate her.
But it was clear then that he did, that he thought as little of her as he did any woman in her place. She supposed her father would feel the same, knowing she had run from the man whose betrothal he’d so sought. The earl and the Highlander would agree on at least one thing if given a chance to meet and speak.
“Tell me, then. What is the truth?” He stared at her in that way of his, as if the entire world and everything in it had narrowed down to a single point, and that point was her. If Olivia could find a way to believe there was anything other than disgust in his dark eyes, the effect might have been quite thrilling, indeed.