Her Reluctant Highlander Husband (Clan MacKinlay)

by Hanson, Allison B.

  Something she didn’t quite understand.

  Chapter Ten

  Having failed in his mission to secure a brush for his wife, Bryce returned to the castle and handed off the shoes to a maid to be taken to Dorie straight away. Then he returned to the bailey to run drills with his men. The troops had a visitor—their previous war chief, his cousin Cameron.

  Cam slapped his shoulder as he came closer. The man had been busy working on a new house for his family. It was coming along nicely, but there was still work to be done.

  “You’re joining us today, you sluggard?” Bryce asked.

  Cam looked insulted. “To prepare for the battle to take Baehaven Castle and put an end to the McCurdys? Of course I’m here. I may not be war chief any longer, but I’m a MacKinlay.”

  “And I’m not,” Bryce reminded him, earning a sound of dismissal from his cousin.

  “That isna true, Bryce Thomas MacKinlay Campbell.”

  Bryce laughed it off and drew his sword to start their practice. The men were energized, and the sound of clashing steel filled the crisp morning air. Everyone was excited to end the McCurdys.

  “I need to go speak with the Campbells about getting more men to aid our cause,” Bryce said with a frown.

  Cam misunderstood what was bothering him. “Do you think you’ll not get their support?”

  “I understand my da has moved up the ranks since marrying the laird’s daughter,” Bryce said.

  “Is that his fourth wife?”

  “Nay, fifth. I hope this one is of fair health. And that she has provided enough influence I may use to my advantage.”

  “Influence is one thing. Connection is another. You’ve not spoken to your father in many years.”

  “I visited a year or so after…” He didn’t need to speak of the event out loud. Cam would know what that pause meant. “I have seven half brothers and sisters. They write.”

  He moved out from under Cam’s heavy strike and twisted to offer his own blow, but Cam blocked him.

  “Did you wish me to join you when you go see him?” Cam asked when they took a break.

  “Nay. You have your own duties here with your house. Your wife is increasing and will need your help.”

  “I’ll still be able to run the men through their drills every morning in your absence.”

  Bryce turned to eye Liam. He was eighteen now, a man, and Bryce would have put him in charge if not for the fact Lach was sending him on an errand soon as well.

  “If you could manage that, I’d be obliged,” he told Cam. “I don’t want them getting soft while I’m away.”

  “I’ll see it done,” Cam promised.

  “Tomorrow I’ll be leaving to check the borders. I’ll leave for the Campbells when I return. I would already have been off if not for needing to see Dorie settled. She slept like a rock last night, no doubt exhausted after her ordeal.”

  “She’s definitely had her share of struggles lately.”

  “I think the lass is used to struggles. It’s obvious she hasn’t had the best life thus far.” And then she’d married the likes of him. After becoming his wife, she’d been poisoned and nearly killed in a fire. Dorie McCurdy MacKinlay was not high on luck. Though she was still alive, when his Maggie was not.

  Cam shook his head. “You mean because it’s possible her own father planned to kill her to get out of an accord with us?”

  “Aye. But I don’t want her to know about that.” Bryce might not be the best husband, but he would do what he could to protect her. That meant sparing her additional grief. He’d keep her safe.

  “But she’ll need to be guarded in case there’s another attempt.”

  “I understand, but I can have her guarded without telling her the why of it.” He didn’t think it would come as a surprise to Dorie, but there was a matter of expecting such a thing and knowing it to be true. “She’s my wife. She’ll do as I say.”

  Cam laughed at this. “If you’ve found a wife who listens to ye, you are blessed indeed.”

  Bryce knew Dorie was strong, she’d proven that by her very existence— She’d survived life with the McCurdys. But he couldn’t hurt her in that way. To know that her own father would rather kill her than honor his agreement. It would break the lass’s heart.

  He’d never been one to push his men to alleviate his anger, but as he snapped orders to the lower ranks he had to admit it did make him feel slightly better.

  But whatever relief he’d gained during drills was short lived, and by dinner he was restless again. Dorie entered the hall in her borrowed gown and new shoes. Her hair had been brushed. He took in her slender ankles which were revealed by the dress that was too short for someone of her height. He swallowed as he noticed the curve of her hips. She’d been so thin when she arrived, but those new curves were enticing.

  She smiled at something Mari said and he felt his stomach flip in excitement. Nay. Surely it was just hunger. He hadn’t eaten since the morning meal. That was all.

  “Doesn’t Dorie look lovely?” Mari encouraged when they arrived at the table.

  “She looks better than she did this morning,” Bryce agreed, earning a glare from Kenna and a sad frown from Mari. Dorie continued to smile as if she’d taken his rude comment as a compliment. He should have done better. It seemed his wife was as unused to receiving compliments as he was at giving them.

  “The three of ye ladies do our clan proud. We don’t deserve such lovely brides,” Cam said. Mari fluttered her lashes at him and offered a smile that foretold of an early departure to their chamber.

  Bryce had always been a flirt in the past. Charming women was an amusing way to pass the time. Especially since it never led anywhere. A few sweet words here and there didn’t cause any harm. But he’d grown rusty.

  He drew on the skill that seemed to have abandoned him since he’d been forced into marriage. “You look fetching,” he said quietly, just for Dorie.

  Her blue eyes went wide with surprise as a blush stole over her creamy skin. How would he survive another night lying next to her without touching her?

  As expected, Cam and Mari slinked off to the stairs as soon as the meal was over. Lach and Kenna didn’t remain much longer, leaving him alone with Dorie.

  Rather than sit awkwardly in the hall, he asked her to join him on a walk. Her excited agreement never ceased to surprise him. No matter how awful he’d been, she still seemed happy to be with him.

  His invitation was completely selfish. His plan was simply to tire her out so she’d fall asleep instantly when they returned to their room.

  Not that she was some grand seductress, but in the low light, with her eyes luring him to tell her all his secrets, he was weak. The warmth of her body would be too close for him to resist. Fortunately his plan worked, and after returning to their room and slipping off that delicious gown, she slid under the covers in her equally delectable shift.

  He spent the night tossing and turning. At the first light of morning he sat up, eager to flee. She slept on, so he paused in his escape to look at her.

  As the day before, her black hair stuck out at all angles and points. He remembered his failure to offer her even the simplest necessities.

  He slipped from the bed and moved to his trunk, silently lifting the lid to peer at the memories that lurked inside. The scent of Maggie had faded, but he still caught a slight whiff of something familiar.

  Moving aside a few of her garments, he found what he was looking for. A brush and comb set she’d been given by her parents when she and Bryce married. He recalled the way she sat in their home stroking the brush through her heavy blond locks until they crackled and lifted from the heat of the fire.

  He breathed in the pain and let out a breath before he tucked the ivory brush and comb set back in his trunk. He knew Dorie needed them—she had nothing when she arrived, and even less since
the fire—but he wasn’t strong enough to offer them to her. They belonged to Maggie.

  He glanced over his shoulder to make sure she hadn’t seen him. She was still asleep, her hands folded under her cheek like an angel.

  If he’d been a different man, he might have thought she was sent to him as recompense for everything he’d lost. But he didn’t believe in such things. He’d not have anything to do with a god who took innocent women and children while leaving him alive covered with the blood of his enemies on the battlefield. It made no sense. Maggie and Isabel had done nothing wrong.

  He dressed and left the room before his new wife woke.

  Knowing that he cared even a bit for Dorie annoyed him enough that he was glad to be off to check the far borders. Being away for a few days would give him the distance he needed.

  He didn’t want to care.

  …

  Dorie looked for Bryce at the morning meal but figured he was already out with his men when she didn’t see him. It wasn’t until the evening meal when she heard Cam mention Bryce had left the castle that she became concerned.

  When Cam gave no details, she reached across Mari to touch his arm. Her brows pulled together.

  “Of course he dinna tell you where he was going.” Cam shook his head and looked at Mari, who only shrugged. “I hope I was never such an arse to you.”

  “You’ll recall you didn’t want a wife when we wed any more than Bryce did.”

  Dorie was surprised to hear this. Especially seeing how much Cameron clearly loved his family. Even now his hand rested protectively on Mari’s round belly.

  “You see, it’s not the worst thing to have a man leave you for a bit. So long as he realizes he cannot live without you,” Cam said. “When Mari left me, I dinna think I’d survive it.”

  With the couples chatting to one another, Dorie finished her meal and went to help the women in the kitchen. There was no refuge to be found there. Millie and the other women were speaking of the romantic things their men did for them.

  She made a hasty escape as they began to delve into the subject of other services their husbands provided.

  Rascal was waiting outside the kitchen for her. Dorie fed him and led him out of the gates toward the stream where she and Bryce had sat and talked the day they were married. Well, he’d talked. She’d been too afraid to speak. Many times since, she wished she hadn’t continued this deception. There were so many things she wanted to say to him now. But what would he think when he found out she’d lied to him all this time?

  “Do you think his leaving could be a good thing?” she asked Rascal, who loped along beside her. “I don’t know the ways of husbands and wives. I have to think it shouldn’t be this difficult.”

  She was about to tell her dog the confusing things she’d learned from the women in the kitchen when he went on alert, the fur rising on his back. A low growl rumbled in his chest as he ducked down and slipped away from her.

  She trusted Rascal. He’d already saved her once before, so she took his warning seriously and wedged herself between a dense bush and a large rock.

  “Where did she go? She was just standing here talking with that demon hound,” Desmond said as he pointed to the ground far too close to her. She could just make him out through the leaves of the bush where she hid.

  “You lie. My sister doesn’t speak,” Wallace snapped.

  “Nay, it’s true. I even heard her singing when I was watching her at her cottage. Look, there’s the dog over there. She must have crossed the creek.” It was Rory who spoke, but she couldn’t see him.

  The men’s heavy footsteps faded away but she remained crouched in her hiding place. Good lord. Her brother and cousins were here. What did they want? Had they been responsible for the fire at the cottage?

  She couldn’t see what was happening. She shook with worry for her dog. What if they killed him because he was protecting her? But to jump from the bushes would mean certain death for both of them.

  She pressed her forehead harder into the rock and jumped when she felt a stick poke her in the foot. She looked up at Rory. She almost smiled in relief, but then she remembered the danger.

  Rory had once brought her a meal and had been beaten for it. No doubt he hated her now. It wouldn’t surprise her if he called for her brother and turned her over to him so he could earn their praise and respect.

  She stared at him, begging him with her eyes not to call her out. Slowly he raised his index finger to his lips, bidding her to be quiet. She nodded at once. He tapped her foot again, silently telling her to move it beneath the bush.

  Tucking her long legs in as tightly as possible, she looked up to thank him, but he had moved on without a word.

  She remained in her hiding spot until the sun set and the noises from her hungry stomach drowned out the night sounds of the darkening forest around her.

  Rascal had returned to her hours ago. He’d left twice again but hadn’t growled or seemed alert to any danger. Still, she wasn’t willing to risk exposure. Not when her brother was out there.

  …

  Bryce had seen enough to know Clan MacKinlay had an issue with intruders. He’d found at least ten separate tracks coming from the McCurdy land onto theirs. Most were fresh, which meant they could have been made when the buggers had come to set the fire at the cottage.

  They’d found a piece of McCurdy plaid then, clear evidence they had been there.

  But confronting the McCurdy would do no good. He was no doubt behind the intrusion and would defend his men. A mere scrap of fabric wouldn’t be enough. Bryce would need irrefutable proof the McCurdy clan had come unwelcome onto MacKinlay lands. Not that they needed yet another reason for war.

  Settling in to wait, he set up a small fireless camp and thought of how his clan might win a war against the McCurdys. Bryce wasn’t looking forward to visiting the Campbell clan to ask for assistance.

  It wasn’t that his father was a horrible man. It was the opposite, actually. Nothing seemed to get the man down. Not the death of Bryce’s dear mother. Definitely not that. Every time he lost a wife, he was quick to replace her with a new and younger version.

  To his father, marriage seemed to be nothing more than a state to keep oneself cared for. And…as evident by the number of half brothers and half sisters Bryce had, their father also took fair advantage of the marriage bed.

  Bryce thought more of marriage. It went beyond having a place to put his cock and someone to mend his shirts. Marriage was reserved for the person one wanted to give their heart. A partner. The person who made life complete.

  When one loved someone like that, the person was not so easily exchanged, if ever replaced.

  His mother had once told him lightning didn’t strike the same place twice. She would probably be saddened to see how many times lightning had struck his father.

  In the dark, surrounded by the sounds of the woods and the animals that lived there, it was easy to feel as if his mother could be there with him. Or Maggie. Perhaps it was the magic of the forest, but he also imagined Dorie looking up at the star-filled sky, noticing the same patterns as he. From there it was easy to recall sharing a bed with her.

  He’d been able to pull Dorie against him and breathe in the scent of her hair, feel the softness of her skin. His cock grew hard at the memory and he scowled up at the night sky.

  He had the ability to conjure up any fantasy he wished here in the dark. Why would he think of Dorie instead of his beloved Maggie? Dorie had been forced on him, so his reality was filled with her. His thoughts should still be loyal to his first wife.

  The wife of his heart.

  Except as he lay there, he couldn’t recall the smell of her. Couldn’t hear the sound of her laughter or her voice. He remembered things they’d said to one another, but the timbre of her whisper in the dark eluded him. When he envisioned touching her, her features t
ransformed into those of Dorie.

  “Christ.” He was losing Maggie.

  When he’d been numb with the pain of Maggie’s death, everyone had told him it would get easier. Time would heal his pain. But it was no more than an illusion. Nothing healed the pain. Time was a bastard who stole away his memories so he could no longer summon enough details to feel that level of pain anymore. It was nothing but a cruel trick.

  Despite his irritation, he must have drifted off. A twig snapped, waking Bryce fully. He blinked, trying to recall where he was and why he was sleeping rough in the woods. The events from the day before filled in and soon he was crouched in the bushes watching as three men wearing McCurdy plaid trudged by. It was difficult to see their features clearly, but they were the same size of the men who had brought Dorie to Dunardry.

  “I can’t believe you let her get away again,” Wallace McCurdy barked at his cousins.

  “Ye were there, too. It wasna only my doing. That blasted dog. If we have any chance of getting to her, we need to kill the dog.”

  “I don’t kill dogs. I’m not a monster.”

  “You plan to kill your own sister, but not her dog?” Rory pointed out the hypocrisy.

  “She’s not my sister now, is she? Not by blood anyway. Besides, this would have been done already if you’d used all the poison as I said to.”

  The men continued their grumbling as they passed, but Bryce could no longer hear their words as they trudged back onto their own lands. He didn’t need to hear any more. He might not have proof, but he’d heard the truth from their own lips.

  They had tried to kill his wife and failed. Which meant they’d probably try again.

  Chapter Eleven

  When Dorie made it back to the castle, it was nearly midnight and the hall was abuzz with activity. But the commotion ceased the moment they noticed her enter with Rascal by her side. She thought for a moment the looks of frustration were because of the dog, but one by one the warriors disbanded and walked away, muttering to themselves.