Sweet Home Highlander

by Amalie Howard

  “Silly things, I told ye,” she replied with a sullen look. “Her pastimes, what ladies did for enjoyment at Maclaren and at Tarbendale.”

  What felt like iron ballast settled in the pit of Aisla’s chest. “Would you have mentioned that Lady Makenna enjoys early morning rides to the border?”

  “Mayhap. Why do ye ask?”

  “Lady Makenna has not returned from her ride, and her maid hasn’t seen hide nor hair of her for hours. She’s missing, Fenella. Did Dougal have something to do with it?”

  Fenella’s posture went rigid. “He would no’ do that.”

  “If he’s allied with the Campbells, he might have.” Ice settled in Aisla’s chest, and a premonition that Makenna may be in danger. “And the accidents at the mine have claimed lives and cost Niall dearly,” Aisla went on, her mind racing. “Did you tell him about the mines?”

  For the first time, the housekeeper looked uncertain as if the gravity of the possibility seemed to settle on her. “We talked about a lot of things. He…listened.” Her shoulders lifted in a tiny shrug. “At first, he was a means to an end, but I was lonely, and he was easy to talk to. I was proud of what the laird had accomplished.” The housekeeper sat heavily down in a chair, looking flustered. “I would never put my own clansmen and women in danger.”

  “Not knowingly, I’m sure, but Dougal wasn’t acting selflessly. He could very well have been using you to hurt Niall.” Aisla knew she didn’t owe the woman anything, but she gentled her voice. “He can be quite charming when he wants.”

  Fenella shook her head, but didn’t argue this time.

  “Lord Leclerc is looking for Makenna,” Aisla said, starting away, “and I need to find Niall to tell him what I suspect.”

  Fenella leaped from the chair. “I’ll go with ye. He’d be at the mines or at Maclaren.”

  “I’ll be fine on my own.”

  “If ye’re right, if I’ve been a part of it…I owe it to him to tell him myself.”

  There wasn’t time to quibble or belabor the fact that she didn’t trust the housekeeper one inch, but more ground could be covered by two people. Aisla gave a short nod and marched down to the stables.

  “Has the laird returned yet?” she asked a stable boy.

  “Nae, milady,” he replied. Aisla wasn’t surprised. Niall might spend hours riding around, avoiding her.

  “Saddle two mounts for us, please,” she said, and within minutes she and Fenella were riding from the stables, on a route toward the mines. Aisla kept praying that meanwhile, Julien had discovered Makenna somewhere. She hoped her feeling of foreboding was nothing more than her imagination.

  The horses took them breezing through the fields and up into the woods, where Makenna had led her that time when first showing her the mines. When she and Fenella broke through the trees and onto the clearing atop the ridge, Aisla expected to see the mine workers, busy at the start of their day. But instead, the stone mining shafts and outbuildings stood quiet and tranquil on the ridge. Not a soul in sight. A flutter of unease went through her.

  “’Tis Sunday,” Fenella said, the first words uttered since leaving the keep.

  The workers would be home with their families. Aisla urged her mount onward, toward the collection of huts and tower houses on the hilltop, and brought her horse to a stop near the long troughs where the miners sifted through the rubble for chunks of topaz deposits. There was no sign of a horse, or of anyone. Perhaps Niall had gone to Maclaren. In the past, he would have been at the tavern in the village, but he wasn’t that man anymore.

  “What are ye doing here?”

  Aisla heard Fenella’s question and turned to look at her, ready to reply that it had been her idea to check the mines to begin with. But what she saw sent a spike of alarm down her spine.

  Dougal Buchanan had exited the closest tower house, a small barrel in his hands and a long length of what looked like rope. He set the barrel down carefully, but kept hold of the rope.

  “Bad timing, this,” he replied, though a grin was working its way over his lips. Though it was not one of good humor. The smile and his face both seemed harder somehow.

  Fenella dismounted and rounded on Dougal. “Is that a keg of gunpowder?”

  The length of thin rope Dougal held ran straight through the open tower-house door, and Aisla suddenly realized what it truly was. A length of fuse. Fenella didn’t wait for Dougal to answer. She charged toward him.

  “How dare ye? Ye have been using me all along—”

  “Piss off, ye shrew. Ye used me right back.”

  Aisla stayed atop her mount. “Think about what you’re doing, Dougal. You’re going to start a war between the Maclarens and the Campbells.”

  He laughed. “That’s my intention, lass. It has been, for six long years. That crippled bastard cost me my alliance with the Montgomerys. He cost me ye.” He spat on the ground. “The only reason I courted an alliance with the Campbells was to get close to the Maclaren.”

  Aisla began to comprehend, and it terrified her. “To help spark a feud.”

  A hardness wiped the mirth from Dougal’s face. “To destroy that sniveling, one-handed laird and everything he cares for.”

  Fenella made a croaking sound as she looked between Aisla and Dougal. “Harming Niall wasnae part of our agreement. Ye lied to me!”

  “Do ye think I care? Ye’re nothing but a desperate whore anyhow.”

  At that, Fenella screeched a battle cry and ran toward Dougal, fists up and ready.

  “Fenella!” Aisla cried, knowing the woman was making a mistake.

  Her eyes were still on the charging housekeeper when Aisla heard the report of a pistol. Her mount jerked and skittered back, and it was seconds more before she saw the weapon in Dougal’s hand—and Fenella sprawled face down on the ground.

  “No!” she screamed. Her horse, still agitated and jumpy, backed away. “Ye bloody bastard!”

  The man was insane. He’d shot a defenseless woman, and once sparked by flame, the black gunpowder line he’d set would likely touch off an explosion.

  “Ye shouldnae speak to yer future husband in such a manner.”

  Husband? He was most definitely insane. What in the world would ever compel her to marry this man, especially after all he’d confessed.

  Aisla jerked the reins and her mount turned and galloped away. A second pistol shot, however, had the animal lifting both front hooves from the ground as she reared up. Aisla tried to grip the reins, but she fumbled, and when her horse reared again, Aisla fell back, out of the saddle. She landed hard on the ground, but knew she could not lie there, stunned.

  A hasty check of her body told her that she had no broken bones, but her head still spun when she lurched unsteadily to her feet. At the same time, she reached into the pocket of her skirt. Her fingers closed around the cool handle of the topaz dagger as she turned and sank back into a crouch. Dougal was running toward her when she pulled the dagger free, and with breathless control, threw it.

  Aisla only stayed long enough to see him stumble back and reach for his shoulder where the topaz hilt winked in the rising sunlight. Blast it. She’d been aiming for his chest, but both her vision and balance felt off. She must have hit her head harder than she’d thought. She turned and ran, her horse having spooked and disappeared. She had but a minute at the most before Dougal came after her. The wound would not be a fatal one, and Dougal was a strong man.

  He shot Fenella.

  Panic wound through Aisla at the thought. She couldn’t go back to help her, but she could find a place to hide for the moment, and perhaps Dougal had been right. The sound of the pistol shots might have carried, and someone might come to investigate.

  Or not. It was Sunday, after all.

  Breathing heavily, her feet feeling clumsy and her head and elbow aching from being tossed from the horse, Aisla wove dizzily between the stone tower houses and wooden huts that dotted the mine site. She spied a smaller tower house and dashed inside. It was dark and cool, and there
was a hole in the ground with a ladder leading down. Quickly, she descended, and when the rungs ended, she felt the soles of her boots touch down on creaky wooden boards. There wasn’t much light at all filtering down this far, and she prayed Dougal wouldn’t look for her here. Perhaps he’d rush back to the Campbells to treat his wound.

  Or set off the explosion in the mine.

  Aisla was breathing rapidly when the boards beneath her feet groaned. And then snapped. They caved beneath her, and she plummeted down into the shaft. She didn’t even have time to scream before the hard ground broke her fall with agonizing impact, shoveling the breath from her lungs.

  And then everything winked out of focus, and went black.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A chunk of topaz crumbled beneath the sharp carving tool for the third time, and Niall swore loudly, nearing throwing both gem and tool against the wall. Normally, carving the smaller pieces of cairngorm calmed him. Being able to focus on something so small and detailed took all of his concentration. However today, he simply could not focus. And not just because he’d sent his faithless wife on her way, though that contributed to a large portion of it. No, he couldn’t focus because every other moment his mind flipped wildly between memories of the last night, when he and Aisla had come together in such honest passion and lust, and then of that morning, when he’d found her and Leclerc at the folly.

  How could she have left him to meet another man? The idea of it made him senseless with rage. He could not have gone back to sleep after he’d returned to Maclaren. No, instead, he’d ridden west to MacLeod and woken a sleepy Hamish for a bruising round of fisticuffs. Niall had wanted to be knocked unconscious so he wouldn’t have to pay attention to the void yawning inside of him and threatening to swallow him whole.

  Always one to oblige, Hamish had given him a pounding.

  “Is it the lass?” he’d asked.

  Niall had been forced to smash him in the jaw for that one. “Nae,” he’d hissed, dodging the weight of Hamish’s hammer-like fists.

  “Ye’re too spitting mad for it to be anything else.” A low, hard jab caught Niall square in the stomach, making him nearly lose his footing. “And it’s too bloody early.”

  “She’s leaving Scotland.”

  Hamish had laughed. “Came to her senses, aye? Always thought she was too good for the likes of ye.”

  The taunt had met its mark. She’d always been too good for him, clearly. So good that she’d sought satisfaction elsewhere. Or maybe all she’d wanted to do was win the wager. Get him into her bed and then call the victory. Hell, if that were the case, she’d well and truly bested him. He hadn’t even known he’d been the one being seduced. Pride and anger reared up within him, making him see red. “Shut yer gob and fight, ye sack of shite.”

  And Niall had fought with a vengeance then, like a possessed man, so much so that Hamish had yielded after several punishing bouts, his eyes wide with disbelief that Niall still wanted more. Even Hamish’s considerable pugilistic skills hadn’t been enough to flatten the demons surging to life in his brain…tormenting him, laughing at him. He ached, but they hadn’t felt a damned thing.

  After riding back to the keep, Niall had tried to throw his energies into working in his carving studio, but clearly, that had also failed, leaving one other option. Walking into his study, he reached into the drawer of his desk for the bottle of whisky that was usually there, forgetting that he’d thrown it into the fireplace. He hadn’t bothered to replace it. He sank into the chair behind the desk and kneaded his head.

  The castle had been quiet when he arrived home, and he’d been grateful Fenella had not been waiting for his return, eager to gloat about Aisla. He didn’t want to speak of her, not ever again. Had she even left yet? Would he know if she did? Taking all her light with her?

  Enough, Niall. It’s over.

  The pain roiled anew in his gut, and he nearly doubled over from the force of it. Niall doubted his body could go another round with Hamish, but if that was what it took, he would brave it. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, then scrubbed a restless hand through his hair. Perhaps a swim in the loch would take the edge off. A long swim, clear to the other side. And back.

  “Laird,” a footman said. “There’s a gentleman here to see ye.”

  Niall’s eyes narrowed. A gentleman? “Show him in.”

  It took everything within him to not jump the expanse of his desk like a wild animal and lay the man who entered flat on his arse. As it was, he rose, his fingers nearly cracking the solid mahogany edge of the desk. “Ye risk a lot coming here, Leclerc,” he snarled in warning before prowling to the other side of the desk.

  “Makenna is missing.”

  About to blister the man for his familiar address, Niall halted in his tracks. “What do ye mean she’s missing?”

  Leclerc didn’t appear any more put together than he did earlier, at the folly, and now a hint of frenzied panic lit his eyes. “She takes early morning rides, and the stableboy at Maclaren just informed me that her mount returned on its own to the keep.”

  A drip of unease slipped into Niall then. “She’s a competent horsewoman, but the animal still could have thrown her. I’ll get a group of men together and set out.”

  Leclerc raised a hand to stay him. “There is more. I spoke to Pauline, Aisla’s maid. She said your housekeeper visited Aisla’s bedchamber this morning and said some concerning things.”

  Niall nearly growled. “I dunnae wish to discuss her with ye. Thank ye for yer concern over my sister, but ye can take yer leave now.”

  “Don’t be a stubborn fool.” The Frenchman had the nerve to stalk toward him, his mouth tightening into a scowl. “What your housekeeper said may involve Lady Makenna.”

  Niall forced himself to calm, and listen. If only for Makenna’s sake. He folded his arms across his chest and nodded curtly for the man to continue.

  “Apparently, the lady has had…relations with Dougal Buchanan, and during that time, shared information with him. About Aisla and Makenna among other things.”

  Fenella and Dougal? Niall hadn’t even known the two were acquainted. His ears started to ring, his body on alert as his mind turned over the things the Frenchman was saying.

  “Ye think he has something to do with Makenna’s horse coming back alone?” he asked.

  Leclerc nodded, his lips a grim line. “As you’ve said, she’s a competent horsewoman. Either she’s taken an innocent fall or something more sinister is at play here.”

  A sudden thought all but stopped Niall’s pulse. “Where is Aisla?”

  “I don’t know, Pauline said she went to find you.” Leclerc swore under his breath. “You haven’t seen her?”

  Overtaken by dread, Niall stormed toward the study door and into the corridor just as a scream rent the air. He, and Leclerc behind him, broke into a sprint, turning down the steps and toward the ruckus below. In the foyer, a handful of maids surrounded a man, his shirt stained with blood, and in his arms, a limp and bleeding Fenella.

  Niall’s feet stuck to the bottom step as the man, one of his sheep-farming tenants, saw him. “My laird! I found her crawling across my field. She’s been shot.”

  “Put her down there,” Niall ordered, gesturing to a long bench. The farmer did as he was told, lowering Fenella to the wooden seat.

  Makenna was missing. Fenella had been shot. Where the devil was Aisla?

  “Niall.” He heard Fenella’s low rasp even through the pounding panic in his ears. He went to her, kneeling at her side. Blood. It was everywhere, dampening her tartan and her ashen skin.

  “Fenella, what happened?” he asked, taking her hand, slick with her own blood, and holding it tightly. She would not live. One look at the wound, in the center of her stomach, assured him of that.

  “’Tis my fault,” she wheezed. “I’m so sorry, Niall.”

  “Nonsense, nothing is yer fault, lass,” he whispered. “But ye must tell me what’s happened. Where is Ai
sla? And Makenna, do ye ken what’s happened to them?”

  Fenella rolled her head to and fro. “’Twas Dougal. I didnae ken…he wants to destroy ye and everything ye’ve built.”

  “Where?” Leclerc asked.

  She coughed, blood leaking from the corner of her mouth. “The mine…he went after Lady Aisla…”

  Cold, hard terror silenced the rapid beat of his heart, his uneven breathing. Dougal had Aisla.

  “I wronged ye, Niall,” Fenella whimpered, her eyes watery with tears. “I wanted the two of ye apart. I lied about yer wife to make ye jealous when ye were first married, and the past few weeks as well, with the Frenchman. ’Twas wrong of me. I’m so sorry.”

  Niall couldn’t dredge up a lick of anger, not right then. Fenella was confessing her sins on her deathbed, and he knew he could do no more than listen.

  “Perhaps, lass, but ye’ve done right by her and me now, ye ken. Ye fought hard to come back here, to tell us what’s happened, and I thank ye, Fenella, for that.”

  She closed her eyes, tears rolling down her temples, and grimaced. It was a painful wound, no doubt, and she must have struggled at least a mile or more before the farmer had found her. Whatever she’d done in the past to drive him and Aisla apart, he’d sort it out later. He’d be angry about it later. When her grip loosened, and went light, Niall knew it was over. Her grimace smoothed out, and he felt a surge of grief. But there was no time for it right then.

  “Take care of her,” he said to the weeping maids, then turned to the solemn farmer, drenched in Fenella’s drying blood. “Go to Maclaren and inform Ronan what ye’ve just heard.”

  The man bobbed his head, but Leclerc cut in. “He’s not at Maclaren. I went to him before coming here. He’s the one who sent me to you. I believe he intends to pay a visit to the Campbell.”

  Good. Knowing Ronan and his warriors were already on the move gave him a little comfort, though not nearly enough. Niall tried to remain calm as he supplied himself with a long rifle and pistol, and plenty of shot and powder while Leclerc secured two horses. The two started out toward the mine without exchanging a single word. They maintained a fierce gallop, all the while Niall’s mind crashed and roiled with images of what could be happening to Aisla at that moment.