by Willa Blair
“I’d be pleased if ye’d join me in the solar.” She kept her tone neutral, but knew he could tell she hadn’t offered an invitation, rather issued an order.
He hesitated. She had no doubt he considered the consequences of refusing her. After the brawl this morning, she also knew Jamie had demanded his men be on their best behavior. Refusing their host would not fall into that category.
Finally, Donal nodded. “Aye, I will.” His shoulders dropped slightly as he joined her.
Ah, a man of few words. Yet he managed to signal that he was resigned to spending time with her. Not the best start for the conversation she hoped to have. Or a long-term relationship on any footing.
In the solar, she gestured him to a seat, then poured two generous cups of the twenty-five-year-old vintage of MacKyrie whisky. She wanted to lull him into acceptance. The younger, rawer vintage would not do.
She offered him his drink, careful not to let her fingers touch his, then chose a chair for herself. She deliberately avoided the laird’s seat she’d occupied when last they’d been together in this room. Instead, she sat next to him, within reach, but far enough apart to converse comfortably.
Not that Donal looked comfortable. Far from it. He had the look of a man who’d rather be somewhere else, anywhere else, even if it involved swords and bloodshed. Or perhaps especially if it involved swords and bloodshed.
It occurred to her he was waiting for the laird to initiate the niceties rather than trampling over protocol yet again. Finally she took pity on him and began the conversation.
“I regret the way we left things last night and this morning,” she began.
Donal tensed.
But she’d started down this path and would walk where it took her. “I also regret ignoring yer wishes and bringing my need for ye...for yer skills, to the Lathan ambassador.” She hesitated, then went on. “I would like this chance to tell ye more about my clan so ye can understand my urgency to train up my lads to protect my people.”
“That isna necessary, Laird MacKyrie. Ye’ve made yer wishes clear.”
Her stomach sank at his curt response, but she lifted a hand. “Please call me Ellie. There’s no one here but ye and me. I’d like us to be friends, at least.”
He took a measured sip. She watched him roll it around in his mouth before swallowing, pleased to see before her a man who appreciated good whisky. He relaxed a bit and relented, though his tone remained brusque. “Verra well, Ellie. What would ye like to discuss?”
“No’ discuss, please. Just talk. I’ve been so long without someone who can listen and understand what has happened to my people since the battle at Flodden four years ago.”
“Perhaps ’twould be better to have Jamie here, then.” He took another sip and settled a bit more deeply into his chair rather than heading for the door. Ellie hid a sigh of relief.
“Nay, I’ve talked to him enough these past few days. I’d rather talk with ye.”
Donal did not answer.
Ellie got up to fetch the bottle. She added two fingers more to Donal’s cup and set the bottle near his hand. The message was clear. Relax. Enjoy. One eyebrow lifted and lowered as he regarded her. So, Donal understood and seemed willing, for now, to go along.
She smoothed her skirts as he watched her take her seat, then she looked aside, suddenly unwilling to meet his gaze while she spoke of private things. “We lost my father and brothers that day. Most of our fighting men had gone with him and died as well, including my new husband. We shared only weeks together before he left.” An echo of her misery on that day filled her mind. She’d feared never seeing him again. She hadn’t. Ellie shrugged off the memory and continued. “My father...the old laird, left only a small garrison behind to maintain the security of the keep. In the years since, the lads too young to go with him have grown, the babes that were started before the battle have been born and now cling to their mothers’ skirts, never having met their fathers.”
“A sad day.” Donal’s face gave away little, but she could sense that he was revisiting some of his own sad memories as she described those days.
“Aye. Since then, our neighbors have had their eyes on us. They’ve tried our gates. Most of our remaining fighting force have been lost defending our walls or our whisky wagons. Since they’ve not been able to break us, lately they try another tactic. If they canna defeat us in war, they think to win our lands through my defeat, so they sue for my hand in marriage.”
“It is ever so, is it not?”
Ellie’s pulse spiked along with her temper. She doubted that he sympathized with her. Many men would not, since the value to their clan of highly placed women lay in the alliance that could be made with their marriage. Or alliances. Ellie set her drink aside and leaned forward. “I refuse to bow to such pressure. I will choose the husband I want when I wish to. I willna have one chosen for me by land-grabbing neighbors or even by the people of my clan.”
Donal’s gaze cut through her. “I wish ye well with that, then. Any man would be lucky to have ye to wife.”
Did he mean that? “Aye,” Ellie said, though in her heart, “nay” echoed again and again. She ignored it as best she could. She didn’t want just any man. She must have the man in her dream. “Tell me about yerself. Ye’re a MacNabb. How did ye come to be with the Lathans?”
Donal hesitated. She thought at first he would refuse to answer her. Then he turned his cup, staring into its depths. “My sister fancied a Lathan lad she met in Edinburgh years ago. I escorted her to her marriage, intending to stay at most a month to ensure her well-being, but the auld laird became a friend and offered me a place in his clan.”
Donal paused again. Ellie realized she was holding her breath. Had the whisky mellowed him enough to speak so, or did he simply need someone to talk to? “So ye stayed?”
“Truly, I had no reason to return to the MacNabbs—as a younger son, I had little future to look forward to there.” His gaze shifted from his drink to the blackness of the windows. “Even after my sister and her husband died of a fever two winters later, I stayed.”
“Ach, Donal, I am sorry.” Ellie sank deeper into her chair and picked up her drink.
“It was a long time ago.” He swirled the whisky in his cup for a moment, then continued. “The Lathans lost their laird and his older sons at Flodden. Toran had never expected to become laird. He required some...persuasion...and a lot of training. That fell to me.”
“So ye have done this before.”
He took a sip, then let his head drop against the back of his chair. “Aye.”
“I heard what ye did while Bram and Micheil fought, using their scuffle as a lesson for the lads in the hall. That was brilliant.”
Donal flashed her a brief grin. It lit up the room, but all too quickly disappeared as if it had never existed.
Ellie pursed her lips, wrenched by the glimpse. Wanting it back but not knowing how to inspire it. “And infuriating. Better ye stopped the fight.”
“They wore themselves out and stopped in their own way.”
She’d heard he’d ordered them to leave the hall, but the laddies had diverted his attention by throwing a bench at him and the fight had gone on. Not that he’d admit it or use it as an excuse.
“Aye, I suppose so. The point is ye are a natural teacher, as well as a skilled and experienced warrior. The Lathans revere ye. I must have ye...”
Donal cocked an eyebrow. A speculative glint in his gaze suddenly bored into her.
“..for my clan. Donal, I’m serious. I willna accede to the treaty unless ye agree to stay and train the lads.”
“There is no one suitable among yer neighbors to do what ye wish?”
“If I could trust them, I might, but I canna. They’ve shown their true colors. They covet my land and my distillery. I canna allow any of them to live within my walls, nor can I depend on them to train my lads. They’d sooner train them to lose and die in battle.”
Ellie steeled herself and reached out to touch Don
al’s hand where it rested, loosely wrapped around his whisky cup. The tension in the room spiked. That speculative gleam was back in his eyes.
“I need ye, Donal. Ye and no other.”
His gaze moved to her hand. She pulled it back.
He tossed back the whisky remaining in his cup and poured again, offering first to her. When she shook her head, he filled his cup.
“It still sounds like ye mean something very different, lass. Something I’ve already refused.”
“’Tis no’ what ye think. Ye ken I need a husband. I’ve been too busy being laird to consider it. But perhaps...”
“Nay, lass, I’ll no’ bargain wi’ ye over that.”
Ellie sighed. She’d been long without a man after her husband’s death at Flodden and the burdens of being laird falling on her shoulders. She dared not dally with any of the few remaining marriageable men. Everyone knew everyone’s business in a clan this small and she’d quickly have a consort whether she wanted him or not. Sadly, her time with her husband had failed to produce an heir, and she was not getting any younger. But the suitors she’d been shown from the other clans, nay—too young or old, too weak or fat, too...wrong for her and her people.
Could Donal really be her match? Or was that the whisky talking?
“But ye could consider a less permanent proposal?” Would he agree to handfasting? That would keep him here for a year, or more.
Donal turned his cup around, gazing into the amber depths of the whisky as if the answer were to be found there.
“I think I’d best be goin’,” he finally said and set the cup on the table beside him. He stood and sketched a half bow, not quite as steady on his feet as he had been when he entered the solar.
Ellie stood, too, suddenly more nervous than she’d ever been in her life. If he rejected her now, Jamie would back him and permit him to leave. She needed him. She reached out and took his hand, counting on his reaction to her touch to delay him. “I wish ye’d stay awhile.”
The gaze Donal turned on her glinted like an icy pool. The kind that stopped your heart and froze your breath in your lungs. The kind so beautiful in winter that you didn’t mind the cold. Suddenly she ached to plunge into those depths—but would he let her? His lips quirked. Fire and ice.
He lifted his free hand to her face and brushed his knuckles gently across her cheek. “I’d like nothin’ more, lass. But I canna stay. Ye ken the reason.”
Ellie sucked in a breath. His touch sent shivers racing down her spine. “Do I?”
“Ye’re no’ the sort of lass to dally with a man. Ye want a husband. Ye’re a laird in yer own right.”
Ellie frowned. “Ye think those are my reasons. What are yers?”
Donal lifted his gaze upward as if seeking guidance from the heavens, or strength to do what he must. But then he looked at her, long and steadily, and Ellie fell, hard, into the depths of his eyes. She brushed her hand up his arm to cup his face. “I am no’ an untried virgin, Donal. I know the ways of men—and women. Ye please me.” She slipped two fingers over his lips for a moment to forestall his reply. “Aye, I ken ye may leave sooner than I wish, but that’s no’ a reason to deny what we both want.” The words shook her as she admitted, “It’s been too long since I’ve been held in a man’s arms.”
A muscle in his jaw jumped once...twice. “Ye sore tempt me, lass.”
“Then kiss me.”
Ellie’s heart leapt as he pulled her into his embrace. She closed her eyes as he murmured, “I shouldna.” Then his lips brushed hers, at first lightly, then more firmly as he cupped the back of her head, tangling his fingers in her hair, pulling her tightly against him. Ellie clung to his shoulders, shocked at the upwelling of emotion his kiss evoked. Her throat filled so, she feared she would gasp out her need for his touch. His mouth warmed her skin and sent fire coursing through her blood as he trailed kisses across her cheek to her collarbone.
“Ach, lass,” he murmured, his voice low and deep, making her breath catch in her throat, “what are ye doin’ to me?”
Ellie’s chest lifted, her budding nipples tight against his chest in anticipation of his kiss dipping lower. “Wanting ye,” she whispered as, instead, he moved upward again to claim her mouth with his lips and tongue. Liquid heat pooled in her core. The evidence of his desire pressed hard and long against her lower belly. Sliding her fingers into his hair, she tugged him closer, needing to inhale his scent more deeply. The peaty smoke of the MacKyrie twenty-five-year-old whisky and something uniquely his flavored his kiss. Donal groaned against her mouth as he ran one large hand down her back to cup her bottom more tightly against his heat.
Suddenly he broke off the kiss and lifted his hands from her body. “Ach, I shouldna...this is no’ a good idea. I’m sorry.”
Ellie clung to him a moment longer, eyes closed, trying to lock the strength and the scent of him in her memory. She feared his stubborn resolve would prevent him from kissing her again. Touching her again. Unless something changed. She had to try. She wanted to try.
“It seems so to me.”
“Nay lass. We’re starting what we daren’t finish.”
“‘We daren’t finish’?”
Donal sighed and tipped her chin up so she could meet his gaze.
“I daren’t finish. I canna risk ye that way. Ye’re too important, Ellie.”
“To my people.”
“Aye. And, I fear, to me.”
Donal stepped away from her and slipped out the door. Ellie stood, staring after him, unable to move.
****
At midmorning, one of the younger lads ran into the solar, shouting. “Visitors! Laird Ellie, there’s men at the gate.”
Ellie dropped her embroidery in her lap. So much for a few minutes of peace and quiet. Her emotions were still in a tangle from the encounter with Donal last night, her heart nearly bursting with joy over his admission. She was important to him, not just his mission. And then despair over his reaction to their kiss overtook her. He’d broken it off, lifted his hands from her body and walked out. He wanted her, as she wanted him. It had been there in his heated gaze, his fervent kiss, his possessive touch. But he’d walked out. Was the idea of being with her so unthinkable? He must deny her because she was a laird? Aye, but she had become laird by chance, not design. Couldn’t he see that she was no different than any other woman, despite what had happened to her clan? To her?
She’d spent the morning avoiding the training ground outside where he worked with the lads. She couldn’t imagine what she’d say to him when next she saw him. His concern for her both infuriated and warmed her. What would it take to make him want to stay?
The other women paused in their needlework, some glancing from the lad to her and back again. Oh yes, visitors.
“Who is it?”
“The MacDuff, Ellie. He wants in...uh, he begs entry from Laird MacKyrie. That’s what he said.”
The MacDuff? Now? Whatever possessed Lachlan MacDuff to travel through a snowstorm to plague her? She could not comprehend it. And with Donal and the Lathans here?
Though...perhaps that could work to her advantage.
“How many men does he have with him?”
“Five, the guard said to tell ye.”
Ellie sighed. “Very well. Let them in. I’ll be down shortly. Have the lads care for their horses. I’ll meet the MacDuff in the great hall. Tell Sawney no’ to let them go any farther. The rooms they used last time are occupied by the Lathans. Sawney must find other quarters for them.”
“Aye, Laird. I will.”
He ran off to do her bidding. Ellie rested her head against the back of her chair. If trouble came in threes, this should be the last of it if she counted the attack on the wagons, then the Lathans’ arrival. Now this. Aye, they were done with trouble for a while—or would be once she cleared her hall of all these men. All but one. She had no wish to see Donal leave her.
But in the case of the MacDuff, that couldn’t happen soon enough.
&nbs
p; He was older by a more than a decade and had buried several wives who’d lost their lives to accidents, or to giving him heirs. He had eleven children, from two to seventeen. He wanted her to wife for her lands and whisky, as a mother to his heirs, and for the children she might yet give him. Even if he were the most suitable man in the world, she couldn’t envision becoming instant mother to such a brood or wife to a man with his history with women. It didn’t bear consideration. But he relished her and persisted in his suit.
She glanced out the window. Ach, perfect. Snowing again. With her luck, she’d be stuck with him until spring.
Ellie heaved a sigh and forced herself to her feet. With a nod to her ladies, who gave her sympathetic smiles, she left the solar and went down to the great hall.
The MacDuff paced in front of the fireplace. His men were arrayed on benches nearby, tankards of ale by each. Sawney had seen to their comfort then. The old steward waited nearby.
“MacDuff,” she said, announcing her presence.
“Ah,” he replied, turning to her with a cheerfulness that always rang false to her ears. “The lovely Laird MacKyrie. How are ye, Ellie, my lass?”
I’m no’ yer lass, nor ever will be! But she kept her expression carefully neutral. “Greetings, Laird MacDuff. What brings ye out in such weather?”
“Why, ye do, of course. Have I not said I would return again and again until ye agree to my suit?”
“Aye, ye have. But I’ve answered ye each time ‘nay.’ I willna marry ye, Lachlan. I wish ye’d hear me on this.”
“That’s an answer I canna accept.”
“Then sorry I am, for it’s the only one I have. Now that we’ve completed our ritual greeting, would ye be so kind as to leave my keep and return to yer own? I fear for yer safety traveling through the pass in such weather.”
“Sorry to disappoint ye, my dear, but it’s too late. We barely made it through the pass earlier this morning. With the snow since then, I’m sure it’s closed. Will ye ignore guest-right and send us out to our doom?”
As much as Ellie would like to do exactly that, she couldn’t ignore one of the most sacred tenets of Highland life. Any visitor could claim guest-right, especially in weather such as this. Travel in the Highlands was difficult and dangerous. Travelers were given food and shelter wherever they found it, to the best ability of their host.