by Willa Blair
“Let us retire, Ellie. The others have much work to do and our presence here delays them.”
Ach, nay. Surely he didn’t intend to have the wedding night before the wedding? He released her shoulder and held out his hand. She held her breath and rose, ignoring his hand. “I’m tired, Lachlan, and I, too, have much to do. I must meet with my ladies to discuss arrangements.”
He paused, considering, then nodded. “As ye should. Very well, go take care of yer preparations. I’ll leave ye to it this evening. Tomorrow night is soon enough.”
Ellie nearly fainted with relief. She dug her fingernails into her palms to force herself to stay on her feet, nodded and walked away. Would Lachlan change his mind and call her back? Or come to her tonight?
At least for the moment, she escaped up the stairs. The tears came as soon as she reached her chamber. Where was Donal?
****
At sunset, Donal passed through the clearing where the wagons had been attacked. He slowed his pace, wanting true darkness to fall before he ventured farther. He expected the MacDuff to post sentries where they could easily ride to warn their laird of approaching horsemen. That meant the greatest danger lay on the MacKyrie side of the pass. If he had to fight through them, he would, but he’d rather avoid them and keep moving. They would be listening for many riders. A lone man could slip through unnoticed in the dark.
Donal knew better than to count on that. There could be men on this side of the pass, too. He dismounted and looped the reins around a branch. The forest had thinned out at this elevation. In the fading light of the gloaming, patches of snow on north-facing exposures took on a pearly gleam. Trees grew smaller and stood farther apart. Less cover for him, but also less cover for watchers. He stood, one hand on the horse’s withers to keep it still, and waited, scanning the deepening shadows for any hint of movement. Nothing. After several minutes, he dropped into a crouch and made his way slowly in the direction of the pass. If there were watchers, he would find them.
He crept more than a mile closer to the pass, all of it uphill and most in full darkness, before he sensed something ahead of him. A sneeze broke the silence. Donal’s mouth curved up into a feral, satisfied smirk. His instincts had been correct. Where one watcher waited, there would be two or more. He had the location of the first, thanks to the sneeze. Where were the others?
The only warning he had was the slide of a sword from its scabbard. Suddenly two men stepped out of the woods and faced him. Damn. It seemed he must fight. He pulled his own blade.
“A wee late for traveling, aye?” one of the men taunted.
Who were these men? He studied each one. They didn’t wear the MacDuff badge. They looked a bit ragged, despite their weaponry.
“That is a fine claymore you carry. Do you have any other valuables on you?”
“Who are ye?” He tightened his grip on his sword and loosened his knees, ready to move in any direction.
“Ach, a conversation you’d have with us, then? Delaying will not change the outcome. I’ll have the sword. And your purse. Give them over and we’ll let you live.”
Something about the man’s speech. Aye. Donal had it now. Lowlanders. Remnants of the army they’d broken up last year? Were these the men who’d attacked the wagons, and not the MacDuffs as they’d thought?
He kept his tone level. If he was right, these men could be starving, desperate, and extremely volatile. Yet they puzzled him. They seemed calm and self-assured. They had some success with their banditry, then. “Ye were Colbridge’s men.”
“You know us, do you? Perhaps we fought you before now, aye? And you lived to tell the tale?”
“Aye, as did ye. I see ye didna make it back to the Lowlands.”
“No’ yet. We’ve done well enough here to stay for a while.”
“I’ll warn ye, then, to keep moving south.”
“I’ll thank you for your concern, and ask you again, nicely, to give me your weapons.”
Donal held out empty hands. “If I refuse yer nicely given request?”
“Then Lanny there will have to take them.”
That comment and the twig snapping at his back were all the warning Donal got. A blow to the back of his head him knocked him to his knees. Damn, he thought as everything went black, how could I let this happen?
****
The sun blazing through the windows did little to brighten Ellie’s mood as she paced around the solar. She dreaded to see it set on this day. The preparations for the feast were nearly done, the hall decorated, the hearth festooned with fir and holly. But this was not the wedding Ellie had ever expected or wanted. Not like this, and not to a man like Lachlan MacDuff.
Despite her initial fears, he had left her alone, both last night and so far today, but this night boded to be much worse. Where was he? Out with his men? Up to more mischief? Nay, he’d not damage anything else, not when he was this close to becoming Laird and owning it all. More likely, he was out looking for Lathans, making sure they had no chance to ride to her rescue.
She doubted an impending wedding unsettled him as it did some prospective grooms. After all, he’d been through many of them. He had no qualms about forcing her into this one, despite the fact that any priest with scruples would refuse to perform the holy ceremony if the bride expressed her unwillingness to marry. Lucky for him, they had an unscrupulous friar at hand.
She walked circles around the chairs occupied by Micheil and Friar Tam. They kept turning their heads to follow her progress. If the situation hadn’t been so dire, the thought of making them dizzy would have amused her.
“There’s only one solution,” Micheil declared. “If we canna kill him, then ye and I must hand-fast. Or marry, if ye will it. That will prevent the unwanted match.”
Ellie smiled sadly as his bravery, misplaced though it might be. “Wedding me would accomplish nothing but yer death, my friend.” He knew that as well as she did. “Aye,” she said to forestall an argument from him, “it might buy us some time for Donal to return. More likely, I’d become a widow twice over, this time in less than a day.”
Micheil shrugged, acknowledging the truth of it. Friar Tam wrung his hands. He’d said little.
She could see the pity in both their eyes. She couldn’t stand that, and yet, there was little enough she could do to change it. Little enough, aye, but perhaps just enough.
Micheil shifted in his chair. “We’ll fight his men and get ye out of this.” He’d gone back to his old idea when none of them could come up with anything else to prevent this travesty of a ceremony from taking place.
Ellie lifted an eyebrow at his bandaged arm. Then she shook her head and kept walking, passing behind them. “Nay, ye tried that and it didna work. His patience is at an end. He spared ye before. All to prove a point to me,” she added quickly as Micheil started to object. She paused before him. “Lachlan coulda killed ye in the yard, and his men couldha killed ye and many more in the hall.” She narrowed her eyes at Micheil, daring him to contradict her.
Instead, he dropped his gaze to the floor.
“He won’t spare ye again. Nay, there is no other choice.”
“Then yer plan must work,” Friar Tam said and sighed. “Though I still counsel ye against it. ’Tis a sin ye’re about to commit for yer clan, lass.”
She nodded, the heat of a blush flooding her face and chest, and resumed pacing. She was going to be damned for the lies she contemplated telling in the kirk. For coupling with a man not truly her husband. A man she did not want. It would not matter that MacDuff forced her into it.
Her champion had left her. She had to do what was best for her people, even if it meant eternal damnation. For her life in this world to become a living hell. She would accept it if it kept her people safe.
“My mind’s made up. The Lathans havena returned. It may be that Corum hasna found them yet. Or that MacDuff’s men found him.” She pressed her lips together. Poor lad. Likely the MacDuff had left some men guarding the pass. She shook off the i
mage that formed in her mind of a man lying still as death in the snow. Not a Seeing. Only her imagination at work. So she hoped. The lad was canny. Surely he’d gotten past them and down the mountain on the other side. “’Tis the only way and ye both ken it.”
The friar stood. “Then may God have mercy on yer soul, lass, and may He forgive what ye do for the good of the innocents ye’re charged to protect.” With an ironic lift to the corner of his lips, he made the sign of the cross over her. Ellie bowed her head to it, despite her doubts. Nothing could save her now.
Chapter 18
Donal woke up to the glow of sunlight through his eyelids and a cold that penetrated all the way to his bones. What? Where was he?
“He’s comin’ around.” The voice sounded familiar. He opened his eyes, squinting against the sudden glare. Snow? He was lying in snow. What the hell?
He looked up, then sucked in a breath. A man leaned over him, silhouetted by the bright sky behind him. For a moment, Donal expected to die, and an image swamped him of Ellie’s face, solemn, wide-eyed and worried. Then he saw the glint of red in the man’s dark hair.
Jamie. He exhaled the breath he’d sucked in a moment before.
“Ach, ye’re alive then. I always kenned ye were too ornery to kill,” Jamie scolded. “How long have ye been sleeping in the snow?”
“Last night, I think,” Donal answered, sitting up, groaning at the fierce ache in his head. He reached back to discover a wee lump. The cold of the snow had probably kept it from getting larger. “Bandits,” he said with a rueful grimace. “Hit me from behind.” He gripped Jamie’s offered hand and levered himself to his feet. A wave of dizziness swept over him but he stayed upright. “Not MacDuff’s men. Remnants of the Lowlander army we fought last year, if ye can believe that.”
“Interesting. They’ve settled into this area to rob the locals rather than making their way home. I see they got yer weapons.”
Donal patted the empty sheath that usually held his dirk and sighed. That they had. “Likely they had no home to return to,” Donal reminded him, loathe to admit out loud what was plain to see. He felt naked without his blades. At least the bandits hadn’t stripped him bare. If they had, he would be dead of the cold rather than suffering from little more than a sore head, embarrassment, and a bone-deep chill that left him shivering. “Colbridge slashed and burned everything in his path.” They’d heard how the Lowlander had decimated whole villages on his drive into the Highlands.
A horse whinnied. Donal finally paid attention to the mounted group waiting behind Jamie. At least thirty unfamiliar men gathered at his back and one familiar-looking younger lad, along with a double-handful of Lathans. Jamie had made it as far as the Aerie and back. Quickly, too. “Ye found help, I see. Much faster than I gave ye credit for.” Their timing couldn’t be better.
Jamie grinned. “Aye. We skipped the social niceties on this trip. The situation here seemed dire. On the way, we found that lad, Corum MacKyrie, looking for us. It seems the situation has gone from dire to urgent. Is that why ye are out here all alone?”
“I’m headed there, too. Corum must have told ye the MacDuff rode into the keep two nights ago with at least a dozen men. A lad named Will was out hunting and saw them pass by. He knew the route we were on and found us.” Donal squinted at the sun. Near noon. Damn. His fists clenched. He would not think about what could have happened to Ellie last night in MacDuff’s clutches. “I meant to return to the keep long before this. We need to ride.”
“Where’s yer mount?”
“Tied up a mile back that way, downslope, unless the bandits found it.”
Jamie waved to one of the riders who turned his horse and took off down the trail. Within minutes, he returned, leading Donal’s mount.
Donal was glad to see the spare weapons in his pack had not been touched.
“That’s good then,” Jamie said. “Are ye able to ride?”
“When am I no’? Let’s go.”
Donal mounted and set a fast pace up the trail and through the pass. His head pounded along with the horse’s hooves, but he ignored the pain. In broad daylight with this many men, he had no care for subterfuge. If one of MacDuff’s men got to the keep ahead of them, good luck to him. But as hard as they were riding, Donal knew they had a chance to arrive unannounced.
****
Ellie stood in a spot of late afternoon sunlight beaming through one of the high windows of the kirk, the small chapel inside the walls of the MacKyrie keep. She locked her knees to keep from sinking hopelessly onto them. As much as she’d rather be here alone with her God to pray for forgiveness for what she was about to do, she could not.
Her people filled the kirk, mostly women and children, but the few men, including Fergus, Sawney, and the older lads were in attendance, too. She could hear rustling as they moved, but no one spoke.
The MacDuff stood beside her, a length of the MacDuff tartan thrown over his shoulder, pinned in place by a MacDuff clan badge, his only concession to the ceremony he demanded. In his hand, the quill that he would use—that she would use—to seal her fate seemed a small and insignificant thing. Friar Tam looked on from his perch two steps above them and a step above the small table where the MacDuff bent and signed the paper Ellie dreaded to see.
Then the MacDuff thrust the quill at her. “Sign it, Ellie. All that is yers is now mine.”
Ellie bit her lip against the words she wanted to say. Taunting Lachlan MacDuff would gain her nothing. She counted on silence to buy her time for her prospective groom to make a fatal mistake. For help to arrive. For something to happen to make her risk worth the taking. Once the truth came out, would this document hold up? She didn’t know, but right here and right now, she had no choice. The MacDuff would force her to make an X if she didn’t sign it willingly. In front of all these witnesses. She could not mistake the feral intent in his eyes. His brow lowered but his pupils stayed dark and foreboding with anticipation. As though he hoped she’d fight him so he could force her in front of her clan. She shivered and put point to paper. In her last formal act of defiance, she signed it Elspeth, Laird MacKyrie instead of just Elspeth MacKyrie.
It was done.
The signature was shaky, but recognizably hers. Her ancestral lands now belonged to the MacDuff. She wouldn’t be surprised if the ghosts of all the MacKyries who’d gone before her rose up to haunt her the rest of her living days. But there’d been no other way. Lachlan MacDuff had to believe in her, or their plan would fail.
She expected him to hide this document as soon as they were done. She would find it. Find and destroy it as soon as she could. She made the vow silently, to herself, but here in the kirk, such a vow carried weight.
A woman’s sob echoed in the small space, but Ellie didn’t dare glance around to see who was crying or she wouldn’t be able to hold back her own tears. She refused to give the MacDuff the satisfaction of seeing her break down. Nay, she was laird, at least for a few more minutes. She would behave as a laird would—strong, silent, stoic in the face of catastrophe.
Was this how her father and brothers had felt, facing their deaths at Flodden? The cold, calm sense of inevitability? The fear she would never be warm again? She’d never been this numb, unable to feel her limbs, barely able to move, to read, to speak. But she would get through this. Somehow.
Until tonight. That thought nearly undid her and she forced her knees to hold her up while she fought to keep from swaying. Nay, she would get through that, too. She would not act the terrified virgin. Lachlan MacDuff had not spared her from knowing what he intended once this ceremony was done. She would survive it as she’d survived the last four years.
Oh, but she wished Donal would be with her this night. Not the man beside her now. Donal’s touch she would welcome. She would revel in his arms, safe, secure, wanted and loved, not for her position or her holdings, but because he couldn’t resist her and couldn’t face life without her. With Donal, she could look forward to a bright future for herself and her
clan.
With the MacDuff...Ellie shuddered. He’d already threatened violence against her people. Most of them were children! She’d suffer anything to protect them, and the MacDuff knew it. She had no doubt of what was in store. Suffer she would, but she’d survive, and one day, she’d find a way to make him pay.
She would bear it somehow. She must.
Finally, Friar Tam started speaking, mumbling in Latin and making the sign of the cross over her and the man beside her. Ellie shuddered again. No one should bless this union. Nothing blessed would follow it. Pain, degradation, childbirth, again and again. Lachlan took pride in his potency, proven by the number of his legitimate offspring. Who knew how many bastards there might be in the MacDuff clan?
Finally, Friar Tam left the Latin and asked the inevitable question. The MacDuff’s “Aye” echoed loudly in the small space, too loud to be anything but a declaration of triumph. She pursed her lips as Friar Tam turned to her. She could answer him “Nay.” It was on her mind to do it, but that would force Tam to perform the rest of the ceremony on a bride who had declared her unwillingness, against kirk doctrine. Did it matter? He already knew. But saying it aloud would infuriate Lachlan. She could not predict what such an act of defiance on her part would prompt him to do.
Nonetheless, when Friar Tam turned to her, she pressed her tongue against her teeth, ready to pronounce the nay. He must have noticed her jaw jut forward as he finished asking if she took this man to husband. His eyes widened, giving Ellie all the reminder she needed. Lachlan’s first victim of her defiance would likely be the person nearest to them—the hapless friar.
“Aye.” Her response came out as a whisper, with barely any voice behind it.
Tam’s shoulders lowered and he quickly pronounced them man and wife from this day forward.