The Highland Laird's Bride

by Nicole Locke

  ‘A favour?’

  Gaira nodded, a light to her eyes. ‘Please wait to tell my ragabash loun of a brother you trust him. He needs to apologise and I like it when he does.’

  * * *

  Bram walked with Robert outside the gates and they continued to walk. Much had to be discussed and it wasn’t for anyone else’s ears.

  Still, he felt only unease as he left Lioslath behind with Gaira. He could tell from her eyes she felt betrayed. He never wanted to see that look in her eyes again. He’d done it once already in that moment before the wolves. Then it looked as though he shoved a sword in her gut. Now her expression was worse. Now she looked as if she expected it.

  And she was right. He purposely hadn’t told Lioslath that Robert and Gaira were coming.

  He thought he learned his lessons when he almost lost her to the wolves. But still there was more to learn. He should have told her.

  He hoped Gaira would find the words he could not. He had to believe that Lioslath would believe his sister. It was his sister’s story, not his. But it was a painful story. Robert was Gaira’s husband. But he was also Lioslath’s father’s murderer.

  It had been a fair fight. The only thing Robert could have done, but how would Lioslath feel about it? He hoped Lioslath would find some understanding, some peace by knowing.

  ‘So you married,’ Robert said.

  ‘Aye.’ He had, though he fought to keep it so.

  ‘And I see you lead Lioslath well.’

  Bram expected this conversation and knew he deserved it.

  ‘Aye,’ Robert continued. ‘The way she drew her fist up as if to fight you and threatened banishment? You couldn’t find a more biddable woman in all of Scotland. Congratulations, Bram.’

  Bram laughed. ‘You didn’t wait long to remind me of that conversation.’

  ‘It’s taken every effort to wait this long. In fact, I intend to repeat it again merely to relish it.’

  Bram shook his head. He’d been so arrogant when he met Robert. So sure that women were only for marriage and children. How miserable his life would be if he hadn’t met Lioslath. ‘Lioslath isn’t biddable and I thank every star at night because of that. But I wish at times she wasn’t so stubborn.’

  ‘I often told you others don’t laugh or forgive as easily as you. The rest of us need time.’

  ‘My actions to her have been unforgivable, yet she says she has forgiven me.’

  ‘Ah, then you are well matched.’

  Bram shook his head. ‘But she does not trust me.’

  Robert stopped. ‘That is another matter altogether.’

  ‘I ken.’

  ‘Time, Bram. Time.’

  ‘I ran out of it when you arrived.’

  ‘Yet you requested us here. You risked her knowing everything and never forgiving you against lying to her. You think she will not recognise that?’

  ‘She’s been hurt, more than I realised, and I added more. I’d apologise for the rest of my life if she’d let me.’

  ‘Now, what biddable woman would pass on that opportunity?’

  ‘Ah, aye, just push that dagger in my arrogance some more.’

  ‘With pleasure.’ Robert exhaled and stopped. ‘We have other...important matters to discuss.’

  ‘Important?’

  ‘Grave, and I hope they are mistaken.’

  It was too soon. Bram’s heart went to his throat. ‘Malcolm. You’ve heard from Malcolm.’

  ‘No, it’s not Malcolm. It has to do with Caird and Mairead. Of the Jewel of Kings and the Englishman.’

  ‘I wanted you to know. You are my brother now.’

  Robert rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Aye, brothers.’

  It hadn’t yet been a year since Robert found Gaira and the children at Doonhill. Robert still hadn’t discussed with Bram why he had gone to Doonhill or what haunted his past. Bram would wait for his story because he didn’t doubt Robert’s love of Gaira. But he liked to push against Robert’s natural reserve, since he wasn’t quite used to the boisterous Colquhouns yet.

  Robert looked over Bram’s shoulder. ‘I need to talk of Doonhill.’

  Grief sliced through him, quick and insistent, before Bram could breathe freely again. He thought he buried it more deeply than this, but with Gaira and Robert here, Irvette’s death was all too present. Yet Robert said matters were grave, and it needed to be discussed. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘As you know, the deaths at Doonhill were caused by Sir Howe and his men. However, it may be possible that the Englishman, the man responsible for threatening Caird and Mairead, for chasing after the Jewel of Kings, is also Sir Howe.’

  ‘It must be coincidence. What... Why would there be a connection?’

  Robert looked around them as if realising how far they walked. ‘It’s troubling, I agree,’ Robert said. ‘I could understand an Englishman chasing the legendary Jewel of Kings for its power and its value as treasure. But Doonhill was random and violent. There wasn’t anything there to gain. It was all...loss.’

  ‘Nae connection,’ Bram said, even as he thought of Irvette. How precious she still was to him. How she was a Colquhoun. The Jewel of Kings had been on its way to the Colquhoun clan when it was intercepted by the Englishman, who murdered to recover it. Had Irvette anything to do with the jewel? He couldn’t think. She’d been so young, innocent. So dearly loved by her husband and their fair-haired daughter, Maisie.

  He knew the horror Caird and Mairead suffered while escaping the Englishman. He couldn’t bear that his sister might have suffered like them, but in his heart he knew she had. Two sword thrusts to her stomach. Irvette had been murdered at Doonhill.

  ‘Do you intend to stay here?’

  He was taken again by grief over his sister. A need for revenge and to correct wrongs. And his feelings for Lioslath. His Lioslath, who was needing a lifetime of apologies from him.

  ‘Irvette, Doonhill, it all changes nothing. If Lioslath will have me, this is where I belong.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  He found Lioslath in the stables. She was several stalls down, leaning heavily on her staff and stroking a horse’s nose.

  He’d left Gaira, who was tired from the journey, and Robert, who was worried about her because of her pregnancy.

  Bram’s insides continued to stutter with the news. His sister was to have a baby and had made the journey here. She risked much to give him the chance with Lioslath. He didn’t even know if he had one.

  He left the door open so he could see Lioslath now. So lovely and looking far too alone. He didn’t want her to be alone any more.

  ‘I came here to escape you.’ She kept her eyes on the horse.

  ‘I know, but you have to know I’ll keep looking for you.’ He searched the darkness. ‘Is Dog here?’

  ‘He ran off.’ She darted a glance at him before she went into the stall and grabbed clean straw. ‘Why did you request your sister here? You haven’t proved that you’re dependable or that we’re family. Because that’s why you did it, isn’t it? Because if I’m married to you in truth, then Gaira becomes my sister. Did you honestly think you could force this?’

  ‘I asked her here so you’d know the truth. We both need to have the truth between us. And I have more to tell you.’

  ‘I’m through negotiating with you,’ she said.

  A muscle ticked in his jaw. ‘I may not be a traitor because of Dunbar, but I am a traitor because Robert of Dent is Black Robert. King Edward thinks he’s dead. I intend to protect that lie.’

  She shrugged. Black Robert was the English King’s sword. Greatly feared and legendary.

  ‘You know?’

  ‘The timing fits his disappearance and it doesn’t matter to me. He’s English all the same.’

  ‘And un
forgivable because of it?’

  ‘The English weren’t kind here.’ She gently brushed the straw along the horse’s muddy flank until some came off. ‘But I will not judge Robert by those same standards.’

  Bram exhaled. ‘I could do nothing else for a man as honourable as Robert, nor one who is loved as much as Gaira loves him.’

  Everything she believed of the Colquhouns was wrong. Gaira hadn’t acted with dishonour and neither had Robert. There was no one to blame for her father’s death...except her father. No one to blame for the fall of the Fergusson clan except...circumstances. She couldn’t throw buckets or daggers at Fate.

  ‘I do not begrudge their feelings for each other,’ she said. ‘Now that I have met her, I know you had nae choice. She wouldn’t give you a choice.’

  ‘You must know the king will not take their love for each other into consideration if he discovers the treasonous lie.’

  Treason. Aye, but only if Robert was caught, or someone told. Now it was all clear to her why he had told her. ‘You tell me, not knowing my feelings for you, not knowing if you can trust me not to use this against you.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘You think to earn my trust with this? He murdered my father! I doona care if a legend killed him. He’s dead all the same.’

  ‘And your feelings on this?’

  ‘What do you care for my feelings on this?’

  ‘Everything. I want everything from you, but I could not expect it if I didn’t give it as well. Having you understand, having you choose me even so, that is everything to me.’ He looked down the narrow corridor where it remained dark. ‘Will you talk to me of your father?’

  ‘So you can use the information for some future manipulation?’ She picked some of the mud off with her fingers. ‘To get me to give you something else? You’ve taken it all.’

  ‘So you stop hurting. You’re hurting so much. Do you even know you’re crying? I can see your tears from here, like streams of grief that you didn’t know were trapped inside you. It’s killing me watching you.’

  First she fainted in front of him and now she cried. ‘Good, then stay until the deed’s done.’

  ‘Not until we’ve talked.’

  ‘So says the great negotiator.’

  ‘So says a man who loves you.’ A tender smile reached his face as she stumbled her hand across the horse. The horse stamped in agitation, but Bram didn’t give up. ‘Aye, loves you,’ he continued. ‘Who merely wants to hold you, to know your heart, but you have it so protected under layers of grief, and hatred, and fear, you may never let me know you.’

  ‘Fear?’ She stroked the horse.

  ‘There are many different types of fear, lass. Some are dearer than others. In some ways you are not like your father, and yet you are also his image, too.’

  ‘I’m like my father?’ She stopped and looked over the horse at him. ‘Who attacked Robert from the back?’

  Bram felt the verbal blow.

  ‘Aye, I know,’ she said. ‘He was my father, remember? I saw what had become of him. Did you think me so simple I couldn’t guess what Robert hadn’t said? What Gaira was about to say in his defence?’

  ‘I never wanted you to know that.’

  ‘I think you did. You brought them here and now you’re saying I’m like him. That I’m a coward.’

  ‘Maybe you are.’ He took a step towards her. ‘You may face a man when you hold a knife to him, but you still hold a knife. You still keep the fear as your father kept his.’

  Had he called her a coward? Anger and then something else broke within her. Her vision blurred as tears welled and fell to join the others on her cheeks. She hated that she could feel their weakness now. At some point Bram came too close and penetrated whatever defences she put against him because his words were sharp, cruel. Fear? Aye, she had it. She feared that he spoke the truth.

  ‘I know about your stepmother, Irman, and of how you grew up,’ he said. ‘I see how that pains you still. I doona know everything. I want to know.’

  ‘As if you deserve to know!’

  ‘That may be true, but, Lioslath, I’m not letting go of your hand.’

  ‘You make nae sense. I have my hands over here.’

  ‘Lioslath. I’m staying here. I’m begging for this marriage to be true.’

  ‘It’s not what I want. How could I want it?’

  ‘Tell me. Let us find the truth. Then when all is revealed, if you doona want me, I’ll go.’

  ‘You’re negotiating.’

  A curt shake of his head. ‘I have nothing left to bargain with. I’m asking.’

  Lioslath tried to ignore him as she picked more straw and brushed the other side. But as always Bram’s patience was vast. She watched him lean against the wall as if he had all the time in the world. The stables were full now, but not large, she couldn’t do this all night. She didn’t want to do this all night. She felt the tears on her face making her cold. So cold.

  ‘Why do you want me to talk of him? You already know of him.’

  ‘What you’ve said in anger. In worry. I want to hear something else.’

  She stopped again. ‘Why now?’

  ‘Because I’ve been...listening.’

  Listening. Could Bram be changing as Gaira said? Since the wolf attack, he had done things differently. He had patience with her clan and with her siblings. He listened to her suggestions. He was different from when he first arrived. Back then he demanded she take his gifts, ordered a feast and a competition. Now she couldn’t see him doing anything without consulting.

  ‘For the first time, I’ve been listening,’ he continued, ‘and I’m beginning to believe your father died a poignant death.’

  How could he know? But it was how she felt. Her father, dying a bittersweet death. If Bram knew, if he guessed, then he listened to many people during her recovery.

  Yet instantly she knew he wasn’t talking of only her father. ‘Irvette,’ she whispered.

  He gave a quick blink of surprise. ‘Aye, Irvette. She was happy, joyous. And she was only happy because she followed Aengus south to Doonhill. She wouldn’t have been there if she hadn’t married him and followed him there.’

  Then his sister had been killed. ‘You doona regret her death?’

  ‘Aye, I do, a thousand times, but not that she followed Aengus.’

  Bittersweet. ‘Isn’t all death this way?’

  ‘Nae, but it seems it is for the loved ones we lost.’

  She paused, thinking. Did she love her father still, even knowing what he had done?

  ‘Tell me of your father,’ he repeated.

  If what he said was true, if what Gaira said was true, could she open up and talk? ‘Why do you want to know now?’

  ‘I had to be ready to hear it.’

  She quickly shook her head.

  ‘When a death is poignant, when it is bittersweet, a person has to be ready and prepared to listen and learn about it. It’s something you’ll be remembering and carrying the rest of your life.’

  She felt his words, felt them trailing a knife of pain along her skin. It hurt to think of her father, but his words somehow released something as well. Like a winter brook that needed the sharpness of a blade to release the flowing spring water underneath.

  ‘I’ve been laird for so long, but I’m starting to listen and I’m ready to hear your view on this.’

  She gave the horse a few quick strokes, then leaned into him. Maybe it was time. ‘My mother died when I was six. She had a cough that wouldn’t go away. Then one day she couldn’t breathe any more.’

  ‘Before that what was she like?’

  ‘She was like...light. Everything about her. Her hair was so white, it was almost like snow, but her eyes were changeable shades of blue and green.’

>   ‘Like seeing winter and spring all at once? Or night and day?’

  Bram was using fancy words again, but that was exactly how her mother felt to her. ‘I think I know what you mean.’

  He smiled. ‘That’s a start.’

  ‘She was gentle, kind, and something about her was able to withstand my father. Or maybe he wasn’t quite as fierce. I do know he was happier then, he smiled...’

  ‘You frown,’ he said. ‘Was it not a happy memory?’

  She didn’t realise her feelings were so near the surface, but she wasn’t surprised Bram could guess her feelings. She’d seen him interact with too many people. But his words didn’t feel like manipulation.

  Lumbering to the stool, she shook her head when Bram gestured to help. ‘Nae—’ she gave a quick glance up, settled on the seat ‘—it’s only I forgot his smile. My father always smiled, but his smile after my mother died was different. Harder. His eyes weren’t as clear of worry. It’s been a long time since I remembered what he used to be like.’

  ‘Life changes a man.’

  Her father had changed irrevocably. ‘You’re saying this because he became a coward and a murderer.’

  ‘Life changes all men...as it should. It’s what we make of that change. If your father was unhappy, I doona believe he wanted to stay that way. He came to my clan for help. There was still some good in him.’

  That Bram could say this even after Gaira feared and fled him... Even after he attacked Robert from the back. She’d been hurt by her father, by Irman. But could she look at them differently?

  If she did, she’d have to face that there was still goodness in her father, and if that was true, then she would have lost him twice over.

  ‘I can’t talk like this,’ she said. ‘Think like this.’

  ‘You think it’s easy for me?’

  She saw a glimpse in Bram’s eyes of something more behind the flow of this conversation. He flirted and laughed with ease and yet she glimpsed these moments from him, more so now after the accident, when she was beginning to see another Bram.

  ‘I know how you feel. Irvette and your father died poignant deaths. You think there’s some way you could have prevented it. But I couldn’t do anything for Irvette and you couldn’t for your father.’