Highland Groom

by Hannah Howell

  “Ye remember everything?” asked Nanty as he sprawled in the chair next to Diarmot’s bed.

  “Aye.” Diarmot sipped his ale trying to ignore the twinges of pain even that small movement caused him. “Weel, almost everything. Some parts are still lightly shrouded, but I am certain that, too, will pass.”

  “So, ye now ken that Ilsa is your wife.”

  “Weel, aye, I recall the handfasting now.”

  Diarmot also recalled the sweet promises they had made to each other. She had taken the bitterness away, soothed the pain, and given him joy. Then, after signing those papers giving her all rights as his wife, he had nearly been murdered. His besotted mind did not want to believe Ilsa had anything to do with the attack upon him, but he resolutely buried those doubts about her possible guilt. Someone wanted him dead and, at the moment, Ilsa really was the only one who would gain from that. Diarmot knew he could not allow himself to ignore that simply because she made his blood burn.

  “What has ye scowling?” he asked Nanty when he became aware of his brother’s dark stare.

  “Ye still dinnae accept her,” replied Nanty.

  “Someone is trying to kill me, as this last attack proves, and she is the only reasonable suspect right now.”

  “If she wanted ye dead, then why did she risk her own life to save your worthless carcass?”

  “What are ye talking about?”

  “I thought ye said ye got your memory back.”

  “So, I did, or some it, but when I tumbled down that cliff I was knocked unconcious and didnae regain my senses until yesterday. When I first woke and saw her scratches and bruises, I thought she had helped to save me, but now I wonder why she would have been there at all. I cannae ken exactly what happened whilst I was senseless.”

  After studying Diarmot closely for a moment, Nanty related all Ilsa had done. It was astonishing to think the small, slender Ilsa had achieved so much. Nanty was right to argue that someone who wanted him dead would not work so hard to keep him alive. Diarmot fought the urge to immediately exonerate Ilsa of all guilt. She could be a pawn in some devious plan her family had devised. Without one of them there to prod her, Ilsa had been unable to leave him to die. As an explanation for her brave act, it was rather thin, but he struggled to cling to it.

  The return of his memory was certainly a relief, despite the remaining gaps, but it was obviously going to cause him some difficulty in holding fast to a necessary wariness. He wanted to believe in Ilsa as he had a year ago, wanted to return to that time of joy and peace, but his life was at stake. The only people he could allow himself to trust completely were his family.

  “Ilsa didnae look badly injured,” Diarmot said when Nanty completed his tale.

  “Weel, she didnae fall off a cliff, did she?” replied Nanty. “As ye saw for yourself, she is bruised, scratched, and suffers a few aches and pains, but naught else. She slept from the time ye woke right through til this morning. There is a stiffness to her movements, but she is up and working again.”

  “She hasnae come here and tis late in the afternoon.”

  “Mayhap she needs a wee rest from being insulted and accused by her own husband.”

  “Curse it, Nanty, someone is trying to kill me,” snapped Diarmot. He tried to place his empty tankard upon the table by his bed, but the movement needed proved too painful. “Thank ye,” he muttered when Nanty moved to take the tankard and set it aside. “Ye refuse to admit that Ilsa and her kin have the most to gain from my death, yet ye offer me no other suspects,” he said as Nanty retook his seat.

  Nanty sighed, stretched out his legs, and rested his feet on Diarmot’s bed. “Ere Angus had to return to Alddabhach, we tried to find someone who might think his claim to Clachthrom was stronger than yours, but there is no one. This has been MacEnroy land for too long and we are the last of this branch of the MacEnroy tree, wee thing that it is. Sigimor, Tait, and I then wondered if it was one of your late wife’s lovers, someone who blames ye for her death, believes the rumors.”

  “She died because she took a potion to rid herself of a bairn. She succeeded in that sin, but the bleeding couldnae be stopped. Ilsa told her brothers that when they heard the rumor that I had killed her. Gillyanne and Connor heard the tale, too. Twas nay my bairn,” Diarmot reassured his shocked brother. “I hadnae touched her for near to a year.”

  “Ye hid that truth from us, didnae ye.”

  “Aye. Nay sure why. The whole world and its mother kenned she was a whore.” He grimaced. “Mayhap twas because she was dead and there was no reason to blacken her name any further.”

  “Nay, but that kindness has kept the rumors alive and may have led someone to believe ye killed her, poisoned her. Mayhap the one whose child she was carrying. Mayhap he kenned there was a bairn and blames ye for that death as weel. I dinnae believe tis anyone here at Clachthrom. We certainly havenae found any suspects. Tait and Sigimor are hunting the men who attacked ye this time. They might tell us something useful.”

  Diarmot sighed and slumped against the pillows piled up behind his back. “Anabelle couldnae e’en guess who fathered the bairn. It could have been any one of a dozen men from a dozen places.”

  “The truth doesnae have to matter. Tis only what some fool believes that must be considered. If some mon was enthralled with her, thought her his love and he hers, he could seek to avenge the deaths of his love and their bairn.”

  “I cannae believe any mon could be so witless. Anabelle shed the sweet guise she wore to catch me in her net within a month after we were wed. The first time I caught her with another, she ceased to play that game. Tis why I cannae be certain wee Alice is my bairn. Anabelle was faithful to no mon and ne’er pretended to be.”

  “Weel, it makes more sense to me that some fool mon was bewitched by Anabelle and seeks to make ye pay for her death, than that tis Ilsa and her kin trying to kill ye for greed.”

  “Until I discover who is my enemy everyone save my own family is suspect. At this moment, all that makes Ilsa a perfect suspect cannae be ignored. Neither can I ignore the fact that, after putting my mark to papers giving her such generous rights, within hours after leaving her I was nearly murdered. Give me something that looks more suspcious than that and I will readily consider it, if only for the sake of my sons.”

  “As ye wish,” said Nanty. “I still hold to my right to believe ye wrong about Ilsa, but I will continue to keep a close eye upon everyone. Shall I spy upon Odo as weel? He is only five, but he is a clever lad. Can be devious, too.”

  “How verra amusing ye are. If I wasnae near crippled, I would show ye how verra amusing I think ye until ye are naught but a puddle in the mud.” Diarmot heard his stomach rumble and frowned at the door. “Isnae it time for a meal?”

  “Do ye expect your wee wife to tend to ye?”

  “Why shouldnae she? She is my wife. Tis her duty to see to her husband’s needs.”

  “Tis glad I am Gillyanne isnae here to hear ye say that.” Nanty gave an exaggerated shudder, but then grew serious. “Ye expect a lot of a woman ye treat so poorly.”

  “She is the one who came here demanding a proper marriage.” Nanty was making him feel guilty and unkind and it was very annoying. “I may nay trust her, but she still has her uses.”

  “I am surprised ye let her into your bed. Arenae ye afraid she will work her evil on ye?”

  “She cannae do much harm to me when she is naked and spread out beneath me.”

  Even as he uttered the words, Diarmot regretted them. He regretted them even more when he heard the door to his bedchamber open. Instinct told him it was Ilsa. When he looked toward the door, he inwardly winced. She was holding a tray filled with food and drink. The look upon her face told him she would thoroughly enjoy emptying the whole lot over his head. Diarmot tensed as she strode toward the bed, then inwardly breathed a sigh of relief when all she did was set the tray down on the table by his bed with enough force to rattle the plates. He hoped he did not look as uncomfortable as he fe
lt as he met her glare.

  “I could always try to rip your throat out with my teeth,” she drawled and decided the look of shock on his face was almost enough to ease the sting of his crude words. “Eat. Ye need your strength.”

  “Where are ye going?” he demanded when she turned to leave.

  “To eat in the great hall, after which I shall bid the bairns good sleep, and then I shall seek my bed.”

  “Your bed is here.”

  “Nay. Tis in the room across the hall.”

  “A wife’s place is in her husband’s bed. Ye will move your things back in here.”

  Ilsa struggled with the urge to pummel the man, sternly telling herself he was bruised enough already. She briefly considered refusing to share his bed, then accepted the sad fact that it would gain her nothing. He would probably just see it as another trick or proof of the basic perfidy of women. The bed remained their only neutral ground, their mutual passion the only source of any lessening of his anger and mistrust. She could not give it up, for then there would be no chance of changing his mind and heart. In truth, she doubted she could turn aside from the desire that flared between them for very long anyway.

  “I will return here when ye have healed,” she said. His response was a soft grunt and the faintly smug look that crossed his face made her clench her fists. “After all, since I have a husband,” she said too sweetly as she headed out of the room, “twould be foolish not to avail myself of the one thing he is good at.”

  Diarmot gaped at the door as it shut behind her, then looked at Nanty. “Did ye hear the impertinent wench?”

  “Aye. At least she said ye were good at it,” Nanty said in a choked voice, then he began to laugh.

  It was evident he had no true ally in Nanty, Diarmot thought crossly. At least not in his suspicions about Ilsa. He gave the chuckling Nanty a hard glare and turned his attention to his meal. The first thing he would do when he felt better was make love to his impertinent wife until her eyes rolled back in her head. The second thing he would do was pound his cackling brother into the mud.

  Chapter THIRTEEN

  “Weel, that was an unpleasant way to spend the morning,” Diarmot muttered as he slouched in his chair at the head table in the great hall, then took a deep drink of ale.

  “Hangings always are,” said Sigimor as he slathered honey on a thick chunk of bread.

  Diarmot could not see any sign of upset or distaste in Sigimor. Nanty and Tait at least looked a little pale. It had taken all of Diarmot’s strength not to empty his belly right in front of the gallows. Sigimor was as hard as Connor, Diarmot decided. Recalling that the man had been left laird at but twenty with a horde of younger siblings and cousins to raise, he supposed it was understandable.

  Sigimor, Tait, and Nanty, along with a few Clachthrom men, had found his assailants two days after the attack. Two men had survived the ensuing battle and had been brought back to Clachthrom where they had sat in the dungeons for another two days until Diarmot had been recovered enough to judge them. Although the men had had little to say that was useful, they had confessed to being the men who had attacked him in Muirladen as well. The man they had dealt with, the one Diarmot now recalled having spoken derisively about the laird having his face in the mud then kicking him, was always masked.

  And then he had sentenced them to hang. He sighed and took another hearty drink of ale. Diarmot knew he had had no choice. The men had tried to kill him twice. They had not cared who he was or why someone wanted him dead, only that the money was good. Such men undoubtedly had blood on their hands. Such men would also not be reformed simply because they had been caught and had briefly faced the consequences of their actions. Diarmot knew he had done the right thing, that a laird had to be strong enough to enact the law, but he much preferred dispatching his enemies in battle with a sword.

  “Ye had no choice,” said Sigimor. “They were willing to kill ye just to gain a few coins for ale and whores.”

  The fact that Sigimor had guessed at his unease did not please Diarmot at all. “I ken it. It certainly would have made me look a weak fool if I hadnae. Tis a gruesome way to send a mon to his death, however. I dinnae think we e’er had one at Deilcladach.”

  “Tis that peaceful there, is it?”

  “Nay, of course not. We had enemies, but they died by sword or dagger. And, few of those once there was a truce between us, the Goudies, and the Dalglish clan. I suppose that, after years of feuding, people were too busy simply trying to survive to break laws. We didnae have anything worth stealing for many years, either.”

  “Weel, ye are blooded now. I was blooded when I was two and twenty. Had to hang one of my own cousins.”

  “Jesu, what had he done?”

  “Enough to get him hanged a dozen times. The lad was ne’er right. Had a cold viciousness in him that we ignored for too long. He had a liking for rape. Tried banishing him, but he slipped back onto the lands, though we didnae ken it for a long while. He had decided rape wasnae enough. He still did it, but then murdered the poor lass when he was done with her. He had killed four lasses and was about to kill his fifth when we caught him. Those deaths weigh heavy on my heart for I made the decision to banish the lad the first time for all the wrong reasons. Couldnae abide the thought of hanging a kinsmon. That weakness allowed him to put four lasses in their graves, and they didnae die easy. I didnae hesitate when we finally caught him.”

  Despite the quiet horror of the tale, Diarmot almost smiled. He had just been lessoned by Sigimor. Diarmot had the strongest feeling the man probably had dozens of such tales, all true, and all with a message or a moral. Considering the fact that he was nearly of an age with him, Diarmot supposed he ought to be irritated, but he was not. It was quite possible he was coming to like Ilsa’s brothers. A little voice in his head warned him to be cautious, but it was beginning to lose its ability to sway him. The more he came to know these men and all he could recall of them from a year ago, told him they would not be a part of any devious scheme. The problem was that no other suspect was coming to light. Nor could he yet recall everything that had happened between him and Ilsa.

  “Ye dinnae need fear that madness is in the blood,” Sigimor continued. “We kept a close watch on the rest of the lad’s family and there wasnae a glimmer of it. He had a different mother than the rest and we decided it might have come from her. She did try to kill the blacksmith once.”

  “And Aunt Elizabeth,” said Tait. “Chased her through the village trying to take her head off with an axe.”

  “Aye, true enough. She drowned when she attacked poor cousin David.”

  “She drowned?” asked Diarmot, unable to envision the way that might have occurred.

  “Aye,” replied Sigimor. “She was running after him, knife in hand, and he jumped into the loch to get away. She jumped in after him. He could swim. She couldnae.”

  Diarmot wondered how the man could speak of such chilling events with what could only be called a touch of humor. “Aye, I would say the madness came from his mother.” He sighed, all amusement fleeing. “About all we have learned from this wretched business, however, is that I really do have an enemy. A mon who hides his face and pays others to try and kill me. He doesnae always come round to watch or make sure tis done right, either.”

  “Ye still cannae recall why ye were in Dubheidland?”

  “Nay, that part remains mostly shadowed. Howbeit, since some of it has returned, I must assume the rest will soon follow. I obviously found some clue or had some suspicion which drew me there. Tis a pity I didnae think to confide in anyone. I fear I got some notion into my head and simply acted on it.”

  “And took none of your men with ye. Where could ye have gotten the idea?”

  “I dinnae ken. That, too, will undoubtedly come to me in time. I have only had my memory back for four days now, or what there is of it. I cannae think those memories still trapped just beyond my reach willnae break free soon, too. The healing has begun, so it must surely continue.”


  Sigimor nodded. “That makes sense. Tait, Nanty, and I were going to go to Dubheidland and find out if anything has been discovered, nay matter how small. We will wait here another week now. If ye do remember more, it may save us from riding about blindly whilst there. I grow weary of that game.”

  Diarmot suddenly tensed. “I think I had been reading my wife’s journals. The memory isnae clear to me as to when I was doing it, but since one of those still-shadowed memories comes right after this clearer one, it may be that I found some clue there. Jesu, but I dinnae wish to look at them again.” He held up his hand to halt the words Sigimor was ready to utter. “I must. I ken it.”

  “Are they that bad?” asked Nanty.

  “There arenae pleasant reading,” replied Diarmot. “Tis probably for the best that I didnae discover them until after I had suffered through several accidents that, e’en then, I thought might be attempts upon my life. Despite kenning they might hold important clues, the urge to hurl them into the fire was almost too strong to resist.” He finished his ale and stood up. “I believe I will begin now. Viewing a hanging has probably put me in the proper mood.” He strode out of the great hall and hurried toward his ledger room where he kept the journals.

  “Tait?” Sigimor said as soon as Diarmot was gone.

  “Aye?” Tait glanced at his brother, then returned his attention to spreading a thick layer of dark honey on a a piece of bread.

  “If I e’er cast my eye upon a woman who seems to be e’en faintly akin to Lady Anabelle, I give ye leave to beat some sense into me.”

  “Twill be my pleasure.”