Passion and Plaid - Her Highland Hero (Scottish Historical Romance)

by Karin, Anya

  “You’re right, of course.” he said in a tone that said he was trying to convince himself and kissed her gently on the forehead. “Thank you, Lynne. I don’t know where I’d be without you keeping my head straight.”

  With a last glance around to see if he could still see any of his friends, John pulled Lynne tight and held her for a second until she squeaked.

  “What was that, then? Afraid I’m going to vanish?”

  “Aye, a little. Will you do me the honor of joining me on a leisurely ride this fine evening?”

  “Be happy to,” she said as John swung himself up in the saddle and pulled her up after him.

  Lynne settled in behind John, with her arms tight around his middle. For some reason, she just needed him extra close to her that night. The heat of his body against her chest, his slow, patient breathing, something about it just made her feel safe. With Lynne’s head against his back, John snapped the reins and turned north.

  Four

  Mornay’s Cleft

  August 17, Morning

  When Kenna awoke and looked around the early-morning haze that had settled into Mornay’s Cleft from the fires that never seemed to stop burning, she felt tightness in her chest that wasn’t from the smoke. Though she could count the number of times they’d woken up in each other’s arms on two fingers of one hand, Gavin’s absence already made her ache.

  Her thoughts remained on Gavin for the entire morning, through dressing, through a delicious breakfast, and through a short conversation with Duggan.

  “It makes perfect since, it does, how you and Gavin act.” Duggan said as he wiped a mug and poured her another cup of tea.

  “What’s that, then?” Kenna asked.

  “The way you two fawn over each other. You canna be married! I’m sorry, that was a bad jest.” Duggan laughed loudly at his own joke. “And when are you to try this coffee? Lachlan and Egan can’t get enough.”

  “I heard it can cause hysteria,” she said. “Makes men act rashly.”

  “Unless you count bawdy jokes and a naughty rhyme or two as rash behavior, I’ve seen nothing of the sort.”

  “And anyway, it smells so awful when you make it. Like bitter dirt.” She wrinkled her nose without thinking about it and took a sip of the strong, black tea she loved so much. Something about the slightly tangy acidity of the drink helped cut through the humidity of the Lowland morning, through the almost stifling wetness of the day.

  “Ach, suit yourself. Anything you’re wanting to do today or will you just be warming a stool?”

  “I’ve to get out. I canna stay cooped up in here all day again. I need to take some air, stretch my legs. And there must be a thing or two around town that’s worth seeing, aye?”

  “Well, wee li’l lass, this isn’t Edinburgh.”

  “I’m not meaning any grand castles or theaters, mind you. I’d be content with a nice stream or a brook. I’m from Fort Mary, a town with not much more than a few farms and a kirk off the town square.”

  “We’ve both of those things. Got a fine kirk, and an open square. Now that you mention it, if you’re to be here for more than a pair of days, that square will be host to a festival. The only one, actually, what we have all year. Well, the only one not claimed by some religious sorts of feelings. A great big celebration.”

  “Oh, I’d like that. Does everyone in town come out?”

  “Aye, and not just this one. The farmers from Duncraig come as well, and as time’s gone on, more and more come from miles around. There’s a feast, a dance, and contests. Vendors from Edinburgh usually set up stands all about the grounds, often enough, Scots come from as far afield as the Highlands to sell their whiskies and woolen goods. It’s a time to relax between the two harvests. And I’d be remiss if I didna mention the costumes.”

  “Costumes? People dress up for it?” Kenna giggled a bit.

  “All manner of costumes. It’s a bit strange I suppose, but that’s what we’ve always done. In a couple of days, this inn will be packed to the brim. I make more coin in the two or three days before the festival than I do the rest of the year feeding Lachlan and Egan.” The big Scotsman laughed.

  For a moment, Kenna’s thoughts fell back to Fort Mary when she was a child and spent every festival hoping she would see Gavin.

  “Is that – the festival – when boys and girls meet?”

  “Oh I see a twinkling of an eye, do I not?” Duggan grinned, the lines in the corners of his mouth disappearing under his beard and his eyes closed to smiling slits.

  Kenna too smiled, and looked down at the bar hoping he didn’t see her blush. “Aye that might’ve been when Gavin and I...”

  “It is,” he said. “A place like this, like Mornay’s Cleft or Duncraig, even the young ones work at the ground most of the year. Not much time for anyone to do much else, you know?”

  “Aye, Fort Mary’s the same. My Da, he owned – or well still owns, I suppose – a farm. And rare was the time when we weren’t working at it. The festivals were the only time we got together with much anyone else who dinna live down the road.”

  “We do the same, mostly,” Duggan said, nodding. “This year though it’ll be a little different. It’s the first festival since Mayor Willard went...well, became so touchy about certain things.”

  “Oh?”

  “Like Lachlan told you, he wasn’t always like this. Hasn’t always been so crooked and greedy. He’s been here neigh on ten years now – actually this will be his tenth. And until last year, he got on beautifully. Willard came to festivals, even showed up at the kirk on a wedding day or for funerary rites. But then year last, he was...” Duggan trailed off, gazing at the floor.

  “Those men, they said something about his daughter?”

  “You remember how he dressed? The long black cloak and the formal hat?”

  Kenna nodded, and remembered how odd she found his dress, considering the heat in the high daytime.

  “That’s his way of mourning; at least I think it is. She wasna much older than you. Younger mayhaps. She traveled between here and Edinburgh, then up to the highlands, to help her father with town business, administration, some such things that the particulars of which are lost on me. I dinna know what happened, not exactly, but she was kidnapped by bandits on the road and, well...let’s say she didn’t return safe.”

  Kenna couldn’t help but touch her chest. “That’s...that’s awful.”

  “Aye,” Duggan said. “And I dinna blame him for being upset, not at all. But what he did afterwards hurt a great many people. He decided that it wasn’t bandits what killed his precious lass, was all of us Scots. So, he started in with the double and triple taxing, banning of clan Mornay plaids and of pipes and all of that. Wants to punish us. He missed the pipes though, so he let them return, but only when he says.”

  Kenna just stared at him in disbelief.

  “It’s rough, it is. But that’s the way of things. We’ll get over it. Something’ll happen and Willard will come around.” He tried to muster a smile. “But for now why not just go see a few things? Hand me that and I’ll draw you a map.”

  Taking the long napkin from Kenna, dipped the quill he kept on the bar top and went to work sketching a little drawing of the town before he brushed it with the back of his hand, blew off the dust he sprinkled over top to absorb the ink, and held it at arms’ length.

  “There. A fine map. Of course, it would have likely been twice as easy just to tell you to go out the door and turn left on the road, as there’s only the one, but then again, I’ve not drawn a map in some time.”

  Kenna giggled softly as she took the cloth and then leaned in and gave Duggan a kiss of thanks on the small part of his cheek not covered in red beard.

  “I dinna know what you’re wanting to see, but I expect you’ll be wanting to figure out the mayor.”

  Kenna’s eyes told him everything when she opened them wide in surprise.

  “Ach, so I’m right. Good. You can talk to the men what run the shops here
and here,” he pointed to indicate the stores. “But they can be...unwilling. As I told you earlier, the people here are scared. We dinna like to talk to strangers unless we know they’re not the mayor’s cronies. But it might be worth your while if you can get them to talk. ‘Course, I’mna sure you’ll get anything you dinna know already. Maybe best to go to the source?”

  “I couldn’t...the mayor’s house?”

  “No, no, lass,” Duggan laughed. “I wouldna expect that even from you. No, he holds local court most weekdays at the town hall. Answering requests, handing down judgments and mediating disputes – magistrate’s business, aye? There’s a wee place you can sit and watch if you want to see him at the bench.”

  “Bench? I thought he was mayor?”

  “Aye, but being as how this is so small a town, he does the jobs of both mayor and magistrate.”

  Kenna pulled a small bound notebook and pencil she had tucked into the thick belt about her waist and began to scribble. Mayor – Town Hall, she wrote, and then made a note about the likely uselessness of talking to the townspeople. “And what about the kirk?” She looked up at Duggan and tapped the butt of her pencil on the diary.

  “Ach, is she writing a newspaper now?”

  She giggled, “No, just making sure I don’t miss anything. Any reason to visit the kirk?”

  “It’s plain, but nice enough I suppose. The Presbyter works about six or eight towns around here, travelling betwixt them so he comes only once a fortnight. He willna be there for a week yet. It’ll be open though, and there’s usually some kind of gathering about noon. I dinna what you could get from a bunch of farmer’s wives though – and that’s who gathers.”

  “Right, thanks Duggan,” Kenna said.

  “Oh, Kenna?” He said as she pulled open the door. “One more thing. Be back by dark.”

  “Aye, I will. But why?”

  “Mayor’s rules. No Scot on the street after dark. So far as I know, no one has tested him on it, but given how cruel he’s gotten lately I’d hate for the first person he catches to be someone who brings such a light to a room as you.”

  One thing Kenna could say for sure about Mornay’s Cleft is that the town had a stunning beauty to it that almost took her mind off Gavin.

  Almost.

  As she walked slowly from the inn to the square in the center of town, she found herself entranced by the hills that the mayor had taken to burning. The fire-kissed part of them was behind her, to the south, and the haze had already broken for the day, so all she saw in front of her were green hills, large and rolling, covered with the soft green grass she’d grown up loving, broken up by clumps of rather big, ancient firs and oaks. All along the side of the road, and all the way up the hills were little purple puffs of flowering thistle.

  The one she had on her neck, the one Gavin gave her when they were wee ones, was the dark, almost indigo purple of the highlands thistle. The local variety tended lighter, somewhere between the azure of the cloud-spotted sky arcing over her head and the pastel blue on Clan Mornay’s traditional plaid – which had apparently been outlawed since the mayor went on his tear, though Duggan still displayed a swatch of the cloth behind his bar.

  And then, when she finally took her eyes off the hills and looked to the side of the beat-down path she trod, a little, round, thorny ball rolled along beside her and thumped against her foot. Bending down she plucked it off the road and held it up. As she turned it between her thumb and forefinger, Kenna fixated where sunlight bounced off tiny dew droplets that were gathered on the leaves encircling the almost fully-closed flower. Her hand went to the pendant at her throat and she closed her fingers around the symbol of the promise that neither she, nor Gavin, knew they were making.

  Fiddling with the thorny little ball, she let her thoughts drift for just a minute more before she tossed it to the ground and shook her head to clear it.

  Alright, I dinna have time for this, at least not if I want to keep my wits about me. She laughed, shook her head again and glanced at the map Duggan had drawn. He’d marked the kirk, which he said was very nice, though likely empty since the Presbyter only came around once per fortnight to deliver service. On the other side of the square were located a pair of shops which sold things the local farmers needed, but specialized in arranging transport of goods to market. She wondered how their mood would be if she were to drop in.

  But none of that seemed very interesting.

  A moment later, her eyes settled on the crude drawing of the town hall and she tapped her finger on it. For some reason a knot pulled up in the back of her throat. She thought of the mayor’s strange dress, his board-stiff posture, and the way he’d just stared at Gavin and her. Lachlan and Egan had almost stumbled over themselves trying to get away before he made his entrance, and Duggan was so irritable when the mayor left that he barely said anything afterwards.

  She didn’t want to see him again. She wanted to pretend that everything was fine, and this was none of her business. She wanted to ignore it all, go back to the inn and refuse to leave until it was in her Gavin’s arms. That’s all she could think about – Gavin’s familiar scent, his soft hair, and his strong hands clasped around her back. His lips on hers, his touch and the way he stirred her heart.

  But then another, much less pleasant tension pulled at Kenna. The slicked-back hair, gray on his temples with the small, ribbon-tied pony tail, and Mayor Willard’s dour, dangerous, snide smirk. She shivered in the growing heat, as she remembered his lip pulling back over his square, even teeth when he made his remark about not seeing any rings on either of them.

  To her surprise, during all her clouded thoughts and remembrances, Kenna had walked all the way to town. Before her, the town square opened up with three buildings in the middle. The largest was made of white brick and wood. Though modest in size, it was of a style that reminded her of the Crown-built buildings she’d first seen in Edinburgh.

  Gavin would be brave. Gavin is being brave. He misses you as much as you miss him. Go through that door and get to know what you’re up against. Kenna steeled her nerves as she approached the heavy oak doors and grabbed the ornately-carved handle.

  Up against. Like she was halfway through a battle, she thought. As she opened the door, what was a rather faint tapping sound when she was outside became a booming noise of wood slamming on wood. It was Mayor Willard, she saw, violently banging his gavel on the top of a podium where he stood.

  “That is my final decision! Calm down!” Willard slammed the gavel down twice more, so hard that a lock of gray hair fell out of his carefully pulled pony tail and curled on his cheek, emphasizing the dangerous black of his eyes. “Any of you savages what can’t manage to be quiet right this second will be thrown out! I won’t hear any more cases. Calm down!”

  The roar quelled slightly. The mayor gripped the sides of his podium so tight the knuckles on his left hand went red and then white, and just as Kenna took a seat in the back of the gallery, the noise died out the rest of the way. Willard swept his fallen tendril of hair back behind his ear. He took a deep breath and let it out in a long, rattling sigh.

  “Good. Rollo, bring me the next case.”

  A short man with a limp and a back that seemed to have a painful hunch to it – though Kenna couldn’t tell exactly because of his heavy clothing – shuffled to a table in the front of the room and looked through a pile of papers with the help of a magnifying glass. Rollo turned to the Mayor, asked him what he was in the mood to hear, and Willard replied with a roll of his eyes and a tired sweep of his hand.

  “Do you see this room?” He snapped. “I have to listen to all these complaints today. I’m not picky about what I have to hear next. Just hand me something.”

  The little man grunted and grabbed a rolled up length of paper. He handed it to Willard before shuffling back to his seat near the front of the room, opening a very large book, and dipping his quill, waiting for the proceedings to begin. Kenna took a hint from him and retrieved her notebook and pencil,
jotted down descriptions before making a rough sketch of the courtroom and how it was laid out.

  Closing his eyes tightly and pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers, Willard plucked spectacles off his lectern and scanned the page before reading, “Gregory Morgan, who works as a farmer, and lives between the towns of Duncraig and Mornay’s Cleft petitions the court for a reprieve on his taxes, on account of a storm that destroyed his harvest.”

  “Stand up, Morgan. Where are you?” He took his glasses off and replaced them upon the podium. “I said stand!”

  Moments later, an infirm man with a wobble in his hip pushed himself to his feet and stood with the help of one hand gripping a cane and another one on a woman’s shoulder.

  “Yes Councillor,” the man said. “I’m Gregory Morgan.”

  “I know who you are, Morgan. Remember that you must address me as ‘Your Honor’ while I’m functioning as magistrate.” He waited for the man to nod. “You’re here in my courtroom at least once weekly complaining of the same thing. Unfair taxes, a bad crop. Bad health you’ve complained about a few times, and then once you said the weather was bad. Another time you informed me that your daughter had left home to be married and your son as well and that you couldn’t work your land. What is it this time, Morgan? Why can’t you pay your taxes?”

  The man stiffened and pushed the sash of his kilt back further onto his shoulder. From the strain Kenna saw in his posture, it was obvious that it hurt him a great deal, but she also noticed his pride. She imagined that if her father were in a similar position that is how William Moore would have acted, defiant of everything – including a bad hip.

  “Your Honor, if you want me to be direct, I can.”

  “Yes, please be direct. We don’t have all day. And don’t think it’s lost on me that you’re wearing an outlawed plaid. You Scots don’t understand what the purpose of security is, do you? You think it’s all a game, the dissent and the uprisings and the fighting and rebellions.”