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

by Karin, Anya

  “Well I’ll be damned,” Ben Black said as he slapped Gavin on the shoulder hard enough to make him almost fall over. “If it ain’t the prodigal son of Scotland hissel’! Wouldn’t you know it as soon as we go lookin’ for him he shows up here!”

  “Aye, I heard you laughing from about four miles away, Ben,” Gavin said. “I thought I should probably come by and make sure you hadn’t got yourself a family of lambs.”

  Rodrigo snickered, John laughed, Lynne rolled her eyes but smiled, and Ben stared right at Gavin and crinkled his forehead. “What use would I have for lambs? Got no place to keep them.”

  John pulled him aside and whispered in his ear.

  “Oh! You right bastard, Gavin Macgregor!” Ben said with a start.

  Another round of laughter burst from the lot of thieves and someone handed Gavin a little clay cup with the dram of whisky he’d wanted so badly. First he sipped, then he quaffed the rest all at a go, and no sooner than he did, another one appeared in his hand.

  “It’s good to see all of you again. Feels like a great deal longer than the two days it’s been.”

  “Indeed,” Rodrigo said, clapping Gavin on the back. “I do not think you have met Elena, my wife.”

  “I was moments from asking after this beautiful lady,” Gavin replied with his customary dashing manner. “A pleasure.”

  “Oh! Yes! And pleasure from you, too,” Elena said blushing.

  “No, no,” said a thick German-accented voice from beside Ben. “We say ‘A pleasure to meet you, too,’ Elena.”

  Elena corrected herself but as she did, Olga pushed past her much smaller friend and took Gavin’s hand, shaking vigorously. “I have heard more about you than you probably want me to have heard.”

  “Well, that’s...May I ask your ladyship’s name before you take my arm off? We should get you a sword, or a hammer.”

  A smile spread across Olga’s broad face. “Kenna,” she said. “Kenna told me all about you and your courage and your...muscles, and your...”

  “Right, right, Olga, very good,” John cut in. “Gavin is very tired and needs some-”

  “I was about to say your charming smile,” Olga interrupted right back.

  “Ah, yes, Olga! Kenna told me so much about you.”

  “I am! Will we be seeing Miss Kenna soon?”

  “Oh aye, I think you will. She’s just up the road in Mornay’s Cleft. She’s-”

  “John, you are a child made man,” Lynne said, reaching up to grab her lover’s ear and twist it. “We’ve all heard the name of the town and laughed at it when we were young, and here you are, firmly out of youth, giggling away.”

  “I’m sorry!” John chortled. “I canna help it, the town, cleft? Mornay’s? You couldna come up with a better name if you tried.”

  “If you think the name is so funny, you’ll enjoy that the inn where Kenna’s staying has a pair of lady’s legs on the sign. Seems even the people living there canna get enough of the joke.” Gavin grinned. “Or they know everyone else tells it, so the innkeep just went along.”

  For a moment, everyone breathed, recovering from the mixture of emotions and laughter that had gripped and shaken them since Gavin returned. John fiddled with some kind of rod upon which was mounted a mirror.

  “What’s that ridiculous little toy?” Gavin said to his friend.

  “This isn’t any toy. You can use it to see around corners, providing the light’s with you.” John replied.

  “Dinna help you any when I caught you.”

  “You’re a bright one, you know that? How’re you going to use a mirror in the dark?” John asked.

  “She – Miss Kenna – she alright?” Elena said, cutting in.

  “Is Miss Kenna alright, Elena, is how we say that.” Olga corrected.

  “Ah...aye, she is,” Gavin said, amused at the two women. “She is. She’s staying behind to look around the town. There’s a bit of a strange mayor at work there. He seems to have taken to overcharging the people of the town a great deal. Causing some strain. Apparently the farmers – or some of them anyway – are being pushed off their land, and then he buys it up and is clear-cutting it to make some sort of plantation. There’s more to it, and if you ask me, he aims to get everyone out of work and then put them to working at his farm.”

  “That being the case, why are you here?” Ben asked. “And as to that, why is the sheriff free?”

  “Ah, that. Aye, well, when we got to Mornay’s – which is the name I’m using to prevent John from losing concentration – we took a room at an inn and though I wanted to bring him inside with us, the innkeeper insisted he’d be secure in the back. I left him in the care of a rather strong stable boy, who was eager for the job. Must’ve been a good break from his normal boredom, I suppose. But Alan, being Alan, promised him a huge sum of money to be let free, which he’ll never play. The young man felt terrible, and I canna blame him. The hundred Crowns the sheriff promised would have fed his family for years.”

  “And you had a sweet thing waiting for you inside, ah?” John nudged him in the ribs. That time, even Lynne started laughing.

  “Ach! That’s the truth of it. I was distracted! I couldna think of anything but Kenna, of her smile, of that flaming, red hair and those bright lips that I so love to kiss.”

  “Do you hear this John? Do you?” Lynne said. “This is how you talk to a woman. Best learn of it.” She gave him a squeeze and giggled at his squirming.

  “I think most men could learn something from the way Mister Gavin talks. And how he looks, and those arms,” Olga said in a very serious voice.

  “R – right, right, thank you Olga,” Gavin said, chuckling. “But there it is. I left the sheriff in the stables and when I went to take him food the next morning and get the equipment ready for travel, he’d gone.”

  “If only he knew he’d never see the money,” Rodrigo said with a sneer. “That lying bastard would do anything to save his own skin.”

  “Aye,” Gavin said. “As I was riding here, I made up my mind that the sheriff was going to pay his promised debt. Not sure how to force him to do that, exactly, but something will occur to me. And that’s why I’m here, too. I came to fetch him and drag him back north. We canna leave Mornay’s Cl- Mornay’s yet.” He winked at John. “But it’s still my intention to deliver the sheriff to Glasgow for trial when we can.”

  “If it’s the sheriff you want, we can take you to him,” Ben said. “He’s been on his best behavior. He’s in Edinburgh.”

  “Aye, John told me you saw him.”

  “For a fact, we did. He was pissed-drunk and screaming at some tavern keeper,” Ben said.

  “Sounds like Alan.” Gavin nodded. “Though all the same, I’m not sure if we should. I mean if I should – go and get him.”

  “The man must be made to answer for his crimes, Gavin,” John said, his voice short. “Blood, sweat and tears we shed to stop him the first time, we canna just let him go.”

  “Aye, but I find myself wondering if it’s worth it, or if he’s made such a laughingstock of himself that his own shame is good enough.”

  John clicked his teeth and Lynne scowled.

  “You canna be serious, Gavin Macgregor,” she said. “I can see in your eyes that you’re longing for your lady love, but just wait a tick. You’ve spent your whole life without her, no?”

  “Aye, I have, but-”

  “You’ve got a hitch in your heart what can only be filled by Kenna. But you’ve also got a duty. If you’re not willing to fight for what you know to be right, then who will be? I ask you that.”

  “It’s just...I know you’re right Lynne. I know it in my bones, in my heart. Being away from her though, it hurts.”

  “My friend,” Rodrigo said, coming close and gripping Gavin’s shoulder. “Do you know how long I was away from Elena? When the sheriff hired me?”

  “No, I-”

  “We were married when I was nineteen and she just past seventeen. There was no...no money, no house, not
hing. We barely ate. And so I went to war. Or I thought it was war, but the Prussians decided not to fight. So instead I sat, what seemed to be a thousand-thousand miles from her,” he tilted his head to Elena, “for three years. Then I was with her again for three months before I answered our friend Sheriff Alan’s call for hired bodyguards. Three more years, Gavin, passed until I was able to bring her here, and even then I saw her only on the rare occasions that I had the good luck to see her.”

  Gavin looked down to see Elena’s hands wrapped so tightly around her husband’s arm that God himself couldn’t pull them apart, he imagined.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I forgot myself.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Rodrigo said with a smart smile. “We can’t help our hearts. We can only make sure they don’t get the best of us, is all.”

  “Yes. Good point. I...suppose I’m going to Edinburgh, then, to retrieve our catch. I know this isn’t the way you all expected to hear from me, and I wish it wasn’t so. I wish that the first you heard from me after leaving was an invitation to my wedding, a note that we were in Fort Mary safe and sound and waiting for all of you to come and celebrate the happiest moments of our lives, but-”

  “Gavin? Who am I? Who is talking to you right now?”

  “I’m not drunk,” Gavin said with a grin.

  “This is John talking to you. You’re my best friend and unless something’s changed in the last three days, I’m yours. We’re sworn brothers. You’ve helped me out of more terrible spots than I can count, and I you. If you got lost on the road to Russia, I’d come and find you. And I know you’d do the same for me.”

  “And I too!” Ben roared, slapping Gavin on the back. “You’ve made me feel more alive than I thought I ever could!”

  “You set my spirit free from the sheriff,” said Rodrigo. “I’m your man.”

  “It’s because of you I found my love,” Lynne said wrapping her arm around John’s waist. “For that, I owe you everything.”

  “You have save my husband,” Elena said, smiling and getting it close enough to right that Olga didn’t correct her.

  “I can’t thank you all enough. I’m...I’m blessed to call you friends.”

  “No,” Olga said in her stern and serious voice as she caught one of his wrists and squeezed his arm. “You’re blessed to have arms what like you do. You’ve earned friends like this. Like us.”

  Six

  Mornay’s Cleft

  August 17, Early Morning

  Kenna had grown used to the morning haze from the hills on either side of Mornay’s Cleft. So much so, in fact, that she began to enjoy the smell of the burning wood. It reminded her of the fires that her Da and Ma kept burning back at home.

  It seemed so far away that she was afraid for a moment she’d never see it again. A soft knock, getting more insistent the longer she ignored it, caught her attention and made her shake her head to clear the dangerous nostalgia.

  “Sorry,” she called. “Who is it?”

  “Duggan,” the voice answered. “Sorry to bother you ma’am, but I was just checking to see after you being alright. You were pretty upset last night when you went up.”

  She had been. That much was true. Kenna spent most of the afternoon into the early part of the evening chatting with the various people who came and went through the inn’s front room. As Duggan predicted, as the festival drew near, people from both villages, and many out-of-towners had begun to fill the inn. She heard accents from Edinburgh, from the port towns on the east and west sides of Scotland, even a couple from northern England. Plenty from Duncraig as well, but Kenna was amazed at just how many people there and from how far they’d come.

  “Sorry, I just got a bit taken in with all the things happening. The crowd got to me, I think.”

  Most of the visitors were tired from the road and wanting a drink before they went off wherever they were going to sleep for the night, but a few had talked with her, though the things she learned were largely useless. One man from Duncraig, for instance, had a lust for a Mornay’s Cleft farmer’s wife, and it had evidently become well known town-talk for all the bawdy rhymes that were made at his expense. Another man from the other town had almost breeched the subject of Mayor Willard when she asked, but as soon as someone else entered the inn, he closed his mouth, remarking that you never know how far the spider could feel his web twitch.

  That shook her.

  The rest of the night she spent talking to Lachlan and Egan as most of the patrons drank and ate their fills, and went to their rooms for sleep. But, when she was finally alone with Duggan, she admitted how she’d not been paying much attention to them after hearing about the way the townspeople saw the mayor as a spider waiting to prey. He seemed distracted by something, as though his thoughts were elsewhere, or he was being extra cautious with his words. He’d not said much, so by the time Kenna went up for bed, she’d gotten the distinct impression that even though she knew things were not quite as they seemed, it was really worse than she imagined.

  “Miss Moore?”

  Pulling at her hair, Kenna answered, “Ach, sorry, I got lost in thought.”

  “Just like my Laura,” he chuckled under his breath. “Come down when you’re dressed. I’ve got some new sausages for you to try and...something to tell you before the great crowd arises and needs food to fill their aching bellies.”

  She listened to his heavy footsteps descend the wooden stairs, thought briefly of home once again, and then of Gavin as she dressed and touched the thistle about her neck. Something about Duggan’s tone had unnerved Kenna tremendously. His tone was strange, she thought. All the joy was gone from his voice; there was none of his normal boisterousness. He sounded drained of life.

  “Place is a damnable mess. But that’s how these days will be. Canna complain much with all the money I’ll make.”

  Kenna pushed an over-turned, empty bottle off a stool and sat. “How many people came in?”

  “This inn has thirty rooms. Almost all of them are full, and most beds have two people in ‘em. The stables are full of both horses and men, and you canna take a step outside the inn without stepping on someone. It’ll be this way until the festival’s passed.”

  “I hadn’t realized I was hungry until I smelled that,” she said as Duggan put a pair of sausages into a pan and they sizzled. “It’s wonderful.”

  “They’re the best I’ve ever had. They’ve got little bits of apple in the sausage.” He tossed a towel backwards over his shoulder and sliced a piece of black bread off a great hunk of it. “Fried?”

  “If it please you. Truth be told, you’ve got me worried, Duggan,” Kenna said.

  “Aye, fried it is. Tea?”

  “I was thinking I’d finally relent and try some of your coffee.” She decided to do that not because she actually wanted any, but because Duggan had been so insistent that she thought it would make him happy.

  “Oh, fine then,” he said. Her plan worked momentarily at least.

  She picked up the tiny cup and sniffed the black liquid and would have put it down if not for Duggan’s obvious excitement at her trying it. Touching it to her lips, Kenna took the smallest sip she could imagine.

  “Well?”

  “It’s...not as terrible as I imagined. Actually, I kind of like it. It’s very bitter, but-”

  “Here, try this,” he said as he dropped a lump of sugar in the drink. “Some people like it sweeter.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, laughing. “Much better. I didn’t expect to enjoy this at all, but something about it is quite nice.”

  “Well, good. The sausages are quite nice too, but there’s something I’ve to tell you before anyone shows up for breakfast.”

  “What is it? I noticed you were worried last night.”

  “Aye,” he said, leaning close. “It’s...I found out more about the burning what goes on every day. As it happens, he’s only burning scraps.”

  “But what about the fires on the hills?”

 
Duggan shook his head. “That’s grass. He’s burning off the meadows and so on. Sometimes it gets out of control and goes after the clumps of wood. But the smell is from burning off bark and scraps. Our mayor has a secondary business interest.”

  “I’m lost,” Kenna admitted.

  “He’s selling the wood.”

  “What? To who?”

  “Someone who is presently in town from down south. He’s been stockpiling it for quite some time, having it cut to planks, and ageing it. The man buying it is a shipwright who runs a warehouse based out of Manchester.”

  “So not only is he clear cutting everything to build a plantation, he’s financing a shipping house?”

  “Aye. And there’s more, I think. From the way this fella was talking, Willard may even have stake in the company. He said that our friendly mayor is selling the wood for next to nothing.”

  “But why? Shipping companies are wealthy, surely they could pay a handsome sum for good wood.”

  “She’s a sharp one,” Duggan said, finally grinning again. “But think of it this way – if he gives it away, ingratiates himself to some grand shipping company, then maybe it’s an investment in the future, you see. Another thing I should mention is that the buyer who is in town said he works for the East India Company.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Aye, but I am.”

  “Why here though? I mean, don’t they have plenty of ships, plenty of wood?”

  “One would think. But word is a new branch of the Company is opening to specialize in Caribbean trade. Maybe he means to start a relationship?”

  “The Caribbean...” Kenna trailed off. “Pirates, Jamaica, and all that. Why is the mayor of a little part of Scotland getting involved in this?”

  “I couldna guess. It has occurred to me though that Willard is trying to get in the Company’s good graces. Mayhap for an appointment to the board? If he proves that he can run a plantation here, why couldn’t he run one in Jamaica? Barbados?”

  The thought made Kenna shudder. Precious little news got back to Scotland about the islands, but what she knew, she remembered from hearing her father speak of it. He was afraid that if the British were allowed to control Scotland, that it would become “another Jamaica,” he said. “With the Crown telling everyone what to do, what to think, how to pray.” Ever since, the thought terrified her, but it hadn’t occurred that someone in a position like the mayor would be maneuvering to be appointed there.