by Amanda Scott
In truth, though, she would one day make some man an enviable wife. If he’d had any inclination to assume such a burden, he might be interested himself, although he suspected that she would present a rare challenge for anyone who tried to domesticate her. That was, however, no business of his.
The only thing that concerned him was that she was either unaware of the danger she had courted or dangerously indifferent to it.
Speaking as evenly as he had from the start, he said, “I seem to have offended you. That was not my intent. People often speak of the MacFarlan sisters, and when they mention you, they talk of your flawless memory and your love of folklore and tales of Scotland’s heroes. In fact, since you have such a fine memory, I suspect that you remember me perfectly well, do you not?”
“If you know who I am, then you should behave more courteously,” she replied, raising her chin.
Glancing at the too-interested boy, Rob said quietly, “If you would like to throw a stick for Scáthach, lad, she will be happy to accept your friendship. She has not had much exercise yet today, so you would be doing me a good turn, as well.”
“Aye, sure,” the boy replied, grinning. Unstringing his bow, he rested it against a tree, quickly found a suitable stick, and heaved it away from the trees.
Scáthach chased it eagerly up the slope, tossed it high, caught it, and then turned back. When the boy dashed off to meet her and throw the stick again, Rob said to her ladyship, “You do know that you were in danger up there, do you not?”
“If you know who I am, why do you not address me properly?”
“Because you are not behaving much like a lady,” he retorted.
Flushing scarlet, she gave him a look that he was sure she hoped would wither him where he stood. Her expressive, thickly-lashed, sky-blue eyes flashed sparks, and her kissable pink lips parted as if she meant to give him a piece of her mind. Wisely, she shut her mouth again without saying a word.
Then, when he remained silent, having no reason to say more than he had, she drew a deep breath and said, “You have not changed one whit since last year.”
“So you do remember me.”
“Aye, sure. You are Master Robert MacAulay of Ardincaple. You came here with my good-brother Ian. I did not think you were rude then, though, just a bit dull.”
“But now you think me rude. Why?”
She rolled her eyes as if his rudeness should be self-evident.
He glanced toward the lad again, saw that his attention was wholly on the dog, and returned his own to the undeniably tempting but perilously saucy and naïve Lady Muriella. “Are you going to answer my question, lass? If you expect me to read your mind when you roll your eyes like that, you will soon learn that I dislike guessing games. If you want me to know what you think, you must tell me.”
“I think that I do not want to talk to you anymore. In troth, since no one invited you here, I think you should go home.”
“What makes you think no one invited me?”
Try though she did, Muriella could get no more than that out of the man. When she asked him if her father had invited him or even knew that he was on Tùr Meiloach land, Robert MacAulay said, “You will have to ask Andrew Dubh.”
Irritated, and with her curiosity now aflame, she said, “If you will not talk to me, I see no reason to talk to you. You may therefore go where you will, but you should know that I mean to tell my father that you are trespassing on our land.”
“You should tell him,” MacAulay said. “Be sure that you also tell him where you were going and that Dougal MacPharlain was likewise on his land.”
Tossing her head, she said, “I have no cause to say that Dougal was here. I did not see him.”
“The boy did, though, and so did I,” MacAulay said. “You would be wiser, I think, to tell your father about Dougal before one of us does. For now, I will see you safely back to Tùr Meiloach, since you refuse to promise to return on your own.”
“Would you believe me if I did promise?” she asked, raising both eyebrows.
“Should I?”
Muriella hesitated. Something about Master Robert MacAulay suggested that lying to him outright might be a mistake.
Meeting his gaze, she saw to her consternation that a knowing twinkle lurked in the green depths of his eyes.
Her temper bristled. “I expect that even if I did promise, you would follow me to be sure I do go home.”
“I expect I would,” he admitted. “I do not know you well enough to trust that you keep your promises.” With that, he gave a low whistle, and Scàthach dropped the stick she was carrying and loped to his side.
Pluff followed more slowly. “Be we a-going back then?” he asked.
“We are,” MacAulay said. He waited only until the boy had collected his bow and quiver before gesturing for Muriella to lead the way.
Tempted though she was to press him for more information, she suspected that such pressure would be futile, so she strode silently on ahead.
When they reached the tower gate, and a guard opened it, MacAulay showed no inclination to enter the yard but nodded for Muriella to do so.
“Do you not mean to come in with us, then?” she asked.
“I have no reason at this hour to impose my presence on Andrew Dubh. But do not disappoint me, lass. Tell him that Dougal was on his land.”
Giving him a slight smile in response, and relieved when he did not insist again that she tell her father where she had been, Muriella passed through the gateway with dignity. When Pluff followed, she said firmly to him, “You go and ask MacNur if he has tasks for you. I will talk with my lord father alone.”
“Aye, sure,” Pluff said, turning to wave good-bye to MacAulay and Scáthach.
Deciding to see her father straightaway, since MacAulay had left her little choice, Muriella went in search of Andrew and found him at the high table in the great hall, talking with his steward, Malcolm Wylie.
In his fiftieth year, Andrew Dubh MacFarlan was still a fit warrior with only specks of gray in his dark hair. More gray showed in his bushy eyebrows, but the dark blue eyes beneath them shifted alertly at his youngest daughter’s approach.
Making her curtsy, she said, “May I speak with you, sir?”
Andrew smiled. “Aye, sure, lassie, whenever ye like.”
Muriella glanced at Malcolm, who was of an age with her father but grayer and more heavily built.
Nodding to show that he had received her unspoken message, the steward rose, saying, “I must speak wi’ that young gillie, laird, but I’ll be within hail.”
Nodding, Andrew gestured to the stool that Malcolm had vacated, saying, “Sit down and tell me what’s troubling ye, lass.”
Obeying, she said, “I met Master Robert MacAulay near the northeast slope, sir. Did you know that he was wandering about there?”
“D’ye think I dinna ken who comes onto my land, Murie-lass?”
“Usually you do, aye,” she said. “But sometimes people do succeed in trespassing despite your precautions. I should tell you that MacAulay and our Pluff both said they saw Dougal MacPharlain on our side of the north pass.”
Pleased with the way she had phrased that information, she was nonetheless relieved when Andrew said only, “One of the lads told me he’d seen Dougal there a few days ago. Doubtless that young lout seeks to know if we’re awake or asleep. If Rob MacAulay saw him there, he’ll likely tell me more about that anon.”
Disconcerted by that news, she said, “Are you going to meet with him, then? Why is he here?”
“Because when our Mag told me that Rob had been seeking solitude to think, we decided that, whilst Mag and Andrena be away, Rob might look after the cottage they’ve built for themselves on the east slope.”
Muriella knew that the cottage, which stood a mile or so from the north pass, was temporarily unoccupied, because Andrena and Mag had gone to Dumbarton to show their wee Molly off to Lina and Sir Ian. Afterward, they would go on to visit Mag’s two older sisters and their h
usbands in Ayrshire. His younger sister, Murie’s good friend Lizzie Galbraith, would be coming soon to Tùr Meiloach to visit.
Thoughts of her sisters, their husbands, and Lizzie stirred yet another notion in her agile mind. “You are not thinking of arranging a marriage between me and Robert MacAulay like the ones you arranged for Dree and Lina, are you, sir?”
“Ye needna fret, lassie,” Andrew replied. “I offered just such a union to the man whilst he was here last summer with Ian. He turned me down flat.”
Indignantly, Muriella exclaimed, “He did what! But why? What can he possibly think is wrong with me?”
Scáthach pushed her rough-coated head into Rob’s palm as they strode along together, so he gave her a fond pat. Having come over the southern pass late the day before, just as he had the previous year with Ian, he had found Mag’s cottage easily by following a narrow, undulating path along the timberline.
Earlier that morning, he had followed the timberline trail on from the cottage northward. Now, he wanted to see the river that formed Andrew’s north boundary, separating Tùr Meiloach from Arrochar. His intent was to follow that river down to the cliffs where it plunged nearly a hundred feet to the Loch of the Long Boats. Then, he would meet with Andrew shortly before midday, as they had planned.
While he walked, Rob’s thoughts drifted from the beautiful but perilously headstrong lady Muriella to the upcoming meeting with Andrew.
He needed the older man’s advice. However, before they talked, Rob wanted to gain a clearer picture of Andrew’s situation, and this was the first time he had had both the leisure and an opportunity to explore Tùr Meiloach.
He knew that Clan Farlan had split into two factions near the time that the King of Scots, then but a laddie, had set sail for the safety of France and ended up a captive in England instead. Many Scottish estates had changed hands during the two decades of his captivity, either through machinations of his uncle, the first Duke of Albany, or because other powerful lords had usurped them from weaker ones.
Albany, as Guardian of the Realm, had continued to rule Scotland in his older brother’s stead, and then his nephew’s, until his own death six years ago. He had rewarded his friends with land and punished his enemies by taking theirs away.
Men said that his grace’s father, Robert III, had died of grief when the capture of his younger son, now James I, had followed by mere months the death of his heir. Many believed that Albany had arranged both events so that he could go on ruling the country and not have to contend with a regency for a boy king.
Since Jamie’s return to Scotland two years ago, most of the House of Albany had died. Only Albany’s good-daughter, the duchess Isabella, her youngest son, James Mòr Stewart, and a few daughters still lived. The duchess resided on an island in nearby Loch Lomond.
James Mòr, after seizing the castle and burgh of Dumbarton last year and then losing them, either had fled the country or was in hiding.
The King, in his thirtieth year, had returned to a lawless country. Not, Rob reminded himself with a half-smile, that the Scots were ever particularly law-abiding. But Jamie wanted to institute a rule of law similar to England’s, with Parliament issuing laws that would prevail throughout the land. Most men, whether they supported the endeavor or not, believed that the King would fail.
His nobles were too powerful to curtail so easily.
Moreover, whether he succeeded or not, nobles would still need to protect their property from those who coveted it. That had been the way of things since the dawn of time, and one young king’s resolve to make everyone law-abiding was unlikely, in Rob’s opinion, to alter the reality of Scottish life.
Thanks to Ardincaple’s strategic location on the Gare Loch and the peninsula separating it from the Loch of the Long Boats, the estate was one that many powerful men coveted. Lord MacAulay controlled the unions of those two lochs with the Firth of Clyde, just as his ancestors had.
For a century, lairds of Ardincaple had allowed vessels to pass freely in and out of the lochs. Now others wanted to charge fees, large ones, for passage.
Campbell of Lorne, a powerful lord in the Isles with influence in Argyll, sought to extend that influence to the firth. A kinsman of his by marriage, Pharlain of Arrochar, had broached that very plan to Lord MacAulay nearly a month ago.
When MacAulay refused to participate in a plan that exempted the Campbells and Pharlain of Arrochar from all fees, Pharlain warned him that if he would not do it, Pharlain and Campbell would simply seize Ardincaple. If the laird did agree to the fees, they would graciously share some of the profits with him.
Chapter 2
Andrew smiled at Muriella’s outburst and said, “There’s nowt amiss with ye, lassie. ’Tis plainly with the man himself, but if ye want to ken why he refused me offer, ye’ll have to ask him. I can tell ye only that he said I’d done him great honor but that he’d no inflict himself so on any woman.”
“Inflict!” she exclaimed. “What can he have meant by that?”
Eyes dancing, Andrew said, “Ye’ll have to ask MacAulay that, too. But what difference can it make? Ye’ve nae wish to marry at all, or so ye’ve oft told me.”
“I don’t want to marry,” she said. “Certes, I would not marry any man who would always be telling me what to do and what to think, the way most men do.”
The twinkle vanished. Andrew said, “Is that what ye think I do?”
“Sometimes,” she said. Then, seeing him frown, she added, “You can be more reasonable than either Mag or Ian is, sir, or the Laird of Galbraith. Galbraith treats Lizzie and me exactly the same way, although I’m years older than she is.”
“Not so many years older as that,” Andrew said evenly. “Nor do ye always act your age, lass.”
Realizing that she had overstepped, Muriella hastily apologized. “I should not have spoken so about Galbraith, sir,” she added. “But Robert MacAulay irked me, and I fear that my irritation with him has addled my senses. Smiling wistfully, she said, “Prithee, will you forgive me?”
“I will, aye,” Andrew replied with a reassuring smile. Seconds later, a remnant of the frown stirred his brow again. “Was MacAulay rude to ye?”
Recognizing treacherous ground, she said lightly, “I doubt that you will think so. He insisted on escorting me all the way to our gate, as if I could not find my way through our own woods.”
“Ye’re right,” Andrew said. “I’ll no hold that against him. Ye may think that ye’re as skilled in our woods as your sisters be, lass, but ye lack their ability to sense approaching danger, as well as Andrena’s keener sense of her surroundings.”
“But I have the same abilities that they have,” Muriella protested.
“Ye may share their ability to sense more than most do about what others are thinking or feeling, and ye may share some of Andrena’s woodland skills,” Andrew acknowledged. “But ye do nowt to hone your skills, lass. Nor have ye shown Lina’s ability, let alone Andrena’s or your mam’s, to sense danger.”
“But—”
“Nay, lassie, ye’re in the wrong now,” he went on sternly. “Whatever abilities ye may have, ye’re more apt to lose yourself in your imaginings than to heed your surroundings closely enough for safety.”
Much as she’d have liked to deny it, she knew better than to argue with him. He was a kind and loving father, but his temper was uncertain, so arguing with him was unwise. Besides, Lina and Dree had said similar things to her about practicing and improving her gifts, and she did lose herself in her thoughts when she walked.
With a rueful grimace, she met his gaze and said, “You are right, sir. Sithee, new stories often come to me whilst I’m walking. But I’ll try to pay more heed.”
“A good notion,” he said. “Now, take yourself off, for I’ve things to do afore MacAulay comes. He has summat he wants to discuss, and I mean to invite him to eat with us.” The twinkle returned. “Ye can ask him then what’s wrong with ye.”
Rising, she made her curtsy, resisting the
impulse to tell him she would die rather than ask Robert MacAulay any such question.
She was certain she would not like his answer.
Having followed the wildly churning, swiftly flowing river until it plunged over the cliff to the loch below, Rob stood gazing at the part of Arrochar that touched the river on its other side. He had seen the river on Andrew’s south boundary from the pass over which he’d walked into Tùr Meiloach. Andrew’s well-armed guards had stopped him three times then to demand his business.
He wondered how MacPharlain had avoided guards in the north pass.
Rob had ridden from Ardincaple by way of west Lomondside, leaving his horse with folks at a wee clachan opposite Inch Galbraith, the island on which the Laird of Galbraith lived with his youngest daughter. Having experienced the steep, boulder-strewn path over the pass the year before with a party of Sir Ian Colquhoun’s, Rob had decided this time to spare his mount and walk in.
Both rivers, north and south, were too swift and dangerous for swimming, and the precipitous, granite ridge between Loch Lomond and Tùr Meiloach that connected them was impassable, except through a treacherous pass at each end.
How Andrew Dubh MacFarlan had protected his family and remaining estate for so long had puzzled Rob at first. But standing where he was now reminded him that sheer cliffs rising from the Loch of the Long Boats’ eastern edge limited access from its water. Not far from where he stood, he could see Andrew’s wharf, looking more like a castle drawbridge than a proper wharf, because it was vertical now, hugging the cliff wall. For a friendly visitor, if Andrew agreed, his men would lower the wharf to float on the water. In truth, therefore, it was more raft than bridge, or so Rob had heard. He had never docked a boat there himself.
Noting the sun’s position high in the cloudy sky, he realized that if he wanted to talk to Andrew before the midday meal, he would have to step along. Accordingly, he set off up the footpath and soon came to the one that led back to the tower. Minutes later, he saw it ahead, looming above its surrounding wall. Men on the inner walkway peered down at him.