A Promise of Love

by Karen Ranney

  Of course, the MacLeod would be angry - Malcolm knew there would be repercussions, and although Alisdair wasn't a hothead like his brother, Ian, he was still a MacLeod. Every member of that illustrious branch of the clan had a stubborn streak as wide as the glen.

  Malcolm had time over the last weeks to take the mettle of the Englishwoman. Time to realize that maybe she wasn't as English as she thought, with her way of scenting the air like a young doe, of her resilience each morning when they'd awakened on the cold wet ground, her and the twins and himself all crabby with the cold and his bones stiffening up on English soil. Maybe they could make a match of it, these two. The MacLeod with his stubbornness in the face of the English threat and the English woman who didn't act English at all.

  "I could wring that scrawny neck of yours, Malcolm," Alisdair said, watching as the old man remained at least five feet away from him, despite his advance. Inside his castle, or what had once been a castle before the Duke of Cumberland's troops had paid a visit, was a woman to whom, thanks to the Machiavellian maneuvering of his old friend, he was now legally bound.

  The very last thing he needed right now was a wife. He preferred a contingent of armed English soldiers, a bout of the plague or an attack of French pox to marriage.

  "Why don't you sleep on it, lad?" Malcolm suggested, the long years of friendship warming his voice.

  "Why, Malcolm? Do you lack excitement in your life? Do you miss battle so much that you would bring war to Tynan? Why, man?"

  "She's a wee thing, Alisdair."

  "She's as tall as me, Malcolm!" Which was only a slight exaggeration. After Malcolm’s announcement, he’d pulled his new bride from her saddle. The top of her head came to his nose, a fact he’d discerned only after she’d turned abruptly at the steps and nearly broken it.

  "She needs protection."

  "Let her hire an armed guard." Alisdair speared his hands through his hair. Malcolm was taking this entire farce too lightly.

  "She's been sore used, Alisdair. She's a poor widow."

  "Good God, man, now there's something to recommend her! If you must wed me without my consent, at least find me a virgin!"

  "Virgins are overrated, MacLeod. Besides, what could I do, post a handbill for a willing English virgin?"

  Alisdair halted abruptly, looked at the older man in disbelief. Dark shadows kept him from discerning Malcolm’s expression, but not the white flash of smile. He told himself to remain calm.

  "She's English, too, Malcolm?"

  "Aye, she came with the sheep."

  "What, as nursemaid? Drover? Does she perform lambings, or does she shear? Does she card wool, perhaps? What the hell do you mean, she comes with the sheep?" He nearly spit out the words.

  "One hundred Leicester sheep, give or take the few we lost on the trip. For free, MacLeod."

  "Who sold you this doubtful bit of goods?"

  "Her father, the Squire. A true Sassenach." Malcolm's grimace seemed to convey his exact impression of Squire Cuthbertson.

  "Her father?"

  "Aye."

  "Are you saying her father traded her?" Despite his intentions, his voice lost the restrained tone he had managed in the last few minutes, and rose to a roar.

  "He's no a likable mon, MacLeod."

  "Is she deformed?" He had not seen her, only felt the strong resistance of her thin frame bouncing against his. That, and the violent thrust of her head against his nose. He fingered the bridge of it gently.

  "No, MacLeod, she's no deformed. Just a mite skinny."

  "So you bring her here, to feast on turnips and cabbages and potato pancakes," he said sardonically.

  "Aye, and mutton, too."

  Alisdair stared at his old friend, now only a black shape in the darkness, and tried to prevent his lips from twitching, but it was a losing battle. He finally could not stop his laughter.

  Alisdair wondered later what the hell he found so amusing.

  CHAPTER 3

  His head hurt, but Alisdair would pay that price gladly.

  He and Malcolm had sampled a few bottles of Squire Cuthbertson’s brandy. How the old Scot had acquired it, Alisdair had not asked. There were some things he preferred not to know. The squire, however unwittingly, had provided the two of them a glorious night of celibate debauchery. Well, it had been a glorious drunk, anyway. Heather ale was all well and good, but brandy, now there was a drink. Not as smooth as Scots whiskey, of course, but still, a fine golden taste on the tongue. In his youth, in Edinburgh and in Belgium, he had consumed many a glass of strong spirits, with never a thought to the cost. But drink, like all other things youth thought so necessary, now demanded a price both in pain of the body and in good honest coin that was too dear.

  Alisdair felt every day of his thirty-two years.

  He shifted, and wondered why his bed was so hard. He slitted open one eye and gazed at the feeble rays of sunrise through the gate. Good God, he had slept in the courtyard all night. He looked to his left, but Malcolm was gone.

  He blinked, flinching with the pain of that simple gesture. God, he hurt. Something was rolling around in his head, a thought that he must remember.

  Woman..... Wife.....

  He'd forgotten.

  He levied himself up on his knees and tried to pretend that the pain in his head was only a temporary thing. Pressing both hands against his temples seemed to be a necessary action in order to prevent his brain from oozing out his ears. His stomach urged him to retch and wouldn't that be a waste of a good drunk?

  He finally managed to straighten by the simple trick of leaning against the wall until the dizziness eased somewhat and he could bear it. He was getting too old for this. He wondered how Malcolm did it. He hoped, fervently, that the old man was suffering in a similar way.

  God saw fit to deny his prayer.

  He heard his cheerful whistle before he saw him, and with a last, stoic effort, Alisdair raised himself straight and stepped away from the wall, hoping that his face did not look as green as it felt.

  "Good morning, MacLeod," Malcolm said, cheerfully, "an' a fine, fine mornin' it is."

  Alisdair nodded weakly.

  He asked about the woman's whereabouts, and Malcolm's response was a taciturn growl and an equally short-tempered snarl.

  "And why would ye be wantin' to know?" Malcolm slitted his eyes at him, and Alisdair scowled at the condemnation in their depths. Malcolm should feel the inside of his head - he doubted his dour friend would feel such charity, then.

  "To beat her, of course," he said caustically, leveling an intent look at his companion. It was a look that several members of his clan would correctly identify as a warning - one that cautioned against pursuing a certain course of action. In Malcolm's case, it did not deter him one bit.

  "I'm thinkin' ye'll be leavin' the lass alone. She should be sleeping like the dead."

  "Where?" An economy of words kept the pain in his jaw to a tolerable level.

  "And where do ye ken? Four rooms fit for a mousie to live in.”

  Malcolm had found her asleep in the chair beside the fire. He’d led her, then, to the room which had been Ian's chamber. The other rooms stood open and gaping, their wooden doors burned to ash, their interiors nothing but blackened shells. Yet, some sentimental notion had prompted the women of the clan to ready Ian's room as though Alisdair's brother had not been lost at Culloden.

  Alisdair threw him another fierce scowl, but Malcolm only turned away, hiding his wide grin.

  If he hadn't drunk enough brandy last night to summon forth a regiment of drummers in his brain, Alisdair wouldn't have minded that the roof frame was to be raised onto the new weavers' hut this morning. Now, he groaned at the thought of climbing twenty feet in the air while his stomach rolled and his head pounded and every limb felt dangerously weak. It was, he thought with a self-deprecating smile, enough of a lesson to keep him away from the brandy for months.

  He'd taken the time to inspect the sheep. They looked healthy enough, but their
fleece should be spun of gold thread for the aggravation they'd brought with them.

  Yet, his only thought the minute he mounted the fragile wooden frame of the half-completed weaver's hut was his clan's welfare.

  The crofter's needed income. Income that was fixed and permanent and not subject to excess taxes or the fortunes of war. The Leicester sheep Malcolm had brought home would be cross bred to their native black faced breed, and the result would be longer fleece, and a thriving industry from the wool they would produce and weave. England paid dearly for Irish linen; Alisdair had long since vowed they would pay as well for Scots wool.

  As he stretched and pulled the lattice work of the roof frame in place, he was not aware of anything but the task at hand.

  Malcolm, however, made sure he didn't forget his new wife.

  From his viewpoint twenty feet off the ground, Alisdair could see Malcolm striding toward him, accompanied by the English woman. His clansman made a point of stopping at several of the crofter's cottages and introducing Judith. Alisdair could imagine what was said by the sharp looks directed his way. It would take only minutes before the knowledge of his new bride swept the village.

  Damn Malcolm!

  He looked down at the woman standing in a pool of light. The darkness had not flattered her. Here, at least, the sunlight picked up the tints of red and gold in her hair, turning the mousy brown into a rich hue. She was taller than most of the women in his clan, and although slender, the bodice of her dress strained over breasts most men would pay money to touch.

  There was promise in that face, he thought, as he watched her with a physician's detachment, colored as it was with his own personal thoughts. Her skin was so fair that it was almost translucent. Her face was too thin, accentuating the high angle of her cheekbones and that autocratic looking nose. No Roman god would be complete without a nose that patrician. Her lips, full and tinged a pale coral, pursed at the sight of him.

  Her eyes were black, he realized with a start, as she raised her face and stared at him. No, blue. Midnight blue, like the color of the sea during a storm.

  He pulled the ladder from its perch near the frame, hooked a boot on the top rung and lowered himself to the ground, jumping the last three rungs. His head thumped with discomfort.

  She tensed, the closer he came.

  The voices which had kept up an avid chatter droned to a murmur, then halted altogether.

  He did not miss her look of relief when he hesitated ten feet away.

  He had only been a vision of sweeping shadows before. That, and a long, lean column of strength as he had propelled her off her saddle. Now, she could see him clearly. It was not a reassuring sight.

  Alisdair MacLeod was a large man. He was tall, and the black trousers he wore did nothing to hide the muscles outlined in his wide spread legs. Nor did the white shirt, rolled to the elbows, conceal the strength of his forearms or the breadth of his shoulders.

  He could snap her in two.

  She took a tiny step backwards, and he smiled. The gesture only focused her attention on his face. She wished he were ugly. Her gaze traveled up from that strong column of neck, fully exposed by the open collar of his shirt, past the strong cleft chin that she suspected jutted out at the world in stubborn defiance. Her eyes swept past the molded lips, aristocratic and now quirked in ironic humor, up the nose which changed direction once, to meet his eyes. They were fixed on her with a directness that left her gasping. They were brown, hinting at gold. Here, in the sunlight they seemed to gleam with hidden depths, like the finest brandy sparkling in the light of a hundred candles. His hair was black, long and curling, and swept from his face by an impatient gesture and a short leather tie.

  She shuddered.

  "That bad?" he asked, having borne her inspection without a word, although it had, unaccountably, made him acutely uncomfortable. But shuddering was a bit much, wasn't it? Granted, they had all fallen upon hard times, but he was still as clean as possible under the circumstances. He shaved each morning, he changed his clothes each day, he brushed his teeth with a tiny brush dipped in precious salt, he bathed often, even if that bath was no more than a quick dip in the cove.

  He glared at her. She stared back. The clans people muttered.

  Malcolm, damn him, smiled.

  "I want out of this marriage," she said, in a clear, ringing voice. It could have carried to Edinburgh, he thought. She also sounded too damn English. He could feel the tension in the people around him, as the shock of her voice filled the air.

  "Good, so do I."

  "Fine, would you give me some money, please, and I'll desert you for four years. That will do it, won't it, Malcolm?" She looked to the other man for assent.

  "Aye, lass, it will."

  "Malcolm," Alisdair said, turning to the other man, who stood grinning at both of them, "since you are the beneficiary of so many wonderful ideas, perhaps you'll tell me what I'm to use for coin." His tone was conversational, as though he did not have the sudden urge to begin shouting.

  "Money could be a problem, lass," Malcolm said, nodding wisely.

  Judith gripped her hands tightly.

  "Have you any money, Malcolm?" she asked shortly.

  He thought for a moment as if considering the matter. "No, lass, I don't."

  There were too many people about, all silent, their gaze fixed on her. Even the clan’s leader stood with his feet braced apart, his arms crossed in front of his chest, studying her. The silence was oppressive, the regard too intent.

  Judith knew too well what she looked like. She was too tall, too thin, with long legs and lean hips. Anthony had once told her it looked as if she'd been stretched between two trees. Her shoulders were too broad, her breasts too large, as if nature, having granted her little grace and few womanly attributes felt justified in giving her a doxy’s chest.

  Her nose jutted out like the prow of a ship, her lips were too full, her eyes too strange a color, her hair dung colored and straight. If anything, Judith felt more plain than before, standing before this magnificent looking man with his casual elegance despite the sweat stains on his shirt, and the dust of his trousers.

  The ghost of a smile on his tanned face made her feel even more ridiculous.

  She turned to leave, but he moved quickly to intercept her. He was suddenly beside her, one large, tanned hand on the sleeve of her dress.

  For a second, she believed the look of compassion on his face. Only a second, until she remembered the lessons of the past - that emotions were easily manipulated and that it would be safer simply not to trust anyone.

  “Unhand me. Now.” She pulled away, but he gripped her tightly.

  "Guard your words with care, woman," he said, hearing the barely audible collective gasp. None dared issue orders to the MacLeod.

  The sudden fire in her eyes surprised him, almost as much as what she did next. She looked into his face, studying him, as if searching for something visible there. What she saw caused her to glance down at her feet, as if her dusty boots were worthy of immediate and fascinating scrutiny.

  “Forgive me,” she said, the words well practiced, easily said. They meant nothing. She’d said those words all her life, easy words to excuse her very existence. Forgive me. Judith gave them to him freely and gained herself some safety.

  Alisdair cautioned himself to think nothing of the fine tremor which skated along her skin, to ignore the flinch she thought to hide. He released his grip on her arm, intrigued despite himself by the way the texture of her skin changed, the bumps mottling her flesh as if she’d been chilled by a gust of icy wind.

  He extended one finger, tilted up her chin. She didn’t want to acquiesce to such an inspection, but he was resolute, the pressure under her chin more forceful than it appeared, less tender. But this was not a tender moment between them, reluctant bride and unwilling groom.

  Finally, she looked at him, surrendering to his stubbornness. If it was submission he wanted, she gave it to him then, her long lashes drooping o
ver an impassive glance. The only thing lacking was a sweeping curtsey, a kow tow of homage. Her lips closed, they breathed no words, neither censure nor conciliation. Her face paled, but a tinge of color, a faint shadow of pink appeared above the collar of her ugly dress.

  What emotion drove her to grant herself so easily to him? Or did she do so at all? Did this woman hide with the alacrity of a winter traveling rabbit, in plain sight? Who was she, that she could disappear so quickly even as he held her within his grasp?

  Alisdair considered himself a rational man, an educated man, yet he was still a Scot. And his ancestors, long gone and buried in the earth which surrounded his burnt out home bequeathed him a thousand years of belief in omens, signs and that feeling which now trickled from the back of his neck in an icy stream down his spine.

  This woman stood silent and still, a sentinel announcing danger at the same time she declared herself a mystery imploring to be solved. Alisdair knew he would be better off forgetting he’d ever touched her, knowing in that uncanny way given to a Scot that she posed more problems than he had time to solve.

  He could almost hear the warning in the wind.

  CHAPTER 4

  Bennett wiped the blood off himself, carefully, deliberately. He was disappointed, but then, he had been thwarted often in the last two years.

  Pity the sport had ended so quickly, but he’d grown tired of her witless pleading, had ended up stuffing her mouth with her own petticoat. Such tactics only spoiled the rest of the sport.

  He finished tying his ascot, blessing the fact that his valet had left his employ three years ago over the paltry inconvenience of being unpaid. Bennett had learned to fend for himself since then. Doing so in such circumstances as he found himself in now only simplified things.