Beauty and the Highland Beast

by Lecia Cornwall

Fia nodded. “I came to warn you, Moire. Come to Iolair, to my father—”

  Moire was gathering herbs, breaking them into a wooden bowl. She added water and stirred the mixture with her finger. The pungent smell of the herbs filled the hut, their familiar sharpness soothing. “I cannot leave this place. Nor do I wish to. I will be well enough. The goddess will keep me safe. What of Alasdair Og?”

  “Gone.” Fia choked on the word. “He sailed away in the storm, is lost.”

  “Gone,” Moire repeated sadly. “Took your heart, did he?”

  “I don’t regret it,” Fia said fiercely.

  Moire sat beside her and dipped a bit of cloth into the bowl. “Let me clean the cuts.” But she set the basin back on the table and cocked her head to listen. “More visitors,” she murmured, and took the knife from her belt.

  Fia rose, but Moire pressed a hand to her shoulder. “Bide where ye are, lass,” she said, and went out.

  A moment later she heard Meggie’s breathless voice. “Fia?” Her eyes were bright as she took Fia in her arms. “Ach Dhia, I’ve never been so afraid, but they were easy to lose. Fools, all of them.” John was right behind her.

  “Are you well, Fia?” he asked, one hand on his sword. He frowned, seeing her battered face in the firelight. She managed to nod.

  Meggie paced. “Just wait until Papa hears of this. He’ll raise the clan, bring the Sinclairs to their knees.”

  “We aren’t going to tell him,” Fia said.

  Meggie’s blue eyes popped. “What? How can we not? The Fearsome MacLeod would never allow anyone to ill-treat his daughter. He’ll want revenge—he’ll slice every last Sinclair from chin to groin with that great sword of his.”

  Fia shut her eyes. “What good would that do? Don’t you see? If we take revenge, then the Sinclairs will retaliate, and it will never stop. It must. It ends here, Meggie. No revenge.” She looked at John. “Is there any news of Dair—any at all?”

  John shook his head. “He would have wanted me to see you safe, Fia. We need to get you away from here, home to your father. Are you well enough to travel tonight?”

  “I would rather wait until I know—”

  “Don’t be a fool, Fia,” Meggie said. “They want to burn you alive! You aren’t safe here.”

  “She’s right. Ye can’t stay,” Moire agreed. “Alasdair Og made his choice. She came for him, and he’s gone with her. There’s nothing more for it.”

  Fia felt her chest tighten. Was that truly all there was to it?

  Moire’s touch was gentle as she cleaned Fia’s injuries, the herbs soothing. The worst of the pain was inside her now. “She needs sleep, but somewhere safe,” she told Meggie and John. “Best get her away from Sinclair lands first.”

  There was a sound outside, the whicker of a horse. John’s sword hissed as he drew it from the scabbard. Meggie reached for her dirk and they stood in front of Fia.

  They waited until the curtain over the door lifted.

  “Angus!” Fia cried. She rose from the stool, looked at him hopefully. His eyes were on John’s sword.

  Angus clasped his bonnet in his big hands. “Now there’s a moment, I wish to beg your forgiveness, mistress. Wee Alex told me the truth of what happened. ’Twasn’t witchcraft—it was just a terrible, sad mistake. I’ll speak to the clan in the morning, when they’re calm enough to listen—a night of running through the woods in the wrong direction looking for ye will cool their heads. They’ll see sense again in time, but it isn’t safe for ye at Carraig Brigh anymore. I hope ye can forgive the Sinclairs. We’re not bad folk, just afraid.”

  “What of Dair?” Fia asked again.

  Angus’s face crumpled. “Logan said he was mad, raving . . .” He trailed off, shook his head, and she heard the sorrow, the finality in his voice. She felt grief crush her chest, a hard, heavy stone she’d carry for a very, very long time.

  Angus turned to look at John. “Will ye get the lasses safe home to their da, English John? Best leave now, while it’s still dark.”

  “Of course,” John said.

  “Then I’ll take my leave, see to things.” He had tears in his eyes as he looked at Fia. “God speed you, Fia MacLeod.”

  They hadn’t gone more than a few miles when they were ambushed. Fia heard the hiss of steel, the harsh battle cry of the Sinclairs, and she looked around wildly.

  “Run!” John bellowed as he engaged one of the attackers in the dark, his sword clanging. His opponent was black-clad, almost invisible in the dark. Another shadow approached Fia, tried to grab her, but she ducked, pulled the horse away, and left him with empty air.

  “Meggie!” she screamed, and saw the gleam of silk as her sister eluded another rider and disappeared between the trees.

  Hands reached for her again, and someone swore as she wielded her dirk, hit flesh. She shifted in the saddle, leaned low over the horse’s neck, and set her heels to the beast, her heart pounding with fear. Another attacker appeared, swooped in, caught hold of her plaid. She felt it tighten around her neck, choking her as he hauled on it, pulling her backward. She kicked the horse, but she couldn’t breathe or see, and she lashed out frantically with her dirk. She felt the horse stumble under her, falter.

  She scrabbled at her arisaid, fighting to loosen it, to drag air into her lungs. The pin that held her plaid dug into her throat. Red spots whirled before her eyes. “Dair,” she whispered, but it was too late.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  Dair shielded his eyes against the intense blue of the sky and watched the goshawk circle above the ship’s mast. She called to him, swooped, and wheeled back toward the distant cliffs, leading him homeward.

  The storm had ended and he’d waited for the clouds to roll back so he could see the stars. The wind had blown the ship miles out to sea, but he knew his way home. He set the sails and took the wheel, and in the clear, cool, blue light of morning he knew one thing for certain—he wasn’t mad.

  He had things to see to once he landed. First, he’d find Logan, take back his legacy, his right to be chief.

  Then, he intended to marry Fia MacLeod.

  He had loved Jeannie. He would have done anything to save her life, but she was his cousin, his childhood friend. Dair loved Fia as a woman, his woman, the other half of his soul, and he could not live without her. Perhaps that’s why he’d survived when his crew and his cousin had perished, and why he hadn’t died here, alone on this ship in the storm. Fia was his destiny and his salvation. She was with him during the storm, in his mind and his heart, courageous, bold, and beautiful. She was the strongest, bravest person he’d ever met. He had to get back to her, tell her. True as the North Star, Dair’s love for Fia MacLeod guided him home to Carraig Brigh.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  Logan looked around the hall. It was a mess of empty wine bottles, spilled whisky, and drunken men, but the castle had not seen a proper celebration in a very, very long time.

  But now there was good reason to celebrate. He was chief, the witch was dead, and the madman was gone. The curse had been vanquished at last.

  On the morrow, he’d ride for Edinburgh, join the great lords of Scotland—his peers now—and debate the union with England.

  He’d hung Jeannie’s portrait in a place of honor above the fireplace in this room—that had been his first order. He’d had candles set around it, made it a shrine to the Holy Maid of Carraig Brigh. Father Alphonse said mass for her soul three times a day.

  Beneath the portrait lay an offering—a charred MacLeod plaid and a rough pelt of bloody white fur. He smiled at the memory of how his clansmen had listened with rapt attention as he told them how he’d foiled the witch’s escape, pierced her through the heart as she rose to curse him, and killed the devil cat along with her. Let Tormod Pyper sing of that!

  Logan gazed up at Jeannie’s painted face. How proud she would have been. He imagined the admiration in her eyes, just for him—all the love she only gave to Dair, leaving none for him. He smiled at her, winked at her the wa
y Dair used to, and stood to raise another toast to his beloved sister.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  “Can we sail a ship with only four men?” Niall asked Angus as they gathered supplies on the beach. “What if they catch us? Logan will be watching for trouble.”

  Angus looked out across the bay at the Lileas, the one remaining Sinclair ship, and dropped a coil of rope into the bottom of the launch, already half loaded with gear. “No he won’t. He’s drunk, and half the clan with him. By the time the whisky’s gone, we’ll be far away from here. They won’t bother to chase us.” He noted the doubt in Niall’s eyes. “Are ye scared?”

  Niall straightened his shoulders. “Of course not—just wondering if this is the right way to do things.”

  “D’ye want Logan as your chief?” Angus asked. “The lad’s a fool.”

  Ruari looked up. “But what if Dair’s truly mad? Is that any better?”

  Angus tossed a cask of fresh water into the boat. “He’s not mad. It’s remorse and grief. Ye all saw him the night the chief died. He was clearheaded then, when it mattered. Dair saw things in Coldburn Keep that would crush any decent man’s heart, and Fia MacLeod—” He couldn’t go on.

  “She saved him,” Jock murmured. He looked away, blinking back tears. “She didn’t deserve to be branded a witch, or to die the way she did.”

  “Nay,” Angus muttered, his chest clenching with sorrow yet again. “I for one will not stay here and do the bidding of bloody Logan Sinclair. I’m going to go and find Dair, if he’s still alive, and bring him back to Carraig Brigh. It was Padraig’s choice that he be our chief.”

  “What if he’s dead?” Ruari asked. “Or lost?”

  “Or truly mad?” Jock added.

  Angus slung another bundle into the boat. “Then I’ll send for my family, keep sailing, and not come back.”

  “Da!” Wee Alex’s cry was as high and sharp as a gull’s. Angus shaded his eyes and looked up. His son’s head poked over the edge of the cliff where he was serving as lookout while the men prepared to sail. “There’s a ship!”

  Angus turned to look. He saw nothing. He grabbed a telescope and scrambled up the cliff to his son’s side. “There,” Alex said, pointing.

  Angus peered through the glass. “What is it?” Ruari asked, panting from the climb. Jock and Niall joined him.

  Angus’s breath caught in his throat. He laughed, then he shouted, then he did a wee dance on the edge of the cliff.

  “There, lads! I know that ship like I know my Annie’s sweet face. It’s the Maiden. Now I ask ye, could a madman sail out into a storm and back again all alone?”

  “Would anyone but a madman even try?” Ruari asked, but he was grinning.

  They all linked arms and danced, then Angus rushed down to the boat and rowed out to meet the ship as it came into the bay.

  “Ye’re back!” Angus slapped Dair on the back hard enough to knock the breath out of him. “I knew ye weren’t dead. We were just heading out to fetch ye home, but ye’ve saved us the trouble.”

  “Where’s Logan?” Dair demanded, leaping out onto the pebble beach, just the way he’d done after a hundred other voyages. He’d always loved returning home, but this time, he was certain he wouldn’t be welcome.

  “He’s in the hall, celebrating,” Ruari said, his tone gloomy.

  “My funeral, perhaps?” Dair asked.

  “A ceilidh. He’s proclaimed himself chief,” Niall said.

  Dair pictured the scene in his father’s—his—hall. Tormod Pyper would be reciting the lineage of the Sinclair chiefs from Sir Richard Saint-Clair all the way to Logan himself. He wondered what fine deeds they’d sing about when they got to Logan. One night, dressed as a lass . . .

  Wee Alex threw himself against Dair and hugged him. Dair ruffled his hair. “I have a task for you, lad. Where’s Mistress Fia? Go tell her I’m back,” he said. He looked at the men around him. “We’ll end this day with a wedding, lads, what do you say to that?”

  The men studied the pebbles at their feet without replying. There were tears in Wee Alex’s eyes. Dair felt his guts contract against his spine. Surely Logan would not dare to kill the Fearsome MacLeod’s daughter . . . “Where is she?” he asked through gritted teeth.

  “She’s gone, Dair,” Angus said.

  “Returned to her father?” He looked at the men around him, standing with their heads bowed, their bonnets in their hands.

  Angus shook his head. “Not gone, lad—dead. Logan—” He didn’t go on. A tear rolled from his eye.

  The breath left Dair’s body. The chill of the morning faded as hot fury filled his breast. Red mist rose, blocked his vision, but it wasn’t madness this time.

  “Give me a sword.”

  “What do ye mean to do? I mean, we’re with ye, of course,” Angus said, handing over the requested weapon. Dair strapped it to his hip over his salt-caked plaid without replying. It had been a long time since he’d been armed, ready for battle.

  “I mean to take back my clan,” Dair said. Revenge. He wanted revenge. The red mist thickened.

  “With bloodshed, against our own?” Niall asked. “How many men do you think we’ll have to kill?”

  “They’re our kin,” Ruari muttered. “I can’t imagine sticking a sword in any of them—even Iain Murray, and I hate that bastard.”

  The mist retreated, and Dair looked up the cliff side. “I hope it won’t come to that,” he said. “With luck, wits will win the day.”

  He began to climb the cliff path. “Would you like a lift up?” Angus asked him.

  Dair shook his head. “Not this time.”

  They followed him. His leg ached, but he managed. For her, for Fia, he’d have justice.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  Dair arrived in the great hall that had been home to a dozen generations of Sinclairs dressed in his wet, salt-crusted plaid, his face windburned, his hair wild, and his eyes blazing.

  He looked every inch a madman.

  “Ye look every inch the braw, bonny chief,” Angus said approvingly.

  “Save for a proper feathered bonnet,” Niall added, looking at Dair, his admiration clear.

  “Take my sword,” Ruari said. “Then you’ll have one for each hand. Logan’s as daft as a pudding, but he’s dangerous, mad as—” He shut his mouth so fast his teeth snapped together. “Och, did I mention ye look like the Laird o’ the Seas we all remember?”

  Dair looked at the small group of men—men who’d grown up with him, sailed with him, served his father. There was no doubt in their eyes, no fear that he was mad. There was only loyalty and determination. “What are yer orders, Chief?” Angus asked.

  “Stand with me,” he said, the way his father had always done. They fell into formation and marched behind him.

  His leg ached, but worse, a thirst for revenge, hot, dark, and malevolent, filled his breast. Fia was dead, and Logan was responsible. He would fight his cousin if he had to, but by the end of this day, he would be chief of the Sinclairs. There would be no vote, no doubt.

  Niall opened the iron-studded door that led into the hall, and Dair stood on the threshold and surveyed the mayhem inside.

  Logan lounged in his father’s chair, a bottle in one hand and one of the kitchen maids in the other. Around him, men drank and gambled. Andrew Pyper stood in the corner, playing his pipes.

  The music slithered to a stop when Andrew looked up and saw Dair in the doorway. “Dair! Are ye a ghost?”

  Dair ignored everyone but Logan. His cousin turned pale and dropped the bottle in his hand. It smashed, and wine spilled across the stone floor like blood.

  “Nay, I’m not a ghost,” Dair said. “There are no ghosts at Carraig Brigh, are there, cousin?”

  Logan flushed as red as the wine.

  Dair walked forward, holding his cousin’s gaze. “Except perhaps my father’s shade. If ever a man had reason to haunt his kin, Padraig Sinclair is surely unable to rest.”

  Fear flashed through Logan’s eyes
. So like Jeannie’s. Still, he got to his feet, pointed at Dair. “Look, my mad cousin has come home again. Someone take him, lock him away in the tower where he can rant and foam unseen.”

  Behind him, Angus and Niall drew their swords, the hiss loud in the debauched silence. No one else moved.

  Dair looked around the room. Jeannie’s portrait hung above the fireplace. Her gentle face, so much like Logan’s, stared down at Dair. There was no malice there, no hatred.

  “Forgive them,” she’d whispered at the end . . .

  Then Dair caught sight of a display on the small table under the portrait. He recognized the soft blue of the MacLeod plaid—Fia’s plaid. It was blackened by smoke, stained with blood, nearly unrecognizable, but he knew it. He felt lightning strike him, pierce his heart.

  He strode forward to touch the ruined wool. Beside it, a bloody pelt of white fur was pinned to the table on the point of a dirk. A Bible and a rosary lay beside it on the unholy shrine.

  Dair’s hand tightened on the hilt of his borrowed sword. Rage and grief filled him, threatened to topple him, but he stood against the force of it. A bead of sweat crept between his shoulder blades, and blood thrummed in his ears. The room blurred before him, and Jeannie’s screams echoed in his brain again, only this time, they were Fia’s. He wanted to drive the blade in his hand through Logan’s chest, watch him bleed, suffer.

  Logan backed away from him as Dair turned to face him. “Someone give me a sword,” he screamed. But no one moved. Logan cursed, rushed across the room, and grabbed down an axe. He turned to the men around him. “Will you let a madman take your wits? He’s insane, a murderer!” He pointed at Jeannie’s portrait. “The holy maid commands you to rid Carraig Brigh of the curse upon it. Kill him!”

  Dair laughed bitterly. “Have you told them how you played Jeannie’s ghost, dressed in her clothes, wearing her scent? You came to my room in the night, in the dark,” Dair said quietly. “Whispered to me.”

  “What?” Will Sinclair rose to his feet. Niall pointed his sword at his throat, but Will was staring at Logan in horror. “He—Logan—dressed up like a lass?”