Highland Master

by Howell, Hannah

  “Ah, Triona, I believe I have loved ye for nearly as long. I was but a wee bit cowardly and also a bit loathe to change my life. I truly thought I had had my chance and it had passed. And then Arianna decided to run away to her cousin.”

  “By marriage, many times removed,” Triona said, and they both laughed.

  “So now we build Banuilt and we build Gormfeurach into prosperous keeps, and we build our family. I am five and thirty and a bit old to be starting a family . . .”

  “But nay too old, as I can attest,” she said as she watched him closely and then laughed over the openmouthed look he gave her as her words suddenly sank into his mind.

  “Ye are with child?” Brett asked, his voice barely above a whisper because her words had stunned him and he wanted them to be true so badly he dared not believe.

  “I am. I had but fully accepted the fact when ye rode up to announce that ye were the new laird of Gormfeurach.” She placed her hand over his when he put it on her belly. “I was concerned about what to do or how to tell ye before ye arrived, though. I didnae want ye to come back just to marry me for the sake of the child.”

  “I ne’er would have done that, love. E’en if ye had kenned it earlier and sent me word, I would have still come back just for ye.” He pulled her into his arms and held her tight. “Ye are my heart, Triona. Ye are what I need to see that I have a future and that I can be happy in it. We will build strong homes for our children.”

  “Already planning more than one?” she teased.

  “With this bairn I already have more than one, for your child is mine as weel. E’en if Ella wasnae such a wee angel. I wed ye and ye have a child, so I wed the child as weel. ’Tis how I see it. Soon Ella will have a brother or sister to teach things to.”

  “That could be a curse we dinnae wish to unleash on the world,” Triona drawled, and laughed along with him.

  She felt him suddenly tense and her heart skipped a beat in alarm. Brett was staring toward the end of the bed, but she could see nothing there. His ghost had returned, and it terrified her. It also angered her that another woman would enter her bedchamber on her wedding night.

  Brett blinked, unable to believe his eyes. He had seen nothing of Brenda for quite a while. It did not please him to be seeing her spirit now. He knew he loved Triona, knew it without a single doubt in his heart and mind, but he did not know what he would do if Brenda began to haunt him again. His guilt over her death was just a tiny thing now, and he had fallen in love with another woman. Brenda should not be here and should definitely not be looking at Triona.

  Then Brenda’s spirit looked at him, smoothed a hand over her belly, and smiled.

  Ye were nay to blame, lover.

  His heart pounded in his chest as he heard her voice in his mind.

  Enjoy your life, for ye were nay to blame for the end of mine. I didnae tell ye about our enemies because I didnae want ye to tell me to stay home. Love your lady and that bairn I can see within her. I have been needing ye to let me go.

  Before he could ask what she meant by that, the vision was gone.

  “Was Brenda just here?” asked Triona.

  “Aye, and I do believe she just gave us her full approval.”

  “She said that?”

  “Nay, she said I was nay to blame, that she had kept things from me that led to her death. Then she said she has been needing for me to let her go. I am nay sure what that meant, but ’tis the oddest thing—I can feel that she truly is gone now.”

  “Mayhap your guilt held her here.”

  He kissed her and rolled so that she was beneath him. “She just wiped the last of it away. ’Tis what I have needed for a long time, but ’tis nay easy to be rid of something like that. Now I can just put all my mind, heart, and soul into ye and our child.”

  Triona wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Good. No more ghosts. No more guilt. Use my love to soothe the last remnants of both, for I do love you, Brett Murray. I will love ye until I watch my last sunset.”

  “I truly hope I will be watching it with ye, so that we both may take our last journey together. Ah, love, I am a lucky mon. I have all I need now, all I shall e’er need.”

  “Weel, I would say I am verra close to having all I need, but there is one tiny thing more, something Banuilt needs that will finally make everything right.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “A new priest,” she drawled, and grinned when he laughed.

  Epilogue

  One year later

  “Come, Brett, we must be in the bailey to greet him.”

  Brett looked up from the ledger he had been working on and smiled at his wife. She was flushed with excitement, her arms full of their son, Geordan. As if catching her excitement, Geordan was bouncing up and down on her hip, his plump hands clasped around her braid, drool running down his chin.

  “Greet who, love?” he asked as he stood up and walked over to kiss her and Geordan on their cheeks.

  “Our new priest. Since ye sent Mure on his way, neither Gormfeurach nor Banuilt has had a priest near at hand to deal with all those things priests do. I told ye that we were to finally get one, and one I was promised wouldnae be like all the others I had to deal with.”

  As he walked her out into the bailey, Brett struggled to recall what she had told him about the priest. It was not something he had much interest in, but he knew she had been anxious about it. He felt all was right in his world now, but Triona was determined to believe that Banuilt would not be completely right, their lives would not be completely right, until they had a priest that she could like and trust. The man would be settled in a small stone church, built between Gormfeurach and Banuilt so that he could serve both clans. The only rigid requirement Triona had had was that the man could not be one of those priests who disdained women. She had had enough of such men. Considering the few candidates Sir Mollison had sent to her, it had proven to be a very difficult requirement to meet.

  A crowd had gathered in the bailey. Brett grinned at all the women standing with babes in their arms. The return of Banuilt’s garrison had proved to be very fruitful. The village was full of life again, even though it was not as busy with people as it had been before the fever had taken so many. The joy was back, though, and that made life much better at Banuilt.

  Then he saw Ella standing next to Joan, who held her son Gillis. Sitting on Ella’s shoulder, its strange paws on top of her head and its tail curled around her neck, was Clyde. When he stopped next to them, Clyde snarled. Brett snarled back, as had become his habit, and Ella giggled.

  “Have ye met this mon?” he asked Triona. “I dinnae recall a priest coming to talk to ye lately, but I have spent a lot of time o’er at Gormfeurach o’erseeing all the work that is being done.”

  “He didnae come here, but I was assured that he is just what I wanted.” Triona looked at all the women standing around with their babies in their arms, trying to hide how badly they wanted the children blessed. “He will be verra busy christening bairns for a while, and marrying some of the parents of those bairns. I could have gone along weel enough without a priest, but I could see how, with each bairn born, with each lying-in, the women were becoming more and more fretful about the lack.”

  “They are worried for the souls of their bairns.”

  “I ken it, and ’tis nay my place to spout words about priests and churches, most of which are born of my own experiences with priests that needed to be punched in the mouth. Their fear is real, Brett, and I had to see something done to ease it. I truly hope this priest is the one we need.”

  Brett started to ask again just who had sent them a priest but then saw the two men, flanking another dressed in a monk’s robes, ride through the gates. “MacFingals? Ye got a priest from the MacFingals?” If anyone had ever asked which clan would be the least likely to produce a man of the Church, the first name that would have come to mind would have been MacFingal.

  He thought of all he knew of the MacFingals, the
ir father, and the scores of bastards the man had bred. Some of the sons were not all that much better than the father. Brett was not even sure the clan as a whole had much use for the Church. One could not forget that old Fingal and several of his clan members liked to dance naked under the full moon, their aging bodies painted blue. He doubted the Church would approve of that behavior.

  “Aye. Sir Brian assured me that the mon will be perfect for us,” Triona replied, her gaze fixed upon the MacFingals. “Said he was at a monastery but truly wanted his own flock, wanted the village life in some ways. The monastery life he lived was too separate from the people and he wanted to be in the midst of them, christening bairns, marrying people, teaching those who wished to learn, and all of that. Sir Mollison agreed to allow him to come here.”

  Sir Mollison had developed a true affection for the laird of Banuilt, Brett thought, and would have had a hard time denying the woman anything. Shortly after Brett had returned to the keep, Sir Mollison had arrived for a visit. By the time the man had left, his balding head full of ideas of how to use many of Triona’s own techniques at his own keep, the man had been completely won over. If the man had not had two score and ten years on him, a wife he unabashedly adored, and six children, Brett might have been jealous.

  Brett greeted Nathan and Ned MacFingal as the two younger men dismounted and then turned to the monk, who was already getting himself introduced to Brett’s son and Joan’s. When the man did not even blink an eye over Ella and her cat, Brett relaxed. Clyde had not hissed at the man, had even allowed the priest to scratch his ears. Nothing could have better eased Brett’s concerns than that open acceptance of the ill-tempered cat. He greeted the monk with a smile when the man turned to him.

  “Ye are a priest, aye?” he asked, glancing over the man’s monkish attire.

  “I am. I am but too accustomed to this garb to change. I am Father Lundie MacFingal, cousin to these lads who are so woefully in need of confession.”

  The way the man smiled when Ned and Nathan each gave an ill-tempered grunt in response to that teasing told Brett a lot about the man he now knew, almost without a doubt, would be their next priest. Father Lundie liked people, all people, even those whom other priests would condemn as sinners. He had the look of a MacFingal, with the black hair, blue eyes, handsome features, and tall, lean body. The man’s handshake hinted at strength as well. When he introduced Triona as the laird of Banuilt and the man greeted her with all the respect and courtesy due her, Brett began to compose a letter in his mind to Brian thanking him for this man.

  “And look at all this,” Father Lundie said as he stood beside Triona and surveyed all the women with their babies. “I believe I shall be verra busy for a while, giving blessings to so many new souls.”

  “Aye,” Triona said, watching the man closely. “Our garrison was wrongly imprisoned for two years but freed and brought home a year ago.”

  It was an outrageous thing to say to a priest, even though it was the truth, but she needed to see how he would respond to such earthy humor. When the man laughed with delight, every doubt Triona still held concerning Brian’s assurances that this man would be perfect began to fade. His laugh made her almost certain he would not condemn the women who still needed to be married to the fathers of their children.

  “Ah, m’lady, I was told of your trouble and the sickness that took so many from their loved ones. A sad time for ye and your people.” He held his arms out and looked around again. “But let us now look at how God has blessed ye. So much new life here, so much.” He looked at the older children watching him. “And mayhap one or two with a wish to learn.”

  “I wish to learn,” said Ella as she stepped up next to the priest. “I am clever. Everyone says so.”

  Triona nearly grabbed Ella and shooed her away from the priest. The man appeared to be good-humored and not condemning of the way some of the villagers may have ignored the first step to building a family: getting married. Yet a girl asking to learn was something few men would tolerate, and she did not wish Ella to be hurt when he turned her down. Then again, she mused, it might be time for Ella to understand that other places were not as free or accepting of differences as Banuilt.

  “Weel then, ye shall learn whate’er ye wish to.” Father Lundie looked at her cat. “I think ye may have a clever cat as weel.”

  “Aye, Clyde is verra clever. He snarls at Papa. Papa always snarls back.”

  “And so he should. Mayhap it is just cat talk for hello and your papa understands that.”

  Triona moved to stand next to Brett as others cautiously approached the priest, who stood listening patiently as Ella told him all about Clyde. “He is perfect.”

  Brett wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I do believe he is,” he agreed. “So now do ye have all ye want?”

  She leaned her head against his shoulder and looked around at the people in the bailey. The women who had feared for their children, the ones who had been waiting so long to be married, and the few remaining elderly who knew they might not live to see another spring were content now. She had a good man for a husband, who loved her and kept her warm at night with his desire. The harvest was promising to be a good one, the weaving was bringing in much needed coin. Her daughter was alive and healthy, as was her son.

  Triona stood on her tiptoes and kissed Brett on the cheek. “Aye, I have everything I could ever want, and it is all verra fine indeed.”

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  Copyright © 2013 by Hannah Howell

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  ISBN: 978-1-4201-1881-0

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4201-3269-4

  eISBN-10: 1-4201-3269-5