Highland Brides 03 - On Bended Knee

by Tanya Anne Crosby

  She winced at his words, and he thought perhaps the prospect of the marriage bed frightened her.

  Her cheeks pinkened; he could see the color rising even in the fading light.

  “Not every marriage is based upon that, Colin Mac Brodie!” she exclaimed. “Do you never think of anything else? Och!”

  Colin laughed softly, and confessed honestly, “Nay, lass.”

  “Men!” she declared, though Colin knew very well she meant him.

  “There is naught so wrong with making love.”

  “That,” she countered, “is not all there is to love!”

  “I beg to differ. Do not tell me that you are afraid of a lover’s touch, Seana. Och, but ye dinna strike me as a woman who is afraid of much.”

  “Of course not!” She turned away from him, stiffening.

  “But if ye are, o’ course… I can surely help with that!” Colin smiled at her back.

  She cast him a glance over her shoulder. “I’m quite certain! I am not,” she swore, and Colin wanted very much to do just that—he wanted to be the first to show her pleasure, wanted to make up for all the wrong he’d done… he wanted to give to her, and for the first time in his life he didn’t care what she had to give back. That elusive smile of hers was reward enough.

  “The only help I need from you, is the one thing you will not give!”

  What would she do if he put his arms about her waist? Would she push him away?

  He didn’t dare try.

  He leaned forward to smell her hair. “Aye?” Colin asked, “And what might that be, lass?”

  She turned once more, catching him far too near, and Colin pretended to find something in her hair. He plucked it out… though there was naught there.

  Her brows knit. “What was that?”

  Colin shook his head. “A bug mayhap, ’tis gone now. And you were saying?”

  She gave him a puzzled glance, though his explanation seemed to satisfy her well enough. “I want to know about Broc. What sort of woman does he like?”

  Colin thought about that a moment. God’s truth, he’d never heard Broc Ceannfhionn mention a woman ever at all… save for his laird’s new wife…

  He truly didn’t know what sort of woman Broc enjoyed, but would he honestly tell her even if he did?

  “He likes pale-haired women,” Colin said, knowing very well she was not. He peeked around at her breasts. Nice and full, perky, too, but hardly large. Perfect for his own hands. “With ample breasts,” he added.

  He felt her stiffen before him, and he smiled.

  “What else?”

  “A sturdy back,” he replied, trying to keep a sober expression. “To work hard. He does not like frail women.”

  “I’m not such a wee one!” she protested.

  Colin smiled. “I did not say you were, now did I?” Silence fell between them an instant, as she considered his revelations. “Oh, and blue eyes,” he added, though he hadn’t the least notion what sort of eyes appealed most to his friend. He only knew that Seana had green eyes… lovely green… the sort he could stare into for the rest of his life.

  “What color are mine exactly?” she asked, and turned to face him, her expression hopeful. “Mayhap a little blue?”

  He shook his head regretfully. “Not at all, I fear.”

  She sighed, and turned away.

  “He likes them more like Page,” he added then, just for good measure, though in truth, he had not the first inkling what color Iain’s MacKinnon’s wife’s eyes were.

  She turned to look at him once more, blinking. “He likes Iain’s wife?”

  “Aye,” Colin answered, nodding soberly. “Almost as much as he likes his dog.”

  She screwed her face adorably, and Colin wanted nothing more in that instant than to kiss the bridge of her nose and tell her not to worry, that she was lovely, but he didn’t. No way was he going to spoil his handiwork.

  “His dog?”

  Colin nodded. “The true love of his life.”

  Seana’s brows collided. She cocked her head suspiciously, and stared at him. “Are you teasing me?”

  Colin merely smiled.

  “Wretch!” she said, and turned around.

  He chuckled at her back.

  They left the hillside then, and entered the woodlands. He wasn’t certain precisely where she lived. He asked, but her reply was vague.

  “Just leave me here,” she directed him, when they had reached the place where her father left his pot still, and seemed antsy for him to stop. Colin did and she leapt down from his mount. She at once untied the sack she had attached to his saddle and thanked him profusely for the day.

  Colin wasn’t ready to say good night. Not quite yet. “Wait!” he said, but she shook her head, turned, and fled.

  “I’ll see ye come morn!” she shouted back at him and once again slipped into the shadows of the woods.

  Colin sat there, feeling as though he should follow, to be certain she made it safely home.

  But she obviously didn’t want him to, and he assured himself she knew these woods as intimately as he knew his lovers’ bodies. He let her go, though reluctantly, and consoled himself with the knowledge that he would again see her on the morrow.

  Chapter 15

  Seana didn’t really know why it suddenly bothered her so much so that she lived in what was basically an oversized grave. Until now, it had seemed perfectly suitable and she hadn’t worried much what others thought.

  She’d been sleeping in the old cairn for as long as she could recall. Her da had found the monstrous tomb before Seana’s birth. Initially, it had served as shelter from a storm, but her da and her ma had never left it.

  Then her mother had grown ill and Seana had come into the world, and her ma had passed away. She and her father had been here ever since.

  Little more than a hollowed pile of rubble set against the side of a cliff, it served its purpose well enough. From the outside, it appeared little more than a carefully laid pile of rocks, but from within, it was cavernous. In ancient times, her da claimed the dead were laid to rest here, entombed with their finest possessions and sometimes, Seana thought she heard their voices behind the earthen walls. Partially buried beneath the ground and deeper yet into the cliffside, its walls were made of soil, while the roof was constructed of stones, large and small, braced with wooden slats that were set into the cliffside. The earthen walls kept the wind from pummeling their backs, though the roof seldom kept them dry enough. And yet, she had never had any complaints. She didn’t have the first clue why suddenly she should feel ashamed of her home.

  Mayhap because no one had ever come to see her before.

  Och, but why should she care what Colin thought? It wasn’t any of his affair where she laid her head at night!

  So why was she running through the dark woods, casting glances over her shoulder in fear that he would follow?

  She reached the cairn and found it dark but for a single lit candle. Seana opened the door her da had built and ducked within. She went at once to check on her father. He was lying upon his pallet with his eyes half open, staring at the ceiling.

  For an instant, Seana’s heart stopped.

  “Da!” she exclaimed, and fell to her knees.

  He seemed to rouse from his stupor and turned to look at her. He smiled. “Och, lass, I was but remembering…”

  Seana reached out to touch his face, to brush his hair aside, but he seized her hand and brought it to his heart, pressing it there.

  “Do ye remember, Seana… the time I left you alone here in this cairn…

  Seana did. Without his speaking another word, she knew the night of which he was speaking. Heart aching, she pressed her hand against his chest. “Aye, Da.”

  “I would never have left ye alone, child—not all night—but I fell asleep by the still—and came back to find ye weepin’ yer sweet lil’ eyes out.”

  Seana sat beside him and held his hand, remembering too. She had been naught more than ten summer
s. “I was afraid you’d gone and left me, but I was a silly little girl, da. Now I know ye wouldna have ever gone!”

  “I laid here tonight,” he said, “and heard ye weepin’ as though ye were a flesh and blood wee one again. I had to remind myself it was not you, and that ye were nay longer a child.”

  Seana frowned. He was hearing things now. She swallowed the grief that rose to choke her.

  “You stay alone far too much, Da!” she complained. “I wish you’d come with me sometimes to check the still and keep my company … like we used to do.”

  “The sunlight does not love me, child.”

  The sunlight could never be so terrible, Seana wanted to argue, but she was not him; she could not know how it hurt his eyes as he claimed, so she said nothing.

  He patted her hand and smiled at her. “I wasna the best da,” he confessed.

  “Och,” Seana exclaimed, “you’re a wonderful da!”

  “Nay.” He smiled up at her. “But you are a wonderful daughter!”

  For an instant, there was silence between them.

  It was a cold quiet silence, one that gave her a feeling of unease. Never had she looked upon this place so distantly. After being with Meghan all of the day, and watching her household so alive with people, this cavern somehow seemed exactly the tomb it was.

  “I made a friend today,” she told her father. “Meghan Brodie.”

  Her da squinted his eyes as though trying to remember, and then peered up at her.

  “Do you remember the Brodies, Da?”

  “Dunno,” he answered with a frown.

  Seana’s brows drew together sadly. There wasn’t much of a chance he could forget them—not the Brodies, nor the MacLeans, nor the MacKinnons, any one. They had survived on the outskirts of these families, had made their living through them. That he could not recall told Seana that his mind was growing feeble.

  Tears stung her eyes. Once more she tried to reach out and touch his face, to caress his gaunt cheek, but he stayed her hand, not allowing it.

  She needed so desperately to find him a better place to rest. A sense of urgency filled her. Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would go to see Broc. She could not waver in this, could not delay. She didn’t know what she’d do if she lost her da.

  Meghan Brodie might live in a house filled with light, and she might have brothers to laugh and fight with, but from what Meghan had revealed, they had not had the love of their father. Seana had.

  No matter that her da had had his troubles, that he’d drunk a bit too much betimes, or that they’d lived in a cairn, he had given her all the love any little girl could ever hope for.

  And she had her da to thank for the use of her legs. She would never forget the tears in his eyes as he’d broken her leg in order to mend it.

  Seana had come home weeping over Colin Mac Brodie, and her da had patted her head and rocked her, cried with her, and then… when they were done, he’d sat her upon the ground and told her what he intended to do. Seana remembered still the fear that had filled her, but she’d trusted him. He was her da, after all.

  He’d hardened his resolve, then, and he’d spoken to her harshly to keep her from struggling, but all the while… tears had coursed down his face. And after he was done, he had bandaged her leg and he had hugged her and he, too, had wept.

  Seana loved him more than anything in this world.

  “I would not wish for anythin’ different in my life,” she told him.

  Without warning, My Love pounced upon a small table at her side, and Seana yelped in fright. The haughty cat mewed at her, and her da grinned.

  “Save for that rotten cat!” Seana exclaimed. “Argggh! Why does she do that?”

  Her da laughed, then began to cough.

  Seana didn’t like the sound of it.

  “Go on, you love that cat,” her da told her when finally he could speak again.

  “Nay!”

  “Ye do, and when I am gone she will be your faithful companion.”

  “Och, Papa, dinna say such things!” Seana berated him. “Ye will never leave me!” she told him, well aware that it sounded more like a demand. “You’re too bloody stubborn ever to die!”

  He looked up at her a bit sadly, then, and sighed. “One day,” he began, and peered up at My Love. The two shared a queer glance with one another, one Seana could swear they each understood. My Love blinked down at him, and her da smiled, then returned his gaze to Seana. “One day… you will see a cat… mayhap with My Love… and it will be me watching over you.”

  Seana’s heart felt weighted. “If you treat me as My Love does, Da, I shall likely smack you o’er the head and bury you a second time,” she warned.

  Her father laughed.

  My Love stared at her with slitted eyes. Seana glared back. Och, but she was becoming as deranged as her da!

  Her da reached up and patted her knee. “Dinna say such things in front of My Love, child. You’ll hurt her feelings.”

  My Love sat placidly not more than two feet from where she sat tending her father. Seana wondered whether she should even bother to try to touch her.

  She decided against it.

  Just because she seemed in no hurry to flee at the moment didn’t mean the bloody animal wouldn’t immediately dash away the instant Seana made an advance.

  Seana gave the cat an evil glare.

  It stared back at her, blinking.

  Her da’s hand went lax within her own.

  He’d somehow fallen asleep. She could hear his labored breath and was comforted by the rise and fall of his breast. She drew the blankets up and bent to kiss him upon the forehead.

  “G’nite, Da,” she whispered. “May the dream faeries give ye pleasant dreams tonight.”

  He didn’t stir.

  Seana sighed and rose, but it wasn’t until she stood looking down on the slight figure of her da, that she noticed My Love had gone. The table was empty of her presence. The cairn was still, as well. Seana peered about and found no sign of the cat at all.

  Stupid animal.

  Like a shadow she was simply there at times, and then gone. To this day Seana had no inkling how she appeared so silently. Shaking her head, she made her way to her own bed.

  Her last thought before she drifted to sleep… was of Colin Mac Brodie… the expression upon his face when she’d turned and caught him smelling her hair… something like tenderness… something like longing… nothing like anyone had ever looked at her before.

  Dinna even think about it, she scolded herself. Colin was a rotten rogue, who chased after every woman with two good legs—and she reminded herself how he had looked at her once upon a time… when her legs were not yet strong. It was that expression she should well remember until the day she died… else Colin Brodie would once more break her heart.

  She drifted into a troubled sleep… And dreamt.

  She saw herself alone in the cairn… as a wee child… curled up in a corner… alone and waiting for her da to return… afraid he might never. The lone candle had long since burned out and the cairn within was as black as the night… and she was weeping… weeping…

  The sound of her childish whimpers haunted her dreams all night long.

  Tears poured down Broc’s cheeks as he shoveled the last of the dirt over Merry’s grave. He lovingly patted it down, grateful for the cover of darkness to his face.

  He was ashamed to weep so baldly, like some silly girl, but he couldn’t help himself. Merry had been his faithful companion since he’d been a child of Cameron’s years. His cousin stood now, watching him from a distance, and Broc wondered what the devil Cameron was going to tell his sister Constance.

  Constance had been nearly as close to Merry as Broc had been, though Merry hadn’t always shared that notion. Poor Merry had oft run away to rest, because Constance had plagued her incessantly.

  Broc patted the grave with his shovel and stood there staring at it in the darkness, his tears continuing to fall. He didn’t know how long he stood there, b
ut it was Page who intruded upon his thoughts.

  “I am sorry, Broc. I know she was dear to you.”

  Broc nodded, unable to speak.

  He peered up to find Cameron watching them.

  “Come to the house,” she urged him. “Iain will pour you a tankard of ale.”

  Broc shook his head, refusing her. He threw his shovel down and sat upon the ground beside Merry’s freshly dug grave.

  Page stood there an instant and then sat down beside him.

  “You’ll catch a chill,” Broc told her. He didn’t wish to talk just now. Nor did he wish to be comforted. He felt silly, as well, because in truth Merry was only a dog, but the thing was… she had been all he’d truly had in the world.

  Page didn’t move to rise. “I shall be fine,” she assured him.

  “It appears to me as though Cameron could use some company as well,” she suggested, peering over at his cousin.

  Broc shrugged. “It wasna his fault.”

  “Mayhap you should go tell him that?”

  “He should not blame himself,” Broc added stubbornly.

  “But he does,” Page countered. “One can see that.”

  Broc cast a glance at his cousin.

  It was true.

  Though Cameron stood some distance away, and had done so since delivering the dog to Broc, he would not leave. His cousin remained to watch him bury his dog, long-faced, only watching, saying nothing. Broc had understood his cousin’s reluctance to leave, but he hadn’t been quite man enough to set Cameron’s mind at ease. Aside from that… he wasn’t certain he believed Cameron’s tale. Something struck him as rotten.

  “It will do no good to remain angry with him, Broc.”

  “I’m not angry.”

  “You are,” Page argued. “I can see it in your eyes. You are, and he knows it as well.”

  “He’s lying,” Broc told her. “He’s lying and I dinna know why.”

  Page reached out and lovingly patted Merry’s grave. “Aye,” she agreed. “He is.”

  “He says she went over the cliffside, but Merry wouldna go near the bloody cliffs!”

  “That is not that what troubles me just now,” Page admitted.