When the Laird Returns

by Karen Ranney

  The only illumination in the keep was from the archer’s slits high up in the brick. In the summer a soft breeze sighed through Fernleigh, but in the winter the cold was nearly unbearable.

  The staircase, the two entrances to the hall, and the front door were each guarded by a young man attired in black breeches, white shirt, red vest, and a black coat with shiny silver buttons bearing the Drummond crest. A costly uniform for a parsimonious laird, but sometimes her father’s penury fell victim to his pride.

  The men were handpicked for their stature and courage in addition to their prowess in battle, the latter ascertained not through war, but in the taverns of Inverness. If a man was willing to fight for a slur, or use his fists to solve an argument, then Magnus Drummond secured him in his service.

  Iseabal passed in front of the guards neither expecting nor receiving a greeting.

  Her mother’s chamber was on the second floor, while hers was on the third with the servants. She began to climb the worn steps cautiously, her shadow dancing on the curved wall behind her.

  “Where have you been, daughter?”

  Iseabal stared down at her father, dread escalating to panic. He was dressed in a similar fashion as his guards, but instead of trousers, he wore knee breeches and richly patterned stockings. He had removed his coat, a familiarity that would never be permitted the other men.

  His clean-shaven face might have been pleasant at one time, but a lifetime of anger had stamped itself on his features. His hazel eyes, ringed with wrinkles, were hooded and unreadable. Long lines bracketed his cheeks as if pointing down to a sullen mouth or upward to a deeply furrowed forehead.

  “Come and talk with me,” he said, almost affably. Turning, he entered the clan hall.

  His geniality didn’t reassure her. Iseabal took a deep breath, willing herself to be brave, and made her way down the stairs, one hand braced against the wall for support.

  The clan hall was an ugly place, but it had not always been so. Once, the stone blocks of the walls had been painted a pale blue, a color that softened the angles of the room. Over the years, the paint had faded to expose splotches of gray. The flooring beneath her feet, made of rocks hewn into a square shape and then mortared with dirt, had been worn down until the corners were rounded and the surface dangerously uneven in spots.

  Above the arched and cavernous fireplace was the only thing of beauty in the room. The whispered tale of this first Drummond said he was a knight, a pilgrim of sorts, coming to Scotland from England. As a child, she had come to the hall and stared up at the figure backlit by the sun.

  The knight was pictured kneeling on the ground, the sunlight illuminating him as if in benediction. Beside him on the ground was a reed basket signifying, she’d been told, that he’d come to his new home with few possessions. His sword was planted in the ground, his forehead leaning upon the hilt. Etched into the gold and silver was one word in Latin. One of her innumerable suitors, a man learned in such things, had translated it for her. Loyalty.

  Once, she imagined, the colors might have been vibrant. Cobalt and crimson, golden yellow and purest white. But age had dulled the colors, rendering the lead holding the picture malleable. Consequently, there were missing sections that had been patched with iron plates, the result being a crude yet impressive work of art.

  Through the years, Drummond men had taken his oath of loyalty as their own, their fealty sworn to Scotland and their clan. Her father, however, seemed to have twisted the tradition and now swore allegiance only to himself and his money.

  Iseabal glanced toward the corner. Her mother was not in her customary chair. Had she chosen to absent herself? Or had Leah been banished from the hall during Iseabal’s punishment?

  Yet another sign, one that settled like ice in her stomach.

  She reached the table where her father sat with another man. The shepherd glanced at her only once before turning away.

  Resignation surged through her. She’d been seen after all. If so, why hadn’t he come to her aid?

  “Where have you been, Iseabal?”

  “Gilmuir,” she said quietly, bowing her head. Her hands clasped themselves together at her waist of their own accord, all too familiar with this pose of submission.

  He stood, the legs of the intricately carved chair scraping against the stone floor.

  “Have I not forbidden you that place?” he asked, approaching her.

  “Yes,” she whispered, hearing the fear in her voice.

  “Hold out your hand,” he said, almost kindly.

  She extended her arm, her fingers unclenching so that the palm was exposed.

  As he retrieved the dirk tucked into his boot, Iseabal closed her eyes, searching for that warm, dark place where she hid in moments like these.

  She felt the knife point against the fleshy part of her hand at the base of her thumb and willed herself not to pull away. Her punishment was only greater if she fled from it.

  “Tell me of the man you met,” he said, sliding the blade smoothly from wrist to the tip of Iseabal’s longest finger. There was not enough pressure to slice into her skin, but the threat was there nonetheless.

  Her eyes flew open. “The MacRae?”

  “The one,” he said, resting the knife point against the base of her finger. As if, she thought in a surge of wild panic, he meant to slice it off.

  “He is a man like any other,” she said, trembling.

  “His appearance?”

  “Tall, with a full beard. Blue eyes,” she added. “So lightly colored they seemed almost clear.”

  “MacRae eyes,” he said, staring off into the distance as if seeing the man she’d met. Moments ticked by ponderously before his attention returned once more to her.

  “What shall your punishment be, Iseabal?” he asked, staring down at her hand. “Shall I cut a few fingers or remove one? Tell me, how shall I teach you to obey me?”

  Her hand trembled, but Iseabal remained silent. The ice in her stomach flowed outward to her toes and fingers at the same time that she began to taste the familiar sourness of fear.

  “Perhaps a nick here,” he said, making a mark on the base of her thumb. Instantly blood welled up to fill in the curved pattern. A D for Drummond? Or for defiant? Desperate, her mind contributed.

  “The maids will search your chamber and bring everything of value to me. Perhaps being forbidden to leave your room until you’re wed will teach you to obey me. Not the lesson you deserve, Iseabal, but one that will remind you who I am.”

  He could not beat her, she suddenly realized, or cut her. To do so would be to affect her worth to a future husband. She should have known that her father’s greed would be greater than his rage.

  Iseabal remained silent, a lesson she’d learned as a child, never to challenge her father. Yet even if her occasional rebellions were no longer possible, her thoughts were secret and her own.

  Slowly, he removed the knife from her hand, dismissing her with a gesture. She clenched her hand tightly in order to stop the bleeding, escaping her father before he could change his mind and make the punishment worse.

  Chapter 3

  “A t least we know what happened to Fort William,” Alisdair said, staring up at the south face of the Drummond fortress.

  “I never thought that a Scot would use the bricks of an English fort to build his home,” Daniel said disgustedly.

  They approached Fernleigh at a leisurely pace, giving Drummond’s people enough time to send word of their arrival.

  “Are you certain you wish to do this, Alisdair?” Daniel asked worriedly. “We should have brought the entire crew.”

  “I doubt Drummond is as ferocious as all that, Daniel,” Alisdair said, smiling.

  “What makes you think he’ll listen to you?”

  “What makes you think he won’t?”

  “He’s a Drummond,” Daniel said simply. “That’s why.”

  They halted before the front door, made of oak and banded with iron. Oddly enough, it didn’t se
em designed for the structure, causing Alisdair to wonder if Drummond’s greed had extended to taking not only English bricks but part of Gilmuir. Perhaps the final destruction of the old castle was not due to the English at all, but was the work of another Scot.

  “You can’t be so foolish as to go in there alone?” Daniel asked incredulously when Alisdair waved him back.

  Alisdair nodded, gripping the iron knocker. The door opened slowly, as if Fernleigh welcomed visitors only grudgingly. A young man stood before him, his face stiff and expressionless.

  “I’m here to see Drummond,” Alisdair said.

  “And who would you be?”

  “Alisdair MacRae.”

  A moment later the guard was pushed aside. An older man stepped into the threshold and stared at him.

  The wrinkles on his face marked him at near Alisdair’s father’s age, but while Ian MacRae still drew the eyes of the ladies, Alisdair doubted a female would look twice in this man’s direction. His nose, pocked and swollen, sat in the middle of a face weathered and burned brown by the sun. His brown hair, laced with gray, fell to his shoulders untied, and bushy eyebrows sat atop deep-set eyes now narrowed in instant dislike.

  Magnus Drummond.

  “It’s you who’ve banished my sheep from their own grazing ground,” he said roughly.

  There were to be no pleasantries, then, which was just as well. Alisdair had no time to waste on false courtesy.

  “If they were grazing on my land,” Alisdair said, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “What reason do you have for thinking it’s yours?” Drummond asked, frowning.

  “The reason is that I’m a MacRae,” Alisdair said firmly, stepping forward. “The descendant of the old laird.”

  “If you’re truly who you say you are, then where have you been all these years?”

  “Over the sea,” Alisdair said, not wishing to give Drummond any more information than that.

  “Well, you can just go back there,” Drummond said. “I’m the owner in the eyes of the law. The English ceded it to me years ago.”

  “Then they gave something away that they never owned,” Alisdair said, pushing back his irritation. “If a thief steals a cow from one man and sells it to another, it only means that both men have been cheated.”

  “I care not if you are a MacLeod or a MacRae or a MacRath,” Drummond said stonily. “The land is mine.”

  The men aligned behind Drummond took one step forward.

  “My family has lived here for six hundred years, Drummond. I think that claim outweighs your gift from the English,” Alisdair said tightly.

  “Shall we send it to the courts, then, upstart?” Drummond asked, looking pleased.

  Alisdair must have betrayed something in his expression, because Drummond began to smile. “Did you think it would be that easy? March in here, declare yourself a MacRae, and have me weep at your feet?”

  “I haven’t got time for the courts,” Alisdair said stiffly.

  “Then you should count your losses now, before they grow even larger. It’ll be a waste of time for you anyway, since I’ve never lost a claim.”

  The older man’s smile was grating, Alisdair thought, as if Drummond knew and enjoyed his growing anger.

  “Do you make a point of stealing land from your countrymen, Drummond?” Alisdair asked, clasping his hands behind him. The pose was a natural one for him, revealing him as a man of the sea.

  “You’ll find that the Highlands are better suited to sheep than men, MacRae,” Drummond said, beginning to close the door.

  Alisdair slapped his hand on it. “Sell it to me,” he said impulsively.

  Drummond’s lips twisted into a grin. He waved his men away and surveyed Alisdair with narrowed eyes. “A MacRae buying land he claims as his? Why?”

  “Because I’ve no time for courts or judges,” Alisdair said shortly.

  “And you’re not sure you’ll win?” Drummond stepped aside, inviting Alisdair into his home with a sweep of his arm.

  Alisdair turned and looked at Daniel. His first mate was standing with arms crossed, a frown on his face. His foot tapped impatiently against the dirt, a sign he was not pleased.

  “If you don’t come out in an hour,” Daniel threatened, “I’m fetching the crew.” Alisdair nodded, but doubted that Drummond would kill him, especially not since he’d tapped the other man’s greed. But it was wise to be cautious. Alisdair entered Fernleigh, following Drummond, the man’s two guards behind him.

  Fernleigh’s curving stone steps hugged the wall, wound up into clouds of shadows. Walls and floors, staircase and roof, were all formed of the same dull gray stone, lit now by slanting rays of sunlight entering from high windows.

  Drummond led the way to another room, a hall that bore an aura of neglect. “My wife, Leah,” he said gruffly, kicking out the chair at the head of a long, rough-hewn table. “Alisdair MacRae,” Drummond added, the introduction swift and grudgingly made.

  Alisdair turned in the direction of Drummond’s wife. She was seated beside a cold fireplace, her head bent as if she diligently worked on the needlework in front of her. But her hands had stilled and she sat so stiffly quiet that he could almost feel her tremble.

  “Thank you for your hospitality, madam,” he said, walking to her side and bowing slightly.

  She glanced up, obviously surprised.

  For a moment Alisdair thought she was the woman in the ruins. But she was much older than the girl he’d seen, even though their coloring was the same.

  “You are a MacRae?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

  “I am,” he said.

  Laying her needlework in her lap, she tentatively smiled up at him. A wisp of greeting in that look, one that charmed him.

  “Who is your father?” she asked unexpectedly.

  He hesitated in answering. Any questions about Ian MacRae were always viewed with suspicion.

  “My mother is Leitis MacRae; my grandmother was Moira,” he said instead.

  “I knew your uncle,” she said, her voice low.

  “Did you?” he asked, surprised. Two of his uncles had died before his birth and the third only a few months ago, prompting his errand to London.

  “Fergus,” she said simply.

  His mother’s brother. Alisdair wanted to ask her about the man whose name brought such sadness to her face, but he was only too conscious of Drummond standing behind him.

  “You are welcome here,” she said softly, smiling up at him. “Could I offer you some ale, or perhaps some wine?”

  “What are you gabbing about, woman?” Drummond demanded brusquely. “He’ll drink good Scots whiskey or he’ll go thirsty.”

  Glancing quickly at her husband, she nodded. “Of course,” she said. Gripping her needlework tightly, she stared down at the delicate stitches.

  There was a woman at home who’d appeared often in public with bruises on her arms and neck. “The cow kicked me,” she would say, or claim it some other clumsiness on her part. But the truth, well known throughout the village, was that her husband beat her. Alisdair had offered him a berth upon The Thistle, a new ship whose voyage to the China Sea guaranteed that the man would be away for months at a time.

  His wife had met Alisdair in the square one day, pulling his face down so that she might kiss his cheek. The dead look in her eyes was gone and her face aglow with happiness.

  Leah Drummond reminded him of that woman, especially in the furtive way she glanced in her husband’s direction.

  Alisdair bowed once more and walked back to Drummond, sitting on one of the narrow benches flanking the table.

  Neither spoke until the whiskey was brought.

  “You’ll buy the land, then?” Drummond asked, his hand held tight around his tankard. He pushed the other cup across the table to Alisdair.

  Not a bad blend, he thought, tasting the drink, but not as good as that distilled on Cape Gilmuir. The people of Scotland had not lost their talent for whiskey simply
because they’d left their homeland.

  “On one condition,” Alisdair said, placing the tankard on the table and leveling a look at Drummond.

  “You’re not in a position to argue terms, MacRae,” Drummond replied contemptuously.

  “Give me your oath that you’ll leave MacRae land free,” Alisdair said.

  “Do you trust my word, MacRae? It’s the first time one of yours has ever done so.”

  “Is your oath of no value?” Alisdair asked.

  The other man’s face seemed to darken. Drummond’s mouth pursed, his brows coming together in a frown that rivaled Alisdair’s long-dead great-uncle’s, and the old man had been master of the glower.

  Before he could utter either an insult or a demand, Leah spoke. “If our guest is wealthy enough to buy Gilmuir, husband,” she said, lifting her needle in one long stroke, “then perhaps he is in the market for a wife.”

  “I’ll not marry my blood with that of the MacRaes, woman. Speak when you’re told and not before,” Drummond said roughly.

  “Yet you’ve found no one else to afford the bride price you demand for Iseabal,” she said serenely. The thread quivered in the air, leading Alisdair to wonder if her hands trembled. “For a few more coins, he could obtain his lands and a bride.”

  “I need no wife, madam,” Alisdair said kindly.

  “Then you are married?” she asked, glancing over at him briefly, an expression of disappointment on her face.

  “I am not, nor do I plan to be soon.” He had a shipyard to expand and ships to design and build before he took a wife.

  “Have I your word, then?” he asked, his gaze returning to Magnus. “You’ll not use Gilmuir land for your grazing?”

  “A bond of kinship would strengthen the matter,” Drummond’s wife said from her perch beside the fireplace.

  Drummond said nothing, considering his wife with narrowed eyes. Leah looked up and the two Drummonds exchanged glances. Slowly the other man nodded, beginning to smile.