When the Laird Returns

by Karen Ranney

  “You shouldn’t be lifting anything,” he said, taking the box from her. Placing it on the top of the open trunk, he bent, cupping her elbows with his hands, and helped her to rise. “You should be resting,” he said, stepping back when he realized how close they were.

  Sunlight spilled into the cabin from the open door, and a fresh wind swirled inside, bringing the scent of the sea and banishing the lingering odor of Chinese herbs.

  “Are you feeling better?” he asked, brushing a tendril of hair from her cheek.

  She nodded, her gaze never leaving his face.

  “You were asleep when I left you,” he said, the words conjuring up a picture of how she’d looked this morning, turned to her side facing him, her cheek pillowed on an arm, a small smile visiting her in dreams.

  Stepping away, he handed the box to her and bowed slightly, thinking it wise to leave her.

  “It’s yours,” she said, pushing the box back to him.

  “What is it?” he asked, frowning. He wanted no bonds between them. No links or obligations.

  “A wedding present.”

  Staring down at the box, Alisdair wondered if now was the time to tell her of his plans. This morning she was looking at him differently. Less caution and more affection. And, he thought, glancing at the flush mounting on her face, with more awareness.

  He smoothed his hand over the top of the box, holding his palm there as if to refute his own curiosity.

  “Please,” she said, pressing her hand on the back of his.

  A filigree plate connected the two halves, and was locked by a tiny brass hook. Flipping it open with one finger, Alisdair stared in wonder at the contents.

  Before him lay a miniature of Gilmuir, carved from a block of stone and looking as it might have looked a hundred years ago. An oval drive curved in front of the castle, and the front door mimicked the texture of wood. The archway connecting the priory to the main structure was intact, as was the clan hall. The grass around Gilmuir had been carved so delicately that he could feel the spike of each blade against the tip of his finger. Even the cliffs, ribboned in brown and white, had been perfectly crafted. His thumb brushed against a steeply canted roof, each individual slate outlined in loving detail.

  “It is not quite finished,” she said, reaching up to touch one of the windows of the priory. “One day I would like to carve shutters there.”

  Alisdair glanced up, staring at her in amazement. “You did this?”

  Her eyes widened at his tone, but she nodded, her gaze dropping to the miniature of Gilmuir once again.

  Their fingers accidentally touched, and separated as quickly.

  “I wanted you to have it. Besides,” she added, “Gilmuir belongs to you now.”

  “But how did you know?” he asked, feeling stunned at the talent she displayed. “All these details,” he said, touching the tiny gorse bushes emerging from the stone. “It’s almost as if you saw it whole. How did you know how it once appeared?” He’d heard tales from his mother, his great-uncle, all those people who’d once lived in the old castle, but Iseabal had made those stories real in this rendition of Gilmuir.

  She shook her head. “I didn’t know for sure,” she admitted. “But it was reasonable to assume from what was left in the ruins.”

  His finger rested upon a curved arch of the priory. “These no longer exist,” he countered. “Nor the roof. But it’s just as it had been described to me.”

  He’d thought of her as a trespasser. Looking down at the work of art Iseabal had created, Alisdair realized that she had been more a steward, preserving the fortress as it had once been.

  “That is why you wanted the block of marble,” he said, understanding. “To carve.”

  She looked at him, her lips curving into a smile. “Of course,” she said, chastisement present in that simple statement. “Did you think yourself married to a madwoman, Alisdair?”

  Discomfited by her teasing, he concentrated once more upon the carving.

  “My father thinks so,” she said in the silence. “A woman should not wish to be more than she is. But sometimes the stones seem to speak to me, as if the images trapped inside wish to be released.” Glancing up at him, she smiled again, a small, self-deprecating expression. “Perhaps I am mad after all,” she added.

  “I’ve heard my mother say the same about a length of yarn. She sees a pattern in her mind and must create it. She says it calls to her and she cannot rest until it has been born.” He smiled, thinking of his mother and her passion for her loom, one of the first items crafted when the MacRaes reached Nova Scotia.

  “Yes,” Iseabal said, her eyes widening. “That’s exactly how it is.”

  Alisdair slowly closed the lid of the box. “She is an artist and so are you. Thank you, Iseabal. I will treasure it always,” he said, feeling duplicitous and awkward.

  A few strides and he was across the cabin. Placing the miniature inside one of the tansu’s doors, he retrieved a silver flask and his prized coconut cup. Heavily carved and surrounded by a chased surround, the cup had been given him for being part of the expedition charting the Sea of Japan.

  Iseabal’s eyes widened even further, and he wondered if she thought herself married to a tippler.

  “My first mate relies on odd portents and strange signs to rule his life,” he explained, raising his flask. “I’m merely trying to appease his superstitions.”

  Instead of speaking, Iseabal only nodded.

  Too much of a gulf stretched between them, he suddenly realized. Background and dreams of the future, temperament and character. His was suffering at the moment, while hers shone clear and direct. She’d given him a gift to treasure, something she’d created herself with obvious love and even more apparent talent. He had given her nothing more than subterfuge and reluctance, tainted with anger for both Drummond and these circumstances.

  Gripping the cup and flask tightly in his hand, Alisdair strode through the door.

  “Here,” he said to Daniel, filling the cup with a measure of rum and holding it aloft for his first mate to see.

  Daniel smiled in approval as Alisdair walked to the rail and tossed the rum over the side. A pacification to the wind and waves.

  He had no ability to see into the future, but Alisdair did know his first mate well. “Don’t say a word about women on board, Daniel,” he said in warning.

  “It’s not safe, Captain,” Daniel replied, unrepentant. “Surely you know that.”

  “What do you suggest I do with her?” Alisdair asked, dismissing the sudden vision of Iseabal naked in front of him. “String her from the rigging? Tie her to the mast?”

  “You shouldn’t laugh at custom, Captain.”

  “She’ll be gone soon enough, Daniel,” he said, more annoyed at himself than at his first mate.

  Daniel frowned, both eyebrows slanting downward as if pointing the way to his sharp nose.

  “I’m not going to throw her overboard,” Alisdair said, annoyed. “I’m simply going to find a way to have this marriage annulled.”

  “Can you do that?” Daniel asked skeptically.

  “Surely that farce of a wedding was not valid, Daniel,” Alisdair retorted tightly. “And for all that she’s lovely and no doubt a paragon of all the virtues, I prefer to choose my own wife, and not have her thrust upon me.”

  “It seems to me the lass has little choice, either,” Daniel observed.

  Alisdair stared at him, feeling more irritated. One moment his old friend decried Iseabal’s presence on board; the next, Daniel was castigating him for his decision.

  “Are you going to leave her in England, then, Captain?” Daniel asked, his voice trailing off as he glanced behind Alisdair.

  Alisdair turned to find Iseabal standing in the doorway of the cabin, staring at him. Her hands were clasped in front of her, her face serene, a small smile playing over her lips. But she was so still she might have been made of stone.

  Her leather shoes made muted sounds on the wooden deck as she wal
ked to him. He measured each hesitant step with an increasing remorse.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “I did not wish for you to learn of my plans this way.”

  Yet he’d ignored the opportunity to tell her in private, his conscience whispered. An uncomfortable position to be in, he thought, balancing on a fulcrum of his character, and knowing that he’d made the worst of mistakes.

  “When were you going to tell me?” she asked calmly, blessing the training of a lifetime. How many times had she stood before her father, aching to say words she’d trapped behind restraint?

  Something began to uncurl deep inside, a sense of shame so pervasive that Iseabal felt nauseous with it. Yet another emotion, as easily discernible, trod on its tail. Anger.

  Her hands clenched into fists as she stared at him, Daniel fading from sight like a morning mist. The deck was so quiet she could hear her own breath, but a quick glance upward reassured her that no one watched them. Men climbed in the rigging, two stood at the double wheel, but not one pair of eyes was directed at her.

  She knew instinctively that Alisdair MacRae was not a cruel man, nor did she think he had planned this public repudiation. He’d beggared himself for his heritage, maintained his temper although provoked, and looked after her last night as if she’d mattered to him.

  Iseabal had begun to believe that Providence had smiled on her in bringing Alisdair MacRae to Scotland. For a few short hours she’d begun to believe that her future might be a happy one. Only to have this moment strip bare any illusions.

  “Do you not want your freedom, Iseabal?” he asked, frowning at her.

  “I have always been free,” she said quietly. There were her thoughts, rebellious and occasionally wicked, and her imagination, unfettered and soaring. Watching her words, measuring her moments of escape, were only the costs of such freedom.

  “We do not know each other.”

  Most couples do not, she thought.

  “I’m a sea captain and never home.”

  Only a benefit. She would be a happy wife never to be bothered with a husband.

  “I’m from Nova Scotia,” he said. “My home is lonely and cold. The winters are frigid and the winds never cease blowing.”

  She stifled her smile. Did he think winters in Scotland were any different?

  “I am not prepared for a wife,” he added, the words stark but ringing true.

  While she was only too prepared to have him as a husband.

  “I will provide for you, Iseabal,” he said kindly. “You may choose where you wish to live and have enough funds to decide your own life. Your own freedom.”

  The MacRae wanted liberty of the will, and women rarely had such choice. Other wills prevailed over hers. A father decreed and she was married. A husband commanded and she was no longer a bride.

  She looked at him beneath her lashes, as he remained standing there staring at her. She had a great many faults, Iseabal thought, but there were many attributes as well. Yet the MacRae had dismissed her from his life with surprising ease, as if she were no more than a wave upon his ocean.

  Turning, she made her way back to the cabin, glancing over her shoulder at him before shutting the cabin door. He glanced away and she felt released, as if a bond stretching between them, one of emotions and thoughts, all equally unknown, had been severed.

  “I’ve been discarded before, you know,” she said softly. He turned his head and stared at her. “I’ve had a lifetime of practice at it.” She was to blame for thinking there might have been more.

  She closed the door behind her, wishing that she’d never seen Alisdair MacRae.

  Leah would have liked to escape to her chamber, but Drummond ordered her to remain in the clan hall, a witness to his laughter and revelry. She herself would have rather been alone, reveling in the news that had come from one of Drummond’s spies this afternoon.

  The MacRaes had left Gilmuir.

  Leah would miss her daughter, but offsetting that quiet grief was a greater joy. Iseabal would be beginning a new life.

  Yet Magnus was celebrating not because his daughter had wed well, but because he’d gained a fortune and the use of MacRae land. With the news that Alisdair MacRae had left Scotland, Leah had no doubt that her husband would quickly issue instructions to send the flocks back to Gilmuir. A suspicion that was borne out by his next words.

  “If the fool thinks I’ll not take what is rightfully mine, then the MacRaes have bred idiots.”

  “Did he not pay you for the land, husband?” Leah said.

  An expression of displeasure flickered over her husband’s face. No doubt because she questioned him. Leah had not ventured a criticism of him in years, choosing instead to remain safe and silent. Now that Iseabal was gone, there was no such constraint on her words. What could he do to her that he had not already done?

  Setting her needlework down in her lap, Leah gazed up at Drummond. Her eyes were open and direct, with no attempt to mask the loathing she felt for him.

  For an instant he looked surprised; then his face fell into the usual stern lines.

  The men sitting on either side of Magnus turned their heads and glanced at her. Two-legged curs, she thought, licking Drummond’s boots as if he were their master. One of them was his cousin Thomas, linked not only by blood but by inclination.

  His long, thin face reminded her of a starving dog, his rotting teeth sharpened and feral. Even his voice, raspy and hoarse, seemed less human and more like an animal given speech. He might have been a comical figure with those enormous ears of his, had not his character overwhelmed his appearance.

  Thomas was the worst of them, even more so, perhaps, than her husband. He carried out Magnus’s orders with both alacrity and enthusiasm. His hazel eyes, close together and too small for his face, stared at her now, his tankard halfway to his lips. They shared looks, neither hiding the antipathy for the other. Her aversion for Thomas seemed to amuse her husband, yet his cousin’s insolence toward her was never remarked upon. Magnus reserved his loyalty for those who served him.

  The remaining five men seated at the table were staring down into their whiskey, pretending that they did not notice her.

  “What I do, or not do, is none of your concern,” Magnus said curtly.

  “You would go back on your word?” she asked.

  “Who is to stop me?” her husband said. “Even if the MacRae sends part of his clan back to Gilmuir, I will force them out.” He took a sip from his tankard, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Not with my sword, wife,” he added, grinning. “But with the law.”

  As they stared at each other across the width of the hall, Leah abruptly wondered if she was partly to blame for Drummond’s nature. She had married him willingly all those many years ago and had taken her vows to heart. Being a chaste wife had been easily accomplished, since she’d no wish to lie with another man. But Drummond had known that she’d loved another and that her heart was forever blocked to him.

  Once, he had been a kinder man. Long ago he’d had other interests such as building and the writings of scholars to occupy him. Now, however, all his energies seemed narrowed and supplanted by his greed.

  Would Drummond have been a better man if she’d been able to love him?

  Leah stood and left him then, shocked at the thought.

  Chapter 10

  T he day had passed quietly, the empty cabin a place of reflection and thought. Iseabal had had hours of solitude in which to contemplate the future. The longer she spent thinking of it, the worse her prospects seemed.

  The door began to open, and Iseabal stiffened her shoulders. She wasn’t prepared for any more of the young cabin boy’s overt disapproval, nor did she welcome the MacRae’s presence.

  She winced at the sudden brightness, having become accustomed to the gloom of the windowless cabin. The MacRae stood there, one hand on the edge of the door, the other resting on his hip. His hair had been disheveled by the wind, and he’d removed the jacket he’d worn earlier. The b
old colors of his tartan vest suited him, contrasting against the light blue shade of his eyes.

  The fading rays of the sun spilled into the doorway, sending ribbons of pale light gleaming on each of her chisels. Arrayed from smallest to largest, they lay ready for her selection. She had spent most of the day examining the marble, trying to see what it might become. Nothing had occurred to her, and that realization had frightened her a little. But then, her thoughts were on her future, not on her carving.

  “You didn’t lift that yourself, did you?” Alisdair said, frowning at the block of marble resting on the table.

  Staring down at the leather sling holding her tools, Iseabal could not help but wonder what kind of man wished to sever a marriage and yet worried about her health.

  “Rory,” she said, the one word an explanation. The cabin boy had opened the table and slid a chair beneath it, placing the marble block where she needed it. All these chores performed with a mulish expression and eyes that revealed, only too clearly, his disdain for her.

  Iseabal had thought Fernleigh inhospitable, but it was nothing compared to the Fortitude.

  “I need to treat your side,” Alisdair said, closing the door. He moved to the lantern, lit it, opening all of the shutters. Iseabal wished, fervently, that he had left the room darkened.

  “I feel much improved, thank you,” she told him cordially, her smile hard-won but fixed in place.

  “Nevertheless,” he countered stubbornly, “I need to reapply the dressing.”

  “It’s truly not necessary,” she said, concentrating on the block of marble before her.

  “It is, unless you’ve suddenly become able to move your left arm without pain,” he said in a clipped voice.

  He knew very well that she could not. The Chinese medications might have aided her, but they could not produce miracles. She would need longer than one day to heal.

  She glanced up at him. “I truly do not wish your help, MacRae.” Nor would it be proper to have you treat me now, she thought. She’d already bared herself to him, and could only pray that he would forget that incident quickly.