Highland Wolf

by Hannah Howell

  “E’en if she wishes to leave?” asked Tormand, moving to pour James a tankard of strong, dark ale.

  “Aye, e’en then. Lock her in the cursed dungeon if ye have to.” James took a deep drink, welcoming the way the strong ale quickly began to ease his pain and the tension that concern about Annora had roused in him.

  Tormand laughed softly. “I dinnae think your wooing will go verra weel if ye imprison her.”

  “It willnae go weel if I have to hunt her down, either. I dinnae ken why I think so, but I truly believe that Annora can be verra good at hiding.”

  “’Tis possible. I suspicion the poor lass has had far too many moments in her life that taught her the trick of it. Aye, especially the one where she can seem to just fade into her surroundings.”

  James nodded slowly. “I fear so. She worries too cursed much about being bastard born and lets the attitudes of self-righteous, or just cruel, people hurt her and make her think less of herself. Aye, and far too many of her cursed kin have done more than speak to her unkindly. MacKay beat her from time to time, at least once so severely that that bastard Egan actually stepped in and stopped him. One kinswoman locked her in small dark places for hours as a punishment when she was a child.” He suddenly recalled Annora’s very strong fear of the dark. “If ye have to put her in the dungeons to hold her here, keep the torches lit and let Meggie visit with her whene’er she wishes to. And put her cat Mungo in with her.”

  Crossing his arms over his chest, Tormand said, “I would rather lie to a priest than lock her up in the dungeons.”

  “Ye have lied to a priest,” James said absently as he tried to think of some other way to hold Annora at Dunncraig if she tried to leave before he was able to convince her to stay. “Cousin Matthew, I believe.”

  “He isnae a priest; he is a monk. And I lied to him ere he joined the order. And it was a lie meant to spare his feelings. He didnae ken that the lass he had such strong feelings for was trying to bed down with every Murray within a day’s walk of her cottage.”

  “Just keep Annora here. Watch her closely. Ye will be able to tell when she is thinking of running. The lass has little skill at hiding her feelings when she is around people she feels are no danger to her, people she can trust. She must ken that she can trust ye now.”

  “Such as people who think to lock her in the dungeons?” Tormand ignored James’ glare. “Why dinnae ye just call the lass in here and talk to her right now?”

  “The fool lass thinks she isnae good enough for me, so she may need some persuading to believe that I dinnae care about her being bastard born or her lack of a dowry.”

  “Ah, I understand now. Weel, dinnae do too much and push yourself so hard that ye end up tied to that bed again. I dinnae want to be following Annora about too much. People may begin to think I am poaching.”

  James was still shaking his head over that remark after Tormand left. He eased himself back down onto the bed, wincing over the ache that lingered at the site of his wound. Although he was weary of being so weak he had to lie abed for days, he also knew that rest was what he needed. Just as he closed his eyes, the door opened. He felt a brief, sharp stab of disappointment when he saw Meggie in the doorway rather than Annora, but quickly smiled a warm welcome at the child. His smile widened when she skipped up to the side of the bed and grinned at him.

  “How do ye feel today, Papa?” she asked.

  Hearing Meggie call him father had to be one of the sweetest sounds he had ever heard, James decided. At times he was still stunned at how easily she had accepted him as her father, even though she had made it clear that she did not believe MacKay was. It was as if a small part of her remembered James for all those years they were apart even though he found that hard to believe.

  “I am getting better,” he replied. “The wound is closed tightly now and I but need to regain the strength I lost whilst lying in this bed.”

  “So that ye can chase Annora down?”

  He laughed. “Aye, exactly. We cannae let her leave Dunncraig, can we?”

  “Nay, we cannae and she is thinking about it, ye ken. She keeps giving me that fare-thee-weel look.”

  “Fare-thee-weel look? What sort of look is that?”

  “The one where she looks at ye and smiles but there isnae a smile in her eyes. She looks at ye as if she is making ye a memory.”

  He had seen the look Meggie described and it had pained him. At first he had not been able to speak of any future because he had not been sure he had one. Then he had had to keep quiet because they had not had any privacy, something he suspected Annora had planned very carefully. Now he was denied the chance to speak to her because she simply avoided him.

  “I have seen that look,” he said quietly.

  Meggie nodded. “So ye must get better and stronger verra soon and then ye can chase her down and tell her she has to stay with us because we need her.”

  “I intend to do just that, lass.”

  “I can help ye. I am verra good at tying knots.”

  James had to bite back a laugh. “I will keep that in mind but I am hoping I can convince Annora to stay here without having to tie her down to do so. Annora MacKay is ours, Meggie-mine, and I mean to make her understand that. This is her home and we are her family and she will stay put.”

  “Are ye ready to hunt down your woman yet?” demanded Tormand as he entered James’ bedchamber three days after James had promised Meggie that he would make Annora stay with them.

  James took a final look at himself in the fancy, very expensive looking-glass MacKay had bought to put in the laird’s bedchamber. The man had spent far too much of Dunncraig’s coin on such needless luxury, but for this precise moment, James was rather glad to have the looking-glass. He was pleased to see his red hair again as well. Putting the coloring in to make it brown and keep it brown had been an unending chore. Except for the scar on his cheek and a few more lines on his face, he looked very much as he had before all of his troubles began. Even naked he would not look much changed despite the ugly red scar marring his side. James just hoped that he looked like a man Annora wanted to love and marry. He knew she wanted him in her bed, but he was after far more than passion now.

  “I am as ready as I will e’er be,” James replied. “Once the wound closed, my recovery was mercifully quick. Giving ye a wee bit of trouble, is she?”

  “At times I think she kens that I am watching if nay the why of it. I swear that once she catches sight of me she begins to do the most boring thing she can think of just to see how long I can stand to watch it. I hadnae quite realized just how many boring things a lass has to do during her day.”

  “I think she used to do the same when MacKay had guards watching her. They would wander off they got so bored and that got them into trouble with Egan.”

  “Weel, tedious as that can be at times, today Big Marta set after me. She grabbed me by the ear and told me to stay away from your woman. My back still aches from having her force me to bend down for so long. It took a lot of vowing to behave and sweet words to get the woman to believe that I was just making sure Annora didnae slip away before ye got a chance to corner her and talk some sense into her.”

  Laughing softly, James shook his head. “I suspicion Big Marta believed ye far more quickly than ye think. She just didnae let ye ken it for a while. That woman takes every chance she gets to put we poor muddled men in our place.”

  “Then she must have heartily enjoyed herself today,” Tormand muttered, rubbing the ear Big Marta had so thoroughly abused. “I came to tell ye that your wee lass just returned to her bedchamber to prepare for the evening meal.”

  “How wondrously convenient. ’Tis the perfect place to corner her.”

  “So I thought. Want me to make sure that Meggie doesnae try to come round to see if ye have convinced Annora to stay yet? She has also been keeping a close eye on the woman. And the child has an uncanny skill at spying. Best ye be aware of that.”

  James grimaced and nodded. “Aye, i
t might be best to keep Meggie watched now. I certainly dinnae want to try to explain my methods of persuasion to a girl of but five years of age.”

  Tormand laughed but suddenly grew serious again as he paused in the doorway of the room before leaving. “I ken that ye must have suffered a doubt or two about whether or not Meggie is really yours…” he began. “With Mary having been MacKay’s lover for so long, e’en after ye were married—”

  “Meggie is mine. By law, by name, and by the fact that I was there to hold her in the first minutes of her life. I dinnae care whose seed bred her.”

  “That is good because it seems it was yours.”

  Despite his words of denial and the certainty that he would have loved Meggie no matter what, James felt his heart leap with a joyous hope. “Ye say that with some certainty.”

  “Weel, I was verra sure before as, despite that verra fair hair—which has some strong hints of red when the sun shines on it by the way—and those big brown eyes, she has a lot of the look of ye in the way she smiles and the shape of her chin. But the real proof is that it seems MacKay was unable to sire a child.”

  “How can ye be sure of that?”

  “I suspicion no one can be completely sure unless the mon has lost his manhood completely, say by the swing of an angry husband’s sword, but he ne’er bred a child.”

  James frowned. “I thought I heard rumors to the contrary.”

  “Most likely rumors started by him or Egan. Nay, MacKay has been bedding women since he was but a boy of twelve and has ne’er bred a child. A verra high fever and spots when he was just turning from child to mon seems to have killed his seed. Those few bairns he tried to claim as proof of his manliness were bred by Egan.”

  “That certainly explained his determination to claim Meggie as his own. Do ye ken, I think it explains why he was going to make Annora marry Egan as weel.”

  Tormand nodded. The need for an heir to the keep he had stolen. Aye, and an heir might weel give the king and his advisers some way to make sure all of the people involved in this mess gain something in the end and allow them to think that they havenae wronged or angered anyone.”

  “’Tis probably that knowledge that kept Egan safe from MacKay’s rages, e’en gave the mon a wee bit of power o’er MacKay although I cannae understand why MacKay didnae just kill the mon as he had so many others who discovered some secret of his. A mon like MacKay would have found his inability to sire a child verra humiliating. How did ye find this out?”

  “A woman in the town who many saw as his mistress told me ere she was driven away by the people’s anger and scorn of her. She said that MacKay suddenly told her one night that he had bedded her for so long people were wondering why there was no child. He couldnae have anyone asking that So he made her bed down with Egan secretly for o’er a month until she got with child and then made everyone think it was his. He also made it verra clear that she would also claim the child as his and ne’er mention Egan or she would die a verra painful death.”

  “Did she take the child with her?”

  “Nay, the wee lass is in the village living with a fine family who lost what few children they had and wanted her. It was best for all concerned as this woman would ne’er stop being a whore, although she bluntly says she prefers to be a rich mon’s mistress and intends to find herself such a mon ere she loses her good looks.”

  James shook his head. “The mon had a lot of secrets.”

  “Aye, and he made sure that nearly every one of them went to the grave with the people who kenned about them. There must have been some bond between him and Egan or that mon would probably have been dead ere he reached full manhood.”

  “I suspicion we will hear more of those as the years pass. He is dead now and tongues will loosen. All of it can only help me. I may now be widely declared as innocent and the sentence of outlaw lifted, but the blacker MacKay appears the more clear my innocence is.” He nudged Tormand the rest of the way out of the door and then started walking toward Annora’s bedchamber. “Now ’tis time to have a word with my lady.”

  “I expect to be able to toast your coming marriage at the meal this evening.”

  James hoped Tormand would be doing just that but he admitted to himself that he was feeling unsure and nervous. He knew Annora would not share the bed of just any man who could kiss her and touch her in a way she liked. He knew she shared the fierce passion and need he had for her. What he was not sure of was how deep all of that went into her heart and if those urges were born of the sort of feelings one could build a marriage on. What he wanted was for Annora to love him. The next time he took a wife to his bed he wanted to know that she was his in body, in heart, in mind, and in soul.

  Annora sighed and sat down on her bed. She knew she ought to be leaving Dunncraig, but she kept finding little reasons to stay just a little longer. There really were none left. James was healed, Dunncraig was running smoothly, the shadows Donnell had filled Dunncraig Keep with were nearly all dispersed, and Meggie was happy beyond words that James was her father. There really was no need for her to linger except to prolong the pain of leaving James and little Meggie.

  She would probably even have to leave Mungo behind, she thought and felt tears sting her eyes as she patted her cat’s head, for her kinsmen would think it foolish for her to have a pet. “I am such a foolish, foolish woman,” she murmured.

  Mungo meowed softly and butted at her hand.

  Realizing she had stopped petting him, she began to scratch lightly behind his ears. “I love James, Mungo. I love him with my whole heart. The mon is as necessary to me as the air I breathe. But I have to leave him. He is a laird of a fine family and a host of allies gained through the family who took him into their home and their hearts. Many of those allies have power and influence at court, too. A poor, landless bastard is nay the sort of wife a laird like Sir James Drummond takes to wife.”

  The cat rolled over onto his back in a silent plea to have his belly scratched.

  “I ken that ye are little interested in the trials and tribulations of mere people, Mungo, but ye could at least feign a little sympathy.” She scratched the cat’s belly. “I just need to decide where to go and what kinsmon to inflict myself upon next. I would like it to be one who isnae so verra far away from Dunncraig as I want to be able to see how Meggie fares.”

  Thinking of Meggie, Annora found she could smile. The child had accepted James as her father with no question at all, her delight in him plain for all to see. There was a rapport between James and Meggie that had been visible from the very beginning when they had all thought he was a wood-carver named Rolf Larousse Lavengeance.

  Annora grimaced as she thought of that name. The words of his name meant wolf, red, and vengeance. She should have taken the time to think on that James had not been so very subtle in his choice of that name. If Donnell had taken some time from spending money and bedding women to learn a few things, he would have seen it, too.

  “He took a great risk using that foolish name,” she muttered. “There could easily have been someone at Dunncraig who knew French and was a close ally of Donnell’s or my Cousin could actually have taken some time to learn more than he kenned, small as that was. ’Tis also odd that I have dreamt of a ruddy wolf with green eyes since James was sent running for his life.

  “’Tis fate dial I am here and I met him, I suppose. That is what my dream was trying to say, what it was leading me toward. I just wish it had shown me how to help him and Meggie and yet nay lose my heart to either of them.” She wiped a stray tear from her cheek and forced the rest back down. “I ken that good has been done and all that, but I wish fate could have chosen someone else to have a hand in it all. Fate is a cruel mistress to send me somewhere to help in my small way and then make me love the ones I have helped only to rip me away from them again.”

  Mungo suddenly sat up, then leapt off the bed and padded to the door. He sat there and stared at the door but did not yowl as he always did to let her know that he wante
d out of the room. She was going to miss her cat, she thought as she stood up and walked to the door. He had been her close companion at Dunncraig since Donnell had allowed her to make no friends.

  “And now that I have the chance to make a true place for myself here, to make some friends, I have to leave,” she muttered as she opened the door.

  “And why do ye think ye have to leave?”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  For the space of one heartbeat Annora considered slamming the door in James’ face and barring it. He must have seen that thought in her expression, for he gently but firmly pushed her back and after letting Mungo leave, shut the door and barred it himself. Leaving him inside her bedchamber, just where she did not want him. It was dangerous to her heart and her peace of mind to be alone with the man, especially in a bedchamber.

  And especially since he was looking so very handsome, she thought, unable to resist the temptation to look him over very thoroughly. She told herself that she was just making sure that he was healthy enough to be standing there frowning at her and herself laughed heartily at that big lie. With his golden red hair and his fine clothes he looked like the laird he truly was, a man ready to take over the rule of his lands and mayhap build a power of his own through allies and friends.

  And a good marriage, she thought and hastily turned away from him. Annora suddenly found the sight of him painful, for it only made her all too aware of how far apart they were. She had begun to try and put some distance between them in the hope that it would ease her heartbreak when she left, but seeing him now let her know that that was a very stupid plan. He was a part of her and simply not looking at him did nothing to cure her of that.

  When she felt his hands on her shoulders, she tensed. Annora prayed he was not going to try to make love to her. To have a taste of all she craved while knowing she could not really claim it as her own would be more painful than she cared to even think about.

  “Annora, what is wrong?”