“How would a man like that know a bampot like me, eh?” Lachlan responded. There was a note of sarcasm in his tone that Maura could not help but pick up on, and as Lachlan returned to the roof, she felt as though she had just been lied to.
Had she the luxury of time, Maura might have dwelled upon the issue a little longer. The afternoon was fast approaching, however, and she knew that with that, the first few customers would begin trudging through the doors of the Inn in search of a drink.
She returned to her chores inside but could not shake the feeling that the two men were hiding something. The way Lachlan had drawn attention to the scar on Malcolm’s cheek that few others seemed to notice was deeply suspicious, and the look in his eye as the other man had ridden off towards Dunoon only added to the uncertainty surrounding this stranger who had appeared on her doorstep.
Who was this man who had ridden in on the wind? This man who had divulged little more than his first name, who hadn’t even the money to pay for a room for the night? How did he seem to know Mr. Campbell, and more importantly, why did he deny it so fervently?
3
Sunset brought with it the first patrons of the evening for Two Heathers. They were tradesmen, more than likely from Dunoon, and Maura suspected that very few of them would intend on paying for a room for the night. Instead, after a successful day in town, they were more interested in getting a hot meal and drinking as much ale as they could afford as a little treat before heading home.
Despite how young she was, the years of helping her mother run the Inn meant that Maura had grown accustomed to these busy nights. In recent years they were becoming rarer and rarer, and it was a comforting sight to see so many faces packed into the Inn to eat and drink together.
Lachlan had finished the repairs to the roof by the early afternoon, and as payment for his hard work, Maura gave him food and whiskey. He sat in the far corner, keeping to himself mostly, even as the evening wore on, and the Inn began to fill with other men. Every so often, as she delivered more ale to a table or produced another bottle of whiskey, she’d glance over at his table, but he didn’t seem to have any interest in moving from it. He was content, it seemed, to drink in peace.
In fact, the only time he left his space was to approach her late into the evening. She was clearing the mess surrounding a freshly vacated table when he came up to her, crouching down to her height. “Excuse me, miss.”
“Would ye like somethin’ more to eat, sir?” Maura asked. Edna had quietly told her to give Lachlan whatever he wanted that night; they had no other way to pay him for the impressive work he’d managed on the roof.
“No no, I’ve plenty, thank ye. Yer mother’s cooking could feed an army.” He chuckled. “I was hoping for something for Gairdh. If there were scraps that were going to waste, I’d like to give them to him.”
Maura had almost forgotten about the horse, tied up all alone in the stable outside. “Of course, there’ll be scraps in the kitchen in the bucket. Take as much as ye’d like.”
Lachlan nodded to her and disappeared around the back of the bar, heading through the door that led into the kitchen. When the door opened, Maura thought she heard a giggle that certainly didn’t belong to him, but the door swung shut again before she could be sure.
Edna was chatting away to two regular faces who often passed by Two Heathers, so she hadn’t heard it, but Maura knew that if she was right and her siblings were still awake, they’d be in serious trouble. With a sigh, she slipped past her mother and followed Lachlan into the kitchen.
It wasn’t a large kitchen by any means, which meant there weren’t many places for two youngsters to hide. Their usual hiding spot was under the large table in the middle of the room that Edna used to prepare food. Sure enough, when Maura ducked down, two faces peeked out at her.
“Ye little devils!” she hissed, careful not to raise her voice and alert her mother. “Ye were supposed to be asleep hours ago.”
Lachlan chuckled at the sight of her on her haunches in front of the table, scowling at the two children. He decided it was best to leave her to scold them alone, and so left the kitchen with his scraps, letting the door swing shut behind them.
“Ye get out from under there right now, ye hear?” Maura reached under the table and grabbed Isobel’s arm, tugging her out into the kitchen. Angus wriggled away defiantly, poking out his tongue at his older sister. “Angus Kelly, if Maw catches ye in here, ye know there’ll be hell to pay!”
The threat of their mother was enough to make Angus give up, and with a pout, he came crawling out from under the table. Maura took the two children by the shoulders and pushed them in the direction of the stairs at the back of the kitchen. She couldn’t bring herself to be too angry with them; after all, she could remember being a bairn herself and sneaking down to see why there was so much noise after she’d been sent to bed. Back then, she’d always felt it was a little unfair that the adults were allowed to stay up later than she was.
However, she knew they needed to stay upstairs for their own good. Edna could fly into quite the rage if she were ever disobeyed by her children, and Maura wanted to protect them from it if possible. “Ye go upstairs this minute, you hear me? Tuck yerselves back in bed. I’ll be back to check on ye soon.”
They whined and protested weakly, but she shooed them away and back up the stairs with a sigh before returning out to the main room, where she could still hear shouts and laughter.
It was getting late now. Darkness had long since set, and most of the men who were still drinking were likely to want rooms from them, which was good. The night was slowly beginning to come to a close for many of these men, who were slurring their words as they yelled gleefully across the room at each other and the two women who were supplying them with their alcohol.
Unfortunately, with men like this, who were arrogant and hungry for a fight at the best of times, arguments were not uncommon. They usually occurred outside of the Inn, and Maura would just have to listen to them through the door, but from time to time, they’d happen inside. Those were always worse, somehow.
A shout cut through the room, louder than the others, and with a cold bite to it that drew attention from everyone else. Maura turned her head to see two men standing face-to-face. They were both drunk, swaying from side to side as they stared each other down, silently daring the other to make a move. One man, the taller of the two, had ale dripping from his front, and it looked as though the other man had spilled it on him.
“D’ya not have eyes in yer head, ya Jakey?” he yelled, pushing the other man with one flat hand. He stumbled backward, slurring out something incomprehensible in response, but that only seemed to spur the first man on.
Around them, the room fell silent, and Maura met her mother’s gaze. The two exchanged wary glances, and in that moment, Maura knew she and her mother were thinking the same thing—if it came to blows, neither one of them would be able to stop these men.
Instead of waiting for it to come to that, Maura tried to assuage their anger by talking to them calmly. She approached the two men cautiously and called out, “Sirs, we’ve more ale and clothes for ye. There’s no need for ye to—”
The man who’d had ale spilled on him turned to look at her with a scowl. “This ain’t of no concern to ye, lassie. Ye’d best stay out of it ‘fore ye get knocked too, like this howlin’ Jakey here.”
Maura took an instinctive step away from the man, unable to summon the words to argue back. As it turned out, she didn’t have to. Someone else spoke for her.
“That best not have been a threat, sir.”
She turned to see Lachlan right behind her. The bucket he’d taken from the kitchen—now empty—was still in his hand, and as he observed the two men, a scowl formed on his features. His brows knitted together into a dark line, and his lips pursed.
“This young lass gives ye ale and food, and ye threaten her with yer fist?” Lachlan asked, his voice dropping to a low growl. Maura stepped out of his path silently
as he walked past her, heading for the two men. “And ye’ dare t’call yerself a man?”
The man scoffed at the sight of Lachlan. Why he wasn’t the least bit intimidated by the much taller man approaching him, like a hunter approaching his prey, was a mystery. Instead, he looked amused by the newcomer. “Ah, yer ‘aff yer heid, laddy. This is of naw concern to ye.”
“Ah’m ‘aff ma heid?” Lachlan echoed, looking almost amused for a moment. “I was doin’ nothin’ but enjoying a quiet drink until ye started a fight.”
The second man—the one who’d spilled the ale that had started all of this—took the moment of distraction and ducked away from them. He stumbled away and into the corner, hoping that no one would notice him there. Meanwhile, Lachlan and the other man were getting closer.
Maura wasn’t sure which of the men threw the first punch. She hoped it wasn’t Lachlan, but in the flurry of shouting, kicking, and screaming that followed, she just couldn’t have been sure. That didn’t matter, though. What mattered was someone threw a punch, and a brawl started. Men leaped up from their tables at the sight of it. Some were eager to see blood; others were eager to stop it from going further.
Lachlan and the man were pulled apart by other patrons, who held them back from doing any significant damage to each other. Maura couldn’t get a good look at Lachlan’s face from where she was but could see a scarlet river of blood running down his chin.
Edna screamed at the men to get out of the Inn. She didn’t care if they were involved in the fight or not—she wanted them out. And to the credit of the men, they all complied. Even the man who’d fought Lachlan didn’t seem to have the spirit to argue back with Edna Kelly, and one by one, the men filed out. Eventually, it was just Maura, Edna, and Lachlan, who began to shuffle towards the door.
“Ye stop right there, laddy!” Edna barked. Lachlan froze in place immediately, like a little boy who’d been scolded. If not for the scattered plates, bowls, and bottles all around the place, and the blood on his face, it would have been a rather comical scene to see this man who towered over her simply bow his head and obey.
“Ah can only apologize for ma behavior,” he said quietly, finally lifting his head to look up at the older woman. “Ah can help to clean up.”
“Of course ye will. And ye can mend that table that ye knocked into tomorrow morning, while ye’re at it,” Edna snapped. Lachlan looked at her in surprise.
“Ye’re no’ askin’ me to leave tonight?”
“Why would I do that when ye’ve so much more work to do?”
Lachlan bowed his head, surprised by the gesture. “I cannae thank ye enough for—”
“An’ if it ever happens that ye need to throw a drunkard oot, I’d prefer it if there was a little less blood involved.”
Lachlan fell silent. The meaning of Edna’s words was clear. She was grateful he had stepped in to resolve the fight, although she was less than pleased at the mess that had come from it.
The silence between the three of them was broken by the sound of a giggle coming from the kitchen and then one tiny voice trying to shush the other.
Angus and Isobel.
“Och, those little devils. I’ll kill them if they are breaking something in there!” Edna hissed. As she headed to the kitchen to chase her two youngest children back upstairs, she turned her attention to Maura and Lachlan one last time. “Maura, clean his face up. He looks like a wee urchin I pulled off the streets of Dunoon.”
It was true; Lachlan did look like a disheveled vagrant who’d wandered into the Inn. As her mother disappeared to shoo Maura’s younger siblings back up to bed, Maura beckoned him into the kitchen and sat him down at the table.
She could do nothing about the bruise that was blossoming above his cheekbone, nor could she relieve the myriad of bruises that were likely covering his torso beneath his shirt. All she could do was help to clean the cuts on his face and hands.
“Ye’re very kind to do this, miss,” Lachlan said quietly as she fetched a bowl of water and a cloth. Maura sat beside him and wetted the cloth before pressing it gently to the knuckles of his right hand. The skin was an angry red, and each knuckle had a little blood on it.
She looked up and met his eye, and for a moment, she did not recognize the man in front of her. It was true that he had all of the same features as the man who had defended her from the drunk—he had the same unruly auburn hair that fell back from his face in waves, the same brown eyes, the same straight nose. However, there was something so completely different about him in that moment that it was startling.
The man who’d stepped in to stop the fight had been full of this quiet rage that had bubbled just below the surface. His voice had dropped to a low growl, and his mouth had set into a thin line, forming a scowl. But there was none of that anger in his face now.
Despite the beating he’d taken and the blood that remained on his face as evidence of that, he looked oddly relaxed. His features had softened, making him look much younger than the man who had stepped into the fight earlier.
Maura cleaned the blood from his hands, and even though she knew the power those hands had and the things they were capable of, she did not feel any fear. Somehow, she felt safe to sit here in the quiet of the kitchen with Lachlan.
She wetted the cloth once more and reached up to begin wiping away the blood from his face. At some point during the fight, the drunkard had hit Lachaln in the mouth, and blood had run in rivers from his split lip. It was drying into the hairs of his beard, a dark stain against his face that Maura tried to clean. She wiped the cloth against his face as gently as possible, taking care not to hurt him any further.
With no more guests in the Inn and Edna tending to the children upstairs, the house around them had fallen silent. It was so quiet and still that Maura could hear the faint crackle of the candle on the table as it burned, the only source of light in the room. Finally, Lachlan broke the silence.
“Ye’d make a fine healer, Miss Maura.”
She smiled gently, wiping the cloth just below his lip to smear away the blood. “Thank ye, sir.”
He chuckled at that. “I’m nae a ‘sir’. Just call me Lachlan.”
“Thank ye, Lachlan.”
“Do men like that come in here often?” he asked. Maura dropped the cloth back in the bowl, offering a listless shrug in response.
“It’s not so often that they threaten to knock me or Maw. Mostly they fight with each other, and that’s usually outside.”
Lachlan nodded slowly, his face twisting into a grimace. “I ought to have run that bastard through with ma sword. Threatening to knock a young woman…”
For a brief moment, Maura saw a glimpse of the man from before—the man who’d fought to defend her and her mother. She saw a glimpse of that anger below the surface again, but when he pulled himself from his thoughts and met her gaze, it was gone.
“Ye must be tired,” he said. “I shouldn’t keep ye.”
She was tired, not that she wanted to show it. The day felt as though it had dragged into weeks, and all she wanted to do was curl up in her bed and fall asleep. Before she did that, she needed to be sure Lachlan was comfortable. Despite the fact that he had no money for a room, he was their guest, after all.
Maura took the candle from the table and beckoned Lachlan to follow her up the staircase to the rooms. The floorboards creaked in protest against their weight as they ascended, but they continued on regardless. On the top floor of the Inn, there was a small selection of rooms for the night. They were nothing particularly impressive—just a bed and a washbasin—but for the travelers they catered to, it was more than enough.
Edna had already shown Lachlan to his room earlier in the day. It was the room at the far end of the hall that overlooked the stable, which Maura suspected he had wanted in order to see Gairdh. She led Lachlan to his room with the light of the candle to guide her and left him at the door with a smile.
“Thank ye for your kindness tonight, miss.” Lachlan bowed his
head to her, and once again, Maura was struck by how starkly different he was to the man who had fought the drunkard before. The change in him was astounding—he’d shifted from a nameless traveler to a gentleman before her eyes.
She bade him goodnight before heading to her room, where she found her mother and siblings already asleep. Isobel and Angus were curled up in their shared bed in the corner of the room, and her mother was already snoring gently in her own bed. Maura smiled gently to herself at the sight of her family peacefully dozing, before getting ready for bed herself.
When she blew out the candle and settled into her own bed, left in the darkness with nothing but her thoughts, she couldn’t help but let them turn to Lachlan, and when she fell asleep, it was with a small smile on her lips.
4
The next morning, Maura was the last to rise. When she went downstairs, she found Edna clearing the remaining evidence of the fight from the night before, but there was no sight of Lachlan or her siblings.
Maura was suspicious when the two were not causing trouble for her and their mother, so she crept outside to look for them. There was a small part of her that feared they’d found Gairdh and would be tormenting the poor beast. When she could find no trace of them in front of Two Heathers, she walked around to the side of the Inn that led to the stable.
As she walked, Maura heard an unmistakable giggle that she knew meant Angus was somewhere around. That laugh wasn’t just an indication that he was nearby; it meant he was up to something he knew he wasn’t supposed to be doing.
She passed by the stable, but there was no sign of either of the children. Gairdh was stood there calmly, only twitching his ears a little as she walked past him. Confident that he was fine, Maura carried on towards the back of the Inn. The laughter got louder, and as she neared, Maura heard Angus’s voice.
“Then what happened?”
Highlander's Tempting Stranger: A Steamy Scottish Medieval Historical Romance Page 3