Laird of the Black Isle

by Paula Quinn

  “Why?” Mailie’s determination to hate him faltered just a little. Why did the devil have him? What had he done? She released her skirts and turned to Ruth. “What happened to him? How did he become so hideously flawed?”

  “If ye speak of his scars—”

  “I speak of his character,” Mailie quickly pointed out. What did one care of scars when his soul was so wretched?

  Ruth didn’t look any less offended by Mailie’s clarification than she had before it and went back to cutting figs.

  She would be no help. Ruth was as loyal to Lachlan as Ettarre was to her. She looked at her dog scratching on the door to be let out. Damnation. She scowled at the hound, pulled her arisaid from the hook, and then followed her out.

  Mailie didn’t care about his peace and quiet. She wanted answers and she was tired of waiting. The sound of metal clanging against metal drew her back to the yard, where she found him in his smithy, working beside the forge. Flames shot up around him, giving off heat even from where she stood a few feet away.

  Despite the crisp air, he’d abandoned his léine and wore only heavy gloves, his knee-length breeches, kidskin boots, and a leather apron from his chest to his knees. His bare, corded arms already glistened as he pushed air into the fire to make it burn more fiercely, using heavy wood and leather bellows.

  The sight of him nearly foiled her intentions. Her gaze took him in of its own accord. His breeches were belted low on his waist, providing glimpses of his flat belly and the alluring curve of his hips. He looked as hard as he’d felt against her, atop her, on their journey here.

  Waves of heat from the forge washed over her, clouding her thoughts. That had to be the reason she was covertly admiring him. The muscles pulsing and bulging in his arms made her forget why she’d come outside. He didn’t appear to be scarred anywhere else.

  He looked up from the flames as she drew nearer.

  “Have ye come to remind me what a terrible laird I am?”

  She remembered. So, then, she had been correct when she’d assumed he didn’t know Alice. “I didna say a word in the kitchen, my lord.”

  “Yer eyes are expressive, lass,” he told her, and dunked his metal into a vat of water. Steam rose around them, bathing her in warmth…or was it his voice that heated her flesh? “They speak fer ye—and they’ve had as much to say as yer…ehm…” His smoky gaze dipped to her lips.

  “My…?” she challenged. She knew what he wanted to say. She liked watching him squirm, stripped of his confidence, even for a moment.

  “Tongue,” he said, going colder, harder, snatching her victory away with a single word spoken on a shallow breath. “Yer tongue,” he said again, lifting his gaze from her lips.

  A strange lick of warmth went down her spine as she stared into his silvery, haunted eyes. She rejected it immediately.

  He crooked a corner of his mouth. “Is it always so busy?”

  She released a breath she didn’t know she was holding and narrowed her eyes on him. “It hasna even begun,” she promised on a tight breath. “Do ye honestly think I would give ye the peace ye ask fer after what ye’ve done?” She moved closer to him. Her fear was gone and replaced by anger and compassion for her kin. “Is my faither or any one of my kin enjoyin’ peace now? Why should ye?” she demanded, her hands balling into fists at her sides as her frustration built. “If I thought ye wouldna beat me, I would slap yer face and go on slappin’ it every day.”

  “I wouldna beat ye,” he assured her, but she wasn’t listening. She blinked back a rush of tears. She wouldn’t give him the pleasure of seeing her weep.

  “I’m goin’ to shatter yer quiet, and lay waste to yer peace, Lachlan MacKenzie. Ye’ll find oot how busy my tongue can be.”

  He was illuminated by fire, so she could see the slightest curl of his mouth.

  She hated him. A hammer across his jaw would be even more satisfying than her palm. “Now, MacKenzie. Ye’ve avoided answerin’ me long enough. When are ye deliverin’ me to Sinclair?”

  “He’ll be coming to fetch ye when he gets word.”

  Mailie stared at him. She wouldn’t beg him not to do it. She doubted he’d listen anyway. “Ye’re the most heartless man I’ve ever met.”

  “Ye’re fortunate, then,” he answered, and returned the metal to the fire.

  He sounded as if he knew firsthand what heartless men were like. She didn’t care. She didn’t feel fortunate. She told him and then she left him alone. She could irritate him later. She couldn’t think straight with him glistening with sweat while he brought his hammer up and then down again.

  She strode back to the castle, calling for her traitorous hound behind her. She wanted to seek out Ruth again and try to convince her to let Mailie borrow her horse. It was going to be difficult, for the nursemaid loved him, but she had to try. She needed to find her brother—find help. She would be gentler in her tactics this time.

  She found Ruth in the study, clutching Perrault’s prose to her chest.

  “Did ye read him those tales when he was a child?” Mailie asked her, entering the softly lit room.

  “Nae,” Ruth told her, wiping her eyes. “He read them to…”

  Mailie waited. He’d read them? To whom? She wasn’t leaving the study until she found out. “Who did he read them to, Ruth?” she asked quietly, setting her hand on the maid’s shoulder. “Ye say this isna who he is. Help me understand him, then, and mayhap I can convince my father to let him live.”

  Ruth looked down at the book and ran her fingers lovingly down the cover. “To Annabel. His daughter.”

  Mailie didn’t breathe. In fact, she was certain her heart had just stopped beating. His daughter? “The Sleeping Beauty of the Wood.” She wanted to smile thinking of it. But…“Why is she no’ with him? Where is she?”

  “Gone from this world.” Ruth replaced the book on its shelf with tender, shaky hands. “Almost two years ago.”

  “His wife?” Mailie heard herself ask. Already she felt tears welling up in her eyes.

  “Hannah,” Ruth told her as tears flowed freely down her face. “Och, how he loved her. She was a wonderful mother, devoted to Lachlan.”

  Both of them. Mailie’s heart plummeted. Nae. It would be too much to bear for anyone. “How?” she asked. Nae, she didn’t want to know! She was sorry she’d asked anything at all. She didn’t want to feel sympathy for him.

  “A group of Jacobites were angry at Lachlan’s loyalty to the throne. He was living with his family in England at the time. His enemies discovered where the manor house was and lit fire to it, burning all inside. Lachlan had been away and so was spared. Annabel was just four summers old.”

  Mailie was going to be sick. Who could set fire to a mother and her child? It was too horrible to imagine. She swallowed back a wave of pity and bit her lower lip to keep her eyes dry. He’d had a daughter, a wife. He’d lived a normal life with a family, likely right here in this castle. Dear God, they’d been burned alive! No wonder he was so dark and melancholy.

  Was he truly as bad as the men in the tales shared around various tables inside Camlochlin’s great hall on days when they all came together? She always sat at her beloved grandsire Callum’s table, for he had the best tales. She missed them. She missed them terribly. “He took me from my kin.”

  “I know, dear,” Ruth told her in a gentle voice. “’Twas a terrible thing he did—but part of me understands why he did it. It might cost him his life, though I pray it doesna.”

  “Will ye no’ tell me why he did it?” Mailie asked, hopeful when Ruth looked about to tell her. They heard him enter the castle.

  “’Tis no’ fer me to say, Miss MacGregor,” the maid whispered, glancing toward the door. “But of his family, he doesna speak, nor will ye.”

  Mailie stepped aside to let her pass when Ruth turned to go. She had so many questions! It was clear Ruth wouldn’t help Mailie escape. Even at the cost of the whole damned village, she wouldn’t betray him. What had he done to deserve that kind o
f love and loyalty—besides suffer?

  Mailie chewed her lip and went to the window. The devil has him in his clutches. What did that mean? What had he done? Did Ruth suspect he had something to do with his wife and daughter’s deaths? If not for the book with its favored tales marked with little strips of wool, Mailie might have suspected him. But not now.

  Had he turned into a monster after his family was killed? What had he been like before that?

  Annabel. His child, his bairn. For hell’s sake, her throat was closing up at the thought of him sitting at his daughter’s bedside or in his chair with her, small and sleepy-eyed in his lap, reading “The Sleeping Beauty” to her.

  She heard him enter the study and turned away from the window. The width of his shoulders blocked the entryway. He looked to have freshened up. He’d exchanged his leather apron for a cream-colored léine belted low on his narrow waist, its long sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

  He stared at her for a moment as if he were lost in thought and had forgotten who she was.

  “I thought ye might have gone in fer a nap.”

  She almost laughed. She would have if she didn’t feel so sad for him—and if it wasn’t so obvious that he didn’t want her company. She tried not to take it as a personal insult, though why she cared, she didn’t know.

  He didn’t want any company.

  He was all alone here in his dark, dreary castle, performing every task, living with ghosts.

  Mayhap it was time to return to the living. “I’m no’ sleepy.”

  His eyes fell to his chair for a moment and then moved back to her. “I’ll leave ye to looking oot the window, then.”

  “Wait!” She stopped him when he turned to leave. “Since ye brought me here, I think ’tis only fair that ye keep me company. I bore easily.”

  She saw his shoulders scrunch up before he pivoted to look at her. “Verra well, I came in here to pen a letter. After I do that, what would ye like to do?”

  A letter to Sinclair, no doubt, telling him that MacKenzie had her. Mayhap if he had a heart after all, she could convince him not to give her away. He’d been a father. He had to understand what he’d done to hers.

  She looked around and shrugged her shoulders. “Ye pick.”

  “Me?” He looked so lost she started feeling sorry for him again.

  “We could talk.”

  He actually closed his eyes with dread. “Aboot what?” he asked, sounding insultingly defeated.

  She glanced at the shelves taking up three of the walls. “Books.”

  He didn’t look horrified. A small victory.

  What was the battle about? Why did she care if someone to talk to would do him good? He’d taken her from her brother with the intention to deliver her to a pig. What did she care if Lachlan MacKenzie lived or died? She didn’t. She shouldn’t.

  “Ye could sit in yer chair and we’ll talk aboot yer collection. My grandmother would be impressed.”

  They chatted for a moment about her grandmother. He came closer and offered her the chair. She refused. He’d been on his feet since predawn. He had to be tired. She hoped he was. It would prove he was human.

  “I’ve never read many of these volumes,” she said, going to the nearest shelf and running her fingers over the book spines. “Nor have I heard of some others.”

  “Are you familiar with the works of Sir Thomas Browne?” he asked, watching her from the chair he’d just fallen into, his letter forgotten. Another small victory.

  “Only The Garden of Cyrus,” she told him, letting herself enjoy the conversation.

  Shadows and firelight danced over the scars he tried to conceal from her. Despite them, he smiled and she felt something stir within. “One of his best. How did ye get a copy?”

  “My kin know—influential people.” No need to tell him the volume was a gift from Queen Anne. “I’d never read Perrault though,” she said, bringing up the topic gently.

  “Oh?” He shifted in the chair and shook his head to clear his dark waves from his eyes. “Which tale did ye read?”

  Her heart pounded in her chest. What would he do when she made him remember his child? Would he pounce on her throat, curse the day he listened to Sinclair?

  “‘The Sleeping Beauty of the Wood,’” she answered softly, keeping her eyes on him in case he made any sudden moves. No matter what he’d once been, he was a beast now.

  She wished he had done either of the things she’d expected. For what was anger compared to the dull ache of the never again? She saw it pass over his gaze, his mouth as it set into softer lines. Her heart broke for him.

  “A favorite,” he said, smiling out of his turmoil, taking up his shields.

  Shields didn’t bother Mailie. Growing up with the MacGregors and Grants, one learned how to smash through them, if—as her father had taught her—going around them wasn’t an option.

  “A favorite of whose?” she asked as lightly as she could manage, and reached for the book.

  “Of…”

  He paused, not wanting to say. She could hear the pain in his voice. She waited, her head bent to the volume, doing her best to continue hating him.

  “Of…my daughter’s.”

  Chapter Eight

  Lachlan had finally gone mad. It had to be the reason he was sitting here mentioning Annabel to a lass he’d kidnapped yesterday.

  Talking about her wouldn’t bring her back.

  He loved his wife. He always would. He’d met Hannah in Holland during his early years in the dragoons. They fell in love in a whirlwind, married, and had Annabel. They returned to Avoch and then lived in England when Bel was two. They lived and laughed until their days came to an end. Losing Hannah had been hard enough. Losing his babe though, well, that had cost him everything. He hated thinking of it. He did his best not to. But he still remembered her. Her large blue eyes, the dimple in her left cheek. He’d never forgotten a thing about her, especially the sound of her tinkling laughter. He could still hear her soft, wee voice asking him for a story.

  He could still hear himself promising to protect her from any sleeping enchantment.

  He’d failed.

  Seeing Mailie reach for Perrault had stirred welcome memories of the past. Not of the worst day of his life but some of the best.

  Or he’d finally given in to madness.

  Thankfully, she didn’t ask him what had befallen his family. He guessed Ruth had told her, though she would deny it vehemently.

  “‘Cinderella’ was another one she loved.”

  “I’m sorry ye lost her,” his captive said, coming around to sit on the floor between him and the hearth. “I’m sorry ye lost them both.”

  Aye, Ruth had told her. He looked down into her eyes and then past her, to stare into the flames. “So am I.”

  “Ye readin’ aboot charmin’ princes is difficult to imagine though.”

  He blinked back to her. Whatever spell had just taken hold of him was broken. He feigned insult. “I was believable in my renditions.”

  “Well,” she said, obviously feigning regret. “I shall never discover if that’s true, so—”

  He slipped out of the chair and onto his knees before her. He took her hand and held it to his lips for a tender kiss. “I love ye, Beauty…” His throat felt as if it were closing. Caught up in Miss MacGregor’s light banter, he thought to prove her incorrect in her judgment. He hadn’t thought about speaking these words again, or how acting them out would affect him. His eyes stung, and it was so shocking to him that he nearly bolted to his feet. He hadn’t let tears flow in—he couldn’t recall if he had wept more than once.

  He didn’t care. He put aside the pain of losing his daughter—just for a moment. He wanted to speak the words again and remember how loving her felt. “…better than I love myself.”

  * * *

  Mailie felt her bones crumbling, her muscles melting. She wanted to smile at him, but she felt more like fainting. He was believable because his words were true. His shimmering eyes
and his strangled breath and faltering voice were proof. As the story read…

  His words were faltering, but they pleased the more for that. The less there is of eloquence, the more there is of love.

  “Convincin’,” she said, doing her best to sound nonchalant. “I’m surprised.”

  He ignored her insult and stretched out his arms instead, took a bow on his knees, and then leaned back on his haunches. “I havena always been a monster.”

  She grew serious despite the quirk of his lips. She was sorry she’d called him a monster now that she understood what he’d lost. Of course he didn’t care about what he’d put her family through. He’d stopped letting himself care about anything. But it wasn’t too late.

  “Ye dinna have to continue to be one. Dinna send me to Sinclair. I’ll make certain there will be no fightin’ between my kin and ye if ye return me to them.”

  He stared into her eyes for a moment, as if he were considering it. Then he rose from his knees and stood. “There is nothing I can do,” he told her, setting his cool gray gaze toward the window.

  She didn’t want to go back to hating him, but it was difficult. Of course there was something he could do. He could choose to do the right thing.

  She stood up and swatted her hair off her cheek. “What does Sinclair have that means more to ye than yer own integrity?”

  He dipped his eyes to his hands, veiling them beneath his long lashes. “What he claims to have means more to me than my life.”

  She could tell it was very important to him by the tremor in his voice. “What is it?” she asked on a stalled breath.

  “Proof that my daughter is alive.”

  Mailie left the castle with Ettarre at her side. She wasn’t running off anywhere. There was no place to go. The people in the village might help her, but she wouldn’t get far before Lachlan caught her and sent her off to Sinclair.

  And now she understood why there was nothing he could do. She hadn’t argued with him about contacting the Earl of Caithness. It was his daughter he was out to find—and all at once the hard-hearted ogre resembled something more radiant. She could fault him for a dozen other things, but not that. She hadn’t asked him for details. She hadn’t wanted to imagine the cruelty of heartless men. He’d been correct. She was fortunate that of all the heartless men, she’d been taken by him.