by Paula Quinn
She doubted she’d do anything differently than what he’d done if she were him.
But she wasn’t him. Thanks to two years of refusing Ranald Sinclair’s offers of marriage, she knew what kind of man he was. She didn’t trust that he knew the name of the people who had MacKenzie’s child. Or that Annabel was still alive. She hadn’t the heart to tell Lachlan that she didn’t believe it. Sinclair was using him to do what he didn’t have the courage to do.
She’d heard the hint of hope in MacKenzie’s voice when he spoke of finding her again. She would have acted on that hope. She knew any one of her kin would have as well.
But sympathizing with him wasn’t doing her any good. If she was truly the kind of person she sought for herself, she’d offer herself up to Sinclair in exchange for a child’s life. But she didn’t believe Sinclair knew anything about Annabel—which meant the lass was truly gone.
Mailie had to prove it to save herself, but doing that was going to hurt him. She cursed her traitorous heart and wiped a fresh wave of tears from her cheeks. She didn’t want to cause more pain to his already heavy soul.
“He was a faither, Ettarre,” she told her dog, continuing down the hill. Why did the image of him with his babe stir up wings in her belly? “He was a husband.” He’d loved a woman, taken her to his bed. Those images she pushed away, blushing as visions of his shapely lips descended on someone’s mouth, a sheen of sweat accentuating his tense, trembling muscles.
He’d lost his love. Mailie wasn’t jealous that he’d loved before, but she found herself wondering what kind of husband he had been. Gentle? Attentive? Loyal?
She shook her head to clear it of him and looked around. She’d almost come to the village. At her heel, Ettarre turned around and barked very softly toward the castle. Mailie saw Lachlan toward the top. He started down when their gazes met. She shook her head again, this time at his thinking she was fool enough to try to run away again. Where would she go without a horse?
The sun broke through the charcoal clouds as she reached the first stand of scattered cottages.
“Aye! She is comin’ back!”
Mailie followed the sounds of children fighting and turned toward the back of one of the cottages. She saw a lad standing up against another twice his size.
“Nae, she’s not! She’s dead!” the larger lad shouted.
She realized who the smaller boy was as he leaped at the larger one. Alice Monroe’s son.
She looked up at the sky as the sun disappeared behind the clouds.
“Stop it!” a young lass shouted at the boys, and then picked up a rock and threw it.
Normally, Mailie wouldn’t concern herself with boys fighting. It happened all the time in Camlochlin. But she wouldn’t stand by while a boy who’d just lost his mother was beaten up.
“Stop it this instant!” She hurried toward them and bent to untangle the lads’ limbs as they fought on the ground. She had to slap the bigger lad in the temple to get him to stop swinging. “What is this about?”
“His mother died,” the tall one cried, “and he thinks she’s comin’ back.”
“She is comin’ back!” The other swung at him.
“If Will says our mother is comin’ back,” the young lass who threw the rock shouted at them, “then she is!”
Och, nae, Alice had left two children. Were there more?
Will? The boy who’d met them on the hill last night! Mailie took a better look at him. Her heart sank. According to Ruth, Alice had had the doctor with her all day. Had she died just before the boy came upon them, or after Lachlan sent the boy home? Lachlan hadn’t known. He hadn’t known Alice Monroe died until the next day. He hadn’t known who she was. He didn’t know she was Will’s mother.
Either way was just as terrible.
And here was this big brute taunting him and his wee sister when they’d just lost their mother. Mailie set her frosty gaze on him. “Go away with ye now or I’ll ask yer laird to beat ye, since yer faither failed to teach ye the difference between right and wrong.”
He ran away with his friends close behind. Mailie hated having to be so stern with a young one. The children of Camlochlin were not so thoughtless or spoiled. A warning look from their or someone else’s mother was all it took to set them right.
She bent to William, a scrawny thing with a dirty face and defiance burning in his soulful brown eyes. “I’m Mailie. We met last eve.”
He rubbed his bruised eye with his grimy fist. “I remember.”
“I didna know,” she told him gently. “Neither did yer laird.”
He nodded, then squinted at the lads playing in the distance. “Ranald started it.”
“I’ve nae doubt.” Mailie scowled, also looking at the boys. “I know a man named Ranald whom I’d like to throw some rocks at.” She let her eyes settle on the little girl, and then she winked. Her face, though she hadn’t been fighting as far as Mailie knew, was just as dirty. Her long dark hair was a tangled mess around her small face and large sable eyes. When she answered Mailie’s wink with a soft smile, Mailie wanted to gather her up in her arms.
“I’m Mailie,” she said, holding out her hand.
The lass dropped a small rock she’d been clutching and fit her hand in Mailie’s. “I’m Lily.”
“The laird is here,” Will told her through the side of his lips. “Ye willna tell him aboot the fight, aye? If he thinks me a trooble seeker—”
“He willna think that.” She rose and turned to see Lachlan walking toward them at a leisurely pace.
“Please, m’lady,” Will whispered. “We’ve no—”
“He will no’ think ye’re a trooble seeker, Will,” she promised, meeting Lachlan’s angry gaze. No doubt he thought she was trying to escape him again. “He’s no’ a monster all the time.” She said the last loud enough for him to hear. She was pleased to see him pause whatever he meant to shout at her and consider the children.
“Laird MacKenzie,” she said, offering him a smile tainted with regret. “Mr. Monroe here has graciously offered to show me aroond the village tomorrow, even though his mother went home to the Lord last eve.”
William turned to look up at her, but it was the understanding and regret passing over Lachlan’s features that held her gaze. He’d turned the boy away.
“Lad…” He moved forward, stopping a hairbreadth from Mailie. She saw his eyes sweep over the girl before he looked away. “Ye…” He inched closer and then squatted to have a better look at young Will’s swelling eye. “Were ye fighting?”
“Ranald Fraser started it,” the lad defended himself.
“The lout and his friends were tauntin’ Will and his sister aboot their mother,” Mailie added.
He looked up at her with a storm in his eyes. Aye, she thought. He’d see Will’s side of it. She’d known it was a gamble when she made her promise, but she suspected there was something soft beneath all Lachlan MacKenzie’s gruff exterior.
“M’lady told Ranald,” Will informed him while his left eye began to swell, “that she’d ask ye to beat him.”
“Ranald, eh?” Lachlan flicked his gaze to her. “I might.”
She wasn’t going to smile at him like some dimwit right here, was she? Was there a chance he wouldn’t go through with Sinclair’s plan? Could she convince him to bring her back to her father? “Lily threw rocks.”
He glanced at the lass. He looked physically uncomfortable by her close proximity but forged onward. “Did ye hit anyone?”
Lily nodded while her eyes took in his face and the scar that covered half of it. She appeared more curious than afraid. Mailie was proud of her. Even without his marred skin, his steely gaze and the sheer size of him were frightening to behold.
“Good,” he told her, turning the burned side of his face away and straightening to his full height.
Mailie noticed it and almost reached out to touch him. She wanted to tell him that he wasn’t a monster most of the time. She didn’t want him to be ashamed of scars he’d
likely received trying to rescue his wife and child from the flames.
“How old are ye, lass?” he asked her when his gaze returned yet again to her wide eyes.
“Six, Laird.”
Mailie realized quickly that Lily was about the same age Annabel would be.
“William,” he said, returning his pained expression to the boy, “fergive me fer my abruptness with ye last eve. I didna know.”
“Mailie told me,” Will informed him, “but I already knew.”
Lachlan cut his smoky silver gaze to her, then smiled at Will. “I’ll see that yer family is fed.”
“And protected,” Mailie interjected.
Lachlan’s shoulders rose and he closed his eyes for a moment, mayhap two, as if in silent prayer. Finally, he continued, “Have yer father come to the castle.”
“We dinna have a faither, Laird,” William told him.
What? No father? Mailie bent to the boy again and stared into his eyes. “Is there no one to take care of ye?”
He shook his head and slipped his weighted gaze to his sister.
Mailie stood up in a rush of wool and red hair as she spun around to Lachlan. She’d forgotten how close to her he’d come and ended up pressed against his hard chest. She set her hand on it as if to push herself off, but she didn’t move save to look up at him. “They’re orphaned!”
He didn’t move either as shadows and lightning mixed in his gaze. Beneath her palm, his heart thundered. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. Why would he? They were strangers to him. Everyone in the village, save for Ruth, was.
“Ye’ll need to take them in until—”
“What?” His expression on her darkened, and he moved to take a step back away from her. “No!”
“Ye’re their laird,” she reminded him calmly—though her hands balled into fists as she crossed her arms over her chest. “’Tis yer duty until ye can find a good family who will raise them.”
“Ruth will take them. I’m sure—”
“Ye would burden a woman of her years with two more mouths to feed when she’s already feeding yers?”
He blinked, the storm in his eyes growing more turbulent. “She is…she doesna…”
Mailie stared at him and waited for him to go on. When he didn’t, she turned back to the children.
“’Tis settled, then. Ye’ll both live in the castle with yer laird until other arrangements are made.”
“Until our mother returns,” William corrected her.
“Aye, mayhap until then.”
“Miss MacGregor!”
She whirled to glare at Lachlan. Surely he wasn’t going to suggest these babes be passed from family to family until one of them agreed to keep them? What if they were forced to live with Ranald Fraser’s family? “Aye, my lord?”
Thankfully, he suggested no such thing. “We’ll speak more aboot this at the castle,” he growled at her and then stormed off, shouting over his shoulder, “I have a letter to pen!”
Chapter Nine
Penning his letter to Sinclair’s emissary should have been the first thing Lachlan did when he returned home. The sooner Mailie MacGregor was out of his life, the better. She was disrupting everything. His peace, his quiet, and his thoughts. Hell, he thought, slamming the door to the study, he hadn’t planned this through. He hadn’t considered how long she’d be here with him. And now he’d allowed her to bring two children into the castle! Fool! This was his own fault. His punishment for kidnapping a lass.
What would he do with them if Annabel was alive and Mailie was gone? He should send them to her and Sinclair as a wedding gift. And why the hell did the idea of Mailie marrying the Earl of Caithness make him grind his jaw until it pained him?
She wasn’t his concern. Neither were the children. He missed his wife and his own child. There was no place in his shattered heart for anyone else.
They were orphans, left to fend for themselves. Why the hell had Ruth failed to mention that? If Mailie wasn’t here, he would not have known the children were alone.
He’d likely be better off. Oblivion wasn’t as bad as some made it out to be.
What the hell was he supposed to do with two orphans? Where would they sleep? He thought about the upper floors. He hadn’t ventured up there in years. There were plenty of rooms, including Bel’s. Would Mailie put one of them in Annabel’s bed?
No. He wouldn’t allow it. He went to the door, opened it, and strode out into the hall as Mailie was entering the castle with the children.
He met her gaze knowing he was pale and, quite honestly, terrified. There hadn’t been a child here in almost two years. He wanted to demand that she take them back to the village.
The wee lass’s gaze captured and held his as Mailie led the two toward Ruth. She reminded him of Annabel. He wanted to go to her and beg her forgiveness for not being there to protect her from the flames. He looked away and followed them, keeping to the shadows.
“Does Lachlan know aboot this?” he heard Ruth ask, her voice laced with stunned disbelief.
Aye, Ruth would set things right again. She’d tell Mailie to bring the children somewhere else.
“He knows,” Mailie told her. “They’ll be stayin’ fer a while. I’ll cook fer them until Lachlan sends me away. Ye needna worry aboot their meals.”
“Och, nonsense. I’ll be happy to help ye.”
What? Lachlan blinked and then scowled at his oldest friend. She’d be happy to help? She knew he’d be miserable. Why was she helping Mailie?
“By the looks of ye, ye dinna cook or eat much.”
“I can cook quite well,” Mailie told her proudly. “My mother is Isobel MacGregor, the best cook in Scotland.” She looked down at the children and gasped. “Ye both must be hungry! Come, come into the kitchen.”
Watching from the shadows, Lachlan drew in a long breath. He should ride Mailie MacGregor straight to Caithness and wait for Sinclair there. Ruth would find good homes for the children. They weren’t his. They weren’t Annabel.
He felt something cold and wet touch his hand. He looked down at Ettarre and felt the urge to smile at her big, scrappy head and huge lambent eyes. “Are we friends, then?”
“Ettarre?” came Mailie’s stirring voice from the kitchen.
The dog looked over its shoulder and whined, then turned back to him.
“Go on to her,” he urged, then turned to go back inside the study.
“Lachlan?” Her voice was closer this time.
He stopped. Why did his name sound so intimate on her lips? Why didn’t she use his title…or beast? Since when had she made herself so comfortable with him?
He turned around slowly to face her. Hell, she was bonny, with a temper to match the fire in her eyes. She was built so delicately he could have carried her all the way back to Skye this morning without breaking a sweat. “Aye?”
“Come into the kitchen and eat with us.” At her side, Ettarre turned for the kitchen and then looked back at him, as if beckoning him to follow.
That was the last thing he wanted to do. Why get attached or comfortable with any of them when they were all leaving? “No, I—”
“William has asked fer ye three times,” Mailie told him mercilessly.
Lachlan wouldn’t be tempted. This wasn’t his family. “He shouldn’t get attached,” he told her distantly. “Now, if ye’ll excuse me, I have a letter to pen.”
“Verra well, then.” She moved to leave, sounding just a wee bit disappointed. Why would she be?
“The first bedroom on the left,” he said, stopping her. He pointed up. “No one sleeps in that room.”
“As ye wish,” she said softly.
“Five days, Miss MacGregor. Ruth will help ye find them a permanent home.”
“These things canna be rushed, my lord,” she said, folding her arms across her chest, her green eyes blazing. “I’ll tend to them while I’m here. Ye need do nothin’. Ye willna even know they are here.”
He tossed her a doubtful smirk. �
�Five days.”
She smiled through her teeth. “As ye wish. Anything else?”
“No.” He tightened his lips to keep them shut and watched her and Ettarre return to the kitchen. He thought he heard Mailie call him a monster as she left.
He let her go, not knowing what else he had to say other than ask her why she had to be the one Sinclair wanted. He wouldn’t call her back. For what purpose? To ask her what she meant by charging into his life and upsetting everything?
He turned away from the kitchen, from the sounds of life coming from inside, and stormed into his study.
His muscles burned from being tense all day, ready to take off after her if she ran. His head pounded from her attack this morning. His thoughts were clouded, and even his bones felt out of place. He fell into his chair and raked his fingers through his black locks. He was exhausted for the first time since he could remember. She had to go and so did the children.
He hated Sinclair’s emissary for telling him about Annabel’s burned arms, for forcing him back to that day and what he’d become after. How he’d hunted down each man responsible and what he’d done to them. It painted his dreams in blood, gore, and fire.
But today, thanks to his bold captive, his thoughts were filled with memories of happier times—of days when sunshine and laughter filled the castle. He missed his family.
Hell, he was weary and it wasn’t even midday! It was Mailie’s fault. She was dredging up emotions he didn’t want to feel, exhausting him by making him chase and fight her at every turn. If there was one good thing about the children being here, it was that Mailie wouldn’t likely try to run away again.
She was right to think of him as a monster. Only a monster could have done to his family’s killers what he’d done to them. If Annabel was alive, how could he ever be a fit father when his heart was so black?