by Paula Quinn
His belly growled and he cursed it. It was his kitchen, his castle. Why was he denying himself food because of a pair of little faces and an accusing one?
He glared at the door. He was a colonel with six years of experience in battle, he thought, rising from his chair and moving toward the door. He wasn’t about to let a delicately formed lass and two children bring him down.
He left the study and, girding his loins, marched himself into the kitchen.
He didn’t expect the utter silence at his presence. Five pairs of eyes settled on him, including Ettarre’s, while he stood there like a fool, unable to take another step.
His gaze fell on William sitting at the table with his sister, finishing his meal with one half-closed eye. When the lad saw him, his face broke into a wide grin that got Lachlan moving.
Ruth leaped forward and offered to fix him something to eat. He assured her that he could help himself and reached for a bowl on one of the high shelves.
On his way to the hearth, he found Mailie leaning against the table, watching him. He realized he was scowling when she frowned at him. Then he thought he saw something—like satisfaction or humor—flash across her green eyes. She was mocking him. She wanted to disrupt his life, as he’d done to hers. She’d told him she would, hadn’t she?
“How did pennin’ yer letter go?” she asked with a sharp quirk of her brow.
He still hadn’t penned it. What was he waiting for?
“Well. ’Tis going…ehm”—he moved toward the trivet, breaking eye contact with her—“well.”
“Who are ye pennin’ a letter to, Laird?” William asked him, then shoved his spoon into his mouth.
“Ranald Sinclair,” Mailie told them before Lachlan could—not that he was going to. He had no intention on answering at all.
“The same Ranald,” wee Lily asked, “who ye want to throw rocks at?”
Mailie nodded and let out a little sigh. “The same.”
“What’s yer letter to Mailie’s enemy aboot, Laird?” Will again. He was going to be a double pleasure to have around.
“’Tis just a letter.”
“Laird MacKenzie is makin’ arrangements to bring me to him so that I could be Lord Sinclair’s wife.”
When both children scowled at him, he dropped his spoon into his bowl and stared at her. It was low and meant to prick his conscience in front of the lad and his sister. Though Lachlan didn’t like her tactics, he appreciated that she used them. “Ye’ve chosen a different weapon, but ye continue to fight.”
She tilted her chin up at him, and Lachlan was reminded of a magnificent wild mustang he’d seen in the colonies. “Against marryin’ Ranald, aye, I do.”
“Why dinna ye marry the laird instead?”
Lachlan furrowed his brow at the lad. Something was going to have to be done about young William Monroe.
“I’m waitin’ fer a certain kind of man,” Mailie told him.
“What kind?” Lily asked, putting down her spoon. Lachlan noted quickly that her bowl was still full.
“A man who is honest and charitable, loyal to God and his wife and king—or queen. He will be fair and kind, well-mannered, and slow to anger. He’ll be—”
“Ye’ll never find a husband,” Lachlan muttered, finally filling his bowl.
“Pardon me?” Mailie shot at him. “Camlochlin is full of men just like that.”
He turned toward her and lifted his spoon to his mouth. “Then why were ye batting yer eyelashes at that witless fool in Inverness?”
“I see ye continue to fight as well.” She narrowed her eyes on him and then smiled at Lily. “Would ye prefer something else to eat?”
“Nae,” the lass replied, and pushed the bowl away.
“Ye’ve had quite a time,” Mailie comforted her, forgetting Lachlan. “Why dinna we go find yer rooms, and then I’ll prepare a bath for each of ye and—” She turned to Lachlan. “Ye do have a bath, do ye no’?”
He nodded and pointed to a wooden bath tucked into a shadowy corner of the kitchen. The bath was large, but not large enough for him.
“Ye bathe in that?” she asked him.
“No, I bathe in the spring.”
A soft blush stole across her cheeks as if she was imagining it. She gave her head a little shake as if to expel him from her thoughts.
“Come then, children.” She left the table and held out her hands to them.
“I’ll take them,” Ruth offered. “Ye and Laird MacKenzie stay here and get the bath ready. We’ll be fine.”
What the hell was Ruth doing? She didn’t know he’d told Mailie about Annabel’s room, and she was likely just trying to avoid anything that brought him pain. But why not take Mailie with her? He could see to the bath without any help. She knew he didn’t like company. It was odd behavior on her part, and he’d have a talk with her later about it.
He looked over his spoon at Mailie and then at Ettarre, both watching him eat.
It wasn’t that he minded speaking with Mailie. He’d wanted to have words with her when she was done with the children. He guessed now was as good a time as any. But where to begin? What had he wanted to speak with her about?
“Ye’re goin’ to have to stop broodin’ so much,” she told him, hurtling through his thoughts. “William looks up to ye, and I dinna want him to think ’tis an acceptable way to behave.”
He blinked at her. Was she jesting? She unsettled his life, dumped two orphans into his lap, and now she was scolding him for brooding? “What?”
“All those dark expressions ye wear so comfortably,” she clarified, unfazed by his darkest scowl of all, further shocking him with her unabashed audacity. “I know why ye wear them, but ye’re frightenin’ the children.”
He opened his mouth and then shut it again. He didn’t know where to begin. Mayhap tossing her over his shoulder and dumping her in the spring would be a good start. “They didna look frightened to me,” he said on a low growl. “And if ye have found me scowling, ’tis because ye are becoming a true pain in my arse.”
She didn’t flinch, but rested her knuckles on the slight swell of her hips and came right back at him. “Och! I’m a pain in yer arse?”
“Ye’re finally beginning to understand,” he said, setting down his bowl and leveling his powerful gaze at hers. He realized by the flashing emerald spark in her eyes that she wasn’t backing down.
“Ye say that because I make ye see the selfish man ye are—or have become. It doesna matter which. Ye keep yerself from everyone else, detached and heartless. If that makes ye uncomfortable and ’tis why ye scowl so often, then ’tis a step in the right direction.”
He almost laughed. Who the hell did she think she was? “’Tis selfish of me to want my daughter back? To want to keep my life uncomplicated and quiet?”
“Ye think havin’ yer daughter back will no’ complicate yer life?” she charged. “Ye’re a fool.”
Aye, he knew having Annabel back would change things he wasn’t sure he was ready for. He’d had enough of thinking about it, and about how Mailie’s ever defiant voice was beginning to replace Hannah’s ghostly echoes. He didn’t want them replaced. He’d grown used to them.
Reaching for a pair of buckets, he turned to leave the kitchen. “I dinna care if she complicates my life. Annabel is mine. No one else here is.”
Still, he had to admit as he left the kitchen, the spark of life Mailie possessed shone like a light piercing the gloom, tempting him to reach out and touch it.
Just touch it.
Chapter Ten
Mailie watched him go and shook her fist at his back. She’d prefer his eye or his jaw. She’d never wanted to strike a man the way she wanted to strike him. He was completely infuriating!
She was a pain in his arse? It was the other way around!
She had a few things to say to the blackheart and followed after him.
With Ettarre hot on her heels, she caught up with him as he made his way around the eastern wall to a small well off the
side of the hill. “Did ye ferget ’twas ye who brought me here?” she demanded.
“Not fer a single instant.”
Instead of him feeling guilty or repentant, his tone sounded insulting to Mailie’s ears. She looked around for a rock to throw at his head. It wouldn’t do any good. His skull was as thick as the stone walls.
“If ye hate me bein’ here so much,” she threw at him, hurrying to keep pace beside him, “why have ye still no’ finished yer damn letter to Sinclair? I’m ready to pen it myself if ’twill deliver me from ye sooner.”
Was that a trace of a smile she saw hovering around his mouth? She wondered if he’d still be smiling after she slapped him. “What stops ye from bringin’ me to Caithness tomorrow?”
“Sinclair isna there. He’s hiding.”
“Aye, because Caithness is one of the first places my kin will search fer me. My kin will suspect him and go there to save me. They might be on their way even now. Bring me to them. They will help ye find Annabel.”
He finally stopped and turned to look at her. He didn’t say a word for a moment, and Mailie found herself foolishly searching his cool gray gaze for his heart.
“They’ll kill me the moment they have ye back.”
“They willna put a hand to ye if I speak—”
“No,” he said, turning to the well to fill his buckets. “’Tis already done. Sinclair knows where my daughter is. He will tell me or pay fer all of this with his life.”
It was already done. She blinked slowly, almost resigned what he was sentencing her to. “Or I’ll pay fer it with mine as his wife.”
His gaze fell back to her. His eyes glittered like smelted steel. His jaw clenched as if the last thing he wanted to hear about was her marriage to Sinclair. It made her heart thud wildly in her chest with hope. Mayhap he was having second thoughts about giving her to an unscrupulous rogue. She prayed there was a man somewhere beneath his scales. A man with awareness of his own heart buried under a weight few would want to carry. That was why he hadn’t yet penned his letter. He knew kidnapping her was wrong, despite its reason, but he’d retreated so far away from caring that he didn’t know his tenants in the village just below him. There was only one way to bring this to a satisfying end. She had to draw him out, no matter how much pain the light brought with it. Then she could convince him to bring her to her kin. Her father wouldn’t kill him. The MacGregors weren’t savages—and sometimes she hated that the world didn’t know the kind of men who lived in Camlochlin.
“I dinna want to be his wife. The thought of his hands on me…his mouth…” She shivered in her skin, using what she suspected bothered him to further her cause. “He strikes his servants, but if he ever put a hand to me I would kill him in his sleep.”
His jaw tightened, drawing her eyes there. His scar stretched toward the shadow beneath his full lower lip. She wondered if he tasted as dark and dangerous as he looked. He didn’t like her speaking about Sinclair touching her. She could see the lightning flashing in his stormy eyes. Mailie felt something pull at her heart.
“Ye’re the only one who can help me, Lachlan.” She knew involving himself in her life was a lot to ask of him. He wanted his daughter and nothing more, but how would a buried man raise a child? “I want to help ye too.”
Her heart raced. He almost looked convinced.
The heavy breeze swept his dark silky hair over his unscarred temple. The sun shone on all the magnificent parts of his face—on everything he once was. But there was another side, one he preferred to keep hidden, of what he had become.
Mailie wanted to see both sides. She took a step closer to him, until she was close enough to lift her hand to his scarred jaw. He flinched as if she’d slapped him, but she settled her fingertips on his skin and turned his head to face her fully.
“Did this happen when ye were tryin’ to save them?”
“No,” he told her on a labored breath. He covered her fingers with his, then lifted them off his face. “It happened when I was killing those responsible fer it.”
She looked into his eyes and then over his entire visage, refusing to be stopped. He wore the face of his monster, a physical manifestation of the worst days of his life, a constant reminder of how he got to where he was. And why.
It was there, in the why, where Mailie saw someone different. A mixture of both. A husband, a father, who hadn’t been there to save his family. Now he had the chance to save one of them. It softened her heart toward him. She couldn’t fault him for what he was doing. He’d gone through so much, shut himself off from the world around him. Her breath felt labored as she fought not to cry for him.
Revenge was a terrible passion that began in men and ended in monsters. She’d been taught well about its lessons, beginning with her grandsire’s tireless cause to avenge his clan. But she also knew that monsters could be vanquished. Perhaps even ones created from such intimate pain. She wanted to help him. It made her throat burn and her eyes mist over.
“Ah, I dinna want yer pity, lass,” he said, stepping away from her. “It weakens me to what must be done. I canna go back on this now. If my daughter is alive, I must find her, and unfortunately right now ye’re the only way to do that.”
“Then do what ye have to do, my lord.” She paused, letting him go. “I was just tryin’ to understand who ye are.”
He returned his somber gaze to her. “I’m exactly who ye think I am. I abandoned any values ye seem to hold so dear when I hunted thirteen men and killed them all, some in their beds, some on their way home after a night of drinking. Some I killed with a knife and others I set aflame. I dinna help others when I dinna have to, and upon a flimsy hope, I kidnapped ye.”
“That’s only one side,” she told him, refusing to give up on him. He was her only hope. If Sinclair got his hands on her before her father did, there would likely be bloodshed. She didn’t care about Sinclair or his men, but she didn’t want to lose any of her kinsmen. Her captor had to help her. She would do whatever she had to, say whatever she needed to say. She’d put her faith in a heartless beast and hoped a knight shone through. She could do it. She had to.
“I have hope in ye that ye will eventually do the right thing and bring me home to my faither, and let my kin help ye find yer daughter. After all, yer no’ always a monster.” She paused to quirk her lips at him. “But in the meantime, pen Sinclair yer letter and make him believe ye will bring me to him. That will give us more time to devise a plan. Now that that’s settled, do ye have more buckets? This will take all day.”
He stared at her like he’d never met her before and she’d just appeared there in his small yard.
“Did ye not hear what I said, lass? I am going to bring ye to Sinclair. ’Tis the only way to get the information I need.”
“Ye’ll figure oot another way.” She reached up and patted his shoulder. Goodness, but he was solid muscle.
“The buckets?”
He blinked. “There are two more in the stable, but I dinna need help.”
She shot her gaze to the heavens. Good Lord, how stubborn could one man be? There really wasn’t time for this.
“Lachlan.” She reached out to touch him again, then thought better of it and pulled her hand back. “I want to help ye,” she told him softly. “Quit fightin’ it.” Without waiting for his reply, she set off toward the stable.
He didn’t argue—about Sinclair or the buckets, or her helping him. That was a good sign, at least.
There was a man beneath those scales. The question was, what kind of man was he?
An hour later, Mailie knelt at the side of the bath set before the roaring hearth in the kitchen. She smiled at the wee face in her hand while she wiped away days’ worth of dirt. The more of Lily she revealed, the more Mailie’s heart softened on her. Her brow settled without flaw over wide, haunted eyes. It took determination to get the lass to smile, unlike her brother, who beamed every time his laird entered a room.
She dabbed her wet cloth across Lily’s tiny bow-sh
aped lips and even smaller chin. The lass closed her eyes while Mailie cleaned her hair. Mailie thought she might have heard the child snore at one point. The poor wee babe, Mailie thought, gazing over her face. She had to be completely worn out by the catastrophic change in her life.
When she was finished, she lifted the girl out of the bath and wrapped her in a long piece of soft wool. She held her close and whispered against her forehead, “All will be well, I promise.”
She was more determined now than ever. She wasn’t going to Sinclair. One way or another, she was getting back to Camlochlin, and she was taking Lily and William with her. They would be happy there—with her.
She passed Lachlan in the hall and regarded him mildly as she carried Lily up the stairs. He would help her, not only by hurrying to prepare a fresh bath for Will but also with Sinclair. She had to make him want to. But how? Telling him she had hope in him was a start, but she had to do more. She had to make him care.
She met Ruth on the second landing and was pleased to hear that Will had fallen asleep. He could bathe when he woke up. Sleep was best—for both of them.
Thank goodness for Ruth, who was mother to six grown bairns and had plenty of clothes to fit children their age. She’d gone home by way of horseback after Mailie and Lachlan were done filling the first bath and had since returned with fresh garments.
Lachlan’s nursemaid doted on the children almost more than Mailie did.
She entered a room, third door on the right. It was the biggest room in the castle. Mailie knew it because she’d checked all the rest, save one. This one had pretty curtains and colorful wall hangings. It also had the biggest bed, big enough to fit her, Ettarre, and the children.
She smiled at Will, strewn out across the wide mattress, sound asleep. She set Lily down beside him. She dressed the little girl as gently as she could in a small shift and then rested her head on the soft pillows and moved away.
When Lily cried out at the separation, Ettarre leaped onto the bed and settled down next to her. Lily calmed and was soon in a slumber as deep as her brother’s.