The Highlander's Lost Lady

by Anna Campbell

  “My father was a Grant,” she said, steadying her voice and laying her hands flat on the rough pine tabletop.

  Fiona waited for Diarmid to question the odd beginning to the tale. But he leaned back in his chair with every sign that he was happy for her to proceed as she wished. That was something else she liked about the Laird of Invertavey. His patience.

  Her constant fear fluttered down to rest, as she sucked in a deep breath. She’d spent the last weeks feeling like an iron vise tightened around her ribs. Now she felt free as she hadn’t felt free since she’d lived in Edinburgh as a child.

  “He was Allan Grant’s cousin and given all sorts of privileges because he was his mother’s favorite and the child of his father’s old age.” She glanced down at the table again. Something about Diarmid’s unwavering attention made her feel strange, unlike herself. It set up a strange wobble inside her, like butterflies beating their wings against the walls of her stomach. “Because of this, he was the only Grant ever allowed to leave Bancavan to get an education. Not just that, he was clever. He ended up teaching at Edinburgh University, which was where he met my mother and married her. She was the daughter of one of the masters.”

  As ever when she spoke of her parents, grief gnawed at her. Both had been good people. Both had passed away far too early.

  “What did he teach?” Diarmid asked gently.

  Her eyes swept up to his face, and she saw he’d heard both the love and sorrow in her voice. Yet again, she noted what a perceptive man he was.

  At his house, that perception had scared the life out of her. It still did, but not because she feared he might see through her lies. Now she feared that he might see the dangerous confusion she felt when she looked at him. She’d never found a man attractive. Ten years of abuse had killed any yen she might feel for a handsome face. Or at least so she’d believed, until she met the Laird of Invertavey.

  “Mathematics.” Despite everything, a fond smile curved her lips. “If that implies a certain unworldliness, you’re right. You’d have liked him. Most people did.” All urge to smile faded away. “When I was nine, my mother died giving birth to a baby boy.”

  “You have a brother?”

  “No. He never took a breath.”

  “I’m sorry. About the bairn, and about your mother.”

  “So am I.” She braced to continue. Already this was hard, and she hadn’t reached the worst part. “Papa struggled on for another six years, but he was never the same after Mamma died.”

  “So ye were left alone at fifteen? That’s a vulnerable age for a lassie.”

  Wasn’t it just? Grim humor flattened her lips. “I’d have done better alone, I think. Here’s where Papa’s unworldliness becomes crucial. He didn’t make a will. If something happened to him, I’d always assumed I’d live with Mamma’s parents in Edinburgh. But Allan Grant descended on the funeral and claimed rights over me as chief of my father’s clan. He took me back to Bancavan and within a fortnight, married me to his younger brother Ian. Not that Ian was that young. He was only two years younger than Allan.” Her hands clenched against the tabletop as she forced herself to look back on those appalling weeks of sorrow and dread and bullying.

  “Fiona—”

  “I should have resisted. I tried.” She rushed on before Diarmid could tell her how sorry he was. At this moment, his pity would destroy her. “But they locked me up in the cellar and beat and starved me until I agreed.”

  “I should have shot the bastards before they had a chance to cross my threshold,” he said flatly. “Ye were a child. A grief-stricken orphan. Ripped away from everything you’d ever known. What they did was unconscionable. I assume there was a dowry involved.”

  “Aye. Papa wasn’t rich, but there was a house in Edinburgh, and Mamma had a small inheritance. The Grants like to amass property. Once they’ve got it, they don’t like to let it go.”

  “And their idea of property includes their womenfolk.”

  She swallowed to shift the boulder of hatred blocking her throat. “It does.”

  He leaned forward. “Puir wee lassie, ye must have felt like you’d been stolen away to hell.”

  “Life in Edinburgh was calm and happy and civilized. The Grants live like animals.”

  “With Allan the king of the beasts.”

  “None of the others have the backbone to stand up to him.”

  “I loathe that this happened to ye.” Bristling with tension, Diarmid rose and crossed to stand in front of the fire. His voice vibrated with emotion. “Given over for an old man to rape.”

  She flinched at the stark description. “I was Ian’s wife. He owned me.” Bitterness sharpened her tone. “There’s no rape in marriage.”

  Diarmid’s shoulders moved with a sigh. When he turned to face her, she saw that he was struggling to contain his outrage. “Were ye willing?”

  “Once he had my vow, I owed him the use of my body.”

  “Were ye willing?” His tone was implacable.

  “I was obedient.”

  Her belly knotted in a queasy tangle, as she recalled Ian grunting and sweating over her. The first time he’d taken her, he’d hurt her so badly that she’d vomited. That had earned her a beating from Allan when Ian complained of his bride’s lack of enthusiasm. After that, she learned to lie still until the foul act was over.

  She straightened on her hard wooden chair and steeled herself to go on. It wasn’t just that she hated to recall those nights when Ian’s scrawny old body had heaved about on top of her. Something about discussing such a private topic with Diarmid Mactavish set those crowds of butterflies in her stomach madly fluttering once more.

  “Ian died nearly a year ago. He hadn’t been well for a long time before the end. For most of our married life, I was more nurse than wife.”

  God forgive her, she’d been grateful when her husband’s debilitating illness left him incapable of his husbandly duties. She’d been hard put to summon any pity for his sufferings either.

  One of the most disturbing parts of the last ten years was the creeping fear that constant misery gradually turned her as evil as Allan Grant. The nightmare of her existence at Bancavan poisoned any sweetness and softness she’d ever possessed.

  “Couldnae ye leave, once you were a widow?”

  “I had no money and nowhere to go.” Looking back, she realized that unending brutality had cowed her into sullen compliance. “And I had a year ahead with no man in my bed. Allan wanted to wait to see if there was another child.”

  “There wasnae?”

  “No. Ian had hardly touched me in two years, but I wasn’t going to tell Allan that.” Odd how they kept circling back to this topic of marital relations. “But I couldn’t keep the ruse up forever. Allan pushed the marriage with Thomas, despite the fact that a union with my brother-in-law isn’t strictly legal.”

  “Another old man.”

  “Old men get the pick of the women in Bancavan.”

  “Is that why ye ran away?”

  She shook her head. “No. I ran away to save my daughter.”

  Something tightened in his expression. “Allan said ye had a bairn,” he said slowly. “Is the lassie still at Bancavan?”

  “No. They fostered my daughter out to a clansman near Inverness.” She swallowed against a surge of bile. Thinking about Allan’s plans for Christina always made her feel sick. “She’s nine years old. When she’s thirteen, they’ll marry her off to one of her cousins.”

  A muscle flickered in Diarmid’s cheek and even across the room, she read his anger. “So she’s fated to go through the same horror ye did.”

  He did understand. “Aye.”

  “And ye cannae bear that.”

  “No. I won’t have it. I won’t.” Her voice shook, as it hadn’t when she described her own trials. The idea of her beloved child becoming nothing but a drudge to the Grants, with no hope of joy or love, made her want to scream.

  “So ye ran away to find her.”

  “Colin Smi
th was one of the few men on the estate who maintained a shred of humanity. He deserves better than to lie in an unknown grave at Invertavey.”

  “I’ll see he gets a fitting memorial. But what were your plans? Ye must have known the dangers you faced. Did ye have any money?”

  “Only a few shillings. But I had a wedding ring to sell, and I’m strong and willing to work. I planned to snatch my daughter away, then disappear somewhere. Glasgow. London. America, if I must.”

  Diarmid looked troubled. “It’s a flimsy plan, and one sure to lead to trouble. You’re unprotected and defenseless. The world can be cruel to a woman on her own.”

  “The world can be cruel to any woman,” she said bleakly.

  “At least at Bancavan, ye had a roof over your head. If you’d gone ahead, it’s likely you’d end up selling yourself on the streets to keep body and soul together.”

  Disappointment soured her anger. She’d expected his support, not his criticism. “You’re saying I should accept my lot?”

  “No, no’ for a minute, but I am saying you should use your brain before ye set out into an uncaring world.”

  “I didn’t have any choice. Christina’s whole life was on the line.”

  “Christina? Is that your daughter’s name?”

  “Aye. It was my mother’s name. Ian didn’t care what I called our child. When she turned out to be a useless girl, and not the lad he wanted, he took no interest in her.”

  “How old were ye when you had your baby?”

  “Just past sixteen.”

  His lips tightened. “By God, it’s like ye were banished back to the Middle Ages.”

  “I doubt life has changed much at Bancavan since then. Not in essentials. The Grants never forgot the feud with the Mactavishes, for example.”

  “Och, even if they had, this will reawaken it.”

  “I’m sorry I dragged you into this,” she mumbled, staring down at the worn table. “When the Grants turned up, I was on the verge of leaving Invertavey.”

  “And I let them take ye,” he said bitterly.

  “Why wouldn’t you? I’d done nothing but lie to you.” Fiona returned to a memory that still seared like acid. “And I stole your money.”

  “Och, ye were desperate.” He made a sweeping gesture, as if wiping her theft from the record. “I cannae blame ye anymore, although if you’d trusted me with your story, it would have saved us some time.”

  “You don’t owe me your help.”

  “Aye, I do. Out of common humanity, if nothing else.”

  As she looked at him, brave and determined and most of all, on her side, she wished she’d confided in him earlier. Because Diarmid was a good man, she said what she must. “You’ve taken on a mountain of trouble with this fight. Allan is stubborn and spiteful. Even if I go on without you, he’ll seek to pay you back for helping me to escape.”

  “I can handle Allan.” That formidable jaw hardened. Diarmid’s strength was quiet, but she couldn’t doubt its power. “And what’s this about going on alone? Your first plan was insane, surely ye see that. A beautiful woman with nae money and nae friends faces only one fate.”

  She twined her hands together on the table. “For my child, I’d sell myself.”

  Although the thought of strangers using her body made her skin crawl. It had been bad enough doing…that within the lawful bonds of marriage.

  “And who will look after Christina when ye do?”

  Diarmid’s harsh assessment of her scheme made her flinch. “I’m not a fool, although I know I must seem like it to you. What choice do I have? I have to get Christina away from the Grants. While they have her, they have power over me and they know it. Once I’ve got her, I can decide what to do and where to go.”

  In the firelight, his face was austere. “I have a better idea.”

  Her heart sank. She already felt guilty about how she’d disrupted his life. “You’re going to be heroic, aren’t you?”

  Bleak humor lengthened his lips. “I dinna ken about that, but I’m certainly going to help ye. We’ll go to Achnasheen tomorrow and talk to Fergus. He’s a clever laddie. He’ll have some ideas about what we can do. Ye can rest there for a couple of days to regain your strength, knowing we’re safe from the Grants. Then we’ll go and get Christina, openly or by stealth.”

  “That sounds too good to be true.” Hope, frail, painful, but invincible began to unfurl in her heart. “It is too good to be true. Allan will never let me go. He’ll never leave me in peace. Especially if I turn to a Mactavish for help.”

  “But your circumstances have changed.” A purposeful light glittered in Diarmid’s black eyes. She almost believed that if anyone could defeat the Grants, it was this stalwart man. “Ye have powerful friends now. Allan might bully an adolescent girl. He’ll have less success against the combined might of the Lairds of Invertavey and Achnasheen.”

  “It’s too much,” she said faintly, wanting to cry, wanting to tell him that she could succeed without putting him at risk, yet knowing that she couldn’t. “I have nothing to give you in return.”

  Diarmid made a dismissive gesture. “No gentleman could abandon ye to your distress.”

  “You’ll never see the end of this.”

  When Diarmid shrugged as if it hardly mattered, she wanted to tell him that he underestimated the Grants. But shameful self-interest kept her quiet.

  “We’ll come through. Dinna be afraid anymore, Fiona.”

  She bit back a sharp retort. Of course she was afraid. Now not just for herself and her daughter, but for gallant Diarmid Mactavish, too.

  “Thank you.” The words were inadequate recompense for what he’d done and even more, what he was about to do.

  She was right to fear for the health of her soul. If she was a good woman the way Diarmid was a good man, she’d refuse to drag him any further into her difficulties.

  Chapter 13

  At the first soft touch of Fiona’s hand on his shoulder, Diarmid woke immediately from where he slept wrapped in his coat and with his head resting against the rough sod wall. The room was dim and shadowy, lit only by the banked peat fire. In the gloom, she was a dark shape kneeling at his side. He couldn’t see her expression, but he read the tension in her body. Behind her, the bed showed traces of her restless sleep. The blanket sagged toward the floor.

  “Fiona?” he asked groggily. “What is it, lassie? Is everything all right?”

  An unwelcome thought struck him, and he reached out to catch her hand where it hovered above his shoulder. “Is it the Grants? Have they found us?”

  Curse his blasted complacency. How could he have gone to sleep instead of sitting up to watch? But he’d been sure Allan and Thomas would never find this isolated bothy. And after all those long hours of riding, he’d been stupid with exhaustion. Not even the hard dirt floor and his raging desire could keep him awake.

  He strained to hear some hint from outside that they’d been discovered, but there was only the crackle of the fire and the faint susurration of Fiona’s breath. Even the rain seemed to have stopped.

  He struggled to sit up. Hell’s bells, he ached. It was a long time since he’d spent so long in the saddle.

  “No,” she said on a whisper of sound. “No, it’s not the Grants.”

  Her answer emerged in jerky gasps, and while he was relieved to learn their pursuers hadn’t caught up with them, he wasn’t reassured. “What’s wrong? Are ye ill?”

  “No. No, not ill.” The hand he held trembled, but she didn’t try to draw away.

  “Then what the devil is it?” Even as he battled the mists of sleep clouding his mind, he started to get seriously worried.

  “It’s…this.”

  He was still so dazed and bewildered that even when she leaned in over him, he didn’t understand what was going on.

  Then her lips crashed into his, and all rational thought disintegrated to ash.

  Her lips were soft, and her scent, warm and womanly, flooded his head, made him drunk on Fi
ona. Riding across the hills, he’d spent hours cuddling her close. That scent had become a familiar torment. It was a lying promise of what could never come to pass.

  Now, unbelievably, she’d come to him. He’d never imagined she would.

  Masculine triumph gripped him, and arousal so powerful, it verged on painful.

  Without thinking—when she kissed him, she incinerated his brain—he lashed his arms around her and dragged her across his body. She fell against him in an ungainly tumble, and her hands clawed at his arms.

  Fiona made a faint sound. By all that was holy, he wanted to interpret it as a sigh of pleasure. But it sounded more like a whimper of distress.

  No. No. No. No. No.

  She was here. She was in his arms. She’d made the first move, for pity’s sake.

  But his shocked pleasure at her invitation already receded, even as the weight in his balls became more excruciating than ever. Much as he battled against accepting the return of reality, his mind started to function.

  Diarmid knew what a willing woman felt like. Fiona didn’t feel like a willing woman.

  Her slender body was stiff and awkward. Her lips were tight and closed, as if she had no idea how to kiss a man.

  He reached to frame her face, to tell her she didn’t have to do this. What he found made him feel like taking an ax to the whole world.

  He ripped his lips free of hers. “Stop, Fiona, stop.”

  More roughly than he should, he shoved her away. He was half-mad with wanting her and with dredging up the willpower to deny her.

  To his dismay, she resisted his attempt to put some space between them. Instead she tried to plaster herself against him again. “You want me,” she muttered. “I know you want me.”

  He wished to blazes he didn’t. But draped across his lap as she was, she couldn’t miss his readiness, damn it.

  “For the love of God, let me go,” he grated out.

  “No,” she said in a broken voice.

  She was shaking the way she had when he’d saved her from the shipwreck. And not, blast her, with desire, although he’d give up ten years of his life for one minute where he could genuinely believe she found him appealing.