“I grew up in the shadow of yer faither,” his tone was lifeless. “From when I was a bairn to fifteen, I was sickly and unable to dae anything much, so I was stuck inside and learned to love books because there was nothing else. Anything I did dae however, was looked over by me faither who could only praise Balgair. I got sick of it till me stomach turned at seeing him.”
“It felt like the old gods pitied me more than the Christian one did, because nay matter how I prayed, I never got better. In the stretch of one summer week though it all changed. The heaviness in me chest went away and I could run without collapsing. As time went by and I grew better, I chose to go to university and study. T’wasnae as I would be missed here anyway…”
Ethan felt his incensed spirit begin to smolder instead of flare and though his jaw was locked tight, he decided to listen to Callum’s tale.
“Every time I came home, I saw something around here that could be done another way or something that they should cut out altogether, but they wouldnae hear me. I felt like I was shouting at the sky when I spoke to me faither or Balgair, so I left and dinnae come home until both of me parents passed away. Only for several short times over ten years. As I kept traveling, I burned to come home and be the leader I kent me brother wasnae. I had seen how maharajahs and emperors rule in the Far East, and kent it was me duty to raise this humble place into a power seat. I got tired of traveling and craved coming home to a lairdship I would rule but…” his words faltered and he shrugged. “Clearly, I dinnae plan it all outright.”
“But yer plan was to come and kill us all,” Ethan said through clenched teeth. “Tell me, Callum, what went through yer mind when ye slit Finley’s throat? Did ye just see him as an obstacle or did any part of ye see him as yer blood?”
“Both, really,” Callum said as he lifted his hands to look at them. After flexing them twice, he sighed. “I just had to remind meself that I was doing the best for us all, and that called for sacrifices.”
Bile threatened to burn Ethan’s throat into speechlessness but he swallowed over the bitterness. “That’s all it was to ye, a sacrifice. Nae the blood dripping from yer fingers or the guilt from the trust that I ken Finley had shown ye. He would have attacked anyone he dinnae ken, even drunk as he was, but he wouldnae have attacked ye. Tell me, why did ye kill Miss O’Bachnon? She has a child.”
“She was a loose end,” Callum said tiredly. “I kent about her history with the castle and her healing gifts. If ye had found her all I had hoped for would be destroyed. Couldnea have that, could I?”
Ethan’s fist was clenching by his side, ready to lay a blow in the middle of this heartless man’s face, but—by only God’s mercies, he was sure—he restrained himself. “I cannae stand to look at ye.”
Getting up, he marched to the door only to have Callum call at his back, “So, what’s me fate? Is it death?”
“Nay,” he growled. “As evil as ye are, hell might just spit ye back out and I willnae have ye blood on me hands, just as I willnae have ye wreak havoc on others. Yer sentence, Callum, is exile, to the northern lands and beyond. Ye will live alone and die alone while yer name and memory will be wiped away from this home.”
Spinning on his heel, Ethan stalked out of the dungeon to the top level and then right into the fresh air and sunlight that banished the cold, dank feeling from the underground. He felt incredibly filthy just by being in Callum’s presence and craved a bath.
He shot a look to the guard near him, whose face was set in a rigor of repugnance and rightly so. Scotsmen were known for their fealty to their family, whoever broke the ancient code of honor was worse than the mud pigs wallowed in. Hurrying to the castle, he took the stairs two at a time and nearly tore into his room.
Violet was sitting at the window and jerked at his rush, darted up and came over to him with sorrow laced on her face. Wordlessly, he embraced her, pressed his face into her hair and held onto her like an anchor. When he mustered the strength to speak, his tone was low and haggard.
“I dinnae ken that he could be so evil and cruel,” he murmured.
“Reminds me of the case with the two sisters,” Violet sighed. “Greed is such an ugly thing.”
“And malice,” Ethan muttered darkly. “But I’d rather nay talk about it. I need a bath. If only I could wash away his words from me mind too.”
“I’ll call for yer water,” Violet smiled.
As she moved off, Ethan held her arm, “Ye daenae want to ken what happened?”
“Oh, aye, I dae, but I figured ye’d tell me when ye’re ready,” she kissed his cheek.
Ethan worried for a moment, “This evening, would ye like to meet me maither? I’m sure she would love to meet the woman I’m going to marry.”
Smoothing his hair from his face, Violet nodded, “I’d love naything more.”
The End?
Extended Epilogue
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1
English–Scottish Border, 1546
“Delilah! Delilah, my love! Stir yourself and come and take a look at a vista the likes of which you have never seen!”
Lady Delilah Jefferson rose slowly to the surface of consciousness from a warm and comfortable dream. She opened her deep blue eyes, squinting against the light that was coming through the open carriage door.
We’ve stopped. Are we there already?
She sat up, blinking away the sleep that the rocking of a moving horse-drawn carriage always seemed to be able to lull her into. She smoothed the lovely new gown that her mother recently had tailored for her to wear during this trip, a baby-blue that complimented her remarkable sapphire eyes. Delilah pulled her shawl tighter across her shoulders.
“Pardon, Father?” she said, drowsily. “What was it you said?”
The Earl of Glimouth, Henry Jefferson, rolled his eyes good-naturedly and smiled patiently at his daughter. “You know, my dear, for a girl of only fifteen summers it amazes me how much of your time you spend slumbering. Surely, life has not worn you out quite as bad as all that yet?”
Delilah pouted prettily.
“I was in very, very deep thought, Father,” she replied, her tone colored with mock sternness, as if she couldn’t believe that her father was accusing her of nodding off for the umpteenth time since they set off from their English estate.
“Of course you were, my dear,” her father said. “I do apologize.”
Delilah’s father stood outside the carriage, silhouetted against the bright blue sky beyond. Over his shoulder a heavy gray cloud with gilded edges floated sedately into view.
“I want you to see something,” Lord Glimouth said.
“What is it?” Delilah asked.
“Something that is better experienced with one’s own eyes than from another’s lips,” came the soft, regal voice of Delilah’s mother, Mary, the Countess of Glimouth, from outside of the carriage.
The Earl extended a kindly hand to his daughter and gave her a wink. He had the same sparkling sapphire eyes as Delilah.
Delilah took her father’s hand, and crouching slightly, exited the carriage and stepped out into a fresh and invigorating breeze. She shielded her eyes for a moment, and then gasped with wonder.
The carriage and its half-dozen attending mounted guardsmen had stopped on the top of a high bluff of windswept grass. Worn, lichen-covered boulders lay scattered about the place, as if they had been carelessly
tossed there by giants. The air was chill and fresh, and it felt to Delilah as if it had never been breathed before, so revitalizing did she find it.
What had made her gasp in wonder, though, was the view that she had been greeted with on stepping out of the snug confines of the carriage.
Standing as she was on the top of the ridgeline, the ground dropped away from her in one long, undulating hillside. The slope was carpeted in heather, a great waving, tossing sea of purple and lilac flowers that rippled and moved like liquid in the grip of the ceaseless breeze. Beyond this gorgeous sight, the slope eventually flattened out, running on into the brown and moss-colored grasslands of the Highland plains, which her father had so often described to her.
“My goodness,” Delilah breathed softly. Her long, wavy blonde tresses whipped about her head like sunlight made solid, and she had to grasp her hair to stop it getting in her eyes and distracting her from the spectacular view.
“God’s country,” she heard her father say from behind her.
The gilt-edged clouds, heavy with potential rain, scudded across the sun and threw their shadows across the landscape. High above the heaths, but level with where the three Glimouths and their guard stood on the tall bluff, a golden eagle floated.
“A harsh country in the winter, I don’t doubt,” Lady Glimouth said austerely, putting a gloved hand on Delilah’s shoulder. “But, nonetheless, quite picturesque on a day like today.”
“Quite right, Mother,” Delilah said. “I think it looks gorgeous!”
“Is that the MacConnair estate that I see down there, Henry?” the Countess asked her husband.
Delilah followed her mother’s pointing finger and saw what she was referring to.
She had not seen the castle at first, situated as it was in front of a loch that was the same color as a pool of molten iron, but she saw it now. It sat upon a low and craggy hill, an imposing edifice that must command spectacular and unbroken views of the surrounding countryside. Around it, huddled like chicks about their mother hen, were the thatched roofs of a fair-sized village, the straw roofs blending pleasingly with the heather, grass, and bracken of the moorlands.
“Yes, indeed, my dear, that is the seat of the MacConnair clan. It’s quite a sight, isn’t it Delilah?”
“It’s wonderful!” the young woman enthused. “Like something out of a tale!”
Lord Glimouth chuckled delightedly. “Like something out of a tale! Quite so, quite so. And we’re only another two or so hours ride from sitting in a seat that isn’t continuously rocking and jolting.”
“And this is the lord—”
“The laird, my dear,” her father corrected her.
“The laird, yes, well, is he the man whose birthday we have been invited to celebrate?”
“That’s right. I met Laird MacConnair many years ago now. I’ve told you that we’re practically neighbors, haven’t I?”
Delilah nodded. Her father had told her many tales about the Scottish lands that abutted the Earl of Glimouth’s own. Henry had always had a soft spot for anything to do with the Scottish Highlands. When she had been a little girl, Delilah had listened avidly to her father’s bedtime stories about selkies, the blue men of the Minch, shellycoats, and other creatures of Scottish legend.
“Yes, well,” the Earl continued, “as I say, I have known Callum Malloch, and his wife, Lady Griselda, for a goodly while now. I have never had the time or the pleasure to visit him at home, but we correspond regularly, sharing local news and tidings. When he invited me to celebrate his birthday I felt that the time was ripe for a visit.”
The Earl started to usher his daughter back towards the waiting carriage.
“Also,” he said, “I think it is important, now that you are approaching womanhood, that you get out and see some of the world. Open your eyes to different things, feel a foreign breeze upon that pretty face of yours. After all, taking in new vistas and expanding our horizons allows us to view the world from perspectives other than our own. Something that is very important.”
Lord Glimouth opened the door to the carriage, helped his daughter and wife inside, and then got in behind them. He closed the door with a snap and then banged on the roof with his stick to signal that the driver could take off.
As the horses were goaded into a walk and then into a trot, Delilah leaned past her mother and said, “Father?”
“Yes, my dear?”
“Does the lord—does the Laird, I mean, have any children?”
Lady Glimouth turned to her husband and raised an indecipherable eyebrow at him.
Henry bestowed a small smile on the two women—the wife whom he adored and the daughter on whom he doted—that made his life worth living.
“Why, yes, Delilah,” he said. “He does, as a matter of fact.”
“What are they like?” Delilah asked.
“His only son is a couple of years older than you, I believe.”
Delilah tried to hide her disappointment. She was hoping that Laird MacConnair might have some daughters. She had been wondering whether Scottish young ladies might be wearing their clothing in a way that she could emulate when she got back to England, to show how travelled she was to her friends.
“Do you know much of him?” she asked politely.
“The Laird’s son is a strapping lad by all accounts,” her father told her, his eyes sparkling as he exchanged a quick glance with Lady Glimouth. “A young man who is viewed warmly by all who know him. You’ll meet him yourself soon enough.”
* * *
“Marcus!” Griselda Malloch called from the bottom of the ornate staircase that swept from the central hall of the MacConnair’s castle up to the second floor. “Marcus!”
“Drat that boy,” grumbled Callum Malloch, Laird of the MacConnair Clan, where he stood fussing with his sporran and gazing about as if he were willing his only son to appear. “I swear I saw the lad nae that long ago. Why cannae nothin’ be simple with him, I ask ye?”
“Probably because he’s as stubborn as a boar and as wild as his father ever was,” Griselda replied, casting a wry eye over her husband.
“Aye, that may be so,” the Laird groused, “but he kent well enough that we were expectin’ special company today.” He snapped his fingers at a passing maid. “Ye, lass, have ye seen hide or hair o’ that boy o’ mine?”
The maid, a young girl of no more than sixteen, shook her head. Her green eyes were round in her pale, heart-shaped face and she stared at the floor, unaccustomed as she was to being addressed directly by the master of the house.
“What’s yer name, lass?” the Laird barked, his eyebrows bristling.
“Ah, leave the wee thing alone, will ye?” Griselda scolded her husband. “Can ye not see she’s new?”
Callum snorted and stumped off to stare out of the front door.
“Dinnae mind his lairdship, lass,” Griselda said to the girl. “He’s a sack o’ nerves, what with his noble friends from over the border comin’ to visit him fer his birthday. Now, what is yer name?”
“Mallory, me lady.”
“Mallory, a bonny name. Now, have ye seen me son anywhere?”
“Nay, yer ladyship, not since this morning.”
“And where did ye see him this mornin’?”
“He was headin’ out onto the moors, me lady. Dressed for huntin’ he was.”
Griselda gave a snort of annoyance. “Gallivantin’ off on today of all days,” she said. “He couldn’ae of done what was required of him for just once, cuild he?” She sighed.
Mallory did not answer, but stood meekly, looking at the ground.
“All right,” Lady MacConnair said. “Go up tae his chambers, lass. Make sure that he has a clean kilt and shirt laid out and ready fer when he returns. Have a jug o’ hot water and a basin ready, too. Doubtless he’ll come back wi’ half the countryside on his boots and under his fingernails. I’ll send out some o’ the stable hands to search for the young rascal. Go on wi’ ye now!”
Mallory h
urried away towards the stairs, but as she set foot upon the bottom step a loud voice rang through the cavernous hall.
“Young rascal? Ye’d no’ be talkin’ o’ me now, would ye, Mither?”
Marcus Malloch strode out of a side passage, a smile spread across his open and handsome face. His shoulder-length dark hair was plastered across his sweaty face and his deep brown eyes shone with amusement and delight. There was, indeed, what looked like half a peat bog stuck to the soles of his fine calfskin boots, and as he walked into the stone-flagged hall, he unbuttoned a damp cloak from around his broad shoulders and hung it on a set of prized antlers that were displayed on the wall.
“Lord help me, Marcus Malloch!” his mother cried when she saw him. “Rascal is nae the half of it! I don’t care how big ye grow, ye best be up them stairs like a greased whippet b’fore yer faither comes back in here and gives ye a floggin’!”
The sole heir to the lands and title of the MacConnairs gave his mother a grin and leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek.
“Nay, nay, lad,” she laughed, stepping back. “Get yerself a bath first. Is that blood on yer hands?”
Marcus looked down at his weathered and dirty hands. “Aye, so it is.”
“Nae yers, I hope.”
“Nae mine, Mither. A bonny wee doe I brought down in the valley on the other side o’ the loch. She’ll make fine eatin’ for our guests tonight. I hae her hangin’ in the larder as we speak.”
“Very good, lad. Now away with ye, and hurry up with yer washing and robing! Yer faither’s English guests are almost here!”
The Highlander's Captured Bride (Steamy Scottish Historical Romance) Page 27