Healing the Highlander's Heart

by Scarlett Adams

  A few of the guards saluted her and Lili smiled back while picking up her pace. She wanted to give the appearance of being busy and so far it was working. That was until she almost ran into Master Dougal.

  Lili grinded suddenly to a halt, Wee Laird bumping into her from behind and giving a confused whine. A blanket of warmth spread its way across her stomach and she momentarily forgot what she was doing as her heart fluttered frantically in her chest, until Wee Laird pressed his wet nose into the back of her hand.

  She started at the sudden coldness and her face flushed. He hadn't seen her yet. He was walking out from the Laird's keep about two yards away and rapidly closing the distance between them, he was talking to the physician worry written all over his deeply tanned face. They must be talking about the chief, Lili realised with a pang, feeling the immediate need to rush to him and smoothen the worry lines from his face. Even as she thought it, she felt hot all over. He wouldn't welcome her touch though, the bitter thought crept in, he would prefer Moiré’s.

  Wee Laird confused as to why they were suddenly stopping gave a questioning woof that fully brought Lili out to their present situation. She galvanised into action, edging sideways unto the sloping greensward and away from the direct line Master Dougal and the physician were taking, keeping her head bowed. Her hair was hidden under a kerchief so there was no way he would spot her, she thought.

  They made it into the huge entry hall of the tower. The hall was dimly lit, faded tapestries of obscure deeds and even long forgotten banners and ragged tartan of the clan hung from the walls. Lili paused at threshold, looking up as the winding stairwell. There was no sound of footsteps or of any activity. As quiet as a grave, she thought and suddenly felt the grip of fear. Lili shook the fear off and started as silently as she could across the nagged floor, Wee Laird had no such qualms and moved as loud as possible, his claws clicking sharply on the floor and echoing up to the oak-ribbed ceiling. Although the huge rowan doors were open, the sunlight that streamed in was quickly muffled and didn't illuminate more than a few steps away from the doors, the other source of illumination was from the windows above the lintel. Despite this, the general dead feel of the tower made the warm light feel cold.

  Lili was considering going back and searching somewhere else when Wee Laird gave a hearty bark and bounded up the stairs with vigour, so she had little choice but to follow. The tower staircase was low and narrow, the steps made of the same grey stone the tower was built from, with chips here and there and sometimes a chunk missing but everything carpeted in dust.

  The tower went up seven levels, ending at the bell chamber. As they went higher, Lili began seeing impressions made in the dust. Recently made boot prints. Ailbeart must be up here! Who else would be mad enough to come up this dead place? She forgot about the ache in her knees or the tightness in her chest and hurried up the stairs until she made it to the bell chamber.

  The chamber was open on all sides, so when the bell was rung (something that hasn't been done for decades) it sounded through the castle and the village. Lili supposed it would be rung during the hand fasting or when the chief passed on. Ailbeart was there, reclining against one of the pillars that spanned floor to ceiling and chewing on a hard crust of bread while watching the activities of the castle from above. Lili felt a sense of relief that she had found him but took in the way his shoulders were hunched in and the small bite he was taking from his bread. He was thinking sad thoughts! Lili's heart went out to him. Outsiders they both might be, but at least she fitted her whereas Ailbeart had difficulties.

  He had not noticed them come up, not until Wee Laird gave a happy bark and trotted over to his master for affection and his bread. Lili let them wrestle for a while before she went over to them.

  Ailbeart was eighteen summers old, she was a year older than him, and most times he went about looking five years younger than he was. Mayhap it is because of moony expression he wore all the time that gave the impression he was slow witted which was contrary to what she knew of Ailbeart. He was a fast thinker if a bit naive, and smarter than most she had met. It was his wish to appear dull so he could escape the doldrums of scullery life. Today, he looked his age if not older. Worry and sadness had drawn harsh lines in his faces, his bright hazel eyes were jaded and dark circles ringed them. Dark stubbles peppered his face and his lips were pinched.

  “There ye are,” Lili said approaching him. “Mistress Eubh has been looking all over for ye.”

  Ailbeart mumbled something.

  “What's that?” She asked him.

  “It's nothin’, she needn’t have worrit herself on account of me.”

  Lili took her seat next to him and marvelled at the way the sun was picking the reds in his hair. “Have ye been up here all these while?”

  Ailbeart shrugged but offered no other explanation.

  Lili looked at the bleak look on his face and her heart broke. She knew what was worrying him, she faced a similar affliction herself. It was no secret among the kitchen staff of the castle that Ailbeart pined after lady Seonag but everyone brushed it off as puppy love, not to be taken seriously. But Lili knew how seriously he took it, he had confided in her about the secret meetings between him and lady Seonag and the promise he had made to himself marry her. Lili had envied him for his forwardness in taking what he wanted whereas she dithered on the edge in her case, and she also pitied him he was doomed to heartbreak. There was no way lady Caitir or even the chief on his kindness would wed Seonag to a penniless scullery boy. With her hand fasting drawing closer, he must have realised it and was breaking inside.

  “No thanks to ye I'm finally up here,” Lili continued with affected cheer. “It must be something, looking down at everything and everyone from here. Why! I can see Master Douglas's stall from here! I can see why ye like it up here.”

  “It's quiet up here, apart from the birds that come tae roost. I canna hear my thoughts down here, but I can up here.” Ailbeart finally said and it broke her heart further to hear the gloom in his voice.

  “I can tell Mistress Eubh I couldna find ye,” she offered. “If that's what ye'd like.”

  Ailbeart shook his head and Lili thought she saw a glimmer of tears in his eyes.

  “Are ye hungry?” She asked, pushing her skirts up to expose her chemise and the pouch she had smuggled bread and chicken in. He was just like Wee Laird, hungry every thirty minutes. The aforementioned dog perked up at the sight of the meal and began slobbering. Lili moved it away from him before he could pounce. “Better eat fast before he decides to fight ye for it.”

  That earned her a little smile.

  “Thank ye, I'll admit I've bin starving.”

  “Why d’ye not come to the kitchen then?” She asked.

  “Dinnae want Mistress Eubh's scolding.”

  “Is she likely to scold you any less now?”

  “At least I spent longer up here.” He stared down at his hands as though he doesn't know what to do with them and to Lili's shock he began sobbing.

  Lili hardly missed a beat, she engulfed him in a hug and let him cry on her shoulders while she patted his hair.

  “Oh, ye poor thing!” She crooned. They both were poor things, loving the wrong people. “Shush now!”

  “What is going on here?!”

  Lili sprang away from Ailbeart as though touched by hot iron and looked towards the entrance to the chamber, the same place wee laird was growling towards.

  Framed in the entrance, he appeared intimidatingly large, his broad shoulders and muscled chest straining through the soft white shirt he had on, well-worn trews encasing his long legs. His hair was unbound from the leather thong he often used to bind it up, and lay to brush his shoulders in waves, there was a tousled look to it as though he had been running his large callused hands through the dark brown mass. Lines of deep hostility was etched in his tanned face earned from years in the outdoors.

  He was obviously in a black mood, his blue eyes glaring dirks at the both of them but Lili couldn
't help but notice how devastatingly handsome he looked. The potent masculinity he represented.

  That same warmth from barely an hour ago spread through her, until she was dizzy with it yet at the same time she was anxious. Lili scrambled to her feet.

  “Master Dougal,” she gasped and looked down at Ailbeart who was returning Dougal's glare with a venom that matched his. It startled her.

  “I say again, what is going on here?” Dougal repeated and she heard the barely restrained rage in his voice.

  “Mistress Eubh asked me to fetch Ailbeart,” she said, stumbling over her words.

  “I see,” said Dougal, his voice tight with anger and his eyes slowly roved the chamber before coming to settling on the both of them. Lili flushed at the implication of that movement. She was suddenly aware how isolated the both of them had been up here.

  “It was…” She began but didn't go any further.

  Ailbeart was on his feet now, looming over her. Ailbeart was tall, a head taller than all the male staff and a few inches taller than Dougal himself. Trapped between two males who looked fit to spit nails and a growling dog, Lili felt very small indeed.

  “There was nothin’ goin' on,” Ailbeart said tightly, his fist clenched. He looked ready to launch himself at Dougal and wrestle him to the floor. Lili couldn't let that happen. Dougal was a trained warrior and would no doubt overpower him, and after Ailbeart might be whipped or jailed or turned out of the castle. So she took his hand in hers to hold him back.

  Dougal's eyes fell on their linked hands and his eyebrow raised even as a bitter smile grace his face.

  “Verra well,” he drawled, his gaze scorching. “If ye are not doing anything up here, ye could verra well leave.”

  Ailbeart opened his mouth to say something but Lili beat him to it.

  “Yes, master Dougal. Come Ailbeart, wee Laird.” She dragged him towards the entrance Dougal was still blocking and he remained there for a second, looking down at her with an expression that could he called contempt.

  Lili felt something in her shrivel but she pressed on with her task and drew Ailbeart away something bad happened.

  Mistress Eubh although overjoyed to see Ailbeart without a broken limb or neck, delivered the worst of her scolding, that had Ailbeart's ears and neck flaming but he bore it stoically. As Lili returned to work, she thought about the look on Dougal's eyes and inwardly winced.

  Chapter 7

  Alec had asked him why he was acting like a man with a boil up his arse and why indeed.

  Why had the scene brought out such dark feelings? Why had it riled him so? The girl meant nothing to him, he tried reasoning with himself but a part of him was rejecting that notion and then there was the way she was looking at the boy, with those soft eyes. That she was looking at him that way boiled his blood to the point he thought he might start spewing fire. His hands clenched to fists as he thought about it. He gritted his teeth; he had wanted to hurt the boy for daring to touch and receive her touch in a way he had only dreamt of.

  He had seen her hurry off towards the tower with the huge hound in tow, her head bent as though she wanted to hide. He had been curious as to what her mission was in the tower and took his leave of the physician.

  She and the hound made so much noise in the still place that it was easy to follow her to the bell chamber and there he listened to her speak to the boy in a soft tone. He hadn't heard what they were conversing about but the tone conveyed a sort of deep intimacy and it drove Dougal out of his mind.

  Jealousy, his mind whispered to him. That was what it was. When he had come into the entrance and found them embracing. The rage that had seized him left even he himself momentarily stunned. It was a black and terrible one, he had wanted to storm up to them and tear him away from her before beating him to a pulp with his bare hands. He took savage satisfaction in imagining his raw and bloody face. Before he thought about it, he was speaking although he couldn't recall what he had spoken with the red haze that had enveloped his world.

  The pale frightened looked she had given him made him feel like an arse and he felt a bit guilty until the boy stood up in defiance, looking ready to fight and she had taken his hand in her. A monster had then erupted inside him, green and scaly, demanding for things the primal part of him would have been happy to oblige.

  It had taken a while to calm him down and after he had been left spent with a sense of restless guilt and anger.

  “Why not spar it off?” Alec suggested but he declined, deciding to go to the stables.

  Rowan, master of the horses, a stout figure in rough homespun shirt and leather trews was having a quick lunch outside the stables in the paddock where his stallion was grazing alongside a garron.

  “He was getting restless,” Rowan informed him, wiping his hands on the legs of his breeks. “He'sna meant for the stables.”

  “I hear ye, Rowan.” Dougal agreed. They were alike in that way, he and his horse. He had gotten him as a foal when he himself was just a wee lad and they had grown together. They were both meant for a life outside that of a castle, riding through woods and glens and feeling the bite of the wind on their faces.

  After the hand fasting, he would leave once again for the joy of travelling the land on horseback, away from his step mother, his ailing father and his obsession with the maid Lili. It shouldn't anger him so that she was with the gangly lad. After all nothing could come from the both of them being together unless he finally gave in to his desire to leave home, he wondered if she would come with him. If she would love a life on horseback.

  Sighing, he shook his head free of those foolish dreams and approached the paddock.

  “I’ll see to his needs.” Dougal told him.

  He needed to work off the feelings of frustration and guilt that was hovering about him like a dark cloud. Rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, he picked up the bucket and a stiff brush and approached Regal.

  “That's a fine horse,” a voice said and Dougal looked up from his task of checking Regal's hooves.

  It was Douglas, Seonag's intended. Dougal felt his mood darken but remembered his father's plea for him to be civil.

  “Aye,” Dougal agreed, straightening and wiping dirt off his hand. “That he is.”

  “He musta cost a pretty penny,” Marcus continued.

  Dougal shrugged and squinted at him. He was quite young, about three years older than Seonag herself and there was an anxious-to-please air about him. A few inches shorter than Dougal himself, he was lean with wiry muscle. Although a birthmark stained the area around his right eye and temple dark red, his face was pleasant enough. Open and friendly. Dougal felt himself relaxing even though he didn't want to.

  “That he did,” Dougal answered.

  He had taken his time grooming Regal that it had passed from morning to noon. Dougal could feel the ache settling in his bones from his task. He felt like having a bath and afterward good sleep before he was to face what else was coming his way. He looked at the nervous lad and wondered how best to get rid of him.

  “I bet he is unmatched on the field.” Marcus pressed on.

  “He is.”

  “I and my kin are going hunting and hearing of your skill as a hunter, I'd be honoured if ye'd accompany us.”

  Dougal looked at him squarely in the face and winced but bravely went on.

  “I ken of what ye've heard of my clan folk but they are good men. Since we are to be kinfolk, hunting will be a good way to get to ken one another.”

  Dougal gave a dark chuckle at the McLagan's proposal. The very idea was amusing to him. He remembered the night that drunk McLagan had tried to force himself on Lili. The rage that had filled him on his behalf and the control he had to exert upon himself not to murder the man there and then civility be damned. He had turned his rage upon Lili once the drunk man had stumbled away, not his finest hour and the thought of that time filled him with a bitter sense of shame and guilt. It keeps on piling up, he thought ruefully, before the hand fasting was over and don
e with he'd have a lot to apologise for.

  To Marcus he said. “Aye, what you said is true. We'll be kinfolk soon although I'm less eager than ye are I reckon. As for your men being good men, weel, that's a matter to be put to question. With what I've seen of 'em, they are no better than drunken bandits stealing and raping. At least bandits accept who they are.”

  From the stunned flushed look on Douglas's face, Dougal wondered if he had gone too far. He had offered him insult and it was well within his rights to seek recompense but the lad only looked away and when he looked back at Dougal, his face was once again composed.

  “Thank ye for bringing this to my notice. I can see ye are busy wi’ your horse, I'll leave ye to it. Have a pleasant day Dougal Domhnall.”

  Dougal watched him leave with a pensive look on his face, he was surprised he hadn't replied with his fist. Maybe his father had chosen right for Seonag, he thought.

  Rowan appeared by his side a reproachful look on his swarthy face.

  “That’s a verra thoughtless thing ye did.” He said.

  Dougal shrugged. “Some things needed to be said.”

  “Aye,” Rowan agreed with a grunt. “But not everythin’. A fight coulda broken oot. Something yer father wouldna want.”

  “It didna.”

  “Because the lad was civil, somethin’ ye oughta've been.”

  Feeling chastened and frustrated, Dougal took his leave of Rowan, heading for his chambers and even after his bath and change of cloth, he still felt restless. He had no place here. The road, the forest was where he belonged where he had no care about people and their feelings.

  Frustrated enough to climb a wall, he left his chambers for the solitude of the gardens. Not much people came here except Seonag and she would be busy with her embroidery at this time of the day.