by Jayne Castel
Seated upon the dais, farther down the table from Alasdair MacDonald, Caitrin took a sip of wine. She barely tasted it, for nerves made her belly clench.
Around them servants, led by cook and her assistant, Galiene, were bringing out supper: venison stew, oaten bread, and braised kale. A wall of noise surrounded Caitrin, reminding her why she preferred to take most of her meals in her solar.
She found it difficult to relax, to enjoy food, in this cavernous, noisy space.
Five of them sat at the chieftain’s table this evening: Alasdair and the warrior with red-gold hair he’d introduced as his kinsman, Boyd MacDonald, along with Caitrin, Darron, and Alban.
Cook favored the chieftain with a wide smile as she placed a bowl of stew before him. “It’s good to have ye home, milord,” she greeted him. “I’ve made yer favorite supper.”
Alasdair leaned back in his chair, returning her smile. “Thank ye, Briana. It’s good to be back.”
A few feet away, the steward, Alban, rose to his feet, holding a goblet of wine aloft. Around him the hall went quiet. The excited chatter of voices settled as all gazes swiveled to the steward.
“Today we’ve been blessed,” Alban announced, his low, gruff voice echoing across the hall. “Today, the MacDonald heir has returned to Duntulm … raise yer cups. Let us welcome him home.”
A chorus of “aye” and “welcome home” followed, thundering high into the rafters. Men and women rose to their feet, raising their cups. Those at the table followed suit, Caitrin included.
Alasdair inclined his head, his smile widening. For a moment Caitrin glimpsed true warmth in his eyes. He might not be pleased to see her, but he was relieved to be home.
The toast ended, and the folk of Duntulm returned to their meals. Eating slowly, Caitrin found herself sneaking glances at Alasdair. He sat in the chieftain’s chair, one arm resting casually upon the carven armrest as he swirled wine in a goblet. Unlike the other men at the table, who all ate heartily, he’d barely touched his stew. Instead, his gaze had turned unfocused, as if he was suddenly leagues from here.
“Milord?” The steward leaned forward, trying to catch the chieftain’s attention. “Alasdair?”
The chieftain blinked, his gaze snapping back to the present. “Aye, Alban?”
“I trust ye had a good trip home?”
“Aye … the weather was against us … but that’s what happens when ye travel in winter.” Alasdair took a sip of wine, fixing Alban with a level look. “How have things been in Duntulm since my brother’s death?”
“Quiet, milord,” the older man replied with a smile.
“And the harvest … was it good?”
The steward nodded. “Aye, last summer was the warmest in years. Our stores will see us and the village safely through into spring.” Alban glanced at Caitrin then. “Lady Caitrin oversaw the harvest … she worked tirelessly and made sure every last ear of barley was reaped.”
Alasdair’s mouth quirked, his attention shifting to Caitrin for the first time since he’d taken his seat at the table. “Is that so?”
“Aye,” Alban replied. “Lady Caitrin has managed Duntulm admirably as chatelaine in yer absence.”
“That’s good to hear.”
Caitrin tensed. Was it only her who could hear the mocking edge to Alasdair’s voice? She still had difficulty accepting that this swarthy, sharp-featured man was actually Baltair’s younger brother. He had a rakish, careless edge that warned her to be wary of him.
Glancing around the table, she saw that Alban and Darron looked unperturbed, while Boyd MacDonald wore a slightly bored expression. Maybe she was imagining things.
“I noticed on the way in that the Cleatburn Bridge is in a poor state, Alban.” Alasdair turned his attention back to the steward. “Why is that?”
Alban’s brow furrowed. “We had heavy rains in late autumn, milord. It did some damage.”
Alasdair met the steward’s eye, and Caitrin saw his jaw firm, his dark gaze glint. “Then, we need to repair it.”
Chapter Four
Trouble Sleeping
AN ICY WIND gusted in from the north-east, tugging at Alasdair’s fur mantle and stinging his exposed cheeks. He hadn’t forgotten how cold the wind got up here, on Skye’s exposed northern tip. It could cut to the bone. Around him the last of the light was draining from the western sky, deepening the chill. He’d come straight here after supper, even though night had almost fallen.
Pulling up the collar of his mantle, Alasdair stepped forward, his gaze settling upon the headstone in the center of the windswept kirkyard.
All that remained of his elder brother.
Alasdair studied the grave. In the fading light, he could barely make out Baltair’s name etched there. The stone had only been in the ground nearly eight moons, and already moss was starting to creep up its sides. After all that had happened, it felt as if his brother had been dead years, not months.
It had taken a while for news of Baltair’s death to reach him on the mainland. Alasdair had been in Inbhir Nis when it arrived. He’d felt numb as he’d read the words sent from Malcolm MacLeod. Baltair had fallen in a skirmish against Clan-chief MacLeod’s foes, the Frasers of Skye.
Once the shock faded, grief had surfaced. However, it was a sensation mixed with guilt. After his elder brother wed Caitrin, Alasdair had bitterly resented him. Everything fell into Baltair’s arms. He’d been good looking and charismatic—and he ruled northern Skye. Caitrin hadn’t been the only woman upon the isle who’d wanted to wed him.
Alasdair’s mouth thinned. Women were so predictable. They didn’t see past the veneer. Unlike them, he wasn’t blind to his brother’s faults. Baltair could be insufferably arrogant and had a cruel edge that Alasdair, two years his junior, had often borne the brunt of when they’d been bairns.
But still, he was his brother. The only kin he’d had left.
Alasdair stood there for a while, letting the dark curtain of night settle over the world. He was alone in the kirkyard save a pair of ravens perched on a nearby gravestone. They watched him with cold beady eyes.
He ignored the birds, pulling his cloak tighter as a particularly hefty gust of wind ripped across the hillside.
It was time to go. He’d expected to feel something other than an odd emptiness upon visiting his brother’s grave. But he shouldn’t have been surprised really, for he wasn’t himself these days.
Alasdair sighed, his breath steaming before him in the gelid air, turned from the grave, and strode out of the kirkyard.
At the entrance he found Boyd waiting for him.
His friend had accompanied him here, but had then hung back while Alasdair visited his brother’s grave.
Boyd nodded as Alasdair approached before falling into step with him. For once, his cousin didn’t rib him or offer a flippant comment; something Alasdair felt grateful for. Wordlessly, the two men made their way through the village, down an unpaved street flanked with low stone cottages. The aroma of roasting fowl wafted out from one of the homes and within another a woman started singing.
“It’s a nice place this,” Boyd commented, breaking the silence. “I can see why ye were keen to come home.”
Alasdair cast him a sidelong look. “Ye will stay on then?”
Boyd wasn’t a close relative, but they’d struck up a friendship over the past few months. Boyd hadn’t seemed in a hurry to return to Glencoe after the war, and so Alasdair had invited him back to Duntulm.
Boyd grinned. “Aye, if ye will let me.”
“Ye can remain under my roof … as long as ye earn yer keep.”
Boyd rolled his eyes. “Ye are going to put me to work?”
“Aye … the Duntulm Guard is looking a bit sparse. Talk to Captain MacNichol in the morning, and he’ll get ye kitted out.”
The two men left the village and took the path that wound up the hill toward the keep. Fires burned upon the walls, staining the pitted rock a deep gold.
“It’s good to be here,” Bo
yd said finally, his voice uncharacterically serious. “Ye could almost think that disaster at Durham never happened … that the English didn’t whip our arses.”
Alasdair stifled a wince. “Aye, but they did,” he murmured.
Alasdair walked into the chieftain’s solar and paused. Burning sconces threw long shadows across the stone walls, welcoming him, and yet he felt like he didn’t belong here. It didn’t feel right standing in the solar without either his father or brother present.
Shaking his head to rid himself of the sensation, Alasdair pushed the door shut behind him. This solar, and the adjoining bed-chamber, were now his. He’d get used to his new quarters soon enough.
A warm, masculine space surrounded him. Deerskin rugs covered a paved floor, and heavy tapestries depicting scenes of war hung from the walls. A great stag’s head sat mounted above a huge hearth, where a lump of peat glowed, throwing out a considerable amount of heat. The stag had been his father’s prize. Eoghan MacDonald had been a keen hunter, but, in the end, it was a stag hunt that claimed his life.
Crossing to the large oaken table that dominated the solar, Alasdair poured himself a goblet of wine. He took a sip, the flavor of rich spicy plum sliding down his throat and warming the pit of his belly. He still couldn’t stomach the idea of ale, not after the excesses of the night before, but he enjoyed the wine. It took the edge off the tension that had plagued him all day.
This hadn’t been an easy homecoming. Baltair was gone, and the woman Alasdair had once ached for was now chatelaine of Duntulm. Despite that he’d thought long and hard about how to deal with her, Caitrin’s presence unsettled him.
He hadn’t seen her since supper. When he returned from the kirkyard, she’d already retired for the evening. That was good, for even the sight of Caitrin made it difficult to concentrate. Boyd, the shrewd bastard, hadn’t missed his reaction to her—which meant Caitrin had probably noticed it too.
Alasdair muttered a curse and downed the rest of his wine in a long gulp.
He needed to harden his heart, to cool his nerves and remind himself that he couldn’t stand the woman now.
He had her exactly where he wanted her. Her position as chatelaine was vulnerable. One word from him and she’d have to pack her bags and return to Dunvegan, and her overbearing father. Alasdair remembered Malcolm MacLeod well, and he’d also noted the way Caitrin had stiffened when he’d questioned Alban at supper rather than her. She was proud of her role here. She wanted to stay.
He knew exactly where to start his campaign against her.
Setting the goblet down, Alasdair wandered through into his bed-chamber. Another, smaller, hearth burned there too. A huge four-poster bed dominated the room. Alasdair eyed it warily as he started to undress.
Baltair and Caitrin shared that bed.
The thought made him clench his jaw, a surge of vindictive fury rushing through his veins. The sensation galvanized him. He needed to keep reminding himself of what Caitrin had done to him, of what she’d taken from him.
Mist surrounded Alasdair, closing in on him. He stood ankle-deep in mud, his claidheamh mor impossibly heavy in his hand. Nearby, a man was screaming for mercy. Raw sobs followed, and then the dull, wet sounds of death being dealt.
Alasdair tried to rush to his countryman’s side, his sword swinging. And yet he couldn’t move. His legs and arms were paralyzed.
Terror pulsed through him. His heart felt as if it would leap from his chest, it was beating so hard.
Figures emerged from the mist. They were coming for him—but he couldn’t fight back.
Alasdair sucked in a deep, ragged breath, his eyes flying open.
The mist receded, as did the cries of the dying. He was back in his own bed, in his bed-chamber lit by the fading glow of the hearth.
Chest heaving, Alasdair pushed himself up into a sitting position. It wasn’t warm in the chamber, yet he dripped with sweat.
He dragged a shaking hand through his hair and forced himself to take deep, steadying breaths.
Satan’s cods. He was sick of these nightmares. They plagued him. Ever since the battle he’d had trouble sleeping, and whenever he did manage to fall into a deep slumber, his mind transported him back to the battlefield and that cool, misty October morning.
When the whole world had gone to hell.
Caitrin observed Alasdair over the rim of her mug of goat’s milk.
He was pale, his eyes hollowed with fatigue.
“Milord,” she spoke up, drawing his attention. “Are ye unwell?”
He cast her a look of thinly-veiled irritation. “No.”
“It’s just …” Caitrin broke off here, aware that Boyd had glanced up from smearing honey over a wedge of bannock. Likewise, Alban and Darron both looked her way. “… ye look a bit peaky this morning.”
“Maybe last night’s supper didn’t agree with him,” Boyd quipped with a wink at Caitrin.
“The supper was fine,” Alasdair growled, pouring himself a cup of milk from a pitcher in the center of the table. “I’m just tired.”
“Ye have trouble sleeping?” Caitrin knew she shouldn’t pry, for Alasdair was now viewing her with a jaundiced eye. Yet she’d fallen into the habit of helping those around her since becoming chatelaine—and she wanted to prove herself useful now.
“Aye … sometimes,” Alasdair replied, his gaze cautious.
“I can ask a servant to brew ye a drink with valerian root before bed,” she suggested. “It helps with sleep.”
Alasdair nodded, although his frown made it clear he wished her to drop the subject. Caitrin lowered her gaze to the buttered slice of bannock before her. Anxiety churned in her belly as she resumed eating. She’d awoken just before dawn, resolved to prove her worth to Alasdair MacDonald, but instead had succeeded only in annoying him.
“Who has been managing the accounts in my absence?” the chieftain broke the heavy silence that had settled over the table.
Caitrin glanced up to see that Alasdair was looking in Alban’s direction. Irritation rose within her, dousing the nerves. Just like the evening before, he was deliberately favoring the steward, as if she had no responsibilities here.
Caitrin cleared her throat. “I have been … although Alban often sits with me to ensure I have the numbers correct.”
Alasdair’s peat-dark eyes swiveled back to her, his mouth curving. It was his first smile since he’d sat down at the table, and it softened his face considerably. “Of course … I’d forgotten that ye know yer letters.”
Caitrin pursed her lips. “Aye, ye once teased me for it … said that lasses were no good at such things.”
Surprise flared on his face. Did he think she’d forgotten?
She and Alasdair were almost the same age—born in the same year just a month apart. Before that fateful day in Dunvegan garden, when she’d rejected him, they’d been friends since childhood. Years earlier, when they were both around nine winters old, she’d told Alasdair that a nun from Kilbride Abbey was teaching Caitrin and her sisters to read and write. Alasdair had roared with laughter.
“Aye … I did.” Alasdair watched her for a long moment, his gaze pinning her to the spot. “Shall we see if I was right?”
Caitrin frowned. Ye weren’t. The words boiled up inside her, but she choked them back. He was deliberately provoking her.
Alasdair smiled. “Meet me in my solar mid-morning,” he said smoothly, “and we shall go over the accounts together.” He paused here and reached for the last wedge of bannock on the tray before him. “Bring my nephew with ye … I want to meet Eoghan.”
Chapter Five
Taken Seriously
CAITRIN OPENED THE ledger and tried to ignore the man who’d just pulled up a seat next to her.
Alasdair was sitting too close—it unnerved her. She was keenly aware of the heat of his body and the scent of his skin mixed with that of leather. In the past, his presence hadn’t affected her like this. She didn’t understand why it did now.
It
was the last thing she needed.
They weren’t alone in the solar. Alban wasn’t present, but Boyd had joined them instead. Dressed in the leather armor of the Duntulm Guard, the warrior leaned against the window sill, cup of ale in hand. Despite that it was a chill day outdoors, Alasdair had opened the shutters to the small window looking south. However, a few feet away, a fire burned vigorously in the hearth. The warmth enveloped Caitrin in a soft blanket, although it didn’t take the edge off her nerves.
She’d never liked the chieftain’s solar, and after Baltair’s death had rarely set foot inside it, preferring to keep to her own quarters instead. This chamber, with its masculine aggression, reminded her of her husband.
They weren’t pleasant memories.
Caitrin cast Alasdair a quick glance and found him watching her, a lazy smile curving his lips.
She wished he wouldn’t look at her like that.
“What would ye like to see first?” she asked, all business.
“I’d like to see my nephew,” he replied. “Where is he?”
“He’ll be here shortly … my hand-maid has just gone to fetch him.” Caitrin drew in a deep breath in an attempt to calm her rapidly beating heart. She didn’t like that both men were now watching her. Why did Boyd have to be here at all? “In the meantime, let’s get started.”
“Very well,” Alasdair drawled. “Turn to last year’s expenses.”
Caitrin reached out and leafed back through the pages, smoothing them open at the year’s beginning. She then pushed the ledger toward Alasdair so that he wouldn’t need to move any closer to her to read it.
She watched his hawkish profile as he leaned forward, his gaze tracking down the page. After a moment he paused. “Ye bought a lot of grain from MacLeod last autumn … oats especially. Why?”
“We didn’t have a large harvest of oats,” Caitrin replied without hesitation, before she met Alasdair’s eye. “Baltair had decided to use the lower fields for kale and cabbage instead.”
