The Laird's Return: A Highland Festive Romance Novella (The Immortal Highland Centurions)

by Jayne Castel

  Robbie shot Connell a frown, clearly not appreciating the comment, before he straightened up properly, squaring his shoulders. “Morning, father.”

  How strange that word sounded.

  “Father?” Robert quirked an eyebrow. “Since when did the De Keith’s start talking like Englishmen? I’m yer ‘Da’, lad.”

  Robbie flushed, while Connell chuckled. “He’s been a wee bit nervous, De Keith.”

  Robert nodded, before he stepped back, gesturing for his son to follow. He couldn’t have a proper reunion with Robbie with Connell’s commentary. His son’s cheeks were glowing like twin embers now.

  Robert walked out onto the lower ward, his boots sinking into powdery snow. Above him, the sky was pale, the glow of the winter sun barely visible. Another snowfall was on its way.

  Robbie emerged, his face still burning. His expression was guarded, although Robert didn’t blame him: the pair of them were strangers.

  “Walk with me, lad,” Robert grunted. “Let’s go up to the walls.” They crossed the bailey, passing the steps to the chapel and taking the postern door that led up to the upper ward.

  The air was even colder up on the walls, yet Robert was too distracted to notice. He felt oddly uncomfortable in this lad’s presence. He wasn’t sure what to say to him. For years, he’d held onto an image of Robbie as an apple-cheeked bairn. Was this lanky boy with messy brown hair and a wary expression really his son?

  Robert stopped before the southern ramparts, his gaze sweeping over the snow-clad hills, the frosted cliffs, and the grey North Sea.

  “It’s a grand view,” he murmured, “and one I thought I’d never see again.”

  “It’s good to have ye home, fa—Da …” Robbie replied.

  Robert tore his attention from the sweeping panorama, taking in his son once more. “A laird’s son shouldn’t be working in a forge, Robbie.”

  The lad’s jaw tightened. “Ma doesn’t mind. She says the work is good for me … it builds muscle.”

  Robert snorted. “Sword practice and wrestling make a lad strong too,” he replied. “They’ll also prepare ye for the day ye’ll have to fight yer first battle. Knowing how to hammer out a blade won’t be much use to ye then.”

  Father and son locked gazes, and Robert saw how Robbie’s jaw firmed, his spine growing stiff. The lad might have been nervous about seeing him again, yet he wasn’t a coward. Robert flashed him a smile. “I’m keen to see how well ye wield a sword, lad,” he continued. “Go fetch two wooden blades, and let’s have a fight.”

  The “clack, clack” of wooden swords greeted Elizabeth when she emerged from the keep.

  The morning drew out, and the noon meal approached. She hadn’t seen her son or husband since dawn. She’d finally sought out Donnan, and the steward had told her that Robert had gone out to see Robbie in the forge.

  Warmth had rushed through her chest at the news. Robert had clearly considered his rudeness the evening before and wanted to rectify matters.

  However, when she stepped outdoors into the fluttering snow, her gaze traveling to two figures stripped to lèines and braies, the warmth faded.

  Clack. Clack. Clack.

  Robert was baring down on his son, face set in grim lines, as if the lad was a foe to be vanquished. Robbie—as game as ever—fought back. However, he wasn’t a match for his father. He staggered back now, his left foot sliding in the snow as he struggled to keep his feet.

  The duel had attracted a crowd. Captain Cassian Gaius stood a few yards away, his friend Draco next to him. Both men wore inscrutable expressions as they watched father and son fight. A few other men nearby were calling out encouragement to Robbie.

  Elizabeth’s pulse quickened, anger kindling in her belly. Why had Cassian and the others allowed this? Many of them had sons. Did they think such a fight was fair?

  However, the laird had returned—and his word was law here.

  And as she watched, Robert leaped forward, striking hard.

  Robbie’s sword flew from his hands. He staggered, slipped, and sprawled on his back in the snow.

  Breathing hard, his father approached him, standing over the lad.

  Robbie glared up at him.

  “Ye need a lot of work on yer parrying, lad,” the laird informed him. “I could have gutted ye thrice, if I’d wanted.”

  Elizabeth had heard enough.

  Picking up her skirts, she trudged across the snow, her belly churning with rage. “He’s half yer size, Robert.”

  The laird tore his gaze from his son’s face, surprise flickering in his brown eyes. He clearly was taken aback to see her out here.

  “Elizabeth.” His use of her full name was a warning. “A man’s size doesn’t matter … clumsy blade-work does.”

  “He’s only ten winters old,” she countered, stopping a few yards back as Robbie rolled to his feet.

  “Ma,” her son began, his face flushing. “All is well … he’s right, I’m—”

  She cut him off, her gaze spearing her husband’s. “No, he’s a bully.”

  Silence fell in the lower ward bailey then. Snow swirled like apple blossom caught in a wind gust. The flakes settled on Robert’s hair and short beard. His son forgotten, he moved toward her, and as he closed in, Elizabeth noted that snowflakes now frosted his eyelashes.

  Robert had always had lovely long eyelashes—lashes his son had inherited.

  However, the gaze behind them had gone hard.

  She’d succeeded in angering him.

  Good. Anger was easier to weather than the cold detachment she’d witnessed in his eyes till now.

  Wordlessly, Robert caught her by the arm and steered her toward the armory. “We need to have a word,” he said, each word clipped. “Without an audience.”

  V

  DREDGING UP THE PAST

  ELIZABETH LET HIM lead her into the armory. Quite a crowd had gathered to watch father and son spar, and, like Robert, she didn’t wish to give them a spectacle.

  Even if fury now pulsed like a stoked ember in her gut.

  Twin cressets burned on the walls of the armory—a long building that smelled of iron. Spears and blades hung from the walls, but Robert paid the weapons no mind.

  Instead, he turned to Elizabeth the moment the door closed behind them, his face pale, his jaw rigid. “What kind of mother undermines her son like that?”

  Elizabeth drew herself up. “And what kind of father humiliates his young son like that? The devil take ye, Rob … ye’ve only been back less than a day. Is a ten-year-old lad such a threat to ye that ye couldn’t wait to assert yer dominance over him?”

  Robert sucked in a sharp breath, as if she had landed a physical blow. “That wasn’t what I was doing,” he replied through gritted teeth. “God’s bones, woman … the lad barely knows how to hold a sword. Instead, ye have let him become a smith’s apprentice.”

  “Connell’s been kind to him,” she growled back. “And the work has done him good.”

  Robert’s lip curled. “Aye, that’s what Robbie told me too … looks like ye have him firmly clinging to yer skirts.”

  “Well, his father hasn’t been here to guide him.”

  The moment the words were out, Elizabeth regretted them.

  Her husband’s face hardened—the light of the cressets highlighted the lean, angular lines of his cheekbones.

  “No, he hasn’t,” Robert said when the brittle silence between them drew out. “I was availing myself of fine English hospitality … enjoying my daily weevil-infested bread and gristle stew.”

  Elizabeth heaved in a deep breath. “This would never have happened … if ye hadn’t ridden out to the English that day,” she said. The sharpness of her tone made her inwardly wince. I sound like a fish-wife. But this time she didn’t regret her words.

  Robert’s expression changed, his gaze narrowing.

  There it was—the thing that had been building between them ever since her husband’s return the day before.

  She knew he remem
bered their last words—how she’d begged him not to ride out on that last campaign. Misgiving had dogged her steps for days before he left. She’d slept fitfully and had been visited by dark dreams.

  But when she’d shared her fears with Robert, he’d dismissed them.

  They’d argued, and then he’d left the next day. A month later, word arrived at Dunnottar that Robert had been captured by the English in a skirmish near the River Cree, on the south-west border.

  And when the news arrived, part of her hadn’t been surprised.

  Elizabeth had sensed in her bones that Robert’s last campaign was ill-fated, but he’d been too bull-headed to heed her.

  The silence drew out for a few heartbeats, and then Robert moved toward her, closing the space between them. His presence dominated the armory, and despite that she wasn’t afraid of him, Elizabeth backed up.

  Three steps brought her hard up against the armory door.

  Robert shifted close and placed a hand on the door near her head, leaning in so that their faces were only inches apart. “I’ve never forgotten, Liz,” he said, his voice roughening. “The last words between us were angry ones.”

  Elizabeth swallowed. His closeness was getting too much. Despite that the snow fell outside, it suddenly felt hot and airless inside the armory.

  Part of her didn’t want to dredge up the past—didn’t want to go over the things they’d said to each other on that last morning.

  But it hung over them like a brooding storm cloud.

  His mouth quirked, his gaze holding hers. “What … aren’t ye going to tell me how right ye were? Now’s yer chance.”

  Elizabeth wet her lips. “I didn’t want to be right, Rob,” she replied, her voice barely above a whisper. “I prayed I was mistaken.”

  “But ye weren’t,” he whispered back.

  They stared at each other for a long moment—the tension between them rising further.

  Elizabeth’s pulse quickened. She didn’t want to fight with him, didn’t want his return home to be laced with bitterness. But she couldn’t help what she felt—and nor would she stand by while he took his ill-mood out on their son.

  “Ye could have heeded me,” she said eventually, but yer pride wouldn’t let ye.”

  “And ye could have just let me make my own choices.”

  “But yer choices don’t just affect ye, do they?” she shot back, ire erupting within her once more. “Ye left us alone … left yer brother to rule. Left me imagining the worst.” She broke off there, breathing hard as she tried to stem the tide of words that surged up within her.

  Eight years of words.

  “Why didn’t ye tell me of the siege upon Dunnottar?” he grated out the question. “Surely, as laird, I shouldn’t have to wait for my steward to tell me such things.”

  “I was going to,” Elizabeth replied, her belly clenching. “But last night … ye seemed so weary. I didn’t want to burden ye.”

  “Burden me?” He stared down at her, a nerve flickering under his right eye, betraying the stress he was under. “I’m yer husband, not yer son. I don’t need to be protected.”

  Elizabeth drew in a sharp breath, heat flushing through her. How dare he?

  Robert glared down at her, their gazes locked in silent combat. The rasp of their breathing filled the armory.

  And then, unexpectedly, he lowered his head and kissed her.

  The embrace was bruising, desperate. Robert’s lips crushed against hers, before his tongue sought entrance. And despite her fury, her frustration, Elizabeth welcomed him.

  She drank him in like the first gulp of cool ale at the end of a hot summer’s day. She’d forgotten how good he tasted, how his kisses had always been able to scatter her wits to the four winds.

  His mouth never leaving hers, he stepped closer still, his long, lean body crushing hers against the door.

  Elizabeth gasped at the feel of him; it brought her alive after so long, made her yearn for something she’d forgotten.

  The sweet oblivion of being kissed by Robert De Keith.

  Her hands went to his chest, her fingers curling against his leather vest. His kiss was wild, dominant—how she loved it.

  Words had failed them both, and so now he was trying to bridge the gulf between them with his body.

  It would be easy to give in to it, to the sensual promise of his questing tongue, to the rasp of his short beard against her cheek.

  But even if he lifted her skirts and took her against the door, even if she let him lose himself in her, it wouldn’t change the fact that the man who’d returned to her wasn’t the man she remembered.

  Elizabeth’s fingers tightened into fists against his chest, and—mustering all her will—she ripped her mouth from his, turning her face to the side as she sucked in a deep, steadying breath.

  Her treacherous body sang for him.

  They’d wounded each other—had both drawn blood with barbed words. Giving into this wouldn’t change anything.

  “Liz.” His voice was a rasp, a plea. “What’s wrong?”

  Tears stung her eyelids as she closed her eyes.

  Everything.

  “Ye have been away too long,” she replied, cursing the tremble in her own voice. “I don’t know ye anymore.”

  “Some things ye haven’t forgotten,” he replied huskily. “Yer body remembers … even if ye don’t.”

  Her head snapped around, and she met his gaze once more.

  Curse him, she wished he wouldn’t look at her like that—the man had a stare that could melt stone.

  Her body was weak—but fortunately her wits had returned to her. Robert was her husband, but they were indeed strangers. She hadn’t liked the man who’d just humiliated his ten-year-old son, the man who couldn’t even hold a conversation with her, who was openly suspicious of her.

  There had always been a strong attraction between them. From the first moment they’d been introduced—the young, headstrong laird of Dunnottar and laird Strachan’s eldest daughter. It had been a union to bind two clans, but right from the beginning, just a look from Robert had set her blood aflame.

  It should have come as no surprise that even after so many years apart, the heat was still there.

  VI

  AWAY TOO LONG

  ROBERT WATCHED HIS wife leave the armory. A stone had settled upon his chest, yet he made no move to stop her.

  The look on her face when she’d pulled away had struck him like a blow.

  The reserve in her eyes, especially after such a heated kiss, made it difficult to draw breath.

  And yet he said nothing.

  He just let her go.

  The armory door thudded shut, leaving Robert alone.

  He moved back, leaning against a high wooden bench where rows of helmets were neatly stacked.

  Ye have been away too long … I don’t know ye anymore.

  Elizabeth’s words repeated themselves over and over in his head.

  Robert clenched his jaw.

  That made two of them.

  Did she think he liked being this way? All those years in that tiny, damp cell had eroded away at him. He’d spent too long alone with his own thoughts—and in the end, they’d turned on him.

  Robert lifted a hand to his lips, where the sting of their fierce kiss still remained.

  Just for a few instants, he’d forgotten himself.

  They’d both been angry, had both sought to wound the other—but the moment he’d kissed her, none of it had mattered.

  She’d tasted as sweet as heather honey, her soft curves pressed against him, her mouth as eager as his.

  But although her body was willing, her soul wasn’t.

  Robert wasn’t the only one who’d changed. The Elizabeth he remembered always had a ready smile and a laugh that brought sunlight into even the dullest day.

  Yet smiles didn’t come easily to his wife now. There was a severity to her that had been absent last time he’d seen her.

  Of course, she’d been laird for
years now—a responsibility indeed. And she’d believed herself a widow. She could have taken another husband, although with his death unconfirmed, the church would take a dim view.

  Such things happened nonetheless.

  And yet, Elizabeth had remained faithful to his memory.

  Robert muttered a curse and dragged a hand down his face.

  Damn it all—he was doing a poor job of reuniting with his family.

  “The accounts are all in good order … our coffers are healthy indeed.” Robert glanced up from the ledger, meeting Donnan De Keith’s eye.

  The steward of Dunnottar smiled back. “Aye … we’ve had a few lean years, especially with all the problems Longshanks and his son have caused us. But yer wife has managed yer lands well … even if yer brother nearly brought us to ruin.”

  At the mention of his younger brother, David, Robert scowled. Laird and steward sat at a table in the center of the solar, enjoying cups of warmed mead while they went over the accounts together. Robert had been back at Dunnottar two days now, and was happy to resume his duties as laird. Donnan had just been filling him in on some of the other events that had taken place over the past eight years.

  “So, Shaw Irvine turned against us,” Robert murmured when the steward had concluded his summary. “The bastard broke our truce.”

  Donnan nodded, his own brow furrowing. “Aye … we were all shocked when he joined with Longshanks as he lay siege to Dunnottar.”

  “And how did Gavina take the news of her brother’s treachery?”

  Lady Gavina Irvine had been wed to his brother—a match Robert had been instrumental in organizing. It was a marriage that David had resented him for, for he’d never wanted to wed an Irvine, even if the Irvine laird’s daughter was a beauty. Later, Gavina’s brother had broken the peace between the two clans and even sided with the English during the siege of Dunnottar.

  Now heavily pregnant with her third child to her current husband, Gavina still resided in Dunnottar. Her man, a warrior named Draco, worked in the Dunnottar Guard. Robert had caught a glimpse of Gavina earlier as he re-entered the keep; the contentment on the woman’s face these days was a stark contrast to how pale and strained she’d once been.