by Lisa Torquay
Noises from the entrance drew their attention. In mute accord, they stood from the table and walked to the hall.
Drostan, sided by Freya, and Fingal by Catriona were just coming in the hall. At his sight, his brothers stopped, bracing legs, crossed arms, a hard stare at him. Moira stood by his own side.
“We heard the news,” Drostan said.
“Aren’t you ever going to grow up?” this from Fingal. His middle brother alluded to his ever-present hot head.
Naturally his brothers and sisters-in-law deemed his short temper to blame.
“We have a situation,” Lachlan answered simply.
CHAPTER EIGHT
In the drawing room, the six of them sat while Lachlan explained their predicament extensively. Complemented by what Moira had been going through before their ‘betrothal’.
“Those furry babies killed!” exclaimed Catriona who had a special attachment to animals.
“The man is an ass.” came Fingal.
“Such a strong lass for holding it up all this time,” admired Freya.
Drostan showed a grave expression, understanding the full implications of what he heard. “This is a serious threat to the power balance in the Highlands,” he surmised. “We need to put a plan in place to neutralise The Pitcairn.”
Moira cast a glance at each of them surprised at their favourable opinion. “Look, I appreciate your support,” she started. “But I don’t think it wise to involve the McKendricks in this. It may become dangerous. I don’t wish your families at risk.”
“If we don’t put a stop to it, the villain will advance as much as he wants. Danger will increase.” Fingal pinpointed.
“He’s right,” agreed Lachlan.
Mrs. Murray excused herself and entered “Lady Darroch, I’ve set breakfast for everyone in the morning room,” the plump woman in a large white apron informed. The McKendricks inspired a whole display of hospitality.
“Thank you,” Moira said before the woman exited.
“McDougal will certainly have something to say about it,” Drostan said of Aileen’s husband.
“You’re doing an excellent job,” Freya contributed.
“This will buy us time to consider the situation carefully,” Catriona added.
“Give us a few days and we’ll outline a course of action,” Drostan requested.
Moira regarded the people surrounding her and marvelled at how they stood for one another as a family, as a clan. Even the women participated in the decision making, their husbands encouraging and listening to them. She wished she could still count on her father and brother to make the Darrochs as well-knit as Lachlan’s clan. But she also felt grateful to have had her family at her side even if for a limited period. The perception instilled optimism in her and made her watch the McKendrick monument with gratefulness. The look he directed at her seemed to convey that he would be by her side for as long as she needed him.
Wishful thinking because she suspected that, after all, she would need him forever.
They headed for breakfast, where no one discussed problems, only amenities.
A few days later, Moira went to the fields to check on the progress of the crop. The oat was not as high as it should be, but it promised to catch up as the weather had been holding. She crossed her fingers, hoping for the best.
As she walked back, she crossed with many members of her clan. Usually, she nodded at them or stopped to ask about their families. Today, no one met her eyes, they passed by as if avoiding any contact with her. Avoiding her, in reality. Strange as it might be, she put it down to the distress of the last months. Though no one had ever cut her like this since she was a girl. And never in the last difficult year.
Before she reached the manor, she caught sight of Caitlin and called her.
The other woman came to greet her without meeting her eyes. “Lady Darroch,” more formal than she used to be.
“Everyone I met is behaving oddly towards me.” She decided to investigate the case. “Is anything the matter? Has something been damaged that needs seeing to?” Should there be any more damage limitation, Moira must glean the reason.
Caitlin had worry written over her whole face, hands tightly wrapped in front of her. “I-I shouldna be talking…it’s-it’s ugly—” she trailed off, head downcast.
“What is it, Caitlin?” her friend did not raise her head and remained in silence. “I need to know so I can solve the problem.”
“It isna a problem as such, my lady.” Her features so pleated they might fold in on themselves.
“Please, Caitlin.” Moira became genuinely apprehensive with the woman’s hesitation.
“There’s talk, ye ken, folk blether,” she procrastinated.
People talked everywhere, but a clan was a closed group, prone to even more gossip as everyone knew everyone.
Moira waited, aware that silence coaxed people to fill it with conversation.
“Forgive me, my lady,” Caitlin began. “They say you and Laird McKendrick are living in sin.”
It came so unexpectedly that Moira could barely make sense of it. “In sin? But we—”
She was going to say that they had separate rooms, that there were servants in the house the whole time. But then she remembered the evening the maids took the tub away as Lachlan stood at her chamber threshold. Had people started talking because of it?
Anger overcame the surprise. “We’re not living in sin, Caitlin,” she said firmly.
How dare the clan tear at her reputation when they had so many problems to deal with? And how dare people talk when she was not enjoying the perks of really living in sin with the sinfully delicious man? Her credibility was being shredded without her even tasting the reason for it.
“I ken,” Anguish in her friend’s voice. “But that’s what they’re saying.”
Moira took her leave before her anger overflowed and exploded. One more thing to add to her already bucket full of problems. Livid, she pounded her foot on the grass, heading to her study.
Though she understood gossip tended to fade away—she never listened to them, and could not care less if they were about her—this was a particularly fragile moment to have such talk rise around the clan. She must earn every ounce of respect everyone had for her and she could not afford to lose it while the Darrochs were under threat. No one would follow her lead with such a blemish.
This last development required swift action.
Shortly before dinner, Moira sat in the study with piles of work on the desk. A movement announced Lachlan. She had requested Murray to send him here as soon as he arrived from the cottage rebuilding.
Her head lifted to him, and a torrent of maleness attacked her retinas. It made what she must do all the more difficult.
“You wanted to see me?” he asked.
He had been toiling the whole day, his clothes ended up dusty and wrinkled. A stubble broke from his strong jaw, his hair waved dishevelled, but she had never seen a more handsome man in her life. And would never do. For her, he would eternally be the most attractive man on this planet.
“Yes,” she answered and stood. It would not do to bend her head to face him. “I need you to leave the Darrochs forthwith.” She made an utter effort for this to come cold and final.
Inside, she cringed at her demand. The whole afternoon she had been pondering on the best way to solve this nuisance. Once gossip started, it did not matter if it was true or not. As a woman it fell heavily on her.
His brows crumpled at the suddenness of it. “What happened?”
Her feet rounded the desk as she paced to the centre of the room. “Nothing of consequence, but you must go back to your clan,” she said, unwilling to place one more burden on his shoulders by telling him the cause for this.
The notion she would have him around for a while more had brought her warmth and contentment. His presence made her life so…so…happy, so worth living. She would be forever grateful for these past week
s. It tore her insides to tell him what she just did.
Legs braced, his fists rested on his hips, his scrutiny taking every detail of her. “It cannot be unimportant for you to ask it.”
Her back turned to him, she could not afford to weaken her resolve. A full intake of breath and she returned to face him. “Do not question me on this, Lachlan.” Her determination shone through her voice.
His expression went stone hard. “Either you tell me or I’ll go ask the servants. They will surely know something.”
Moira crossed her arms, irritation starting to win over her distress. “I am the current leader of this clan and I do not give you permission to act.”
Damn him! Why did he have to make it so difficult?
Something must have shown on her face because he neared her and took her shoulders with tenderness. “What is it, Moira?” the concern in his tone undid her.
A sigh of defeat expelled from her as wide eyes lifted to him. “They’re saying we’re living in…in sin,” she said vexed. “It started after we…well…after you spent the night in my room.” Crimson flooded her face at the remembrance, especially of what had transpired in the morning.
Put this way, the clan’s gossip would take a whole new wave of defamation.
The information had him pacing the study, raking his hand through his already mussed hair. A very ugly imprecation aired under his breath.
Next second he was pouncing to the door and hollering for Murray. As the butler rushed there, he commanded. “Have all the servants gather here.”
“What are you doing?” she asked when they were alone again.
“You’ll see,” he said, pure wrath pouring from his coffee eyes.
In a line, the servants came inside, Mrs. Murray and her husband the last of them. There were not that many, two maids, two footmen, a cook and the Murrays. Still, they counted more than before Moira started this charade.
Lachlan posted himself by Moira’s side. “When we selected you to work here, we made it clear that we valued our privacy,” he said as if a general to his regiment. “One of you broke your word.” The hard look he cast at each of them left no doubt as to his doggedness in finding the culprit.
“My laird, I can take this in hand,” Murray offered. As the butler, he would be in charge of such infringements.
“Thank you, Murray, but we’ll clarify this now,” his command brokered no discussion. And to the others, “You can tell me, or I can terminate everyone’s position. More loyal servants will come along.”
The uniformed men and women blanched in varied degrees as they slipped covert glances to one another.
While Lachlan spoke, Moira had the chance to inspect every reaction from those present. The maid, Mary, acquired a positively greenish hue.
“Murray,” Moira interjected. “Please, take everyone to the hall and talk to them,” she said.
As they turned to leave, she added, “Mary, stay, will you?” The girl froze, her skirts reverberating her shaking.
The three of them were alone. Lachlan did not say anything, seemingly trusting her instincts.
In a kindly voice, Moira addressed the maid. “Mary, tell us what you know.”
The maid seemed on the verge of a collapse, but she met Mora’s eyes in a show of braveness.
Long seconds elapsed before she deigned to speak. “Some laddies talked to me,” her voice weak with nervousness probably.
“Who?” Lachlan asked.
The girl did not look at him. Moira remembered she had been the one giggling as she left the chamber with that tub.
“I dinna ken,” she answered. “Promised my brathair’s gambling debt would be paid.”
“In exchange for what?” Moira questioned.
“Telling what goes on in the manor.” Low, her tone did not falter.
“And if you didn’t?” Lachlan pushed.
“They’d harm…me.” The slightest wobbling showed in the information.
“Damned lackeys!” Moira exclaimed in astonishment.
Little by little, her uncle’s modus operandi appeared. He prayed on people’s weaknesses—gambling debts, cheating husbands, sick children, anything that could be used as leverage. Moira would not be surprised if most of them were from the Darrochs. Inside information would always be valuable. It would not be too far-fetched to suspect that her own people put fire to the cottage, or freed the cattle in the oat fields. Would they have killed innocent animals too? Or poisoned Malcom?
“Here’s what,” Lachlan started. “I’ll write a letter to my brother, the Laird. You’ll take it and seek refuge in the McKendricks.”
“Thank you, my laird.” The maid became visibly relieved.
She was but just another victim in Hamish’s schemes. It would be unfair to punish her in the circumstances. A flush of admiration for Lachlan invaded Moira.
At the desk, he started writing. As he gave the girl the letter, she curtsied several times with gratitude.
The maid left behind a heavy silence.
Moira sought the armchair and fairly crumbled on it. An intense disheartenment invaded her; a bitter weariness of trying, of struggling nearly doubled her. Hamish would not stop until he achieved what he sat out to do. Every trick he played, every crime he perpetrated took a piece of her away, in the end she would be broken. To which end? She was a woman, she had no legal right to lead the clan, it would fall in someone else’s hands anyway. One of her callused hands rubbed her brow with a long sigh.
“Moira,” Lachlan rasped.
Perhaps she should quit, leave everything. Open a shop in Aberdeen, or Glasgow. Fly to the moon.
“Moira,” he repeated.
She could find a humble man to marry, a smith, a shoemaker. Live a simple life, with simple problems and simple joys.
“Darroch!” Lachlan called loudly.
Startled, she snapped her eyes at him, not having heard the first two times.
“Cease those sombre thoughts right now!” he commanded.
“How do you know they’re sombre?”
Standing tall and broad before the armchair, he oozed confidence. And masculinity. And everything she had dreamed of in a man. In him.
“Your expression is covered in shadows,” he vented.
“Well, that was poetic,” she mocked.
“You bring out the worst in me,” he answered in kind.
A half-chuckle huffed out of her. That he could make her laugh in all this caused her to be even more attracted to him.
He stared at her with an amused glint in his beautiful eyes, the moment lengthening into a communication that dispensed with words. His intent eyes infused her with a renewed energy that led her to forget her flitting hopelessness.
“You know what he’s doing,” he emitted gravely.
He being her uncle, no doubt.
“He's doing what every man in history has done with a female opponent, attacking her reputation to invalidate her claims.” Certainty and disgust mingled in her melodious voice.
Lachlan understood her answer as accurate, but it did not change the fact that her uncle had played a strong card.
The sight of her so helpless a moment ago caused him to want to fight the entire world for her. She had endured this for longer than any legendary warrior would have and still found the wherewithal to keep up to it. She was simply amazing!
“By the looks of it, he was spot on,” he commented.
At that, she sprang up from the armchair and paced back and forth along the fireplace.
“Perhaps, but I won’t fall for it.” Single-mindedness spelled in her tone and straight spine.
“You might not, but your clan will,” he insisted.
He himself had acquired a reputation that, real or not, had glued to him like a poster wherever he went. Had not she accused him of being a womaniser based on it?
At a halt, she glared at him. “Gossip fades away, and besides, my clan trust me.” The woma
n could not be more headstrong.
He glared back, arms crossed. “Probably, but old habits are hard to die and a woman's reputation standards are among them.” Sad as it may be, no one could deny the fact.
Her leadership would be in tethers merely because of a suspicion of what she chose or not to do with her own body. Which was no one’s business, but everybody made it their business anyway.
“If you leave, they’ll have nothing to talk and I’ll be able to carry on as I’ve been doing for more than a year,” Moira reiterated.
“I’ve told you I’m not leaving, especially when you are in more danger than I imagined.”
“The bad news is you’ll have to,” she continued implacable. “If I don’t regain my reputation, I’ll not have enough credibility to stand up to Hamish.”
It was his turn to pace, raking his hair with both hands. “Do you imagine that after believing you lived in sin with me, they’ll think you didn’t if I leave?” Lachlan and Moira would not be able to mend this mess with this simple a measure. “The only way for you to regain your reputation is marrying me,” he stated as he paused right in front of her.
He said it in an impulse, but the usual disgust with the institution did not rise as expected.
Such sadness tinted her eyes, marring her whole face, you would believe she had just been dished her death sentence. She turned her back and her gaze flew through the window.
A long minute passed before her frame swivelled back to him. But now her stance had tinted with refusal.
“Marrying you would be the mistake to reign over all mistakes made by humanity,” her soft voice contained an iron clink, her glare met him unreducible.
Her words struck him like a boulder to his chest. He was fully aware of her contempt for marriage. Nonetheless, there had been several lasses in the past that would consider his proposal a dream come true. This rejection did not sit well with him.
A scowl smothered his countenance. “You brought me here with a match in mind.” Granted, he was the one to think it delirious at the time.
