The Love of Her Life (Highlander Heroes Book 6)

by Rebecca Ruger

  “You dinna want to do that, lad,” Alec said in a dangerous voice, directly behind him by now. He caught the unblinking smirk Elle gave the lad.

  The youth turned and Alec enjoyed very well how far back he needed to tilt his head to meet Alec’s hard eyes. The boy sent his gaze to collect Malcolm’s presence, but must have then been buoyed by the fact that they were only two and a woman.

  “You and the carrot-head gonna stop us?”

  “Just you. Your friends are no’ eejits to court this fight.”

  The lad scoffed.

  Alec decided not to make a scene, nor even to waste his time on teaching the arse a lesson. “Move. Away from me. Away from her. And completely out of my sight.”

  From behind, one of the other Sutherland idiots challenged, “He’s no’ interested in your hound. He wants the pretty blon—”

  His sudden silence suggested Malcolm had quieted him. Alec heard a body hit the ground.

  Still holding the gaze of the greater troublemaker, Alec told him, “She’s with me as well. And I’m no’ sure why you’re no’ running.”

  To his credit, his friend falling had only made this one shift his gaze quickly, but now, with these words, he held up his hands with some attempt to project innocence and began to back away.

  While they collected their friend from the ground, while he sniveled and held his hand to his bloody nose, Alec and Malcolm and Elle remained still and watchful until the group was out of sight.

  “I could’ve handled those whelps,” Elle said, her tone heated.

  “Aye, you could have,” Alec surmised, glancing around her, to where the wonderfully oblivious Katie had her hands dug into more fabrics and wares, her back to them, blissfully unaware of the near calamity.

  Elle shook her head, drawing Alec’s frown.

  “I ken you would no’ have gone far. Jesu, you’ve got it bad.”

  Alec ignored her but determined he would remain close now.

  Within the hour, all the shopping was done, and the four of them walked away from the market to collect their steeds. Alec tucked their few purchases into his saddlebags and lifted Katie up onto his big black. She was getting more comfortable with riding, he knew, pleased with this as he enjoyed very much holding her close while they rode.

  “Thank you for bringing me to the market,” she said when he’d settled behind her. “I cannot imagine it was high on your list of things-you-love-to-do, which makes me appreciate it all the more.”

  “Are you happy with your purchases, lass?”

  “Aye. Of course, if I were handier with needle and thread, I’d have preferred to make my own gown, but yes, I am satisfied. And I used some of my coin to buy Henry a new pair of shoes. The leather goods in that stall were very well-made.”

  “Verra good. At his age, I would guess he might outgrow his footwear fairly quickly.”

  “He outgrows everything fairly quickly.”

  Malcom and Elle rode ahead, setting a leisurely pace, riding away from Carryd and into the sun.

  Alec set his hand against her thigh, the reins held firmly though his arm was relaxed. He liked that she set her hand atop his, lacing her fingers lightly with his. Seemed a very affectionate thing to do. It pleased him greatly.

  What pleased him even more was when she turned her head slightly and said, “Henry claims to be sleeping again up at the keep tonight.”

  Damn, but those words evoked so many emotions. First, her intent to sound only as if she passed on information, as if he should glean no invitation inside her words was quite charming, as subtlety was quite apparently not her forte. Next, the very idea of her alone in that bed both roused him and invoked memories of their lovemaking, vivid enough to stir his blood even now. But lastly, and most sadly, was the news he was compelled to give her now.

  “Actually, you’ve been given a reprieve.” He made an attempt at lightness but could not quite keep the disappointment from his tone.

  “A reprieve?”

  “I’d promised myself I’d no’ make love to you again until we were wed proper.”

  “Why would you do that?” This, he thought, rather burst from her.

  Alec chuckled. There was something very endearing about her own displeasure. “I’ve said, I dinna want to dishonor you further. I want to begin proper with you, wed first.”

  “Um, it’s a little late for that.”

  “Never too late to undo wrongs, or at least go forward in a better manner.”

  She was quiet long enough that Alec felt he needed to assert more truths. “Katie, dinna think for one moment, I dinna want you or”—he grinned again—“couldn’t easily be persuaded away from my oath. I relive that night way more than I should.”

  “I think you are a very honorable man, Alec MacBriar,” she said, her voice filled with wonder, which faded, replaced by some disgruntlement when she asked, “But how long until we wed?”

  Alec pressed a kiss to her hair. “Four days now, lass. Think you can survive it?”

  “I have no choice, it seems. I hope your honor doesn’t have any other terrible ideas.”

  Aye, but she was something, his bride-to-be, often quite a revelation.

  “We have all the rest of our lives, Katie.”

  KATIE WAS STARTLED awake.

  She lifted her head from her arms, where she’d fallen asleep at the table.

  First she saw a hand and settled, recognizing Alec’s fingers as they gently plucked the threads away from her.

  “And where’s the needle, lass? You’ll be poking your own eye out, you keep up with this, toiling so late in the night.” He must have found it and moved these things further away upon the table before scooping Katie from the stool and into his arms.

  “No, I need to finish,” she protested, but only half-heartedly, barely able to keep her eyes open. She’d been so busy these last couple of days, she felt as if she definitely needed more hours in her day.

  “It’ll keep ‘til morn,” he advised, his voice nighttime quiet.

  Alec laid her down upon the cozy cot and Katie closed her eyes. But only for a second before they fluttered open again.

  Alec stood beside the bed, hands on his hips, staring down at her.

  “Why are you about so late?” She thought to ask, knowing when last she was wakeful she assumed it must be getting on to midnight.

  “You’d said at dinner you’d be busy tonight so I spent the evening with Malcolm,” he said. “Move over.”

  Katie did, a reflexive action to his softly worded request, but she knew greater wakefulness and a gentle stirring at the very idea.

  He dropped his sword and belt where it had rested before, against the crude headboard, and then sat and removed his boots while Katie moved all the way over to the wall. Throwing a glance over his shoulder to gauge the narrow space, he stretched out on his back, lifting his arm in silent invitation. Katie understood immediately, and curled herself into him, settling herself into the crook of his shoulder, laying her hand over his chest.

  “I’ll stay but a few minutes.”

  “You haven’t kissed me today,” she said, still groggy.

  “Aye and I’m no’ going to. You’re exhausted and you ken one kiss will only lead to more.”

  She snuggled more closely against him, drawing from his warmth and stifled her yawn, just in case he thought or might be convinced to change his mind.

  “I’ll only have more to do tomorrow, if you won’t let me finish tonight.”

  “You were no’ finishing, lass. You were sleeping.”

  “But I have so much to do yet.”

  “It’ll get done, lass. No’ the end of the world if it dinna.”

  “Says the bridegroom two days before his wedding.”

  He scratched at his chest a bit then covered Katie’s hand with his own and left it there. “Henry was told about Elle’s bairn tonight—he was with Malcom and me in the stables until mam called him up to the keep for bed.”

  “And?”

&nbs
p; “Aye, I got the sense he was confused, and then he wondered if Elle would still be a soldier. Seemed he feared he might lose his friend.”

  “Aw. Of course he won’t, but things will definitely change.” Poor Henry. He’d just found Eleanor and now might feel, indeed, that he would lose her to her bairn.

  “Will they wed, do you think, Malcolm and Elle?” She asked.

  “Aye, like as no’. Mam will insist upon it sooner or later.”

  She let her mind wander to his thoughts about Henry. Sleepily, she told him, “I’d always thought when Henry was older, we’d lease a portion of the fields and he could earn his living with the farming. I’d have preferred him to know a trade—smithing or fletching or carpentry—but I wasn’t friendly enough with those persons at Dalserf to inquire about any kind of apprenticeship. Or at least, as he is so young, I hadn’t gotten around to it before I left there.”

  “He’ll be a MacBriar now, lass. He’ll need to go by the sword.”

  “I supposed that’s to be expected. I won’t like it, though.”

  “Aye, unless he has any interest in the church. Great pride there. Da’ would love to send a MacBriar to the church.”

  She wasn’t sure she’d ever given the church thought as an occupation for her son, but she liked very much that Alec would consider Henry a MacBriar when they were wed. “He doesn’t read or write, of course.”

  “Can be taught. Do you, lass? Read or write?”

  “Barely. I was never taught. I glean some written things, what Maybeth expected me to know. Very little.”

  “Maybeth?”

  “The woman who taught me the healing arts,” she said through a yawn.

  “Aye now, I’m pleased for this opening, lass. I’ll admit to a rabid curiosity about your past. You’re young yet for all the knowledge you have about medicine and healing, and several decades shy of any other healer I’ve ever known. So I’m curious about how you came into the profession.”

  “’Tis no great tale,” she said. “Mayhap a pitiful one though. I do not recall my parents as they perished when some sickness claimed whatever town I was born into. I’m not sure I have any other family. A woman took me in. I think her name was Isodore, but I canna remember.”

  “You canna remember the name of the woman who raised you?”

  “She didn’t. She only took me in for a short period, I’d been told. Then she sold me to the healer, that was Maybeth, when I was about Henry’s age.”

  Jesu. “Sold you?”

  “It’s not as awful as it sounds. The woman had her own bairns and had lost her husband. I guess she couldn’t spare more of...well, of anything for a child who was not her own.” She was quick to assure Alec, whom she sensed was bristling at this coldness, “Maybeth was...not unkind. And, as you might have guessed, I’ve been learning the healing arts since I was very young.”

  “Not unkind leaves a lot to the imagination.”

  “She didn’t...I mean she wasn’t as lovely as your own sweet mam. But she was good to me, we got on well enough. She...she just wasn’t warm. Everything was a lesson, in regard to life and its mishaps and healing as well. She did not actually teach me anything, didn’t say, now remember this, just expected me to watch and learn.”

  “Makes sense,” he mused, which turned her toward him once more. “So you have a verra warm, verra loving relationship with your son, make sure he dinna grow up without.”

  Another shrug and then she admitted, “Do you know that until I actually held Henry in my arms for the very first time, I hadn’t any idea that I’d missed out on anything, that something was lacking. Of course, as soon as I did cradle him against me, I was in love and knew then what it was.”

  “Henry is verra lucky then.”

  “As am I.” She changed the subject then. “Have you siblings? I’ve heard no mention of such.”

  “Nae. Apparently, there were many before me who dinna survive, some not until birth, and some not much after.”

  “How awful for your mother.”

  “And father, too. I’d always thought they seemed like they would have embraced a large brood.”

  Quiet then, but comfortably so, until Katie dared to voice something that had been bothering her for quite a while.

  “Alec, why do you not hug your mother?”

  “What?”

  “When I first met you, you’d been gone for a long time from home, but you didn’t embrace your mother when we finally reached Swordmair. And...and your mother said you don’t hug her.”

  He didn’t respond immediately that Katie bit her lip, wondering if she shouldn’t have raised the subject.

  When he did react, it was only to ask, “She said as much to you?”

  Nearly grimacing, but then determined that if he were to be her husband, they should have no secrets, Katie replied, “She did. Actually, she...well, she blamed in on the time you spent as a prisoner of the English.”

  “She told you that?”

  “Was I not to know?”

  She felt him shrug and then he was still. Finally, he said, “It doesn’t matter. I just...I dinna talk about it.”

  “But will you? Can you? To me?”

  She guessed that all his responses might be slow, while he gave thought to how much he wanted to discuss or to reveal to her.

  “It was a long time ago.”

  This ambiguous response suggested he did not want to share it with her, which was fine, but she wanted to clarify what she understood. “That, as an answer, implies you don’t want to talk about it, but then this, coupled with the fact that you cannot or won’t embrace your mother, suggests that it still sits unwell with you.”

  “It sits yet, aye.” His tone was cool.

  Katie pursued nothing more, having pushed him too far just now, she thought. She closed her eyes and had nearly fallen asleep again as many minutes had passed, when his chin moved against the top of her head as he said, “It...it’s just one of those things, it changes you. I left here a green lad, too coddled by them both to ken how ugly the world is.”

  Roused once more, Katie asked, “Do you blame your parents though? Do you feel they hadn’t prepared you better for...atrocities or...?”

  “I dinna blame them.” He paused before admitting, “They did me no favors, but I ken, they’d buried so many bairns, they...I dinna ken. I love and appreciate both my mam and father. I dinna ever doubt that.”

  “Maybe that’s all that matters.”

  “Hm.”

  “I won’t force you or push you to disclose more but please give your mother a hug. She misses you.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  She couldn’t believe her own wedding was but a day away. As she walked back to her cottage, she catalogued in her mind everything she hoped to yet get done today. Henry walked beside her, chattering without pause, to which Katie lent only some of her attention. She’d heard this particular story already, earlier when she’d first gone to collect him. But he repeated almost the entire tale, that Alec had brought him to the training field, that Elle had given him some basic instruction in archery.

  This afternoon, Katie wanted to spend more time on Elle’s dress. When they’d found nothing that suited her at the market, Eleanor had rather dispensed with the idea of wearing a gown to Alec and Katie’s wedding, had seemed to lose interest in the entire idea, but Katie hadn’t wanted to give up. When they’d returned from the market, she’d put out some of her precious coin to Edric, who was possessed of a vast and varied supply of all sorts of things, but mainly bolts of fabrics.

  “But lass, you wait until after the wedding,” Edric had said, “and then you dinna have to use your own coin. It’ll come from the castle coffers.”

  “Edric, I rather need it now, and it is for my personal use, so I do not believe the charge should belong to Swordmair.”

  Having so recently explored so much fabric at the Carryd market, Katie was well aware that Edric was cutting her a very fine deal. She expressed her appreciation eagerly a
nd had started on Eleanor’s gown that night. Agnes had leant some aid, being slightly more accustomed to making garments, that at least the design and measurements were set, the latter being rather imagined, as they hadn’t anything by which to compare it. Katie wanted to surprise Elle and thus could not ask her outright to sit for a measuring. They’d made adjustments the next day, when Elle had come to Katie’s cottage to collect her to tend Aymer, who’d suffered a sprained ankle during training. When Katie had returned almost an hour later, Agnes came scurrying over.

  “Longer, lass,” she advised when she’d stepped inside and closed the door behind her. “I took note of where Elle stood when she was at your door.” She placed her hand against a spot in the top third of the door. “Shoulders were here. Good thing ye dinna cut the skirt pieces yet.”

  Later today, after she’d made some progress on the sewing, they would return to the keep for dinner. After that, in the early evening, she needed to put some effort into her medicinals; she’d rather been forced to abandon her very organized methods of storing, grinding, and blending the seeds and roots that it was taking her longer to treat each person, as so few of the regularly used recipes or ointments were prepared.

  When that was done, she needed to address Henry’s clothing, what he might possibly wear to the wedding, thinking his best tunic might need some repair.

  And then she would have a late night bath, when she’d had time to fetch and heat the water, when Henry was asleep.

  “Mam.”

  Katie startled, turning. Henry stood at the door to their cottage. She’d walked right past it.

  “Good heavens,” she said and turned to follow him inside.

  “I thought you were going to Agnes’s house,” Henry said, closing the door behind them.

  “I was wool-gathering,” she admitted, setting her basket on the table. The well-worn shallow vessel was near overflowing, filled with most of today’s payment for services rendered—Ann’s father had offered her a wooden bowl and spoon, which he’d said he’d carved himself on some recent rainy nights; Martha, who tatted some very fine lace had asked Katie what she’d like for treating her red and infected eye and left there with an arm’s length of lace that would quite easily trim the neckline of Elle’s gown; from Ben Carpenter’s wife, Sarah, whose infant’s bottom was covered in a rash, which Katie had now seen twice, she’d received two crocks of honey, a valuable commodity to her; and from Agnes, whose husband was abed with a purging illness that had turned him milky white, she’d been paid with strips of linen, which she could always use.