Highlander Unmasked

by Monica McCarty

  She could feel Jamie’s eyes on her, watching her intently. “Yes. Apparently, Alex and Rory had a falling-out some time ago.”

  Her eyes flew to Jamie’s face. This time she couldn’t hide her surprise. “Did Alex MacLeod tell you that?”

  He shook his head. “No. It’s just another rumor being bandied about court. But it has the ring of truth to it. Rory was said to be unhappy about his brother fighting for the O’Neill. Alex is Rory’s designated successor, his tanaiste. Or rather was his tanaiste. Rory claimed that Alex’s allegiance belonged to him. And only to him.”

  It did. Meg could never consider a man who did not do his duty to his clan. Family loyalty was of utmost importance.

  She felt a fresh stab of disappointment, reminiscent of the reaction she’d had last night upon learning that the man she’d spent hours thinking about the past few weeks, her gallant knight in a yellow cotun, wasn’t what she’d thought. She bit her lip, unable to forget the strange hurt she’d felt. He wasn’t suitable, even if he was interested in her—which he obviously wasn’t. She should have listened to the little voice in her head. The voice that warned he was wrong for her.

  Hadn’t she seen it for herself? Wasn’t that what had troubled her that day in the forest? Every inch a battle-hardened warrior, he was a man born with a sword in his hand. Fighting consumed him. He wasn’t hotheaded like Thomas Mackinnon; he was far too disciplined for that. But he teetered overly close to the edge of danger for her conservative sensibilities. She needed a stabilizing force, not a warmonger who would be off fighting someone else’s wars.

  If there had been any question as to his suitability before, there couldn’t be now. If Alex MacLeod wasn’t loyal to his own brother, how could he be to hers?

  She shouldn’t be so disappointed.

  But she was.

  She’d romanticized a man she knew nothing about. That was precisely the problem with succumbing to the dubious charm of attraction. Meg was surprised at herself. She usually had more sense. But when he’d looked at her with such soul-piercing intensity, she’d felt something so powerful that she’d responded without her usual deliberation.

  Which only proved what she already knew. She must choose a husband with her head and not with her heart. Once before, she’d succumbed to the lure of a handsome face and the fierce pounding of her heart, and it had ended in disaster. She would never let that happen again.

  Why was she even thinking about this? He wouldn’t want someone like her. He’d danced with her because her mother had forced him into it. She didn’t know what had provoked her to tell him of her search for a husband. Maybe she’d meant to discourage him. Not that he needed discouragement.

  “Did you ask him about the rumors?” she asked.

  Jamie nodded. “I did. He didn’t deny it, but said it was none of my damn”—he cleared his throat—“business.”

  Meg shifted her attention back to Jamie, gazing at him thoughtfully. “Why are you telling me all this, Jamie?”

  He shrugged. “I just thought you should know.”

  He was doing his best to look indifferent, but Meg realized her obvious interest in Alex MacLeod had perhaps had the unintended consequence of damaging Jamie’s still youthful pride. It was a situation she must rectify.

  “Loyalty is of the utmost importance to me, Jamie,” she said truthfully. “You and Elizabeth have been nothing but true and loyal friends to me. I value your friendship greatly.”

  Jamie didn’t bother to hide his pleasure. “I’m pleased to hear it. I just didn’t want you to be disappointed.”

  I already am. With effort, Meg returned his smile. “How could I be? I don’t even know the man.”

  “I thought I did, but Alex has changed much since the last time we met.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  He thought for a minute. “Five, maybe six years ago. Though he left my cousin’s service over fifteen years past.”

  “Time enough for anyone to change.”

  “Alex is nothing like I remember. The years have hardened him. He’s no longer the teasing youth always quick with a smile. Believe it or not”—he indicated with a quick flick of his head—“he used to be the lighthearted one.”

  Meg would have found it hard to believe except for her memories of his visit long ago and the glimpse of teasing she’d seen on the dance floor. She wondered what had caused him to harden.

  Jamie paused reflectively. “Rory was the serious one, Alex more an instigator. But they were always close. Strange to think that so much could have changed. But I suppose as Alex grew to be a man, it would be difficult to be the younger brother of a legend like Rory Mor—Rory the Great.”

  Alex MacLeod didn’t strike her as the type to be lost in anyone’s shadow—no matter how broadly cast. He was too much in control. Too confident. Too much a leader in his own right. But Meg kept her opinions to herself.

  Her gaze slid to Alex, and she was surprised to find him watching her. Or, rather, glaring at her. He looked almost…angry. There was something dark and frighteningly primitive in his eyes. The heated intensity of his gaze coiled around her and squeezed, taking her breath away.

  It was a look of raw possession. Possession that spoke to her in a language she’d never heard before. Of desire, passion, and lust. For a moment she felt helpless, caught in his powerful trap. His eyes held her, just as surely as if he’d reached out across the room to claim her with his arms. She hated that she couldn’t look away.

  But he did. His eyes shuttered. And before she could catch her breath, he broke the connection, turned on his heel, and left the hall. Leaving her reeling.

  What did this man do to her? He knocked her senseless merely by looking at her.

  “Is everything all right, Meg?” Jamie asked, concerned. “You look as white as a sheet.”

  She took a long gulp of her claret, allowing the sweet liquid to calm her racing pulse. “I’m fine. Perhaps a little hungry, that’s all.”

  Jamie offered her his arm. “Will you allow me to see you to the dining room?”

  Meg fought the urge to look around for Alex. Let it go, Meg. He’s not for you. You need a man like…

  Jamie.

  Jamie was the answer. He was where she should concentrate her efforts. Then why was she vacillating? It wasn’t like her to procrastinate. But there was so much at stake if she chose wrong. It was too important a decision to rush to judgment. She needed proper time for deliberation and analysis; but time was the one thing she didn’t have.

  She’d always thought of her father as invincible, but his recent illness had shown her just how fragile life could be. How everything could change in an instant.

  She should have known better. A vivid memory flashed before her eyes of one hot spring day when the course of her life had changed just as quickly.

  Meg ran to the library with her hand over her mouth, trying to contain the laughter bubbling inside. She’d just been swimming with the village children in the loch, and Ian had made himself a crown of butter cups and dubbed himself King of the May. Ian was always doing funny things to make them laugh. She was eager to tell her mother. She’d been so sad lately; surely this would bring a smile to her face. The door was open, and the sound of her mother’s tears brought her to a dead halt.

  “She’s sure?” her father asked.

  Meg heard the muffled sounds of her mother’s sobs.

  “No more children,” her father echoed. “No more sons.” Meg could hear the crush of disappointment resonate in his voice. “Who will be chief when I’m gone?” he asked, almost as if to himself.

  That is strange, Meg thought. Ian, who else?

  “Ian will never be able to manage on his own,” he said.

  And with his words, Meg was forced to acknowledge what she’d fought so long to ignore. Something inside her knew that fifteen-year-old boys shouldn’t be making crowns of buttercups and dancing around a tree.

  “I’m sorry,” her mother choked.

&nbs
p; “Shush, my love. There’ll be no more of that. We’ll think of something. But men are hard to find in our family. If I had a brother, uncle, cousin, anything…No, Ian is the only possibility. But even if I name Ian tanaiste, his succession as chief will be challenged. If not from within the clan, then from outside when I am gone.” She heard her father sigh, the sound ripe with disappointed resignation. “If only Meggie were a lad, she’d make a fine chief.”

  Meg could still feel her heart breaking for Ian. Her big, strong, handsome older brother who was kind and sweetly innocent. Who cared that he didn’t read or do his sums as well as she did? Or that he was sometimes awkward around strangers? Meg loved him the way any girl would love her older brother. Perhaps she even loved him a little bit more, because he needed her so badly. She was his buffer from a cruel world. But she could not protect him from everything. He understood so much more than people realized. He knew when he was doing something wrong or lacking. The hardest part was watching his growing frustration as he tried to please her father.

  If only Meggie were a lad, she’d make a fine chief. It was that offhand comment that had sparked the beginnings of a plan. She would help Ian. For the last ten years, she’d dedicated herself to the clan, to learning the business of managing the lands and handling the financial concerns of Clan Mackinnon.

  But she needed to find a man who would stand beside her brother where she could not in his dealings with the king’s men and who would fight beside him if need be. A clan was only as strong as its chief. When her brother inherited, their land would be at grave risk from attack by more powerful clans—clans that constantly sought more land to provide for their ever increasing numbers. Her father’s guardsmen were no longer young, they might not be able to protect Ian’s position, so Meg’s choice of husband was crucial.

  With her help and her husband’s support, Ian would make a fine chief. Ian was her father’s tanaiste, his designated successor. That position was his by right of birth, but vestiges of tanistry from the old Brehon Laws made some think it could be challenged. On Skye, he was derisively known as “Ian Balbhan.” Ian the Dumb. She despised the epithet and had done her best to shield her brother from others’ cruelty.

  And from her father’s disappointment.

  Her chest tightened with the pressure of expectation. She’d worked so hard to prove to her father that it could be done. She had to do the right thing. There wasn’t room for mistakes. Really, there was only one choice.

  And it was up to her to make it.

  So much for fairy tales. No one was going to ride in on a white horse and make her decision easy for her.

  Alex MacLeod was not for her. She was attracted to him in a way that she never had been attracted to a man before. But it did not matter. She would not let it interfere with her decision. He was a mercenary. A warrior. A man of the past. Men like Alex harkened to a bygone era. A time of feuds and forays and the unfettered authority of the chief. The role of the Highland chief was changing. No longer just a warlord, he must also be prepared to deal with the king and his men.

  She needed a man to put the king’s men at ease. Alex was a threatening presence the moment he walked into the room. Every inch a Highland warrior, he was exactly the type of powerful man these Lowlanders feared.

  She took a long look at Jamie, who stood patiently beside her, not allowing her thoughts to slide back to the forbidding man who’d just exited the hall. The man who threw her emotions into a tumult.

  Taking a deep breath, she placed her hand on the crook of Jamie’s arm. This time, there was no shock. The lean muscle beneath her fingers did not elicit wild, uncontrollable emotions.

  She was tired of this charade. Meg was out of her element at court, and she knew it. Jamie Campbell was the most logical choice for a husband.

  There was only one decision she could make.

  Chapter 5

  Alex left the hall unaccountably edgy, if not down right angry. And the worst part was that he didn’t know why.

  After slipping outside the palace gates, he started down Vai Regius, the Way of the King—a cobble-paved road recently constructed by King James that stretched between Holyrood and Edinburgh Castle. Although he’d made no effort to hide his departure, he was careful to make sure he wasn’t followed. Most people seemed to have accepted his story about being a merce nary looking for work, but Highlanders were always viewed with suspicion. He’d take no chances.

  Alex was late. He was supposed to be meeting his squire, Robbie, at the White Hart Inn to report what he’d learned so far, but he’d been delayed. Delayed by a wee enchantress with big green eyes. Instead of observing the king’s men to gather more information, he’d found himself watching Meg’s conversation with Jamie Campbell with increasing frustration. He’d seen some thing in her eyes….

  He suspected she’d made her choice.

  But, he reminded himself, it didn’t concern him. Alex had made his own choice a long time ago, and it didn’t involve taking a wife. His future was uncertain at best and short at worst.

  He’d been tempted to go to her after his awkward compliment on the dance floor. She’d misunderstood, but he realized that he’d hit on a vulnerability when he’d made an unwitting comparison with her mother. Rosalind Mackinnon was undeniably a beautiful woman, but so was her daughter. Everything about her was…endearing. Irresistible softness to a man who’d known only hardship for so long. Didn’t Meg realize how lovely she was? No. It suddenly occurred to him that she almost seemed to go out of her way not to emphasize her beauty, hiding herself beneath ill-fitting clothes and unflattering hairstyles. Even he had almost missed it.

  The flash of hurt in her eyes had unsettled him deeply. Hell, he thought with frustration. She unsettled him. Meg was the first woman in four years to make him think about anything other than revenge, justice, and atonement.

  He’d do his best to steer clear of her.

  As he neared the city, the pungent stench of excrement burned the back of his throat. The vile cesspool of intrigue and corruption that permeated court seemed to have spilled onto the streets. Literally. And they think we are barbarians, he thought with disgust. At least Highlanders don’t toss waste out their windows to run in open sewers with merely a warning shout of “Gardyloo!”

  The smell was revolting, and on a warm night like tonight, unbearable. Even to a man who was used to the primitive conditions afforded the life of an outlaw, the filth of Edinburgh was nearly inconceivable.

  He used the edge of his cloak to smother the stench. The faint scent of lavender still clung to the wool, courtesy of his brother’s wife, Isabel, he supposed. Upon his arrival at Dunvegan, she’d threatened to toss most of his clothing into the fire, relenting only after he’d agreed to allow her to see to its washing.

  The sweet reminder from home made him even more anxious to leave this woe-begotten place. Court was a necessary but unwelcome stop to gather information before he set course for the Isle of Lewis. If the rumor of a second attempt by the Fife Adventurers to colonize Lewis proved correct, Alex would ferret out whatever information he could to help his kin, the MacLeods of Lewis, thwart the incursion. But Lewis was where the real battle would be fought…and won.

  If he could leave for Lewis right now, he would.

  One step at a time, he reminded himself. But damn, he was eager to begin. Preventing the king from claiming Lewis would be a resounding victory for the Island chiefs, but in helping his kin, the MacLeods of Lewis, Alex would finally have the chance to right a wrong that had shadowed him for five long years.

  He knew he trod a treacherous path. If he were caught, here or later on Lewis, his actions could well be construed as treason.

  But it was worth the risk.

  Because of that risk, his brother had tried to stop him, but eventually Alex had persuaded Rory that no one else would suffice. Alex had both position and familiarity with court, as well as access to Jamie Campbell and other important political leaders. And as for his ability to lead
the battle on Lewis, it had taken two hours on the lists with Rory—ending only with Isabel threatening to separate them by dousing them both with cold water—to convince his brother of Alex’s readiness.

  Initially, Rory had wanted to lead the rebellion himself, but there could be no question of that. Rory’s first duty, as chief, was to his clan. He had to placate the king, at least nominally.

  Alex didn’t.

  He’d never envied Rory his role as chief. Unlike his brother, Alex was free to follow his conscience and his own sense of justice. He’d done precisely that for the last three years. Not long after leaving Dunvegan, Alex had joined with a handful of dispossessed warriors who used to go by the name MacGregor. King James had turned the MacGregors into outlaws on their own lands—hunted like vermin, persecuted, and jailed without cause. Forbidden on pain of death even to call themselves MacGregor. The injustice and atrocities perpetrated by the king sickened him, and it wasn’t long before Alex had become the leader of the proscribed men. Fighting his way across the Highlands, he’d found a modicum of peace.

  The ten o’clock drum sounded. He quickened his pace through Lawnmarket, keeping to the main streets and avoiding the maze of narrow wynds and closes that permeated the city. After turning left on West Bow, he wound down the steep hill into Grassmarket. A thriving marketplace, Grassmarket also had the dubious distinction of being the place where public executions were held. Not an area of town frequented by courtiers. Alex was hoping to minimize the possibility of seeing someone from the palace.

  Having reached his destination, he opened the door of the White Hart Inn and had to duck his head to pass through the doorway. Musty air and the scent of un-washed bodies accosted him. The main room was small and poorly lit, holding perhaps a score of patrons who were scattered about at small tables; a few stood near the bar area, where a “luckie” alewife stood ready to dispense her brew. He ordered a tankard of grozet from a serving maid and passed through to another chamber, this one slightly smaller than the first. Low ceilings continued, and Alex repeatedly had to stoop beneath the wooden beams as he crossed the room.