by Raina Wilde
“Yes. ” her voice was soft. “Yes, we should. ” She said it reluctantly, too; a merest whisper.
They looked at each other. So much passed between in that moment; things that neither could have said in words.
“Well, then. ” He held out a hand and took hers, lifting it to his mouth and kissing it. Her fingers were muscled and hard. Not unlike his.
“Well. ” Her voice was warm, satiated.
They sat up. It took them much longer to dress, as each moment they were kissing, touching; lost in the impossible delight of closeness.
Then they were riding back again, through the woods.
Chapter 11
A last day of summer. The soft, diffuse golden light slanted into Aigneis' chamber. She closed her eyes, letting the rays warm her, soaking into her body. She smiled. She felt deliciously relaxed.
Brian. She could not help that his name brought a grin to her lips. She could still feel the sweet sensation of his body inside her; could still see his eyes before her own gaze.
Her mind was full of memories, and she thought through all of them, their sweetness rekindling desire deep inside her. Her thoughts turned too, to the feud. The war.
Brian was right. When they left the field, the fighting had stopped. The men, bewildered, had called it a truce and left, waiting for them to return. She had not explained anything to them then, but had brought her forces here, to the fortress, until further notice.
She still had to think about this. There was so much to consider.
The circumstances of her father's death were still baffling. There was so much she did not know. Strange, to think that all her life she had lived convinced it was the Learys. She knew better. She and Brian had talked a little on the way back to the field. He knew from talking with his men why she hated them so. He also knew that it could not be true, as he remembered that his father was away then, fighting in a raid on the opposite border of their lands. If it was the Learys, it had happened without his father's knowledge, and without his giving any order. That made it better. But she wanted to know the truth.
Aigneis went down to her father's study once again. There amongst his papers, there must have been a clue. She was sitting, reading through them, when she heard a footfall behind her in the hallway. She whipped ‘round, battle training too strong to let an enemy walk up undetected. She saw Gareth, her father's master-at-arms. Her master-at-arms.
“My lady? ”
“Gareth. ” She smiled.
“May I help you? ”
“Actually. . . there is something. ”
“Anything. ”
“Gareth. . . you were there. That day. The day. . . my father. . . ”
“Yes, my lady. ” Gareth did not meet her eye. “To my shame. ”
“Gareth. ” her voice was firm. “There was no shame. You were one, and they were too many. What could you have done? ”
“I could have taken the blow that killed him, my lady. ”
“He would not have wanted that. I am sure you had completely different orders. He would have wanted you doing those. ”
They shared a smile. That was just how her father was.
“I. . . You are right. ” He mused. “But there were so many. And that tall bastard. . . ”
“Yes? ”
“You know, it's strange. ” Gareth thinks, slowly. “I never saw those men again. Any of them. You'd think I would have. ”
“That is true. ”
That fitted very well with what she had been thinking.
“Gareth. ” She decided to ask directly. “You were there. Did everything seem. . . normal to you? Did it seem the Learys had laid an ambush. Or could it. . . could it have been. . . not them? ”
“What do you mean, my lady? A trick? ”
“Yes, Gareth. That is precisely what I mean. ”
She told him. All the things she suspected then. At the end, he shook his head.
“You could be right, my lady. ” He shook his head again. “That is. . . terrible. ”
“Yes, it is, Gareth. ” She agreed. “Terrible, and wrong. ” She thought for a moment, then continued.
“It is time we put it right. ”
Chapter 12
It was dark. And cold. The horses moved silently, their hooves wrapped. Aigneis glanced across at Brian. They were both draped in black, covering even their mouths. No one would be able to see them.
They were in the heart of enemy territory, deep in McGuire land. Each step could be their death, if they were surprised on these lands, alone. They rode together, side-by side. Her knee bumped his, and they both felt aware of it, even as they turned to smile at each other. Their smiles were obscured by the coverings, but they saw them in each other’s eyes.
They rode on. The night was loud with crickets; everything else was quiet. There was even no full breeze, only a slight whisper that rustled in the leaves.
Brian reined in. Aigneis stopped. Their eyes met as he nodded his head towards the trees. Sure enough, there was someone there. A lone man, standing at a tree, sharpening a knife with a whetstone.
They froze, then. Aigneis looked at him, and her eyes crinkled at the corners in a wide grin. She nodded. It said, plainly, let's get him.
Brian nodded back. He inclined his head to the left. She nodded too, and moved to the right; an agreement to surround him. Strange, that they could already communicate so well silently. It was seamless, as if they carried out raids together every day.
She rode right, he left. They glided through the trees. Five minutes later she glanced up, and he nodded from across the gap in the trees.
She rode forward as he did. They saw their quarry see her first, and panic. Then he saw him. Brian was fast, and hit down with the flat of his sword, hard. The man dropped. Not dead; unconscious.
They dismounted, then, and lifted the unconscious man. They tied his hands behind him and threw him over a saddle, then riding back to their own land.
***
“And who do you work for? ” Aigneis' voice was arch. It was late, but her voice was not tired. It was alive. She could keep this up for hours it seemed. She was sitting before a fire. In it, her dagger heated. The flames danced along the blade, and she watched them.
Brian was opposite her, on the other side of the fire. He stood a little way off with the horses, in easy reach of her should the prisoner try and make a run into the woods.
The man was stonily silent. Perhaps he did not think she that she would use the blade. Brian knew better.
“I asked you a question. ” Her voice was low now and Brian could hear the threat in it, low and menacing. She waited a moment. “Very well. ” She lifted the dagger from the fire. It was red-tipped. She moved around the fire and to the side. The red-hot blade was suddenly at his hand. He gulped and clawed backwards, crablike. She gripped his hand, held it on the ground.
“. . . I. . . ”
“That's better. ” Her voice was satisfied. Brian felt the voice vibrate through him, even as he shook his head in raw surprise. This was a side of her that even he had never met before, nor imagined.
He was silent again and she moved the blade, still glowing, to the man's open hand. He screamed. She lifted it.
“I. . . I work for Harry McGuire. I. . . was. . . his squire. Now I am. . . an ensign in his household guard. ”
“Good. ” Her lips moved, a savage smile. “Then you know about the events of the September Raid? ”
“I. . . I. . . ”
She moved the knife to his hand again. He backed away from her.
“No!” His voice was urgent.
“Tell me. ”
And he did. All of it. How he was told to wait for her father's party. The Laird of McGuire was with them that morning, but did not take part. It was done on his orders, though, and was all his idea. They were to wait on the border of the land for her father's party, returning from a raid on land further down the boundary.
They were to dress in red, the color of the Leary
s. They were to attack and to kill as many men as possible, leaving only one alive to tell the tale of murder.
At the end of it, she sat back.
Brian was across the circle, still with the horses. His eyes met hers. Hers were deep and knowing, and carried so many things. Confirmation, peace. He nodded.
“Your hand will be tended at the kitchen. ” Aigneis said it, level. She held no anger towards him. Revulsion, perhaps. The whole story repelled her. But anger? No. That was dead now. Out of her life.
In that moment she became resolved to set things right. As they should be. She released him. He stood, glanced at Brian, stumbled back and ran. Aigneis stood. Every part of her ached with weariness.
Brian went to join her. She leaned against her horse, and put her hand on his shoulder. She was weary. He bent forward, and kissed her. It held so many things, that kiss: desire, caring, a closeness beyond all of that.
“We should get back. ” Her voice was low.
“Yes. ” he agreed.
They mounted, exhausted, and began the long, slow ride back to the fortress. They rode close together, and when they arrived, they stabled the horses and went together to her room.
It was a long night, and when they awoke, the sun slanting pale through the curtains and onto the linen of their bed, they kissed. There was no feud to stand between them now.
Nothing stood between them: only love.
THE END
Forbidden Highland Love
Innocent and gentle, her childhood is shattered when her father, indebted and desperate, barters her hand in marriage against his mounting debts to Laird Jamie McNeil. Arrogant, brutish and cruel, Laird Jamie is nothing a young lady would ask for in a husband.
A desperate Frances attempts to end her own life. But her wish to die is abruptly halted during a serendipitous encounter with Duncan Lanner, the handsome son of a neighboring Laird.
A burgeoning forbidden love between the pair brings Frances joy and wonder. But it also brings her danger, as her possessive, thwarted husband seeks vengeance on the lovers.
Duncan's family has secrets. And Frances has allies. Will that be enough to let them rise above the odds and make a life together?
Forbidden Highland Love
Highland spring is delicate and brittle, the air cold and scented fragrantly with heather blossom. This spring, on the coast at Sutherland, was no different. The year was eighteen hundred and forty two, and the first tender sun shone slowly into the solarium, where Frances sat with her companions.
Laughter rang around the warm space, and the bright sound of young voices. Frances herself was then only eighteen years old, delicate and lovely as a flower, with long, straight, white-gold hair and a soft, elfish face.
“What's that supposed to be? ” A girl looked over her shoulder, squinting at her embroidered work.
“Oh, Lettie! It's bluebells, can't you see? ”
“It's not me that can't see!”
General laughter erupted, accompanied and a rueful smile from Frances.
“It might not look like a bluebell, ” she smiled, “but at least I've sewn five already. ”
The others laughed again. Lettie grinned and Frances smiled back.
They all bent back to their work. The sun shone down, making gentle haloes around heads of blonde and red and chestnut hair. Frances McCraig, daughter of Laird James McCraig, sat in the center of the group, serenely lovely in her white gown, with her pale hair loose about her shoulders. Even in such lovely company, she shone like a pale candle in a darkened room.
A girl with bright ginger hair in rich tousled curls walked quietly over to Frances during the lull.
“Frances? ”
“Yes, Jess? ”
“. . . Nothing. ” Jess hung her head.
“No. It is something. You've been crying. ” Frances' voice was gentle, not probing into her friend's secrets.
“It’s just Arthur. ”
Frances sat quietly.
“He. . . he's going away on the last day of the month. To the border with Father's forces. ”
“Does he have to go? ”
“I don't know. ” Jess sounded wretched.
Frances knew she loved Arthur, a distant scion of her family, and had since they were small girls playing in the woods around the keep. She was sure he would not leave Jess for anything, if he felt he had a choice.
“Well. . . can't your father spare him the duties? ”
“I. . . Oh, Frances. Do you really think it would work? “Jess’s face was transformed, smile dimpling her bright cheeks.
“Of course I do. ” Frances smiled back. “You silly, ” she added gently, a laugh in her voice, “did you really think that he would not? ”
“Yes!” Jess's ginger head bobbed up and down in vigorous agreement.
The two friends laughed together, pale hair mixing with gold as their heads touched, bending over their embroidered linens.
At that moment, Frances' old nurse appeared in the doorway. Her face was stiff, tear-lined, as if she had been crying. The girls looked up, shocked.
“Frances? Your father asks to see you. ”
Silence.
“Maggie? Is something wrong? ” Frances' clear blue eyes were wide.
“Best that you come. ” Her nurse swallowed hard and stood back for Frances to walk out of the door ahead of her.
They walked up the corridor and mounted a staircase, crossing into the northern tower. Near her father's study, the castle grew darker, and smelled instead of new plaster and old dust, of shadows and books and cold.
Maggie knocked on the door and let Frances through.
“Father? ” Frances' voice echoed in the draughty space. She was a tiny form, white-dressed, a simple shift hanging to her feet, hair loose. “You summoned me? ”
This was rare. Her father was perpetually distracted, deep in books or laws or studies.
“Yes. ” He nodded. He too, swallowed. “Will you sit? ”
Frances moved wordlessly to the chair opposite his desk.
“Daughter, you know we have had trouble on the border. Debts. ” He swallowed. She nodded, once.
“Well, ” he paused, “I had to come to some sort of. . . settlement. ”
Frances waited.
“I. . . the price asked was. . . your hand in marriage. ”
What? Frances lost focus a moment, dazed by the news, gaze cloudy and worried.
“And. . . the Laird on the border is, as you know, not an easy man. ”
Not an easy man. . . no! Father!
Frances felt suddenly helpless. Now she knew why her father looked as if he had been crying. But it could not be true.
“Not. . ? ”
“I am afraid so, daughter. ” He was not looking at her.
“No! Father, please. ” Frances' voice had real fear in it.
“My daughter, I can do nothing about it. ” Her father did not look at her, his head bowed. “Laird McNeil is not a. . . not what I wanted for you. But he has benefits, I am sure. He is wealthy, for one. You will not starve. He is powerful. Well-settled here. You will be safe. ”
“But, father. . . ” Frances was crying, now, tears filling her huge blue eyes, making them watery pools, soft-edged and endlessly deep.
“No. My child. I would not do this to you if I could do anything else. ”
Frances nodded, eyes closed. The tears fell then, rolling down her cheeks.
Her father, with an uncharacteristic tenderness, reached over and laid a hand on hers. He said nothing. There was nothing at all to say.
Frances nodded again, and stood to leave.
“Good day, Father. ” Her voice was shaky. She swallowed, and walked away.
“Good day, daughter. ” Her father looked after her for a long while, then turned to his papers, looking suddenly old.
Upstairs, in the tower room she had loved for years, where she had lived since she was a small child, Frances lay on her bed and looked up at the ceiling. She was beyond
weeping. Maggie knocked at the door. Her maid knocked. She did not reply.
Laird Jamie McNeil was. . . unthinkable. He brutalized his last wife into an early grave, was never sober, and had impugned the chastity of more women than anyone could remember. He was a hard-drinking, uncivilized, boorish lecher, of whom even the servants were afraid. And this was to be her husband? From now until the end of her days? She closed her eyes. Shook her head. She would rather die. The thought of him touching her filled her with a gut-crawling revulsion. She had met him once, five years ago, and even then the way he had studied her had made her flesh crawl. How could he be her husband?
“Father. . . no. ”
Frances cried herself to sleep.
***
The waves crashed below the cliffs. Frances sat, looking out blindly to the wavering horizon. This was her favorite walk. She should have felt happy there. That day, after receiving the news from her father, she felt inside as frozen as the ice-grey water, as empty as the blank sky above, filled with emptiness and wheeling gulls.
No.
Just that word. Beyond it, only emptiness. She sat on a rock overlooking the sea, and watched, the wheeling gulls and the waves, so far below they looked like wrinkles on a cloth. Her heart and mind felt as shattered as the splintering crest of water, breaking on the rocks. Nothing.
Frances stood. It was getting late. How long had she sat there? Many hours, uncounted. She only knew that she needed to move, if she was not planning to die of cold on the cliffs. In early spring, it could still be cold enough to freeze a person to death when night fell.
Who cares if I die? Frances asked herself. I would rather be dead. Why am I walking?
Frances walked, stumbling, blue with cold, inland. It was becoming dark.
Father? Her mind asked it blindly as she walked. Far away, down the curve of the coastline, she could see vivid orange lights, cold beacons in the windows of fishing-village huts. The sky above was wind-torn grey, and darkening fast.
Frances was still thinking of her father. You mismanaged your own resources. For that, you punish me? She stopped, closed her eyes against the images flooding her mind; of Jamie McNeil brutalizing the servant girls, making crude comments about his last wife at their banquet table, drinking himself into semi-consciousness and either fighting or fondling the servants who came to move him.
