Highland Storm

by Ranae Rose

  Isla suppressed a stab of disappointment and nodded, thinking all the while that a man who’d managed to tumble off his horse and into a pond probably posed little threat. Still, she didn’t wish to worry Alexander, and she could surely put herself to better—if much duller—use in the kitchen than out in the fields, distracting him from his responsibilities.

  “Aye, I’ll go.” She watched him heel the grey gelding, which tossed its head with annoyance but complied nonetheless. Then she turned towards the estate house, the heat that lingered in her middle reminding her there was much to look forward to when the day’s work was done.

  * * * *

  Isla nearly dropped the spoon she held into the scone batter when the sound of Alexander’s voice rang down the hall and into the kitchen, heralding his arrival scarcely half an hour since he’d departed for the mill pond. He was speaking, it seemed, to at least two other men, among whose voices she recognised Will’s excited burr.

  “A little whisky, maybe, to revive him?”

  “I dinnae think so…” someone else replied, reproachful.

  Alexander spoke above them both. “Nae. He’s had more than enough already. I can smell the stink of it on his breath.”

  Isla stared, the butter she was cutting into the batter forgotten as a shadow darkened the doorway and the men’s voices filled the kitchen. Alexander and Will were carrying an apparently unconscious person between them, Alexander with his hands beneath the man’s oxters and Will gripping his ankles. The sagging body was a mess of sopping green tartan and ginger hair that had escaped any restraint and had plastered itself across its owner’s face. A sharp spike of panic pierced Isla’s heart, spurring it into a wildly beating gallop. She gripped the counter reflexively and silently willed herself not to be ridiculous.

  “Mrs Mary!” Alexander called, looking over his shoulder and scanning the kitchen.

  Though Isla’s mouth was as dry as the heated griddle awaiting her latest batch of scones, she managed to speak. “She’s in the pantry.”

  Alexander favoured her with a small, wry smile, despite the fact he was being dripped on. His hose, thoroughly wetted, sagged around his ankles, revealing the scar on his muscular calf. “Would ye mind fetching her? We may need to make use of her handy stitching.”

  For the first time, Isla noticed a spot of deep crimson gleaming from among the lighter tones of the unconscious man’s red hair. With her own blood rushing in her ears, she hurried to the pantry.

  “Mrs Mary,” she breathed when she’d entered its shadowed sanctuary, ripe with the smells of cheeses and a dozen other foods. “Alexander is here, askin’ for ye.”

  Mrs Mary turned from where she’d been scooping oats from a large sack, took one look at Isla and gasped. “What is it, dear? Ye look as if ye’ve seen a ghost!”

  She shook her head, privately thinking a ghost would have been preferable to the freshly-arrived stranger. At least a spirit couldn’t seize you by the hair and strike you across the jaw, couldn’t—

  But no, she was being foolish. No one here would do those things, either. She was only jumping at shadows.

  “I had a strange thought is all,” she mumbled, exhibiting a weak attempt at a reassuring smile.

  Mrs Mary frowned dubiously and glanced towards the doors, obviously torn between attending to Alexander and getting the truth out of Isla. Eventually she strode out of the pantry, but not without a backward glance.

  Isla stayed behind, remaining still and breathing slowly in an effort to quell a sudden bout of nausea. When the worst of it had passed she squared her shoulders and prepared to step out of the shadows. She would look this stranger in the eye, and when she saw his face her ridiculous fears would slip back into the darker corners of her memory where they belonged.

  Mrs Mary had hurried to the group of men and was now bent over the stranger’s head, exclaiming over the wound.

  “Och, well it isnae anything I cannae handle,” she said in reply to a question from Alexander. “But is it true ye fished this fellow out of the mill pond?”

  Isla had told Mrs Mary about Will’s news and Alexander’s consequent departure. Now she listened intently from beside a counter, willing her curiosity to override the queasiness that pitched to and fro in her stomach.

  “Aye,” Alexander replied. “Will’s two lads fished him out and had him layin’ on the bank when I arrived.”

  “Let me fetch a few cloths and my needle then,” Mrs Mary said. “‘Tis better to do the stitchin’ while they’re still out if ye can.” She bustled away, exposing the man’s sopping locks to Isla’s sight.

  Isla gripped the edge of the countertop hard and forced herself to breath evenly. When the man who hung between Alexander and Will jerked suddenly and clattered to the floor in a rush of damp tartan and curses, she nearly fell herself. Fortunately, nobody noticed, intent as they were on the suddenly conscious man.

  Alexander had a hand on the hilt of his dirk, and a hard look made his blue eyes gleam. Will and the third man appeared equally wary as they each seized one of the man’s shoulders and forced him to sit on the kitchen floor, legs sprawled in the puddle of pond water that had dripped from his clothing. Now that the stranger was awake, the men seemed more than willing to consider the possibility that he was dangerous.

  He was definitely a threat—or at least had been.

  Her hands shaking even as she clutched the edge of the counter, Isla slid slowly to the floor, fighting the blackness that tried to invade her vision as the room span around her. Bitter realisation churned in the pit of her stomach. He’d come for her. After two weeks of bliss, she’d been found out. It was as if she’d slipped into a nightmare without even falling asleep.

  She could see it all in her mind’s eye—the rumour of Alexander’s marriage to a red-headed Forbes lass spreading over the highlands, the juicy bit of gossip crossing even boundaries that had been drawn between clans in blood. Judging by his advanced state of intoxication, her father had drunk himself into a lather and saddled his horse, riding on a thoughtless mission that had been doomed from the very start.

  Damn the foolish man.

  Tears welled in Isla’s eyes.

  “Isla!”

  Alexander’s voice cut through the ringing that had begun in Isla’s ears, and the floorboards vibrated beneath her as he hurried across the kitchen.

  “What is it?” he asked urgently, kneeling and taking her face between her hands. “Is it the blood? I hae seen some faint at the sight of it before, but I didnae realise it bothered ye so.”

  Speech eluded Isla, so she settled for shaking her head instead, nearly vomiting as she did so. “It isnae the blood,” she finally managed to say, taking heart from the feel of Alexander’s warm touch against her cheek. Now that she could speak again, the truth tumbled out. “That man is my father.”

  Had he come alone on some drunken whimsy, or had he tried to summon a party of his kinsmen first? Either was possible, and Isla wouldn’t have been surprised to know he’d failed at the latter. Who else amongst the Forbes would want her back enough to risk life and limb to retrieve her? She’d certainly had no suitors, no admirers. Only her father would miss her, and only because she’d cooked his meals, taken his blows and done a dozen other chores besides.

  A Gaelic curse sliced through the tension Isla’s words had brought, more or less summing up her feelings and forcing her attention back to her father, who continued to curse as he struggled against his captors. Though he wasn’t a puny man, his combined states of inebriation and injury had reduced him to a less than formidable foe. Will and his companion restrained him without overexerting themselves. Isla didn’t dare to meet her father’s bloodshot eyes—just looking into Alexander’s was hard enough.

  “Your father?” Alexander asked, his hands tensing against her cheeks.

  She nodded, just as Mrs Mary emerged from the hall and re-entered the kitchen with a small bundle of cloth and a long, glinting needle.

  “Wait,” Alexander sa
id, shooting Mrs Mary a meaningful glance. “Dinnae touch him yet.”

  Mrs Mary appraisingly eyed Isla’s father’s wound, which had broken open and was bleeding afresh, but didn’t object.

  Just as Alexander rose and rounded on her father, Alpin stepped into the kitchen, closely followed by his mother. Perhaps they’d followed the trail of water, or had been drawn by the sound of cursing. Either way, they stared around with identical expressions of shrewd curiosity, their gazes settling on Isla’s father after shooting their customary brief glares in Isla’s direction.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Alpin demanded.

  Isla cursed her luck. If anything could have mangled her spirits further, it was their arrival. Seeing their cruelty-pinched faces in the same room as her father’s was almost too much. They themselves had humiliated her often, and were the last people she wished to witness her disgrace. It would only lower her further in their eyes, if that were even possible.

  Alexander shot a short but wicked glare at his brother. They’d been at bitter odds with each other since Alexander had shown up with Isla in his arms, and she feared their animosity would come to a head right here and now, as if her father’s bizarre arrival wasn’t bad enough. Fortunately, her father let fly another curse, vulgar enough to recapture the two brothers’ attention.

  “There ye are, ye wee bitch,” he spat, finally focusing his unsteady gaze on Isla. “I’d heard ye were whorin’ around with the God damned Gordons again.” His voice slurred as he cursed her and his head lolled slightly, but he remained unfortunately awake.

  Again.

  Something cut Isla to the core, a bitter mixture of shame and anger that did nothing to ease her sour stomach. Before she could begin to respond, Alexander reached for her father and seized him by the front of his shirt, pulling him onto his tiptoes.

  “Speak that way to my wife again and I’ll run ye through with my dirk, I swear it.” His voice was full of malicious promise that rendered his assurance unnecessary.

  Isla’s father reeled, though whether from Alexander’s threat or excessive drink, she couldn’t tell. “Bullshit,” he mumbled. “I’ve come to fetch my daughter, and ye willnae stand in my way.”

  “Ye’ll not lay a hand on her,” Alexander said, “save for over my dead body and those of my kinsmen.”

  Isla sincerely doubted that Alpin, Alexander’s closest present kinsman, would lift a finger to defend her, but that scarcely worried her. He had Will and the other man, and besides, her father, drunk and unarmed, was no threat to her husband. Of course Alexander really would give his life to keep her from her father’s abuse—he’d proved that by the saint’s spring on the day they had met. So why did she feel so ill?

  Each time she dared to lay eyes on her father, shame boiled in the pit of her stomach, sending heat into her cheeks and drawing her eyes to the floor again. She’d told Alexander about the way her father had treated her, but hearing wasn’t the same as actually witnessing her humiliation. The words ‘whore’ and ‘bitch’ still rang in her ears, making her wish she could melt into the floor and disappear. She’d thought she’d put this dark chapter of her life behind her when she’d married Alexander, but her father had come back to haunt her, like a whisky-soaked spectre. Would she never be free of the disgrace he’d been heaping upon her like hot coals since Hamish’s death?

  “Ye’ll not take from me what’s mine!” Isla’s father cried. “Ye’ve had enough use out of her, now ye’ll give her back!”

  Isla pitied Alexander, who was still holding the front of her father’s shirt and surely breathing the reek of his whisky-tainted breath. She’d smelt it herself many a time, when her father had cornered her in their cottage to rave at her, often punctuating his complaints and accusations with blows.

  A vein throbbed thick and blue in Alexander’s temple, something Isla had never seen before.

  “Ye’ve no claim to her. I told ye, she’s my wife now.”

  “Your wife?” her father sneered. “I reckon even a Gordon dog wouldnae want her for a wife. Nae, her place is with me.”

  Only a drunk man could have met Alexander’s deadly glare with such words.

  Isla wasn’t really surprised when Alexander buried his fist in her father’s gut, but the sound of it caused her to flinch nonetheless. Wretched devil or no, he was her father, and seeing the man she loved deal him a blow, however well deserved, wasn’t something she relished. After all, she knew well what it was like to be on the receiving end.

  Instead of firing off another insult, Isla’s father gasped, trying to regain the air that had rushed from his lungs upon impact.

  Alexander glared, his eyes fiery and fierce. “Ye willnae lay a hand upon her, and she willnae ever cross your threshold again. I reckon ‘twas worth your comin’ here to know that, and if I havnae yet made myself clear, I’ll keep on until I do.” His fist was still closed, ready to deliver the message again.

  Isla’s father glowered, narrowing his bloodshot eyes to slits. “The lass isnae all ye’ve stolen from me! What about my horse?”

  “What of it? I see no reason to return the beast your daughter was forced to flee on to escape your abuse.”

  Finally, Isla’s father was left speechless. Momentarily, anyway. His mouth opened and closed in silent indignation, then he sputtered a few choice curses.

  “Alexander,” Isla said, having finally risen from the floor to a more dignified standing position. “Will ye give Briar back to him, as a favour to me?” Alexander didn’t need the sturdy little bay gelding, but she knew her father did. Taking the animal from her father was the only thing she’d regretted since meeting Alexander.

  Alexander’s voice was hard. “Ye owe this man no favours, Isla. I’m already doing ye a kindness by sparing his life.” He looked her father directly in the eyes, seeming very much as if he really did want to kill him.

  Isla was just preparing a rebuttal when Lady Gordon interrupted, her voice as cold as her words. “This is nonsense, Alexander. Give the wretched man back his horse, and the girl too. ‘Tis time for the past fortnight’s folly to end, and ye’ll not see a better opportunity.”

  The world could have gone up in flames around Isla and she wouldn’t have noticed. Lady Gordon’s words seemed to have frozen her, and only fear of Alexander’s reaction kept her heart pumping. Another worry assaulted her, even worse than the first. What if Alexander agreed and sent her home with her father?

  No, that was foolishness. She stamped down the thought and it was quickly dispelled by two weeks’ worth of memories. He’d been willing to duel his own brother over her honour—he’d never give her back to her father. Never.

  How she longed to reach out and touch him, to calm the rage that was plainly building behind his blue eyes, lending them an uncharacteristically icy look.

  “I’d sooner die,” Alexander said, keeping his gaze fixed on Isla’s father instead of turning to face his stepmother.

  The look on Alpin’s face seemed to say he’d be glad to see his half-brother do so, but he wisely remained quiet while his mother huffed indignantly. Isla thanked God for small mercies.

  Alexander finally released the front of Isla’s father’s shirt, allowing him to sag between the two men who held his shoulders.

  “You’ve trespassed on my land and insulted my wife,” Alexander said, his voice low. “I’ve every right to harm ye, but I willnae, for her sake. I’ll let ye go in peace, and I’ll even give ye back your horse, but ye must abandon whatever fool thoughts drove ye to ride here, and swear ye’ll never bother Isla again.”

  Isla watched as her father straightened suddenly, and shrank away when he fixed his gaze on her, calling her name.

  “Isla!”

  She flinched instinctively, taking half a step backwards and pressing a hand against her belly. She had recognised the look in his eyes, the tone of his voice, and had reacted before she could think.

  After a moment, she forced herself to stand tall and let her hands hang at her si
des. He couldn’t hurt her here—not with two men restraining him and Alexander between them.

  Alexander shot her a quick, searching look before turning to give her father a warning glare.

  Her father’s voice softened slightly. “Isla, ye dinnae want to stay here, do ye? Ye want to come home with your da where ye belong.” He shot Alexander a dirty look. “Tell him that, and if he’s got a shred of honour in him, he’ll let ye go.”

  Her father locked his eyes with hers, but she refused to shrink beneath his gaze this time.

  “No. I willnae go with ye, Da. I’m marrit now, and happier for it. I willnae ever leave.”

  “Isla.” Her father’s voice and manner shifted from commanding to pleading, a change that Isla dreaded even more than the gruff tone he used when he was about to start dealing blows. “What will I do without ye? I havnae got anyone else.”

  She struggled to push away thoughts of her mother and brother, both buried behind the modest cottage they’d shared with her and her father while they’d lived. Now he lived there alone. Alone, because she’d left him that way.

  “Your mother and your brother are dead, and now ye’d leave me with no one? Ye’d abandon your own father?”

  “Enough,” Alexander interrupted, his voice cold. “I willnae see her fash herself over your sorry arse after ye leave.”

  Isla said nothing, afraid the hot tears that had welled up behind her eyes would finally spill over if she spoke. The thought of her father alone in the cottage with only his dead wife’s and son’s graves to keep him company twisted her heart. If only they hadn’t died, things would have been so different. But then, she probably never would have met Alexander, and certainly wouldn’t have married him. It was miserable to think about whichever way she looked at it.

  “Mrs Mary,” Alexander said, “tend his wound now, before I see him off the property.”

  Mrs Mary stepped forward with her cloth and needle, and Alexander moved to Isla’s side, finally turning his back on her father.