When a Laird Finds a Lass

by Lecia Cornwall

  “But you understood me,” he pointed out. She nodded, her brow furrowing slightly in speculation. Her blush was most becoming, a rose blooming under her pale skin.

  She turned her head to look at the castle. Her eyes skipped over the broken stones, the crumbling turrets. It stood on an outcropping of rock above the sea like a tired old man, stooped, gray, and gloomy, watching the waves. She looked neither hopeful nor disappointed.

  Young Lochie MacDonald hurried forward to open the door, trying to look at the lass in Malcolm’s arms and run up the steps at the same time. The boy stumbled, and his bonnet went flying. He leaped to his feet and hurried on, as scarlet as a rose. Malcolm nodded his thanks as he carried Ronat through, and Lochie raced ahead to open the doors to the great hall, a long, barrel-vaulted room that held tables and chairs and weapons. She scanned the room as he strode through it without stopping, and he wondered what she saw. To him, the hall was ancient, homely, and well kept—a simple and unpretentious place, like the folk who lived in it. What did she see? If the fine linen and French lace of her shift were anything to go by, she was used to better than this. He glanced down at her. Her eyes were wide as they darted over the shields and swords on the whitewashed walls, the pewter and wooden cups on the shelves, and the woven mats on the floor. He suddenly saw the room differently, noticed the chips and cracks, the ancientness of the stones, and all the ways it could be updated and improved, made modern.

  Lochie ran the length of the long oak table and opened another door at the other end of the hall, which led to a narrow spiral of stone steps. They were worn by hundreds of years of use, broken in places, one more crumbling flaw. He climbed carefully. When he had the opportunity, and the coin to pay for it, he’d rebuild Dunbronach, starting with these stairs.

  She was silent as he carried her upward through blades of sunlight that slashed through the arrow slits that illuminated the stairs.

  Lochie was panting as he opened a door at the top, revealing a long hallway, and Malcolm swept through that door as well and past three closed doors until he reached the last one, the one that led to Cormag’s chamber.

  Malcolm had not been inside his half-brother’s room, but Cormag was the laird’s eldest son. He felt sure that here at last was a room fit for the lass in his arms.

  He stopped short in the doorway and stared.

  They’d told him Cormag had been a manly man, a hunter, and a fighter, as brave as a wolf, as big and bold as a bull. He’d been the pride of Dunbronach. But this—Malcolm hadn’t expected anything like this. The whole room was decorated with antlers and weapons. It made the room prickly rather than comfortable. Beitris had done her best—there was a pink satin coverlet on the bed and an embroidered cushion on the chair by the fire, but those things looked as out of place in this manly den as, well, the lass herself. He looked down at her, noticed that she was staring as well. Was she horrified, shocked, afraid? She put her hand over her mouth, but her eyes danced. She was trying not to laugh. Malcolm was dumbfounded. His legal mind worked to find an explanation. Perhaps the MacLeods did all their decorating with antlers and bones. Perhaps they were as barbaric as Dougal said they were. Yet the lass in his arms wasn’t fierce in the least. And her shift, finely woven, trimmed with expensive lace, and the fact that she spoke French suggested she came from refined roots. She was brave—he could see that. This room would have sent a lesser lass into a dead faint. He felt admiration swell in his breast. He walked to the bed and set her down carefully, aware of the intimacy of the situation.

  His body felt cold without hers against it, his arms empty. He made himself step back, clasp his hands behind his back as he looked around the rest of his half-brother’s extraordinary room. Brindled animal pelts with rough fur and jagged edges covered the chest in the corner—one still bore the head of a snarling wildcat. Malcolm wondered if his brother had ever brought women here—Glenna’s mother, perhaps.

  “This is—was—my brother’s room,” he said. “Perhaps it’s not what you’re used to.”

  She smiled. “I don’t know what I’m used to. I am grateful for your hospitality, Laird.”

  “Malcolm,” he said. “Please call me Malcolm. I haven’t been laird for very long, and I still prefer my name to the title.”

  “Malcolm.” He liked the way it sounded on her tongue.

  “Ronat,” he replied, trying that. Her smile faded as something fluttered in her eyes. Uncertainty, perhaps. He’d managed to remind her that she was lost, her memory gone. She was as much a stranger to herself as she was to the MacDonalds. “It’s just until you can remember your true name,” he said gently.

  She nodded, her eyes downcast, and he stepped nearer. “Lass, if you do remember, please say nothing to anyone but me. Don’t tell anyone who you are. Is that clear?”

  Her brow furrowed. “Why?”

  But Beitris bustled through the door at that moment, out of breath. “There ye are, safe and sound.” She smoothed her hand over the embroidered coverlet and straightened one of the skulls on the wall. “I told ye our laird was braw and manly. Such strong arms . . .”

  Malcolm shifted his feet. His brother’s chamber made him feel puny and civilized—and not in a good way.

  “Thank you, Malcolm,” Ronat said politely.

  He bowed out of habit, the way he would in Edinburgh. He straightened at once and backed toward the door. “I’m certain Beitris can fetch anything you might need—or desire,” he said. He stared at her, sitting on his brother’s massive bed, struck again by the intimacy of the situation. In Edinburgh, a man alone in a woman’s chamber meant only one thing. He should be glad that Beitris had arrived to ensure the lass’s reputation remained intact. Yet Ronat looked at him as if she regretted the interruption and his departure. Were the rules of intimacy and interaction between men and women so different in the Highlands? He swallowed, wished he could touch her cheek, pat her hand, reassure her she had nothing to fear, that he would keep her safe, no matter what, but Beitris’s plump hands were fluttering over the lass, checking her, fussing, ignoring him entirely.

  He reached the door. “I’ll come and see you later,” he said. She smiled as she unwound the plaid—his plaid, the plaid of her enemies—and made herself at home.

  “Thank you, Laird. Malcolm,” she said politely. “I shall look forward to it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Ronat slept away the rest of the day, and part of the night, and dreamed that Malcolm MacDonald was carrying her. Her head rested against his beating heart, and her hand curled around his neck, tangled in the soft waves there. He was smiling at her, his green eyes kind and warm. She felt safe.

  And when she woke, moonlight filtered through the cracks in the shutters. It fell upon the bristling antlers that covered the dark walls, made them as sharp and white as pointed teeth. The chest in the corner was studded with iron nails and branded with black runes burned deep into the wood. The chair by the fire, made of animal skins nailed to a frame made of more antlers, squatted unhappily beneath delicately embroidered cushions.

  The room had a dark, male odor that made her quiver, like a doe scenting a hunter. She carefully sat up, was relieved that the blinding headache that had marked the past two days had lessened. She touched the lump on the back of her skull and winced at the jolt of white-hot pain. She struggled to remember what had happened to her, to lift the veil in her mind, but saw only darkness.

  She slid off the bed, half afraid a wolf or a wildcat lurked beneath it. She wrapped Malcolm’s plaid around her and limped to the window and pushed the shutters open. In the darkness, she could see the silhouette of the hills outlined against a starry sky, the highest peaks still capped with the last vestiges of snow. Soon there’d be wild daffodils, coltsfoot, and crocuses coming into bloom by the loch at—she paused, frowning. Where? But the memory slipped through her mind like water.

  Her chest tightened with fear. What if she never remembered who she was or where she belonged?

  She remember
ed a wedding. Was it her wedding? She tried to picture a man—her man—but the shadows refused to budge. Was she in love with someone she could not even remember? She felt a tear slide down her cheek, drop onto the plaid she wore. She held the wool to her face. Malcolm’s male scent clung to it, the scent of soap and wind and leather. She knew the scent of the soap was his alone and didn’t come from anyone else she’d met here. He was different than the rest of his clan. She saw that in the guarded way his people looked at him. Even his clothes marked him out—a Lowland coat, breeches, and boots in a place where everyone else wore kilts and loose shirts.

  He spoke French, suggesting he was educated. He bowed politely, and he seemed unfailingly kind, if somewhat shy, but perhaps that was only his gentle manners.

  It appeared that Malcolm MacDonald was one of very few young men at Dunbronach—his virility and strength stood out against a clan composed mostly of old folks. She’d seen a few young women and only one or two other men under forty, but not like Malcolm, not with an air of belonging somewhere else. He was an outsider here, and she wondered why.

  She heard a soft knock on the door and turned as it opened. The candlelight gleamed on Malcolm Ban MacDonald’s red-gold curls and the planes of his face as he stepped into the room. It must be past midnight, but he was still formally dressed, his coat and breeches as fresh as if it were morning. “I came to check on you. Are you well?”

  “I believe I am much better,” she said. “And yourself?”

  “I’m quite well. He crossed to take the chair by the fire, on the other side of the room from the bed.

  “Have you remembered anything?” he asked.

  She felt tears prick behind her eyes—frustration more than pain. “I’ve been trying. There’s nothing. Nothing at all.”

  He drew a handkerchief from his pocket—fine linen and monogrammed—and crossed the room to press it into her hand. “I’ve upset you. It wasn’t my intention.”

  That made her tears flow faster, and she mopped at them.

  “You’re safe here, lass, for as long as you need or wish to stay,” he said gently.

  She looked around at the empty eyes of the dead stags, their sharp antlers gleaming like swords in the moonlight. She shuddered at so much death. She could not stay here. She wanted—She cried harder, unable to remember what she wanted but feeling a longing that was so fierce it hurt.

  He reached to pat her shoulder, and she gripped his hand, laced her fingers in his, held tight. His fingers closed over hers, warm and strong.

  “You still need rest, lass. I’ll go, leave you to sleep. I shouldn’t have come and upset you like this.”

  She tightened her grip on him. “No, don’t go.” She blushed. “Can you stay with me—in the chair—just until I fall asleep?”

  His throat bobbed. “Of course.”

  She let him go, and he crossed to lift the chair. He set it down near the bed and sat down. “There, now. Go to sleep.” She closed her eyes and listened to his breathing. She could smell all the places he’d been that day—the peat from a fire, the faint tang of whisky on his breath, the salt wind in his hair, the clean, dry scent of paper and leather. She reached out and took his hand. He didn’t object. His fingers clasped hers. Her thumb lay against his wrist, and she felt the pulse there, heavy and quick, reassuring, and knew she was safe.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  John MacKay had scarcely slept in the handful of days since Marcail MacLeod had disappeared. His men had returned at dawn after yet another fruitless search.

  “How am I to tell the Fearsome MacLeod that his daughter is dead?” he asked as he paced the floor of his chamber.

  Marie took another sweetmeat from the tray beside her and sighed. “It is hardly your fault. You searched for her. What more could be done?”

  “We didn’t find her body,” John said.

  “Perhaps virgins sink. I’m bored, John.”

  “I shall have to go to Glen Iolair, tell her father. How am I to do that? Even Donal MacLeod’s men are afraid to take that kind of news to him.”

  Marie pouted. “The MacLeod has plenty of daughters. Perhaps he’ll give you another.”

  John gritted his teeth. “I don’t want another!” He crossed to splash whisky into a cup, and drained it in a single swallow. “I didn’t even want her.” He swiped at the liquor that dribbled down his chin.

  Marie dabbed her own lips with a fine linen napkin. “I know. You’ve told me—revenge for what her sister did to your cousin, the dreadful insult to your clan.” She rose and glided across the floor to put her hand to his cheek. “Is this not an even better revenge? The girl is dead, and by her own hand—”

  “What if it was an accident? Or what if she isn’t dead?” John said. He pushed her hand away. “What if she’s still alive, goes home, and tells the tale? The MacLeod will hang me by my balls.”

  Marie let her fingers trail down his chest, reached under his plaid, and cupped the endangered organs. “That would be a pity.” She squeezed until he gasped. “Why wait? Attack the MacLeod first. Was she a virgin, one so pretty? Tell him she was with child and died of it.” She let her fingers play.

  John drew a sharp breath. “Aye,” he muttered. “Aye.” He put his hand on Marie’s shoulder and pressed her to her knees.

  Outside in the fine MacKay stables, Colin MacLeod paced the floor like a caged bear. He was tired, dirty, and his clothes and hair were caked with salt. He’d sailed with the damned MacKays, day after day, searching for Marcail, but they hadn’t found her. And now John MacKay had called off the search.

  “The laird will kill us for losing her,” he said to the two MacLeod men who’d come with him to escort Marcail to her wedding. They looked at him mournfully. “How can a lass simply disappear? One minute I was talking to her, and then she was gone. I checked her cabin, searched the ship—”

  “Perhaps she fell over the side, though the sea was calm that night as I recall,” Alex MacLeod muttered.

  “She’d have yelled for help. We would’ve heard her,” Ewan said.

  “Would we? As I recall, John MacKay and his whore were making a great deal of noise,” Colin said, and spat into the straw.

  “I didn’t hear a splash. I seem to recall that the MacLeod taught the lasses to swim when they were wee girls,” Alex said.

  Colin’s eyes lit. “Aye, she could swim. Perhaps she swam away, and she’s safe and sound somewhere. Get up, lads.”

  “Where are we going?” Ewan asked.

  Colin grinned. “We’re going to steal one of MacKay’s fine boats and go find her.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The sun was rising when Malcolm woke, her hand still clasped in his, his arm as numb as a block of wood. His neck and back were cramped from spending the night in Cormag’s damnably uncomfortable antler chair. She had dreamed, made soft, frightened sounds, and he hadn’t wanted to leave her.

  He watched the sun creep over the windowsill and light her face. He wondered what it would feel like to kiss her soft lips, hold her in his arms, and wake up next to her every morning. He frowned at the unbidden thought and released her hand gently. He ran his hand through his hair and straightened his sleep-rumpled cravat. He’d slept with women—or lain with them at least—but he’d never woken up next to any of them. He stared at the planes of her face. Seeing a woman in bed with the morning sun on her still-sleeping face was somehow even more intimate than the sexual act itself, more pure and unguarded. Her breathing was soft and deep, and he let his eyes roam over the shining gloss of her hair where it lay upon the pillow.

  For one perfect, sleep-edged moment, Malcolm half wished she were a selkie, and he was free to claim her.

  But magic didn’t exist. She was a MacLeod, fully human, and hated by his clan. He could not keep her. By the codes he lived by he was honor bound to protect her and return her safely home.

  She wasn’t his.

  He quietly left the room and stalked down the hall to his own chamber. Why hadn’t he told
her what he knew? He’d gone to see her in the middle of the night like a thief, while everyone else was asleep, intending to tell her he had her plaid, the clue to her identity, but he hadn’t.

  It was her tears, he decided. They’d undone him. He couldn’t stand to see a woman cry. His mother had cried at night sometimes, like Ronat, as if her heart would break. Tears were generally a rarity in the city—there was face paint to be considered, and the fact that a single tear might ruin a silk gown. Come to think of it, women in the city laughed less, as well, probably for fear of cracking the maquillage that hid their imperfections.

  The women of Dunbronach, despite their age, cared nothing for wrinkles or blemishes or sun spots. They laughed when they wished and cried as if their hearts would break. He’d never seen a woman blush before coming here—or if he had, he couldn’t recall it. He was fascinated by Ronat’s blushes, watching them rise over her pale skin like the sun rising. He would never tire of watching her blush—or of holding her hand in his. And he liked the small freckles that dotted Ronat’s nose. He was beginning to like many things about her.

  So instead of telling her the truth, he’d fallen asleep watching her in the moonlight, and woke beside her in the sunlight. He paced the floor of his own chamber now, realizing how he might have jeopardized her reputation if anyone had seen him, or discovered he’d spent the night alone in her room. He stared down at his palm, the one that had been clasped against hers most of the night. Perhaps Dunbronach was starting to affect his mind—his logical, legal, scientific mind.

  He washed his face, donned a clean shirt, a fresh neck cloth, breeches, and a waistcoat, the way he did every day. He hadn’t worn a plaid since he was three, save around his shoulders, like a cloak, against the terrible spring chill.

  Once her injuries healed and she was stronger, then he’d tell her. He’d fetch her plaid and explain that enemy or no, she was under his protection. And if she wished to leave? He’d find a way to get her home.