When a Laird Finds a Lass

by Lecia Cornwall

  “Why would a woman want to wear so many clothes?” she asked. “You couldn’t climb trees, or run, or hunt.”

  “She wore them because it made her feel beautiful to do so,” Ronat said. Glenna made a face and pulled out a delicate shawl of creamy silk.

  “This wouldna kept anyone warm,” Glenna said. “No wonder the lady fled. No doubt she was always cold.” She picked up a small porcelain box with a mermaid painted on the top of it and opened it. It was filled with pins, bows, and glass beads. That made Glenna smile. “Och, these would make fine fishing lures,” she gushed.

  Ronat smiled. Glenna reminded her of—the mist closed her mind again. She put her hand to her forehead. Malcolm was by her side in an instant.

  “Are you well?”

  She nodded, forced a smile. “ Yes. I think some fresh air would indeed do me good, but I still need shoes.”

  “I’ll go to the village, see if there are any left there that will fit ye,” Glenna suggested.

  “She cannot wear—” Malcolm stopped. Dead people’s shoes. The words hung in the air, even unspoken. “Tomorrow is soon enough, Glenna. I think Ronat should rest today. In fact, I insist on it. I shall escort her out myself tomorrow.”

  Malcolm watched Glenna go. “You might as well stay in this room, try to sleep. It’s more pleasant than Cormag’s room. I should have insisted . . . They were afraid you’d jump out the window, swim away.”

  She tilted her head. “So were you, when you found me here. Perhaps you believe in magic more than you think.”

  His flat, closed expression returned. He went to the door. “I’ll send Beitris up.” He paused before leaving. “If you remember anything, tell me first, lass—Ronat—and if you need to walk anywhere, call for me. I’ll come and carry you.”

  He left the room and closed the door quietly behind him. Ronat left the window open so the fresh sea wind filled the room. She wrapped Malcolm’s plaid around her and lay down on the bed and was asleep again before she knew it.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Near Dunscaith Castle, seat of the chief of the MacDonalds of Sleat

  “Wake up, Maccus.” A woman was shaking him, and his whisky-sodden brain tried to recall just what woman he was with, or even what time of night or day it was. He needed to pee, and then he wanted more whisky—or more woman. He couldn’t decide which, because he couldn’t think with the damned besom tugging on his arm the way she was. An act of God couldn’t move him at the moment.

  “My husband is coming,” she wailed. “Please wake up—you’ve got to go!”

  That got him up fast enough. He was on his feet, searching for his sword and his plaid at the same time. His head objected, sending a bolt of lightning southward to churn the contents of his belly. He gasped and leaned against the wall for a moment, only to be hit in the face by his plaid. “Dress yourself!” the woman said, her shrill voice like a nail in his forehead. “If he catches you here, he’ll kill me!”

  Maccus ignored his plaid and took up his sword, staring at the door, waiting for it to open. He couldn’t flee—he could barely stand up. He wondered for a moment how he was going to fight in the condition he was in.

  The woman was fussing around him, trying to dress him by wrapping his plaid around his hips. He stared at her for a moment. Annie? Brenna? He couldn’t recall her name. “Leave off, woman,” he said, pushing her aside. His plaid fell to the floor, and she stubbornly picked it up again.

  “Oh no. ’Tis fine for ye, Maccus MacDonald—you’re the chief’s son, for all that ye were born on the wrong side of the blanket. Ramsey wouldn’t dare strike ye down, but I’d not be so fortunate. My husband is a jealous man.”

  He looked down into her fierce blue eyes, let his gaze travel over her love-rumpled hair, the red patches on her cheeks from his beard. He grinned. “Ye have a wee love bite on your neck.”

  Her eyes widened in horror. She clapped her hand over the spot and swore like a battle-hardened warrior. If he’d been in better shape, it would have had him hard and ready all over again. He reached for her, but she darted across the room, grabbed her own plaid shawl off the hook by the door, and wrapped it tight around her chin to hide the mark. “I’ll go out, meet him outside. Ye’d best be gone when he comes through that door, Maccus, or I’ll kill ye myself.”

  And just like that, she went through the door and slammed it behind her. The noise echoed through his brain like cannon fire. Maccus repeated the curse she’d uttered and sank onto the bed, his sword beside him. It was a comfortable bed, and plenty big enough for a man his size and a wench. There weren’t very many men his size at Dunscaith. There was only—

  Ramsey.

  Maccus was on his feet again in a heartbeat, instantly sober. He scrambled for his plaid, donned it. What a fool he was. He remembered her name now—Alanna. Alanna, the wife of Ramsey Dubh MacDonald—Black Ramsey, the chief’s champion, his favorite. Ramsey was far more beloved to the chief than Maccus. But then, Maccus had given his father little reason to love him, and this certainly wouldn’t help.

  He heard booted feet on the stairs, the clank of swords on scabbards, and looked wildly around him. There was a window, and he backed toward it, his sword shaking in his fists. There were voices, and he heard Alanna asking her husband if he wouldn’t rather go downstairs and have a bite to eat while she ordered him a bath to wash the blood off.

  Blood? Maccus’s knees began to shake.

  “Nay, wife,” Ramsey’s voice boomed. “I’ll rest awhile with ye first, sweetheart.”

  As the latch lifted, Maccus turned and hurled himself at the window. However far the drop, the injuries—or even death—would be less painful than anything Ramsey would do to him.

  It might have worked, but the window was narrow, barely wider than an arrow slit, really. Maccus felt his hips catch on the stones, and he stuck there, hanging half in and half out.

  He heard Alanna’s scream, followed by Ramsey’s bellow. “What’s this? There’s a huge, hairy ass hanging in my window, wife.”

  Maccus heard a wee soft sound then the slump of a body falling to the floor and knew she’d fainted.

  Maccus stared down at the courtyard below him, felt the blood rushing to his head as his ass grew chilled. He waited for the sword thrust that would end him once and for all.

  “See to yer mistress,” he heard Ramsey order someone. How many people were standing behind him, staring at his nakedness? “I’ll deal with this.” He felt hands on his ankles, hauling him backward as if he weighed nothing.

  He landed on the floor, hard, and looked up at Ramsey and three other MacDonald men, staring down at him with fury in their eyes.

  “Good day, Ramsey. Was the hunting good?” Maccus asked politely. The last thing he saw was Ramsey’s fist hurtling toward his face.

  A bucket of cold water revived him, and Maccus came to and found himself standing before his father. Well, he was on his knees, in truth, with two men holding him upright.

  “My wife says nothing happened between them,” Ramsey was telling the chief, pacing before him in the hall of Dunscaith, his face as black as his name. Maccus’s eye was swollen shut and throbbing, and his jaw ached. “But if that’s the truth, why was Maccus in my home, in my bedchamber?”

  The chief sent Maccus a long, hard, exasperated look. “What happened between you and Ramsey’s wife?”

  “I don’t remember,” Maccus said, which was true enough. He didn’t. He would have had to be very drunk indeed to press his intentions upon Alanna MacDonald, knowing who her husband was. He felt a pang of regret at not remembering bedding the woman.

  The chief sighed. “Bring Mistress MacDonald in,” he ordered. Ramsey glared at Maccus and drew his finger across his throat as the clansmen moved to do their chief’s bidding, and Maccus swallowed, almost feeling the blade on his skin.

  Alanna arrived, her eyes red from weeping. She dipped her head to her chief and pulled her shawl tighter around her chest.

  “What happened between yo
u and my son?” the chief demanded, not bothering with a greeting.

  “Nothing, Chief.”

  Nothing? Maccus felt a shrivel of disappointment.

  “Then why was he in your chamber?” the chief asked tiredly.

  “Maccus stopped at my house—my husband’s house—for a dram and to wait for the rain to stop before journeying on home. Well, one dram led to another, then another, and before I knew it, he was too drunken to send out at all. Since he’s your son, I offered him the best bed in the house—my own.”

  Ramsey growled like a rabid wolf, and Alanna narrowed her eyes at her man. “I slept with my maid, and ye can ask her if ye wish.”

  “Do you expect me to believe that?” Ramsey asked.

  She raised her chin, faced him. “I do.”

  Ramsey pulled her shawl back. “Then what’s this?” he asked, pointing to the love bite as if it were a leprous sore.

  She put her hand over it and blushed scarlet. “He got a wee bit . . . amorous as we were putting him to bed. He pinned me to the wall. It took my maid and myself all our strength to get him into our room. She has one too—since Maccus has a mouth like a limpet. We dropped him on the bed, and we left him there alone, Ramsey.” She raised her chin. “Has Maccus told you more than that occurred? He was too drunk to do the deed. He did me no harm, save for putting me out of my own bed while he slept like the dead. ’Tis the same every time he drinks—he accosts unwilling lasses, tries to force himself upon them. Sometimes he succeeds, but most times he passes out before he can do any real harm. The lasses fear him, drunk or sober, Chief.”

  “Hold your tongue, wife,” Ramsey warned her.

  She glared at him. “Somebody’s got to say it!”

  Maccus felt his skin heating at the insult. He was a famous seducer of women, a fine lover . . . Wasn’t he?

  He felt his father’s eyes upon him, and for a moment, he was tempted to deny her tale, tell everyone how he’d swived her all the night through, a more manly lover than the lass had ever known before. But Ramsey’s hand was on the hilt of his sword, and his father was scowling at him, waiting for an answer. He lowered his eyes. “I remember nothing,” he muttered.

  The chief’s sigh was like a gale off the sea. “Take Alanna home, Ramsey. She’s done nothing more than offer hospitality, just as she should.”

  The chief waited until his champion had gone.

  “I’m not sure Ramsey believed any of that,” the chief said, rubbing his forehead tiredly. “If it weren’t the third such report in a fortnight, I’m not sure I would either. Do you know how many men have accused you of accosting their wives, or sisters, or mothers?”

  “I didn’t count, but—” Maccus was silenced by a single slash of his father’s hand.

  “I don’t need an answer, Maccus. I need a solution to you. The lasses fear you, and the men hate you.”

  Maccus held his tongue.

  “I’m sending you away. I’ve had a message from Dunbronach. They aren’t happy with the new laird. Fergus MacDonald has asked me to send you to take his place. Why, I don’t know, but it suits me to be rid of you, so you’ll go.”

  “Me? I hate Dunbronach, and the folk there don’t like me any better than I like them. It’s a pawky place.”

  “You’ll go,” the chief said firmly. “If you stay here, I’ll face a rebellion over your behavior, and you’ll end with a dirk between your ribs. You’re my son, and I loved your mother. For her sake, I’m giving you one last chance.”

  Maccus eyed the pitcher of ale on the table thirstily, since he was sobering up already, but said nothing.

  His father sighed with frustration.

  “I’ll send four men with you. Be gone on the next tide,” the chief commanded, and left the room without even saying farewell.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Now, where should we start to look?” Dougal asked William as they set off with shovels over their shoulders.

  “If I were Archie, I’d bury my coin where no one could stumble across it by accident,” William said. “Somewhere out of the way. There’s the great rock just above the waterfall, or the standing stone on the moor. Those would be good places.”

  “If they’re the first places ye can think of, then anyone could think of them too,” Dougal said.

  “Aye, well, we might as well dig while we’re thinking,” William said. He thrust his shovel into the rocky soil and stepped on it, driving it deep. He lifted the sod, and he and Dougal peered into the hole.

  “Nothing.”

  William sighed. “This is going to take time,” he said. There was a call like the cry of a gull, and both men turned to see Glenna coming up the hill toward them.

  “Best not say a word,” William warned Dougal.

  “Are ye looking for the selkie’s skin?” Glenna asked eagerly.

  Dougal tilted his head. “That’s exactly what we’re doing. Now Glenna, if ye were going to hide something precious, where would ye put it?”

  Glenna scanned the hillside. Crocuses and yellow whin had begun to peep up through the winter-brown grass. Wildflowers would soon cover the long slope that led down to the beach, following the edge of the burn as it tumbled toward the sea.

  “I’d keep it in a strongbox with a good lock,” Glenna said. “That’s what the laird says. But if I were a selkie, and my sealskin was my prize, I’d hide it near the sea, where it was handy if I wished to swim away.”

  William slid a sideways glance at Dougal, who rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “But what if ye didn’t want it to float away or get carried off in a high tide?”

  Glenna shrugged. “There are caves near the top of the highest waterfall.” Dunbronach boasted three waterfalls, one cascading into the other through a deep glen. “But her feet are too tender to climb all that way,” Glenna said.

  “There’s the burn. It’s all swollen with snowmelt off the hills. Perhaps she swam upstream, like a salmon,” William suggested.

  “Aye!” Glenna said, her eyes shining. “I’ll go and look there!”

  “Aye,” Dougal said to William with a wink as Glenna raced away.

  “It’s a damned long way up to the waterfall and those caves. Ye said to think like a laird, not a selkie,” William said, watching the girl climb the hill like a squirrel.

  “As I recall, Archie liked to go there, said it helped him think,” Dougal said. “That was before Lady Elizabeth came. He courted Cormag’s mother there, in those caves. Half the clan courted their wives there.”

  Dougal grinned. “That’s where I courted Beitris.”

  William sighed and began to climb the steep path. “Come on, then. We’d better go and see if Archie’s coin is there.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  It was nearly midnight when Malcolm knocked on the door of his mother’s—Ronat’s—chamber. He received no answer, so he opened the door quietly, intending to look in on her and see that she was well, or if she remembered. In truth, he just wished to see her. He stopped in the doorway.

  The faint light of the stars and the glow of the night sea shone through the open window and illuminated the empty bed.

  He felt panic flare in his breast. He crossed to the window in three long strides and stared out at the sea. A dark head bobbed up on the crest of a wave near the headland. His breath stopped. No. It was impossible. She wasn’t really a seal. Selkies did not exist, and women didn’t turn into sea creatures . . . The seal barked, its whiskered face pointed toward him for a brief moment before it dived, a sleek, shiny body, a flip of a tail.

  And for a moment, he believed the old tale, the possibility that Ronat was indeed a seal. He felt shock and regret that she was swimming away, leaving him.

  He leaned out the window, his heart in his throat.

  “Ronat,” he said softly, though he knew she wouldn’t hear him now, under the waves.

  “Malcolm?” He turned at the sound of her voice. She was sitting in the chair by the bed, hidden by the shadow of the bed curtains. He stared into the
dark corner, waited for his eyes to adjust. She sat forward, coming into the light a little, and he saw the pale oval of her face, the white length of her throat, the dark, sleepy glitter of her eyes.

  “I thought—” He shut his mouth with a snap. “I came to see how you’re feeling. Were you asleep? I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “I must have been. I’ve slept so much today, I was sure I could sleep no more, but the sound of the sea is soothing, is it not?” Everything about the sea made him nauseous. “I was thinking, trying to remember.”

  “And?” he asked, and held his breath.

  “There are things I know, that I understand, but—” She shook her head. “I cannot remember.”

  He leaned against the wall beside the window and looked at her, his heart in his throat. She looked so sad he wanted to fold her into his arms, but instead he crossed them over his chest and stayed where he was, two strides away. “I don’t know what happened to you, lass, or how you came to land here at Dunbronach, but I do know you almost drowned. Perhaps it’s not time to remember yet.”

  She rose, hobbled over to stand beside him, and looked out at the sea. “You mean my mind is hiding the truth of something I cannot bear?”

  “Perhaps,” he said, and wondered what that might be. He opened his mouth to speak, and paused. Had she faced an unspeakable tragedy, something brutal or terrifying? He’d almost drowned as a child. He’d been sure he was going to die, and he remembered every detail of the event vividly to this day. He was still afraid of the sea. Was her own experience even worse? What if he told her of the plaid, and she remembered, and the horror of what she’d faced came flooding back to overwhelm her? Perhaps it was better to let her memory return when she was ready to know, he reasoned. He closed his mouth again, and looked at her in the darkness, and saw the shimmering track of a tear on her cheek. She looked frightened, lost, and vulnerable.

  “Oh, lass,” he said, and wiped the tear away with the pad of his thumb. She stepped closer and pressed her face into his chest and sobbed. He stared at her in surprise for a moment; then he closed his arms around her and held her tucked under his chin. She clutched his shirt, and he felt the slight scrape of her nails through the fine linen. Her body shook with the force of her grief, and he rocked her, stroked her soft, soft hair, and let her sob as he patted her back, soothed her the way he’d soothe Glenna, or any other distraught lass. Except she wasn’t Glenna, or anyone else. She was so warm in his arms. He breathed in the soft scent of her hair, the sharp tang of Diarmid’s healing salve, and let her cry.