When a Laird Finds a Lass

by Lecia Cornwall

  In an instant, their swords lay in a pile at the blond lass’s dusty feet. They tied Maccus as well, hand and foot, with more stockings and bound him to a tree, though he hadn’t woken. Fergus’s wrists were bound with red ribbons, gently, in deference to his age.

  “Ye’ll come with us,” the blond said, jerking her head along the path. The lasses pointed their dirks, and the MacDonalds had no choice but to march.

  “When did Marcail die?” William asked quietly.

  “’Tis for you to tell us, and we will have the full truth out of you, MacDonald,” the blond said. She pulled a lace handkerchief out of her bosom and handed it to the brown-haired lass, who was sobbing fit to burst. “Stop crying, Gillian,” she ordered. She faced William. “Marcail was our sister,” she said. “Our favorite sister.”

  William could feel the coiled anger in the lasses around him, and the sorrow. It weighed heavy in his own breast. “She was a great favorite among the MacDonalds as well,” he told the lass who was sobbing. She looked at him with red-rimmed hazel eyes.

  “Now what does that mean?” she demanded.

  “Is our laird dead as well?” Fergus asked.

  “Your laird?” The lass looked confused. “Isn’t he the one we left tied to the tree?”

  William straightened his shoulders. “Nay. Our laird is Malcolm Ban MacDonald. A finer man never drew breath.”

  “He came here to find Marcail after she was stolen—” Fergus began, but the blond lass interrupted.

  “Stolen? Your laird stole our sister from John MacKay? How long did you keep her captive?”

  “What did he do to her?” the redhead asked in horror.

  “My father would have paid a ransom, but not now, since you killed her!” the brown-haired lass sobbed. “You’ll pay with your own lives . . .”

  “Nay, we didn’t steal her!” William said, dismayed more by the lass’s tears than by his own fate. “Maccus did—the man tied to the tree. We came to rescue her.”

  “And Maccus stole Marcail from John MacKay?” the blond demanded.

  “Who’s John MacKay?” Fergus asked.

  “Her husband!” the redhead snapped.

  The MacDonalds exchanged a look. “That’s bad,” Fergus muttered.

  “Because she’s dead?” the redhead demanded.

  “Because our laird came to ask for her hand in marriage!” Fergus said. “He loves her. We didn’t know she was already married.”

  “Didn’t she say?” the brown-haired lass asked.

  “She couldn’t remember a thing,” William said.

  Four feminine brows crumpled. The dark-haired lass leaned over to whisper to the blond. “Marcail was probably keeping her silence, since she was among enemies.”

  “We weren’t her enemies,” William insisted. “She was an honored guest at Dunbronach. Not a single one of us would harm a hair on her head.”

  The blond’s scowl deepened. “Then why is she dead? John MacKay said she died in childbed, over a month ago.”

  “A month ago?” Fergus exclaimed. “Then it can’t be her!”

  “She was with us at Dunbronach a month ago,” William said. “And most of the month before that. How many Marcail MacLeods are there?”

  The two groups stood blinking at each other, baffled. The blond sighed.

  “I think Papa had better question them.”

  “But Meggie, I want to know what happened to Marcail!” the redhead insisted. “You know Papa won’t let us listen to what they have to say. He’ll banish us to the solar, tell us it’s not for our ears.”

  Meggie frowned at her sister. “What would ye have me do? Torture them? Gillian, stop crying in front of the enemy.”

  Gillian sobbed. “Aileen would torture them—she’s fierce enough.”

  “But she’s not here—she’s helping Ada card wool today,” Meggie said through gritted teeth.

  “Are ye not so fierce as ye pretend, then?” William asked. Instantly, four dirks were pressed to his belly. He swallowed. “Never mind. Ask what ye will. We’ll tell ye what we know. I wish Dougal were here, or Malcolm Ban. They have a way with words. They could tell ye and make sense of it.”

  Meggie MacLeod folded her arms over her breasts. “We have all the time in the world,” she said. “Start talking.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  Marcail’s face was pale against Malcolm’s shoulder, and her fever was rising again. He wondered how much further Glen Iolair could possibly be. He’d been walking for hours, and the sun had risen. He’d had to stop to bathe her hot skin from time to time, and his progress was slow. He hoped he was on the right path, the one that would lead to Glen Iolair. He worried that he might be lost, that he’d fail her now, when she needed him most. She needed help, and soon.

  He drew his plaid closer around her and walked on, up yet another rise that led between thick pine trees, and saw a clearing ahead. He walked faster. “Nearly there, lass. Hold on for me,” he said. “I love you, Marcail MacLeod. I love you, my Ronat.” He said it over and over again, as if he were chanting a spell.

  He reached the top of the rise. It wasn’t a clearing. It was a cliff. He stopped on the edge and looked down into a lush glen below. A loch as gray as Marcail’s eyes glittered in the sun, and at one end, a fine castle stood watch over soft hills, a wee village, and a crowd of sheep. The sight of her home, the seat of the Fearsome MacLeod, took his breath away for a moment.

  “It’s magnificent,” he muttered.

  Then he felt a sharp point against the back of his neck. He knew it for what it was, the steel blade of a dirk. He froze—his first thought was Marcail, and protecting her. He turned slowly. The dirk pricked his Adam’s apple. There were three men, clad in MacLeod plaids, their faces filled with hatred. He looked at them directly, calmly, showed none of the fear that had his heart pounding.

  “I’m the MacDonald of Dunbronach, and I’ve come to see the MacLeod of Glen Iolair.”

  They ignored him. “Put yer hands up, MacDonald,” one ordered him, the one with the dirk under Malcolm’s chin.

  He glared at the man. “Ye can see I can’t. This lass is one of your own. She has a fever, needs a healer. I won’t put her on the ground. I can’t do you any harm while I’m holding her. I’ll go where you wish, but we’ve got to hurry.”

  One of them came forward to pull the plaid away from Marcail’s pale face. She squinted at the light and moaned, turned her head against his shoulder. The man shouted and made her flinch in his arms.

  “It’s Marcail!” he bellowed. “Colin, Alex, it’s Marcail MacLeod herself, alive and—well, alive.”

  The dark man frowned. “Then what’s she doing in the arms of a MacDonald?” He looked down at her, his eyes widening. “You bastard! What the devil did ye do to her? Ye’ll hang for this. No one harms our women, especially not a MacDonald.”

  He yanked her out of Malcolm’s arms, and he had no choice but to let her go. They tore his plaid from her and tossed it on the ground, and she whimpered at the sunlight and the chill air. “She’s very ill,” Malcolm said.

  The man looked down at her face, saw the bruises from Maccus’s hands on her cheek and neck, the ragged condition of her clothes and hair, the terrible pallor of her cheeks. He swallowed and cast Malcolm a look of pure hatred.

  “What did ye do to her?” he demanded again. The others came at him, and Malcolm braced. The first punch caught him hard on the jaw, made him stagger backward. He kept his feet, refused to fall, or to fight back. “She came to no harm from me—I swear it. She needs a healer at once. See to her, for God’s sake.”

  The two men beating him paused and looked at the man holding Marcail.

  “I say we cut his throat, kill him,” one of the men suggested.

  The leader paused, regarded Malcolm. “Nay, I’m curious. I want to know why a MacDonald is here, on MacLeod land, carrying the MacLeod’s daughter in his arms, half-dead. Well, MacDonald? Talk.”

  Malcolm squared his shoulders. “I’ll t
alk to Donal MacLeod and no one else.”

  The man holding Marcail smirked. “He’ll hang ye,” he predicted cheerfully.

  “Then he won’t hang us, will he, Colin?” one of the others asked. “We found her, saved her life.”

  The other man laughed. “We’ll be heroes.”

  Then all three of them were grinning like loons.

  “Malcolm,” Marcail muttered, her voice thick and faint.

  “Who’s Malcolm?” the man carrying her asked.

  “I am,” Malcolm said. He bent and picked up his plaid. “I’m Malcolm Ban MacDonald of Dunbronach. Now take me to the MacLeod.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  Donal MacLeod looked up when four of his daughters hurried into the hall.

  “Papa, we need to speak with you,” Meggie said. Cait, Gillian, Jennet, and Isobel all stood behind her, their faces flushed, their eyes bright. “We have news.”

  He frowned at their bare feet and kilted skirts. “What on earth have ye been doing?”

  “We were picking berries, Papa,” Gillian said.

  “Then where are your baskets?” Donal demanded.

  “I—” Gillian began, confused.

  Meggie sent her sister a quelling look. “We left our baskets in the wood. We were in a hurry. The point is that we have news. It’s about Marcail, Papa. We found—”

  The door burst open again before she could say more, and the long-lost figure of Colin MacLeod arrived. He was carrying a ragged bundle in his arms. And behind him, Alex MacLeod and his brother Ewan were bringing a prisoner. The man’s wrists were bound before him, his face was battered, and his shirtfront salt-caked and bloody. Stranger than that, the man was wearing a MacDonald plaid over his broad shoulders.

  Donal got to his feet and stared.

  The lasses raced toward Colin, chattering like magpies over a treasure. Meggie turned to him with tears filling her blue eyes. “Papa, it’s Marcail!”

  Donal MacLeod felt his throat close. Marcail was dead. She was buried on MacKay land. Did they dare to bring him her body? He strode across the room, looked down at the woman in Colin’s arms.

  The air left his lungs in a whoosh as he looked down at her. Her face was bruised and pale, her eyes closed, her hair an unruly tangle, and her dress was torn. He put his hand on her cheek, expected to find it cold and lifeless to the touch, but the flesh was warm, alive. Beside him, his daughters were crying noisy, joyful tears for their sister, and all of them were talking at once.

  “She’s ill, fevered. She needs a healer.”

  The voice of the tall MacDonald cut through the din like a knife. Donal stared at the man’s battered face. He stood straight and proud in Donal’s hall, where he could expect nothing but death. The man’s eyes were on Marcail, his expression filled with concern and—Donal frowned. He knew that look. Even through blood and bruises, he knew it.

  “Help her,” the stranger pleaded again, looking at Donal at last.

  “You’re the MacDonald!” Cait said, and his daughters turned to gaze at the stranger as if they’d been expecting their worst enemy to drop in out of the blue and his arrival was something to celebrate.

  “Now, how do you know that?” Donal demanded, but he held up his hand before they could tell him. “Never mind. I’ll speak to ye later. Go fetch Ada.” Gillian hurried off to find the healer, but Meggie and Cait stayed right where they were.

  “There’s something you should know, Papa,”Meggie said.

  He glared at her. “I can get to the bottom of this without your help.”

  Gillian returned with Ada, and the old woman bustled across to look at Marcail. She made a warbling sound of pity. “Bring her,” she ordered Colin, who obeyed at once. The MacDonald watched as she was taken away.

  Donal circled the man. He was tall, with red-gold hair. There was no way to know if he was handsome or ugly at the moment. Still, Donal clasped his hands behind his back and faced his enemy with a scowl.

  “More than a month past I received word from Marcail’s husband that she had miscarried a child that wasn’t his, that she’d died and been buried on his land, in disgrace. I have mourned her loss since then. Now she comes back to me, alive—barely—sick and bruised, and with a MacDonald.”

  “I believe I can explain at least part of the tale,” the MacDonald said.

  Donal folded his arms over his chest. “That’s perhaps what puzzles me most. Ye are my enemy. My clan and yours have sworn to kill each other on sight. Indeed, we have done so in the past. Dunbronach is some distance away, so I know ye haven’t come here by accident.”

  The man’s green eyes held Donal’s. “I came to ask for Marcail’s hand in marriage, and to arrange a truce between our clans.”

  Donal’s brows shot up into his hairline. “Did ye, now?”

  The man regarded him silently, as if an answer to that was not necessary.

  “Papa.” Meggie was tugging on his sleeve again.

  “Is Marcail—” the stranger dared to question her.

  “Ada is tending to her,” Meggie said, surprisingly unafraid of her clan’s worst enemy. She was looking at him as if he were the king o’ the fairies himself, her blue eyes shining.

  “Who the devil—” Donal paused. He did not use profanity before his daughters, no matter how angry or baffled he happened to be. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “He’s Malcolm Ban MacDonald, the laird of the MacDonalds of Dunbronach, Papa,” Meggie said.

  He looked at her in surprise, then looked at the two guards beside the MacDonald. “Is he?”

  “It was what he told us, Laird,” Alex said.

  Donal looked at Meggie. “And how did you know, Meggie MacLeod??”

  She tilted her head and smiled. “We captured his tail while we were picking berries. Five men. Well, six.”

  “Are they safe?” the MacDonald asked.

  Meggie folded her arms over her breasts. “Of course they are. We’re not barbarians.” She looked at her father. “They’re in the shieling above the burn. Tied up, of course.” She turned back to Malcolm. “We questioned them and left them a bit of bannock and some water—they told us why you’ve come.” Her eyes turned soft. “Do you love Marcail?”

  “Whisht!” Donal snapped. “It doesn’t matter. She’s already married to John MacKay!”

  “That’s impossible,” Malcolm MacDonald murmured.

  “Really?” Cait asked. “I’m glad. I didn’t like him. Besides, it seems to me that Marcail can’t be married to John MacKay if she’s dead—even if she really isn’t. He thinks she is, and so—”

  “Whisht!” Donal said again. He rubbed his temple, thoroughly baffled.

  Alex MacLeod cleared his throat. “Meggie’s right—she’s not married to him. She never even reached MacKay’s lands.” He looked sheepish. “She fell off the ship the very first night. We’ve been looking for her ever since.”

  Donal felt a roaring start inside his head. “What?” he bellowed.

  Cait clapped her hands with delight. “Then that explains how she came to be lost. The men we captured told us they found her on their shores one day with a terrible bump on the head. She had no memory at all of who she was. The laird—Malcolm Ban MacDonald—rescued her, and he and his folk kept her safe. They aren’t barbarians at all. Well, save for the one who kidnapped her.”

  “She was kidnapped?” Donal said.

  “By another MacDonald,” Meggie said. “He’s asleep in the woods, tied to a tree.”

  Donal looked at Alex and Ewan. “Get some men, and go and round up all the MacDonalds and bring them here. For the moment, ye won’t harm them, is that clear?”

  “Thank you,” Malcolm said. “Two are old men.”

  “Shall I show them where the one in the wood is?” Cait asked. Donal glowered at her, and she stopped where she was.

  “Now, we were at the part where my daughter was kidnapped,” Donal prompted the MacDonald, but Jennet jumped in.

  “Maccus is the one who took he
r. He’s terribly big, Papa. Marcail was powerless against him. He put her in his boat and stole her away. He intended to—” She smiled sweetly at the MacDonald. “Well, he never got the chance to do what he intended. Laird MacDonald pursued him through the terrible storm to rescue Marcail and bring her home.”

  “Malcolm Ban told his clan that enemy or not, he intended to marry Marcail and make peace with you,” Isobel chimed in.

  “So he said,” Donal muttered. He looked at the MacDonald again. Malcolm held his gaze, left him to make his own decision as to whether he believed this extraordinary tale. Donal appreciated that.

  “Will you agree, Papa?” Cait asked, catching his sleeve. “They’re in a bit of a hurry. Beltane is less than a fortnight away, and there’s a task the laird must perform, a kind of magic ritual.”

  Donal glared at Malcolm MacDonald. “Pagan sacrifice?”

  The MacDonald colored under his injuries. “A wish.”

  Ada appeared in the doorway. “She’ll be all right, Laird. Her fever has broken, and she’s sleeping. The bruises will heal well enough.” She still pinned the MacDonald with an accusing glare.

  Malcolm let out a long sigh of relief, and Donal looked at him sharply. Both his eyes were closed now. He looked weary as a man could be, yet it was relief that made him sag. Malcolm Ban MacDonald of Dunbronach was hardly the enemy of song and story. He looked . . . civilized.

  Donal drew his dirk and advanced on the MacDonald. He opened his eyes, but he didn’t flinch or beg. With a quick slash, Donal cut the ropes binding his wrists. “Go and fetch some ale,” he said to his daughters, and waited until they went.