The Forbidden Highlands

by Kathryn Le Veque

  “Munro doesnae want to wait overlong to wed Anna,” Colin went on. “Both clans are counting on the alliance, and Munro wants no uncertainty that they are united. He has requested that Anna join him in the Lowlands once the banns are read for the final time tomorrow so that they can be wed while Munro is here meeting with the Bruce.”

  A sickening knot formed in the pit of Graeme’s stomach. He knew what was coming, but he did not stop Colin from speaking the terrible words.

  “Munro wishes to ensure every precaution is taken to see Anna safely to the Lowlands,” Colin said. “Times being uncertain and unstable as they are, in addition to an escort of Ross and Munro soldiers, Munro requested that the Bruce provide one of his best warriors to see to Anna’s protection.”

  There it was. Graeme was supposed to deliver Anna, the only woman he’d ever loved, to the arms of another man. Graeme looked down to find that his hands were clenched so tight that his knuckles had turned white.

  “I recommended ye for the assignment,” Colin finished quietly.

  “Why?” Graeme growled, his gaze pinning Colin.

  Instead of retreating from the daggers Graeme was shooting at him with his eyes, Colin met his stare directly. “Because I need ye back.”

  Graeme blinked, breaking his glare. “What?”

  “I need ye back—the version of ye that is a warrior, a Highlander, a MacKay.” Colin leaned forward in the chair, propping his elbows on his knees. “Ye can still walk, which means ye can still ride, too. Ye can still wield a sword. Yet here ye hide.” He swept a hand around to indicate the little tent. “It isnae yer leg that’s stopping ye—it is yer heart.”

  Graeme’s jaw worked for a moment as he struggled for words. “So what if it is?” he managed weakly at last. “So what if I dinnae want to see Anna ever again, let alone escort her to her fiancé?”

  From the look of sympathy that flashed in Colin’s blue eyes, he knew he had Graeme on his heels now—and Graeme knew it too. Colin was right—he’d been wallowing, and not because of his injury, but because of a broken heart. If he kept hiding in his tent and sullenly refusing to return to training, soon he would not only have a broken heart, but a broken spirit as well.

  “Ye ken what I went through with Joan,” Colin said softly.

  The whole clan knew. Colin had once been handfasted to Joan, the most beguiling and sought-after lass in the Highlands. But while Colin had been away fighting for the Bruce, Joan had taken up with Colin’s best friend. Colin had caught them rolling in the hay together. After that, the normally easy-going and even-keeled Colin turned untrusting and suspicious, though he usually managed to cover it up with a smile or a joke.

  “Sometimes the best way to move on from someone also happens to be the most painful way,” Colin said. “But mayhap seeing Anna and accepting her as Laird Munro’s fiancée will help ye heal and get on with things.”

  That was easy for Colin to say given the fact that Joan’s betrayal had eventually led him to a far better match—and a far better life. Colin had been lucky enough to fall in love again. Sabine MacKay, his wife, had healed Colin’s heart and brought back the lighter-hearted man he’d once been.

  Yet Graeme held no expectation of being as fortunate as Colin. He’d already found the love of his life. And now she was marrying someone else.

  But Colin was right about one thing—Graeme had to accept that Anna was no longer his. He was tired of hiding, tired of floundering in his own self-pity. Aye, mayhap he needed to face this—face her—one last time before he could put her in his past for good.

  “When do I leave?” he asked flatly.

  Colin’s sandy blond brows rose slightly. It seemed from his expression that he had managed to surprise himself with his MacKay powers of persuasion. “Once the banns are read for the final time tomorrow, Laird Ross will send her southward. Munro’s guards will have likely already been sent to Ross lands to ensure her journey goes smoothly.”

  “I’d better leave today, then,” Graeme said, rising. “If I ride hard, I’ll intercept them only a day or two into their trek. Besides,” he said, picking up the sword Colin had thrown at him. “If I leave now, I willnae have to lay eyes on Laird Munro.”

  Colin snorted as he, too, rose to his feet. “That would likely be for the best. We have enough to worry about without ye starting a new feud between the MacKays and the Munros.”

  His face growing serious, Colin clapped a hand on Graeme’s shoulder.

  “It is good to have ye back to yer old self, cousin.”

  Aye, Graeme thought as he quickly readied himself for his journey into the Highlands. It was good to be back.

  Chapter Two

  “Safe travels, my dearest.”

  Anna and her father crossed under the open portcullis and came to a halt just outside the Ross clan castle’s stone curtain wall.

  Anna blinked back the tears that were making her father wobble before her eyes, but she could not seem to dislodge the lump filling her throat.

  Laird William Ross’s gray brows drew together and his lips compressed behind his beard. She must be failing utterly at putting on a brave face, for her father’s concern was clearly written across his features.

  “It…it will be fine, I’m sure, Father,” she managed at last.

  Aye, the journey was unlikely to be eventful—not with the dozen guards, a mixture of Ross men and Munros, who’d be escorting her to the Lowlands. Still, Anna could not seem to find her faith in the words she’d just used to reassure her father. Even if she arrived in Lochmaben to wed Laird Munro without incident, she would not be fine. Not at all.

  A knot of tangled emotion once again tightened her throat. How could she ever be fine again when she knew that Graeme MacKay wished to marry her, yet she was marrying another?

  Anna’s features had always been easy to read, and despite her efforts to rein in her emotions, now was apparently no exception. Her father took her hands in his much larger, grizzled ones and squeezed hard, his eyes sad as he held her tear-filled gaze.

  “Ye ken I dinnae want to see ye hurt, dearest,” he murmured. “Yer tears are daggers to my heart. But I must do what is right for the future—for the clan.”

  They’d been through this before. Countless times. Anna knew her father loved her and valued her happiness, but he simply could not set aside the clan’s welfare when it came to making the decision of whom she would wed.

  As the only daughter of a Highland Laird, Anna had been raised to accept the fact that her husband would be chosen for her, and that strategic alliances, not love, would dictate that decision.

  She had never planned, therefore, to fall in love with Graeme, a warrior rather than a Laird, and a MacKay rather than a Munro or a Mackenzie or someone from one of the other more powerful neighboring clans.

  Yet fallen in love she had. She’d lived the last two years as if she were caught in a perpetual spring. The sun seemed brighter and warmer when Graeme was near. The flowers smelled sweeter. The grasses felt softer underfoot.

  But as always in the Highlands, even the most promising, glorious spring could be ruined by the swift, brutal strike of a late-breaking storm.

  That storm had broken two months past. On the same day she’d received the missive in which Graeme had spread his heart at her feet and asked her to marry him, her father had knocked softly on her chamber door and informed her that he would begin seeking an engagement between her and Laird Donald Munro.

  Munro was a kind enough man from what she remembered of his visit to Ross lands several years past. Yet he was twice Anna’s age, and he bore a serious, formal air that had made her feel ill at ease around him.

  Anna had wept herself to sleep that night. Her father had wrung his hands and paced with worry, for he’d been taken aback by how strongly Anna reacted. He’d tried to reassure her that everything would be fine, but with each of his attempts, she only wept harder—for herself, but also for Graeme.

  His letter had broken her heart with his word
s about how greatly he’d struggled and how close he’d come to death. But then it had mended it back together again when he’d written that he loved her more than ever before and wished to join their lives forever.

  When her tears had dried enough that they no longer made the ink run, she wrote him a reply. But her father had gently told her that he would not allow the missive to be sent. It was best to let a broken heart heal swiftly, he’d told her. Once he could make the arrangements, she would marry Laird Munro. There was no good to be had from drawing out her pain, or the MacKay lad’s, he’d insisted.

  In the long, monotonous days and lonely, tear-filled nights since then, however, the wound in her heart hadn’t healed. If anything, it gaped larger and rawer.

  She knew standing before her father now that he saw it too. His kind, worried blue eyes betrayed the knowledge that Anna might not ever heal properly from this pain.

  But that didn’t change her duty—to her father, to her clan, and to Laird Munro.

  Anna dragged in a ragged breath and pulled her spine up. If she left like this, a mess of tears and quivering lips, her father would never forgive himself for doing only what was required of him as Laird.

  Their people needed this union. The Rosses and Munros had always been on good terms, but the Highlands remained a volatile and unstable region politically. Shoring up alliances to protect against future uncertainties was always wise.

  “I ken ye are doing yer duty to the clan,” she said, willing her voice to be steady and strong. “And now I must do my duty as well.”

  “I only wish that I could see ye smile on yer wedding day,” her father said, his eyes shining with unshed tears.

  Before she completely lost her composure, Anna threw her arms around her father and hugged him fiercely.

  “I promise to smile,” she murmured against his shoulder. “A real smile.”

  When Anna stepped back, her father cleared his throat of its thickness and blinked back the tears from his eyes.

  “Ye will have the finest escort. I saw to that,” he said, motioning her toward the large group of men clustered a stone’s throw beyond the castle wall.

  Most of the men sat on horseback, waiting for her to finish her goodbyes. All of them wore variations of red plaid around their hips and across their shoulders. The Munros’ burgundy wool with thin yellow and green stripes was interspersed with the familiar green-checked crimson plaids of the Rosses.

  It was reassuring to be among so many braw warriors, yet her mind leapt to an image of the MacKay colors Graeme wore when he was in the Highlands. The dark blues and greens of his clan colors would stand out in this sea of red. Mayhap that was fate telling her it was never meant to be, that they didn’t belong together, but some small, defiant part of her rejected such a thought.

  “Jerome Munro here will make sure yer journey goes smoothly.” Her father motioned one of the men forward. A tall, dark-haired man dismounted and approached.

  “Jerome is Laird Munro’s most trusted warrior,” her father said. “The Laird assures me that ye’ll be in good hands with him looking after ye.”

  “My lady,” Jerome said tersely, giving her a curt bow.

  Anna couldn’t help shrinking back slightly under the hard warrior’s brusque manner.

  “We’d best be going,” Jerome said, glancing at Anna’s father. “We are losing daylight, and Laird Munro expects his bride to be delivered in a sennight. Traveling with that will slow us down.”

  Jerome stepped aside and jutted his thumb toward a mule-drawn carriage that Anna hadn’t noticed behind the horses and men.

  She inhaled. “Father, did ye do this?” She whipped around to find her father smiling down at her.

  “Aye. Consider it a wedding present. I hoped to make ye as comfortable as possible for the journey.”

  Despite her best efforts to control herself, tears once more flooded her eyes and she hugged her father tight again.

  Ever since she’d lost control of a horse as a ten-year-old lass, she’d been uncomfortable around horses—in truth, she was plain afraid of them. She’d been dreading having to ride for seven long days on the journey from the Ross keep to the Lowlands where Laird Munro would be waiting. Now at least one small part of her fears for this trip had been allayed.

  With one final hug for her father, she forced herself to let him go. She followed Jerome toward the carriage. It was more of a wagon, really, with a man sitting on a bench at the front to guide the harnessed mules. The bottom portion of the wagon was wood, with stretched canvas covering the top. Canvas flaps on the sides meant she could look outside on the journey or keep them closed against inclement weather. It was the finest way she could ever imagine traveling.

  She watched as her one small trunk of clothes was loaded into the wagon. Then once Jerome helped her up and into the back, she crawled across the padded bottom to one of the canvas flaps. She pulled it back and waved to her father as Jerome whistled and the men got underway.

  “All will be well, dearest,” her father called as the wagon creaked and rocked into motion, then began bumping down the path away from the castle.

  When at last her father had drawn out of sight, she let the flap fall and brought trembling fingers to her heart. Through the dark blue wool of her simple traveling dress, she felt the crinkle of parchment. Feeling her heart beat against the two missives tucked into her dress, she prayed that her father was right.

  Chapter Three

  The next day, Anna clenched the wooden sides of the wagon in a white-knuckled grip.

  Mayhap she’d made a terrible error in assuming that riding in a wagon would be preferable to traveling on horseback. Aye, the thought of approaching one of the enormous steeds her guards rode still sent shivers of fear through her, but at least if she were on horseback, her bones wouldn’t be aching, her head wouldn’t be throbbing, and her teeth wouldn’t feel as though they were being rattled right out of her skull.

  But what else had she expected when traveling by wagon over the rough, uneven roads of the Highlands?

  She hadn’t gotten any reprieve from the wagon last night, either, for Jerome had insisted that she sleep inside it for her own safety and comfort. Anna had weakly commented that she wouldn’t mind sleeping under the stars with her guards, but Jerome had given her a hard look and said that as Laird Munro’s bride, she was not to sleep among the men or on the ground.

  Though she’d slept well enough, the hours of lying in the motionless wagon hadn’t been enough to undo the effects of the jarring ride from the day before. She woke sore and aching, only to hurriedly break her fast before Jerome urged them onward just after dawn.

  Now as dusk approached, Anna said a prayer of thanks that they would halt soon—and that two of the seven days of travel were over.

  Anna pulled back one of the canvas flaps and peered out into the darkening forest surrounding them. The evening air was filled with the clop of horses’ hooves on the packed dirt road, the jangle of harnesses, and the groan of leather as the men shifted in their saddles.

  A soft breeze blew mild, fresh air into the wagon. Anna dragged in a lungful, savoring the sweet smells of the summer evening.

  Just then a rustling shook the underbrush off to the right of the convoy. It was different than the gentle sway of the trees in the breeze. Nay, this was more concentrated. Louder. And close.

  Jerome and the others whipped their heads toward the rustling. The air suddenly felt thick with tension. The wagon came to an abrupt halt, and the sound of steel swords hissing from their sheaths rang in Anna’s ears.

  “Get down,” Jerome snapped at her over his shoulder as he reined his horse in front of the wagon. “And close that bloody flap.”

  Anna immediately dropped the canvas flap and flattened herself against the padded floor of the wagon. Her breaths came short, her pulse pounding in her ears as she strained to hear what was happening beyond the wagon’s cover.

  “Show yerself!” Jerome’s hard voice boomed out, making
Anna jump.

  She heard the rustling again, and then a low male voice responded.

  “Stand down,” the man said. “I am no’ yer enemy.”

  A tingling awareness that was both cold and hot raced up Anna’s spine. Was that…?

  “Who are ye?” Jerome barked. “And answer quickly.”

  “I was sent by Robert the Bruce and yer Laird Munro,” the man said.

  He was closer now. There was no more room to be mistaken. But it couldn’t be. Anna’s heart leapt into her throat. Could it? She would never forget that voice, the low, gruff Highland lilt she knew so well.

  “What is yer business here?” Jerome demanded, but he no longer shouted, which meant that the man who’d approached was right next to him—right next to the wagon.

  She heard the creak of leather as someone dismounted.

  “The King and yer Laird requested that I join the retinue,” the man said. Aye, it was him. Anna knew it, yet her brain could not seem to make sense of that fact. She kept trying to come up with an explanation for what he was doing here, but her thoughts scattered like leaves in the wind.

  “To protect her.” Suddenly the canvas at the back of the wagon was yanked back, and none other than Graeme MacKay stared at her through the blue light of dusk.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. Like a fool, she stared, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, at Graeme.

  He lifted one sandy blond eyebrow at her, though his eyes were as hard and cold as chips of emerald.

  “Surprised to see me again, lass?”

  Chapter Four

  Graeme stared at Anna, trying to keep his teeth clamped together. If he didn’t, he feared his jaw would hang as loose as hers did at present.

  She was just as beautiful as he remembered—nay, more so. Though the inside of the covered wagon was dimmer than the dusky evening outside, her golden hair still shone lustrously. Her dark blue eyes were wide with surprise, her pink lips parted.