by Aileen Adams
Aleck’s snapping grey eyes seemed to dim, and the friendly smile dissolved. Seemed they were getting to the heart of the matter. “When I heard of young Donnan’s return—” He broke off with a chuckle. “Not so young anymore. Forgive me. We old men tend to think of the children as staying children forever.”
Donnan merely nodded in understanding.
“When I heard of his return, I thought he might be able to provide aid in a matter that’s plagued me for weeks. And it’s somethin’ ye ought to be knowin’ about, too.”
“What is it?” Clyde prompted.
“Clan Cameron,” Aleck snarled. “They’ve been riding hither and yon for months, tryin’ to build support for some fool idea of theirs. Uniting the clans, centralizing our strength.”
“They canna be serious,” Donnan grunted.
“They are, and ye know how a Cameron’s mind works,” Aleck continued, looking at Clyde. “The man is as trustworthy as a bear with his leg in a trap. He’ll tell ye anythin’ to yer face so long as he gets his way.”
“And once his leg is free, the claws come out,” Clyde murmured.
“Aye, that’s the truth. So you’ll understand, then, that I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.”
“Nor do I,” Clyde agreed. “There’s got to be something going on behind this.”
“I believe he intends to turn that power onto Clan Duncan,” Aleck asserted, his hands in fists on the tabletop. “Ye remember the trouble they had several years back, tryin’ as they did to get a foothold on Duncan land. He’s never forgotten how they thwarted him, and he’s not a man to forgive easily.”
“Even if it isn’t directed at the Duncans, he’ll want to eventually stand at the head of this union of clans and declare the entire lot for himself.” Clyde sighed, rubbing his temples.
Donnan sensed he was already growing fatigued but did not wish to show it. “Have they approached ye?” he asked Aleck.
“Not directly. Not yet.” The man shrugged his broad shoulders. “They’d rather be friendly like at first, behave as though nothing is out of the ordinary. Plant ideas in a man’s head about how much better the Highlands would fare if we were all of the same clan, flying the same banner.”
“No one will ever go for that idea—unless quite a lot has changed since I went to war.”
“You’re right, lad. No one wants it. But those who don’t—who speak out against the notion?” Aleck shrugged again.
“What happens to them?”
“Word is, they’re taken captive by the clan and carted off. And if not the men, then their women and children.”
Donnan’s nostrils flared as he drew a deep breath. The bastards. “He canna earn the support he wants, so he’ll force it.”
“And this is just my understanding of the matter,” Aleck was quick to add. “I dinna know that he wishes to build an army to thwart Clan Duncan or any other clan, but it seems as good a reason as any. Why would he take the women and children otherwise?”
“I believe it. And whether or not he wishes to usurp another clan, he’s a brute.”
“My daughter is with them.”
Clyde and Donnan gaped at him. “Fenella?”
“The only child I have,” Aleck murmured, eyes focused on the window behind his hosts. “She’s disappeared, and I’ve gotten word from those who know her best that she took up with that Angus Cameron. That they intend to marry. I canna allow that to happen. I canna align myself with Clan Cameron, and I will not. She must be brought home.”
“I agree with ye,” Clyde nodded. “The Camerons know they canna bring ye into their clan by persuading ye, so they’ll marry yer daughter instead.”
“He would not be a good husband to her, I’m certain of it,” Aleck snarled. “I’ve seen the man, and I hold no high opinion of him.”
“What is there to do? Is there any way we can help ye?” Clyde asked with a glance at his son.
The man seemed to pounce at this, and Donnan quickly understood that they’d come to the real reason he’d arrived. He had no sons to avenge his daughter’s honor.
“Ye can find her for me,” he said, his eyes trained on Donnan. “I know it is a great deal to ask, but she is all I have. I will not see my clan aligned with Cameron. There must be a way ye can get her back.”
“If she is involved with this Angus…” He cast a glance his father’s way, silently begging the man to step in on his behalf. How was he to convince a lovesick lass—who was a truly stubborn thing, if he remembered correctly—to turn away from the man she wished to wed?
Clyde appeared as much at a loss for words as his son. “My old friend, I am uncertain—”
Aleck’s expression hardened. “Your other son. Ewan. He incurred quite a debt, did he not?” All pretense of mild-mannered pleading fell to the wayside. This was the Aleck Gordon Donnan remembered.
He did not wait for an answer—likely because he knew the answer when he’d asked the question. “We are old friends, Clyde Ross. I wish to help ye. If my daughter is returned to me, I’ll see to it that the debt is wiped clean. I shall repay anything owed.”
Donnan clenched his jaw shut before it could fall open.
Clyde remained silent.
“Come on, man!” Aleck waved his arms about. “You’ve all but given up here. I know how much your Ewan owes, and I know how much you’ve already given up in order to repay even a small part of it. If ye dinna take care, you’ll lose your land, and your name will be no more. Do ye want this for your heir?” He pointed to Donnan.
“Dinna use me to convince my father,” he warned in a low voice. “While I respect ye a great deal and am sorry to hear of your situation, I willna have ye speaking this way. If I’m to be the one to fetch your daughter, I’m the one ye should be convincing.”
“Well? What will it be?”
What would it be? On one hand, it would surely mean peace for his father. The man was dying, anyone could see it, and he might at least die knowing his land and his name would be intact.
On the other hand, it would mean going out into the world. Seeing people—no, people seeing him, and him seeing their looks of horror and disgust.
What would it be? What meant more to him?
He caught a glimpse of his father. The man tried hard to look as though the decision mattered nothing to him, but they both knew that wasn’t the case. Clyde wanted him to do it. Who wouldn’t?
Donnan sighed. “Tell me about Fenella. Everything ye can. I need to know who I’m looking for.”
3
Fenella Gordon blew out a long breath, pushing back sweat-dampened strands of dark hair as she paused in the scrubbing of the great hall floor.
How anything ever managed to become so filthy, she would never know. When was the last time Cameron bothered to order the straw be cleared out and the stones scrubbed? Half the household slept there every night. It ought to be cleaner, for their sakes.
At least the straw should’ve been swept out and replaced every week. That would’ve been a good start.
Instead, months or even years of grime had caked itself in the gaps between the stones, forming a sort of reeking mortar no amount of work could seem to clean out. More than once did Fenella turn her face away and gag, struggling to hold back the morning meal she’d eaten in this very room.
Lorna Munro scrubbed away on the other side of the room, unaware of Fenella’s disgust. She was a good-natured girl, untroubled by the hardship of the work, or by much at all. Fenella had never cared much for girls who giggled through life, but Lorna was a good sort and the only friend she’d secured since arriving on the doorstep of Clan Cameron’s great house.
She tucked the folds of her gray kirtle more firmly under her knees and resumed scrubbing, gritting her teeth through the nastiness of it. If Lorna could work so hard without showing the slightest displeasure, so could she.
It wasn’t long before the truth of Lorna’s pleasant mood revealed itself.
Heavy footsteps echoed down th
e corridor just beyond the doorway in front of which the girls bent over their work. A loud, deep, strident voice followed.
One they both recognized.
Instantly, Lorna sat up, brushed the hair back from her face and put on a smile for the approaching man. Fenella cared not at all for such efforts and instead bent her head over her work.
She’d rather look at the grime between the stones than at Angus Cameron, who turned her stomach far worse than anything she’d seen that day.
To say Lorna did not share her opinion would be an understatement. Few women did, as far as Fenella was aware.
“Good morning to ye.” Lorna simpered on seeing the man she’d waited for all morning.
Fenella kept her eyes downcast so that her friend might not see how she rolled them in disgust.
Angus merely grunted, though he stopped walking and stood framed in the doorway. Fenella looked over from the corner of her eye and saw his feet, clad in leather boots, along with several other pairs of feet which she supposed belonged to his friends—or, rather, the men who followed along in the much larger man’s shadow.
Once again, she rolled her eyes.
“Good mornin’ to ye, Fenella Gordon,” Angus made it a point to say.
She nodded, scrubbing all the harder to give the pretense of being too involved in her work to pay attention. “Aye. A good mornin’ to ye,” she grunted through gritted teeth, her arm moving in violent strokes across the stones.
He hesitated for a moment before moving on, his friends following behind. Soon their voices mingled together and faded as they left the house.
Only when she was certain he’d gone did Fenella cease her nearly frantic scrubbing and take a moment to shake the cramp out of her shoulder.
“What was that, then?” Lorna whispered, sounding stunned.
“What was what?”
“The rude way ye greeted him! He took time out of his morning to wish ye well, and ye couldna be bothered to lift your head!”
She might as well have spat upon a holy relic, it seemed.
“If Angus Cameron wishes to speak to me, he might help with the scrubbing of this filthy floor,” she muttered, rubbing her shoulder and upper arm. “Otherwise, I have little time for him on this or any morning at all. And he knows it well, which is why he will not cease trying to get my attention. He canna stand the fact that I do not like him.”
The sound of Lorna’s gasp filled the hall again and again as it echoed off floor, walls, ceiling. “How can ye say such a thing?”
While she considered this an overreaction, Fenella realized the folly of her boldness and held a finger in front of her lips. “That is to be between ye and me, do ye understand?” No one dared speak out against the favorite Cameron son, and the only one left living, his brothers all having been headstrong and reckless enough to get themselves killed.
Lorna nodded, eyes wide. “Do ye not at least think him handsome, then?” she whispered.
Fenella’s nose wrinkled as she thought this over. Did she think Angus handsome? “I suppose I never really thought about it before,” she admitted, sitting back on her heels.
“How could ye not?” Lorna sighed, batting her long eyelashes. “He’s everything a lass could want.”
Was he? Fenella brought him to mind. Yes, he was quite tall and wide of shoulder, with a broad chest and back taut with muscle. She’d seen him stripped down to little more than his breeches, washing off in the stream after a long day’s training with the Cameron men.
Had she admired him then? She supposed so, but only as one would admire a sunrise or an unusual flower.
She’d certainly studied his thick arms and legs, had watched intently as thin rivers ran down between his shoulders and over the sloping plane of his back, disappearing beneath the waist of the sopping breeches.
And he was fair of face, to be sure, finely made and everything unblemished. The sooty black of his brows made the blue eyes beneath them look bluer than the autumn sky. They seemed to jump from his face, especially when he was angered, but could just as easily pull a person to him from across the room.
Yes, when summed up in such a manner, it would seem that Angus Cameron was handsome.
“There is more to handsome than a man’s looks,” she decided, dipping her brush into the bucket and returning to her work.
Lorna let out a choking noise. “I would like to know what, then,” she demanded.
“Well, there’s the matter of a man’s actions,” Fenella explained. “Many’s the handsome man who came through my father’s house to pay call, men even handsomer than Angus.”
“I doubt it,” Lorna whispered.
Fenella went on as though she hadn’t heard. “While they might have been pleasant to look at when their faces were blank, if ye see my meaning—resting, relaxed—the moment they opened their mouths to speak, they became rather ugly. As if they’d been touched by a dark spell and could change their appearance at will.” When Lorna scoffed, Fenella bobbed her head in a nod. “I mean what I say.”
“I think you’re daft.”
Fenella bit back a tart reply, for it was Lorna who was truly daft if she did not see Angus plainly.
He may have been quite fair of face and strong of build, but he had no warmth. Those striking eyes of his never burned with anything other than anger or ambition. No kindness, no humor, no playfulness and certainly no love.
She doubted he’d ever loved anything other than himself.
Perhaps it was not for her to say. Perhaps she’d gotten a poor impression of the man at their first meeting and had allowed that impression to color every time they’d met up since then. It was more than possible. She’d always been one to set her mind about a person fairly quickly.
But she’d always been gifted when it came to seeing people for who they were, right from the start. Her instincts were never off.
And Angus gave her a bad feeling. He always had. She could not ignore what the pit in her stomach told her, a pit which always formed whenever he was near.
She could not find a man particularly pleasing when he made her go cold inside.
“I simply do not care for him,” she decided, scrubbing the stone floor with renewed determination.
“I think ye ought to have yourself examined by the healer,” Lorna murmured.
“Perhaps it’s ye who needs the help,” Fenella laughed. “It seems you’re sick with love. You’ll need a tincture to get ye through the worst of it.”
“Nay,” Lorna whispered with a smile and a faraway look in her eye. “I canna lie to ye and pretend it doesn’t pain my heart terribly sometimes, feelin’ as I do for the man when he hardly knows I breathe the same air as him. But when he smiles at me or looks me up and down in that way of his…”
She shrugged, beaming. “My heart throbs with joy, like it might explode if I don’t do something to stop it.”
Fenella could only smile for her friend, but it was a half-hearted smile put on merely for her benefit. There would never be happiness with Angus. No woman would ever truly find contentment with his sort—yet that was not the entire problem.
Fenella had watched Angus from afar for long enough to know he had no interest in Lorna. Certainly, she was a lovely sort, with curls the color of fresh honey and eyes of the clearest green, a fine figure, and a lilting laugh. But he barely looked her way even when she took pains to catch his attention.
There was no way to explain this to her friend without losing that friend.
Instead, she tried another tactic. “What about Kenneth? Or William? They’re both handsome. Perhaps not so much as Angus, but they’re brave and clever, and they make everyone laugh.” In her eyes, they were far more attractive than the handsomer, braver cousin they followed about the place.
When Lorna did not provide a quick reply, Fenella looked over her shoulder.
And found Lorna’s green eyes narrowed to dangerous slits.
“What is it?” Fenella asked.
“If I did not kn
ow better, I would say ye wanted Angus for yourself.”
Fenella blinked rapidly, a nervous laugh bubbling up from her chest. “No. No! Not at all! I don’t find him pleasing in the least! I’ve told you a hundred times, lass.”
“Just the same, ye keep tellin’ me I ought to turn my sights elsewhere, which makes me wonder if you’re tellin’ the truth.” Lorna’s lower lip extended in a pout.
God, grant me patience. “Lorna, I swear on all that’s holy. I harbor no warm feelings toward the lad. It’s only because of your fondness for him that I hold my tongue and keep from saying everything that comes to my head about him. Believe me, none of it is pleasant or flattering.”
“Ye haven’t given him a chance, then.”
“And I have no intention of giving him any such chance.” She flung her hand in her friend’s direction, flicking bits of water her way and making them both giggle. Lorna’s mood lifted after that, and the two of them passed the rest of their chore chattering pleasantly on other subjects.
Fenella preferred it that way. She did not wish to think of the laird’s son, let alone speak of him or listen to Lorna moon about over him, as though he were nothing less than perfection set down upon Scottish soil in order that women might swoon.
To her, Angus Cameron would never be anything but a bully and a liar, someone willing to smile in a man’s face while sinking a blade into his back.
That was the truth of the man, truth neither Lorna nor any of the lasses living in and around Clan Cameron wished to see. For they were women, and lived in a world beyond that of the gritty, bloody, dangerous world of men.
They allowed their men to tell them to leave a room when clan business was being discussed, and did as they were told without speaking a word of disagreement.
They allowed themselves to be spoken of as little more than property to be traded and sold and purchased and used at a man’s leisure.
The thought that Lorna wished to be one of these women—and Angus’s woman, at that—turned Fenella’s stomach. There had to be more to life than keeping a home and pushing out squalling bairns and obeying a man’s orders.
