Terri Brisbin Highlander Bundle

by TERRI BRISBIN

  ‘Tavis, I would speak to you about the journey to Perthshire,’ Marian began.

  ‘Marian...’ Did she know her daughter had come to his cottage and proposed marriage to him? And that he’d refused her? What could he say?

  ‘Marian!’ Duncan’s voice called from above them on the stairs. Sharp, but not angry in its tone, the interruption stopped her from saying whatever else she’d planned to say to him. Duncan soon joined them, placing his arm around Marian’s shoulders and drawing her near to him. ‘Tavis has assigned others to escort Ciara. She will be safely delivered to meet her betrothed.’

  Tavis did not like the way those words sounded. He’d known Ciara since she was five and he’d entertained her on the journey back from Marian’s family in

  Dunalastair. Though he tried to think of her as she was now, it blurred with his memories of those days when she’d laughed and played with the wooden animals he’d carved along the way. Now, she would marry and move away and he’d rarely, if ever, see her. His gut tightened at such a thought, though he still did not wish to examine the reasons for that feeling too closely.

  He had no right to expect anything more when it came to Ciara. The night he had rejected her he’d relinquished any possible claim to her, if there was one. And he’d humiliated both himself and her in order to force her to accept that they could not be together.

  ‘Duncan, since we cannot go with her, I would feel better knowing that Tavis himself...’

  ‘Do you question his ability to carry out his responsibilities to his laird, Marian?’ Duncan released her and took a step away, tilting his head to see her face. ‘Surely you do not?’

  The hairs on the back of Tavis’s neck bristled. Something strange was afoot. He’d never heard Duncan or any of the other MacLerie men ever warn off their wives in such a way. They all accepted the strong, opinionated women they’d married and allowed them much freedom to express their preferences.

  This was different, and he was somehow in the middle of it. Without a doubt, he knew he was involved and this was about more than simply assigning men to protect their daughter. He waited for Marian to answer this challenge thrown down by her husband and instead was shocked by her reaction.

  ‘You are correct, husband,’ she said. Nodding to him, she continued, ‘I did not mean to question your abilities or your authority, Tavis. Forgive my words, they were spoken in haste.’

  He knew his mouth dropped open, but before he could say a word, Duncan took her hand and they excused themselves. He heard them whispering to each other as they walked out the door to the yard and left him standing there, gaping like a fool. Tavis reached up and ran his hands through his hair, trying to sift through the conversation and figure out why it all felt so strange to him. Never a man to leave things unsettled, he followed the couple out, intent on getting an explanation. And he would have done had the very subject of the discussion not been standing there with her parents.

  When had she grown up so much? Had he fooled himself into only seeing the girl he’d first met in Dunalastair and, refusing to realise that she’d left that child behind years ago, failed to notice that she had become a stunning young woman? Regardless of his arguments to her that night, he lost his breath as he truly took note of her, and saw, for the first time, the woman she now was.

  Taller than her mother and lithe, Ciara wore her long blonde curls loosely gathered into a braid. Unruly it must be, for wisps surrounded her heart-shaped face like a gentle golden cloud. Her gown flowed over curves that spoke of womanly softness in spite of her slender figure. His body reacted in a most unexpected way...

  Well, unexpected when he had never thought of her in such a manner before. And unexpected since he’d told her that he had sworn off ever caring for a woman again.

  Tavis shook away the memories that were never far from his thoughts and stepped back into the shadows to watch the exchange between Marian, Duncan and Ciara. A myriad of emotions passed over Ciara’s face—first interest, then surprise and then bitter disappointment. But when sadness dimmed the brightness of her brown eyes and the smile he usually noticed on her face had slipped away completely, he discovered he’d walked forwards from the shadows, wanting to make that sadness go away. Her stark expression when she noticed him coming towards her forced him to stop before he took another step.

  His confusion over his own reaction to her grew as she turned and walked away without another look or word. Tavis continued on and reached Duncan and Marian just as they began to walk away in different directions.

  ‘What is this about?’ he asked. Tavis stood blocking their path. He meant to get answers. ‘As I told Connor, I have other tasks to see to, Duncan.’ Even now his words, the objection, began to ring hollow to him. Did they hear it? His resolve to avoid Ciara began to crack.

  ‘There is nothing to worry over, Tavis,’ Duncan said. ‘We just told Ciara who you’ve chosen to take her to Perthshire and she’s gone to see to her packing for the journey.’

  Ripples traced an icy path down his spine. Duncan did not reveal the truth of what was going on, but surely...

  ‘Marian? Are you at peace with the arrangements then?’ She opened her mouth and then shut it, repeating this action several times, each time watching her husband out of the corner of her eyes. ‘Have I offended you in some way by assigning the others?’

  The flash in her eyes was the only warning either man got before she stamped her foot and shouted. A sound of pure frustration echoed through the yard. Then she closed her eyes, took in a deep breath and released it; all the while Duncan watched her with what Tavis thought might be amusement in his gaze. This was amusing?

  ‘Only that I am disappointed that you will not accompany her,’ she began until Duncan cleared his throat, gaining her attention for a moment before she glanced back to Tavis. ‘But I understand you have other duties, Tavis. I do understand.’

  She touched his arm as she spoke, a gesture he found telling. Her words did not ease the sense that there was more involved than either she or Duncan would reveal, but she did sound earnest in her acceptance.

  Ciara was the first of her children to marry and mayhap the emotions of having to part from her daughter was causing this upset? His own mother had reacted strangely when he or one of his siblings married, so it was not unexpected for a woman to behave this way. He nodded his head and she smiled.

  ‘’Tis well, Marian,’ he said softly.

  Duncan nodded, too, and then Marian turned as they all heard her name being called. One of the women who served the laird’s wife waved to her and Marian excused herself to go back into the keep and see to Jocelyn’s call.

  Tavis waited until she entered the stone building and turned back to Duncan, believing that he would explain everything now that his wife was gone. Instead, the man who he counted as his mentor and his friend shrugged and left him standing there.

  This day grew stranger with every passing moment, so Tavis decided to carry out his duties and not worry over this strange behaviour from those not old enough yet to be daft, but old enough not to act so foolishly. In two days, Ciara would leave to meet her potential husband and his family and she would not be his concern at all.

  In reality, and although the choice was in her grasp, there was little chance of her not marrying young James Murray. She’d turned down three other proposals, but this time the laird and her parents supported the match. The Murrays supported the match. So, the next time he saw her, she would be marrying someone else.

  Though he could not admit it, nor could he explain it, that fact did not sit well with him.

  Not at all.

  * * *

  Marian made her way to Jocelyn’s solar where her friends had gathered to discuss their plans. Though forbidden from trying to make a better match for her daughter than the one suggested by the laird, due to this stupid agreement with their husbands, she could at least know what her friends were doing. Duncan was not happy with her, for he knew she was about to interfere, and
she would have blurted out the truth of it to Tavis if not for her husband’s interruptions.

  More than a year ago, the laird had discovered his wife’s matchmaking scheme and his surprise had turned into a challenge about whether he and his advisers—the men—could choose a better spouse for their children than his wife and her confidantes—the women—could. Neither side worried that the other would not choose carefully, they simply believed they could choose better. Unfortunately for Marian, her precious daughter was the first to come of age and be ready to marry.

  Now, as Jocelyn gathered them together to discuss their plan, Marian had to listen and not offer any suggestions or help.

  ‘He did not express any objections to her marrying young Jamie Murray,’ she finally blurted out when she could stand it no longer. ‘Not a word.’

  The silence that met her statement was followed by tsking and sighing, but no one offered any advice on how to make Tavis see the truth that each of the women gathered there had seen for years—he was the best man for Ciara. He’d shunned any attempt to get him to consider marriage again after his young wife died in childbirth four years before. Though men could be stoic and never admit to the softer feelings, they suspected that it had played a part in his resistance to finding another wife since that time.

  And through those difficult years since Saraid had passed, the only woman he did keep company with was Ciara. Their friendship had never waned since they’d met on her journey here from her home and clan. Nearing manhood, Tavis never shunned Ciara’s attentions or company, even though most young men that age would have. At least not until this last year, when something had clearly happened between them—something that had widened the gap.

  ‘I had such hopes of him acknowledging his feelings for her and saying so by now,’ Margriet, Rurik’s wife, said.

  ‘He watches her even when he does not realise it,’ Jocelyn offered. ‘But ’tis time for him to step forward and claim her.’

  ‘Before it is too late,’ Marian whispered, knowing that once Ciara left on her journey there would be little or no opportunity to stop the coming marriage.

  Or mayhap it was? Or they were wrong in their belief that he was the right match for Ciara? Her heart worried so much for her beloved daughter and for the things Ciara did not, and hopefully would never, know about her true parentage.

  Because of those secrets of the past, Ciara’s wealth had been inherited from a settlement made by Marian’s brother, the laird of the Robertsons. It was a powerful enticement for offers of marriage, as was her connection to the influential Robertsons and to the powerful MacLeries. There had been a number of offers, each met with polite uninterest on her daughter’s part.

  However, about two months before, Ciara had suddenly accepted the match with young Jamie Murray. Marian knew that something had happened to make her resigned to marry, but no amount of questioning got an explanation. Unwilling to force it from her, Marian accepted her silence on the matter and hoped for the best.

  Jocelyn stood then and lifted her cup, waiting for the rest of the women gathered there to do the same. Though she felt little hope that true love would win out in this situation, she raised hers and fought off the tears that threatened.

  ‘To the best husband for our beloved Ciara,’ Jocelyn offered.

  ‘To the best!’ the others chimed in, touching the rims of their cups and then drinking from them to seal the words.

  Marian drank the contents of her cup in one mouthful and shook her head. She did not have a good feeling about this or about Ciara’s happiness. ‘From your mouth to the Almighty’s ears,’ she said, offering up a prayer that He would pay attention to a mother’s earnest prayer for a beloved daughter.

  Chapter Three

  Ciara could not stop herself from seeking him out in the crowd. This feast was in her honour and she’d hoped against hope that Tavis would attend, but once more, she was foolish to harbour such desires. They’d not spoken since that humiliating night and she’d not had the courage to approach him since. Even if she wished to admit that he’d been right about her infatuation with him, she could not take the step to tell him so. Now though, as she prepared to take this next huge step in her life and begin to move from this clan to another, she wanted to speak of it—to remove it from plaguing her thoughts and her heart as she left the MacLeries.

  Elizabeth sat at her side and Ciara smiled when her friend touched her hand in silent acknowledgement of her sadness. It was a sign of her faithfulness as a friend, even when she knew not the whole truth of the matter.

  ‘You need only tell your parents you do not wish this match to go ahead and they will find a way out of it, Ciara,’ she whispered.

  ‘I know that. My parents would not force me into a marriage I did not want, Elizabeth. But Tavis was right when he said I must grow up and seek an appropriate marriage.’

  The words sounded calm and very mature, but they burned her tongue with their bitterness. Doing the adult thing and accepting and liking it were two different matters and she feared the second would come much more slowly than the first had. Worse, her parents’ efforts to find her a suitable husband had not slowed one bit, despite her efforts to break three betrothals. The feeling that she was being pushed away grew, even though she knew they loved her.

  However, a Robertson girl raised by the MacLerie clan was never really part of either family. That fact was hard to ignore.

  ‘This match has much to offer both clans,’ she repeated the line she’d used before, this time as much for herself as for Elizabeth.

  Elizabeth squeezed her hand and smiled. ‘If you are certain, then?’

  ‘I needed only to see that my feelings were just the ones from my days as a bairn,’ Ciara explained as she tamped down any reaction to Tavis’s entrance into

  the hall. ‘’Twas never true love.’

  Her heart pounded so hard she was certain Elizabeth and anyone within ten feet of her could hear it, but they did not react to it as she did. Ciara had mastered the skill of forcing her wayward and inexperienced heart to ignore Tavis, but as he caught her gaze and nodded at her, her stomach joined in, revealing how much he did yet affect her, tightening and threatening to expel the few morsels of her dinner that she had eaten.

  She could have, and she would have, regained control if he had walked in the opposite direction or if he’d called out to someone across the large room. But when he made his way over to where she sat with Elizabeth and some other young women of the clan, there was no way to do it.

  ‘Elizabeth, Margaret, Ailsa, Lilidh,’ he said nodding to each of her kinswomen or friends as he named them. Then he turned his gaze to her. ‘Ciara.’

  He smiled at her and she did the same. For a moment, he looked on her as he always had, at least, as he had before that humiliating night. Tavis held out his hand to her.

  ‘May I speak with you, Ciara?’ She nodded as she stood, willing, though not expecting, this at all. She clutched her hands, trying to calm the trembling that shook them and revealed his effect on her to anyone observing.

  ‘Certainly, Tavis. Have you eaten yet?’ she asked.

  Ciara always remembered her duties even as she allowed him to lead her away from her friends. He shook his head in reply, so she nodded at the tables that were bursting with foods of all kinds. Ciara pointed to an open place on a bench and they sat. Her chest hurt from the tension in her, her throat and mouth grew dry and she tried to remember how to think.

  So much for putting her feelings for him in their proper place.

  One of the servants brought over a platter, another brought over a mug of ale and soon Tavis had food and drink enough to feed an army. She watched the dancing while waiting for him to eat before expecting him to speak. They’d shared many meals in the past, but somehow she knew that this one was different. Several people walked by, offering her their best wishes, though none remained long. Finally, Tavis finished eating, took the just-filled cup and turned to her.

  ‘I want to wi
sh you well in this betrothal,’ he said, his voice low and deep. ‘And I wanted to explain why—’

  She shook her head, stopping his words. ‘You were right, Tavis,’ she admitted while glancing away. Saying the words somehow confirmed it in her own heart. ‘My feelings were childish. I have spent the last year regretting what I did.’

  He took her hand in his, pulling her gaze back to his, and smiled at her. Her heart pounded from the intensity of his gaze and she swallowed, trying to lessen the tightness in her throat.

  ‘Ciara, it was my fault as well.’ The heat of his hand over hers warmed her heart. ‘I should have spoken to you before.’ He released her and her hand and heart felt the chill at once. ‘I should have explained about...things, but I always thought of you as that little lass from Dunalastair and didn’t realise you were growing up so quickly.’ He glanced at her and then away at those caught up in the dance. She recognised several of his own siblings there. ‘As I have refused to see my own sisters and brothers growing up,’ he confessed. He met her gaze again and squeezed her hand. ‘And I would not have you leave angry at me.’

  The great hall silenced around them and, for a scant second, all she could see or feel or hear was Tavis. Memories of their first meeting, their journey here to Lairig Dubh, the years since and that night a year ago rushed through her mind in that moment. All of it was over and now she would move on, leave this village to marry and live elsewhere. At least they’d had this time to settle things between them.

  Time spun out between them, but then the silence receded and the frivolity of the feast seeped back. Tavis startled, tearing his gaze from hers and dropping her hand. Standing then and taking a step away, he forever placed a distance between them. A space that would be filled by another man. A new family in a new place. Even children, if God granted them. But never him and never his. Ciara felt that separation grow inch by inch until the threads that connected them seemed to stretch and eventually snap. She exhaled the breath she didn’t realise she held and smiled.