A Highlander's Reiver (Highland Temptations Book 3)

by Aileen Adams

  “Off with ye, ye demon!” Malcolm roared, swearing up a storm as he did what he could to shake Drew off.

  Drew was a man possessed now, driven by pain and rage. He sank his teeth into Malcolm’s ear this time, and his scream resounded through the room as he clawed and writhed in agony. The harder he fought, the harder Drew bit down, until blood flowed between his lips. He turned his head and spat out what he’d bitten off before driving his fist against the wounded, bloody ear again and again.

  Malcolm fell to his knees, with Drew still attached to his back. He slid off, kicking Malcolm in the kidneys and causing him to fall forward until he was on all fours.

  “Now, then.” Drew crouched in front of him, taking handfuls of red hair and raising the man’s head until they were eye-to-eye. “It seems ye are not much on yer own, Malcolm Stuart. Little wonder ye live surrounded by others who do yer work for ye.”

  “Ye devil,” Malcolm rasped, sweat and blood running down his face, bruises already forming along his cheek and jaw, his nose a ruined pulp.

  “Nay. Ye are the devil here.” He released the man’s head before standing, then drove one foot into his back and forced him to the floor. He remained there, whimpering and bleeding, until the magistrate entered the house to collect him.

  Drew sank onto one of the wooden benches beside the table, both exhausted and exhilarated. His ribs hurt something terrible, the side of his head throbbed, yet he was the victor. It was a thrill he had not experienced in too long.

  “Drew!” Anne flew to his side, throwing her arms about his neck. “Ye fool! I was so frightened!” She laughed and wept all at once.

  He stiffened, taking pains to remove her from him without saying a word.

  The joy shining from her eyes dulled, then went dark. “What—what is this?” she whispered. “What is wrong?”

  He could barely look at her. “What is wrong?” Turning his head, he spat Malcolm Stuart’s blood upon the floor. One more stain, he supposed.

  “Aye. Why will ye—why won’t ye—” She gaped at him, open-mouthed and breathless.

  His heart hardened further the longer he looked at her. “What were ye doin’ here? Was it your intention to warn him of our arrival?”

  27

  Anne emptied the last of the buckets with a satisfied sigh. It had seemed she would never finish the task of scrubbing the floors clean. More than once had she considered giving up entirely.

  Yet it was finished, and the house was livable again, and she had many blessings to count before closing her eyes in grateful slumber that evening.

  So she reminded herself. So she had reminded herself all throughout the fortnight since Drew had defeated Malcolm Stuart.

  “Anne!” Liam called out from the stables, and she waved with a wide smile. He was another blessing.

  It seemed the time away from her had matured him, or perhaps this was nothing more than imagination getting away from her. Perhaps not, however. Perhaps Malcolm Stuart had been correct about one thing. If only one thing. Perhaps she had treated him as a bairn and had not given him the chance to grow into a young man.

  Malcolm’s absence had done wonders for him. He was filling out, eating all he could get into his mouth. He slept well, he was out of doors from morning until night, and this had improved his pallor, his stamina, his strength.

  He was happy, and that was worth everything in the world.

  So she reminded herself.

  It would have to be enough. She turned her back on the stables, where her brother worked with a group of kind men from Avoch to repair what had gone to ruin. They would turn the land into something good, something lovely. Something profitable, or so she hoped, now that it belonged to them.

  Now that none of the Stuarts would ever set foot upon it, all of them locked away. The presence of stolen goods throughout the house, along with stolen cattle in the barn, had all but sealed their fates.

  The house was quiet now. Empty. Her house. It was hardly to be believed, the fact that it was hers as Malcolm’s last living kin. She would share it with her brother, no question. He could be proud of this place, proud of what he would build.

  And yet…

  Her footsteps rang out, louder than they would normally have sounded thanks to the lack of furniture. They would see to that, see to so many things. She had enough to do to keep her happily busy for months to come, perhaps years.

  And yet…

  She stopped at one of the windows, staring out at the road. And yet it wasn’t enough. She knew in her heart it would never be.

  Perhaps if she had never met him. Never met the twins. Perhaps if she had not come to love all of them, there would be no empty place in her heart. No ache, nothing to wake her in the middle of the night. Nothing to steal her breath away when she recalled the joy of being in Drew’s arms.

  A waste of time, thinking on this. He did not love her. He did not even like her.

  She’d worked on training herself to recall the disgust with which he’d looked at and spoken to her after his fight with Malcolm. It helped to remember the way he’d scoffed at her, the way he’d accused her of being in league with her uncle all along.

  No matter how she’d pleaded. No matter how even Rufus had tried to talk sense to him. He would not listen to reason.

  “Worry not,” Clyde had urged, patting her shoulder. “When a man’s blood is up, he canna think. Once he calms, he shall see the folly of this.”

  Yet he had not. She had not seen him, had not spoken to him or anyone of his clan since. They had deserted her.

  Then again, they owed her nothing.

  She ran a hand beneath her eyes to catch the tears which had fallen onto her cheeks. If only she could see the twins again. Och, what they must think of her never returning! What Drew must have told them about her.

  Perhaps that was a blessing. They would cease loving her and might forget.

  At least it might be easy for them. It would never be easy for her.

  Snow would fly soon. Winter would come in earnest. She and Liam would have enough to get them through, or so she prayed. So long as they did not have to live with Malcolm, they were better off than they had been in a long time.

  It was with this in mind that she turned her back to the window and set about the task of starting supper. After that, she planned to sleep for at least three days.

  Later, she was busy spooning stew into bowls after removing a fresh loaf of bread from the hearth when Liam rushed into the house, face flushed. “There is a rider approaching!”

  “Riders approach throughout the day,” she reminded him, shaking her head. “Ye canna upset yourself over every stranger who ventures near the house.”

  “I am not upset! I merely wished to warn ye. I am the man of the house.” He puffed out his chest, lifting his chin.

  “Aye, that ye are.” To ease his mind, she went to the door and moved him aside that she might see down the path leading from the opening in the stone wall.

  One look at the woman sitting astride a bonny sorrel mare and she let out a strangled cry. “Shana?”

  “Who is that?” Liam whispered, standing behind her.

  “A friend. A good friend.” She ran to her, arms outstretched, and Shana embraced her with great warmth when they met.

  “I wanted to come days ago,” Shana assured her, squeezing tight. “I did. But Davina needed me still—especially now that you are no longer there to mind the twins.”

  “How are they?” Anne linked her arm with Shana’s and led her into the house.

  “As winning and keen as ever—though they miss you most terribly.”

  Anne’s heart sank. She had feared as much. “I long for them.” Ever so much. She longed to kiss their cheeks, to run her hand over their soft curls. To weave straw crowns with Moira and chide Owen for attempting to sneak into the pig pen. To tuck them into bed. To love them.

  “And this must be Liam,” Shana beamed upon entering the house, where Liam waited near the hearth. “I have
heard much about you.”

  His cheeks flushed once again, though Anne suspected there was more to it than excitement and a chill in the air. They did not regain their normal color throughout supper, which Anne insisted Shana share with them.

  “I am on my way home now,” Shana explained once the meal was finished and everything scrubbed. They shared a pot of tea once again, as they had on so many afternoons.

  “Ye are?” she asked, her heart aching at the thought. Granted, she had not seen her friend in a fortnight and had not expected to do so ever again, but now there would be less chance than ever.

  “I must admit, I long to return,” Shana murmured with a smile. “To see William again.”

  Anne could not help but frown. She stared down at her tea, chewing her lip, hoping the anguish spreading through her chest did not reveal itself on her face.

  “Forgive me,” Shana whispered, reaching across the table to take Anne’s hand. “I was thoughtless to speak so.”

  “Thoughtless? What makes ye say that?” She forced a smile in spite of the fist squeezing her heart.

  “It is merely that I thought… that is to say, I assumed…” Shana’s head tilted to the side, her eyes narrowing. “Was I incorrect to believe you and Drew…?”

  Anne swallowed over the lump forming in her throat. “We were both incorrect, I suppose.” There was no holding back the flood of emotion then. She held her face in her hands, her shoulders heaving as she wept.

  Shana came to her. “My dear Anne. I believe he made a terrible mistake. We all do.”

  “Except for him!”

  “Well, he takes his time of things,” Shana chuckled. “He did not understand what brought you here that night. He thought—”

  “I know what he thought,” Anne snarled. “He told me as much. He called me a traitor, a liar, a thief.” And so much more. Words which had burned their way into her heart like a brand. They’d scarred over and would likely never entirely fade.

  “He was a fool.”

  “I agree.”

  “I believe he knows as much.”

  “I canna agree.” Anne lowered her hands to cast a doleful glance Shana’s way. “He is a stubborn man. Terribly so.”

  “Yet he is not so foolish as to never admit when he is in the wrong. He merely needs time.”

  “How much time does he need?” she cried out. “It matters not. If he were to walk through the door this minute, I would throw him bodily from the place. I hate him!”

  Shanna patted her back. “I cannot believe that. If you hated him, it would not matter. He hurt you, dreadfully so. You might have been injured that night, or worse, and you only rode all this way that you might keep him safe. No one could blame you for being terribly angry.”

  “If only he had allowed me to explain myself. To tell him I…” Loved him. To tell him she loved him, heaven help her. That her heart had all but burst from her chest when he fought Malcolm, that she’d nearly dissolved in joy when he was victorious. How proud she’d been. How deeply relieved when he escaped without serious injury.

  Shana seemed to understand, merely sitting with her in companionable silence.

  Silence was one thing to which Anne had become accustomed. She’d had no choice but to do so, as she fully expected to spend the rest of her life alone.

  28

  Drew stared down at his nephew, hands on his hips. “What were ye thinking when ye did it?”

  Owen held his tongue, choosing to return his uncle’s stare with a defiant gleam in his eye.

  Heaven help me when he begins to grow, he thought with a silent groan. The lad was difficult enough to tame as a bairn.

  He turned his head, regarding Moira. Moira whose eyes were red-rimmed, having only just shed tears. Moira whose lovely, shining, black curls were now nothing more than an uneven mass with bits of hair sticking out here and there.

  “Well?” Drew asked, gesturing to his niece. “What made ye do it? Ye took a knife to your sister’s lovely hair, and now she has spent the morning weeping while there is work I ought to be tending to.”

  “We wished to find whether we looked the same if Moira’s hair was short as mine.” Owen shrugged as though this made no difference. “We do.”

  “Not quite.” Drew bit back a rueful grin for Moira’s sake. “Now, Davina will have to do her best to mend what you’ve done. And ye shall have to make it up to your sister.”

  Owen went to her, taking her hand. “I am sorry, Moira. I did not wish to make ye cry.”

  Moira nodded, sniffling.

  And that was that. No more was needed.

  How was apology so simple for bairns?

  Not only apology, either. Forgiveness.

  He wished he might ask, and that they might be able to provide an answer. He wished someone, anyone could. For he had made a terrible mistake and had not the slightest notion of how to right things again.

  He also had no notion of how to care for the twins on his own. Over the short time in which Anne had been part of their family, she’d made life easier. More pleasant.

  Safer, for had Owen slipped with the knife… He would not allow himself to think on it.

  Would that turning Anne out of his thoughts could be so simple.

  “Come along, then,” he scowled, shaking his head. “On with your cloaks that we might go to visit Davina.”

  The guilt over leaving the bairns with her and Innis plagued him terribly, especially now that Shana had returned to Clan Munro’s land. One fewer lass to keep watch on the twins. Davina was still feeling well, which was a blessing, but the time would come for the bairn to arrive and she would no longer be able to care for them.

  What would he do then? Hope Owen decided against cutting his sister’s hair again?

  He knew how much good hoping did, none at all. For he’d hoped many times over the past fortnight that Anne would return. That she would somehow see through the terrible wreck he had made of them, and forgive his foolish, cruel, thoughtless words.

  Words he would have given anything to take back, to wipe from her memory. And from his own.

  What had he been thinking? He still had not the first notion. What a fool he’d been, his blood up, his body aching nearly from head to toe. He had not given the first thought to why Anne might have taken the chance of heading him off.

  Nay, he’d assumed. Assumed she’d betrayed him, that she had gone ahead to warn the men of his approach.

  If she had, would they have been in such terrible condition? Would Malcolm have not prevented them from pouring from the house in that state? Or from becoming so inebriated?

  She had seen to it that they drank far more than they might have otherwise. She’d seen to it that he’d battled one man and one man only, that none of the others had laid a finger on him. That he was fresh for the fight.

  Malcolm might easily have hurt her, badly. He might have thrown her into the massive fireplace, for one. He might have done worse than tearing a handful of hair from her head.

  Drew had been in no position to think things through at the time. He’d merely reacted in anger and stubbornly refused to see the truth.

  Now? He had never known such misery. Such loneliness. He’d never considered himself a lonely person before then. He’d never given it a moment’s thought, in fact, too involved in himself, his travels, and then the rebuilding of the farm.

  Perhaps he had filled his time with such pursuits so as to avoid seeing how loneliness for what it was.

  Now, he was not only lonesome, he was aware of it. Aware of the stark difference between life before Anne, life with her, and live without her. Nothing was the same. Nothing was nearly as good as when she’d been there.

  The twins had ceased asking after her, at least. They’d ceased crying themselves to sleep. He had not considered them, either, fool that he was.

  If he’d considered them, he might have considered how attached they would become. Children tended to attach themselves easily. Especially orphans.

 
Anne understood that, being an orphan herself. She understood them in a way he could not.

  He had ruined everything for all of them.

  Davina’s eyes went perfectly round when she first laid them on Moira. “Och, heavens. What have we here?”

  “We’ve had a morning with a knife.” He shot daggers at his nephew with his gaze.

  “I see.” Davina ran her fingers through what was left of the dark curls with a soft smile. “It shall grow back. Hair always grows back. And ye are such a bonny lassie, it matters not.” Just the same, she exchanged a stricken look with him over the top of Moira’s head.

  “It appears as though I must grow eyes in the back of my head so as to watch them at all times.” He was glad to accept a cup of tea from her while the twins went about creating a game to play. “I suppose this is a lesson for ye, as well.”

  “Aye. No knives in the house.” Davina chuckled, shaking her head. “Poor bairns.”

  “Poor bairns? Poor uncle.” He stifled a yawn. “’Tis worse than before.”

  “Before Anne?” she asked, her voice soft so as not to attract attention.

  No use arguing, for it would merely make him look like a worse fool than he was. “Aye. Ye know what I mean.”

  “Ye might easily mend everything between ye.”

  “I disagree, and I have no desire to discuss this with ye again.”

  She shook a finger at him. “Ye see, this is the sort of talk that got ye into trouble. Ye are too hard. Ye act and speak before ye think. Yet for some reason, the lass cares for ye and longs for ye. I canna imagine it, to be honest.”

  Drew was about to dispute this—until he thought about what she’d just said. “What are ye on about? How would ye know any such thing?”

  Her mouth slowly opened, widening until it hung loose. “Och, I ought not have said it.”

  “Why did ye, though? Speak, woman, before I go mad.”

  She grimaced, rolling her eyes. “Shana paid a visit to Anne before turning north, and dropped in first thing this morning to tell me of her and Liam.”