The Highlander's Promise

by Heather Grothaus

  “Two days, or none at all,” Murdoch pressed.

  Marcas stared at the man without expression. “What else?”

  Murdoch set his mouth. “Half your stores now, and half your grazing in all the green months.” He sat down while, again, the room erupted.

  After Harrell had succeeded in calling everyone to order, Marcas challenged quietly, “And if we do not agree?”

  Murdoch shrugged. “War, again.”

  Harrell laughed and looked about the room. “With this spindly lot of a dozen? I fear they might faint just from smelling my fair Searrach’s cakes.”

  Murdoch Carson’s mouth quirked. “Spindly we may be at the moment. But it’s nae only a dozen of us come. I left a score of our men in the wood just at the edge of town. By now they’ve surrounded the Blair’s house and the store as well. With torches. Should they see signs from our man over there”—here, Murdoch nodded toward the Carson standing in the doorway—“we’ll fire the lot of them. Burn your town to the ground, just as ours was burned.”

  “Our wives are in the Blair’s house, preparing him for burial,” Marcas growled.

  Murdoch nodded. “And I thank you for that added leverage, Marcas.”

  There was dark murder in Marcas’s glare. “Should we agree to your demands today, you simply go away?”

  “Nay,” Murdoch said. “It’s a new treaty I’m proposing. Our clans will at last live in peace together. Fairly. We share the resources, after we have recovered what belongs to us.” He turned in his chair to look over his shoulder at Lachlan, and all eyes fell on him once more.

  “Everything that belongs to us, I’m thinking.”

  Chapter 5

  Finley sat uneasy in her saddle; the roar of the falls, while easily drowning out the raucous springtime calls from the birds, did nothing to quiet the revelry of the wedding party surrounding her. There were at least one hundred Carsons—most of the town—clogging the path after the bridge. Only Finley, her mother and father, and the clan elders had the privilege of riding. And, of course, Finley’s maid of honor, Kirsten.

  All the unmarried lasses in Carson Town had begun vying for the coveted spot at Finley’s side when she married almost in the same moment that Finley herself had learned she would wed. Everyone had heard tales of the fearless, bonny Lachlan Blair, and all the little Carson girls had for years admired his escapades and fantasized about his daring and appearance beyond earshot of their parents. So Finley had no shortage of volunteers—even those with whom she shared a mutual dislike were eager to ingratiate themselves to be chosen. The feud was over, after all, and there were men at the Town Blair.

  Finley had chosen meek, diminutive, blonde Kirsten Carson not only because she was the least obnoxious of the lot of them, but because Kirsten was really the only girl who’d cared to be friends with Finley since they’d both been small. And Kirsten seemed genuinely happy for Finley that she would marry, even if Finley herself was not so sure.

  Lachlan Blair, the man who was once a daring legend slated to become a chief, was now nothing more than a disgraced, half-English bastard being sacrificed by his own people, if the rumors Finley had heard were true. But if the rumors were indeed true, Lachlan Blair also somehow had Carson blood in his veins.

  She wondered how eager he was to marry her, what he looked like. Her thoughts went again to the Blair clansman she’d met in almost this very spot; no giant, as Lachlan Blair was rumored to be, but he’d been strong. Handsome in a gruff, careless way. He’d had a finely shaped mouth, a quick laugh, and a spark in his eye.

  The crash of hooves sounded from up the hill, and a rider emerged at the crest of the path: a Carson man who had gone ahead to witness the burial of Archibald Blair, dead now these past seven days. Only once the funeral had concluded and all the trappings were hidden away in the Town Blair could the wedding party proceed. The man raised an arm high and gave a broad wave, and the townspeople answered with a cheer.

  There would be a wedding.

  Finley’s father reached across and took hold of her horse’s reins, prompting the mount to move forward over the bridge. Her mother was on Finley’s left, the bride cake carefully wrapped in cloth and held at the front of her saddle. Ina looked over at Finley with a proud smile as they traveled slowly up the hill, and Finley thought she must be admiring the pale gown she and the other Carson mothers had worked on so diligently, day and night, for seven days.

  “You look beautiful, lass,” she said.

  Finley knew she had never been a beautiful lass. A capable lass, a strong-willed lass, a lass with a quick tongue and a penchant for rows. But never beautiful like fair Kirsten, even in such a fine gown as she had ever worn, with her red curls piled up twice as high as her own head, sprigs of new, woody heather studding the twists.

  She felt her cheeks heat and muttered, “I think I need a wee.”

  Ina laughed. “It’s only nerves.”

  “It’s the mug of cider I drank,” Finley argued. Two mugs, she silently amended.

  “We’ll be there soon.”

  Soon was relative, for it took the better part of an hour for the procession to scale the wooded slope. The singing continued until Rory Carson led his family beyond the fringe of the wood to stop at Murdoch’s side, where the path wound on through the furthermost dwellings of Town Blair. Rory paused there, still holding the reins of Finley’s horse. A young lad of perhaps eight years, barefoot and curly haired, was stationed at the rear wall of the cottage nearest the path, and upon catching sight of the Carson party, he sprinted up the path toward the center of town.

  Without command, the Carson fine rose up through the crowd to flank the wedding party on either side. The revelers grew suddenly solemn, and Finley realized in that moment that this journey—this ceremony—was a bigger risk than anyone had dared admit aloud to this moment. Once the procession entered the town, they would all be vulnerable to attack.

  She could be dead before she ever laid eyes on the mythical Lachlan Blair.

  But Murdoch nodded to Finley’s father, and Rory clucked to his horse, moving himself and Finley to the fore of the group, the Carson warriors escorting them.

  Finley was soon distracted from her ominous misgivings as they entered the town proper; the longhouses here were wide, their thick walls cracked from the long winter, but none crumbled. The roofs were so well rounded with thatch that each one appeared a little hillock in and of itself, smoke curling luxuriously from their centers. Shutters were straight and in good repair; implements and tools hung along wooden braces, gleaming and sharp; dooryards were swept clean around sturdy benches and troughs; posts held torches or little pots of new, trailing vines. A cow lowed from somewhere beyond the rooftops and was answered in kind from the other direction. Softly clucking chickens; pigs and cats and goats with fresh, spindly kids roamed the alleys, bright and sleek and completely unconcerned with the large party stirring up dust as they moved along toward the center of their town.

  Finley realized she was frowning at the clear signs of prosperity around her, so at odds with the state of her own home just beyond the falls. It was like being in a foreign land.

  The maze of longhouses opened up at last to a wide green in the center of the town. To the right was a long structure studded with half doors, golden hay spilling out of the farthest openings; the fabled Blair storehouse, rumored to hold enough grain to last three towns five years. To the left lay the largest longhouse Finley had ever seen, but unlike the others she’d passed, this one was shuttered tight, with no potted herbs, no torch at the post poised for lighting. It was a dark, startling shape in the otherwise verdant tableau, like the space from a knocked-out tooth in a pretty girl’s smiling mouth.

  Archibald Blair’s house, she guessed. As dark as any grave he now lay in.

  Directly across the green from where the wedding party approached was a small, square structure, built not in th
e old Highland fashion, but of bright, new wood and stone above the ground, with a stone roof and a timbered cross at its peak. Town Blair even had a proper chapel. And it was before this holy, set-apart building that the unsmiling population of Town Blair was gathered, in stark contrast to the lively Carson group that had departed from the falls bridge.

  The wedding party paused at the edge of the green, staring across the quietly grazing sheep, the wide, stone well. The sea breeze was only hinted at here, but the gulls wheeled overhead, their mournful calls sounding as if they were still under the impression that the crowd below was in attendance of a funeral. Beyond the seabirds’ haunting cries, though, the green of Town Blair was absolutely quiet.

  The crowd before the chapel parted as if made of two waves, drawing back to reveal a set of shallow stone steps leading up to the closed door. Before those steps stood a quintet of people: four men and a woman.

  One of them, Finley knew, must be Lachlan Blair.

  Her horse moved forward suddenly, causing her to grab at the front of the saddle. Finley studied the faces as she drew near: the friar in his long, brown robe—no, that wasn’t him. The older man with his handsome gray plait—that was Marcas Blair, the new chief. The woman—long and angular and gray—must be the Blair’s wife. A younger man with wild red hair, his sweetly solemn face coming into focus. She supposed it could be him. But—

  Finley felt her mouth drop open as the final man in the group became clear, his rich brown hair, which had been pulled into a queue beneath his shawl a week ago now flowed around his shoulders, his short beard neatly groomed around his full mouth, which she knew housed straight, white teeth when he grinned. His brown eyes, stern in one moment, sparking with mirth the next, were fixed somewhere over the crowd.

  Good luck to your future husband…

  Her horse came to a halt, and the pinch-faced Blair woman stepped forward, her hands clasped stingily at her waist as she approached Ina’s horse.

  “Welcome to you, Ina Carson,” the woman said, although her monotone belied the sentiment.

  “God’s blessing upon you, Mother Blair,” Ina replied, her voice soft and conveying a genuineness of sentiment behind her words. She handed down the cloth-wrapped bride cake, clasped reverently in both hands. “May the years bring much prosperity to both our beloved children, with the joy of many bairns to add to our shared wealth.”

  The woman took the bread and did not return Ina’s smile. “He isna my child.” She gave a stiff nod and returned to her place before the chapel.

  Finley’s gaze went once more to the steps as the gray-haired man stepped forward. Murdoch dismounted, and the two clan chiefs met with a loud clasp of hands. They stared into each other’s faces for what seemed to Finley to be half an eternity.

  Marcas Blair spoke first. “Peace, Carson.”

  “Aye,” Murdoch answered. “Peace. Today shall see a final end to our feud.”

  The Blair nodded. “End to it. I welcome you and your people.” The chiefs parted, and Finley’s stomach did a neat flip as Marcas Blair turned his steely eyes up to her father. “Rory Carson, we are well met.”

  Rory nodded. “Blair, I give my daughter in good faith.”

  “And you shall take the one as much son to me as my other, and your people shall welcome him?”

  Rory nodded. “Aye.” He reached up to the folds in his shawl and unclasped one of his brooches and then at last turned to Finley, offering it to her in his palm.

  She looked from the silver brooch to her father’s eyes, noticing the different air about him. Today, he was not just her father, stooped, aging; he was a Carson elder, negotiating an historic treaty to a generations-old war.

  “We’ll be back at home soon, lass,” he whispered. There he was—her father again. He gestured with his hand. “Take it.”

  Finley took the warmed metal into her fist and turned in time to see Marcas Blair removing a brooch from his own, worn shawl. Finley held her breath as he walked toward the pair of young men.

  “Lachlan,” he said in a soft voice. “You have the blessing of your clan on this happy day, with wishes of a long and fruitful union with your wife.”

  Finley’s stomach clenched as the man from the forest snatched the brooch from Marcas Blair. It was him. Her skin prickled, her stomach fluttered.

  “Which clan would that be, Marcas?” Lachlan Blair said in a low voice through clenched teeth.

  Then Rory was at her knee. Finley hadn’t noticed him dismounting, so entranced had she been by Lachlan Blair. Her father helped her slide from the horse and then held her hand as he escorted her to the steps of the chapel where Kirsten was somehow already waiting. The friar had ascended to the threshold, and Lachlan Blair now stood on the topmost step. He stared over the green once again, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes, including Finley’s.

  If he recognized her from their meeting at the bridge, he certainly wasn’t letting on.

  Finley swallowed as her father leaned in to press a kiss to her cheek, and then pulled his fingers from her tight grasp. She must walk to him on her own, a willing bride. But even knowing her future husband had turned out to be the man from the forest—fancied in her thoughts many times over since their strange encounter—did not make the journey easier. Finley now stood alone at the foot of the steps, the edge of the brooch digging into her palm. It took every ounce of her pride, her strong will, to command her legs to mount the steps.

  At last she stood before Lachlan Blair and, setting her jaw, she raised her eyes to look up into his face.

  He looked at her coolly for a moment, and then his brows rose slightly.

  “It’s you,” he said.

  An oddly pleasant wave of gooseflesh rushed over Finley’s arms. He simply hadn’t recognized her. “Surprised?”

  “Aye.” Lachlan huffed a laugh and raised his face to the sky for a moment. “I should have known.”

  Finley felt an unexpected grin tugging at her mouth. Maybe—just maybe—today wouldn’t be the worst day of her life after all. She heard Kirsten give a dreamy sigh behind her.

  Lachlan dropped his gaze back to hers. “Of course they shackle me to the only woman in Carson Town no one else wanted.” He chuckled again, but there was no mirth in his tone.

  The flesh of her face seemed to freeze, humiliation rising up in her like nausea. She forced it down her throat by swallowing hard. “I would have looked kindlier upon Eachann Todde had I known the alternative I would soon face.”

  The smile dropped from his full mouth. “More winsome is your poet, now?”

  “Winsome? Nay. But he’s nae half-English bastard being turned out for a disgrace.”

  Lachlan’s face darkened, his shoulders stiffened.

  Finley lifted her chin.

  The friar cleared his throat. “Shall we begin?”

  “Hellion,” Lachlan growled.

  Finley narrowed her eyes at him. “Fraud.”

  “Lachlan Blair,” the friar called out cheerfully, “do you swear to take this woman, Finley Carson, as your wife?”

  He turned to the holy man. “Nay.”

  The friar stuttered and harrumphed as a murmur of confusion and alarm swept over the crowd gathered on the green. Clomping footfalls heralded Marcas Blair’s arrival on the chapel’s threshold, and he pulled Lachlan back roughly.

  Finley felt as though her very head would burst into flames at any moment. Kirsten reached out to squeeze Finley’s arm reassuringly, but Finley shook her off. She had never felt such shame in her life—not even when, at ten and two, she had slipped from the roof peak of the storehouse and been caught on the hoist upside down, her skirts around her head. It had taken the better part of an hour to get her safely down, but it seemed as if she’d been standing before the chapel doors for days.

  The two Blair men were arguing in hushed tones—at least, Marcas Blair’s tone was hushed.


  “I willna,” Lachlan said, shaking his head at the older man, who was clearly attempting to persuade him. Then Lachlan leaned his nose close to the Blair’s. “Turn me out, then. I’d rather die alone in the wood than be shackled to her. She’ll likely kill me in my sleep, any matter.”

  The murmurings in the crowd exploded into contentious rumbles, and Finley turned on her heel and swept down the steps, swerving around her father at the bottom.

  He caught her arms, preventing her from reaching her horse. “Finley, wait,” Rory pleaded in a low tone. “’Tis a difficult thing for the both of you.”

  “I’ll not be spoken of in such a manner,” Finely said. “On my wedding day. By the man who is to be my husband. He clearly doesna want me.”

  “Do you want him?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Then you are well matched,” Rory said with a stern look.

  “He refused me, Da,” she said through clenched teeth. “I’ll not stand up there like a dog begging for his scraps when I never wanted this at the very first. You heard him—he’d rather die in the wood than be married to me.”

  Marcas Blair’s voice rang out. “He didna mean that.”

  Finley looked over her shoulder toward the chapel door. Lachlan Blair was glaring at her.

  “Did you mean it?” she challenged.

  “Every word,” he said.

  Finley whipped her head around to regard her father. But before he could say anything, Murdoch Carson stepped forward once more.

  “Marcas,” he called out in a voice full of warning. “Have you summoned us here only to tempt our charity? I’ll nae have this good family further insulted. If its injury you wish to bring upon us this day, you shall have it returned to you in kind.”

  “Forgive my son, Murdoch,” the Blair said calmly. “He is only overcome by nerves at Miss Carson’s gentle beauty.”

  Lachlan barked a laugh. “’Tis the Blairs you insult with this viper. I watched her throw a man from the bridge! I’d sooner bed a hornet’s nest.”