The Highlander's Promise

by Heather Grothaus

  Why had he been so stupid as to have kissed her last night in the old house? Sure, it had addled his wits. She wasn’t sweet, like Ina; she wasn’t gentle, like Kirsten; she didn’t love him, and she certainly didn’t want to be married to him, like Searrach had.

  So why did that make Lachlan want her with him more and more?

  He shook his head and picked up Rory Carson’s crate and turned toward the path, walking to meet Murdoch Carson, who had spotted his approach and didn’t look the happier for it.

  It was time to talk of daggers and battles, of people long dead, of smuggling and of feasts.

  * * * *

  “I said, go away,” Kirsten sobbed as Finley entered the house and closed the door. Her friend was seated at a table, her face buried in the nest made by her arms.

  “Kirsten?” She slid into the chair next to Kirsten and hesitantly reached out a hand to touch her shoulder. She had played the comforter twice in as many days now, and it was an odd role for her.

  Kirsten didn’t flinch away, but it was obvious her anger was still present, along with her sadness. “You doona understand, Finley. You’ve got your husband—and it’s the Blair.”

  “He’s nae the—”

  She raised her tear-streaked face. “I’m already ten and eight! Who am I to marry in Carson Town? Hairy old Eachann Todde?”

  Finley drew her head back. “Weren’t it you who encouraged me to consider Eachann Todde not so long ago?”

  “Well, aye,” Kirsten said with a sniff and a roll of her eyes. “He’s got all those nice sheep, Fin, and you’re forever going on about the farm. And you are older than me.”

  “By a year!”

  Kirsten winced. “Almost two.”

  Finley pressed her lips together and looked down at the tabletop with a slow intake of breath. “Kirsten, what makes you so sure of Dand Blair being matched?”

  “They’re going to make him marry that woman…that…that…” Kirsten, who’d never had a bad thing to say about anyone, seemed to be struggling to find the right word.

  “Coo?” Finley offered, thinking it should be strong enough of an insult.

  “Aye,” Kirsten said with a scowl. “Aye, that coo, Searrach. Slutty pile o’ tits.”

  Finley pressed her palm over her mouth and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from bursting with laughter. She blew out a short breath through pursed lips. “How do you know Dand is going to marry Searrach?”

  “How do you think, Finley Carson?” she demanded. “I saw them. Searrach and her father.”

  Finley gave her a sideways look and waited.

  “Sure, I went to Town Blair,” she admitted in exasperation. “Harrell had just come back from away. I heard them talking about it. Are you happy now?”

  “Kirsten,” Finley gasped and laughed at the same time. “You know we aren’t to go past the bridge. I would never have thought you so bold as to go all that way alone. Again,” she added.

  “No one thinks me so bold,” Kirsten said, wiping at her eyes and sniffing. “That’s how I can go and not be missed. Besides, since the treaty, we doona have to keep to this side of the bridge now, do we?” She paused, glancing at Finley. “That was the third time I’ve gone the whole way to the town.”

  “You sly lass,” Finley said, hearing the admiration in her voice.

  “Oh, doona say it like that,” Kirsten wailed. “I didna do it to be sly, or just to see what mischief I could get away with, like you would, Finley.”

  “Och!”

  “I love him,” Kirsten went on plaintively. “I love him and I…I think he might love me, too, given the chance. So it’s nae fair!” She lay her head back down in her arms and sobbed.

  “There, there,” Finley said, patting Kirsten’s back awkwardly. “Oh, would you stop? Squalling won’t solve anything, and you’re making my head ache.”

  “You’re a terrible friend.” The lament was muffled by her arms.

  “Just finding that out, are you?” Finley kept patting. “I’ll tell Lachlan what you saw. Maybe he’ll know what’s at the bottom of it; he’s a knack for finding out things that were meant to be hidden.”

  Kirsten raised her head. “Really? What things?”

  “I’d be here all day if I told you,” Finley said, and then stood up from the chair. She set the pretty, pink shell on the tabletop, and Kirsten stared at it with a pout. “Dand wanted you to have this. If you love him so, I think you’d wish to keep it.”

  Kirsten reached out and took the shell in one hand, then ran the fingers of her other along its ruffled edge. “Perhaps if I do wish upon it every night, he’ll be mine.”

  Finley rolled her eyes but didn’t disabuse her friend of her fanciful notions. “I’ll let you know if I find out anything.” She turned to go but stopped abruptly. “And Kirsten, stay away from Town Blair unless someone is with you, whether the old boundary applies or nay.”

  Kirsten might think herself brave enough to traipse through the woods, but coming face-to-face with real danger would be an entirely different matter. Finley suspected anyplace housing a man such as Harrell Blair was decidedly dangerous.

  “I’ll nae promise you anything, Finley Carson. Although I doona truly think you a terrible friend, you know,” Kirsten said in an airy voice, worshipping the pink shell in her palm with her eyes. “Just in case you thought you could be rid of me. We’re friends for life, you and I.”

  Finley sighed as she opened the door. “Sure, until I murder you.”

  Kirsten gave her an indulgent smile. “I love you, too.”

  * * * *

  “Murdoch,” Lachlan called out as the older man plodded up the path, his head down, his breeches darkened with water to his knees. “I’d speak to you a moment, if you have the time. I’ve sought you the past several days, but you were nowhere to be found.”

  He didn’t look up as he neared. “I was hunting, if it’s aught for you to know. Building another storehouse, are ye?”

  Lachlan ignored the taunt and fell in step alongside the Carson chief as Murdoch continued on through the town. “I have questions about the great battle.”

  Murdoch gave a dark chuckle. “The great battle, eh? Everyone has questions about the great battle. Yer nae special.”

  “Have I offended you?” Lachlan frowned and stopped in the street. “For as much as you argued to gain me for the clan, you seem to resent me being here.”

  Murdoch halted and stood a moment facing away from Lachlan. Then he turned and began walking back toward him.

  “Aye, some of us do resent you being here,” he said. “You wedding Rory’s lass has brought us food and grazing and things we can hold in our hand, but it can never bring back what this town lost all those years ago. Seeing you every day is only a reminder.” He stopped nose to nose with Lachlan. “For some of us.”

  “That’s what I want to ask y—”

  “Who the hell do you think you are, up in the old house, shaming Finley like that? Still fancy yourself chief, do ye, Blair? Living in town nae good enough for you?”

  Lachlan huffed a laugh and shook his head. This was not going the way he’d imagined, and he was trying to keep hold of his temper. “I’m shaming Finley? Who thought it was a good idea to have a newlywed couple sharing a bedchamber with the old folks?” Lachlan held up a hand. “Never mind. I’ve no desire to quarrel with you, Mur—”

  “Well, beg yer pardon for nae building you a manor to suit, Blair,” Murdoch sneered. “In case you hadn’t noticed, there are a score of empty cottages you could have taken for your use.” He leaned even closer. “Empty for years, because so many of our clan were killed, and most of the ones that survived chose to leave rather than starve to death.”

  “You didn’t leave,” Lachlan shot back.

  “Because I couldn’t,” he said, and his entire body seemed to tremble with frust
rated rage. “They became my responsibility when my father and brother died. This is my home, my clan. Or what’s left of them all now. You were a necessary evil to try to get back some of what we lost. Doesna mean I have to like you.”

  “Fair enough.” Lachlan reached into his pouch and withdrew the dagger. He thrust it flat against Murdoch’s chest, causing the older man to take a step back.

  Murdoch reached up and took hold of the sheath before the heavy piece could tumble to the road. “What’s this?”

  “Recognize it?” Lachlan asked.

  Murdoch’s brow furrowed. “Where did you get it?”

  “Do you recognize it or nae?”

  The older man held his gaze for a moment and then thrust it back toward Lachlan. “Nay.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “The design on it is Carson, aye. But I’ve nae seen it before in my life. Now leave me be.” He turned to walk back up the path once more.

  “You’re angry about me staying up at the old house because you’re afraid I’ll ask about the smuggling, aren’t you?”

  Murdoch froze in his step again, but didn’t turn as he called out, “I doona ken what you’re yammering about, boy.”

  “The smuggling the Carsons were part of before the war,” Lachlan called out, even louder this time. “Or perhaps it was simple trade? Did you try to strike it back up again and fail? Is that the real reason Carson Town was starving? Why everyone left—”

  This time Murdoch didn’t stop at being nose to nose with Lachlan, but barreled into him, taking him by surprise and causing him to stumble on his feet. From the corner of his eye, Lachlan could see the group of villagers coming up from the beach carrying heavy, dripping nets and baskets of bounty between them.

  “You doona know anything,” Murdoch warned in a low voice, pointing his finger in Lachlan’s face.

  The murmur of conversation from the group stopped, and everyone stared at the two men in the street.

  One of the townsmen called out, “Aught amiss, Murdoch?”

  The Carson chief’s glare never left Lachlan’s face. “Not a mite, Dove. The Blair and I are just having a wee discussion. Innit, Blair?”

  “Aye,” Lachlan agreed. “Fine as fallow.”

  The crowd moved on through the town, but they were casting wary glances behind them.

  “I want to understand what happened,” Lachlan said evenly.

  “Understand? Understand this: You are a Blair. You’ll always be a Blair. An outsider here.”

  “I know that,” Lachlan said, ignoring the twisting in his gut at the words. “I need to prove to Marcas and the fine that Town Blair is where I belong. Someone is lying about what happened those terrible days when Carson Town was attacked. And those lies have cost me my own people—all but my life, Murdoch. I want them back.”

  Murdoch’s frown lessened for a moment in surprise, but then it lowered nearly to the bridge of his nose. “What about Finley? You’d just abandon her, making it so that she can never marry again?”

  “Finley doesn’t want me any more than I want her. She wishes me gone so that she can do what she likes, when she likes, without any husband to rein her in. You know that as well as I do, else she would have been wed long before I came around. Instead you used her to punish me.”

  “Doona be so full o’ yerself. ’Twas a bit o’ punishment for her as well, I admit.” The Carson chief’s mouth quirked despite himself. “But she’s a bonny lass. You seem to be coming out no worse for the wear.”

  “It’s because I’m sleeping somewhere else!” Lachlan defended himself.

  At this, Murdoch almost chuckled. “Well, aye. Wise, that.” He looked at Lachlan from the corner of his eye. “Sure, you heard about the hornets.”

  Lachlan raised an eyebrow. “I pretend I havena.”

  Murdoch’s faint grin faded and he sighed. “What is it you want from me, Blair?”

  “I want to know exactly what happened the night Carson Town was attacked,” Lachlan said. “I want to know who was here; in town, on the beach, in the old house. I want to know how the old treaty was struck after the fighting stopped.”

  “The treaty was struck how it had to be,” Murdoch rushed in in a low voice, and Lachlan could tell that even the mention of that night placed a pall over the robust man, darkening the hollows around his eyes, graying his complexion, rounding his shoulders. “I wasna myself. My wife…” He broke off and made a quarter turn away from Lachlan, as if he were looking over the rooftops toward the bay, searching the horizon with his eyes for the shape of the thing that haunted him.

  “My wife and daughter,” he continued, “they had taken shelter in the old house when the town was attacked and were trapped in the fire. They…well, they both died, is all. After some days. Her and the bairn. By that time it was already decided. By the whole of the fine, nae just me.” He paused a moment, and Lachlan saw his shoulders heave in a silent sigh. “I’ve naught else to say about it. Some of it I canna even recall anymore.”

  Lachlan thought his answer odd, but let it pass. “There are others in the town, though, who might remember more,” he hedged.

  Murdoch shrugged and turned back to him at last. “Perhaps. Most of the old ones are dead. Thirty years is a long time.”

  “There will be tales.”

  “Aye, and that’s all you can take them for,” Murdoch cautioned, and the stern look had returned to his face. Lachlan was glad in a way to no longer be made witness to the man’s agonizing grief. “Tales. Stories none should believe. You know what use gossip is good for.”

  “It’s all I have.”

  Murdoch paused. “Sure, and that reasoning right there is enough to convince me you doona ken yer arse from a knothole, lad. Is that what you’re about this day, with Finley’s pappy’s tools? Rapping at doors and listening for bits of gossip?”

  Lachlan’s pride smoldered.

  Murdoch flapped a hand at him, then started up the street once more. “Bah. Isnae one’ll tell you anything, any matter. Outsider, like I said.”

  “That’s why I want Carson Town to hold Lá Bealltainn,” Lachlan called after him. “If any town needs a feast and a fresh start, it’s this one. And I say you should have it. We should have it,” he corrected. “Finley says there’s never been a May feast that she remembers.”

  The chief kept walking, so Lachlan made the final move in his strategy.

  “I’ve come upon a goodly amount of Irish to contribute. Along with whatever work needs to be done to make the town ready.”

  Murdoch Carson stopped in his tracks, but didn’t turn around.

  “We still have a week to prepare,” Lachlan called out.

  “That’s not enough time to ready a proper Lá Bealltainn,” Murdoch said loudly, apparently to the empty street before him.

  “I can do it,” Lachlan said. “We can do it together—the fires, the sport, the food. I know we can. It will do the town good. It will do you good, Murdoch Carson. Another step toward reclaiming your town.”

  “That does sound fine to my ears,” he said quietly. The chief was silent for a long moment. And then he called out, “I still say a week is nae long enough. So I reckon you’d best get to work, if you’re to prove me wrong.”

  Even though Lachlan had hoped for this answer, he was still surprised. “I have your blessing?”

  “Nay,” Murdoch said, looking over his left shoulder. “But you do have my leave, and you can tell aught who asks that you have it.” He turned his head a little further. “And Blair?”

  “Aye?”

  “While you’re still playing at tinker, there’s yet nets to be hauled in.”

  Chapter 12

  It seemed to Finley that she had just closed her eyes when she felt her shoulder being gently shaken and the stir of Ina’s breath in her ear. Finley rolled over partway and squinted in the dark room a
t the darker shape of her mother.

  “What is it?” Finley whispered.

  “Shh.” It was barely a sound as Ina motioned her from the bed.

  Finley swung her legs over the side of the mattress and was searching the floor with her toes for her slippers when she was pulled away from the task.

  “Leave them,” Ina breathed, and even in the whisper Finley could hear the thread of girlish excitement.

  The main room of the house was clammy and cold; the fire was gone. Finley didn’t think she could ever remember another time in her life when there hadn’t been at least coals hidden beneath a fluffy pile of ash. But there was no time to wonder about the fire as Ina was pulling her through the doorway onto the path.

  The sky was tall and wide and gray, freckled with the last straggling stars, and Finley’s breath was thick in the humid air. She heard sounds of people approaching and turned; there, coming up over the hill on the path, were other women and girls from the town, all still in their nightdresses, all without their slippers.

  “They remembered,” Ina breathed.

  There was a low buzz of whispered excitement flavored with giggles from the very young, and any thought Finley had of their farm being the destination was quickly forgotten as the women glided around and past her and Ina and headed to the small, sloped pastures beyond.

  “Come,” Ina said, just as the sun began to peek over the ben, the strip of sky above the cliff and trees going white, then butter yellow. Her mother’s eyes sparkled like a girl’s as she pulled Finley along into the feminine current.

  “What are we doing?” Finely laughed as the sounds of the women’s chatter grew higher with the rising of the sun.

  “Lá Bealltainn!” Ina called up to the sky.

  They reached the pasture, the grass longer than Finley had ever seen it now that Carson animals had infinitely larger and better meadows to feed on, and plunged into the sea of greensward. Ina pulled Finley around in a half circle until they were facing each other, and then released her. All around them, the older women, even to the eldest widow, were bending their stiff knees, crouching with spread arms and then sweeping their hands over the heads of the grasses and wildflowers, scooping their palms toward their faces and leaving their cheeks and foreheads, eyes and décolletages shining with dew, their sleeves clinging wet and transparent to their skin.