‘But, Ailsa, you knew how I felt about you—how could you have thought I’d leave without even discussing it?’
She sniffed and looked down at the ground. ‘You never said what you felt in so many words.’
Alasdhair jumped to his feet. ‘Because I thought we didn’t need words to express what we felt for each other. For heaven’s sake, Ailsa, I thought you understood that. I thought you knew me. I thought you of all people would know that I would never, ever, do anything to hurt you, never mind dishonour you. I thought you believed in me.’
She couldn’t look him in the eye. Though her mother’s lies were the catalyst for their separation, she felt she was more to blame. What Alasdhair said was true, she had lacked faith and was too easily persuaded. ‘She laughed at me when I said you loved me. What did I know of such things, she said, and you know what she was like, Alasdhair. She made me feel like an idiot. It is not you I didn’t believe in,’ Ailsa whispered, ‘it was myself.’ That it was all too late, she knew. There was nothing she could do, but, oh, how much she wished there was. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Alasdhair. Please don’t look at me like that, for I can’t bear it.’
He knew from bitter experience how very practised Lady Munro was in the art of belittlement, how she twisted and turned everything into a deformed version of itself. With both her parents assailing her, poor Ailsa would have stood little chance. If she had only believed … but in his heart, he knew he had not believed enough, either. It had been too much to wish for. Too much to deserve. ‘You’ve no more need to be sorry than I. I don’t blame you for not coming. I can see how it must have looked.’
‘But I did come.’
‘What!’
‘My mother told me she had arranged for us to meet to say goodbye. Despite her better judgement, she said, she thought it better that I hear from you direct. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing, the chance to see you just one more time. I was there at midnight as agreed. I waited and waited, but you didn’t come. I thought you couldn’t face me. You didn’t love me, but you cared enough about me not to be able to tell me that to my face. I thought my mother was right. I thought—but I was wrong. I was wrong. I was so wrong.’ Ailsa shuddered as sobs racked her body.
Alasdhair ran his hand distractedly through his hair. ‘I don’t understand. I stood here, under this very tree—our tree—the whole time. Where were you?’
Ailsa’s covered her face with her hands. ‘An Rionnag,’ she whispered.
Alasdhair cursed, long and low in the Gaelic, words he thought forgotten, then he stooped down to pull Ailsa to her feet, wrapping his arms around her, unable to resist the habit of comforting her any longer. ‘My God, but they made sure of separating us, your parents. Your father thought he had solved the problem by banishing me, but your mother knew different, so she set us up to think each betrayed by the other. And it worked. Between them they destroyed any chance we had of happiness.’
He stroked her hair, the way he had always done before to soothe her, but despite the familiar gesture, he felt like a stranger. She was acutely aware of him, not as the person he’d been, but of the man he had become. A man she didn’t know any more. It disconcerted, this not knowing, but having known. She had no idea how to behave.
Ailsa pushed herself back from his embrace and wiped her eyes, attempting a watery smile. ‘Sorry, it’s not like me to cry.’
Alasdhair shook his head and returned her smile with a crooked one of his own. ‘God knows, we both have reason enough.’
The wind ruffled his hair. As he shook it back from his face she noticed it, the faint white line above his left brow, made more visible by his tan. Ailsa reached up to trace the shape of it. ‘The oar, do you remember?’
‘Of course I remember, you nearly had me drowned.’
They had been swimming, and he was climbing back into the boat. Ailsa, struggling to slot one of the heavy oars into its lock, had slipped and the blade had gashed his brow. ‘I was trying to rescue you,’ she retorted. ‘I thought we’d never get it to stop bleeding. You’re lucky it’s such a tiny scar.’
‘I didn’t feel lucky at the time, my head ached for days.’ Her nearness was disconcerting. The memory of the girl he had once loved was retreating like a shadow at noon, fading in the bright light of the woman standing next to him. She was more different than the same. The years had not left her untouched.
He felt the softness of her curves pressing into him. Regret and wanting swamped him. It was a potent mix that overrode everything else. He pulled her to him. She did not resist. He slipped his arm around her waist, tilting her face up with his finger. She was trembling. She wanted him, too. In that moment, only for that moment, but it was enough. Without any thought of resisting, Alasdhair leaned into her. Their lips met.
Ailsa hesitated. She felt as she did sometimes, wrestling with the boat in a storm or rushing her horse at a high dyke. Exhilarated and afraid in equal measure. Her skin tugged at her, as if it had needs of its own of a sudden, needs it had never expressed. Save once.
Alasdhair felt so solid against her and so warm, the heat from him seeping into her like a dram of whisky. His lips touched hers. She sighed and the warmth spread, like fingers of sunshine on a rock. His hands on the curve of her spine nestled her closer. He angled his head and his lips seemed to mould themselves to hers.
It was breathtakingly intimate. Her heart hammered in her breast. A capricious mixture of wanting and uncertainty swept over her, a yearning for something lost. Her mouth softened under his caress. His tongue licked along the length of her bottom lip. An adult’s kiss. Her first. With a soft sigh she nestled closer, touched the tip of her tongue to his. A shock sparked between them and Alasdhair brought the embrace to an abrupt end.
Taking a hasty step back, he felt a flush striping the sharp planes of his cheekbones. What the devil had he been thinking! ‘Forgive me. I should not have—I don’t know what came over me.’
Colour flooded Ailsa’s face. She stared up at him, wide-eyed with shock.
What did he think he was doing! He had come here to tie up loose ends, not entangle himself further, and especially not with another man’s property—a fact that he had managed to forget all about in the shock of seeing Ailsa again.
‘Where is McNair anyway?’ Alasdhair asked roughly, furious with the man for his absence. If he had been here to take better care of his wife, this would not have occurred. ‘I did not see him at the grave.’
Confused as much by the repressed anger in Alasdhair’s voice, which seemed to have come from nowhere, as by the abrupt change of topic, Ailsa struggled to assemble her thoughts. ‘He’s been ill. A fever of the blood. He has been confined to bed.’
A fever of the blood! Perhaps that is what he had himself. Alasdhair shook his head, as if doing so would clear the mist that had clouded his judgement, that was distracted by the completely irrelevant puzzle of Ailsa’s response to him. If he had not known better, he would have thought she had no more experience of kisses than the last time their lips had met. ‘I should not have kissed you. It is no excuse, but I forgot that you were married, just for the moment.’
Ailsa flushed a deeper red. ‘But I’m not married. Despite what my father told you I was not betrothed to Donald McNair six years ago—or if my father made any promises on my behalf then, it was without my knowledge. I admit, I am betrothed to Donald now, but it is of much more recent standing.’
‘Not married!’ It had not occurred to him that she would still be single. It was a disturbing notion and not one he wanted to think about. ‘Wed or betrothed, long-standing or recent, it makes no difference,’ he said, more to himself than Ailsa. ‘You are spoken for and I should not have taken such a liberty.’
‘Nor I granted it to you,’ Ailsa said unhappily. She had never had any difficulty in refusing such liberties to others. Not even Donald had been permitted such intimacy, but kissing Alasdhair had seemed the most natural thing in the world. And the most delightful. She
had forgotten it could be delightful, a kiss. Like a promise. Except this one, like the last one Alasdhair made, would remain for ever unfulfilled. ‘What about you, Alasdhair?’
‘What about me?’
‘Are you married?’
‘Of course not,’ he snapped. ‘Do you think me the sort of man to go about kissing women if I were?
Anyway, I have no need of a wife. I have no need of anyone.’
He wasn’t married. He didn’t want to be married and it was probably her fault that he was set against it. She couldn’t blame him. He wasn’t married. This thought above all buzzed around in her head, as impossible to ignore and as useless as an angry blue bottle, and it was all too much. Far too much. She didn’t want to think any more. She wanted nothing so much as to be safe under the covers of her bed. Weariness assaulted her.
Noticing her pallor, Alasdhair felt a twinge of regret. He, too, felt as if he had been pummelled relentlessly, reeling from the onslaught the day had made on his emotions. ‘Come,’ he said, picking up her gloves from the ground and handing them to her, ‘I should get you back to the castle. You look exhausted.’
Ailsa tried valiantly for a smile. ‘It’s all been a bit—overwhelming.’
‘That’s one way of putting it.’ Alasdhair took her hand. ‘We belonged to each other once, before you were pledged to Donald McNair. We did not get to say our farewells six years ago. We were long overdue that kiss. I won’t feel guilty about it, and nor should you.’
Through the starkly handsome face of the man, the boy peered out. She answered him with the sweet smile of the girl she had been.
He would have kissed her again, seeing that smile he remembered so well. She would not refuse him. It was with immense difficulty that he chose honour over desire. Even as he tucked her hand into his arm, he was regretting it. Ailsa stumbled against him as the path grew rocky. Alasdhair tightened his grip on her arm. He could help her home. That much at least he could do with a clear conscience.
Chapter Three
Errin Mhor castle was built on a promontory. There had been a fortified building of some sort on the site since ancient times. Indeed, the dungeons, now used as cellars for the famed Errin Mhor whisky, were reputed to date from the age when the Norsemen held sway over large tracts of the Highlands. The current castle consisted of a three-storey square tower complete with battlements built in the mid-sixteenth century, a later wing extending from the south of the tower built in baronial style, which included the great hall, and a smaller round tower complete with a laird’s lug, the listening room, that had been the whim of the late Lord Munro. The massive oak-beamed portico with the look of a drawbridge that framed the main entrance was also the last Lord Munro’s work. Stables, a dairy and the home farm, along with a few tied cottages and the larger house customarily inhabited by the factor, which had been Alasdhair’s home until his father died, were situated at the north-eastern end of the grounds. The grey granite used for the majority of the buildings gave the castle a forbidding air, but the view to the west, which faced out to sea, was more mellow, for creepers had been permitted to grow up the square tower. Tall French-style windows from the drawing room at the centre of the main building opened out on to the terraced garden that sloped down to the beach.
As they passed through the gates and headed up the long driveway to the main door of the castle, Alasdhair’s mood darkened.
‘I won’t come in.’
‘You haven’t got anywhere else to stay.’
‘Your mother …’
‘Calumn is laird now. He would never forgive me if I let you sleep anywhere save under his roof.’
‘I’ve already told him I won’t be attending the wake. I won’t stay in the castle until the banishment is formally lifted.’
She could tell by the stubborn tilt of his chin that he meant it. She recognised it of old, and knew it was pointless arguing. When Alasdhair thought he was in the right there was no convincing him otherwise. But if he went, she feared he would leave without her seeing him again. She was too raw to be at peace with him, but she wanted to be. ‘If you leave now, my mother will have won again.’
‘I’m not going anywhere yet, you needn’t worry. I have other business to attend to.’
‘I see.’ She waited, but he showed no signs of confiding in her.
‘Will Calumn be holding a Rescinding tomorrow?’
It was an old traditional rite, the forgiving and forgetting of wrongs by a new laird. ‘Yes. He was talking about it yesterday, telling Madeleine, his wife, to make sure there was plenty of food, for the queue was like to be long. My father was not slow to take offence, as you know, and he was quick to bear a grudge. It’s likely most of Errin Mhor will be there, wanting something or other rescinded.’
‘All the better, for then the whole of Errin Mhor can witness the end of my banishment.’
‘Alasdhair, you’re not planning on confronting my mother, are you? She won’t apologise for what she did, but she will be forced to welcome you to the castle—is that not enough?’
‘No, it’s not. Why are you defending her, Ailsa? Don’t you at least want her to admit she lied? Or maybe things have changed since I left. Maybe Lady Munro has learned how to play the role of a loving mother and you’re afraid of hurting her.’
Ailsa looked scornful. ‘Hardly. I have come to the conclusion my mother is incapable of love. Even Calumn she disowned for a while. She only mended those fences when my father became too ill to manage and she needed him back here. I thought then that perhaps she would try to do the same with me, but she did not. And after what I have learned today about her role in our parting, I think the damage between us is beyond any mending.’
‘Then surely you have as much cause as I to wish to see her grovel.’
‘Don’t you see, Alasdhair, by showing her she matters, you’re handing her power? Best to do as I do and pretend indifference. Please.’ She put her hand on the sleeve of her coat. ‘Trust me on this, she will give you no satisfaction.’
Alasdhair frowned. ‘I’ll think about it.’ Through the open door of the castle, muted sounds of laughter and the scraping sound of fiddles being tuned could be heard. ‘You’d better go in.’
‘I don’t know if I can face it.’
She looked exhausted, fragile. Despite her curves, she was very slim. He caught himself wondering about her life in the last six years. For the first time her lack of a husband struck him as odd. She was twenty-two. In the Highlands, that was well past the usual age for one of her kind to marry. Why had she delayed? Was she happy? She didn’t look it.
But Ailsa’s life and Ailsa’s feelings were none of his business. ‘They’ll be expecting you,’ he said brusquely. With a curt nod, he turned his back on her and strode off down the path. He didn’t look back, though she lingered for quite a while to see if he would.
From the window of the laird’s bedchamber, where she had been supervising the removal of the last of his personal belongings to the funeral pyre, Lady Munro looked down at her daughter and Alasdhair Ross. She hardly recognised him in his fine clothes, but that cocky tilt of the head and the stubborn chin, said it was him all right.
Alasdhair Ross. For years she’d put up with the brat, the spit of his mother, taking the place in the castle that rightfully belonged to another. For years she’d put up with the way her lord favoured him, too. Though outsiders might think Lord Munro dealt harshly with his ward, Lady Munro knew different. It was the only way the Munro knew how to show affection, with a stick or the back of a hand. She knew that better than most.
When Alec Ross died only a short while after his wife Morna had left, Lady Munro had felt a little guilty—for a little while. It had passed quickly enough though, subsumed by the resentment that made her loathe his so-called son’s upstart presence in the castle. The relief of finally being rid of Alasdhair Ross had been immense, especially when it had become obvious how things were between him and Ailsa. Fortunately, the fool had played into her hands.
As if she would ever allow her daughter to go off to the other side of the world with a man of such bastard origins! No, she had made sure that wouldn’t happen. Ever, she had thought. Though now, here was Ross, back again like a bad penny, and with uncannily inconvenient timing.
For years Lady Munro had sacrificed her own happiness and her relationship with her children to do her laird’s bidding. It had cost her, more than even she was prepared to admit, but with the Munro finally gone the path was clear for her to start to make amends. Beginning with Ailsa.
Lady Munro looked down at her daughter, her heart tight with the love she had never been able to express. She had waited a long time for this chance. Too long. She wasn’t going to let anyone get in the way now. Especially not Alasdhair Ross.
Below her, on the steps of the castle, Ailsa watched Alasdhair striding off into the distance before she straightened her shoulders and adjusted her arisaidh. Looking up, she saw her mother at the window. For long seconds, two pairs of violet-blue eyes gazed at each other. Then Ailsa turned away and made for the great hall to join in her father’s wake.
After a night spent in one of his old childhood haunts, a secret hiding place where he had often slept under the stars, Alasdhair reluctantly concluded that Ailsa was right. Lady Munro would not apologise, any more than she would admit to a wrong. It would be a pointless and humiliating exercise to try, and he had more important things to confront her with. Like the mystery of his mother’s absconding, and her own determined antipathy towards himself. He would confront her in private.
Having resolved to do so as soon as convenient, Alasdhair found his mind returning once again to Ailsa. It was a pointless and frustrating exercise, but he could not prevent himself from replaying their story over and over in his mind. No matter how many different permutations of the truth he construed, though, it changed nothing, a fact that he tried very hard to be glad of and assured himself he would be, just as soon as he had accepted it. Ailsa had loved him with girlish intensity, as he had loved her with the fierce heat of a first passion, but she cared for him no more than he cared for her now. She was betrothed to McNair. She was of age, too, and did not have to wed, so it was obviously her own choice, arranged or no. And he had his own life, too. A life carved from the virgin lands of the New World, a life that he was determined not to share with any other human being, a harmonious, ordered life that he would not allow to be disrupted by the capricious vagaries of love. A missed opportunity it might have been, but more than likely that was for the best. They were clearly not meant to be. Except.
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