Highland Master

by Howell, Hannah

  Triona sighed. So did she, and she had had the pleasure of Brett’s company in her bed for only a short time. Just looking at the bed made her think of him, and her blood warmed a little with sweet memory. There would be no big, warm body to curl up with this night, however.

  Knowing Arianna was right, that she needed some rest, she finally stood up and shed her clothes. After a quick wash in the tepid water that had been left for her, she donned her night shift and crawled into bed. She had never shared the bed with anyone but Brett, having left her husband’s bedchamber when he was ill and never returned, making this room her own. Now she was all too aware of how alone she was. Curling up beneath the heavy covers did not truly ease the chill, either.

  Brett had made her all too aware of what a man and woman could share. Climbing into bed beside her husband had always been a chore; the nights he did no more than sleep were a relief. Now she looked forward to getting into bed knowing that Brett would join her and make her body burn with passion. It was difficult not to think about it as she settled in to sleep without him. She did not think there would be too many more nights when she would be able to savor the joy of bedding down with him, either. Sir John was, as Arianna’s husband so bluntly put it, a dead man. He just needed to be found and put in the ground, and Brett and Brian, as well as all the men with them, would soon see to that, after which she would be standing at the gates waving farewell to them all. Then life at Banuilt would return to what it had been before she met Brett. Work and an empty bed.

  “Get used to it, Tri,” she told herself, and smiled fleetingly over the name Arianna had always called her when they were young.

  He was leaving soon, she told herself firmly, and refused to let her heart break over that. She had taken him into her bed as a lover and he had never offered her anything else. If her heart now rested in his hands, it was her own fault, not his, and he should not be made to pay for that. Nevertheless, she did wish she could think of some way to make Brett want to stay with her, to return the love she had for him. It was a foolish young girl’s hope, for if he did not love her now, he would not stay. She had given him everything she had to give, and when he left she would just have to accept the sad fact that it had not been enough for him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Has anyone seen Ella?”

  Triona told herself the fear that was threatening to choke her was unwarranted, but it continued to build. She looked all around but could find no sign of her daughter. Ella had been happily skipping around the hedgerows with half a dozen other little girls, each one taking turns hiding and then leaping out to make the others squeal with laughter. Now Triona saw only the other little girls, and despite watching for her daughter to leap out of the hedgerow for several minutes, nothing happened.

  A deep breath and then another did nothing to ease that throat-tightening fear, either. Nor did reminding herself that her daughter had an unmatched skill for finding trouble but had managed to avoid any true danger to herself. Something was wrong. Every motherly instinct she had was screaming that at her.

  “She was o’er there playing with the other lassies,” said Joan as she stopped weeding and looked around. “Must be her turn to be the scary beastie leaping out of the hedgerow.”

  “I thought that, too, but it has been several minutes and she hasnae appeared,” Triona said as she stood up and started to walk toward the hedgerow.

  “Mayhap she found a bug or a worm,” said Joan as she hurried to catch up to Triona. “Ne’er kenned a lass who was so interested in such things.”

  Joan’s attempts to ease her fear did not work. With every step Triona took, her alarm grew. She had begun the day with such confidence and hope that it would be a good day, especially since she had found the perfect way to keep her thoughts off Brett, who had yet to return from Gormfeurach, only sending a message to say they would look for Sir John close to his keep for a day or two before riding back. The sky was clear, it was warm, and all the women and older girls had gathered quickly to work in the fields. Ella had been delighted to come along to play in the sunshine with the other girls too young to be of much help in the fields. Sir John had not been sighted for a week, and since the day they had found her men, there had been no more fires or thefts. Triona feared her good fortune had just ended and prayed she was wrong.

  The other women joined her in searching for her daughter. Triona fought her panic as all her calls went unanswered and no one found any sign of little Ella. It took every bit of control she could grasp hold of not to start racing over the countryside screaming her child’s name.

  “How could she just disappear like that?” she asked Joan, wrapping her arms around herself as she began to shake, her fear for her child hard to control. “We are surrounded by open fields, yet none of us saw anything.” Guilt over not watching her child closely enough swamped Triona, but she fought it down, knowing it was not only unwarranted but useless at the moment.

  “They may be open, but they are nay empty,” said Joan. “Our crops have grown enough to give some clever mon something to hide in if he had a mind to, and there are hedgerows and trees to shelter behind. And there are certainly enough places for a wee lass to be hidden.”

  “Do ye think she has been taken?”

  “Ah, lass, I dinnae ken. I do ken that there is naught about here where she could just disappear, nary a hole or burn or cliff or the like. We have always made certain of that before allowing the wee ones to play near us while we work. Yet, why would anyone want to take the wee lass?”

  “To get to me.”

  “Och, weel, aye, but the only mon who would do it is fleeing for his life. The wisest thing he could be doing is getting as far away from here as he can and ne’er turning back. He would have to be utterly mad to return here where e’en his own clan has turned against him.”

  “I believe we have already decided that Sir John might be a wee bit mad. I am nay sure if it is because he has become so obsessed with getting that land back, or if he sees getting it back as part of taking the stain of traitor from the family, which was why the land was lost to begin with. But, aye, I do believe he has become nay quite right in the head. And now he may ken that he has lost Gormfeurach as weel. That news would only unsettle his mind even more.”

  Joan cursed and then grabbed Triona by the arm, pointing at the riders headed their way. “Look, there be our men finally come home. Mayhap they have some news or can help.”

  Triona realized that even Joan now referred to Brett as her man. It was something she really ought to put a stop to, she thought a little wildly, and wondered if fear for her daughter was making her wits slide into the mire of madness. What did it matter if the whole of Banuilt called Sir Brett her man? Whatever they wanted to call him would stand, as long as he hurried over to her and then went and found her little girl.

  Brett noticed Joan waving wildly at them and looked at Aiden. “Your wife appears to want your attention.”

  “She gets a lot of it,” he drawled, and then frowned. “But, nay, I am thinking she wants us to ride o’er there. Nay sure why she needs to welcome me home here in the midst of the fields, but what else could she be wanting?”

  “Whate’er the reason for her waving at us to come, I doubt she wants us to trample everything in the fields.”

  Aiden laughed. “Nay, we can pass near the hedgerow. I wonder what the women are searching for. Mayhap that is what she wishes to speak to us about.”

  Even as Aiden spoke, Brett heard the name all the women were calling, and his blood ran cold. The women were all searching for little Ella. When Aiden cursed viciously, he knew the man had just heard what he had. He then saw that all the other children had been gathered up together and a woman was standing guard over them. Brett signaled the other men to wait and started to ride over to Joan and Triona, Aiden following on his own mount, as he no longer needed to ride with another man to stay in the saddle.

  Brett’s mind filled with images of the little girl waving farewell to
him every time he left Banuilt, giggling while they played with the kittens in the stable, and listening to his stories with wide blue eyes. He could also see her covered in mud, standing on the high walls of Banuilt and trying to look so innocent, and sticking her tongue out at a laughing Brian. Brett realized that it was not just Triona who had burrowed deep into his heart. The mere thought that someone might have hurt or even just frightened that happy, mischievous child made him blind with fury. He took several deep breaths to push that rage aside. Triona would need him to be calm and clearheaded.

  He and Aiden had just reached the women when a cry came from one of the women searching the area outside the hedgerow. Brett and Aiden dismounted to follow Joan and Triona as they raced toward the woman, who stood by a small, wind-contorted tree and pointed to the far side of it, the one facing away from the field. A dagger pinned a piece of parchment to the bark. Brett moved to stand next to Triona as she read what was written there, her hands pressed to her mouth.

  “He took my bairn,” Triona whispered. “I didnae want to think it possible, but he took my wee Ella.”

  When Brett put his arm around her, she leaned against him. She struggled to draw strength from him. Her whole body shook with a stomach-churning mixture of fear and fury. Despite the calm strength she gained from Brett, she could sense his own anger and she used it to feed her rage. Fear clouded her mind and weakened her. She needed to get a firm grip on her cold rage if she was going to be able to help her daughter.

  “He wants me to come to him willingly, and then he will release my Ella,” she said, pleased to hear that the tremor of fear had left her voice.

  “Ye cannae give him what he wants,” said Brett.

  “He says he will hurt, e’en kill my Ella if I dinnae.” She held up her hand when Brett tried to argue with her. “Ye have nay seen the way he looks at my little girl, e’en after he must have kenned that she might nay be Boyd’s heir. He sees her as less than nothing. I cannae say he loathes her, but something about the way he would look at her always chilled me to the bone. There is certainly none of the softness most people feel for a child in him.”

  “Why, if she may nay be the heir to all he wants to steal?”

  “I wondered if it was because he was enraged that I gave Boyd a child, but I think it is more than that. I heard once that he had bred a few bastards and they were all lassies. Ne’er a son.” She shrugged. “Who can say? Mayhap e’en he doesnae ken the why of it all, nay clearly. The why of it doesnae really matter, does it? All that matters is that I ken he willnae hesitate to do as he threatens.”

  “Ye still cannae go to him.” He pointed at the message. “He doesnae e’en tell ye where to go to meet with him.”

  “I suspicion I will be told soon enough. He will let the fact that he holds my child eat at my innards for a wee while, thinking that it will make me much more compliant.”

  “Aye,” agreed Aiden. “He wants ye so twisted with fear and worry for your bairn that ye will do whate’er he asks.”

  Brett cursed, yanked the knife from the tree, and grabbed the message as it fell. “Then we have time to find him ourselves.”

  “Ye could put my child’s life in danger if ye try to hunt him down,” Triona said.

  “Nay, love. It shames me that he did this e’en as we have been hunting him, that he got so close to ye and Ella, but we can hunt him now with a stealth that few can match. Trust me in this. Before we didnae much care if he kenned we were hunting him, for at first just keeping him busy hiding helped ye some. Then we were searching for your men, and then Grant was aware that he had been as good as outlawed, so there was no need to be secretive. He also had few places to turn to back then, since he was trying to hide what he was doing—and now he has none at all. And, aye, I will confess that it took us a wee while to understand that the mon had a true skill at hiding, that we suffered from our own arrogance in thinking him less of a challenge than he proved to be. But, between me and mine and those MacFingals who can, as their father liked to say, steal the coins from a dead mon’s eyes e’en as his kin pray o’er him, we will be the shadows on his trail that he ne’er sees coming.”

  Triona nodded slowly. She did trust in him, and she had heard enough about the MacFingals from Arianna to believe in their ability to slip around like ghosts. The very fact that he would admit to arrogance only added to her trust in him. He had seen their error in judgment and they would now act accordingly. She would leave the hunt in his hands and do as he asked. If they had not found her daughter by the time the man sent her word of where to meet him, however, she would not promise not to go to Sir John. She just hoped Brett did not press her for that promise. If he did, she might just discover that she could look a man she loved in the eye and lie through her teeth.

  “Best get the women and children out of here,” Brett said. “I dinnae think there is any danger to them, but the mon has come too close.”

  He watched as she moved to get the women and children out of the fields. Brett could see how hard she was fighting her fear for her child in the way she moved, a lot of her easy grace missing from her step. He turned to look at Aiden.

  “I want ye and the men of Banuilt to keep a verra close watch on all of the women and bairns,” he said. “I want Banuilt shut up tight. If the mon sends word to her as to where to meet him, I want his messenger found. I also want to be certain that Lady Triona doesnae go to him.”

  “Ye think she would go, dinnae ye.” Aiden frowned in the direction of his wife and Triona. “I think ye may be verra right about that.”

  “I am. She has nay doubt that he would hurt Ella if she doesnae do as he demands, and I think she may be right to think so. He kept his bastard daughters at the keep, but he didnae have anything to do with them. They did weel only because of Meg and Gunn.”

  “They kept the lasses out of his way. Gunn told me that when I asked where they had gone because I had nay seen them but the one time Meg confronted ye. Gunn said they felt it safer for the girls if they didnae trouble Sir John at all.”

  “And thus remind him that he had bred no son. Go with the women and we shall go and start hunting that bastard as we should have been hunting him before, as the rabid beastie he is.”

  “He took wee Ella?” Arianna rushed forward to hug Triona. “The mon is more than just a wee bit mad. Have the men already returned? They can hunt him down.” She tugged Triona over to a seat at the table and poured her some cider. “Drink.”

  Triona drank and was a little surprised when the simple act helped her regain some calm. She sipped the cider and glanced around the great hall, pleased to see that it was empty save for her and Arianna. Not sure how long that would last, she pulled the small note from a pocket in her gown and looked at it.

  As she had walked through the wood on her way back to the manor, a man had slipped it to her and disappeared back into the trees before she could utter a word. She had tried to follow him but had given up quickly, finding no sign of him and not skilled enough at following a trail to know what to look for. Sir John had wasted no time in telling her where to meet him. She suspected he knew any men at Banuilt would ride out to try to hunt him down, and used that to slip her the information as to where she should meet him to trade herself for Ella.

  “What is that?” asked Arianna as she sat down next to Triona.

  “’Tis the instructions as to where to meet Sir John and trade myself for my daughter,” Triona replied as she read it again.

  “Ye cannae go and meet that mon alone.”

  “Nay alone. He allows me to bring three women with me to handle the child and get her back home safely. I am nay sure why he specifies three women for one child, but mayhap ’tis but monly ignorance about what is needed. He says again that he will hurt her, that I risk her verra life if I try any tricks and dinnae do exactly as he says. He had this weel planned. I expected there to be some time between his taking my bairn and getting this message, but his mon caught me and gave me this on my way back from the fi
eld where Ella was taken.”

  “Ye cannae go, Triona. Ye cannae trust the mon.”

  “Och, I dinnae trust him at all. Nay as far as I can spit. But I will go. He has my child, Arianna. He has my wee Ella. A mon who isnae quite right in the head and who has always looked at her as if she offends him by merely breathing has my child. Aye, I will go.”

  “Oh, Tri, this cannae end weel,” Arianna murmured and grasped Triona by the hand. “I do understand, though. But, wouldnae it be better to wait until the men return?”

  “Ye think they will return here? They are out hunting Sir John to try to rescue Ella. Why would they return here?”

  “Fresh horses if naught else. They are still riding the ones they rode from Gormfeurach. Or one of them could realize that they are doing just what Sir John wants them to, riding off to search and leaving ye alone to get that message. It would but take one of them to let his thoughts veer for a moment from the need to find Ella, and every one of them is clever enough to realize this could all be a trick to get ye alone so ye can go to Sir John without a guard at your heels.”

  Triona had to agree that that was a real possibility. “Nay matter when they return, I will be gone by then. I can only hope that the men can follow my trail.”

  “He means for ye to meet him that quickly? Does he nay fear he will be found by our men? Ye would think he would hide and wait a wee while just to be safe.”

  “Ye would think so, but I believe he will again have a priest with him, and he means to get the marriage done as quickly as possible. That was what he did last time he grabbed me, and I believe he has the same idea in mind this time. Mayhap he is mad enough to think that will mend everything or shield him in some way from our men when they do find him. I dinnae ken why he would think he would be safer if he were wed to me, but he could think it would help him with Sir Mollison.”

  “Where are ye to meet with him then?”