Highland Master

by Howell, Hannah

  “I will remember that, loving,” Triona said, and idly wondered where her little girl had learned such bloodthirsty talk. “Have nay fear.”

  “Ye havenae got on your pony so I can ride with ye.” She glanced over her shoulder at Joan. “I love ye, Joan, but I want to ride with my mother now.”

  “Joan is going to take ye home, love,” Triona said. “I must go and speak to the mon who slapped ye. He needs to be told to ne’er do it again.”

  “And then ye will come home?”

  “Aye, love.” Triona turned to face the men, noticing how nervously the other six watched the area all around them while the bearded man glared at her. “Ye need to tell my women how to get back on the path to Banuilt.”

  “They can find their own way,” the bearded man snapped and pointed at her pony. Get back on the pony. We must leave now!”

  “It could be verra dangerous if they got lost.”

  “If they get lost I am certain someone will be able to set them on the right path. Get on the pony.”

  She was tempted to run but then saw how the other men moved closer to the three women and Ella, their hands on their swords. “Such brave men to be afraid of women,” she grumbled as she mounted the pony. “’Tis nay as if they are any threat to ye.”

  “Go,” the bearded man ordered Joan and the others.

  Triona saw the women hesitate and nodded. “Go on, Joan. Get wee Ella home.”

  “M’lady—” began Joan.

  “Nay. This is how it must be. Take Ella to safety.”

  She was watching the women ride off when the bearded man yanked on her reins and they were riding hard in the opposite direction. Triona suspected she was on Gormfeurach land, but she could not be sure. She rode the boundaries of Banuilt every year but never ventured inside the Gormfeurach land on her western border. If she was gifted with some miracle and got away from these men, she would be thoroughly lost within a very short time. She had to wonder if that was Sir John’s intent.

  Fear tried to rear up and tie knots in her belly, but she fought it down. Her child was safe now, and that was all that mattered. Sir John did not intend to kill her, just marry her. He would have to keep her alive for a while after that, as well, if only to prove he did have a wife who gave him rights to Banuilt. There was time for her to try to escape. She just prayed it would be before Sir John forced her to consummate their marriage.

  The thought of such a thing made her stomach roil. It would be rape, for she would never willingly accept that man into her body. Triona was not sure how well she would survive such an assault. Worse, she feared what it would do to her memories of her time with Brett. She doubted that, if he rescued her, she would be falling back into bed with him anytime soon, not even for one more night before he left Banuilt. Her husband had been cold, giving her no pleasure at all, but she had accepted it as her wifely duty; but she knew she would never be able to accept Sir John if he dragged her to his bed.

  Forcing all thoughts of that aside, Triona tried to convince herself that there was a chance she would be rescued before a marriage could happen. She refused to allow herself to recall all the times Brett and the others had not been able to catch Sir John; rather she chose to remember the time they had rescued her before and had rescued her garrison. It gave her the small thread of hope she needed as they rode into a small camp and she saw Sir John standing there.

  When he strode over and pulled her out of the saddle, she struggled to keep on her feet. That struggle ended after he dragged her before a tall, gaunt man and shoved her down onto the ground. When she attempted to rise he held her there so that she could only get up on her knees.

  “Lady Triona, meet Father Mure,” said Sir John. “He is about to marry us.”

  Triona took one look into the priest’s eyes and knew she would find no ally there.

  “I cannae believe no one saw four women ride out on ponies,” said Brett as he and the others followed the trail Harcourt had found.

  “Women can be verra stealthy when they have good reason to be,” said Brian. “Saving her child would be seen as a good reason.”

  Brett cursed, for Brian was right. From what little Triona had told him of her father and her husband, he also suspected she had learned young how to be stealthy. A child who has a parent with a heavy fist either crumbles beneath the weight of it or learns ways to escape it until old enough to walk away. She had walked away into a cold marriage, but he suspected most days she found that preferable. And she had called Ella her bright light in that marriage. Sir John had threatened that bright light, and Brett knew Triona would do anything to retrieve Ella and get the child to safety.

  “And there are the women,” said Callum pointing off into the distance in front of them.

  “Jesu, the mon has eyes like a hawk,” grumbled Brian.

  It took a moment before Brett could see what Callum did, and he had to agree with Brian. Riding toward them were three women on little sturdy ponies. In front of one of the women was a small child with hair bright enough to be seen from such a distance. He nudged his mount into a trot along with the others, and they quickly closed the distance between them and the women.

  “Och, thank ye, God,” said Joan. “I feared we were going in the wrong direction.”

  “Nay, I told ye we had to go this way,” said Ella, and then she smiled and waved her fingers at Brett. “Greetings, Sir Brett. Have ye come to lead us home?”

  “Nay, lass, but there are a few Banuilt men here that will do so,” he said, and nodded at the three young men who moved to flank the women. “We need to go and find your mother.”

  “Then ye must go back the way we came. I can show ye, if ye like.”

  “Nay, lass, it would be best if ye stay with Joan. We may have to do a wee bit of fighting when we get to where your mother is.”

  “Are ye going to cut up the mon who hit me and feed him to the ravens?” She touched a bruise on her cheek.

  “Mayhap I will. So, ye be a good wee lass and we will bring your mother home soon.”

  “Just go back the way we came,” she said. “Follow my wee rocks.”

  Brett joined Joan in staring at the child. “Your wee rocks?”

  “Aye. When they took me I had my pockets full of them, so I dropped them as we rode away from my mother. She taught me that. She said it would help me find my way home if I got lost. She showed me how to see things right and clear, like trees and cairns, so I could see the path home, and told me to mark it if I wanted. So I marked it. With my wee stones. I didnae want the hairy men to get me lost.”

  “Ye saw Sir John Grant? Met with him somewhere?”

  “Aye. The hairy men took me to him and he was under the big crooked tree with the eagle’s nest. He hit me because I told him my mother would cut him into pieces and feed him to the ravens.” She glanced up at Joan. “That is what Angus says ye do to bad men.” She looked back at Brett. “Then he made the hairy men take me away and I thought we were going back home, but then they stopped and we waited and then my mother came, but she gave me to Joan and rode away with the bad men. I hope they didnae ride on my stones.” She frowned. “I liked my stones, but now I lost them.”

  Brett watched Callum ride up next to Joan, lean down, and, turning Ella’s face up to his, kiss her bruised cheek and smile at her. “Ye will have more stones soon, lass. Ye are a verra clever wee lass and should have all the wee stones ye want.”

  “Wheesht, the mon can charm e’en the wee ones,” Brian said as Ella looked up at Callum through her lashes and blushed.

  If he had not been so concerned for Triona’s safety, Brett knew he would have laughed. Instead he studied the little girl who so blithely told them she had left them a trail that would lead them straight to Sir John. She was not his child, and yet his heart swelled with pride.

  “Thank ye for your help, Ella,” he said. “Ye have made it much easier for us to find your mother and bring her home.”

  “I did?” She sat up straight and looked fro
m Callum to Brett and back again. “I helped?”

  “Aye, lass, ye helped a lot. Now, go with Joan and we will bring your mother home soon. I promise ye that.”

  “If I have been so helpful, can I have a kitten?”

  It surprised him but he actually had to swallow a laugh. “Best ye wait and ask your mother.” He pretended not to see her slump and push her bottom lip out in a pout.

  A moment later the women were riding off with the three young men from Banuilt. Ella peered around Joan and waved at him. Brett waved back and then turned his attention to Callum, who was slowly riding back the way the women had come, his gaze fixed upon the ground.

  “Wee stones?” Brett asked as he rode up beside Callum.

  “Aye, and spaced just right.” He briefly grinned at Brett before returning his gaze to the ground. “She was verra careful in dropping them as they rode, just to be sure she could find the path home. Verra clever wee lass.”

  “I am nay sure I wish to ken why her mother felt a need to teach her such a trick.”

  “Nay, although it was a verra wise thing to do, even if nothing bad prompted the lesson. That child has a natural instinct for it, for following a trail and marking one. She will ne’er get lost. And did ye nay hear how she marked where Sir John is?”

  Brett slowly smiled. “Aye, I did. A big crooked tree with an eagle’s nest atop it. A keen eye on the lass. To see something like that she truly had to be studying everything around her as they rode. And Sir John’s men wouldnae have kenned it, would ne’er have thought it necessary to cover a child’s eyes to hide where they were going.”

  “Their ignorance becomes our good luck.”

  For the first time since he discovered that Triona had gone to meet with Sir John, Brett felt the soothing touch of hope. Not only did they now have the means to find her but also a very good chance of finding her before she was wed to the man. Even if they could not stop the wedding, he was confident they could stop it from being consummated.

  “We will find Lady Triona, Brett, and we will kill that bastard Grant,” said Callum. “For all wee Ella’s smiles and cleverness, I could see that he put a touch of fear in that child’s eyes. When she spoke of the slap, it flickered there for a moment. With but a moment or two of his time, he bruised her wonderful happiness and sense of being loved and safe. For that alone I want him dead.”

  “I, too, want him dead. I saw what ye saw, even though I was rather stunned at the moment by how easily she spoke, giving us just what we needed to find her mother. Aye, and I want him dead for how he has treated the people of Banuilt, what he did to all those Banuilt men he tossed into that peel tower and forgot about, and even for how he has crushed the hearts of the people on his own lands and left them so uncertain of their future. And for what?” he asked as he and Callum continued to follow the trail. “A piece of land his forefathers lost through utter stupidity.”

  Just thinking on all of Sir John’s crimes stirred Brett’s fury to life. The man had become a poison to what had been a peaceful area in a country that too often knew little peace. While it was true that the people of Banuilt and Gormfeurach were not clans as his family kenned clans, they were close enough. They were certainly bonded to each other as those in a clan would be, save by blood. The knights who had founded each place had chosen well, and the lairds that had come before Sir John and Sir Boyd had been open to accepting anyone who wished to join, to help build and help protect the place. They had also chosen a place that was remote enough that it had known more years of peace than war.

  And he loved it all almost as much as he loved Triona McKee. Brett nearly smiled as he felt the acceptance of that truth flow through him. He would end the threat of Sir John, get Triona safely home, and then he would find some way to return to her and Banuilt. He now knew that it was the only way he could ever be truly happy.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Forgive him, Father. He is a grave sinner and kens nay better.”

  Triona clenched her teeth against a cry of pain when Sir John slapped her for what she had said. He did so with such a cold calm it was terrifying. She wondered if that was how he had slapped her child, and feared it would leave as big a bruise on Ella’s soft, innocent heart as it had on her face. The priest the man had dragged her to after binding her hands together at the wrists looked at her with icy contempt, making it clear that he felt she had just gotten exactly what she deserved. She smothered the urge to stick her tongue out at him, even though it was a mild reaction compared to what she wanted to do to Sir John.

  “Are ye certain ye wish to wed with such an impudent woman?” the priest asked.

  “She has the land that I want, Father Mure,” replied Sir John. “This is the only way left to me to get it. Struth, this is the only way to end the trouble she has caused me.”

  Triona nearly gaped at the man, unable to believe he could blame her for the mess he was now in. Yet, studying his face she could see that he had convinced himself that it was indeed all her fault. She doubted she would ever understand how he could have come to that conclusion. In her mind, it was just more proof that the man was probably mad.

  Father Mure looked her over in a way that made Triona feel unclean. “She may be too old to give ye a son.”

  It was undoubtedly a sin, but Triona desperately wanted to punch the priest right in the mouth. She could barely believe it, but she may have finally found a priest more contemptuous of women than the one that had served at Banuilt before the fever had taken him. She made a sudden, fierce promise to herself and to all the other women at Banuilt. When she got free—and she refused to believe she would do otherwise—and returned as laird of Banuilt, she would make very certain that any priest who replaced theirs did not see all women as weak, sinful, and worthy of nothing but contempt. There had to be one out there somewhere.

  “I am but five and twenty,” she snapped.

  “Married for six years and yet ye gave your husband but one child. A girl.”

  The way Father Mure said a girl, he might as well have said a demon from hell. His tone of voice made Ella, the greatest gift Triona had ever received, sound like the worst of failures. Triona was not surprised at how angry that made her, but she was a little shocked to hear herself growl and start to rise to her feet, her hands clenched into tight fists. She cursed when Sir John grabbed her by the shoulder so tightly she could not completely smother a gasp of pain, and then pushed her back down onto her knees.

  “I dinnae suppose it would occur to ye big, strong, monly men that the bearing of children is as much the mon’s responsibility as the woman’s,” Triona said. “’Tis his seed used in the planting, aye? Mayhap it was Boyd’s fault that I had only the one child and ne’er gave him a son. Mayhap he nay had more than my wee Ella in him.”

  Father Mure and Sir John stared at her in shock. Triona was not sure if they were shocked by her angry words or by her suggestion that a man could be at fault for such a thing. She could almost see that shock slowly turn into outrage, however, and braced herself for some retribution. Men like them did not like to be contradicted. She had learned that lesson well from her own father.

  “Aye, and mayhap making Ella was one of the greatest things Boyd e’er did,” she added, and smiled, not caring how they made her suffer for speaking what they probably saw as near sacrilege.

  “The laird of Banuilt obviously didnae teach ye how a proper, godly wife should act,” said Father Mure.

  Triona still found it nearly impossible to believe, but Father Mure was even worse than Banuilt’s old priest had been in his contemptuous beliefs about women. There was no more doubt in her mind. Although she could not recall the priest her family had dealt with when she was growing up and had no clear memory of him spouting such hard words, she knew he had never done anything to stop the sometimes brutal way her father treated her and her mother, which made her think the man had been of the same ilk as these two. Both of the men glaring at her right now apparently chose to ignore the fact that B
anuilt had been run mostly by women for almost two years and would have done very well if not for Sir John’s many attempts to destroy it. Every single thing that had brought her close to failing had been Sir John’s doing.

  “Are ye absolutely certain there is no other way for ye to gain hold of Banuilt?” asked the priest. “I cannae believe our liege laird wishes it to be held by a woman. It goes against all the laws of God and mon. Mayhap I should go and speak to him for ye.”

  “It willnae work. The mon honors Sir Boyd’s choice.”

  “I used to serve our liege laird . . .”

  “Before he sent ye to me. I ken it. It still doesnae matter. The laird honors Sir Boyd’s last will. So the only way for me to get Banuilt is to marry this bitch.” Sir John glared at Triona. “Dinnae worry, though. After the way she has sullied herself with that bastard Murray, I dinnae mean to keep her for long.”

  “Are ye certain ye should be telling the mon that?” Triona asked, even as she wondered how he knew what she had been doing with Brett. “He is a priest and all that. Nay sure ye should be talking to him about your plans to murder me. I may be one of those poor female creatures he appears to think near useless, but murder is murder nay matter who is the victim.”

  “Did I say I planned to kill ye? I dinnae recall saying anything about murder.”

  “And I didnae hear him say that, either,” said Father Mure. “I did hear, howbeit, that ye, a widow of nay e’en two years, has nay kept herself chaste as is right and proper. It may be past time that ye enter confession and do a penance.”

  “And I begin to think that ye are as mad as Sir John,” Triona said.

  It did not really surprise her when Sir John hit her again. It did anger her, however. Triona did not think she had ever been so angry before, and yet within moments after falling into the hands of these two men, she had tasted that fierce anger twice already. She had always considered Sir John Grant vain and spoiled, but she now realized he was far worse. He was a cold brute, one who could deal out pain and cruelty without a twitch of true emotion. She suspected he did not simply see women as something beneath him or view them with disdain. He hated them.