Highland Master

by Howell, Hannah

  “If I kenned when that would be, I might have done so. I can say I will be back, but I truly dinnae ken when. I thought it kinder to leave matters as they stand. No promises. I willnae break one to her, and if I dinnae get what I am after, I could need a long time to gather what I need to come and ask for her hand.”

  Harcourt sighed. “Mayhap all she needs is ye. E’er think of that?”

  “A lot, but I will nay be the third mon in her life to come to her with little or nothing, to marry her for my own gain. When I come back it will be with enough that when I ask for her hand she will ken that that is all I want, just her hand, nay her coin and nay her land.”

  “I pray I ne’er fall in love. It makes life too troublesome. Do ye still want me to join those two MacFingal lads at Gormfeurach?”

  “Aye, unless ye have changed your mind.”

  “Nay. There is work to be done there, and I have a strange urge to do some of it. So, best ye get your hands on the place or I will be sore angry that all my hard work benefits someone who isnae my kin.”

  Laughing softly, Brett followed him down to the great hall. He knew it was dangerous to hope for too much, but he let that hope for a future with Triona rest in his heart. It made the parting easier, for he could see the path back into her arms.

  Still chewing on an oatcake, he stepped out into the bailey to see their horses readied and Brian already waiting a little impatiently for his wife. The well-padded cart was for her, and she paused in talking to Triona every once in a while to glare at it, but he knew she would be riding in it all the way back to Scarglas—and not just to please Brian. Arianna still held a fear of losing the child.

  Triona surreptitiously glanced to where Brett stood. She had woken up in time to see him leave, the warmth of his kiss on her forehead still lingering. For a moment she had been angry that, after the night of lovemaking they had just enjoyed, he would slip away like some thief or a man trying to make certain he was not caught in a wife’s bed by her returning husband. Then she had decided it was the best way for them to part, if only to help her keep her dignity. If he had lingered, made love to her again, she might have been reduced to begging him to stay.

  “Ye didnae ask him to stay, did ye?” said Arianna.

  “Nay. He gave me no promises and I will nay hold him with tears and pity. He wants to leave, and I will wave fare-thee-weel from the gates.” She sighed when Arianna kissed her cheek. “It was good to see ye, Cousin. Take the journey home easily.”

  “It appears my husband feels the same. Do ye see what he intends me to ride in? As if I am some aging matriarch or have some disease? A cart. He means to make me go back to Scarglas in a cart.” She glared at Brian, who just grinned back at her. “I think he means to punish me for leaving in the first place.”

  “Nay, he but understands your fears and tries, in his awkward monly way, to ease them.” Triona smiled when Arianna laughed. “And here comes my Ella to wave fareweel, too.”

  Triona watched as Ella kissed Arianna and then went to kiss each of the men, tensing when her daughter stopped before Brett. She actually started to move toward them to hear what was being said and stopped herself. It would be wrong. Ella had the right to say what she wanted, and considering some of the things the child might say or ask, it might also save her some embarrassment if she did not venture near enough to overhear. She just hoped Brett did nothing to add to the sadness she knew her child would feel when he was gone.

  “Why can ye nay stay here?” Ella asked. “I thought ye liked us.”

  Crouching in front of the little girl, Brett said, “I do, my wee angel, but I have to go and do something right now. It is important that I get something before I come back.” He kissed her cheek. “But dinnae tell your mother I said that. I am nay sure when I can come back, and I dinnae wish her being sad as she waits.”

  “I will be sad as I wait.”

  “Nay, ye will be playing with your friends and the kittens and helping your mother. Ye will be too busy to be sad. Just be a verra good lass for your mother.”

  “If I am a verra good girl may I have a kitten?”

  He laughed. “I told ye to ask your mother about that.”

  “She will say nay.”

  “Then ask again later, for ye can ne’er ken when she might change her mind.”

  He talked with the little girl for another moment as Brian settled his complaining wife in the cart, and then he walked over to Triona. There were so many things he could say, from formal, polite words of thanks to asking her to wait for him, but he could not think of which words or what to say. Instead, he pulled her into his arms, gave her a passionate kiss, and then went and got on his horse, joining his hooting friends and relatives as they all rode out.

  “Did he say he is coming back?” asked Joan. “That looked like an I will come back kiss to me.”

  It had rather felt like one, but Triona beat down the surge of hope that tried to fill her heart. She needed more than a passionate kiss before he rode away to let that hope live. For now, she intended to go to her bedchamber and spend a few hours sunk in morose self-pity, and then she would pick up the pieces of her shattered heart and get to work.

  “It was just a kiss, Joan,” she said as she turned to reenter the manor. “Just a kiss from a mon who obviously didnae have anything he wished to say to me.”

  “Some men cannae easily speak what is in their hearts.”

  “And some men dinnae have anything in their hearts to speak about. Now I am going to slip away and be alone for a few hours and wallow in feeling sorry for myself because I was foolish enough to let a tiny ray of hope enter my heart. Once I have it completely throttled to death, I mean to get to work. For once we can work without having to stop to fix damage done by Grant.”

  She paused in the doorway and looked out through the gates at her retreating visitors. “And for that we can thank all those people.” She looked at Joan. “I can also thank Sir Brett Murray for showing me that what can be between a mon and a woman can be verra fine indeed. It might have hurt a little in the end, but that is something I am indeed verra, verra grateful for.”

  And she was. She just wished that she had been able to make him love her with his heart as well as he had loved her with his body.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Weel? Are ye now a laird or nay?”

  Brett sat down at his brother Payton’s table, smiled at the man’s wife, and helped himself to some food. “Aye, I am now the laird of Gormfeurach.”

  “Congratulations,” said Payton. “That went more easily than ye thought it would, aye?”

  “If ye consider easily a few bribes to be allowed in to see people; stepping up the highest ladder I have e’er climbed as I went from laird to laird to laird, starting with Mollison, until I reached the one who had the power of a final aye or nay; and e’en fighting to nay take the name of Grant just to sit in the laird’s chair of a place few of the Grants e’en realized existed. It cost me most of what coin I had, too, but I am happy the few Grants that briefly thought they might want to fight for the place preferred money o’er land. I e’en enlisted the aid of all my friends and kinsmen, and kinswomen, to speak for me when it was needed.” He sighed as he took a chunk of bread and dipped it into a small dish of herbed butter. “I am nay sure I have a favor left to ask of anyone I ken.”

  “Then ye shall need to gather up a new crop.”

  “Or the lass ye are trying so hard to win can do so,” said Kirstie and she reached for the last piece of bread, only to get into a silent tug-of-war with Payton over it.

  Brett watched his older brother and his wife playfully fight over the last piece of bread. They had been married for almost fourteen years, had seven of their own children with another on the way, and always had a small horde of orphans or cast-off children around. Chaos often surrounded them and many thought them odd in the way they cared for the lost or forgotten children, but he knew without a shadow of doubt that Payton was happy, would not have his life a
ny other way. That was what Brett wanted.

  “Triona may have a favor or two owed her e’en now, if only out of a need for some to apologize for nay heeding what she told them about Sir John Grant,” Brett said. “I believe Mollison’s guilt o’er how he did naught to help her, didnae listen to her, is why he welcomed me as a possible new laird and ally. The connection of his keep with those of both the McKees and the Grants appears to be important to the Mol-lisons, mostly for food. Cattle, sheep, crops.

  “The three clans have long had a tradition of sharing when there is a lean year, and they work together on many another thing. Mollison’s lands are poor producers, Banuilt has good lands, and Gormfeurach has modest ones. Banuilt has some of the best weavers, who often spin and weave wool from Gormfeurach and Cromcraobh, Mollison’s lands. Gormfeurach has excellent tanners. Cromcraobh has excellent thatchers. And there is more. Much more.”

  “So, they all need to continue to be allied if they are to prosper,” said Payton, cutting the last piece of bread in half and tossing one half to Kirstie, who neatly caught it. “For one to hurt another is to lessen all three. I can see both good and bad in that, but it has obviously worked for them for a verra long time.”

  “Since the first three knights settled there and chose their pieces of land. It has suffered of late because the lairds of Banuilt and Gormfeurach wer-enae interested in much more than being lairds. Their predecessors were better but nay by much. Mollison ruefully admitted that he hadnae liked seeing a wee lass do a better job as laird than Sir John and Sir Boyd and their predecessors. He was ashamed and embarrassed by how he left her in danger simply because he believed the word of a mon—a friend though nay a particularly close one—over hers.”

  “And ye took full advantage of that.”

  “I did indeed. Then he sent me, papers in hand, to another laird. And so it began.”

  “Are ye certain Sir John Grant’s kin will cause ye no trouble?”

  “Nay interested in fighting for the place. As I said, few of them e’en kenned it existed, the bloodlines having grown so thin. Sir John left a will but left it all to his legitimate heir, as yet unnamed. No legitimate heir exists. Coin interested his kin more than a place they have ne’er seen. They also sought to please some of the ones who spoke in my favor, making it clear that they wanted me to have the land. So it all would have languished, for e’en Mollison couldnae simply hand it o’er to a friend or kinsmon without taking the same journey I just did, and he had no interest in doing so. Thus, disinterest in working to gain Gormfeurach is one reason I am now its laird.”

  Payton raised his tankard in a salute and took a drink. “Ye should have married the wench first, and then ye could have had pleasant company as ye sought the right to call yourself a laird.”

  “Nay, love, your brother acted correctly,” said Kirstie. “Triona needs him to seek her out, e’en though he has nay need of a dower from her. Mayhap if her first husband had been a good one, been kind and at least a wee bit caring, it wouldnae have mattered, but she has had two men who made their disinterest in her as a woman all too clear—the one she married and the one who demanded she marry him. Each needed something of hers and would have wed anyone who had it.” Kirstie smiled at Brett. “Ye will go to her needing nothing she has, and have also already shown how hard ye will work to help her hold on to Banuilt.”

  “That is how I pray she will see it.” Brett grimaced. “I but hope she hasnae found another, for I have been gone far longer than I had planned to be.”

  “How long?”

  “Three months. And it will take me at least a sennight to return, mayhap longer, for I must go to Gormfeurach first. The people there need to be told who their new laird is.”

  “Weel, eat. Fill your belly and be gone in the morning.”

  “Kirstie,” Payton said, laughter tinting his voice and weakening what had been intended as a gentle scold.

  “I mean it,” she said. “If the woman truly loves ye, Brett, three months is too short a time for her to rid her heart of that love and turn to another. Three months can, however, make her nay verra willing to see ye ride up to her gates, for she will have spent much of that time trying verra hard to get ye out of her heart.”

  That was exactly what Brett feared. With each passing day away from her side, he had become more determined to return to her. Yet, because he had left her with no promise to return, no words of love, she would be spending each of her days away from him trying to tear him from her heart and mind. Brett had never thought it would take so long to lay claim to Gormfeurach, envisioning either a quick, clear no or a not-so-quick but still clear aye. Nothing had prepared him for the twisted route he had had to take to have his bid for the keep accepted. Otherwise he might have left Triona with at least enough of a promise to return that she would watch for him and wait for him, if only for just a little while.

  “Ye are certain she loves you, aye?” asked Payton, watching Brett closely.

  For a moment his heart clenched with uncertainty, but then Brett remembered how Triona would look at him as he shed his clothing, and the warm, rich blue of her eyes after he kissed her. She trusted him, had proven it time and time again, and he knew how important that was. She also trusted him with her little Ella, and when he had helped her bathe the mud off the little girl, he had caught a glimpse of the wish for more children, his children, on her face before she had swiftly hidden it. He knew he had not been mistaken in what those looks were telling him about what was in her heart.

  “Aye, she loves me, or is so close to doing so ’twill need but a wee nudge to capture the prize,” he replied.

  “Then best we plan what ye need to take with ye for your journey and homecoming. ’Tis past time ye went to your Triona and did a little nudging.”

  Brett fought the urge to turn around and race for Banuilt as he rode through the gates of Gormfeurach a week after leaving Payton’s home. Now that he was close to Triona, he wanted to do nothing more than hold her, but the people of Gormfeurach needed to know what their fate was. He dismounted and nodded to the youth who took the reins, and then grinned at his brother Harcourt as the man walked up to him.

  “Ye did it, didnae ye, ye bastard,” said Harcourt.

  “Aye, I did, and best nay let our father hear ye talk so about our mother.” He laughed when a grinning Harcourt slapped him on the back.

  “Best ye tell all these people then, as they have been growing more and more uneasy with nary a word about who would come and sit his arse in the laird’s chair,” said Harcourt.

  Brett went and stood on the steps leading to the doors into the keep while Harcourt gathered as many of the people as he could. The looks on their faces told him how they had suffered as they waited to hear who would soon lead them. Brett knew many feared for their places at Gormfeurach, as a new laird often meant the better positions within a keep went to the ones the new laird favored. There would also be those who feared that, although their last laird was not a very good one, the next one could be far, far worse. Brett would undoubtedly have some of his kin come to Gormfeurach, but he would be certain he did not displace anyone. They would have to wait and see what kind of laird he would be, for he knew swearing to be a good one would convince no one. They did not know him well enough to know that when he gave his word, it was a vow one could trust in.

  The announcement that he was to be their new laird was met with silent shock, and for a moment Brett feared he would have a rebellion. Then the men began to smile, and soon everyone was congratulating him. Even the news that he would remain a Murray did not dim their welcome. He suspected the loyalty of the people at Gormfeurach had long been to the land more than the laird. Whatever else they might think about him, the people of Gormfeurach were obviously more than willing to give him a chance. He suspected Harcourt’s work here had helped that happen. All the men of the garrison quickly pledged themselves to him, and then the people began to disperse, many heading out to tell others the news.

  “Th
at went far better than I thought it would,” he said to Harcourt as they sat down at the large worktable in the ledger room. “I have a feeling I might owe some of that welcome to ye and whate’er work ye have done here. Where is Gunn?” he asked when he realized how at home Harcourt was in the room.

  “He assists, as does his son,” Harcourt replied, and poured them each a tankard of ale. “They are gone for the day now and have a verra fine wee cottage in the village. I made sure of it, for Sir John had them living in little better than a hovel, despite all the work the mon did for him, work that kept this place from falling into complete ruin. I but like to go over the work. There is promise here, Brett, of a fine keep. And it appears that Gormfeurach is actually the first line of defense for all three keeps.”

  “Ah, that would make sense.” And that would please a man like Harcourt. “Who leads the men?”

  “’Tis Duncan now, as the ones who did lead are all dead. They were close with Sir John and kenned everything but said nothing. They died with him the day we last rescued Triona, but even if they had lived and returned, it is doubtful any of these men would wish to follow them.”

  “Probably for the best, as they would have been trouble for anyone who came here as the new laird. For me, they would have been a great deal of trouble, as I am the one who killed Sir John.” He frowned. “Do the people here ken that?”

  “Aye. Felt it was nay good to hide the truth. They simply didnae care. All they worried o’er was who would take his place. Gunn told me that neither Sir John nor his father would listen to his gentle hints that they should breed more legitimate heirs, or find cousins to favor, nay matter how distant they might be. Neither wished to hunt down cousins with few true blood ties to the clan whose name they held. Gunn began to think that neither of the men truly cared for more than what this place could gain them while they lived, that plans for the future, after they were gone, didnae interest them at all.”

  “A shame, as this is a good place, and I think there are a lot of good people here.”