Highland Master

by Howell, Hannah

  “There are.”

  Brett studied his brother. “So ye would stay on and hold my place if I can get Triona to marry me?”

  “Aye, I believe I would. I wouldnae have thought so when I first came here to hold it until a laird would be found, but I have discovered that I like the work. I find myself making plans, imagining how to improve this or that. I am nay sure I like to admit it, but it is as if I have settled.”

  “Good. Then unless ye find land of your own and need to leave, ye hold my place. I mean to stay with my wife.” He frowned. “She hasnae got anyone wooing her, does she?”

  “Nay.” Harcourt smiled faintly. “And I think ye had best hone your skills at wooing ere ye go to her. I have seen her now and then, and she isnae thinking fondly of ye at the moment.”

  “I feared that might be so. Weel, after a hearty meal, a few talks with some of the people here, and a good night’s rest, I best go and begin my wooing. Have Callum and the others returned home?” he asked, recalling that the three had said they would join Harcourt when Mollison had been unable to settle the matter of who should be laird of Gormfeurach.

  “Aye, they have, and nay long after ye left Mollison. Callum got word from his kin and needed to go home, so Uven and Tamhas went with him. The two MacFingal lads stayed. I am thinking they may ne’er leave, as they have settled in verra firmly.”

  “Ah, weel, I suspect there is room for them to make a good life for themselves here, and they are wise enough to see that.”

  “They are, and I have found them most useful in the training of the men.” He held up his tankard. “And now, I raise my drink to the new laird and wish him all good luck in wooing his lady.”

  Brett touched his tankard to Harcourt’s and smiled a little ruefully. “I fear I will need it.”

  “Och, aye, ye most certainly will,” said Harcourt, and laughed.

  Brett controlled the urge to throw his tankard at Harcourt’s head. He had earned the laughter. He had made a grievous mistake in keeping silent, in thinking it best to wait to speak his heart to Triona until he had all he thought he needed. Brett could only hope she would be understanding.

  Triona crossed her arms over her chest and studied the small thatched building that would serve as a bathing house for the garrison. It was well built and attractive, tucked up against the high wall, so she no longer worried about how it would fit into the area within the bailey. Brett had been right. Her garrison had developed a strong need to stay clean. The bailey had often been muddy from the water used to wash away the sweat and dirt from training. This should solve that problem, for inside was a well, a hearth, buckets, and tubs. The clever man who put the well in the cottage so that water could be drawn right there had also put in a drain that allowed the dirty water to be poured away, beyond the walls. Now if she could just find some way to make a shelter for the men who would slip outside of the tower in the dead of night to sleep in the open, she mused, feeling a pang of pity for the scars their long imprisonment had left them with.

  There was little she could do to help them, and she knew it. Triona doubted the men would accept much help, anyway. The few attempts she had made to talk about what troubled them had been politely but firmly brushed aside. She knew they would shy away from sympathy because they would see the need of it as unmanly. They had each other, each one having shared that horror, and she had to hope that would aid in their healing.

  Just looking at the bathing cottage again, as she thought to see that it did not need any more done to make it right, began to make her think of Brett and she almost cursed aloud. The man would not stay out of her head. She could go for hours, and then there he was, in her mind, causing her heart to pinch with pain. Her dreams at night were a constant torment, filled with all the memories of the passion they had shared. The mornings were spent struggling to still the aching need those dreams left her with. Being cured of Sir Brett Murray was taking far longer than she thought it ought to.

  “Ye dinnae like it?” asked Joan from where she stood beside Triona, also studying the little house. “I thought it actually looked quite good.”

  “It does,” Triona replied. “And I think it will work out verra weel and nay just for the garrison. This could work for when we have visitors. It will be much easier to send the men here to seek a wash than to carry the water to the rooms. I fear I just recalled who told me the men may need to be clean, more than they ever had before, and that roused my temper.”

  “Ah, Sir Brett.”

  “Aye, Sir Brett of the smile and the wave who barely left a trail of dust behind him as he rode away. I was but annoyed at how often the mon still comes to mind.”

  Joan put her arm around Triona’s shoulders. “A mon like that is difficult to forget.”

  “Weel, he shouldnae be, as I am fair sure he has forgotten about me.”

  “Ye cannae be certain of that. I still feel there was more to that kiss than fareweel.”

  “If there was, there should have been some word from him. I could, mayhap, believe he couldnae think of what to say when everyone waited for him to leave with them, but he has sent me nay one word since then. It shouldnae take a mon three months to compose a letter or e’en a wee tiny message.”

  “He sent that wee carved cat to Ella.”

  “Aye, to Ella. And nary a word to me when it was sent.”

  Joan grimaced. “Aye, I thought that was badly done. I dinnae ken what to say. Despite his silence, I just cannae believe he means to ne’er return. He appeared to be so much more to ye, with ye, than a lover.”

  Triona sighed. “I thought so, too, and mayhap we are both just fools. Ye havenae had all that much more experience with men than I have.”

  “Nay, I havenae. I was waiting for my Aiden. Loved that mon since he was a lad with feet he kept tripping o’er. If it hadnae been for that, I may have had me a mon or two. But I kenned what I wanted and I wasnae going to settle for less.”

  “I settled for Boyd. Not that I had much choice. My father wanted me to wed the mon. But do ye nay see? I was wrong about Boyd. I saw charm and kindness and thought he and I could have a verra good marriage. Instead, he turned out to be a mon as cold as a December night who but wanted a fat purse and a son. Sad to say, that was better than remaining under my father’s roof.

  “Yet here I stand, wondering if I was mistaken in a mon again. I thought Brett was, weel, I thought he cared for me. I thought what we shared was more than just a lusting, e’en on his part. A mon who has a caring for a lass doesnae love her into exhaustion in the night and then ride off with naught but a smile and a wave, ne’er to be seen or heard from again.”

  She cursed and kicked at a small stone on the ground. “I must nay let my mind prey on the matter. He gave me no words of love and no promises. If I am unhappy that he is gone, then ’tis my own cursed fault. I hoped. I tried not to, but I did. He didnae ask me to, didnae encourage me, so it isnae his fault.”

  “Nay, although I do wish I could curse him for telling ye lies or the like.”

  Triona smiled. “It would be easier to root him out of my heart if that was the way of it, but it wasnae. My heart didnae care that there were no words of love or promises. It just kept filling itself up with need for him.”

  Hooking her arm through Triona’s, Joan started toward the manor. “The heart does as the heart pleases.”

  “Weel, my heart needs to be taken into a corner and slapped about until it regains its senses.” She smiled faintly when Joan laughed.

  Triona spent the next few hours keeping herself as busy as possible, but for reasons she could not understand, Brett lingered in her thoughts. She finally went back inside the manor to the great hall to do some mending. Ella was so hard on her clothes that there was never a shortage of that somewhat tedious work to do.

  She had barely finished mending one little shift and was reaching for another when she knew it was not going to work. Brett was not going to be dismissed from her thoughts so easily. The days when she could not
shake him out of her thoughts had grown fewer, and she had begun to hope she would soon be left with only the night and her dreams to worry about.

  Staring into the fire, she sighed. It was time to accept the sad fact that she might never be able to forget the man. He had burrowed his way so deeply into her heart and mind, there was no shaking free of him. She had the strong feeling that he had burrowed at least a part of him somewhere else as well.

  Placing a hand over her belly, she suffered a feeling that was an uncomfortable mixture of excitement and terror. She had not bled since he rode away. It had taken her a while to realize that, for she had worked herself so hard that exhaustion drove her to her bed and those dreams she could not stop. She wanted the child she was now sure she carried, but she did not want to shame all the people of Banuilt by bearing a child when she had no husband.

  What she needed was another man, she decided, and then cursed. There were no suitable men around Banuilt she could look to. If there had been, she might have found an attractive one and been with him before Brett had ever ridden inside her gates. Triona doubted there was a man at Gormfeurach who would suit, either. She was stuck with the one that lived in her mind and heart but obviously did not care to live with her in person. She would not try to trick a man into marrying in order to give a name to her child, either, and she sincerely doubted a man would willingly wed her to give his name to another man’s bairn. The mere thought of trying to find Brett to tell him about the child made her blood run cold, for she knew it would kill her to have him turn away from her—or worse, marry her out of a sense of duty.

  It was difficult not to wonder what was wrong with her. Triona hated the doubts about herself that would creep into her mind at such times, yet there was no ridding herself of them permanently. She suspected every woman in her place would suffer from the same doubts, but thought she might have more right to them than most. Her father had cared nothing for her. Her husband had seen her as no more than a female to breed with. And Sir John had wanted nothing more from her than the land she held, had not even liked her and done nothing to hide that fact.

  “Brett liked me,” she whispered, and then glanced around to make sure no one was near enough to have heard what even she thought sounded childish.

  There was some truth in it, and she knew it. Liking and respect had been there. Triona was certain of it. It just had not been enough.

  “M’lady! The new laird of Gormfeurach is at the gates!”

  Pushing aside her mending, Triona looked at Angus, who was standing in the doorway to the great hall. The youth looked so excited she was surprised he was not shaking from the strength of it. She was not sure why the choice of a new laird for Gormfeurach should be of such import for him, however.

  “Who is it, Angus? Anyone we ken?” she asked as she stood up and started toward the door.

  “Ye must come and meet him.”

  He was definitely excited, she thought as she reached him. “That is what I am about to do. Do ye mean to escort me out to the bailey?”

  “Aye, ye shouldnae be going out to greet someone alone.”

  At least he had finally learned that much, Triona mused as she watched him hurry off without waiting for her. Angus was trying to learn how to be a proper man-at-arms. Aiden had decided that until Angus was older, the youth should serve as her personal guard within the manor and village. Whatever was happening in the bailey, however, had apparently pushed most of the lessons Angus had so painstakingly learned right out of his head.

  She stepped outside and looked at the men who had just ridden inside her gates, and shock made her tense, pushing all clear thought from her mind. The men were not the ones she had expected to see, not the Gormfeurach garrison. As they dismounted, she told herself she was seeing things, that her mind was still lost in memories. That could not be the tall, black-haired man that had haunted her dreams for over three months.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Brett?”

  Triona stared at the man striding toward her. Despite the hurt he had left her with when he had ridden away, longing still filled her abused heart whenever he came to mind. Which was far too often, she thought crossly as she looked him over, finding no signs of any horrible wounds that would explain why he had been gone for so long. That longing rushed through Triona now, so strongly she had to fight the urge to fling herself into his arms, and she firmly reminded herself that he had sent no word that he would return, given her no hope that he ever would. Even if he had changed his mind, had decided he wanted to stay with her, it should not have taken him so long.

  “I was told that I was to meet the new laird of Gormfeurach,” she said, tensing against the rush of heat in her veins when he kissed her hand.

  “And so ye have,” he said.

  She frowned in confusion. Then she looked around him but saw only a grinning Harcourt. There was no stranger around, not even one of the men she might recognize from the rare times Sir Mollison had sent someone to Banuilt. And then the look of mischief on Brett’s face, one blended with a very large dose of pride, began to push aside her confusion.

  “Ye are the new laird of Gormfeurach?” she asked, not surprised at how small her voice was as the realization sunk in—that the man she loved, the man who had left her with no more than a smile, a wave, and not even the tiniest hint of a promise, was now going to be living close at hand. It would be impossible to hide her secret from him.

  “Aye,” he replied. “Once they were left with no laird, and none amongst them could clearly be named an heir and thus step up to be named laird, I thought I might have a chance to make a claim. It took far longer than I thought it would, for it appears the ones who built Gormfeurach were too arrogant to think they could be left with no heir at all. The Grants couldnae e’en make a true claim, for their close blood ties to the men of Gormfeurach were lost a long time ago. ’Tis a verra long tale, Triona.”

  “I am certain it is, Sir Brett Murray,” she said, and nearly nodded in approval when she heard the courteous chill in her voice.

  Brett nearly winced. He had had warmer greetings from complete strangers. It was foolish of him, but he had rarely considered the possibility that Triona would be furious with him, either for leaving as he had or for never sending her word of his plans. It was only recently, during talks with his family, that he had begun to think he would have to do a lot of soothing and explaining. He began to soothe his own unease with memories of their time together and the knowledge that Triona was not a fickle woman, nor one who gave her affection lightly, and would not swiftly and easily cast aside what she had felt for him.

  “I would verra much like to tell ye all about it,” he said, smiling at her and ignoring the way she narrowed her eyes at him instead of smiling back.

  Triona wanted him to go away. There was an urge within her to grab him, hurl him to the ground, and take what she wanted, that hot passion that had haunted her dreams every night since he had ridden away. At the moment it was an urge easily controlled by the anger she felt over how he had acted, but she did not trust herself to hold that anger up as a shield for too long, especially if he decided to be charming. She sternly reminded herself that she needed him but swore that she would not allow him back into her bed and her life unless she was absolutely sure that he wanted to be there.

  Questions clamored in her mind so loudly that she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep herself from giving voice to them. Why had he left without a word if he had always planned to return? Had he returned just for Gormfeurach, or for her? She had to clench her hand into a fist, hiding it in the folds of her skirt, to stop from rubbing her forehead in the vain hope of quieting her mind.

  “Then mayhap ye can tell it all as we dine,” she said, refusing to be a bad host just because she wanted to throttle him. “The evening meal will begin soon.” She nodded toward Angus, who looked as if he was going to do a little dance of joy over Brett’s return, and that thoroughly irritated her. “Angus, please show our guests to a
place where they can wash away the dust of their journey. I will see to the setting of extra places at the table.” And more food, she thought as she turned and walked back inside the manor, refusing to see it as a retreat.

  “Weel, at least she didnae have a weapon,” said Harcourt, “or I think I would be trying to get your blood off my boots right now.”

  Brett glared at the MacFingals, standing behind Harcourt, but it did nothing to silence their laughter. “At least she didnae have me tossed outside the walls and the gates closed to me.” He sighed. “I was a fool nay to think that anger would be awaiting my return, especially considering the women in our family.”

  “Aye, ye were. Ye have time now to think of how ye may soften it.”

  It was not going to be easy to do, Brett thought as they followed Angus inside. There was a good chance that Triona would do her best to make certain they were never alone, and all his best ideas for soothing her anger required some privacy. Then he saw Ella coming toward him, her smile of welcome easing a little of the chill her mother had left behind. She was slow to come to him when he held his arms out to her, and he suddenly noticed that she was moving with an odd, shuffling gait. Brett walked up to her and crouched down in front of Ella, giving her a kiss on the cheek, idly wondering if that soft growling noise he heard was her stomach rumbling with hunger.

  “Have ye hurt yourself, Ella?” he asked, leaning back a little to look at her feet.

  “Nay, I have a kitten,” she said, and lifted her skirts up to her knees.

  Between her plump little legs sat one of the kittens they had played with in the stables, although it was nearly full-grown now. Its markings were a swirl of black, brown, and copper with an occasional splash of white. It was also staring at him with eyes uncomfortably similar to Harcourt’s, its black tail with its white tip twitching back and forth. Then, still staring at him, it reached up with one paw that had far too many claw-tipped toes, caught the edge of Ella’s skirts, and tugged downward, causing the child to drop her skirts back down over the cat. Brett felt as if he had just been given the feline equivalent of a door slammed in his face, and the poorly smothered laughter of his companions told him he had not imagined it.