by Sarah Hoss
When his brother clapped his hands he turned to see what he was about. The look on his face made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. When Alexander got a big idea, it usually meant trouble.
“I have it.”
“Ye have what?”
“The solution to everyone’s problems.”
He sat down. “Dare I ask?”
His brother slapped him on the shoulder and sat down beside him. “Ye should marry Gillian?”
James stood, turning to face his brother.
“Are ye daft? I canna marry her,” he said as he pointed toward the house.
“Of course ye can. She needs protection. She needs stability and ye can offer her that. Ye arena married.”
“No.”
“Ye would be good to her.”
“I canna do that to Hamish. He loves her.”
“Yer brother is to marry another. I doona think he has a say in it.”
“She won’t marry me, she loves him.”
Alexander stood. “Have ye asked her?”
“Of course I haven’t. I wasn’t dumb enough to think of the idea.”
His brother came to him and grabbed one of his arms. He was serious. “Hamish is doing what he needs to do to protect his child. And that’s all right. What will ye do to protect Gillian?”
He shook his head.
“If ye doona marry her yerself, someone else will. Ye know she canna stay unmarried, unless we send her to a convent.”
He glanced down at the ground. “Hamish will hate me.”
“Hamish will be glad that someone is looking after her, someone he can trust.”
“I always thought I would marry for love.”
“Love will come. If ye are true to each other and do an honest job of it, love will come.”
James sighed. “Don’t ye think we should at least ask her?”
Alexander smiled. “Shall we?” he asked as he bowed with his hand stretched toward the door.
Once they were inside, he paced for a moment like a caged cat, then took a seat and the drink that Alexander offered him.
Marlana placed the baby in her husband’s arms and began to serve the dinner.
Alexander sat and kissed Margaret on her forehead. “What have ye ladies been doing in here?”
“Talking.” She gave Gillian a look that he had noticed women do when they are plotting something.
“What have you two men been doing outside?” Marlana asked and sat a bowl in front of him.
“Talking and James cleaned a stall and got the horse settled.”
After everyone was served, Marlana sat down. “We’ve been thinking about Gillian and her situation.”
“Aye,” Alexander said, “We have, too.”
Husband and wife stared at each other over the table completely forgetting the other two.
“We think we’ve come up with a suitable arrangement.”
Alexander took a bite. “So do we.” He glanced over at his brother and nudged his head a couple of times in Gillian’s direction.
He shook his head no and glanced at her.
“Well, Gillian has something she wants to ask James.” She smiled over at Gillian and her eyes grew big as if to say, Go for it.
Gillian shook her head in return, saying It’s not the dumbest thing I’ve done. She stood, then sat back down.
He watched all of this with curiosity growing. Something in the back of his mind kept flashing a warning bell.
“James.” She coughed. “I would like to know if you would consider marrying me.”
He stared at her, unable to believe what she had just asked. Was she serious? But what matter did it make? He had just been about to ask her the same question.
She must have taken his silence for disbelief because she started to ramble. “I know it’s impulsive and that we hardly know each other.” She glanced down at her food. “If you don’t want to, it’s okay. You won’t hurt my feelings.”
She peered up and caught his eye then stood quickly. “Oh, God, you must think I’m a horrible person,” then she ran outside.
What the hell had just happened?
“Well done,” Marlana said.
He glanced over at his sister-in-law.
“Couldn’t you have said something?” She stood as if she meant to go after her.
Alexander raised his hand to make her stay. “Sit. James will go after her.”
James closed the door behind him and searched the grounds. He found her walking off to the side of the house. Pulling the material of his plaid up around his neck, he went to her.
She turned at the sound of his footsteps. “I feel so stupid.”
“Would it help ye to know that Alexander and I spoke about that verra same subject while we were in the barn?”
“Really?”
“Aye. I was going to ask ye to marry me, but ye spoke first.”
She laughed and he joined. The situation called for such an action for they both felt silly at knowing what they had been planning.
She drew circles in the snow with her toes.
He turned her to face him and gently placed his hand on her chin to make her look at him. “Gillian, it will be all right. I’ll be good to ye, this ye have my promise.”
“Oh, I have no doubt and for that I thank you. It’s just, well, we barely know each other.”
He shrugged. “We’ll get to know each other.”
She nodded and he let go of her face.
“I’m in love with your brother.”
He stared over her head for a moment and thought about what she’d said. With her being in love with Hamish, it did make things complicated.
“I know.”
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
“After all that ye have been through, I understand yer love for each other. My hope is that one day, maybe we can love each other.”
She glanced down to the ground and began to cry. Tilting her face up, he wiped a tear away.
“Why do ye cry?”
“My life is so messed up and here you are, sweeter than anything I have ever seen, changing your life around so that I won’t be in this world alone.” She stepped away from him. “I can’t do that to you. It’s not fair.”
He stepped closer and started to reach out to touch her, but brought his hand back. “Look at me.” When she did, he spoke again. “Ye are a good woman. Ye are beautiful. Marrying ye is a choice I make, not something my brother or ye are forcing me into. Do ye understand?”
“I do.”
He held out his hand and she took it. Then, kneeling down, he asked, “Gillian, would ye marry me?”
New tears fell down her cheeks. As the moonlight shown on her, she was beautiful, foreign, and exotic. Marrying her would be no hardship.
“Yes, James. I will marry you.”
Her hand shook in his. She seemed uncertain, but he understood her misgivings. He was nervous himself, but he had time to get to know her. There was no hurry.
“Good, now, I’m freezing my ballocks off out here. Let’s go inside, shall we?”
Inside, they stood by the fire, both with their hands sticking out trying to gather the fire’s heat.
“So, do we have an engagement?” Alexander brought over two glasses of whiskey.
James took them and handed one to Gillian. “Aye, we do.”
Marlana came over and hugged Gillian. “Wonderful.”
James stared at his brother. “We will see. Hamish may not think so.”
Rebecca walked into Hamish room without even knocking. A smile perched upon her lips and the gleam in her eye told of the thoughts she must be having.
“What do ye want?” He was in no mood to deal
with her today. He was still angry from the events that had transpired two nights before.
“Hamish, ye wound me. I only want to talk to ye.”
He stood. Walking over to her quickly, he grabbed her by the arms. “Ye wanna talk, do ye?” He snorted his disgust. “I asked ye to talk to me the other day, but ye didna wait for me. Ye went straight to Cluny. Why would I wanna talk to ye now?”
She grimaced and tried to get out of his grip. He let go.
“Ye canna still be mad at me for that? Tis not my fault. I was talking with Agnes when he walked by and he overheard us. What was I supposed to do?”
There was logic in the words she spoke but there was also an underlying sneakiness to her that he couldn’t put his finger on. He didn’t love her and she knew that. It didn’t make any sense to him.
“I wish to be alone. Leave.”
She rose up on her toes to kiss him, but he flinched out of the way. He could see the hurt in her eyes. He wasn’t so cold that it didn’t bother him, but he just couldn’t. He stepped away from her and walked over to the door, opening it for her.
She began to walk through the door but paused. “Hamish—” She started to say something when a commotion caught their attention. Someone was hollering. A flash back to the last time this scene played out caused his heart to ache and he pushed past Rebecca to head into the Great Hall.
“Gather all the men. There’s another fire.” Men bundled themselves and ran outside to prepare to fight the fire. Women ran to gather blankets and buckets.
“Hamish.” She called out to him and he stopped and turned toward her. “Let me go with you.”
“No.”
He began to run away. “Please. I canna just sit here and do nothing.”
He placed his hand on the side of her head over her ear and leaned in so she could hear him. “Ye have to keep yerself and the baby protected. I willna let ye be harmed. Stay here and help prepare things for when we all come back.”
She reached up and touched his face. “Be safe and come back to us.”
He stared at her for a moment. “Aye.” Someone called his name and he took off into a run.
Rebecca watched him go and as he went out the door, she stood, rooted in place, staring at the people running through the doors. She was worried and for good reason. If there was a fire, then her brother was behind it and he hated Hamish. The two of these things combined frightened her. She sent up a silent prayer for everyone’s safe return, especially Hamish’s.
As she turned to go find the chief’s wife to see what she could do to help, something else had dawned on her. He had been mad at her, but the moment he thought of harm coming to her or the baby, he was truly concerned. She could use this to her advantage. If he stayed concerned for their well-being, then he would begin to fall in love with her. It was so simple now.
She clasped her hands in silent excitement at her new plan. She would have his love, one way or the other.
Agnes reached out and grabbed Rebecca’s arm, pulling her into the library as everyone within the castle ran to gather supplies.
“What are ye doing? We need to go help.” She tried to break free but Agnes wouldn’t let go.
“I want to know what ye think ye are doing telling Hamish yer pregnant and forcing him to marry ye? Ye ken it isna true.”
She ripped her arm out of her grasp as anger boiled inside of her. “What I do is of no concern of yers.”
“Aye, it is when ye lie and manipulate that man into something that isna true.”
They stood almost nose to nose. “My pregnancy wasn’t verra far along. If Hamish and I are married then I can still get pregnant. Then everything will be perfect.”
“Yer daft.”
“Nay, it’s perfect and ye best keep quiet.”
Agnes drew back as if she had been slapped. “And if I doona?”
“Ye’ll regret it.” She stared at her friend for a moment longer, then turned and left the room, slamming the door behind her.
Archibald sat in a tree, watching his handy work. The fire blazed with such fierceness that he couldn’t help but be in awe of it. The flames danced so high that he thought they might actually touch the heavens.
There were a couple of times that he had caught himself speaking out loud the occasional, Oh, or sighing and he had to clamp his hand over his mouth as to not be noticed by the people below.
He laughed, watching them. They scurried to and fro like little bees at a hive, trying desperately to put out the flames but they were no match for his beautiful creation. The men and the women folk fetched water or helped tend the family that lived there.
Who were they? He hadn’t the foggiest idea of their names, but it didn’t matter. They were not of any consequence to him. It was all about the fire. The release he felt as the house went up in flames was almost orgasmic. The need to set fires was as strong as the pull of a lover's grasp. He had no wife, no children, but he was married. Bound by matrimony to the one thing he could control, yet once set free created a life all its own. Flame was his mistress and he loved her.
Now, in the aftermath of it all, Archibald thought back to all the houses he had set on fire and one of them gave him the biggest satisfaction of all, Hamish Macpherson’s house. He’d timed it just right. Though he would have rather killed one of his brother’s, when his sister showed up, he couldn’t miss the opportunity. It was revenge, payback for the murder of Fergus. A sibling for a sibling. Hamish Macpherson had been a thorn in his side since the day he’d met him, but the confrontation between them that resulted in his brother’s death was the last straw.
The more he thought about Hamish Macpherson, the more he hated him. He wouldn’t be happy until he saw that man burning in one of his fires.
Chapter 26
Hamish’s horse strolled in through the gates, slowly. He must sense his master’s mood, for he, himself, was exhausted. Another fire, another family put out of their home and almost killed. This had to stop. They had to do something to capture this madman before he caused any more harm or destruction.
His passenger stirred in her sleep, and he glanced down. She was pretty. She snuggled closer to him, searching for warmth and he tightened his hold on her, a protective feeling warming him as he watched her.
The innocence of children always amazed him. Hamish glanced over at the rider next to him and smiled.
“Is she all right? Do ye need me to take her?” The little girl’s father asked as he reached out to rub her leg.
“Nay, she’s fine,” he said as he peered down at her again, “she’s just trying to get comfortable. Yer horse carries two already.”
The man stared at his wife for a moment. “Well, three actually.” Iain Macpherson smiled at Hamish. “She’s with child.”
“That’s wonderful news.”
“Do ye have children of yer own?”
Hamish shook his head. Snow fell lazy, landing softly on whatever surface it touched. Such a different contrast to the scene he had just witnessed.
The conversation was a needed distraction, but not of the topic he would like to talk about at the moment. He would, however, indulge the gentleman.
“I have no children yet, but one is on the way.”
“Yer first then? Let me tell ye, there is nothing like being a father. They bring ye such joy. To know there is something out there past yer own existence is a great feeling. To know that ye lived on through them.” He reached out to touch the little girl’s leg again, as if reassuring himself she was still there. “Ye do anything for them. Protect them with yer life if ye have to.” He turned back to look over his shoulder. Even though his house no longer was in view, Hamish knew what his eyes were seeing.
He gripped the man’s hand. “I vow to ye, we’ll find out who is doing this and there will be justice.”
Iain nodded.
Hamish stared at him a moment longer. He thought back to the Macpherson house he’d seen in the future. After that moment, Gillian had researched James Macpherson and found out who his grandparents were. The screen read Iain and Isabelle Macpherson. He had a feeling cross over him that he couldn’t describe as he looked at this man, knowing what was held in store for his future grandson.
As they rode through the castle gates, he saw his brother, James, and Gillian dismounting. The sight of her made his heart ache. He stared, wanting to soak in every ounce of her. What were they doing together? A jealous streak reared its ugly head. He nudged his horse in their direction and James jogged up to meet him.
Undoing his plaid, his brother saw who lay in his arms and reached up to take her. He handed her down, then dismounted from Sabastian. A stable lad ran out and took the horse from him.
“Hamish, what happened?”
“There was another fire. At Iain and Isabelle Macpherson’s place.”
“For the love of God, when will it end?”
Hamish searched the area. All of the people who had helped fight the fire were so tired. The family who’d been put out of their home was scared and uncertain of their future.
“I wish I knew, brother.”
Gillian approached the men.
“Gillian.” He bowed his head toward her.
“Hello, Hamish.” She stared at him and he couldn’t tear his eyes away.
