Enchanted by the Highlander

by Cornwall, Lecia

  She curled under the coverlet and stared into the darkness. Whatever else he was, John Erly was the most interesting man she’d ever seen.

  * * *

  John walked home after visiting Tira Fraser’s cott.

  Many folk at Carraig Brigh thought that Will Fraser’s crippled foot was the devil’s mark, that his mother’s death at his birth and his father’s death a year later were the signs of evil, that old Tira was a witch. But only she stood by her grandson, cared for him—and kept him hidden. She was a proud woman and would not take help from those who’d mock or shun Will. Fia had tried to help—she had a limp herself—but the old woman was stubborn. John had found that if the aid came from the fairies, then Tira Fraser was happy enough to accept it. So by night John played the lad’s fairy godfather and kept the Frasers fed.

  Of course, Will was old enough now to train with the other lads, and as the captain of the guard, John intended to see that happen. It would give the boy confidence, and the skills to hunt and farm and help others to see him as one of their own, a clansmen. If, of course, John could keep everyone from running in terror from the lad’s twisted foot and evil eye, and his gran’s sharp tongue. Tira was quick with a curse, folk said.

  Tomorrow, when they were fed, John would go and fetch the lad, tell Tira that Dair had ordered her grandson to train with the other lads. If Will didn’t make a soldier, perhaps he’d make a sailor, and Angus Mor Sinclair could teach him, if he could be convinced to see Will as just a child and not the spawn of the devil.

  John smiled as he walked. Will’s plight was almost as bad as being a Sassenach.

  He went to his own small cott, given to him by Dair so he had space of his own, privacy. He had a garden, a small plot of turnips, onions, and carrots. If the other men thought it odd or dangerous, or just Sassenach, he was man enough to let them whisper behind his back.

  And they all whispered about him. Lasses claimed he was their lover, and honor—that damned inconvenient honor that had been bred into him and still sustained him—prevented him from confirming or denying the salacious tales. The gossips would no doubt be surprised to know that while he certainly didn’t live like a monk, his amours were not nearly as numerous as rumor suggested.

  He undressed and climbed into his bed.

  His last thought as he went to sleep wasn’t about Elspeth or Will Fraser. It was about the mysterious and untouchable Gillian MacLeod. He remembered the way her hair had risen around her in the wind, her quiet beauty and grace at her sister’s table. She drew his eye, and his interest, like a moth to a very dangerous flame.

  He rolled over and stared into the dark. Surely it would be a simple matter to avoid her while she was here. It was a fortnight, perhaps, a few weeks at most, and then she’d be gone.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Fia looked blissfully happy as she and Gillian rode along the cliff top toward the village. The sun was bright, the sea sparkled and seabirds wheeled overhead. It seemed to Gillian that her sister had everything she’d ever dreamed of—a fine home, a handsome husband who loved her to distraction, and children who adored their mother as much as she loved them. There was a menagerie of pets and injured wild creatures that Fia tended with her healing skills, and her clan was devoted to their lady. Fia was full of quiet confidence and joy.

  As they rode, she pointed out birds and healing plants, and greeted the folk they met with a kind word and a smile.

  They stopped to visit Annie Sinclair, the wife of Angus Mor, Dair’s first mate, and Fia’s dearest friend. Annie welcomed Gillian and served fresh baked bread to her visitors. She carried a toddler on her hip, an apple-cheeked little lad with his father’s sky-blue eyes.

  “How long will ye be visiting Carraig Brigh?” Annie asked Gillian.

  “She and Papa will stay until after my masked ball,” Fia answered before Gillian could fully open her mouth. She closed it again and smiled silently.

  “Are ye enjoying your visit?” Annie asked.

  “We’ve been out riding today, and tomorrow Dair has promised to take us out on the sea,” Fia replied. Gillian smiled again and felt a blush fill her cheeks when Annie looked at her curiously.

  “Would ye like another slice of bread, Mistress MacLeod?”

  “You’ll spoil your lunch, Gilly,” Fia said.

  But Gillian nodded anyway. “It’s delicious,” she said quietly, but Fia looked at her as if she’d shouted. Gillian smiled at Annie’s wee son. “May I hold him?”

  “Aye, of course.” Annie settled the child in Gillian’s arms. The lad looked up at her with wonder for a moment, then smiled. “He likes ye,” Annie said. “And he doesn’t like many folk.”

  “Neither does Gilly,” Fia blurted. “She’s very shy.”

  Gillian kept her eyes downcast and didn’t reply. Was there a point in doing so?

  “My gran used to say that just because someone is shy, it doesn’t mean they don’t have a lot going on inside their heads and in their hearts,” Annie said. “My Angus was a very shy lad. I had no idea he even liked me, since he’d turn aside whenever we met by chance. Then one day, Niall Sinclair said he intended to court me. Angus punched him in the jaw and told Niall that no one was going to marry me but him.” She smiled softly. “Gran was very canny about folk. She said ye can tell a lot about a person by their deeds, even if they don’t say very much.”

  “Didn’t your gran read the lines in people’s palms to see their future?” Fia asked.

  Annie smiled. “She did. Would ye like me to look at yours?” she asked Gillian.

  “Aye, do,” Fia said eagerly. “Give me the bairn, Gilly.”

  Fia lifted the child, but he squirmed out of her arms and scrambled back into Gillian’s lap instead.

  Gillian curled one hand around the bairn and held out her other palm. Annie took it and leaned over it, running her fingertip over the lines and creases.

  “What do you see?” Fia asked, leaning in.

  “An adventure,” Annie murmured. “And a long life and bairns of your own. Three, I think. You’ll wed within the year . . .”

  “An adventure? Three bairns? Gilly, married?” Fia parroted in amazement. Gillian frowned. “Why not?” she asked her sister.

  Fia colored. “I didn’t think . . . that is . . . Is that what you wish for?”

  Gillian met her sister’s eyes. “More than anything,” she said softly. Fia looked surprised at that, and Annie looked pleased.

  Annie gave Gillian’s hand a gentle squeeze. “Then I hope ye find your heart’s desire.”

  * * *

  On the practice field with the other lads, John handed Will Fraser a wooden sword. The boy glared at it mutinously. “You’ll start with that,” John said. He beckoned to one of the boys, but the lad hesitated, frowning at Will suspiciously. Will glared back, stood with the wooden sword in his hand, his good foot braced, his twisted one curled inward. “He’s afraid of me,” he said. “They all are.”

  John looked at the lads. “You can’t choose whom you’ll fight against in battle,” he said, pacing along the row of lads who stood staring at Will. “You can choose who fights beside you, though.” He put his hand on Will’s shoulder and almost winced at how thin it was. “Will is going to stand beside you one day. He’ll learn your weaknesses and compensate for them, and you’ll learn his strengths and how to use them against your enemies. An enemy might look at Will and think he’ll be easy to beat because of his foot, but you’ll know better.”

  The boys still hung back. “My ma says his foot is the devil’s mark,” one called out. The others nodded agreement.

  Will glared at them fiercely. “My gran says someone in this clan laid a curse upon us, ill-wished us, and that’s why my parents died, and I was born like this.” He scanned the crowd of lads like he was looking for the guilty party, as if his own evil eye could cast them down.

  For a long moment, no one moved. At last, Will looked up at John, not defeated, but angry. He held out the practice sword for John t
o take. “My gran didn’t want me to come here today. She wouldn’t have let me if ye hadn’t insisted I had to. Ye said it was my duty, but they don’t want me here. I’ll go.”

  Then Alex Sinclair, Angus Mor’s son, pushed through the crowd. He was a few years older than Will and a head taller. “I’ll do it. I’ll spar with him.”

  “Good lad,” John said.

  “I won’t go easy,” Alex warned.

  Will nodded. “I’m ready,” he said bravely and held his wooden sword before him for Alex’s first blow.

  John let the other boys look on for a few minutes, watching how Will got up every time Alex knocked him down.

  And when they began to work with their own wooden blades, they tried harder, using Will’s example to be stronger, better than they’d been before, and John smiled at the pride and purpose on Will Fraser’s flushed face.

  * * *

  Fia reined in her garron as they passed by the practice field. “Is that Will Fraser?” she asked, looking at the lad Gillian had seen at the cott the night before. He was fighting with a bigger lad and getting soundly beaten. Fia gaped as he tumbled to the ground. “What’s John thinking? Will can’t fight with the others, not with his twisted foot. I’d best put a stop to this before he gets hurt—”

  She started forward, but Gillian caught her sister’s arm. “Wait, Fia—look.” Will rose to his feet, color bright in his thin face, and charged at his opponent. This time he landed the flat of the blade on the bigger boy’s shin, and they could hear the thwack of the blow all the way across the field. Will laughed, and the other boy laughed with him.

  Gillian smiled at her sister and indicated the limb Fia had broken in childhood, an injury that had left her with a limp she’d have for the rest of her life. “Your own leg is twisted,” Gillian said quietly. “I remember Papa would never let you play with us, refused to let you run, even when you told him you could. He thought he was protecting you.”

  Fia blinked. “Aye,” she said slowly. “Aye. I’d forgotten that, Gilly.” She looked across the field. “I suppose Will feels the same. He wants to run and play and be like everyone else.” She looked at Gillian again. “How did you know that, understand how I felt? You were so much younger than I was, and you never said a word.”

  “It doesn’t mean I don’t have a voice, or eyes to see with, or thoughts of my own,” Gillian said.

  For a moment they stood watching the lads practice—well, Fia did. Gillian was watching John as he strolled the perimeter of the melee, stopping to give instruction or correction before moving on. He hadn’t even noticed they were there. He still took her breath away the way he had on the top of the cliff, and she gasped for air.

  Her sister turned to look at her. “Oh Gilly—you’re watching John again, aren’t you?” She gasped herself. “Oh no, that can’t be what Annie meant by adventure.” She sent one more glance across the field, this one sharp and narrow, before she wheeled her garron around. “Come along. I promised Papa I’d have you back before supper.”

  Gillian cast one more look at John as she followed her sister. He’d seen them at last, and he stood with one hand shading his eyes as he watched them ride away. She smiled, knowing he was too far away to see it, to see her.

  She knew his secret now. He was a good man, and kind—not a rogue at all. The lad was proof of that. Then one of the lads attacked him, and John fell and was beset by his pupils, and she heard his laughter ringing across the field.

  Gillian looked down at the lines that crossed the palm of her hand. According to Annie, she had an adventure to look forward to. Her heart beat faster at the idea, and she followed Fia, wondering just what the future had in store for her.

  * * *

  John felt her gaze like a touch, the caress of a fingertip along the back of his neck. He knew it was Gillian MacLeod even before he turned to see her there with Fia, watching the lads practicing, but Gillian’s eyes were for him, only for him. He felt his breath catch, his body tighten.

  Then Fia tossed her head and rode on. He stared at Gillian, willed her to wait, to come to him, but after a brief instant she followed her sister, rode away, and Alex and Will attacked him, took him down together, laughing, and the other boys joined in.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Donal MacLeod listened as Fia read out the names on the guest list for her masked ball. Most of them meant little to him, since they weren’t folk he knew. Gillian sat quietly by the window with a book—she always had a book. A man could walk into a perfectly silent room and be in it for an hour or more before he discovered Gillian, quiet as a statue, reading a book.

  He smiled at the fetching picture she made, demure, pretty, and sweet. How many men would give their sword arm for a silent woman to grace their home? She’d make a perfect wife for any man weary of chatter and fuss.

  He looked at her slender figure, her long, delicate neck, the way the sun spilled through the window and turned her complexion to fragile porcelain. Whoever wed Gillian would have to be a strong man, powerful enough to protect such a meek lass. He’d also need to be clever, if not exactly to do the thinking for her, then smart enough to understand what she was thinking and to put it into words on her behalf. And in return, the lucky man could expect a gentle, loyal, sweet companion.

  Donal frowned. By that description, Gillian sounded more like a faithful lap dog than a wife. He sighed and wondered if she’d ever find a husband. No one had asked for her hand while they stayed in Edinburgh. She was no trouble to have at home, of course, but when he looked at Fia, he saw how happy she was in her marriage, how she’d blossomed with the right man. By comparison Gillian was a rosebud, still in need of romantic inducement to bloom. He wanted with all his heart for Gilly to be happy.

  “Who did you say was on that list of yours?” he asked Fia.

  She showed it to him, and Donal scanned it. There were at least half a dozen eligible men of fortune on the list, men he’d consider a fine match for any of his lasses, even Gillian. Especially Gillian.

  “I invited a number of these gentlemen with Gillian in mind, Papa,” Fia whispered to him.

  He smiled at her. His lasses were a close-knit group. Of course Fia would want what he wanted for Gilly. “I have the perfect costume for her, Papa. All the most demure ladies in London disguise themselves as shepherdesses when they go to a masked ball.”

  “A shepherdess?” Donal said, picturing Gillian herding a flock of balky ewes through the party.

  “Aye—something sweet and pastoral. Innocent as a lamb.”

  Donal rubbed his chin. Gillian was certainly that, he supposed.

  “Don’t worry, Papa—Gilly’s costume will be made of silk and lace instead of cambric. She’ll have a bonnet trimmed with satin ribbons instead of weeds and wildflowers, and she’ll wear velvet dancing slippers instead of going barefoot.”

  Donal tried to picture any herd lass in such a thing as that, but Fia patted his hand. “Just leave it to me, Papa. Gilly will look so pretty.”

  Donal imagined that the thorny problem of finding his shy daughter a suitable husband would soon be behind him. He looked at the guest list once again and made note of a few men he could nudge in Gillian’s direction at the party.

  A shepherdess, sweet and innocent, a wee bonny lamb. It suited her well. Aye. Fia was right. The party and the disguise would give Gillian just what was needed to see her wed.

  He sighed happily, and smiled when Gillian looked up from her book. She blushed demurely and looked away.

  Aye, he’d surely be dancing at Gillian’s wedding before the year was out.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A twig cracked and leaves rustled behind him in the darkness, and John paused. Someone was following him. The back of his neck prickled with the sensation of being watched by unseen eyes. He slowly turned and scanned the dark wood behind him, but the trees and the underbrush lay in deep and silent shadows. Anyone—or anything—could be hiding there. The night birds had gone quiet.

  John’s han
d tightened on his bow. “Come out, show yourself,” he called. Still nothing moved, but he was sure there was someone there, in a subtle patch of shadow that was somehow darker than the rest, heavier.

  With a frown, he started walking toward the spot.

  * * *

  Gillian winced as the stick broke under the heel of her boot. She saw John stop, turn his head to listen, and she stood still and held her breath. She heard his command, but didn’t move. What would she say if he caught her? How could she explain following him, watching him? She froze, hoping her black cloak would hide her, praying to be truly invisible.

  But he began to walk straight toward her, was a dozen steps away, and her throat closed.

  Then something moved behind her.

  “’Tis only me, English John.” Gillian caught her breath as an old woman stepped out from the cover of the trees close to her, walked past Gillian, and stood in front of her hiding place. Her hair was silver against the shadows, lit by the faint moonlight that filtered through the trees. Clothing as dark as Gillian’s own hid her form. She didn’t look in Gillian’s direction, though she must have known she was there.

  She saw John relax and lower his bow. “Moire. What are you doing out in the dark?”

  The old woman cocked her head. “Same as ye. Hunting. But I’m hunting plants and roots and things that can only be gathered by night.”

  John chuckled. “Do I dare ask what for?”

  “You might—but I doubt ye’d like the answer,” Moire replied tartly.

  “Do you need any assistance?” John asked.

  She drew the basket she carried closer to her chest and covered it with a fold of her plaid. “Not from ye, English John. Go hunt in another part of the wood. These plants are rare, and if ye trample them, I’ll have to wait another seven years till they’re ready to harvest again.”

  Gillian hoped that she wasn’t standing on whatever the old woman was gathering. Still, she didn’t move. She hoped John would leave, and she could slip away without him ever knowing she was there.