Enchanted by the Highlander

by Cornwall, Lecia

  “And Angus Mor’s Annie?”

  She squinted up at the sky and sniffed the wind, just to be mysterious. “Her pains will start the day after tomorrow. She’ll have a lass at last, just as she wants.”

  “Angus wants another son.”

  “Mayhap he does, but it’s for the goddess to decide, not him.” Moire followed him into the stable. “And ye? How are ye tonight, English John?”

  He glanced at her. “Did you really come to ask after my health?” He crossed to check the tack that hung on pegs on the wall.

  “Aye. I’ve been wondering what’s ailing ye.”

  He tossed a bridle onto a bench with a clatter. “I have work to do, Moire. What is it you want?”

  She tilted her head. “I want a lot of things, but just now I want to know what it is that ye want.”

  He frowned as he grabbed a bucket and filled it with oats, not bothering to reply. She cackled and leaned on the edge of a stall. “I think I know. I’ve seen the way ye look at Fia’s bonny wee sister. Ye’ve never looked at Elspeth or Rhona or Effie like ye look at her, and they’re all as bonny, and willing to have ye any way they can get ye. But with Gillian MacLeod it isn’t lust, is it? It’s a different need. Ye want to see yourself when ye look into her eyes, ye want her to look at ye the way Fia looks at Dair.”

  He felt his heart kick at his ribs, and anger and regret pricked at him. “What the devil are you prattling about, old woman? Shouldn’t you be mixing a potion or poulticing a wart somewhere?” He ran his hand down the nearest garron’s leg, checking the creature’s fetlocks. But Moire stayed where she was, smiling knowingly at him, so he changed the subject. “Angus will be in charge while I’m gone.”

  “Aye.”

  “I’ll be back within the month.” He began to gather weapons and gear, ready to load in the morning. “Dair will be home by then.”

  Moire folded her arms over her thin chest. “And the lass?”

  “Mistress MacLeod will be safely delivered to the arms of her beloved, wedded and bedded by then.”

  Moire made a sign in the air with her fingers. “If that’s what’s meant to be.”

  He sent her a level look. “Is that straight from the lips of your goddess?”

  She grinned. “Perhaps the goddess is leaving it up to you—and the lass. She wants to see what you’ll do, if you’re brave enough . . .”

  He glared at her. “Enough conjuring. I am nothing more than a servant, her escort, just like the MacLeods who are accompanying her.”

  “Ah, but they don’t look at her the way you do, and she doesn’t make sheep’s eyes at them.”

  He glared all the harder to prove to Moire that she was wrong and he was immune to Gillian MacLeod’s charms.

  Moire smirked at him as if she could see into his very soul, read Gillian MacLeod’s name there by mystical augury.

  He pushed past the old woman and walked out the postern gate to the cliff path to get some air. He stood looking down at the sea, felt the dizzy pull of the waves, the queasy edge of nauseating memory that always struck him when he looked at the sea. He remembered being on a ship in a storm, helpless, holding the hand of his own brother as the terrible wound in Daniel’s chest festered, drained the life from him. There was nothing he could do but watch, count Daniel’s labored breaths as the ship tossed on seas determined to tear it to pieces. He’d wished—oh, God, he’d wished for his brother’s death, prayed for it. He’d been sick himself, had nearly died . . . Had Moire’s cruel, capricious goddess seen that? Nearly six years had passed since he’d been on that ship, and it had been five years since he’d been disowned, found Dair in an English gaol, and came to Carraig Brigh, but he felt the pain again, as sharp and agonizing as when it was new.

  Then the wind shifted, and the scent of roses washed over him, and the image of Gillian in the moonlight came roaring back like a flood tide, and the breeze whispered soft soothing little sighs in his ears. He felt frustrated desire rise to overlay guilt and grief.

  He was not worthy of her, didn’t deserve the happiness his brother had missed out on. His father had said just that, when John returned to seek absolution, share the terrible burden of grief, but there was none of that.

  There’d been one way to make amends, but he’d refused it.

  He shut his eyes. He didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to feel the terrible events of the past tearing him apart again.

  He turned away from the sea and strode toward the dark sanctuary of the wood.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  John rode ahead of her, his back as stiff as a pike. He hadn’t said good morning, or even looked at her before they rode out. He’d let Callum see to her.

  Was it any wonder? The MacLeods had closed around her, formed a protective circle that excluded John. Though John understood Gaelic, her men did not include him in their conversation. It was like having a wall between them, a border. Gillian had no intention of spending the entire journey listening to her kinsmen tell the same exaggerated stories and jokes about how brave, strong, and clever they were. At least they saved the ones about their prowess with the lasses until she was out of hearing—or almost—mindful of her shyness. Surely they knew her better than that. She’d been born and bred in the Highlands, the same as they had.

  When she overheard Keir telling Ewan in a whisper that could have been heard a mile away how he’d kissed Katie MacLeod in a barn at a ceilidh, she recognized the same tale he’d told Tam two hours earlier. Gillian kneed her garron forward and squeezed between the two Highlanders to catch up with John. He barely glanced at her before he turned back to scan the track ahead.

  “It isn’t safe for you up here. You should be with your escort,” he said.

  “Aren’t you part of my escort?”

  He frowned and didn’t reply. He nudged his horse to ride faster, and she did the same, keeping pace. “We can’t spend the whole journey in silence. What shall we talk about?”

  “I don’t wish to talk,” he said crisply.

  She ignored that. “We could talk about the lovely weather we’re enjoying, or the scenery, or the fine, fresh Highland air,” she suggested, though low clouds hung over them.

  The sky opened so suddenly she gasped at the icy water against her skin.

  Lachlan and Tam rode forward at once with an oiled cloth to hold over her. John looked at her with one brow raised. “What were you saying about the weather? And it’s impossible to see the scenery through the rain, and the fine, fresh Highland air smells of wet horses and sodden wool.”

  She peered out from under her canopy, tempted to laugh, though he didn’t look amused. He was wet through, his blond hair dark against his brow. He slicked it back out of his eyes, and the rain poured down his face, dripped from his jaw. She bit her lip, awareness humming in her veins.

  “It’s just a summer shower. It won’t last long,” she said, but he spurred his horse forward again, leaving her with Tam and Lachlan, and the silence resumed.

  * * *

  John had thought her pretty by moonlight and candlelight, but she was beautiful in the rain. Before the MacLeods could cover her, rain had soaked her hair and turned her skin to wet silver. Droplets beaded on her eyelashes, and her eyes were all the greener for being surrounded by the wet leaves, moss, and pine of the forest. She looked like a fairy nymph. If the MacLeods hadn’t gotten there first, he’d have wrapped her in his own cloak, though it had been as instantly soaked as everything else in the downpour. He squinted up at the sky, looking for a break in the clouds, saw blue sky ahead, and rode on. They were mere miles from Carraig Brigh, only hours into their journey.

  Ten more days . . .

  The rain slowed them, and they made camp in the hills the first night. John wondered if Gillian had ever slept on the ground before, wrapped in her plaid like an ordinary Highland lass. Probably not. She was used to soft beds, warm blankets, and the protection of strong walls.

  Her escort efficiently saw to everything. One man tethe
red the garrons and fed them. Another found enough dry firewood under rocky ledges to start a fire. Two others tied ropes to trees and draped them with plaids to make a private shelter for Gillian. Another set out bannock and dried beef, and gathered water from a stream. The last man scouted the area around the camp for danger and took the first watch.

  Given Fia’s warning about her sister’s delicate nature, John expected Gillian to shiver until her teeth chattered, or to refuse to eat the tough dried meat, or to complain about the chill in the air and demand another blanket. Instead, she was as calm and quiet as she’d been in her sister’s hall. She slipped into her makeshift shelter to change into dry clothes and emerged in a simple russet gown, looking every inch the Highland lass. She added her wet plaid to the line strung near the fire, where it steamed with everyone else’s as it dried.

  She took a place among her men on the ground beside the campfire. She drank the water from the same container as her clansmen, ate her cold supper, and smiled as she did so. She used the dirk in her sleeve to cut kindling with deft, sure strokes. She didn’t blush when her clansmen belched after their meal or left the circle to relieve themselves in the dark beyond the firelight.

  John sat with his back against a tree, slightly separate from the MacLeods. He felt Gillian’s eyes on him from time to time, though he avoided looking at her. She was silent as her kinsmen conversed in low tones. They cast sly glances in John’s direction, and he heard their laughter and knew some of their jokes were at his expense. It didn’t matter. He was used to being an outsider. He shut his eyes and pretended to sleep, though he was too aware of Gillian to do so.

  He heard her rise, murmur good night, and slip into her shelter.

  John stared at the cloth walls that enclosed her. Was she cold? Was the ground too hard? Was she afraid?

  It wasn’t his place to ask, or care.

  As the moon rose and the stars came out, the man on watch was replaced by one of the others, and one by one the MacLeods rolled themselves in their plaids and lay down to sleep.

  Still John lay awake. He imagined meeting Gillian’s groom, having to smile at the man as he led Gillian to him, gave her to be that man’s lawful wife, to have and to hold. He was probably a man so broad and handsome he put her MacLeod kinsmen to shame. He hadn’t bothered—or wanted—to listen to the gossip at Carraig Brigh about her groom. He wondered now. Did she love him? Did he love her? Not that it mattered to him, of course.

  His ears pricked when the woolen folds of her shelter parted, and Gillian slipped out of her bower in the middle of the night. Her soft footsteps seemed as loud as thunder in the silence, but her guards lay snoring peacefully as she stepped over them and walked into the dark forest.

  It wasn’t safe in the wood in the dark, and John was on his feet in an instant. He’d keep a discreet distance, wait for her, make sure she didn’t meet a wildcat or any of the other dangers that lurked in the Scottish woods at night.

  “She’s got her dirk,” Callum MacLeod said in a low voice from where he was sitting in the shadows on watch. “And her bow.”

  “I don’t intend to harm her,” John said sharply, but Callum chuckled.

  “I’m no’ worried about that. She might harm ye. She’ll be back.”

  John stared into the dark wood where she’d disappeared as Callum watched him with a half smile. John went back to his rocky bed.

  It seemed hours, but at last John heard the soft crunch of footsteps, and Gillian appeared. She nodded to Callum silently, set a brace of rabbits down by the banked fire, and went back into her tent.

  John looked from the dead coneys to Callum, who grinned. “Gilly hunts when she’s angry or worried or when her sisters have been bossy with her, which they often are,” he told John.

  “Her sisters aren’t here. Shouldn’t you ask what’s vexing her?”

  Callum shrugged. “Nay. We’ll have a fine breakfast in the morning. If she’s truly fretting about something, we’ll eat like lairds for the rest of the trip. If we ask, she’ll just say there’s naught to worry about.”

  John stared at the rabbits and tried to imagine gentle Gillian nocking an arrow and firing it with deadly intent.

  Delicate, Fia had said. Shy. But she wasn’t. Not in the ways it mattered. He lay down again and slept at last, but he dreamed of Gillian aiming her arrow at him and letting it fly.

  He woke to the smell of roasting rabbit, and while the lads were very appreciative of the meat, not one of them asked where it came from.

  * * *

  Gillian busied herself folding plaids and preparing to ride out. She’d caught the coneys and cooked them, too, with wild thyme she’d collected when she went down to the stream to bathe as the sun rose. She’d seen the surprise on John’s face, and it made her smile. He probably had no idea she’d caught the game.

  But when they mounted to ride out, he rode next to her. “Will your husband appreciate a wife who can kill enough rabbits in the dark to feed six men?”

  She felt her smile slip a little. Of course he wouldn’t. Sir Douglas would expect his wife to be a lady, the kind of woman who’d instruct the cook what to prepare for dinner, not go out and kill it herself. There’d be no hunting in the city, no wild woods to prowl, no place to be alone with her thoughts. She looked around at the mountains, the tall trees, the shining burn that wound through the wood beside the track, and knew she’d miss the Highlands.

  She didn’t reply to John’s question, but rode by his side in silence, knowing he was looking at her with speculation. Did he think her unwomanly? In ten days—nay, nine—it wouldn’t matter.

  “Where did you learn to hunt?” he asked. “Did your father teach you?”

  “No, of course not. He has ghillies and sealgairs—huntsmen—to provide game for his table.”

  “Then you do it for sport?”

  She sent him a sideways glare. “What would be the point of killing something for sport?”

  John shrugged. “Gentlemen do it in England all the time. They have shooting parties and fox hunts.”

  She glanced at him. “Did you—do you—hunt for sport?”

  “I was raised to it,” he said. And he’d once hunted for commerce, trapping beaver, lynx, and fox for their pelts to make his living in the wilds of the New World, near Hudson Bay.

  “I understand that the English keep hungry folk from hunting for their food, that they hang those who take the game they’d hunt for sport,” she said tartly.

  “Aye, that’s true. In England, poaching is a crime. It’s theft.”

  “Even to feed one’s children?” she asked.

  He frowned, colored slightly. “In Scotland, men reive cattle, burn, pillage, and steal. Does that not lead to hungry children?”

  She raised her chin another notch. “Not my father. He’d punish such men, hang the reivers.”

  He glanced at her. “And how do the families of those men eat?”

  She looked away. It was precisely why she’d learned to hunt. Her father had hanged five men he’d caught reiving his cows. The cattle had been returned, and still he killed them as an example, a warning. Their families were left with no one to provide for them.

  So Gillian learned to snare rabbits and fowl. She gave the food to the widows and wee ones. She’d already made Callum promise to do it for her now she would no longer be there, when she was in Edinburgh, and Sir Douglas’s wife.

  Suddenly the idea of her marriage vexed her, and she frowned. She glanced at John, saw him staring at her, waiting for an answer to his question. She didn’t have one. Her father wouldn’t understand. Nor would her sisters, and certainly Sir Douglas would not approve. She was as proud a Scot as anyone, but not when foolish actions like reiving were called traditions, and helpless folk suffered for the sake of pride. Of course, if those women and children had known it was the MacLeod’s daughter who provided their meat, they’d not be grateful. They’d spit in her face.

  She’d soon be bound by her husband’s rules, forced to a
bide by correct behavior and manners for the rest of her life. It would be an ornamental, useless existence as the pretty young wife of a man in his dotage, his to be proudly kept and displayed the way some men held works of art or porcelain figurines.

  She turned her horse and headed off the track. “Where are you going?” John asked.

  “I need a moment to myself.” She rode between the ferns and the trees until she was out of sight.

  “Gillian?” she heard John calling her, but she ignored him. She dismounted by the burn, knelt to drink, knew that Tam and Callum and the others would leave her be for a few minutes.

  She heard the crack of a twig and looked up into the eyes of the stag on the other side of the wee stream. It was fine and fat and young. It would feed a family for a good many weeks. There were no does with him, no one depending on him. Gillian slowly unhooked her bow from her saddle and took aim. “Forgive me,” she said to the deer and let the arrow fly.

  * * *

  John scanned the woods where Gillian had disappeared. The MacLeods dismounted and took advantage of her absence to relieve themselves as well, unconcerned. “Shouldn’t someone have gone with her?” John asked.

  Ewan MacLeod laughed, and Tam raised one carrot-red eyebrow. “She only wants a moment of privacy. She’ll be back, and if there’s trouble, she’ll—”

  A sharp whistle split the air. All five MacLeods were on their feet at once, drawing their swords and dirks and running into the undergrowth. John followed, his heart in his throat. He pictured a wildcat holding her at bay, or a wild boar, or a wolf—she’d be terrified.

  They found her standing in a small clearing near a stream, waiting calmly.

  She nodded to two of the MacLeods and pointed, and soon they were splashing through the small burn to the opposite bank.

  Tam nudged John hard in the ribs. “Our Gillian shot a deer.”

  John gaped at her. She blushed and smiled shyly. “We can stop at a farm, offer the meat in exchange for a night under a roof,” she explained.