Or had he?
She recalled Iain’s bloodred face.
She rose and accepted the warrior’s arm. “Lead the way, Hamish. I’m so famished I could devour a horse.”
He grinned down at her, blue eyes flashing mirth. “I thought ye just had.”
Alena spent the afternoon exploring the Davidson stronghold and meeting the clanfolk who lived there. The incident with the stallion had spread like wildfire, and those she met eyed her with no small amount of suspicion.
Hamish never left her side—not for one moment. Iain’s orders. She hadn’t seen him since that morning and caught herself more than once wondering where he was and what he was doing.
Beyond the stable lay the archery butts and a large training ground where the clan’s warriors honed their battle skills. These were Iain’s own additions to the Davidson demesne, Hamish told her. The place was a bustle of activity that afternoon, and Hamish barred her entrance from the area.
He was probably there.
Just as well. After witnessing Iain’s rage that morning, Alena wasn’t sure she was ready for a chance meeting just yet. Besides, she had no desire to cut short her afternoon excursion.
In every place they walked, from the kitchens at the main lodge to the farrier’s to the brew house, she spied odd stashes of weapons: broadswords, longbows with sheaves of arrows, double-headed axes, and dirks of every variety. Braedûn Lodge looked more like an armory than an estate. When she questioned Hamish about the weapons he just shrugged and said “’twas Iain’s doing.”
She recalled the arms Iain bore while hunting—two swords, a longbow, two dirks that she could see, and probably others that lay hidden on his person.
What did it all mean?
She knew not, but had a bad feeling about it. After exhausting Hamish with a bevy of questions he didn’t answer, and when the sun dipped low in the sky, she returned to her chamber to ready herself for supper.
Hetty’s attempt to coax her into donning a more lavish gown failed. The borrowed pale green wool suited her fine. ’Twas simple and reasonably comfortable, though tight about the bodice. She resisted Hetty’s bid to coif her hair, and wore it loose about her, as always, a wild tumble of honey-gold cascading to her hips.
Raucous chatter rose from the great hall as she descended the staircase to join her hosts. Or jailers. She wasn’t sure which to call them. Alena stopped near the bottom step and searched the crowd for familiar faces.
There were eight or ten tables filled with people, many of whom she had met that afternoon. Most were attired in the Davidson plaid. What few Mackintosh clansmen there were stood out among the rest.
The table closest to the hearth was raised on a dais, so the men seated there were visible to everyone in the room. Iain sat at the head, flanked by Conall on his left and another young man dressed in Mackintosh colors on his right. Hamish and Will sat farther down with a number of other warriors who sported the Davidson tartan.
Hamish smiled broadly at her while Will bore his usual, puppy-dog expression. Only Iain scowled, and when Alena met his gaze she lifted her chin in provocation. Perhaps ’twas the gown that irritated him.
The young warrior seated to Iain’s right stood and extended his hand. “Lady Alena,” he called out, “will ye join us?”
He was nearly as tall as Iain, but not as well-muscled. He had Iain’s strong features and the same stormy eyes, but the resemblance ended there. Iain was dark, with wild chestnut hair, and a brooding sort of expression. This man was blond, like her, and wore a dazzling, almost dangerous smile. He looked as if he could charm a lass right out of her shift. She was mildly shocked at her own bold appraisal of him. He could only be one man—Iain’s brother, Gilchrist.
She made her way to the dais, took the young warrior’s proffered hand, and a moment later found herself seated between him and Iain. A half dozen men offered their drinking horns. Not sure how to respond, she looked to Iain. Their eyes locked, but a sour expression ruled his face. He snatched his own goblet from the table and placed it in front of her.
“Thank you,” she said, and lifted the ale cup to her lips.
The blond warrior turned to her and said, “I am Gilchrist, second son of Colum Mackintosh.”
So, she’d been right. Hetty’s description of him was accurate. “I am happy to meet you, Gilchrist,” she said.
Across the table young Conall sat, transfixed, staring openly at her. His boyish good looks reminded her of the young Iain. A rush of tenderness overwhelmed her. She smiled at the lad and he nearly fell off the bench. Iain shot him a disgusted smirk.
“What’s the matter, Conall, laddie, have ye ne’er seen a lady before?” Gilchrist said.
“Never one so fair, truth be told.”
Iain snorted and muttered something under his breath Alena could not make out.
Gilchrist slid closer along the bench. “Nor have I.” To her astonishment, he covered her hand, which rested lightly on the table, with his own.
Aye, Hetty was doubly right. This one was a rogue.
“Enough!” Iain smashed his fist onto the table, causing trenchers and goblets to jump. Like lightning, Gilchrist removed his hand from hers.
Delight shivered up her spine at Iain’s overwrought response to his brother’s harmless flirtation. She fought to maintain a serious expression, but felt the corners of her mouth edge upward. She dared not look at Iain, and turned instead toward the other end of the table.
Hamish rubbed a beefy paw over his face, trying without success to squelch his laughter. The other warriors at the table, Mackintosh and Davidson alike, seemed vastly amused by the little scene.
’Twas time to break the ice.
She turned and caught Iain staring at her. He instantly dropped his eyes and feigned a healthy interest in the trencher of venison that rested before him.
“Iain, I—”
“All save a few call me Laird—but I shall allow ye to call me Iain, if ye wish.” He speared a hunk of meat with his dirk and raised it to his mouth.
Good God, he was arrogant. Mayhap the insufferable boy she remembered lived still inside the man.
“And you may call me Alena,” she shot back.
He halted his attack on the venison in midbite and looked at her with a kind of surprise. He started to speak but then changed his mind, his mouth opening and closing a few times—much like a trout.
Now was clearly not a good time to provoke him. They ate in silence for a while, then she thought to try again at conversation. “Your uncle is laird here?”
“Aye,” Iain said. “He is The Davidson.”
“Yet you sit at the head of his table.”
“In his absence I am responsible for his clan and his lands.”
This surprised her. “Has he no son—or daughter,” she couldn’t help adding, “to lead in his stead?”
Iain looked directly at her. “Nay. Alistair and Margaret have no issue. When Gilchrist is of age, he will be laird here.”
“But he is a Mackintosh. Surely the Davidsons will protest.”
Iain smiled—more to himself than to her, as if remembering something. “Gilchrist is a Davidson and a Mackintosh. He was raised here and is well loved by my mother’s clan. Nay, they will accept him. They already do.”
He nodded toward Gilchrist who was engaged in telling some bawdy joke to the Davidson clansmen at the other end of the table.
“I see what you mean. And what of you, Iain Mackintosh? Where lies your future?”
For the second time in as many days his eyes reached into her soul. “Elsewhere,” he breathed.
Jesu, but the man had a power over her she could not explain. In truth, he always had. She wet her lips as he held her in a gaze so intense, so personal, she felt both the strength and the will to break away slip from her.
The sounds of the diners faded from her perception as he leaned in close. His face hovered inches from hers. She tilted her chin toward him, her lips parting of their own accord in some
dreamlike expectation.
A deafening hurrah shattered her momentary enchantment and she turned to see half a dozen clansmen on their feet, horns and goblets raised. They were toasting her, she realized, and quickly collected herself.
Her heart was still thrumming in her chest when Iain stood and let go her hand. Why, she hadn’t even realized he’d been holding it!
From the other end of the room, Duncan related in a loud and very drunken voice how she had tamed the wild stallion and saved Conall from certain death. The old stablemaster embellished the facts to the point Alena was embarrassed. But the warriors echoed Duncan’s pleasure, and she accepted their praise with as much grace as she could muster.
She glanced at Conall, who was fair beaming, and then at Hamish and Will, who lifted their ale cups to her. The room settled back into its normal state of chaos and she turned her attention to Iain, who promptly took his seat.
He fidgeted in his chair and would not look at her. Finally he said, “I didna thank ye, Lady, for saving my brother today.”
She felt a tightening in her chest. Never once when they were children had he thanked her for anything. “’Twas nothing, Laird, I assure you. I am well skilled with horses.”
“So ’twould seem. But ye must promise me you’ll ne’er take such a fool’s chance again.”
“Truly, Iain, there was no danger to me.”
His eyes clouded and she watched him swallow hard. He grasped her hand and squeezed it tight. Her heart was in her throat and, had she willed it, she couldn’t have spoken a word at that moment to save her life.
“Ye…ye could have been killed.” He squeezed her hand tighter, and she thought surely she would swoon from the tenderness in his eyes.
He did care. He did!
The realization was a bolt of white heat that shook her to the mettle. Her expression, she feared, betrayed her raw emotion, her desire, her love. All that she felt for him.
“Iain, I…” She leaned closer, then felt his hand slip away.
He drew back abruptly. His eyes, which only a moment ago brimmed with tenderness, grew cold. He fisted his hands and pressed them, white-knuckled, into the table.
A well-practiced scowl, the one she was beginning to think he reserved solely for her, etched his face. “Ye will no’ go near that stallion again, d’ye understand? ’Tis a valuable animal.”
It took a full second for his words to sink in.
“D’ye hear me, woman?”
Her anger rose faster than the galloping chestnut who’d thrown her into Iain Mackintosh’s cursed path. “A valuable animal? Is that all you care—”
“Enough! I’ll hear no more on it.”
The hall went deadly quiet. All eyes were on the laird. Iain stood, shoved back his chair hard enough to send it sprawling, and stormed from the hall.
She sat there wondering what on earth had just happened. His disposition was more changeable than the weather! One minute he was concerned for her safety, and the next…
Her head spinning, she turned to Gilchrist and shot him a questioning look.
A stupefying grin bloomed on the young warrior’s face. “I’ll be damned. He’s in love.”
Chapter Five
’Twas time to find out just how much he knew.
At dawn Alena splashed some water on her face, quickly dressed, and went to the stable in search of Duncan. She found him repairing a bridle in one of the connecting buildings that housed the Davidson livery.
“Good morrow, Duncan,” she said brightly.
The old man looked up and smiled. “Ah, Alena, lass. Ye’re about early. Did ye sleep well?”
“Aye, I did. And you?” she asked mischievously, recalling his drunken state the previous evening.
“Weel, it’s no’ the lack o’ sleep, but the bluidy headache the next day that can do an old man in.”
She laughed at that, then turned her thoughts to more serious matters. “You are stablemaster here, Duncan?”
“I am,” he said, his eyes on his work.
He’d worn the Mackintosh plaid the day they’d arrived at Braedûn, but today he was dressed in leather breeches and a russet shirt. She studied the clan badge pinned to his bonnet: a cat reared up on hind legs. “But you are a Mackintosh.”
Duncan looked up from his work. “Aye, that, too.” He stared at her for a few moments, then said, “I came here with Lady Ellen and the lads—after Iain’s da was killed.”
“So you’ve known Iain since he was a boy.”
Duncan sheathed his dirk and tossed the bridle over a post. He gestured to a stool next to the one on which he was perched. “Sit here, lass.”
She obeyed and Duncan settled in, resting his leathered forearms on his thighs. “Ye see, Colum Mackintosh and I grew up together. My own da was stablemaster to his da. And when Colum and Ellen had those boys, weel, they were like my own sons.”
“I see.”
“And after…the trouble, the Davidsons took us in. I’ve been stablemaster here since. And I watch over the laddies,” he added, smiling.
’Twas now or never. She leaned forward and met his gaze. “Duncan, when we arrived, what made you call me by that name? Alena…Todd?”
He chuckled. “Are ye tellin’ me, lass, that ye are no’ Alena Todd, Rob and Maddy’s daughter?”
She nearly fell off the stool.”
You know my father? And my—”
“Aye, that I do. Rob and I raised trouble together before ye were e’en a twinklin’ in his eye.” Duncan laughed. His bright blue eyes seemed focused on things far away.
He continued in a soothing voice, as if he were telling a bedtime story to a child too anxious to sleep. “Back before ye were born, when the old lairds, the Mackintosh and the Grant, were allies, yer da and I traveled together in search o’ breedin’ stock. Och, we was green as sticks, but what a time we had. England, Spain, France…”
“France was where he met my mother!”
“Aye, and a bonnier lass there ne’er was—until now.” He looked her over with a sort of paternal approval.
“Oh,” she said, and felt her cheeks warm. “I’m afraid I was not blessed with my mother’s fair looks. She is small and delicate, and I’m…well, I’m—” She shrugged her shoulders.
“Ye are like a sorrel filly in high summer. A beauty, ye are, and many a man’s took notice.” A mischievous grin creased his wrinkled face. “Some more than others, I’d say.”
She felt her blush deepen, then remembered why she’d come. “But, Duncan, how did you know it was me? We’ve never met.”
“Och, I used to see ye in the forest playin’ with the lad.”
Her eyes widened. “It was you! I knew someone was watching us.”
“Aye, I was there.” He grinned, but then his expression sobered. “D’ye think The Mackintosh would ha’ let his son run wild about the wood wi’ nary a soul to protect him?”
“Nay, I expect he wouldn’t have.” She’d never really considered that.
“And you. Do ye think yer da ne’er missed the fact ye were gone long hours from the Grant stable?”
“I did wonder how it was he never found out. I always thought ’twas because I was so clever.”
“Clever?” Duncan laughed.
“But how did you recognize me? I was but a child when last I met Iain at the copse.”
“Och, lass, who else could ye ha’ been? There was only the one lassie who could vex Iain so.”
She opened her mouth in wonder at this admission.
“One look at the both o’ ye perched atop that stallion like a pair o’ snarlin’ wildcats, and I knew ye. And that wild mop o’ gold atop yer head was another clue.” He took her hand in both of his and squeezed it. “Aye,” he said, warmth and affection shining from his eyes. “I knew ye, girl.”
Alena wiped at her eyes, then stood and looked out a small window at the rising sun, a fireball in the east. Somewhere under its roving eye Glenmore Castle slept, and in it the man who would mold her
future to his will.
“You won’t tell Iain—about who I am?”
“He doesna know?” Duncan sat up straight.
“Nay.”
The old man stroked his white-silver beard and looked hard at her. “Ye would keep the truth from him?”
“I…I plan to tell him, but not just yet,” she lied.
“All know of how he saved ye from the Grant. And he’s mad as a hornet that ye willna make plain what ye were about.”
Alena knew this all too well. She recalled Iain’s barely controlled anger at her refusal to explain her circumstances.
“Can ye tell me, lass?”
She paced the straw-strewn floor and wouldn’t meet the stablemaster’s eyes. “Nay. Nay, I cannot.”
They were silent for a moment and Alena heard the warbling of a lark and the comforting clatter of the waking estate.
“Weel,” Duncan said, drawing out the word. “I willna press ye—but I willna lie to the laird, neither. If he asks me, I’ll tell him what I know.”
“Oh, please—let me tell him. In my own way.”
“And what of yer parents? They canna know ye’re here?”
“Nay, they do not.” Guilt and fear knotted her stomach. “They must be worried sick.” She knelt before Duncan. “I must get word to them. Can you help me?”
The old man stroked his beard again, his eyes far away. “Weel,” he began, and Alena knew he’d hatched a plan. “There’s a travelin’ priest makes the Highland circuit amongst all the old Chattan clans. He’s no’ due here for more than a fortnight yet, but he’ll pass through Davidson land on the forest road—tomorrow, methinks—headed north past Glenmore to Inverness.”
“Father Ambrose! I know him!”
“Aye, he’s the one.”
“Can he be trusted?” she asked.
“Och, lassie, he’s a priest.” Duncan stood abruptly and Alena heard his bones creak. She rose and followed him to the door. “I’ll send Gavin out on the morrow to meet him. Ambrose will get word to yer da that ye’re safe and here with us.”
The Mackintosh Bride Page 6
