by Jessi Gage
“Aye.” Darcy’s voice brightened with pride as he followed her gaze and said, “’Tis my mill and my da’s and grandsire’s before me. My home overlooks the sea. There.” He paused in pulling the wagon to point to the left of the windmills where a two-story house stood dark and alone at the crest of the rise. Now that he mentioned the sea, she detected a trace of salt in the air past the musk of two dozen male bodies in dire need of bathing.
She sighed with longing as the briny scent reminded her of childhood trips to the Georgia coast with her parents. She would see them again, she promised herself. Box or no box, she would find a way.
“It’s lovely,” she said, cheered with hope and determination.
Darcy fixed her with an intense gaze, picked up the handles and continued on.
“Do you have a large family?” she asked to cover how his gaze unsettled her. The history loving part of her also craved connection with this warrior from the past. She wanted to learn from him while she had the chance. Her grandmother had been from the northern Highlands. And now, here she was, face to face with the very land to which she attributed a quarter of her blood. What an amazing opportunity!
Darcy shook his head. “My mother died long ago, and my da died four years back. My brother has his own cottage in the village where he lives with his wife. Now ’tis only me at Fraineach.”
“I live alone, too,” she said without thinking. She regretted it immediately. Women didn’t live alone in this time. They lived with their families until they got married. They obeyed their fathers until it was time to obey their husbands. Women’s lib wasn’t even an embryonic thought.
“Are ye a doxie?” he asked quietly. “I wouldna hold it against you if so.”
She didn’t know whether to sock his arm in offense or to laugh. She settled for a wry smile. “No. I’m not a prostitute. But I do work for a living. Many women do where I come from.” How should she put what she did for a living? “I work in a museum, a place for taking care of historical artifacts and making them available to the masses.”
“Ye’re Catholic, then?” he asked, confusion plain in his voice.
Oh, masses. “No, I’m not really anything religious. By masses, I meant the people, you know, the general population. I take care of old things and tell stories to the people so they can understand history.”
“Ah. Ye’re a teacher,” he concluded. “’Tis a fine occupation if a woman must work.”
She didn’t argue. Instead, she gazed up at Ackergill Castle as their party wended through what turned out to be an impressive agricultural valley. Up ahead, the keep glowed like a beacon above the cottages, some of which emitted their own welcoming lights.
A glance around at the men showed dirt-smudged faces lifting and brightening. Even the walking wounded kept up as the joy of homecoming quickened the party’s pace. To her astonishment, the man with the wounded thigh limped past in an awkward jog, having made it the whole five miles or so with nothing but the help of a crutch pulled from Archie’s wagon.
“I need to see the cart back to Archie’s,” Darcy said, “but my brother’s cottage is just here.” He paused near a path branching off from the dirt road and tipped up his chin to scan the returning men.
“Edmund!” he called.
A reddish-blond mane came into view as the party of warriors disbanded into the village. She hadn’t noticed him before, but now he stood out to her for his resemblance to Darcy. Around six-feet, Edmund was tall compared to everyone except Darcy and Aodhan, and every bit as muscled as his brother, though his lesser height made him appear bulky where Darcy looked as sleek as he did strong. The two men shared the same square chin, sharp cheekbones, and brown eyes, but Edmund’s nose was broader and crooked with a scab of blood over the bridge.
Darcy either didn’t notice the newly broken nose or deemed it unworthy of mention. Without preamble, he said, “Watch the woman, will you?”
Edmund turned wary eyes on her. “This the one the men are talkin’ about?”
“Aye. Found her at Berringer’s field. She isna clan, and she is my responsibility.”
Edmund raised his eyebrows at his brother, then looked long and hard at her.
She offered a tentative smile. “My name is Melanie,” she said, curbing the impulse to hold out her right hand for a modern shake. “I’m not an English spy,” she added for good measure.
Edmund gave her a wry half-smile. “Well, then, I suppose I can bring you into my home and not fear for the safety of my wife and bairn.” Turning to Darcy, he said, “Will ye be along for sup after tending to Richie?”
Richie. The man in the cart with the lung wound. The man whose rattling breaths had ceased about half an hour into the walk. She’d tried to not think about what the sudden silence meant. Tried and failed.
“Aye,” Darcy answered with a grim nod. Without another word, he hauled the cart away, leaving her with Edmund.
“This way,” Edmund said as he led her to a stone cottage with shutters thrown open to the crisp night air. Golden lantern light flooded out, along with the cries of a young infant. Gesturing for her to enter before him, he said, “So if ye’re no’ a Sassenach spy, are ye any other kind of spy, or did ye mean ye’re no spy at all?”
“I’m not a spy for England or any other country,” she said, taking in the warm and tidy main room with its peat fire and sturdy table set for a cottar’s dinner. The fragrance of cooked meat and onions instantly made her mouth water. The infant cries, coming from a room with an open door at the back of the cottage, quieted, and the gentle cooing of a nursing mother drifted out to cinch the cozy atmosphere.
“Well, that’s a relief,” Edmund replied. “The laird would likely skin my arse for offering ye hospitality if ye turned out to be any kind of spy.”
The comment was good-natured enough, but she caught an undercurrent of something darker. A sentiment for the laird, perhaps, that dipped past healthy respect and into fear? She recalled from what little she knew about feudal Scotland that clan justice ran the gamut from fair to brutally oppressive, depending on the temperament of the laird.
“What kind of man is your laird?” she asked, suddenly nervous about meeting this man who insisted on interviewing strangers before they could be offered hospitality.
Edmund ran a hand over the back of his neck as he made his way to a basin of water set on the floor by the fire. Shucking his cork-soled shoes and knee-high hose, he stepped into the basin otherwise fully clothed, and unabashedly splashed water up between his legs. Though his kilt hid his hands, she could tell he was washing himself, and she blushed at the realization that there were no Calvin Klein boxer briefs under the brown wool. Edmund wore a blocky linen shirt under his kilt, rather than go bare-chested like Darcy. As he answered her, he let down the wool wrapped over his shoulder and pulled his dirty shirt over his head to throw it on a stool by the hearth.
Yup, every bit as muscled as his brother. She averted her eyes from the attractive and very married Highland warrior, looking instead toward the door across the room where the cooing had changed to a soft Gaelic lullaby.
The tinkling sounds of hurried bathing accompanied Edmund’s voice. “Steafan is a fair but suspicious man. He isna apt to be as welcoming to strangers as his sire was before him, especially since the ambush at Creag Kirk four years ago. And he doesna need to be, so far north.”
The rush of agitated water meant Edmund was stepping out of the basin. The faint rustling of fabric told her he was pulling his shirt back on. She faced him again.
“Ackergill is about as likely to see travelers passing through as the Orkneys. ’Tis not like Inverness, where there are inns and taverns. In the rare event Ackergill sees a traveler come through, he’ll be more likely to find himself in the keep dungeon than be offered a room for the night. That way Steafan can ensure the trespasser will do no treachery to the clan.”
A chill snaked up her spine at the warning in Edmund’s tone. “Is that what I am? A trespasser?”
&n
bsp; “Mayhap ’tis how Steafan would view you had Darcy not claimed responsibility for ye. And bonny as ye are, if he hadna done it, another surely would have. No. Ye’ll nay be treated as a trespasser. But if ye do harm to the clan, ’twill be Darcy who pays for it, and Steafan willna hold back simply because he’s our uncle.”
Her mouth went dry at the thought of Darcy meeting with any kind of medieval punishment. “Well then, it’s a good thing I don’t mean your clan any harm. What happened at Creag Kirk to make your laird so suspicious?”
Edmund eyed her for a long second and then nodded. “Ackergill lost twenty able-bodied men to the Gunn and the MacBane,” he answered as he stalked to the room where his wife and baby were. “All because a Sassenach spy pitted the northern clans against each other to keep us from joining the fighting at Flodden.” He went into the room and shut the door.
She gasped. Flodden. Four years ago would be 1513. The famous Battle at Flodden Field. The country had lost 5,000 men, referred to as the Flower of Scotland, to the English, along with one of the Jameses–was it James the III or the IV?–she couldn’t remember. But she did recall that nearly every clan in the country lost men in that battle. It made sense that England would send spies to try and distract some clans from James’s call to fight down at the border.
Well, that explained the general attitude toward English spies she’d encountered.
She’d volunteered to head the Scottish Immigrants’ exhibit at the museum to get in touch with her Scottish roots. Looks like she got more than a touch. Run over by a steamroller was more like it. A laugh bordering on hysterical bubbled out of her throat.
Muffled voices filtered through the closed door as Edmund greeted his wife. When less than a minute later, a very male groan accompanied the rhythmic creaking of a piece of furniture, she gaped. Not much for preliminaries, sixteenth century Scotsmen.
Ignoring the sharp grunts of a male engaged in intercourse and the unsurprising lack of happy female noises, she retreated to the farthest place in the cottage from that door, which happened to be the workbench and raised stone hearth that formed the kitchen. She wasn’t about to waste an opportunity to study a late-medieval Scottish cottage.
Just as she held up to the lantern light a sharp cleaver with a wooden handle polished from years of regular use, Darcy ducked in the front door. At the same time, Edmund shouted, “Aye! Christ, Fran, take my seed, lass. Take it. Aaarrghhhhh!” Then barely audible, “Glorious, woman. Ye’re glorious.”
Darcy paled as his wide eyes jumped from the closed bedroom door to her.
“If I had to listen to them go at it for another second, I was going to put myself out of my misery,” she quipped, wagging the cleaver. When his eyes went even wider, she said, “Joking, Darcy. I was joking.” She put down the cleaver and raised her hands.
His eyes relaxed and the corner of his mouth lifted. He came to the workbench and picked up the enormous blade. “Well, so long as ye arena using it, mayhap I’ll carve the roast.”
* * * *
Okay, so maybe she’d been a bit hasty in her dismissal of medieval Scottish fare. Edmund’s wife, an auburn-haired, generously-endowed, rosy cheeked tornado of a woman, had prepared for “her lads” a decadent meal of roasted mutton, a buttery round of bread she called bannock, and a stew of onions and seaweed boiled in spiced milk. The seasoning was perfect, and the meal was both satisfying and nutritious.
“Now, what are we going to do about a dress for you?” Fran asked as she busily cleared the table and set the dirty wooden trenchers near the still-full bath basin. “Ye canna meet the laird in these rags.” She pinched Melanie’s cashmere-encased arm and stopped dead in her tracks. Fingering the material, she commented, “Hmm, mayhap they werena rags to start with. This is a fine woolen, if an odd color, but ’tis no good now, what with all this Gunn blood on it. I’d lend ye one of mine,” she said as she guided Melanie to the basin and whipped her sweater over her head before Melanie realized what she was doing. “But ye’re inches shorter and I havena time to tack up a hem if ye wish to see the laird before midnight. I’m terribly slow at sewing. I wonder…”
Melanie seized on her distraction and snatched her sweater back to hold in front of her chest. “Um, the men are still here–”
Melanie’s protest died on her lips as she met Darcy’s eyes. He’d had his head bent in whispers with Edmund until her sweater had been removed. Now he stared at her and nodded absently at whatever Edmund was saying. His gaze caressed her bare shoulders, pausing at her satiny bra straps with their little plastic clips that must be completely foreign to him. A flush warmed her skin, and it wasn’t all from embarrassment.
Fran turned her energetic gaze on Darcy. “Do ye suppose your mother’s dresses might fit?” she asked, oblivious to the heat in his gaze and the unsettling effect it was having on Melanie. “Fetch ye one or two when ye run up to Fraineach. Well, what are ye waiting for?” she demanded. “Go on with ye. Ye canna go to the laird in bloodied plaid.” Fran snapped her fingers in front of Darcy’s face until he stopped staring. He towered over the woman, yet he let her herd him out the door like a bashful boy being kicked out of the kitchen for sneaking sweets before dinner.
Without missing a beat, Fran pinned her husband with her glare. “And shame on you, Edmund Alexander MacFirthen Keith, for bathing before offering the clean water to our guest.” Since ye’re fed and cleaned, make yourself useful. Go fetch some slippers from Hannah. She’s got wee feet like Melanie. Then go up to Fraineach and help Darcy.”
In the next heartbeat, Fran was bent at Melanie’s feet, slipping off her loafers. “Come, now. Let’s get ye out of these clothes and washed up. The laird won’t wait on ye all night.”
Melanie submitted to the woman’s efficient ministrations, because she didn’t have a death wish, and clearly to defy Fran was to court a painful death. Beyond raising her eyebrows at Melanie’s rounded belly when she’d peeled off the maternity-paneled skirt, she made no comment, much to Melanie’s relief. It was awkward enough standing nude in a basin of used, room-temperature bathwater with a stranger rinsing blood and mud off of her, without having to explain being single and pregnant to a sixteenth-century Scottish woman. Fran did not let her get away with being clean-shaven, however.
“Bare as a newborn babe ye are,” she said, crouching and frowning at Melanie’s shins. “Under your arms, too. Where did ye say ye were from?”
“Uh, I’m from across the sea,” she said.
“Ah, Hasburg, aye? The Netherlands?” she added at Melanie’s blank look. “Must be the Spanish influence. Odd, them Spaniards. I’ve always said so.”
“Sure, the Netherlands.” Why not? It was a lie, but it would be a lot easier to explain than the truth. Besides, she was shivering too much to expound, and Fran seemed content to make clucking noises and general disapproving remarks about impractical Spanish fashion. To distract herself from the chill, Melanie interrupted Fran. “So, it sounds like the laird is expecting me?” She made it a question.
Fran made a throaty sound that might have been the equivalent of a modern-day Mm-hm. “Steafan will have heard all about the skirmish, and it seems plenty of men laid eyes on you. The laird will ken about ye by now, and he’ll be expecting ye, all right.” A wary note crept into her brisk burr, reminding Melanie about her earlier conversation with Edmund.
“Is there anything I should be aware of before meeting the laird?” she asked. “I mean, besides the fact that he’s suspicious of outsiders and might punish Darcy if I do anything to harm the clan?”
Fran froze as she searched a drawer. “Punish Darcy?” She stood up straight, a startled look on her face. “He didna claim responsibility for ye before an elder, did he?”
“Is Aodhan an elder?”
“He is,” Fran said with a twinkle in her eye that Melanie didn’t understand. She draped a linen blanket around Melanie’s shoulders and flitted around the cabin, humming to herself.
Frowning at Fran, Melanie stepped out o
f the basin to dry herself before the fire. “Am I missing something?”
Fran jumped, as if Melanie’s question had pulled her from a private thought. “Dinna fash yourself.” She looked down at Melanie’s abdomen, which peeked through the folds of the blanket, and her face split into a broad smile. “All ye need ken is that Darcy willna abide your harm. Come, now.” With a spring in her step, she led Melanie into the bedroom where her baby dozed with his little fists up by his ears on the rumpled bed. “I’ve got a shift ye can use that I can trim the hem from, but we’ll have to wait on the men for a proper dress. Now, how shall we do your hair? Up, I think. With a crown of heather. Aye. Darcy likes heather.”
With Fran on a mission, Melanie had no choice but to follow her and weather the bustling wind of her energy. She dressed Melanie in a long cotton slip and began twisting and piling her hair into a graceful up-do. Laird Steafan might not be known for his hospitality, but Melanie could find nothing to complain about when it came to the generosity of his cottars. In fact, Fran seemed positively delighted to have Melanie disturbing what would likely otherwise be a peaceful night with her husband and baby.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” she said to Fran, meeting her eyes in the small bronze mirror on the chest of drawers. “I really appreciate everything you’re doing for me.”
“Nonsense,” Fran said, her smile dimpling her cheeks. “It’s not hospitality. We’re practically family.”
Chapter 5
Darcy had been punched in the gut plenty, but never had he been nearly doubled over by the mere sight of a woman. Malina came out of Edmund and Fran’s bedroom dressed in his mother’s finest gown, which he’d plucked from the wardrobe up at Fraineach after deciding with no small amount of self-flagellation that he’d go through with Aodhan’s plan. The gown draped her from shoulder to floor in forest-green velvet. Gold ribbon wrapped her just below her bosom in a high waistline that hid the gentle swell of her belly. Ivory silk covered her arms and graced her neckline, which was low and so tight her creamy bosom pressed at the silk as if impatient to burst free.
