When the Laird Returns

by Karen Ranney

  “The bastard tried to take the land again?” Hamish asked gruffly. “I think this Magnus Drummond needs to be taught his own boundaries.”

  “And soon,” James added.

  “I’ll volunteer to help.” Brendan grinned, as if in anticipation of the encounter.

  A formidable group, the MacRae men. Iseabal couldn’t help but wonder if her father suspected the degree of his own danger. And her own? Alisdair’s tale had been filled with omissions, especially concerning their marriage.

  Giving in to an impulse, she placed her hand on Alisdair’s shoulder. Absently, he reached up and covered her hand with his, a wordless gesture of support. His other hand began idly stroking her knee as if he sensed her feelings of dread.

  “How did you learn I’d come to Gilmuir?” Alisdair was asking.

  “The countess,” Brendan said. “She liked you very much, Alisdair. I think you made a conquest there.”

  “Liked?” Alisdair asked.

  “We’ve come with bad news,” James interrupted before Brendan could answer. “The countess died two days after we arrived at Brandidge Hall.”

  Iseabal bent her head, overwhelmed by a quick, spearing sadness. The news was not unexpected, but all the same, Iseabal wished that she’d never heard it. Ignorance would have given her the ability to place Patricia in the wondrous setting of Brandidge Hall in her imagination, living endlessly.

  Closing her eyes kept her tears at bay, but nothing could ease the ache inside her. She felt overflowing to the brim with emotions, all of them raw.

  Alisdair was rubbing her fingers beneath his, a deliberate exploration from nail to knuckle. Iseabal traced an answering pattern against his fingertips. Memory joined them, a curious bridge that transported them from here to Brandidge Hall.

  “We’ll send the Molly Brown back to London, then,” James was saying. “There’s no point in her making the voyage to Nova Scotia when we’re here, after all.”

  Alisdair nodded.

  “How is it that you came to be wed?” James asked. Glancing up at Iseabal, he smiled, and she had the oddest thought that he, of all the MacRae men, might be the most perfectly handsome. He was the only one besides Alisdair who had the MacRae eyes. Set into his narrow face, they were dramatic and intense.

  “How did we come to be married?” Iseabal repeated, feeling oddly trapped by his friendly gaze.

  “Iseabal is Drummond’s daughter,” Alisdair said. A statement that had the effect of turning the brothers’ attention directly to her. Iseabal felt as if she’d been stripped naked and made to walk a crowded thoroughfare in Edinburgh.

  Slowly she withdrew her hand, clasping both together on her lap. Her demeanor was proper, knees at a perfect angle, feet together. The heavy silence lingered as if filled with unspoken words.

  She met each gaze separately, looking from one face to another. Even though nothing was said, their narrowed eyes and thinned lips betrayed what they thought well enough.

  Iseabal stood, knowing that if she didn’t leave this place, she would shame herself. All of the worry and fear she’d felt during the past week would come spewing out in a torrent of words and tears. Alisdair held out one hand as if to stay her, but she brushed past him and through the open cabin door.

  Walking to the stern, Iseabal cast off the rope that held the skiff. Henrietta came to stand at the rail, licking her paws and generally appearing satisfied with herself.

  “How do you do it, Henrietta?” Iseabal asked, glancing down at the cat. “Do you never wish for more of life than you have?”

  Henrietta paused in her grooming to look up, disdain in her eyes. As if to say, Iseabal thought, that a bit of fish was all she needed to be content.

  “My wife is a MacRae,” Alisdair said tightly, standing and staring at each of his brothers. “She’s been a MacRae from the day I married her and you’ll treat her that way.”

  “How can you trust her, Alisdair?” Hamish asked.

  The question jarred him, and for a moment Alisdair was stripped of words. I just do. But he doubted that was enough of an explanation for Hamish.

  “She saved my life,” he said finally, knowing that the answer was deeper than that. But surely love didn’t come that suddenly; it was nourished in decades, made solid by years of friendship, bonds of family and friends, a commonality of the past and plans for the future.

  A past? One of heritage, perhaps. Friendship had already come to their marriage. The future stretched out before them, filled with companionship. And love, he abruptly realized.

  He turned at the doorway, glancing back at his brothers. “She’s a MacRae,” he repeated. “And my wife. If you cannot accept that, then you’re not welcome at Gilmuir.”

  Leaving them, Alisdair went in search of his wife.

  “He’s got near to a hundred men with him,” the stableboy said, clutching his cap between his hands.

  Loyal to Iseabal, and complicit in her acts of freedom, Robbie had proved invaluable to Leah over the past few days. He was the one who had warned her of Drummond’s approach, and now delivered this startling news.

  Each delicate stitch seemed crimson, Leah thought, instead of the pale saffron it was. The flower petal appeared before her eyes magically, as if her hands continued to work while her mind seemed frozen.

  “He’s not stopping at Fernleigh,” the boy said.

  “He’s going to Gilmuir,” she finished for him, knowing her husband’s plans all too well. He’d sent Thomas back to Fernleigh for his money box, and at her questions, the other man had bragged to her of Drummond’s intentions.

  “MacRae’s alive now,” Thomas had said, grinning. “But he’ll not be for long.”

  “And Iseabal?” she had asked. Casually, so that Thomas would not know how much she waited upon his answer.

  “Well enough,” he said. “She’s taken him back to Gilmuir, but she’ll be freed of that place soon enough.”

  He’d grinned again, turning away.

  More than a week had passed since Iseabal had come back to Fernleigh and stood looking at her with contempt in her eyes. More than a week since Magnus had left, leaving Leah safe from his rages.

  He’d not taken the time to punish her for her words, but Leah had no doubt that Magnus would remedy that oversight upon his return.

  He’d taken his pistol. An alarming weapon, one too large to be tucked inside his vest. A curiously beautiful piece of wood and metal, made to his specifications in Edinburgh by a gunsmith of repute. How like her husband to spend his hoarded money on an instrument of death. Or on hired assassins.

  She smiled her dismissal, and the stableboy left her. Standing, Leah walked to the front door of Fernleigh. The ever-present guards were gone, summoned by Drummond to Cormech.

  Gilmuir was a place she’d never wanted to see again, the ruin of Fergus’s home reminding her too much of him.

  They’d met accidentally, at a fair near Inverness, their love a secret, not for lack of propriety or due to shame, but because his family had argued for the rebellion and hers had not. How strange that an event of such importance should have no value now.

  Why did you never say anything? Or do anything? Iseabal’s words, truthful and hurting.

  She’d not once sought to change her life until her sadness had become a habit more than a choice. Over the years, she’d been comfortable within the dungeon she’d created of Fernleigh and quietly and stoically accepting of Magnus’s abuse.

  Her life had stopped all those years ago when she’d preferred to live an existence in which Fergus was a dream, a giant angel with blazing red hair and a grin like Satan’s.

  “I did something, Iseabal,” Leah said to the air. “I prayed a path to Heaven itself.”

  But prayers alone would not solve this situation. She needed to warn Iseabal, and prevent the death of another MacRae.

  Chapter 32

  I n the few minutes elapsed since Iseabal had left the cabin, she’d entered the skiff and was halfway across the cove. What s
he lacked in skill in rowing the small boat was more than made up in determination, Alisdair realized. Irritated, he commandeered his brothers’ boat and followed her.

  “Iseabal!”

  She looked back once, frowned at him but didn’t answer.

  When he called out again she didn’t bother to turn, simply beached the skiff, and disappeared into the cave. With any luck, the men would be hauling another cask up the steps and she’d be forced to wait. But she’d accidentally timed her ascent well, he discovered upon reaching the cave. One barrel had just been lifted and another was being tied to the winch ropes.

  She had escaped while he was being forced to wait.

  Leaving the priory, Iseabal halted, startled at the transformation that had occurred at Gilmuir in the past ten days. Barracks were being erected where the English fort had once stood. The cook was commanding his encampment while Brian and the other crewmen of the Fortitude were finishing up four stone walls of a cottage built away from the other structures. Dozens of barrels were aligned along the old castle’s roofed corridor, along with extra tools. Wood was being culled from the forest and used for supports for yet another large structure, designed, she thought, to act as a community place during the time it would take to rebuild Gilmuir.

  Sound gradually eased as saws and hammers, shovels and mortaring tools, were lowered. Even the flap of laundry along a line strung from two supports grew mute, as if the wind had suddenly ceased to blow.

  Pockets of silence met her as she stood there, arms folded around her waist. The training of her childhood came to her aid as she slowly made her way past the villagers and the crew. Studiously ignoring them, Iseabal walked toward the land bridge, each step marred by the glares of men she’d thought she had come to know and strangers who hated her simply because of her birth.

  If she were truly brave, as she’d once thought, she’d turn and address them all, tell them that they were wrong to judge her by kin alone. But her courage was not renewable, Iseabal discovered. Once spent, it was simply gone.

  Her isolation would stretch out for a lifetime, a mirror of her childhood. Suddenly she couldn’t bear it. Running across the land bridge, Iseabal headed for the forest.

  Finally able to ascend the steps, Alisdair began looking for Iseabal. The crew and the villagers were looking toward the land bridge, expressions of anger on each face. As if, he thought, Magnus Drummond had strode onto MacRae land.

  Not the father, Alisdair realized, following their gaze. But the daughter. The revelation was not a pleasant one. He’d been too selfish in his thinking, believing that Iseabal’s restraint was directed toward him. What an idiot he’d been.

  Alisdair found himself suffused by two emotions—regret and irritation. Brushing aside questions and ignoring the looks of his crew, he began to run, intent on reaching Iseabal.

  Glancing over her shoulder at the sound of footsteps, Iseabal began running faster on seeing Alisdair. While she didn’t fear her husband, neither did she wish for a confrontation at this particular moment. She felt on the verge of tears and too vulnerable for detachment.

  Finding the overgrown path easily, Iseabal began following its winding course upward.

  “Iseabal!”

  She jerked, startled by the proximity of his voice.

  Desperately, she glanced from right to left, looking for a thicket or some large boulder where she might find cover. Nearly obscured by thick branches and overgrowth was an entrance to a cave, a yawning shadow and a possible refuge.

  Racing up the bank, Iseabal slipped inside. The cave was curiously intimate, graced by both darkness and filtered sunlight. The wind soughing through the trees whispered nature’s poetry, the scent of pine and earth almost welcoming.

  She peered out to find Alisdair closer than she’d thought. He stood, feet planted apart, both hands on his hips as if he commanded the forest itself.

  A moment more and he would have seen her.

  “Are you a ghost?” Alisdair called out, deliberately recalling their first meeting. In the sun-dappled shadows the pale blue of her skirt acted as a beacon against the slate walls of the cave.

  “I remember the last time we were in this forest together,” he said, taking one step closer to the incline. “We were laughing.”

  Iseabal didn’t answer him, but then, he’d not expected a response. After all, she’d taken great pains to avoid him.

  “I can understand why you might want to avoid people who are rude to you, Iseabal, but what have I done to hurt you?”

  Slowly, he mounted the sloping ground in front of the cave.

  “Perhaps I insulted you when I was senseless? Said something that you took amiss. Did I do that, Iseabal?”

  No answer.

  “Then perhaps it was a gesture. A look, a movement, some wave of hand that made you angry?”

  Another step and he was on the shelf of stone leading to the cave. The place seemed oddly familiar to him. Words from a dozen years ago slipped into his mind. “It’s a secluded place,” his father had said. “One with many memories,” he’d added, winking at Leitis.

  “I’d not pursue that, Ian,” she’d teased him back. “Not with all your sons listening.”

  “It’s where we kept the MacRae treasure,” his father explained.

  “The MacRae treasure?” Hamish had asked eagerly.

  “Not what you might think, Hamish,” his mother had corrected, brushing a hand over his curls. “Not jewels, gold, and silver, but the possessions of simple people. Those things that made life worth living.”

  “A plate with a blue-and-white pattern,” Ian had said, bringing his wife’s fingers to his lips.

  “Or a set of pipes once played by a gruff old man,” she’d added, smiling at him as her cheeks bloomed with color.

  Alisdair surveyed the entrance, turning to see what stretched in front of the cave. The pine forest had grown up around the cave opening, obscuring any view that might have once been possible of Gilmuir and the loch.

  “Now,” he said, anxious to solve a more pressing riddle than the MacRae treasure, “if I have done nothing, why are you running from me?”

  “Perhaps I don’t wish to speak to you,” she said as he stepped into the cave.

  “When is going to be a propitious time, Iseabal?” he asked dryly. “These last few days you’ve done nothing but ignore me.”

  Placing her palms against his chest, she suddenly pushed him with all her strength. He only rocked back on his heels, an action that seemed to further anger her.

  “Don’t you understand?” she shouted. “You’ve married a Drummond, and however much I might want to change that, MacRae, I can’t!”

  He shouldn’t be so surprised. Her temper had been hinted at often enough, the flash of fire in her eyes demonstrated on numerous occasions before now. But the faint light sought out the sheen on her cheeks and it was only then that he realized she was crying.

  “You’re a MacRae, Iseabal,” he said, reaching out to trap her wrists. She pulled away from him easily, took a few steps back until she was in the shadows once more.

  “Tell that to your men,” she said, wiping at her cheeks. “Or the villagers. Or your brothers. I notice you had no words to correct them.”

  “I don’t comment every time an ass brays, Iseabal,” he said, conscious that she was right; he’d not defended her as quickly as he should have.

  “Every time I see one of your men, MacRae, they stare through me as if I’m not there.”

  “I am sorry for that, and for the hurt it caused you,” he said, moving toward her. “But perhaps it isn’t solely your birth they distrust, Iseabal, but your actions.”

  “So this is my fault, MacRae? My behavior that is wrong?” she asked, folding her arms in front of her and gripping each of her elbows. The tap of her foot against the slate floor warned him that his next words should be wisely chosen.

  “It is not, Iseabal,” he said, hearing the echoes of her childhood in her question. “If my men had not tru
sted you, they wouldn’t have left you alone with me.”

  Threading his fingers through his hair, Alisdair wondered how to explain. “I’ve been with my crew through countless battles, Iseabal,” he said. “Men form bonds when they’re trying to survive. Bonds sometimes even stronger than family. I don’t know if I can explain it.” Placing both his hands on her shoulders, he drew her closer. She stiffened, but allowed him to put his arms around her.

  Leaning forward, Alisdair pressed a kiss to her forehead, an absently fond gesture that amused him. The last emotion he felt at this moment was detachment. Instead, he was irritated, even angry, both at his own actions as well as Iseabal’s.

  “Nothing matters when you’re trying to survive but the fact that a man is willing to support you, fight beside you. You don’t see his nationality or his race, don’t care about his language or his character. His appearance, his habits, his ancestry, none of these are important. Iseabal, you were in battle with my men. Rory told me what you did. You became one of them.”

  “Is that why they look at me as they do, Alisdair?” she asked, pulling away once more. “Or why they treat me with such disdain?” She began to walk away, as if wishing to keep the maximum amount of distance between them.

  “But instead of protesting, Iseabal, you chose to allow your distance to speak for you.” He turned toward her, impatient with his own inability to explain. But he was not prepared to live the rest of his life this way, with Iseabal remaining silent and cloistered in her thoughts. “What else are they supposed to think, but that you were repudiating them? I felt the same,” he added. “I can’t understand your silences or know your hidden thoughts. Am I to divine them, Iseabal? I am only a mortal man without the gift of hearing what you don’t say.”

  “Where do you get your courage, Alisdair?” she asked quietly.

  The change of topic annoyed him, but he answered nonetheless. “What makes you think I have an unending supply of it?”

  “Because I’ve never seen you afraid.”