by Beth Trissel
That and a household of suspicious family and retainers. Neil expected his brother, Calum, would be especially difficult, and he had scant time to persuade him to their view.
At the thought of Calum, he instinctively flexed his fist in the primal memory of how they used to resolve their conflict.
Chapter Twenty-One
Hugging Margaret MacKenzie around the waist, Mora rode behind her on the gray mare. She’d prefer her own mount, but needs must. Grass rippled in the breeze and drifts of heather lined the track, partly concealed in mist. Here and there, hardy blooms still held their purple color in the sea of green. A burgundy flush tinged the leaves where they’d darkened with the advancing season.
Yellow and tawny brown shrubs also lent color to the steep hills. The faint scent of gorse drifted down to her. Stones loomed in the haze, some shaped like earth dwelling dwarfs. Others resembled sleeping giants. Well enough, as long as they didn’t awake. Her nerves on edge like a hunted doe’s, Mora’s imagination ran away with her.
Neil, limping slightly, with Fergus at his side, walked ahead of the horse as they wound down between the foggy slopes. Morning had advanced, though Mora wasn’t certain how far, only that she was chilled and her stomach churned. The swaying mare, her awkward seat, and the rough path only increased her discomfort.
Perhaps with her own horse and a proper saddle, she could better make her way to the MacDonald chapel. Her innards wound even more tightly at that grim thought. But they must go. And soon. Time was fast evaporating.
Then Donhowel came into view below them, rising from the shores of the loch on a high point of rocky ground. A watery sun battled unsuccessfully to dispel the white vapor enveloping the stone walls of the castle like a cloud. The native stone, a mellow hue on sunlit days, appeared an unwelcoming gray and cold with the damp.
The tremor darting down her spine wasn’t entirely due to the late autumn weather or the forbidding prospect of Donhowel. What would Calum say?
Worse, what might he do?
She couldn’t imagine he’d be any more hospitable than the aspect of the fortress he now ruled as new laird of the MacKenzie clan. The return of Neil, coupled with the announcement of their renewed engagement, wasn’t likely to brighten this already gloomy day. Calum possessed a temper as hotly fired as his red hair. He more closely resembled their late father in looks and temperament. Some considered him the more striking of the two brothers, but Mora had only ever had eyes for Neil.
With his dark coloring and gray eyes, Neil was the image of his bonnie mother, and like Anna MacKenzie, the steadier of her two sons, thinking before he acted. Once Neil did act, though, watch out. His fist flew every bit as hard as Calum’s. And they’d always been rivals. Only two years apart, they scrapped like twins, but without the closeness.
Mayhap they were too removed in temperament. Mora wasn’t certain why they didn’t possess greater affection for the other. At least, until her coming. She’d unintentionally wedged a chink in any hope of brotherly love.
And yet, when Neil was lost in the attack on Strome Castle Calum had appeared more glowering than usual. Somewhere inside that volatile heart of his, he must bear some fondness for his older brother. Even so, any hidden tenderness he might have was about to go up in flames. Now that Neil had come back, the rightful heir and chieftain.
Calum must step aside and offer his loyalty and support. Granted, the two Neil’s were different and yet alike in many ways. She expected the contrast between them would supersede their similarities today.
Bracing for a tumultuous welcome, she could hardly envision what lay ahead as a merry reunion. She prayed it wasn’t a bloody one.
****
Like dreaming of a place so many times it seemed real…that was how Neil felt upon his arrival at Donhowel, or was it his return?
Cobbles underfoot, he paused in the open courtyard of the bailey, buffeted by the relentless breeze. Beyond the castle walls spread the loch. White vapor rose over the deep water to meet the gray clouds above, and swirled through the trees on the shore. The raw wet blown from the loch and saturating the wind dampened his hair and face. Rain was coming, or possibly even snow.
The sights and scents surrounding Neil roused memories from the recesses of his soul, sharpened by the cry of an eagle hidden overhead. The hurried flap of wings and call of ducks emerged briefly in the mist and disappeared again. He breathed in the cold watery air, carrying with it the earthy fragrance from the veiled hills.
With an uncanny sense of déjà vu rippling through him, he walked across the stone yard with Mora. The hardness of the granite underfoot reinforced the reality of the castle. The bitter cold further sharpened his senses. He really was here.
Lengths of hair whipped around Mora from beneath the scarf and her cheeks were reddened, but her hands were gloved and she hugged the fur coat to herself. Thank heavens Mrs. Fergus had the foresight to distribute winter garb.
Though bareheaded, Neil’s coat collar turned well up at the neck, and the added length provided an extra buffer to the wind. Fergus, unaccustomed to being out of doors in any weather, let alone bad, hunched in his fedora, sweatshirt, and lined windbreaker. No doubt he longed for a top of the line hooded parka, winter boots, and steaming coffee in a thermal flask. His friend’s profound sacrifice in accompanying them wasn’t lost on Neil. Somehow, he must see to it that Fergus made it safely back to the future. As for himself, his lot was already cast, and seemingly had been a very long time ago.
Wrapped in her arisaid, Aunt Margaret made up the fourth member of their little band. No one spoke. The wind further muffled their tread across the courtyard.
So far no one from inside the castle gave any indication of detecting their approach, and they’d easily made it through the gate in the outer wall. These were troubled times. What if they’d been MacDonalds? Hadn’t Red MacDonald himself gained entry when he’d chased Mora through the passage beneath the keep and wound up in Staunton?
Calum might not realize his enemy had been within his very walls. Still, he ought to keep better watch. He had men and servants on hand. Defenses would be tightened if, when, Neil was in charge. Even his diligent dog gave no warning bark.
Something was amiss. “Where is Kiln?”
Mora spoke through chattering teeth. “Seeking for ye out in the hills. He’ll no return without ye.”
A pang of sadness shot through Neil. “Poor fellow.”
Fergus shivered in the moisture laden breeze blowing across the loch. “It’s even colder here than in those hills. The dog probably has the sense to seek shelter,” he added more sympathetically.
“True. And he hunts.” Neil recalled reading of Highlanders nicknamed Redshanks for the hue of their bare legs exposed to all sorts of weather. A product of modern life, he was not so hardened. Even in wool pants, his legs were chilled, and the torn knee flapped open.
He also remembered a reference to trews, a kind of legging the wealthier Scots wore. He should acquire a pair of trews, although he could do with those sleek long johns left in his bedroom back home.
Back home… How long would he still think of the family house in Staunton that way? How long did he have to ponder? Not long if their quest failed.
They reached the heart of the Donhowel. The foggy keep towered up above them. He paused before a heavy door set in an arched framework of stone. The writ on the ancient wood was Gaelic and must date back to the tenth century, at least. The age of the lettering tugged at him, as if his fate was written within these walls.
Fergus hunched behind him. “What does it say?”
Mora answered. “’If ye be our friend, welcome. If our foe, beware.”
An apt phrase and one Neil also could have translated, even though he wasn’t familiar with Gaelic. At least, not until now.
“Ho there!” Giving a shout, he rapped on the barred oak.
After what seemed an interminable wait, the door opened. He paid little heed to the servant girl who ushered them inside
or the maid in petticoats scurrying to announce their arrival, but strode, a hitch in his knee, through the stone entryway with his small party and up the steps to the Great banqueting Hall.
Magnificent.
Such sensations assailed him as he walked over the oak floorboards and swept his gaze around the expansive room. The narrow glazed windows, originally constructed with slanting sides for archers, allowed little light to penetrate even if the day had been sunny. Broad posts lent support to the timbered roof.
Admiration mingled present day appreciation of the architecture with the host of thoughts surfacing in his mind as he absorbed the images revealed by firelight and candles flickering in iron brackets on the walls. These beeswax candles burnt far more sweetly than the tallow ones, and were cleaner too. Only those with means could afford to use them, but the MacKenzies were no peasant band.
Pride in his clan swelled inside him and not only because of the tapers. Funny what simple things triggered his memories. Back they stole, like ghosts from the shadows, some so faint they were barely detectable, others jarringly real. He could almost reach out and seize them.
Almost.
He racked his brain to recall more…spinning back, back, back, in his mind to the faint weave of the life he’d once known. Across the chamber on the opposite wall stretched the enormous stone hearth. Heraldic crests emblazoned the intricately carved wooden mantel—
There! That nick on the upper right hand corner, wasn’t that where he’d chopped it with a sword too heavy for a twelve-year-old boy to wield?
Or had that only been a dream? He gazed intently at the long chamber, turning slowly around to take in its circumference.
Thick stone, three or four feet in depth and outlined with timber, comprised the walls. Over these were hung tapestries depicting scenes even more ancient than the time he’d returned to. Knights on horseback fighting battles of long ago. Ladies lamenting the fallen. The victorious with banners upheld. Celebratory banquets.
He raised his gaze higher. Blackened beams crisscrossed the rafters overhead. How long had they been there? It boggled the mind.
Dropping his eyes, he surveyed the long table stretched across the center of the room covered with an equally long white cloth. Resplendently carved and upholstered chairs reigned at each end of the table. Benches provided seating on either side. Had he hidden beneath that table as a child? The image of a little boy holed up under the furniture pretending he was in a cave teased the corners of his mind.
Along one wall stood a massive hutch fashioned by expert craftsmen. Here and there, Neil saw engraved Tudor period chests and high-backed settles for extra storage and seating. Granted the room was large, but the furnishings so plentiful it didn’t appear as large as it might have. To a child, however, it had been enormous, a vast playground.
This room, the castle, had the feel of a bastion that had withstood the storms of time and foul weather, impervious to destruction, as if it had been and always would be here. And deeply familiar to him, though still no more so than a vivid dream he’d often had. And yet, here he was in this Great Hall with Mora fair.
Dearest Mora, if the man he was now faded away and the man he used to be restored in his place, would that Neil adore her as utterly as he did? Was Niall heart and soul in love with her? It seemed to Neil that his former self had been smitten by her, but not as fully as he was now. Would that man cherish her as fully as she deserved?
Oddly, it grieved him to the core to think of leaving her to the care of another, even if that man was his past self. There must be a way to unite both Niall and Neil into one man.
He could only do as Betty Fergus instructed, take the vial secured in his pocket back to the chapel where it had been stolen, and pray the key in Mora’s crucifix gained them admittance to the chamber hidden below in the crypt. His family, he, had paid dearly for the theft of this sacred relic.
Revulsion ran through Neil as he envisioned himself held prisoner, and tortured in that dark hole. Thankfully, not a memory fully returned in all its horrors, but he caught the dank scent of moldering stone and human misery, and saw himself bound in the depths.
More wrenching still, the realization, that if, despite his best efforts, there was nothing he could do other than to preserve the old Niall, then he was resolved to do so in order that Mora not be left desolate. She mustn’t be deprived of them both. Perhaps the tear vial could be traded for Niall’s life.
Like thread sliding in and out of cloth and disappearing into the pattern, Neil sensed each cherished moment left with Mora slipping away. Two days, Betty Fergus had said, until the Neil he was ceased to be. And this day was fast waning. He had but one left. With ice in his veins from more than the weather, he stepped toward the beckoning warmth of the hearth. He mustn’t let dread overtake him, a disempowering emotion, but draw on the determination welling in his very soul.
The others gathered with him in front of the blaze and pocketed their gloves, except Margaret MacKenzie who had none, and held out their hands to the flames. The orange glow and homey crackle added much needed cheer to the dim, drafty hall.
Aunt Margaret gestured at several high-backed chairs comfortably positioned before the hearth, the backs inlaid with contrasting wood in a leaf and pear motif, the shaped arms semi scrolled, and the seats upholstered in crimson. That design in the chairs had intrigued him, hadn’t it? Did he recall tracing the fruit and leaves with childish fingers?
“Sit ye down and rest yer weary bones,” Aunt Margaret said. “I’ll go through to the kitchen and see about some refreshment.”
Neil gave a nod and the three of them sat where she indicated. Fergus took off his fedora and laid it in his lap. Perched on the edge of his seat, he ran his fingers over the brim, one foot tapping the floor.
No one said anything. Mora’s wide eyes spoke for her. No one removed their coats and none of them were in a relaxed mode—for good reason. Scarcely had the gracious woman padded from the chamber, when a whoop sounded in the passage outside the hall.
“Mora’s returned? The blessed saints be praised!”
Neil swiveled his head at the masculine outcry. His first impression was that his late father rushed through the doorway, though in the form of a far younger man. Loose reddish hair fell around his broad shoulders, thick, but not unkempt as The MacDonald’s had been. This fellow must run a brush over his glossy mane, even wash it upon occasion.
Part of Neil admired him, while the other part thought, Damn. Here we go.
“Holy sh—” Fergus broke off.
The newcomer rushed at Mora. “How did ye come? Where have ye been? I’ve searched hie and low fer ye, lass!” he boomed, pounding into the room. “Did The MacDonald carry ye away, the black hearted swine?”
She sprang to her feet and they all stood. Neil had the urge to spirit her away as she replied. “Nae. He chased me off and struck a blow to m’ head.”
“Did he now? He’ll answer for that attack on m’ betrothed!”
Neil tensed at the intimate term applied to Mora and felt her stiffen beside him.
Calum, as it seemed this was, tore at them in a blur of color—blazing, bursting with vitality, and Scots to the core. A red plaid, not fashioned like a kilt but draped around him and pinned together in the front with a brooch, hung over a plush gold jacket. Dark green trews covered his stout legs. He’d slung a broadsword, or claymore, at his back from the dark leather back scabbard fitted across his chest and over one shoulder. Instead of drawing a sword from his side, he must reach over his shoulder to unsheathe the long blade. But that wasn’t his immediate intent.
Like a hunter sighting a trophy elk, Calum’s blue eyes homed in on Mora. His auburn brows arched in a high V. “What in the name of Saint Peter are ye wearing?”
“A faux fur coat.”
“What?”
“A fine gift from a kind lady.”
“Oh, aye?” The fixation of Calum’s gaze on Mora accounted for the split second it took his oncoming figure
to halt in mid rush. He directed his openmouthed attention at Neil then swept his stare over Fergus. “God’s blood. Who in the—”
Mora took a step toward him. As though anticipating trouble, she extended an entreating hand. “’Tis Niall.”
Skeptical eyes bored into him. “The divil, ye say. Niall’s dead. God rest his soul.”
“Nae,” Mora countered. “He’s raring with life and stands before ye.”
“Wie his hair shorn like a great bloody ram’s? And what is the man wearing? Me lost brother has no twin to m’ certain knowledge.”
Neil stepped beside Mora. “Yet I am a twin, of sorts.”
“Indeed?” Calum narrowed glacial eyes at him. “Since when do the MacKenzies call an Englisher brother?
Neil fisted his hands, surprised at just how much that insult stung him. “I am not English,” he growled with a ferocity that sprang from a long seated resentment he didn’t even know he’d had.
Calum wrinkled his nose. “Sassenach.” He waved at Fergus. “Him too, I vow. Or worse.”
What could be worse than that slander? Neil gestured at Fergus, bristling like an offended dog. “My faithful friend, Angus Fergus.”
Calum glowered at him. “What manner of man be he?”
“A good one.” Mora removed her scarf and shook out her hair. “’Tis thankful ye should be, Calum MacKenzie. These gentlemen saved me from the wrath of the Red MacDonald and bore me back to Donhowel.”
He gave a slight, abundantly grudging, nod. “If ye say so. Aye, we are most grateful to have the return of the woman who is to wed me.”
A tremor in her voice, she said, “Calum, I cannot. I am to be the wife of Niall now that he’s come again.”
Calum’s face reddened to the shade of his mane. “This man is no Niall MacKenzie. A most distant, errant cousin, mayhap.”
“Look at him,” she entreated. “Do ye not see yer ain brother?”
