Sins of the Highlander

by Connie Mason

  His ally had set his feet, and there’d be no budging him. “Verra well. Since ye wish it, I’ll go with ye and yours to Caisteal Dubh. And bring my men too. I should be able to muster a hundred and fifty by month’s end.”

  If Lachlan was going to have to play this hand, he might as well go all out. It would serve to cement his tie with the House of Stewart, even though he fully intended to expand his alliances with a new bride from a different clan as soon as decently possible. James Grant’s youngest was said to be a beauty.

  “Even though our clans are no’ yet bound by marriage, we are bound by our common foe,” Lachlan said. “For now and all time, may God smite the MacLaren.”

  He offered his hand to Stewart, and the man clasped it.

  “For now and all time, may God smite the MacLaren,” Alistair Stewart said. “And may He use us to do it.”

  ***

  It was a full week before Elspeth could walk unassisted, but drinking beef tea and Hepzibah’s special brews helped her grow stronger each day.

  Angus found a length of green birch and shaped it into a cane for her. She was able to transfer enough of her weight to use the walking stick to get around on her own.

  “It’ll also come in handy to use as a cudgel if ye wish to drive a point into Rob’s thick skull,” Angus said when he presented it to her.

  Everyone laughed at the time, but Rob stayed well out of range, in case she should take the suggestion to heart. In fact, he’d barely spoken to her since she asked him to forgive Lachlan Drummond. And himself.

  Hepzibah taught her to change the dressing on her thigh herself.

  “Once ye leave here, ye’ll have to do it, so ye may as well start now,” Hepzibah reasoned. When the week passed with no hint of corruption in the wound, the wise woman stitched the seeping openings closed.

  “Ye’re a fortunate lass, Elspeth Stewart.” Hepzibah lit her pipe while she and Elspeth sat on the stoop before her cottage. They were comfortably out of the wind, catching the last bit of the sun’s warmth while watching Rob and Angus preparing the boat to continue their journey. “Verra fortunate indeed.”

  “To be sure, any lass with two holes in her leg is twice blessed.”

  Hepzibah shot her a sour look. “Ye still have your leg. That’s the main thing, but I was talking about the lad.”

  Elspeth frowned at her.

  “Ye’ve the love of a fine man.” Hepzibah nodded toward Rob and followed his movement with her sharp-eyed gaze. “That makes ye fortunate beyond the lot of most.”

  “Ye’re wrong.” Elspeth cast a lingering glance at him as he worked, admiring his easy stride, his broad-shouldered strength, his fine, long legs. When he caught her looking at him, she lowered her gaze to her lap. “Rob doesna love me.”

  Hepzibah took a few quick pulls on her pipe to make it draw well. “Ye wouldna say that if ye’d seen him fretting over ye whilst ye wandered between the worlds.”

  “He was only feeling guilty, I warrant,” Elspeth said. “I wouldna be here, wouldna have been hurt if he didna still love his dead wife.”

  “I should hope he does still love her.” Hepzibah puffed approvingly on her pipe and blew out a trio of smoke rings. “That’s all to the good.”

  Elspeth shook her head, confused. First, Hepzibah said Rob loved her. Then she hoped that he still loved Fiona. “Why is that good?”

  “A soul that knows how to love deeply is a rare thing in this world. Rob knows, ye see. And a soul that does, never really forgets how to do it.”

  “Do it? Love isna something ye do,” Elspeth said. “’Tis something ye feel, surely.”

  “Where did ye hear that daft idea?”

  “’Tis in all the sonnets and—”

  “Sonnets!” Hepzibah’s laugh cackled so, Elspeth would have named her a witch if she didn’t know better. “What a kettle of goat’s piss! Only a dreamer’s scribblings.”

  Elspeth stiffened. She’d been enchanted by the idea of all-consuming courtly love described in her little collection of poetry. Was there anything finer than the adoring praise of a devoted swain?

  Maybe the touch of devoted hands, she answered herself.

  The memory of the way Rob’s touch, Rob’s kiss, had wakened her to something hot and dark and forbidden made her cheeks heat.

  “But ye make it sound as if love isna a matter of the heart,” Elspeth said.

  “Oh, it is that too, ye ken. But ye may feel all ye like and never do a bit about it,” Hepzibah said. “If a body willna put feet to the feeling, what good is it?”

  Rob laughed at something Angus said, and the rich, deep timbre of his voice made some wild nameless thing inside Elspeth shiver with anticipation.

  “He’s a fine, braw lad, and it stirs the blood just to look upon him, aye?” Hepzibah’s voice sank to a whisper. “But the heart is a fickle beastie, changeable as the loch. There may come a time when the feeling some call love has flown. Then what does a body do?”

  Elspeth couldn’t imagine her stomach not doing flips each time she caught sight of Rob MacLaren. Not that she loved him, of course, but she couldn’t deny there were definite feelings for the man, feelings that showed no sign of abating. But Hepzibah was wise about so many things, she allowed that the old woman might know a bit about this as well.

  “Tell me, Hepzibah, what does a body do if the feelings go away?” Elspeth asked.

  “That’s when a soul decides to love anyway, with mind and breath and body,” Hepzibah said. “Feelings come and go. And come again. But when your soul and your will unite to act, that’s when ye know love goes clear to the bone. A body canna forget how to love once it’s done that.”

  Rob started walking back toward the cottage, his frame casting long shadows on the dead grass. His mouth turned up in a smile when his gaze met Elspeth’s.

  Hepzibah made a clucking noise with her teeth and tongue. “Whether yon laddie wants to admit it or not, his heart loves again. ’Tis only a matter of time before his soul and body decide to follow.”

  Chapter 20

  Rob insisted they sail away the next time the loch’s tide favored a swift passage to Lochearnhead. Angus fretted that Elspeth shouldn’t travel yet, but Hepzibah said she was healing well enough, and sailing was easy on a body. The muscle in Elspeth’s thigh still ached, but the pain was manageable.

  Besides, Rob scowled each time she limped, so she forced herself to walk as normally as possible. Hepzibah said evidence of her injury made him feel guilty, and that’s why his face screwed into such a frown, but Elspeth wasn’t so sure.

  She bid Hepzibah a tearful farewell and promised to return to visit her next summer.

  “Dinna promise what ye canna deliver,” Hepzibah said. “Search your Gift. Ye know in your heart we’ll no’ meet again in this world.”

  Elspeth’s brows shot up.

  “Aye, I ken ye have the Sight. I see it on ye, a silver mantle all a-shimmer.” The old woman’s eyes glistened. “But ye havena decided to take it up in earnest.”

  “I canna control it. The visions come when they will and in ways that make little sense. And besides, having the Sight marks me as different.”

  “Oh, aye, o’ course we’re all different. God doesna repeat Himself. Surely ye ken that by now.” Hepzibah gave her a basket filled with a couple loaves of rye bread and a round of cheese. “Dinna fear what ye dinna understand. Decide to understand it.”

  Elspeth sneaked a glance at Rob under her lashes. “There’s much I dinna understand about a lot of things.”

  Hepzibah laughed. “Admitting your ignorance is the first step to learning aught. And I’ll tell ye a secret. Opening yourself to your Gift is easy. Ye just stay out of its way and accept what comes, even if it makes no sense at the time.”

  Hepzibah also cast a quick glance at Rob. “Opening
your heart to another? Now that takes some doing.”

  “I dinna think he wants me to try.”

  The old woman waved her objection away with a bony hand. “Men dinna know what they want half the time. Oh, they’re good at recognizing hungers of the body, all sorts, but hungers of the heart go unnoticed ofttimes unless they’ve a woman to point it out to them.”

  “Come, lass,” Rob called out to her from the deck of Angus’s boat. “We’re wasting the tide.”

  “I thank ye.” Elspeth folded Hepzibah into a fierce hug. “For everything.”

  She headed toward the shore, leaning very lightly on the cane, but Rob sprinted toward her and scooped her up. His scowl faded once she was in his arms.

  She draped her arms around his neck, enjoying the added warmth of being so near his body. The westerly wind had taken a bitter turn. “I can walk, ye know.”

  “Aye, but no’ fast enough to suit me,” he said gruffly as he carried her and her basket of food the rest of the way.

  Rob set her gently into the boat, untied the line, and shoved the prow into the loch. A thin skiff of ice had formed along the shore, but the hull of the boat crackled through it with ease. Rob gave a running leap and landed on the deck beside her, setting the boat rocking wildly.

  She wobbled, trying to bear most of her weight on her good leg. Rob caught her in his arms again.

  “No’ going down, are ye?”

  “No, just trying to stay upright while ye bobble us about,” she said and pulled away from him. Being treated like an invalid made her hackles rise.

  The sail filled with the breath of the loch, and the boat glided into the center of the dark, open water. Hepzibah and her little cottage fell swiftly astern, but Elspeth kept waving until the wisewoman was lost to sight.

  “Ye’ll be most comfortable in the cabin,” Rob said. “Hepzibah gave us an extra blanket for ye. ’Tis spread on the pallet.”

  She was still wearing his cloak. Even with only his plaid for warmth, he seemed impervious to the growing cold. Not a hint of gooseflesh rippled on his exposed neck. Elspeth almost told him she’d be most comfortable in her own chamber in her father’s keep, but she realized that wasn’t true.

  It made no sense when she examined the bald facts of the matter, but she honestly didn’t want to be anywhere except with Rob MacLaren.

  As she ducked into the cabin, she wondered if this was one of those things Hepzibah would say she shouldn’t fear, just decide to understand.

  Rob commandeered the tiller from his friend instead of joining her in the small space. Her belly spiraled downward with disappointment, but she soon had other company. Angus and Fingal crowded into the cabin with her.

  The big man regaled her with tales of the loch as they skimmed over its surface, and his deerhound sidled up to her, sharing his shaggy warmth.

  “Poor Fingal,” Angus said with a rough pat on the dog’s head. “He’s grown quite attached to ye, but he’ll have to bid farewell to his lady fair soon.”

  “How soon?”

  Angus peered out the open front of the cabin, taking note of passing landmarks. “At this pace, we’ll make Lochearnhead by nightfall. Then, come morning, Fingal and me will point our noses home.”

  “And what will Rob and I do?”

  Angus shrugged. “That I dinna ken. I agreed only to this part of the venture. And once I deliver ye safe and sound to Lochearnhead, I’m square with yon laddie.” He hitched a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Rob and the stern.

  “If ye dinna mind my asking, what did ye owe Rob for?”

  “The daft bugger kept me from being alone in the world. Single-handed, he saved me only nephew from being hanged by the English a few years back.”

  “Really?” It was a fearful thing for a Scot to fall into the hands of English justice.

  “Aye,” Angus said. “Young Hamish Murray is the son of my sister and the only family I have left to my name, so the boy’s dear to me, ye ken.”

  Rob was alone in the world, as far as Elspeth knew. His parents were gone, and his wife…Elspeth didn’t want to think long about her, lest the willowy, copper-haired Fiona pay her another visit through a vision. She wasn’t ready to open herself to some things yet.

  “What happened with your nephew?” she asked.

  “Seems wee Hamish got himself mixed up with a rough sort down on the border. A bunch of renegade Campbells mostly, and the whole lot were captured for raiding Sassenach farmsteads. O’ course, the English said there was raping and killing being done, but I ken my nephew. ’Tis no’ his way. ’Tweren’t more than cattle thieving. A fine Highland tradition, that.”

  “Aye,” Elspeth agreed with a smile. Even her father had reived a herd or two in his day. “But if he’d been taken by the English, how did Rob save Hamish from hanging?”

  “Och, Rob’s always been a canny sort,” Angus said, tapping his temple. “The night before the hanging, with folk pouring into town from all the countryside around, he went to the magistrate, dressed as a priest come to hear the last confessions of the accused.”

  Elspeth blinked in surprise. Rob was many things, but priestly wasn’t one of them.

  “Once he got into Hamish’s cell, he pulled a monk’s cassock out from under his robe for my nephew to put on, and a pair of shears. He shaved Hamish’s beard and gave my nephew a tonsure on the spot!

  “Then he called the guard back and overpowered him. Rob took his keys and released all the other prisoners. Then as the Campbells made a run for it, Rob and Hamish followed them out of the gaol, calling out warnings of an escape to the local constables!

  “While the English rounded up the others, Rob and Hamish walked right out the city gates. No one ever gives a second look to a man of God, ye ken. ’Specially not one with a freshly shiny nob like Hamish had! Rob said later that they might as well have stayed to see the hanging, but Hamish wanted to put the English border far behind him.”

  “Understandable.”

  “Rob rode that black demon, Falin, home, but he made Hamish walk all the way back to the Highlands, as penance for being daft enough to fall in with Campbells, he said!” Angus laughed. “The plan was madness, but it worked.”

  “Madness,” Elspeth repeated. “Then he’s always been known as Mad Rob?”

  Angus’s face sagged. “No, that was only after Fiona…och, ye ken what happened. He ran a bit wild after that.”

  Elspeth had seen Rob’s blue eyes glinting with madness in the cave after he abducted her. He’d looked right through her when his hand circled her neck, and Elspeth suspected he’d heard voices in his head.

  But Rob had been in his right mind ever since then. Perhaps his lunacy was the sort that came and went.

  And once Angus and Fingal left them in Lochearnhead, perhaps it would return.

  The thought didn’t trouble her as much as it ought. If Rob was touched by the malady again, Elspeth would be ready for it. This time, she realized, she was armed with something stronger than madness.

  Love.

  It surprised her a little when the word bubbled to the surface of her mind, but it didn’t scare her.

  Love.

  Not the “flutter in the belly” sort, though she had to admit her stomach did a jig whenever she looked at Rob MacLaren’s handsome face. No, she had the “clear to the bone, willing to do something about it” kind of love.

  And if Rob’s madness returned, she was prepared to act.

  ***

  Lochearnhead was a sleepy little village on the westernmost end of Loch Eireann. Night had fallen before Rob piloted the craft up to the wharf, but the moon hadn’t risen above the mountain called Ben Vorlich yet. The peak rose to the south, a sleek pyramid of granite with no trees spiking its top. A cap of snow glinted on its heights in the starlight.

 
“Ye surely canna mean to press on in the dark,” Angus said as he tied his boat securely to the dock. “Will ye stay on board this night, Rob?”

  “No, I bespoke a room over the tavern for the past couple weeks because I wasna certain when we’d arrive,” he said as he gathered up his few possessions.

  Elspeth was doing the same in the small cabin. Traveling light was easier if a man didn’t have a woman in tow. And if he didn’t care about her comfort. It made him feel even worse that Elspeth wasn’t the sort to complain. At least he could put a roof over her head and a hot meal in her belly this night.

  “Paid in advance for the room,” Rob said. “It’d be a shame if we didna use it.”

  Elspeth was saying good-bye to Fingal, and the deerhound responded with loud whines. Angus pulled Rob aside with a quick glance toward the cabin. “Have a care with the lass’s reputation.”

  “Aye, I’ll make sure none hear her name or see her face.” Rob said, irritated that Angus didn’t think he’d protect Elspeth from gossiping tongues. “I didna set out on this course to harm her, just her bridegroom.”

  “No, I believe ye didna, but sometimes the best plans go awry, and this one surely has on several occasions,” Angus said with a stern frown. “And besides, there’s all kinds of harm.”

  “I dinna think Drummond will meet us along the road I intend to travel.”

  “That’s no’ what I mean,” Angus said. “I ken ye can protect her from him. But can ye guard her from yourself? The lass is a maiden, gently bred. Have a care.”

  “And what d’ye think I am? A ravening beast, I suppose.” Rob snorted. “I overheard ye telling Elspeth about Hamish and his brush with English justice. Rape is no’ his way, ye said.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Did it occur to ye that it’s no’ mine either?”

  “I just mean—”

  “I ken what ye mean. Nothing will happen to the lass that she doesna want. There. Are ye satisfied?”

  Without waiting for an answer, Rob turned away and called to Elspeth. She emerged from the cabin and said good-bye to Angus with the same warmheartedness with which she’d taken leave of the witch of Loch Eireann. Angus was reduced to blustering to hide his blubbering, and the deerhound didn’t even try to disguise his sorrow at seeing her go.