Beloved Highlander

by Sara Bennett

  “What do you get?”

  He nodded. “Did you expect me to do this from the generosity of my heart, my lady? I have nothing, I am nothing, but I do not risk my life for nothing.”

  Slowly she nodded, but he thought he caught a flicker of disgust in her face. She was thinking he had no honor, that an honorable man would do this for the sake of the people of Glen Dhui and his family’s long tradition there. She did not know what it was to lose everything, then. She did not know how it felt to be dispossessed, with no hope of a future. He wasn’t that honorable fool anymore, he was a soldier who fought for whichever side offered him the most.

  Better she learn it now and have no false ideas about his motives. And he was twice a fool, if such a thought caused him any concern. Gregor waited for her answer, ignoring the sense of regret gnawing at him for the change in her manner.

  “We will pay you,” she said stiffly. “What is the rate for a mercenary these days?”

  Those cool, hard eyes examined her again, and although she saw no expression in them she sensed he was darkly amused by her disapproval and disappointment.

  “I’ll take what Argyll was paying me, that will do for a start,” he said. “I will get Malcolm Bain to fetch my belongings from the barracks, and take a letter resigning my commission.”

  She wanted to ask him what he would do in the future if he was not a soldier, but he did not look like the sort of man to take her into his confidence. He had closed himself off from her, shutting her out as effectively as closing a door. Anyway, Meg was not sure she wanted it open. Did she really want to know what made him what he was? She had thought he would agree as soon as he heard what was happening at Glen Dhui. Not for her sake, but for the sake of the people who had once been his people. Instead he had asked about payment.

  Meg supposed she could not blame him for his selfishness. He had to think of himself first, how else had he survived in this harsh world? And yet, still she had harbored some of her dreams. She had believed him to be a certain kind of man, and to discover he wasn’t had been a dissapointment. She would not be fooled again.

  They were interrupted by Morag bringing food, and soon afterward by the return of Duncan Forbes. Duncan looked very relieved to hear Gregor would be returning with them, and was eager to carry the letter to the barracks.

  “Will ye be fit to ride tomorrow morning?” he asked, looking Gregor over with a professional eye.

  “Of course,” Gregor said coolly, his expression daring a dispute. “Wait, and I will write the letter.”

  Paper and ink were found, and Gregor set to work. Meg sent for clean water and bandages, and when he had done, began without a word to unwrap his wound.

  Duncan, with a glance at Meg, left with the letter.

  “Malcolm Bain can do this,” Gregor said, tight about the mouth. “There is no need—”

  “Now you are in my employ, Captain, I need to know you can deliver on your promises.”

  He grunted, but said no more as Meg inspected his wound, bathed it, and carefully rewrapped it. The flesh looked a little swollen about her neat stitches, a little hot to touch, but in Meg’s experience fever was a normal part of recovery. The strong survived, the weak didn’t, and Gregor Grant was definitely one of the former.

  When Gregor went to his room, he was walking as carefully as a man crossing hot coals. Meg hoped that he would spend the day in sleep, and regain some of his strength. She did not look forward to riding such a distance with an injured man, especially one so stubborn he would not admit he was too ill to ride until he fell off his horse.

  “Lady Meg?”

  Meg looked up from her seat by the fire. Duncan had returned, and he looked like he had been carved out of stone. For a moment her heart beat faster as she wondered what new disaster was about to befall them.

  “Duncan? Is all well?”

  “I have given the letter to the man in charge, and I have brought back the Captain’s baggage and his horse.” But he said it stiffly, with resentment.

  “There is something wrong. What is it? Do tell me, Duncan, I am not in the mood to guess.”

  Duncan pursed his lips, but before he could answer her, Malcolm Bain appeared behind him. His fair hair—the characteristic that gave him his appendage Bain, or “fair Malcolm”—was as wild and windblown as it had been last night. His face looked even more rugged this morning, the creases in it making Meg wonder if he had had any sleep at all.

  “My lady,” he said with a bow, a twinkle in his eyes. “I hope ye dinna mind me tagging along with ye. I am Captain Grant’s man and he canna manage without me.”

  Duncan sniffed repressively.

  Meg hid a smile, puzzled by the tension between the two of them; they had been the same last night. Like two dogs coveting the same bone. It was Malcolm Bain himself who explained matters.

  “I am a Glen Dhui man myself,” he said blithely. “When the lad lost the land, I went with him. My father was his father’s man, and my grandsire’s his grandsire’s, and so it goes. I had a sworn duty to care for him.”

  “Tell that to Alison,” Duncan muttered darkly.

  Malcolm Bain looked at him and sighed. “Ah, Duncan, I tried to. She dinna understand.”

  “She still doesna understand,” was Duncan’s grim reply.

  Meg looked from one to the other. “What do you mean, Duncan? Alison, my maid? Alison, your sister?”

  Duncan answered readily enough. “My sister was to wed this…this creature, my lady. But then he left her and she hasna heard from him in twelve long years! He broke her heart.”

  Meg thought of dark-haired, dark-eyed Alison, plump and full of zeal. In Meg’s opinion she did not appear to be suffering from a broken heart, but neither had she ever mentioned a desire to wed or an interest in any of the local men. Meg had presumed that was because Alison had never found the right man to give her heart to. Was she herself not in similar straits? Besides—and yes, she was selfish in this—a single Alison suited her own needs just fine. But now suddenly, she could see that Alison’s aloneness may well be because she had loved and been hurt and therefore had given up on men entirely.

  This was clearly what Duncan believed.

  Malcolm Bain made a sound closely resembling a snort. “I never asked her to wait for me,” he said in a harsh voice. “There were plenty of others would have been hers for the taking, if she’d said the word. If she’s still single, then ’twas because she was content to remain so!”

  Duncan took a step closer to him, pushing his face aggressively into the other man’s. “Mabbe she dinna want any of the others. Mabbe she wanted ye, ye selfish—”

  “Will you both stop it!” Meg grabbed Duncan’s arm, pressing a warning with her fingers. “I am quite sure, Duncan, that Alison will not thank you, for making her the subject of a brawl. And as for you, Malcolm Bain, your master is resting. Go and see if he needs anything, and take his luggage with you.”

  Malcolm Bain shot her an uncertain glance, but went to do her bidding. Duncan glowered after him, and Meg squeezed his arm again, more kindly this time.

  “I am sure Alison can handle her own affairs, Duncan,” she said gently. “You are a good brother to her, but truly I think these matters would be better left to her and Malcolm Bain MacGregor.”

  Duncan’s nod was brief and clearly dissenting.

  Dear Lord, Meg thought when he had gone, if there are not complications enough! Now she must play King Solomon to her maid and Gregor Grant’s man. She only hoped that she was right, and that Alison had long since recovered from any pain she may once have felt over Malcolm Bain’s leaving her.

  “Gregor lad?”

  The familiar voice brought Gregor up from the faintly unpleasant dream he was struggling through, where women with red hair clung to him and men with wild, dark eyes waved pistols in his face. He blinked and then focused on the worn, lined face that he knew as well as his own.

  “Malcolm Bain,” he said, and his mouth twitched into the smile that
was not seen by many people. Captain Grant was sober and taciturn; Gregor Grant was another matter entirely. “Where were you?” he asked. “What do you mean by leaving me here in the hornet’s nest?”

  Malcolm Bain chuckled. “Ye wouldna by any chance be meaning a red-haired hornet? What does she want of ye? I have a feeling that one is used to getting her own way.”

  Gregor shrugged. “She’s no match for me,” he said smugly.

  Malcolm Bain’s eyes slid over his face but he said nothing, keeping his thoughts to himself. “Did ye know Airdy’s wife has run away from him?” he asked instead. “He’s been ranting and raving the whole day, swearing one moment to kill her and the next that he canna live without her. ’Tis a pitiful sight, mon!”

  “Then it’s one I’m glad to forego. Does he know I’ve resigned my captaincy?”

  “That pleasure yet awaits him.”

  Gregor nodded, shivering, and carefully pulled the covers around himself with a sigh. “You’re not surprised by the news, then?”

  Malcolm Bain shrugged. “It was only a matter of time, lad. Ye’ve been restless for months now. I think the Campbell dragoons doesna have the same flavor for ye that it once did. As long as ye’re certain ’tis the right thing to do…?”

  “Aye,” Gregor said softly, “I’m certain. She’s offered to pay me, Malcolm Bain. Pay me to go home.” He laughed, but there was sorrow and bitterness in it, emotions he rarely showed to anyone else. “If she pays me enough, I’ll use the money to buy myself some land, enough to live on.”

  “No life for a Grant laird,” Malcolm Bain murmured.

  “I am no longer a Grant laird,” was the retort. “Tell me, what do you know of the Duke of Abercauldy?”

  Gregor was determined to change the subject. Malcolm Bain contented himself with straightening aspects of the room that displeased him and stoking up the fire. “I know little enough of him. I know he fought for the English during the 1715 and made himself rich on the estates and fines of those who dinna. He’s a clever man, but as far as I know that is not a crime.”

  “No, it isn’t. Did you ever hear that he had a wife?”

  “No. Has he a wife?”

  “She’s dead. Rumor has it he did away with her. Now he has set his eyes on Glen Dhui and flame-haired Meg. That is why I am to go home, Malcolm, to see that our clever duke does not take what is not his.”

  “The land, or the lady?” Malcolm asked, with a sly glance up from the fire.

  “Both, Malcolm, both.”

  “Then ye will need to build yer strength for the ride south, and the fight when ye get there,” was the reply. “I’ll fetch ye some food and some ale, and then I’ll take a peek at yer arm.”

  Gregor grimaced, clearly disliking the thought of his arm being touched again. “As you say, Malcolm.”

  Malcolm paused on his way out of the door, looking back. Gregor lay still and pale, no doubt in some pain and with a fever. But that would not stop him from riding all day tomorrow and the day after that to reach Glen Dhui. Strange that a twist of fate had seen to it that he must return to the one place he had denied himself for twelve years. Gregor Grant had made another life for himself, he had no option—he was no longer the boy he had been when he fought the English and was imprisoned for it. That boy had watched others around him die in the filthy gaol, and then barely escaped transportation to the plantations. He was a man who had known much pain and hardship, and it showed.

  Malcolm wondered now how Gregor would cope with returning to a place he had loved, a place which was now no longer his own. And how would he manage to obey orders from a woman who was clearly used to giving them? It would be…interesting, to say the least. And Malcolm would be there, he must be there, for Gregor’s sake. He could hardly abandon him now, although he was sorely tempted.

  For there was an ache in Malcolm Bain’s heart that had nothing to do with Glen Dhui and Gregor Grant. Waiting at Glen Dhui, as she had, according to Duncan, waited all these years, was Alison Forbes. His sweetheart, the woman he had planned to marry and grow old with, the woman he had put from his mind when he left.

  Did she still hate him, as she had hated him the day he rode away from her? Or was she indifferent to him, having long ago shut his memory away? Duncan might be wrong—the Alison he had loved and remembered could well be so changed now that he would not recognize her.

  Malcolm Bain didn’t know what he hoped for. One choice felt as dismal as the other.

  Chapter 6

  Meg drew her mare up from a gallop. While it stood blowing and tossing its head, she turned to look back. The men were following in the distance at a steady pace, although that seemed to be more for Gregor Grant’s sake than any wish to tarry. The former Laird of Glen Dhui rode stiffly, as if any sudden movement pained him, but he had not asked for them to stop. Nor would he, Meg suspected.

  As she watched, he turned his head, gazing to the high mountains that lay before them, their jagged, snowy peaks gleaming in the sun. They would have to cross those mountains tomorrow, traversing the narrow pass that cut through their towering mass. For Glen Dhui lay beyond.

  This morning Gregor had sat down to breakfast with a pale face and a determined expression. He wore a fresh shirt beneath a brown jacket, and his kilted plaid, as well as all his weapons. He had spoken little and eaten less. His only reply, when Duncan questioned him as to whether he was fit to ride, was a long, unsmiling stare. “Of course,” he had said at last, coldly, as if Duncan was impertinent to suggest otherwise.

  Duncan’s ears had gone pink.

  Meg hid her smile. To put taciturn Duncan out of countenance was no mean feat, but Gregor Grant had managed it. She imagined he would be a formidable master. Despite his assertions that he was a landless, penniless nobody, he still wore the arrogance of his birth around him like a cloak. He was a leader of men who expected his orders to be carried out without question.

  And he was hers.

  Meg took another swallow of the cold air, and calmed her jittery mare with a soft word. She had not slept well last night. Like the mare, she had been restless and restive; she had wondered if she was doing the right thing. Her father had told her to bring Gregor Grant back to Glen Dhui, and she was doing that. He had said nothing of payment, but then he had not expected the man who had grown from the boy he remembered to ask for recompense. The general believed that inside the man Gregor Grant lived the same young, heroic, idealistic boy he had been then. He would realize for himself, when they reached Glen Dhui, that that was not the case.

  Assuming Gregor Grant made it that far.

  Meg lifted her head to gaze at the sky, wondering if the fine weather would hold until they found shelter tonight. Late summer in the Highlands was unpredictable, with showers one moment and sunshine the next. She knew they would be lucky if they reached their beds without a drenching, and that was the last thing Gregor Grant needed. He still had a fever, and when Malcolm Bain had unwrapped his wound this morning it had looked even more reddened and swollen about the stitches that she had so carefully set into his flesh.

  “We will wait another day,” she had said firmly.

  Gregor had shot her a narrowed look. “No, we will not. We go today.”

  “But your arm—”

  “Is not the issue here. We ride today.”

  Their gazes had clashed, each seeking to dominate. It was Malcolm Bain’s voice that had poured reason onto the situation.

  “I will keep a watch on him,” he had said. “Captain Grant is a strong and healthy man, even if he is pigheaded.”

  Gregor had shot him a look of disgust, but the comment had reassured Meg. For a while. Now the worry had returned. There was so much dependent on this one man, so much dependent on her getting him home. The thought of anything happening to him on the way, of him dying…well, it didn’t bear thinking. Indeed she felt quite lightheaded when she did, as if some vital part of herself had come adrift.

  Of course it was because his returning to Glen Dhui was
so important to her father. There could be no other reason for his possible demise to affect her so. She didn’t know him—he was a stranger, and any belief she may have had that he was that heroic dream she had carried with her since she was twelve years old had been effectively banished with her first glimpse of him in the Black Dog.

  Some of the going would be rough. And they must take the new military road through the pass and brave the suspicious eyes of the government soldiers who stood guard there at the military post. The soldiers were mainly Englishmen, and they considered the Highlanders to be savages—[ ]half-civilized beasts that might at any moment decide to turn on them. They despised these people whom they had come to subdue. Meg saw it in their faces and it worried her. It also made her angry. She knew the Highlanders, and although they spoke Gaelic and their lives were very different from those of the English soldiers, they were not the animals the soldiers thought them.

  Despite the attitude of his men, Meg was on good terms with the officer in charge of the military post. After the 1715 Rebellion it had been decided by the anti-Jacobite victors that roads must be forced through the Highlands, roads that could be used by soldiers in the event of any further uprisings. Government soldiers were posted to strategic trouble spots, to keep watch on the people and dispense English justice. Many of those soldiers were resentful, felt alienated, and took out their feelings on the people they were supposed to be in charge of.

  But not all the English officers were to be hated or feared. There were some, like Major Litchfield, who was well educated and broad-minded enough to find his current posting interesting rather than bemoan it as exile to the end of the civilized world.

  Meg turned her head again, and noted that her men were almost upon her. Gregor Grant, sitting as stiffly in the saddle as before, was at least still astride his horse. She eyed him narrowly, just as he looked up. Their gazes held, clashed. Something close to a smile lifted the corner of his mouth.