The Chieftain's Daughter

by Frances Housden

  He let go of her arm to turn the handle, and she missed the warmth. The door creaked open under the weight of the shoulder as he turned and moved back through the opening. “The noise sounds a wee bit ghostly, but it’s meant to, so don’t be scared.”

  “Oh, I won’t. It’s like another adventure.” She held the lantern up close to her chin and made her eyes round. “Do ye have spirits haunting the Keep?”

  “Nae, though it’s surprising the last laird hasn’t come back trying to hang on to the Keep, since he’s the one who lost it; but I can assure ye the only spirits we have in the Keep are Uisge beatha.”

  “Well, now, that will be useful,” she said, mayhap a wee bit more forcefully than she meant, because frae what she could see in the light of the lantern she held betwixt them he appeared taken aback.

  “Water of life or not, I’ve never met a lassie who liked to drink the spirit,” he shuddered elaborately, almost an exact enactment of her reaction when once she tried a mouthful, making her laugh.

  “Ach, I don’t want to drink the stuff. I want to pour it over yer wound.”

  This time the shudder he made rang true. “Is that really necessary?” he asked, walking away, keeping the jug at chest height. “I’ve got hot water.”

  “We’ll see about that,” she replied marching after him.

  And she did, once she finally got him on a chair with his shirt shoved down around his waist and his chest bare—a breathtaking sight. Though she believed Rob to be equally broad in the shoulders and wide in the chest, he was her brother and didn’t make the air in her lungs catch in her throat or her heart tumble under her breasts as if wanting to escape.

  She’d removed the strip frae the bottom of his shirt, dampening it with the water frae the jug. Strange how her fingers trembled as she pulled the linen away frae the wound she had made in him. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking of,” she confessed lowering her eyelids and dipping her chin awash with feelings of contrition.

  “Nae, lass, the blame was all mine. I thought ye were a lad and was determined to scare ye away,” he slipped a finger under chin and lifted it higher until their eyes met. “I made a mistake, the best one ever, so I’m happy yer not easy scared. I would hate to have killed such a bonnie lassie.”

  Maggie jerked back away frae the touch she had relished. “I’m not the one whose wound needs tending. Just let me get that Uisge beatha.”

  “Ach. Now, there’s the lass I met up by the big boulder. I thought she had gone.”

  Was that a smirk? She picked up the quaish he’d filled with Uisge beatha and sloshed some over his wound then felt slightly penitent when he yelped. Best he knew what to expect from her. Since she wanted Dhugal, she just had to discover a way to go about achieving her aim.

  “It looks a wee bit inflamed,” she said, patting the wound with a piece of linen, “I imagine being jostled around as we rode here hasn’t helped; however, it will pay for a bit of attention. If we had been at Dun Bhuird, my aunt Kathryn would have fixed it nae bother. She once healed her husband Gavyn’s wound with a spider’s web. She’s a grand healer.”

  “Was it her that wounded this Gavyn?” he muttered, head bent as he watched what she was doing.

  “This Gavyn is my mother’s brother and nae, Kathryn didn’t wound him. That was Harald Comlyn’s doing. He couldn’t stand Gavyn being made clan Chieftain for marrying Kathryn.” Her fingers worked as she spoke, distracting him from any twinge of pain she might cause. “That was at Malcolm Canmore’s instigation—their marriage I mean, not the bluidy slash in my uncle’s side. Aye, Harald was a monster. He murdered three men at Dun Bhuird just to cause fear in the minds of the folk living there, and then he abducted Kathryn and Lhilidh, her maid. That was the time I spoke to ye about, when Rob killed his first man, Harald.” She let out a long sigh as she finished knotting the clean linen she had wrapped around the join of his shoulder and arm. “Some folk just don’t deserve to live,” she finished. “What do ye think?”

  Dhugal’s eyes looked a mite glazed, but she put that down to the slight fever he was probably running. She smoothed her palm across his forehead to assure herself that he wasnae overheated. The moment she lifted her hand, she was snared by his gaze, and the heat she had sought was there in the amber-coloured depths where a flame burned true.

  His large hand reached for her, tenderly cupping the nape of her neck in a way that sent a shiver tingling up her spine, until with nae time left for thought she was lost. Lost in his kiss as his lips covered hers, tasted, touched with the tip of his tongue until she could do naught but open to him and kiss him back.

  It seemed to last forever, yet was nae more than a chain of wee moments, each link flowing into the next until he pulled away. So that was a kiss—her first—mayhap if she had realised how magical it could be she would have tried it earlier.

  She dismissed the notion immediately. She could never have envisaged the likelihood of letting any of her father’s examples of manliness put their tongues in her mouth.

  She pulled Dhugal’s shirt back over his shoulder so she nae longer faced the temptation of his naked chest, and the way it rose with every breath, showing she wasnae the only one of the pair having a reaction to their kiss. When she had done tugging at his shirt, she felt at a loss for words, never having experienced such a heart-stopping moment afore, so she did what she was best at—spoke, returning to the topic of the moment he kissed her. “Thankfully ye have me here to take care of ye so ye needn’t fear dying.”

  Done, she sat back on her heels and asked, “Have ye a bed and a candle to show me there?”

  With a minimum of fuss, he showed Maggie into what had once been his sister’s chamber. Since it lay on the south side of the Keep, he hoped it didn’t suffer frae damp, as did some of the chambers unoccupied for longer than he cared to remember.

  The only chamber in constant use was his own—the master’s chamber. Taking her there was out of the question. It had been difficult to draw away frae her mouth in the laird’s muniment room. Nae, the pain in his shoulder wasnae near strong enough to save her frae his attentions.

  The pain in his groin was worse by far, though there had been a deal of pleasure in the receiving of the hard—fit to burst—pressure in his prick.

  What on earth had he been thinking of? Maggie would have been within her rights to slap his face. Yet, she hadn’t, Maggie had joined in, but tentatively as if it were a new experience, a new country to explore.

  Her first kiss?

  They had spoken of firsts, teased, but reality came at him—charged sword in hand.

  His heart pounded upon the realisation that nae man had known a touch of her lips until him. His chest swelled, acknowledging the honour then sank, aware it was a blessing his circumstances made it impossible to imagine such a kiss occurring again.

  Never in this lifetime.

  In a past life, mayhap, but for a broken man, Maggie was everything he had put out of his mind when calamity hit the Skene clan.

  He stripped off and lay down with only an auld soft plaid covering him, cursing his uncle for a fool, while pain swamped his senses and he welcomed its coming.

  There was naught like pain for concentrating the mind on the truth.

  Chapter 7

  Dhugal slept late. He could tell frae the angle the light came through the window slit that the sun was well over the horizon, but that wasnae what had wakened him. Rolling over, he balanced on the side that didn’t hurt and sat up. Thankfully he had dragged his plaid with him, for there at the end of his bed sat Maggie, fresh and clean as the new day—a sight that made him drag his palm over his eyes, brow and hair, thinking he needn’t worry about not being good enough for her, this morning she could see the truth for herself.

  “Forgive me for wakening ye, I was worried ye might be feverish and felt guilty, so I came to see for myself. I hope ye slept well and yer shoulder didn’t irritate ye over much,” she said, her voice a soothing balm over the reckless
dreams of daring and adventure that had filled his sleeping hours—and all of them about Maggie.

  How many times had he rescued her, pulled her frae the clutches of wild cateran, saving her frae wolves with the sgian his ancestor had used to protect a king.

  It didn’t seem right for her to be sitting there, hands folded in her lap, hair hidden under her bonnet and her face free of emotion, nae matter that she’d supposedly been worrying about his health. “Ye have been outside then?”

  “Aye. I cleaned up in what was left of the water and auld Mhairi gave me a bowl of porridge,” she said, lifting her eyebrows, turning it into a question.

  “That’s guid, I could eat some myself.” And while she still sat there on the edge of his bed, he turned his back on her with a quiet spoken demand, “If ye wouldnae mind leaving, I’ll get dressed.”

  “I can turn my back.”

  “Nuh-uh,” Dhugal shook his head, his tangled hair brushing his shoulders as he adjusted his plaid to make certain she caught nae glimpse of his prick rising betwixt his belly and plaid. “Go back down to the Hall and explore, I’ll join ye downstairs to let ye watch me break my fast.”

  “Leave yer shirt off, I’d like to make sure yer wound is beginning to heal. Just kilt the plaid about ye, since yer embarrassed about me seeing yer wee arse,” she laughed and he caught a twinkle in her eye as she left his chamber. Her voice came floating back to him frae outside, “I do have a brother, cousins and nephews.”

  She might be laughing, but he was sweating by the time the door closed.

  Aye, Maggie might be laughing but he’d been a hair’s breadth away frae dragging her over the bed to show her he wasnae her brother, or her cousin, or her nephew.

  Instead of entering the Hall, Maggie returned to the room Dhugal had taken her to while she took care of his shoulder. It looked different in daylight. Dust motes danced in the light frae the window to land where they had come frae amongst rolls of vellum tied with faded red silk, the lot of them stacked in cubbyholes lining one wall. She realised this was like the muniment room at Cragenlaw, where the history of the castle was held—for posterity, the seneschal had told her when she would wander in on wet days—days when her father wouldnae let her join in the training, as if she might melt.

  The thought jolted her out of the sense of complacency she held about the McArthur and herself, believing her father had always let her do as she wanted, even under protest frae her mother. Her breath caught, and she squeezed her eyelids shut to keep back an unusual burst of hot emotion, then sniffed, widened her gaze and cleared her throat—lassie stuff, so very unlike her.

  The McArthur had always protected her, made sure she never came to any harm.

  What would he think of her wee adventure? She had a premonition that her father’s measure of what had occurred might not coincide with her own.

  Intent on distracting her mind, Maggie knelt on the chair where Dhugal had rested last night. Shaped like two halves of an egg, top and bottom meeting in the centre of the curve, it wasnae overly comfortable to kneel on. Pulling down a roll of vellum, she untied the ribbon, handling the vellum gingerly, for it was nae secret how much a clan might have to count on the words inscribed there, written in the days when naught but a privileged few knew how to sharpen a quill let alone be taught to read or write—a fact that gave a guid measure of importance to priests and seneschals. Treaties and alliances, gifts frae the king, their significance recorded for posterity—provided neither war, fire nor man ruined what it had taken a learned hand years to record.

  She wasnae one of yon privileged few, but she could read a little. The McArthur also believed that his womenfolk should have enough education to protect them frae rogues.

  Dhugal wasnae a rogue. Nae matter how some folk might scoff, she believed instinct existed—look at Rowena. Her gift had saved Ralf when his Norman grandfather would have killed him.

  Maggie smiled, remembering. Weddings at Cragenlaw were gaining a bad reputation. First Jamie Ruthven’s, which thankfully she hadn’t witnessed for it had been a bloody affair. Then there was Nhaimeth’s wedding, though murder hadn’t been done, Merida Comlyn’s father, Henry Lamont had attempted to kill Brodwyn, barely missing his grandson Ralf. As she remembered, the humour in it came frae watching Nhaimeth, Rowena, then Rob and Melinda running down the aisle like a folk tale or a song frae a minstrel to be listened to around the Hall hearth in the dark of night.

  Come to think on it, she belonged to a family filled with complicated relationships. Merida was younger than Rob’s twins, Harry and Ralf, yet they were her nephews and cousins to Rowena and Nhaimeth’s son Ghillie, because Rowena was a sister to Rob’s wife.

  Relationships, alliances … some clans might look at the McArthurs with awe, envious of their ability to stand on the winning side of a quarrel and always manage to retain their castle and lands, unlike the Skene clan.

  Unlike Dhugal.

  And that took her thoughts back to the man who had filled her head, her dreams since the moment they met. She would never forget watching him leap down frae that boulder. Her heart had raced and not simply because she was readying her weapon and shield for a fight. Nae, one look at his face, the fierce nature of his features, in an instant she recognised a warrior—a blood match for the shield maiden in her.

  Their histories didn’t align, but that was his uncle’s blame, not Dhugal’s.

  Rich and well connected as they had been, none of the suitors her father had paraded in front of her had stirred her blood the way Dhugal did. Of them all, none reminded Maggie of the McArthur as Dhugal had when he leapt into her life yesterday. Naebody would ever call her a romantic—nae that was for the likes of Rob’s Norman wife Melinda, brought up on tales of knights and chivalry. What she felt for Dhugal was primal, instinctive.

  She sighed, wasnae it just the way that being a warrior woman, any of her thoughts on weddings would turn frae sweet romance to heated lust—neither of which she had ever experienced, until now.

  That led back to what her father would do when he found out they’d been alone here?

  What if he felt the need to force Dhugal’s hand and demanded he marry her.

  She might have spent the night dreaming of how it could be, the two of them together, but it would be nae use unless Dhugal wanted that as much as she did.

  It was an enigma to imagine her father caring about her and Dhugal—or so most would imagine—considering Euan and Morag had lived as man and wife for longer than she’d been alive and only married a few years ago.

  The curse had prevented it.

  She couldn’t see Dhugal coming up with as believable an excuse.

  Maggie was still worrying about it when Dhugal found her.

  “Have ye found aught interesting?” Dhugal asked when he found her legs folded beneath her, knees covered by an unrolled sheet of vellum. She smiled when she looked up and he asked, “Can ye read?”

  “Enough to understand what this says. It’s auld isn’t it, aulder than the Keep? Frae what I can make out this is the deed of gift for Skene given to yer ancestor frae the king he saved. It’s precious. Nae wonder yer reluctant to leave this place to the wind and the weather or any wild cateran on the prowl.” Maggie looked at him as she finished rolling the yellowed vellum into its original shape, fixed through years of sitting in the muniment room and, without saying any more, tied the faded silk with the care it was due.

  “Its worth died with my uncle,” he informed her, the words scraping against the roughness in his throat.

  “To the world mayhap, but not to you. How we met is proof of that.”

  Strange how after less than one day she knew him better than anyone else, even his mother. Was it instinct? Like calling to like? “That deed of gift is how we once were—the past and the best. Me, the broken man ye see before ye now, is the face of the present—the remains.”

  She held out the hand holding the deed, beckoning him, small movements but insistent none the less. “But what of th
e future? Don’t tell me ye have given up, for I won’t believe ye.”

  “Do ye have the ear of the King? I don’t. I have hope, but all I see afore me is a present that goes on and on, with nae end unless I die.” He took the deed, shocked by a reality he had never thought to put into words afore, had never dared. Reaching above her, he replaced the roll in the squared shelves among the rest of Skene’s documented history.

  “I’d like to change that.”

  He laughed, she was so forthright, had nae hesitation in saying exactly how she felt. “And I wish I could let ye, but I wouldnae have ye share the despair that comes with living as I do, only able to look back, never forward.” His lungs seized and his soul poured out in the croak that was all he could manage, “Christ if I could do it … then only for ye, Maggie. Only for Maggie McArthur.”

  She grasped his hand, pulling at his wound, pain he refused to let show, almost welcomed the sting as she said, as if entreating, “My father has the King’s ear—or at least he has his brother Alexander’s.”

  She was so eager to make everything better in his life, but for all her sword and leather trous, she thought like a lass. One who had grown up with all the certainty his own life lacked. “That’s as may be, but in my opinion, should yer father ever gets near me he’s liable to strangle me with his bare hands as I would for anyone who compromised my only daughter.”

  Her laughter rolled around the dim, dusty hollows of the muniment room, continued as she stood close enough for him to smell the scent of the hair flowing frae under her bonnet and over narrow feminine shoulders that should have told him she was a lass the first time he clapped eyes on her. Then he remembered the alternative—never having met her. A better mistake he had never made.

  Maggie tucked her hand through his arm, a knowing smile curving her lips. “Come,” she said, “ye will feel much better once ye have broken yer fast. And after, I’ll tend to yer shoulder.”

  “Ye should be on yer way,” he reminded her, “Before they come searching for ye.”