Laird of the Black Isle

by Paula Quinn

  “Lachlan, I…” She wiped her eyes and was unable to say more.

  He hated dragging her through his dark world, but he wanted her to know she was right when she called him beast. “I lost my mind, my soul. I let my heart grow detached, and I’ve become comfortable in the cold. Whether ye’re correct or not, I’m not ready to stop running just yet. I have too many ghosts to face.”

  “Mayhap ’tis time to face them,” she suggested softly.

  He shook his head. Not yet. He didn’t want to face them fully yet.

  She was quiet for a moment, and again he wondered why she took such interest in his life when he’d taken her from her family to give to Ranald Sinclair. Why had he told her so much? He thought speaking of it would send his thoughts into the darkness, but astoundingly, he didn’t feel worse at all.

  “I should go see to the children,” she managed, wiping her nose. She rose from his chair and turned to go. But an instant later, she spun on her heel and ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck.

  He stood there, his arse against the window, Mailie clinging to him, and his heart racing. Her body was warm, soft, comforting. Ah, God help him. What was she doing to him? Slowly, he curled one of his arms around her and fought madly not to pull her in deeper. He dipped his nose to her hair. She smelled of peat and duck. He smiled at the thought of her cooking breakfast in his kitchen, and then he let her go.

  “Come eat breakfast soon,” she invited, and then went to the door.

  Should he tell her that he thought about her all night while he rested in his boat, his nets cast? From his vantage point on the bay, he had a perfect moonlit view of the entire village and the castle. He hadn’t left them entirely alone in the night. He’d kept watch, thinking what he would do with her, how he could help her without jeopardizing his chances of getting the information Sinclair had about Annabel. How would he escape the wrath of her kin—possibly while he had Annabel to protect? Would he miss her smiles laced with challenge and sympathy? How could he avoid her for a month?

  He let her go. What point was there in telling her any of that? Or that he found himself lost in the memory of her calves, her creamy thigh when she had lifted her skirts to free all her daggers. She’d been afraid, and it made him angry with himself for leaving her. As much as he tried to deny it to himself, she was correct. She and the children were his responsibility while they remained here. If he ran from it, he put them in danger.

  He remained in his study for the afternoon, pondering what he was going to do about Mailie.

  There came a knock at the door. Lachlan sighed. “Come,” he called out.

  The door creaked open to reveal young William standing under the frame. Scrawny child. Why, he had no muscle on him at all. No wonder he sported a black and purple eye. At least he was clean.

  “Come in, William.”

  The lad hesitated a moment and then stepped inside the study. He looked around, angling his head in every direction to take in the tapestries Lachlan’s mother had woven, the warm wooden bookshelves, and the standing table by one of the windows. The soft glow on Lachlan’s chair before the hearth fire. He took it all in as if he’d never seen anything like it. Lachlan realized that with no father to support his family, he probably hadn’t. He was glad he’d let them stay in his chamber upstairs. Mailie had shown good judgment in putting them there.

  “Have a seat.” He offered his chair and watched with a growing feeling of satisfaction when William accepted. He appeared even scrawnier within the chair’s thick crimson cushions.

  “We missed ye at the table last night and today, Laird.”

  Lachlan wanted to tell him not to expect him in the future. But he found his heart warming to the lad instead. He hadn’t been missed at the table in a long time. He tried not to let it affect him and cleared his throat.

  “How is yer eye?”

  “No’ bad, Laird.”

  When nothing else came, Lachlan shifted from his left foot to his right. “Is something on yer mind?”

  The boy nodded his head, his curls—a shade lighter now that they were clean—dangled over his eyes. “Ranald said my mother wasn’t comin’ back. I said she was. Which one of us is correct?”

  Lachlan cast a helpless look toward the door. Where was his meddlesome captive now? Her dog? Anyone? Hell. He set his eyes on the boy. “What did Mailie and Ruth tell ye?”

  “I havena asked them.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because ye’ll tell me the truth.”

  Aye. Aye, the truth was best, but why did Lachlan have to be the one who delivered it? No, if the lad came to him for the truth, he would get it.

  “She isna coming back, lad. I’m sorry, but she…” Hell. “…she has died.”

  He watched any hope William had left fade. He felt the pain and the emptiness of it. “I’m sorry, lad.” What else was there to say? Lachlan couldn’t bring her back. He couldn’t bring any of them back. “I know how ye feel, Will,” he said gently, reaching out to touch the top of the boy’s head. He didn’t run this time, though the pain he’d just caused this child broke him in two. He knelt before the chair. “Some believe that if we have faith in God, we will see our loved ones again in Heaven.”

  William lifted his misty eyes—one of them still half-shut—from his lap. “D’ye believe it?”

  Hell, how was Lachlan expected to keep his heart safe from this? “Aye, lad, I do.”

  “My mum told me aboot yer wife and yer daughter dyin’ in that fire. D’ye think she’s with them now, Laird?”

  “Aye. They’ll be there waiting fer us.”

  The lad seemed comforted that they had this in common.

  But there was more.

  “What aboot me and Lily? Who will take care of us until then?”

  “Miss Mac—” Lachlan scowled. He didn’t want to make promises that might not be kept. What if Sinclair kicked the children out? Damn it. He wanted Annabel back in his life, not…William looked about to burst into tears.

  “I’ll figure something oot, lad,” Lachlan said, hoping to stay any weeping. “Until then, ye and yer sister will stay here, aye?”

  Lachlan didn’t expect the lad to fling himself off the chair and into his chest. When William clung to him, his skinny arms coiled around Lachlan’s neck, he thought of breaking away and keeping his heart guarded. But he remained and slowly lifted his arms and hugged the child back, just as he’d done with Mailie. He closed his eyes at the familiar feeling, a feeling he’d longed for, a feeling that terrified him both times.

  William broke free and set his level gaze on him. Lachlan couldn’t help but smile at his swollen eye. “We willna be any trouble!”

  That was doubtful, Lachlan thought, but what was the point in brooding over it?

  “Dinna send us away, Laird. We like it here with ye and Mailie.”

  Hell, Lachlan thought, grinding his jaw. This was a mistake. What the hell was he doing? Mailie wasn’t staying. Will and Lily weren’t staying. He didn’t want anyone to like it here, that’s why the castle looked the way it did. Sparsely furnished with no place for comfort, save his private study. He kept others out of his world. Why would they want to enter it?

  His ear picked up the sound of Ettarre galloping through the hall, Lily’s voice calling out after her, and Mailie calling them both.

  He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. He missed peace and quiet…and his sanity, when he realized he was smiling. Ettarre appeared at Lachlan’s side and tried to lick his face. He moved away just in time. The hound’s tongue found Will’s face instead.

  Lily came running in next and stopped when she saw him rising up from the floor.

  Lovingly tended to by Mailie’s tender hands, the wee lass was a sight to behold. Her dark hair was plaited and wrapped around her head like a crown. Lachlan looked closer. Were those twigs woven into her hair? She wore a wee shift of dyed yellow that reached her stockinged knees and small hide boots on her feet. When his gaze met hers, he looked
away. If he did get Annabel back, how would she ever forgive him for losing her?

  “William.” Mailie entered the study next. “I told ye the laird didna want to be disturbed.”

  “I wanted to speak with him,” the boy told her while Lachlan raised his palm to stay her concern.

  Mailie lifted her gaze to him and arched a curious brow. “How did it go?”

  “He said we can stay!” Will informed them all. Ettarre barked.

  Mailie studied Lachlan’s pale complexion and then let her smile shine full force on him. “Of course he did. I told ye he would take care of everything.”

  She’d known his decision to let them stay, but her smile told of more. She’d trusted him to keep his word.

  It made him want to smile back. She was a fool to put her faith in him, but somehow he felt a bit more human because of it.

  “Now, come,” she said, gathering the children and her dog under her arms and shooing them out of the study. “Let us leave the laird alone and help Ruth prepare our supper.”

  Lachlan watched them leave and then sighed at the booming silence around him.

  He needed something to do and quickly decided what it was. There were only two chairs in the kitchen. One for him and one for Ruth. They were going to need more chairs.

  Hell.

  He left the study and climbed the stairs to the third and final landing. There were only two rooms up here, but they were big and so used as storerooms. He entered one and lit a candle waiting on the wall. He looked around at the furniture he’d built for Annabel when they’d returned to Scotland. Hannah’s chests filled with her clothes and other things he’d put away and carried up here after her death. It was all the past he could fit into two rooms, including all the wooden items he’d crafted over the years.

  He ignored the haunting whispers beckoning him to pause and return to the past, even for a moment or two. He couldn’t go back. He couldn’t go downstairs into Annabel’s room to see everything preserved from when she was alive. Hers was the ghost that frightened him the most. He found two of the kitchen chairs he’d made for his family, and plucked them from the pile.

  When he entered the kitchen a few moments later, Ettarre was the first to greet him at the doorway. William dropped the broom he was using to catch any spills from the cutting table where Mailie and Ruth were working. He rushed to Lachlan’s side and pulled on one of the chairs. Lachlan let him take it, glad that the boy wasn’t lazy.

  He set down the one he carried in front of the table, then began to turn to leave. “Stay fer supper, Ruth. I’ll eat in my study.”

  “I have my own family to see to, Lachlan,” Ruth told him while she chopped onions. Beside her, Mailie cut potatoes and Lily wiped her eyes. “There are enough chairs now, so ye can all eat together. Mailie and I are makin’ stovies, yer favorite.”

  “I hope ye like my recipe.” Mailie smiled at him, drawing him closer to the cutting table. “’Tis an old family favorite.”

  “Since yer mother is the best cook in Scotland,” he reminded her with a slight smile of his own, “my expectations are high.”

  He tried to take a peek at her ingredients, but she pushed him away. “We need water fer boilin’. Why no’ take William with ye?”

  He looked at the lad. What would they speak about all the way to the well and back?

  “I want to come too,” Lily said, squinting up at him while tears spilled down her cheeks.

  Lachlan glowered at the onions. He might be a monster, but he wasn’t about to stand there while Lily’s eyes stung until she cried. Before he could stop himself, he bent down and scooped the gel up. She settled neatly atop his forearm as he held her to him and curled one of her small arms around his neck.

  Then Lachlan glowered at Mailie for smiling at him as if he had just walked off the battlefield, alive and well. Didn’t she hate him? Why would it all be easier if she hated him?

  “Lily needs fresh air,” he said, then turned to Will before Lachlan said something to Mailie he knew he’d regret later, something like, I dinna want ye to hate me.

  “Grab some buckets and follow me,” he told the boy. Mailie’s voice stopped him.

  “Dinna ferget their cloaks,” she called out. “Lily’s is hangin’ there.”

  He had no choice but to turn and look at her again to find out where she was referring. Hell, she was fine to behold. Her russet waves were pinned up atop her head, but a few strands fell over the delicate curve of her cheek. She’d make any deserving man happy. Sinclair was not a deserving man.

  “’Tis behind ye on the knob.” She pointed over his shoulder while he stared at her.

  He blinked out of a moment that felt as if he were underwater, sinking deeper, unable to reach the surface. He came up with a silent gasp for air.

  What the hell was Mailie MacGregor doing to him?

  He looked at the cloak of soft wool hanging where she’d directed. Neither Mailie nor Ruth came to help, and William was busy with his own cloak.

  Setting Lily down on her feet, he snatched up the cloak and draped it around her shoulders. His fingers might be deft when he hunted, but they fumbled miserably around a wee neck, tucking and pulling with big, awkward hands. He glanced at Mailie, only to find her shaking her head at him. What? What was he supposed to do? He hadn’t dressed a child in two years! “Come, help me,” he commanded.

  “Ye’re doin’ fine,” Mailie assured him, and then leaned in to share an ill-concealed giggle with Ruth.

  He wondered why, out of all the wenches in Scotland, he’d kidnapped the most brazen. Didn’t she think him a beast? A monster? Yet she didn’t flinch when he commanded that she come to him. She wasn’t frightened of him at all.

  “Laird?”

  When he looked down, he found that Lily had draped her cloak perfectly around her shoulders and secured it with an iron pin.

  “I’m ready.”

  So she was. She wasn’t a helpless babe. He’d do best to remember that and not look like a fool again, but it was a possibly hazardous trek to the well. He’d hate for her to fall and roll down the rest of the way.

  Without looking behind him at the two women he was sure were watching, he leaned down and plucked Lily from the ground and carried her out.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mailie sat on the opposite side of the table watching the others lift their spoons to their mouths. She liked it here. How had she gone mad so quickly? She still hated that Lachlan had taken her, but when she found out his reasons, she’d forgiven him. After that, it was easier to see him in a clearer light. As many times as she’d struck him, he never put his hand to her. He was gentle with her and with the children, when he wasn’t burrowing away in his study, trying to avoid them. But always ultimately returning to them.

  She wasn’t angry with him for staying out all night and away from them all day. She knew he was fighting his dragon. She thought she wouldn’t be able to withstand his full tale of going home to find his family gone. He stood against that window and confessed his weakness to her. He had withstood it, so she had as well. He wanted her to understand that he was afraid of letting them in, afraid of caring enough to keep her from Sinclair, and him from gaining information about his daughter.

  She understood his battle.

  His lips closed around the spoon. She watched them slide off. Decadence incarnate. She shook her head at herself. Why was she thinking of kissing him? Because of him she’d soon be kissing Ranald Sinclair.

  He closed his eyes and then groaned. Mailie shifted in her chair and covered her throat, which felt suddenly vulnerable. How could a man look and sound so good eating? How could he look so irresistible sitting at a table with two children and her dog at his feet? And how could sitting here with them feel so right with her?

  How could she betray everything she was taught by liking a merciless beast? By caring if he liked her stovies?

  “I’m glad Ruth isna here,” he finally said after a second bite. “I’d hate to insult her, but
this is the best I’ve ever tasted.”

  She beamed at him, satisfied with her skills. “I told ye, did I no’?”

  It was the perfect supper for a cold night. Made with leftover venison, potatoes, onions, and a variety of her mother’s other ingredients, including turnips and carrots, and herbs such as sage, thyme, and rosemary, the dish was stewed in fat and stock until everything was tender.

  William didn’t say much, but he was first to finish and asked for more. Beside her, Lily ate a little and then pushed her bowl away.

  Mailie shared a brief, concerned glance with Lachlan. Lily hadn’t eaten much today, and her nap had lasted only a few moments before she was up again. Poor wee love, Mailie thought, looking at her. She had lost her mother just yesterday. She was going to need time to heal, and where better than in the arms of someone strong?

  The memory of Lachlan taking Lily up in his arms made her feel the same way now as it had when it happened: weak, unable to stop her belly from fluttering, her heart from resisting.

  He possessed few of the traits she was searching for and more faults than she cared to count. She refused to lose any part of herself to him. But the battle was a most difficult one when each moment she spent with him revealed that he wasn’t a merciless beast after all. For all his bluster, he was letting the children stay, not to mention he’d given up his marriage bed to them with little argument.

  Nae. How would she explain to her father and the others that she was growing fond of her captor? The man who had certainly caused him anguish by taking his daughter? What would he think of her?

  She forced herself to think on simpler things rather than on her traitorous softness toward a dragon.