Laird of the Black Isle

by Paula Quinn

  “That was difficult to say,” she teased.

  “I am not eloquent,” he told her on a throaty growl as she came close. And then closer still.

  “Nae, and I like it. ‘The less there is of eloquence’”—she said, quoting “The Sleeping Beauty”—“‘the more there is of love.’”

  He blinked, looking lost and utterly adorable. She’d let him think about it.

  Smiling, she glided around him and disappeared into the study to clap her hands.

  “All right, I need water fer breakfast,” she told them. “Who is goin’ to the well with Lachlan?”

  “Will,” Lachlan said, coming inside. “William will come.” He looked down at the boy. “Carrying buckets will help strengthen ye.”

  Mailie nodded. The men of Camlochlin took their bairns to the training field at an earlier age than William. If Lachlan took Will as his son, he would raise him to defend himself.

  If he took him as his son. Och, but the mere act of thinking of it heated her blood and pulled her heart toward Lachlan even more. She knew she was mad, but she wanted to raise Will and Lily with him.

  “I’m going to put on some fresh clothes,” he told Will, “and then we shall go.”

  “Aye, Laird!” William agreed exuberantly.

  Lachlan reached for his boots beside the chair. When he straightened, his gaze settled on her. “Is there anything else I can get ye?”

  She tucked her hair behind her ears with shaky fingers and glanced at the children. She blushed and cleared her throat. “Some coal and parchment please,” she told him, turning up her chin in defense of his unkempt hair and sleepy smile.

  “I have a quill. Who do ye intend to pen?”

  She let her gaze return to him and folded her arms across her chest. “Ye slept in a chair all night so I’ll fergive ye fer thinkin’ I would try to pen a letter to someone with coal.”

  His gaze danced over her features and his smile began to deepen.

  “I want the children to draw some pictures so we can hang them on the walls—in frames that ye fashion, of course.”

  She could have sworn he grimaced. She’d have to open the curtains more in the study so the sun lit the room better. His smile seemed intact but a bit more forced. But he didn’t deny her.

  “Pictures on the walls, aye.”

  “And vases,” she told him, remembering to pick heather with Lily today.

  He closed his eyes, and his nostrils flared as he drew in a deep breath, as if he were summoning his patience—or imagining how wonderful his castle would soon smell thanks to her.

  Mailie smiled until he opened his eyes again.

  “I’m going to clean up,” he muttered and turned for the door.

  He was trying to hurry out before she told him anything else. “I’ll let ye know if I think of any other ways to brighten up the castle.”

  He paused his steps and slowly pivoted to look at her from beneath his dark locks. He didn’t say anything. She and the children knew he wouldn’t.

  She smiled innocently at him, then grinned when he left.

  “What are we goin’ to draw, Mailie?” Lily asked her when Mailie turned to traipse across the room to the books.

  “Whatever ye like, dearest,” she sang. She scanned the titles, looking for something good to read to them today. She decided to continue with Le Morte d’Arthur when her gaze fell on Perrault’s volume of fairy tales. She thought they would enjoy the stories, but she wouldn’t put Lachlan through listening to her reading them.

  She ushered them into the kitchen, where Will dressed in his overclothes and plaid and waited with Ettarre for Lachlan to arrive and take them out. Lily helped her measure out the right amount of oats for the cakes they were going to bake. It all felt too comfortable, so right. Like they all belonged together. If they did—if instead of giving her over to Sinclair, he brought her to her family—she would find a way to make it so.

  And then she would find his daughter.

  He returned to them a little while later. His hair was neater, save for ebony locks falling over his brows adding shadows to his silver eyes. He wore a fresh woolen léine with thread-covered buttons, a heavy leather belt, snug doeskin breeches, and boots.

  He looked quite handsome, but Mailie couldn’t help but think of his chiseled body underneath.

  She blushed, coaxing a hint of a smile across his mouth. The promise of dark decadence in the quirk of his lips tempted her to pull him to another room and bite his mouth and anywhere else she could get her teeth on.

  Without a word he moved to stand behind her and reached for a stack of bowls from the high shelf. Before he turned away to set the bowls on the table, he bent his head to hers, his lips to her ear. “Ye look bonny, Mailie.”

  She smiled again, eyeing him from beneath her lashes.

  He didn’t wait for her reply but went for the buckets, then returned to Will. “Ready?”

  “Aye”—the lad nodded—“I was ready when ye and Mailie looked like ye were goin’ to start kissin’.”

  Mailie giggled into her hand. Lachlan scowled at him and pulled him out of the kitchen by the collar.

  The rest of the morning went the same way, with stolen, intimate glances shared over the breakfast table, which later in the morning became the reading table. He hadn’t stayed too long but disappeared somewhere outside to hammer something. Ruth came by with a bag of apples and a small sack of mushrooms and settled down to sew in a chair left absent by the laird.

  William fidgeted during the first half of the reading lesson but when Lachlan, returning from whatever he’d been doing for the last hour, saw him, he went to stand by his chair. “This is important, lad. ’Twill open doors fer ye. Pay attention to yer lesson and when ’tis over ye can come help me.”

  Mailie thanked him with yet another smile. She was beginning to feel like a grinning fool.

  He kept his promise when the lesson was over and invited William to help him. Of course, Lily insisted on going as well.

  Mailie swooshed them away and stayed behind to clean up. She didn’t mind. It would give her a chance to speak with Ruth about where to pick the best heather.

  “He likes ye, lass,” the older woman said, setting down her sewing in her lap. “I want so much to rejoice. He’s been so empty and now I see life in him again. But d’ye ferget who ye are? The daughter of a MacGregor.”

  “Nae,” Mailie said, sitting back down next to her. “I dinna ferget. I remember it every moment. But I canna go home alone. I must stay here—with him, forced to realize that he is no’ what I first believed. He is patient and even-tempered, thoughtful and charitable.”

  “His heart,” Ruth argued softly, “is vulnerable because of this notion that Annabel is still alive. Have ye considered what he’ll be like when he discovers, fer the second time, that his daughter is gone?”

  “I’ve thought it all over, Ruth. I think of it all day and all night, but my heart speaks to me louder than my head. Still, this dilemma plagues me. If there was a way to get a letter to my faither—”

  Ruth shook her head. “Count me oot of that, Mailie. He’d never fergive me fer helpin’ to bring the MacGregors here.”

  “But ’twould give me a chance to—”

  “I’m sorry,” Ruth said, stopping her. “No one in the village will go against him. He wants to think they dinna know who leaves the meat, the furniture. I let him believe it because ’tis what he wants, but they love him. Most of them dinna even know him. They only know what they’ve heard. But he has their loyalty. I fear if yer kin come here, they will take up arms fer him.”

  Mailie paled at the thought. “What can I do?”

  Ruth wiped her eyes. “I dinna know, lass, but the longer ye stay here with him, the worse ’tis goin’ to be fer him later. And I dinna mean what will happen when yer kin get here.”

  Mailie chewed her lip and felt like weeping at the tragedy of it all. “Och, Ruth, ye’ll believe me mad, but I think I—” She ended her words abruptly whe
n she heard footsteps behind her.

  “Mailie, come see!” Lily exclaimed and tugged on her skirts. “We made frames fer our pictures! Lachlan said we could hang them in our own playroom! Aaand, he’s goin’ to build me a horse that rocks back and forth!”

  Ruth let out a long sigh and nodded when Mailie looked at her. “I think he does too, lass.” She said nothing more as Lily pulled Mailie away from her and led her outside.

  Mailie’s heart thrashed. What did Ruth think he did? Love her? That’s what she was going to tell Ruth, that she was falling in love with him. Did Ruth think Lachlan loved her? She wanted to go back and ask her. What if he did? It would just make things worse. He wouldn’t want to hand her over to Sinclair. He wouldn’t get the name of the people who allegedly had his daughter. She didn’t really know if her family, as influential as some of them were, could help her find Annabel. Whether she believed Sinclair or not, she didn’t want Lachlan to give up the chance to search for his bairn.

  The best thing she could do for him was to go to Sinclair. Her kin would find her soon enough in Caithness. Better they found her with the true beast than the man who was capturing her heart and hopefully finding Annabel.

  She would tell him tonight.

  When she reached the yard where Lachlan did most of his work, she smiled at him standing over Will and helping him chisel a narrow piece of wood.

  There were already at least five frames made and leaning up against the shed. What were his plans for the children? She wondered if he would keep them until her father rescued her from Sinclair. She didn’t want them around a drunkard who struck his servants. If he struck either of them, she’d cut his throat.

  Watching Lachlan with Will and Lily had convinced her that he didn’t mind having them around. Playrooms and rocking horses sounded permanent…and absolutely delightful.

  “What’s this I hear aboot a playroom?” she asked, reaching him. “That’s an awful lot of trooble to go through.” For children who do not belong to you, she wanted to tell him.

  He shrugged and tossed her a half smile. “’Tis no trouble at all. There are plenty of empty rooms here. I simply picked one.”

  She didn’t know why it pricked her a little that he wouldn’t commit to anything. He’d done everything she asked of him, but he did not make her a single promise about their future together. She wanted one. She wanted this life with him and would do anything to protect it. Did he love her? What would he do about Sinclair, Annabel, if he did?

  “Is this room going to be the place to hang their pictures?” she asked with a smile, but he obviously heard the emotion in her voice and straightened to his full height so she had to look up at him. “I thought to hang them throughout the castle.”

  “Aye, to haunt me when ye’re gone,” he countered quietly, then looked at Will. “Take yer sister into the house with Ruth. I wish to speak with Mailie alone.”

  William nodded and pulled Lily along.

  When they were alone, Mailie moved closer to him. “We would only haunt ye if ye made the wrong decision.”

  “And what is the right decision, Mailie?” he asked. “To ferget my daughter might be alive somewhere and plan oot a new life with different children?”

  “No!” She retreated. Her eyes filled with tears. She was sickened that he would think…“No, of course not. She’s yer bairn. I would never expect ye to ferget her.”

  But that’s exactly what Mailie was asking him to do, wasn’t it? Give up finding his daughter for her? She choked back a sob at how selfish she’d been to want him to care for her. But how did she stop her heart from needing him, wanting only him?

  How could she do this to her father? If she didn’t love her captor, if she didn’t care about his plight, she would have continued trying to escape him. Every day she was gone from home was likely killing her poor father and mother, not to mention Luke, who’d lost her. But if Lachlan took her home, he’d lose Annabel. If he kept her from Sinclair, he’d lose Annabel. She didn’t want to be the one standing in the way of what he desired most.

  She wanted to run into his arms, but it wasn’t fair to him to keep pulling him closer. “I’m sorry,” she told him and hurried from the yard.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lachlan carried the frames into the castle and set them down by the door. He listened for voices and heard them coming from the kitchen.

  What the hell had gotten into Mailie? Why had she run away from him? He hadn’t meant to insult her by asking her if she expected him to forget Annabel. He’d been too harsh with her. He would find her. There were things he wanted to tell her.

  He pushed the door open and stepped inside to find Ruth slicing apples for the children, Ettarre waiting anxiously for hers.

  “Where’s Mailie?” he asked, not finding her with them.

  Ruth shook her head.

  A moment of dread passed over him. Would she have gone? He spun on his boots and turned for the door with a command that the children stay with Ruth. He called to Ettarre to come. Mailie couldn’t have gone far, and her dog would find her quicker.

  “Laird?” Lily called out, stopping him. She ran forward and beckoned him to incline his ear to her.

  With a bit of impatience, he obeyed.

  “Dinna send Mailie away to bad Ranald, Laird,” she said quietly. “I want her to be my mummy and I dinna want to live with him.”

  He looked at her, and then at her brother, who’d left the table and came to stand a few feet away, his apple forgotten and dangling in his hand.

  Would he give up Annabel for them?

  If he thought all the pieces of his broken heart had fallen to the floor, he was wrong. There was one more shard that pierced his soul as Lily spoke again, and it fell.

  “I want to live with ye.”

  She ran back to the table, leaving him bent over and shaking. The only reason he was able to move was to find Mailie. What should he tell her? Did she want to be a mother? And what about him? Lily didn’t want to just live with Mailie. She wanted to live with him too.

  On his way to the front door, it opened and Mailie stepped in from the cold. They stopped and looked at each other for a moment, neither saying a word. Then she ran to him and he caught her in his arms.

  “Och, Lachlan, fergive me,” she cried into his chest. “Even knowin’…knowin’ what I’m askin’ of ye, I still want it. I still want ye.”

  “What are ye asking of me, lass?” he asked into her soft hair, inhaling her, taking her in, wanting more.

  She pulled away and wiped her eyes. “To give up your chance at finding Annabel. I would never let ye do that. I’ll find her myself before I let ye. She belongs in yer life.”

  “Mailie,” he told her softly, spreading his thumb over her wet cheek. He didn’t want her to cry over him anymore. He didn’t want to live in the shadows of the past anymore. He wanted the present, and there was only one way to step out of the darkness. “She will always be a part of my life, whether she is here or not. If she’s alive, I’ll find her. And if she is a ghost, then mayhap ’tis time to quit running from her, aye?”

  She reached up to trace his jaw with her fingertips. “Aye.”

  He knew he could do it with her keeping the light at his side. “Come with me.”

  He took her hand and led her to the stairs. He looked up and breathed, then began to climb.

  When he reached the second landing, he stood in front of the first door on the left. His heart hammered in his chest until he felt a bit unsteady on his feet. He didn’t want to go inside. Why did he think he could stand and face her? He hadn’t been there to protect her. He turned away from the door, but Mailie held his arm.

  “I havena been inside in two years,” he told her.

  “’Tis a long time,” she answered on the tenderest of whispers.

  Aye, it was. He reached for the knob and pushed open the door. His breath felt short and shallow. His legs felt weak for the first time in his life.

  Sunlight from the high wi
ndows cast a warm glow over the wood-paneled walls, stacked with cloth and wooden dolls and wooden figurines, carved chests draped in colorful shawls, and thickly cushioned chairs both large and small.

  Nothing had changed. It remained as it had been years ago, almost exactly as he remembered it. Seeing it again was a different thing. Its preservation only served to accentuate the lifelessness that covered it like cobwebs.

  The dollhouse he’d crafted for Annabel sat on a heavy table illuminated in dusty shafts of light.

  His misted gaze finally settled on the four-poster bed against the northern wall where his babe used to sleep beneath a thin linen canopy. Where he’d spent countless nights reading to her and his last night weeping over her empty bed.

  He let go of Mailie and stepped inside. Voices came flooding into his mind. His wife singing a lullaby, his babe’s soft breath as she fell asleep. Echoes of his past, freezing him in time.

  He turned to Mailie for an anchor, but he realized he didn’t need it. He didn’t feel the darkness. The echoes didn’t hurt the way they had. His heart was finally healing. Thanks to Mailie. Thanks to Will and Lily. He wouldn’t give them up. Not for a hope.

  “Do ye think she is alive?” he asked softly, running his hand over the dollhouse.

  “I dinna know. If ’twere anyone but Sinclair…I fear he will say anything to have me.”

  He turned to look at her. “He willna have ye.”

  “He willna?” she asked on a startled breath.

  “No.”

  “But Annabel…,” she choked back. “I’ve been thinking about it, and the best thing to do, the safest thing, is to be delivered to Sinclair. ’Twillna be long before my faither finds me. I will come back fer the children and keep ye safe from my faither—and my faither from ye.”

  His smile deepened on her. “I’m not delivering ye to Sinclair. I had already decided on a better plan, but Lily just informed me that she wants ye to be her mother and she doesna want to live with bad Ranald.”

  “’Twas my wish at the well.”