The Highlander's Claim (Highland Romance)

by Jessica Knight

  But I know it’s not.

  My father dismisses the twins, and we walk down the well-worn path that leads from the great hall to the house and step inside. In a kettle over the fire, I can smell a well-seasoned mutton stew – it’s the only thing my father knows how to make. He quickly sets about laying the table for us. He sets down the same wooden bowls I remember – they’re a little more chipped and scarred these days and are definitely showing their age, but they’re still in good shape – like my father. He pours out two cups of ale and slices half a loaf of a crusty bread to mop up our strew with.

  With that all done, he ladles out large helpings of stew for the both of us and finally sits down across from me. We eat in silence for a few moments as I relish the stew and the comfort of a home-cooked meal.

  “This is the best thing I’ve eaten in a long time,” I say. “You’ve gotten better at cooking, old man.”

  He chuckles. “Either that or you’ve been on the road for a long while, lad,” he replies, then looks up at me, the fire making the tears in his eyes shimmer. “I’m happy to see you, son. I didn’t know if I would lay eyes on you again before I died.”

  I scoff. “You’ll be around long enough to wish you could send me away again, Papa.”

  He laughs, but it’s dry and humorless, and the smile on his face doesn’t reach his eyes. He was honoring his vow to my mother by sending me to live with my aunt. But I can see the emotional toll he paid in doing so. His face is weary; the lines etched ever deeper. His hair is now fully gray, and there is a haunted look in his eyes. The years have weighed heavy on my father – the mantle of clan leadership I’m sure made his burden that much heavier.

  Reaching across the table, I take his hand and give it a squeeze.

  “I’m home now, Papa. I’m where I belong,” I tell him. “Let us cherish these days together.”

  He finally smiles. “Together,” he says. “Aye. I can do that.”

  “Good.”

  “Your brother will be fit to shit himself when he sees you.”

  I nod as I take a bite of my stew. “Aye. And I can’t wait to see that donkey’s ass again either.”

  We talk and laugh long into the night. He catches me up on everything that’s happened here in my absence while I tell him about my life abroad. By the time I lay down and pull the furs over me to sleep, I’m well used up and exhausted. But happy.

  It is good to be home.

  Chapter Six

  Malcolm

  The arguing was loud and strenuous, with about half the gathered clan members arguing for war and the other half urging caution. I sit at a table on the far side of the room with a mug of ale in hand, taking it all in. My brother Dougal sits across from me rather than on his customary chair on the dais.

  “That English bastard is growing bolder,” he notes.

  I take a long drink and set the mug down. Dougal had just returned from a scouting expedition the day before and had brought dire news. The English had raided a small village at the end of the valley, slaughtering everybody there before putting it to the torch. The loss of life measured in the dozens.

  “You would think that after ten years of this shite, he’d give it up,” Dougal goes on. “He will never take the Highlands.”

  Because of my special interest, I endeavored to learn as much about English politics as I could while I was away. I learned about the English Court and all the players. And I learned all I could about House Seeley, in particular. For instance, I learned that Duke Seeley is regarded as a kind and decent man by most. But his brother James serves as his proxy here in the north, and it’s James, not the Duke himself, who engages in these brutal tactics. The Duke has a son – Morgan – but he is apparently no better than James when it comes to his attitude toward the Scottish. So replacing James with Morgan would effect no change in how the Highlands situation, as they call it, is handled.

  My understanding is that it is a source of tension between the two, but with the Duke spending most of his days at Court in London, there is little he can do to curb his brother’s penchant for violence and brutality. He can ill afford the internal strife when he is barely hanging onto the tattered scraps of the esteem his House was once held in. Of course, their esteem continues to take a beating in part, thanks to James’ murderous practices.

  I take another long drink, and as I reflect on the disposition of House Seeley, my mind wanders back to a time in the market. Ten years in the past to be more accurate. I see her face in my mind’s eye. I see the way her red hair glowed with an inner fire – the same inner fire that made her eyes sparkle like polished jade.

  I have not forgotten her in the time I’ve been away. In fact, I’ve thought about her nearly every single day. Even now, ten years after our one encounter, the mere thought of her brings the same flutter to my heart I had the day we met. That flutter has been kept alive by the fact that she remains unmarried to this very day.

  “Do the son and daughter of Seeley remain at Caldryn House?” I ask as nonchalantly as possible.

  Dougal doesn’t miss it though. As he takes a long swallow from his mug, he looks at me with a sparkling light of amusement in his eyes. All those years ago, I made the mistake of telling him about my infatuation with Catherine. It’s a fact he hounded me about relentlessly until I was sent to France – and apparently is still something he finds amusing.

  “Wish to court the Lady Seeley do ya, Malcolm?” he laughs.

  “She was kind to me once,” I deflect. “I only want to be sure she’s – well.”

  “As well as she can be in that pile of pig shite she calls a family, I suppose.”

  I take another drink and nod. I can only imagine how much damage her family has done to her over the years. Perhaps by now, she’s as cruel and hateful toward the Scots as her family is. Perhaps by now, she too believes we should all be slaughtered. I want to believe better for her, but I have no idea.

  “Listen to me, Mal,” he says. “You may be all cleaned up and talk like a proper fooking Englishman now, but you’d do well to get your mind off the girl. If you think her father would ever let you court her, you’re outta your fookin’ mind.”

  I sigh, knowing he’s right. There is no way her father would ever let me speak to her, let alone court her. And I’m certain that her brother and uncle would have no qualms about driving a dagger into my heart if I tried. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still want to see or speak with her. If anything, knowing it would be forbidden makes me want it even more.

  I look over at Dougal and throw a chicken bone at him. I grin as it bounces off his forehead, and he casts me a dark look.

  “Fuck was that for then?” he growls.

  “I don’t speak like a proper Englishman,” I say.

  He laughs. “With them fancy boots and clothes you got on and all them pretty words come flowin’ out of your mouth, it’s hard for me to remember that you’re Scottish and not a fookin’ Englishman.”

  “It’s hard for you to remember because you have the brains of a fookin’ donkey,” I fire back.

  We laugh together and then let a moment of a companionable, brotherly silence descend over us. I give him a warm smile.

  “It’s good to be home, brother,” I tell him.

  “Aye. And it’s good to have you home,” he replies. “Even if you do look and sound like one of them English bastards.”

  I hurl another chicken bone at him, but he dodges it and laughs along with me. I look out over the room and see the colors of a number of different clans represented at this gathering. It’s loud, raucous, and tense with the very real potential for violence. But the fact that so many of the Highland clans are here at all is remarkable. I never saw anything like this once before I was sent away.

  “I can’t believe father did it,” I say. “I can’t believe he United the clans.”

  My brother scoffs. “United isn’t how I’d describe the clans,” he says. “I’d call it more of a loose affiliation. A very loose affiliation.�
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  “So which side do you come down on?” I ask. “War or not?”

  My brother suddenly sobers, and his expression darkens. “If we’re to have a fight, I’d rather have it now and be done with it.”

  “If you go into a fight now, you’ll be outmanned two-to-one,” I say. “It will be a slaughter.”

  “And with every battle, they whittle down our numbers even more,” Dougal says, a morose note in his voice.

  “Which means if you’re going to fight, you’re going to have to be smart.”

  “We won’t be fightin’ anymore,” my father says as he drops down heavily at our table. “Not if I can help it.”

  Though the argument between the clans rages on behind him, with this clan charging that clan with cowardice, or that clan charging this clan with avarice. No punches have been thrown – I understand that brawling is forbidden in my father’s great hall. But the tension is growing so high it almost feels like an inevitability at this point.

  “So how will you stop it?” I ask. “How do you plan to keep clans from charging off to fight the Duke’s men?”

  Dougal scoffs and takes a long drink of his ale. “You’d think the fact that we’re being slaughtered at every turn would be a deterrent,” he remarks.

  “You know how a Highlander gets when his blood is up,” our father says. “Better than anybody, I’d imagine.”

  I cast a curious glance at Dougal and then to my father, getting the sense that there is a story behind the remark. Dougal has a temper, that’s no secret. But it seems like his temper led to something bad happening. My father sighs and takes Dougal’s mug from his hand, quaffing down the last of the ale then slams the mug back down on the table.

  “A few months back, your brother got his blood up over an insult in the market –”

  “That’s nothing new,” I interrupt my father with a chuckle.

  “Except this time, it cost us four of our clansmen when your brother and a few of his friends decided to attack an armored patrol,” he finishes.

  “In my defense, we did manage to kill more than thirty of those bastards,” Dougal growls.

  “Which then touched off a wider fight that cost us another fifteen men,” my father adds.

  Dougal grumbles under his breath but says nothing. It’s obviously part of a larger argument and one I don’t necessarily want to be a part of since it doesn’t concern me. What’s in the past can’t be undone, and what we should be focusing on is what’s before us.

  “So how bad are things here, Papa?” I ask.

  His mouth is pulled downward in a frown. “It’s not good, lad.”

  “But how bad is it?” I press.

  He sighs. “We’ve been at war for a decade, son. We’ve scored some victories, but we’ve suffered some defeats,” he says. “We’ve lost a lot of men, and our ranks get thinner every year.”

  “We’ll fight to the last man,” Dougal says, though his bravado rings hollow.

  “And we may be down to the last man soon if something doesn’t change,” my father says, gesturing to the near brawl that’s erupting on the floor behind us. “That’s why we need to attend the meeting.”

  “It’s not a good idea father,” Dougal says.

  “What meeting?” I ask.

  “It might be the only way to bring about peace,” my father asks. “It might be the only way to stop the English from slaughtering our people, Dougal.”

  “At what cost?” he presses. “Would you see us enslaved just to keep from fighting?”

  “What meeting?” I say, my voice firmer.

  Dougal runs a hand through his hair, a look of consternation on his face. “Duke Seeley’s brother has asked us to attend a meeting to discuss terms for peace between us.”

  My father looks grim and takes a pitcher of ale from a passing servant and refills our mugs. He hands the pitcher to Dougal, who takes a long swallow. He wipes his mouth on the sleeve of his tunic and lets out a low, rumbling belch.

  “Is that what the argument out there on the floor is about?” I ask.

  My father’s bark of laughter is sharp. “Hell no,” he says. “I didn’t bring it up with all of them. The fighting would be three times as bad.”

  “How did you get them to form this – loose affiliation?” I borrow my brother’s words. “The hard feelings between some of the clans run deep.”

  My father nods. “True enough. But the one thing we all have in common is that our feelings for the English are even harder,” he says. “I think the other clans realize that we’re the first line of defense down here, and if we fall, they’re next. It ain’t perfect lad, but it helps.”

  I look at the men standing nose to nose, shouting and red-faced, tempers flaring, close to trading blows. All I can do is shake my head.

  “No, it’s not perfect,” I chuckle.

  “I need you to do somethin’ for me, Malcolm,” my father says. “I need you to go to our farm –”

  “Father, what do you need me to go to the farm for?”

  “I’d like you to get the place in order,” he says.

  “If you’re going to meet with Seeley –”

  “Malcolm,” he says, his voice as stern as I recall. “We need somebody up at the farm. Clan business keeps me here, and I don’t want anybody gettin’ the idea they can move on in.”

  I feel uneasy with his demand. To me, it feels like he’s trying to shield and protect me from potential danger. I’m having the same feeling in the pit of my stomach I did when he sent me to France.

  “I think I should go with you and Dougal –”

  He slams his fist down on the table, rattling our mugs so hard they nearly topple over. Dougal and I both flinch but grab our mugs before they can fall. My father closes his eyes and lets out a deep breath, and I can see the tension wearing on him.

  “Please just do as I say, Malcolm,” he says. “I have my reasons. Not the least of which is I do not want squatters takin’ over our land.”

  I exchange a look with Dougal, who gives me a small shrug. I don’t like the idea of my father meeting with the Duke alone. Not even Dougal’s presence in my father’s company of retainers makes me feel better about it. I know enough about the English to know they can’t be trusted. Especially men like the Duke’s brother. James Seeley is the kind of man who holds no titles of his own and thinks he can only advance himself through conflict and conquest. To a man like him, the more bodies he drops, the more prestige he earns.

  But I can see that my father doesn’t want to hear any of that. His jaw is set, and his chin is lifted in a very familiar way – he’s got his mind made up. He sighs and claps me on the shoulder, squeezing it gently.

  “Ease your mind, lad. I’ve had several of these private negotiations with the Duke before, and I’ve come home alive and in one piece from every one,” he tells me quietly. “I believe the Duke is a good man who genuinely desires peace. Our only disagreement is how we get there. If the Duke’s brother asked for this meeting under his instructions, I will be fine.”

  That he’s been meeting with the Duke secretly is news to me. Not even Dougal has mentioned it to me. But, the fact that he has and is still sitting here to berate me does ease my mind somewhat.

  “Okay Papa,” I tell him. “I’ll get the farm sorted.”

  “Good lad.”

  Chapter Seven

  Catherine

  “Absolutely not,” James seethes. “It’s out of the question.”

  “I’m afraid it is not,” I snap. “I will be going with you.”

  “Catherine –”

  “This is not up for discussion, Uncle,” I sneer. “I believe that before he left, my father instructed you to not interfere in my charitable work.”

  It was one concession I was able to wrest from my father – the ability to come and go as I pleased to do my charitable work. So long as I took an armed and armored escort with me. When I learned that James and Morgan would be leading a patrol today, I decided it would be a good tim
e to exercise my newfound autonomy. If for no other reason, than to show them that I would no longer be cowed by them.

  His hands folded behind his back; my uncle paces the chamber. I sit back in my chair and take a sip of my wine, watching him work himself into a lather. He stops and grabs the glass from the table in front of him then takes a long swallow of wine. I can see him doing his best to calm down, but the redness of his face gives away just how difficult a task it’s proving to be for him.

  “Catherine, your father also charged me with keeping you out of danger,” he says.

  “Sister, be reasonable,” Morgan jumps in. “Having to meet with these savages is difficult enough without having to worry about your safety.”

  “Oh you’re taking his side. How surprising,” I say, injecting as much sarcasm into my voice as possible.

  My brother rolls his eyes and drinks deeply from his wine glass. “This is not about sides, Catherine,” he says. “This is about making sure those savages out there don’t rape and murder you.”

  “Morgan. Must you be so coarse?” my uncle admonishes him.

  My brother falls into a sullen silence, staring into the bottom of his glass, a petulant expression on his face. But it provides a fresh rush of air to the fire already smoldering inside of me, serving to whip up the flames of my anger.

  “By your reasoning, brother, I would never be allowed outside the bailey walls,” I snap. “What with those savages as you call them, living all around us.”

  “If I had my way, you would be back at Whitefern Hall,” Morgan refers to our ancestral home back in Carlisle.

  “And if I had my way, you both would be back and Whitefern Hall,” my uncle interjects. “I am trying to expand your father’s lands and simply do not have time to play caretaker to the both of you.”

  “I suppose it is a pity then that my father saw fit to have us remain here then, Uncle,” I spit. “But that does not change the facts.”