by Tessa Murran
‘Do not sulk, Morna, it does not become you and…’
‘Laird,’ came a shout from across the yard. ‘Riders, many of them, heavily armed.’
Will turned from her and raced up the stairway to the top of the gatehouse. He looked out and cursed. ‘Bar the gates and man the walls, and find Waldrick, now,’ he shouted.
He glanced down at Morna with a stormy look on his face and pointed to her. ‘Get that woman inside, now!’
A burly man rushed over and took her by the arm and pulled her inside the keep. The shouting in the yard intensified, with some panic in the voices shouting to gather arms and make haste. Was it the Cranstouns, or some other foe?
‘Come with me,’ growled the man. As if she would. Morna twisted free and fled to the back stairway and upwards, to emerge onto a far part of the battlements. Men pushed past her as they rushed to their posts, the burly man in hot pursuit.
She peered through the driving rain at the high ground. Beyond the narrow strip of land leading to Fitheach, where the ground spread out to a grassy plain, well over two hundred men marched forward and, at their head, on a huge steed, sporting mail and with sword drawn, rode her brother Cormac and beside him, Owen Sutherland.
***
Will pounded through the gates with Waldrick beside him along with a group of his most fierce-looking warriors at his back, as a gusty rain blew in sideways across the hillside. As they drew closer, Cormac Buchanan rode forward. By Christ, the bastard was bigger than Will remembered from four years ago, and the look on his dark face, impassive, unrelenting, made it clear this man was not to be trifled with.
‘He looks to have a fearsome anger on him, Will. Watch yourself,’ said Waldrick.
‘Aye, he does, but Cormac and I have met before, so let me do the talking.’
Wrenching his horse to a standstill opposite Cormac, Will noticed another big man come alongside him, in full battle dress, the kind only afforded by the very rich. This one was not the other brother, Lyall, though he was handsome and had the same air of entitled wealth and privilege, the same arrogance in the way he held himself. The stranger was trying to out-stare him, but Will paid him no heed. There was but one man in charge here, and that was Cormac Buchanan, who was wasting no time in getting to the point.
‘I hear you have my sister. I want her back.’ A growl of a voice, capable of intimidating lesser men.
‘Did you lose her? How careless of you,’ said Will.
‘Don’t bother pretending she isn’t here O’Neill, for I have it on good authority that she is.’
‘How did you come by that information?’
‘Your cousin Drostan paid me a visit at Beharra.’
Will tried to hide his surprise that his sickly cousin could have managed to crawl his way to Beharra unmolested. ‘Does the rat still live?’ he replied.
‘Aye, he bides at my home where he will stay until I return with Morna. The way he tells it, you are holding Morna prisoner, keeping her here against her wishes.’
‘My cousin is prone to exaggeration.’
Cormac Buchanan took a deep breath and leant forward in his saddle, his black, devil eyes narrowing. ‘Well, I am not and, if you don’t bring Morna to me now, I will take this castle apart stone by stone, and after that, I will take you apart, one limb at a time.’
‘Morna is no prisoner. She is under my protection and will remain here, in safety.’
‘You will bring her out here now, you whoreson,’ shouted the blonde man, rising in his saddle.’
‘Who the hell are you?’ said Will, spitting on the ground.
‘My name is Owen Sutherland, and Morna is my …
‘Silence,’ hissed Cormac.
What was the younger man about to say that Cormac so wanted to silence?
‘I wonder that you come here like this?’ said Will. ‘What did you hope to achieve, that I would be so intimidated by the mighty Cormac Buchanan that I would roll over and show my belly?’
‘I expected you to see reason, Will O’Neill.’
‘That man you so despised at Bannockburn is gone. I am a Bain now and Laird of this clan here. If you think I will flinch each time you bark, you have underestimated me Cormac Buchanan, and not for the first time.’
‘Aye,’ said Cormac with an icy smile, ‘Drostan told me all about how you became a Laird.’
‘So, because of Drostan’s whining here you are, in all your pomp. I wonder you took the trouble of coming here in person, especially when your clan is so vulnerable. Did Drostan not mention that it was Ranulph Gowan who nailed your sister in a crate and took her out to sea? Do I need to describe what her fate would have been had I not rescued her? Yes, Buchanan, that is the truth of it, I rescued her.’
‘She fell into your path, aye, I’ll give you that.’
‘If Ranulph Gowan is making his move against you, maybe you should be back at Beharra, defending what is yours, instead of...’
‘My brother looks after my interests in my absence,’ snapped Cormac, ‘which means I have all the time in the world to deal with you.’
Will smiled, enjoying the challenge of sparring with an equal for a change.
‘Ah yes, your brother, the handsome butcher, Lyall. He has quite the reputation. I heard he tore a man apart at the siege of Berwick with his bare hands, and then ate his flesh.’
Cormac smiled. ‘My brother’s reputation is ill-deserved. He merely gave an enemy what was coming to him. That is the Buchanan way. As to butcher, that is more my reputation than Lyall’s. If you do not bring Morna to me now, you will find out why.’
‘I’ve a mind to keep Morna just where she is – safe in my keep, where I am protecting her, not jailing her.’
‘If my sister is no prisoner, then bring her out.’
‘Not just yet. I want to take the measure of a man who would be careless enough to let his own clansman abduct his sister and then sell her to his worst enemy.’
‘My own clansman?’
‘Ah, it seems Drostan has only told half the story for he did not know that it was one of your own who betrayed you to Ranulph Gowan.’
Cormac’s face hardened, and his eyes narrowed. Will decided to prod the wound and see just how slim Cormac’s hold on his temper really was. ‘Judging by the look on your face, neither did you.’
‘Who?’
‘A bastard by the name of Ramsay Seward. Did you not think to question his disappearance?’
Cormac’s face froze into a mask of hate. He exchanged glances with the Sutherland fellow. ‘We thought he had been abducted along with Morna. Is he here too?’ he said, rising in his saddle.
‘No, dead, at the hands of Ranulph Gowan, who prefers to cover his tracks, it would seem. My cousin, Drostan, he likes to tell his tales, but he does not know all the facts. I do, for Morna trusts me enough to confide in me.’
‘Morna is easily led.’
Will laughed. ‘If you believe that, Buchanan, then you do not know your sister at all. It seems she is safer at Fitheach with me than you, given the attempt to abduct and ruin her.’
What hard blood pulsed through this man’s veins, thought Will, for, although the revelation of his man’s treachery must have been a shock to him, that icy ferocity had not flickered.
Cormac looked down at the reins in his hand and then out at Fitheach with disdain. ‘I am bored with this game and wish to be gone from this festering rat’s nest. Hand over my sister, Bain, and I may let you live.’
‘Why on earth would I do that when I am safe and snug within my keep, while you are out on an exposed hillside far from home with a north wind biting your face and freezing your balls. If you are prepared to be reasonable, I will extend the hospitality of my keep to you, and you alone. This lot can stay out here.’
‘Your hospitality? Oh, I can trust in that I am sure,’ said Cormac contemptuously. ‘Tell me, are you delaying to up your price?’
‘Price?’
‘You fool no one, Bain. Morna is no guest of your
s, and you do not care about her safety. Let us speak plain. You are merely trying to increase the ransom for your hostage.’
Will smiled. ‘Ah Buchanan, the weather on Skye can be tempestuous. Your men will freeze out here on this hillside besieging us, but you already know that. Did you think I would be intimidated into doing your bidding by the sight of your warriors lining up outside my keep? I have been at war for years against far more brutal foes than you.’
‘Then perhaps I should find these foes of yours, the Cranstouns isn’t it, and join with them to bring you down?’
‘The very men to whom your sister was sold. The men who would have made a whore of her? I suppose Drostan left that fact out as well, didn’t he, so he could make me the villain of the piece? Come now, Cormac, see sense. How many men are you prepared to sacrifice? A score, a hundred, a thousand. Oh but I forget, you don’t have that many because you have thrown too many lives away fighting for your precious King Robert.’
‘Aye, I have lost men fighting for my King, and for Scotland, better that than cowering on my backside on an island in the middle of the ocean because I do not have the courage to be loyal.’
‘Loyal, you call it? I fought for the Scots at Bannockburn and was taken for a traitor. They would have executed me, no matter how many English lives I took. That King you love so much is no different from Edward of England. They are both butchers, but Robert is just better at it. Don’t take me for a fool, Cormac Buchanan. I don’t live my life by your rules, or your King’s, and Morna stays here for now. Who knows, I may decide to keep her for good.’
‘Then you are a dead man.’
‘But until that day, I am a living one, and one Morna grows fonder of every day. Soon, I suspicion, she will not want to leave me.’
‘You can have anyone you want, any woman, why hang onto something that is not yours.’
‘This one intrigues me and, until she stops doing that, I won’t let Morna out of my sight. I will not send her back into the middle of a clan feud and a war, Buchanan. As I see it, you need to be gone soon to defend your King’s interests at Berwick. I hear rumours of an English army marching north to take back Robert’s hard-won prize. After all that blood he spilt, it is going to slip through his fingers. Hiding on an island in the middle of the ocean might not seem so bad then.’
‘I can crush the English, and I can crush you, like the insect that you are.’
‘I am done talking. You’ll have a cold night out here in the open. Good place for an ambush too.’
‘It will not be my first, nor my last, but try it, and it will be yours.’
Will glared at Cormac and then turned to go, just as the Sutherland wretch called out to him.
‘If you touch one hair on Morna’s head, I will kill you,’ he bellowed.
Will spun his horse around and rode it back to Sutherland, almost barging into his horse. Something about this man was getting his temper up. ‘It is not her head that particularly interests me,’ he said, goading him.
Will noticed Cormac glare at the Sutherland fellow.
‘Don’t make me step over your corpse to see Morna safe,’ said Sutherland. ‘She is my betrothed, she belongs to me. ’
Will tried not to betray himself as his world spun and crashed. She had lied to him. ‘She belongs to me.’ So much possession hung in those words from this arrogant young man. Raging jealousy formed a vice around his heart.
Cormac’s black eyes were fixed on Will’s face. Could he see the weakness there, the shock, the hurt? ‘Bain, come the morning, you will bring my sister to me, or suffer the consequences,’ he snarled.
Will turned to Cormac. ‘I say again. Morna is in no danger, nor will she be, but attack my keep, and this dog will be the first one I kill,’ he said, stabbing a finger at Owen Sutherland.
Chapter Fifteen
When they got inside the keep Will flung himself off his horse and was all set to storm off and confront Morna when Waldrick’s hand on his arm stopped him in his tracks.
‘Where are you going?’ Will tried to shake off the other man, but he was not having it. ‘Enough Will. Leave the lass be. We must stop and have this out.’
‘Bar the gates well and double the men on the walls. Make safe the ships down below, and lay an ambush in the cave in case Drostan has spilt all our secrets.’
‘Will, that Cormac Buchanan, the man has ice coursing through his veins. I have come across men like him before. He will find a way to kill you for this, no matter how long it takes, and he has the ear of the King. You shouldn’t cross ruthless men with powerful friends.’
‘Am I not ruthless?’
‘Aye, but Clan Bain stands alone out here. You have put all of us in danger, playing with his sister. A wise man would give the lass back and send him on his way, indebted to you for saving her life. Instead, you seem intent on angering him.’
‘His arrogance offends me. He thinks us beneath him, mangy dogs drooling over scraps, but I will not bend the knee to the likes of him.’
‘He’ll never go away once he harbours a grudge, and I see your death at the hands of that man,’ said Waldrick.
‘I see an opportunity, Waldrick. Now, do as I say and make good the castle’s defences.’
Will took the stairs two at a time up to Morna’s chamber. Rage made him push aside the man guarding her door and barge inside with his fists balled. He slammed and bolted it behind him. Morna was standing with her back to him, looking out of the shutters at the ocean. She didn’t bother turning around to face him, nor did she have the good sense to be silent.
‘So, my brother has come,’ she said. ‘Unlucky for you it is Cormac. My brother Lyall is the kind one, he would slaughter you quickly, but Cormac will make it last for days.’
‘If you think that means you are leaving, Morna, think again.’
‘You can’t stand against my brother. I saw he has brought an army with him.’
‘A small one, and vulnerable without shelter, with no supply lines, one that has to make camp on open ground. Cormac cannot mount a siege out here in the middle of nowhere. He is bluffing, and I am not falling for it.’
‘My brother is always true to his word. If he has promised you violence, you will get it.’
‘Is that what you want woman, for him to kill me? What a hypocrite you are. What we did abed, you wanted it as much as I, you were practically begging me to take you, and yet you would see me die for it.’
Morna swung around and faced him. ‘I don’t want anyone to die, not even you. Have I not told you I am sick of all the bloodshed and men butchering each other? I just want to go home. Let me go with Cormac, and we can be done with this, Will.’
‘I am not done with you, and you are not leaving.’
‘Why?’
‘I wish I knew, but there it is.’
‘That is not a good enough answer. I am leaving, and if you don’t agree, then you will lose everything, all over someone who doesn’t want you.’
‘Then you are a fool, woman, and given your brother’s folly in coming here, no doubt fuelled by love for you and his own arrogance, you had best appease me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I can send my men to outflank him in the night and drive him into the sea, come in from behind him. I know this land, and he does not, and I have ships moored all around this island. What will he do when I despatch them to burn the ships that brought him here or take them as a prize, leaving him no escape back to the mainland? I am sure he has his ships nestled in some safe harbour somewhere. I can easily sniff them out. What you see at Fitheach is but a fragment of the force I can raise.’
Morna’s face paled. He had shocked her and given away his secrets to some extent, but it was worth it to bring her down a peg or two. These Buchanans, treating him as though he were some dumb animal, some lowly peasant to command.
‘Will, please, whatever you are planning it is not worth it. You have had your sport, made your conquest. Why do you want me to stay here?’
/>
‘I have my reasons, just as you have yours, which make you so keen to return home. Are you eager to hasten your wedding?’
‘What?’
‘It would seem that you have ensnared another heart. You have been keeping a little secret from me. You are betrothed to that horse’s arse out there, the fine and honourable Owen Sutherland.’
‘I am not,’ she said.
‘Did you seal your promise to wed him by giving yourself to him, Morna?’ He rushed up to her and grabbed her by the arm. ‘What favours have you allowed your betrothed? Was your innocence all an act? Did you already open your legs for that fool?’
Her face crumpled in pain and Will realised he was digging his fingers into her arm far too tightly. He flung her arm away. They glowered at each other, both breathing heavily, his anger more than matched by hers.
‘Speak woman, and it had better be the truth, for he must have some claim on you. The man looked fit to tear my head from my shoulders and suck my brains from my skull.’
‘I am not betrothed to Owen. He offered for me, but I did not give him a reply.’
‘Why?’
‘I did not know what to do, I did not know my own heart, and then I happened upon Ramsay. I talked to him about it, and then he turned on me and said he loved me, and, if he couldn’t have me, nor would Owen. Just like you, Ramsay saw me as a prize to be won, a thing without feelings,’ she spat.
‘Why did you not tell me about that fool, Sutherland?’
‘Why should I? I cannot trust you, you have proven that. And do not name him a fool, Owen is far from that, and he is better than you, a good, brave man.’
‘He says you belong to him.’
‘I don’t belong to anyone.’
‘There you are wrong, for you belong to me and, now I know about Sutherland, I am more determined than ever that you won’t go back to Beharra with Cormac.’
Morna shook her head and frowned. ‘Why are you doing this to me? Why are you hurting me like this? I saved your life once. Does that mean nothing to you?’
‘It means everything to me.’ He sighed, feeling the fight leave him at the expression of disdain on her face. He wanted Morna Buchanan, that much he could acknowledge, and not just in his bed, but in his life, and she couldn’t wait to get as far away from him as possible. Suddenly it all crashed in on him, his loneliness, his bitterness, the emptiness of his loveless existence. A soft place had grown in his heart, and all it had done was give this girl the power to humiliate him and lay him low. So, it was with dread in his heart that he asked, ‘If you hadn’t been taken by Ramsay, what would you have said to the fine Owen Sutherland? Would you have accepted his proposal?’
