The Highland Laird

by Amy Jarecki

  “After it was reported that Mr. Riley was abducted from an alehouse by Dunollie, I did some investigating of my own.” The captain tossed the saddle on the table. “This belonged to Tom MacIntyre.”

  “Another of the decedent’s possessions?” asked Wilcox.

  Riley’s eyes bugged wide, his face growing redder by the moment. “It still doesn’t prove I killed the man.”

  “But it proves you’re a thief,” said the captain. “Furthermore—”

  “I didn’t throw the knife,” said Brown, sweat streaming from his brow. “Isn’t that right, Manfred? You tell them.”

  Manfred stood frozen like a frightened deer. “Shhh.”

  Ciar rubbed his hands. Aye, he knew the truth, but having it uttered by his accusers would be all the more pleasing. “What was that, Mr. Brown? If you did not, who wielded the knife?”

  “Mr. Riley,” said Captain MacLeod. “Sentinel Warburton, step forward!”

  A soldier wearing a grenadier hat marched inside and saluted. “Sir.”

  “Let us set this issue to rights once and for all.”

  “Please do,” said Wilcox.

  “Go on,” MacLeod urged.

  “Well, I nay care to speak out against no one, but the captain said ’twas me duty to report the truth.”

  Wilcox impatiently rolled his hand through the air. “Which is?”

  Warburton shot a nervous look to Riley. “He showed me the name carved under the seat of the saddle then told me he was aiming to leave the service a rich man.”

  “And how does he plan to do that?” asked the captain.

  “Told me he’s a highwayman. Said I could get a slice of the spoils if I joined ranks with him—and he’d never be caught on account of his good standing with the queen’s—er—the king’s dragoons.”

  Riley struggled against his bindings. “Lies!” He spat in Ciar’s direction. “Dunollie did it. I seen him with me own eyes. The lot of you are scheming against me.”

  “It was ’im all along,” shouted Brown, thrusting bound arms toward Riley.

  “Too right. Both of ’em forced me to go along with it.” Manfred finally found his voice.

  “Silence.” Wilcox stepped from around the table. “I thank you, Captain, for your quick work in bringing the truth forward.”

  “I am the one who is grateful that a member of the army sought to uncover the truth.” Ciar shook MacLeod’s hand. “I am in your debt, sir.”

  The man’s handshake was firm. “My duty is to maintain the peace. I hate to see an innocent man suffer for a crime he did not commit, even a MacDougall.”

  “Dunollie, you are free to go,” said Wilcox.

  Ciar held up his palms. “Not so fast. I understand you have taken Miss Emma Grant into custody. I will not take another step without her.”

  Wilcox frowned. “I’m afraid you will lose on that count.”

  “But she is innocent.”

  “I daresay she is a pest. But, alas, she is not here. I’d hoped to lure you sooner by making a public display. When that didn’t work, her brother took the hapless girl home.”

  “To Glenmoriston?” Ciar asked, his voice shooting up.

  “I assume so.”

  “When was this?”

  Wilcox looked between his officers. “Has it been four days now?”

  Shite.

  Not that Ciar didn’t want Emma to be safe, but Robert wasn’t a man to cross even if they were allies.

  “Now if you would all vacate my offices, I have a meeting to continue.” Wilcox’s eyebrows disappeared beneath his periwig. “And, Dunollie, I suggest you forget about the Grant woman and take a long rest in your medieval castle. You Highlanders are giving me ulcers.”

  Clenching his teeth and bowing his head, Ciar backed toward the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The pungent smell of the bacon Mrs. Tweedie had brought in with the breakfast tray turned Emma’s stomach. She rolled over, hugging a pillow to her chest. Robert had visited her chamber once since they’d arrived home. Their discussion had been rather short. He’d insisted she was behaving like a spoiled child and forbade her from uttering Ciar MacDougall’s name ever again.

  He never asked how she felt or allowed her to complete a sentence in defense of the Highlander she knew only to be kind and good and honorable. In her brother’s eyes, Ciar had become a scoundrel of the worst sort, Emma was ruined, and she had naught but to resume her role as the dutiful sister, fated to live in spinsterhood for the rest of her days.

  When a knock came at the door, Emma drew the quilt over her head. “Leave me be.”

  “I may not be able to pick locks, but I do have a key to this door.” The timbers muffled Janet’s voice, though she was clear enough. “And I will stay away no longer.”

  Emma groaned and pulled herself up, fluffing the pillows behind her back. Her brother’s wife took his side, of course. She had to. They were married, after all.

  The key scraped in the lock, and the door’s hinges creaked. “Good heavens, you haven’t eaten in days.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  The wooden chair beside the bed groaned as Janet sat. “I ken how much you must be hurting.”

  “Do you?” Emma couldn’t hide the sarcasm from her tone.

  “I believe so.”

  “’Tis easy for you to say. You are a happily wedded woman.”

  “But my happiness didn’t come without paying a price. You ought to ken as well as anyone. You were there the day my father came and accused Robert of…” Janet cleared her throat. “…destroying my virtue.”

  Oh, yes, Emma remembered all too well, though someone in the household appeared to have double standards. “And yet my brother sees fit to say the same about me.”

  “You haven’t spoken much of your ordeal, aside from fiercely supporting Dunollie, which makes no sense at all. What happened all that time you were away? And why did he leave you alone on a barren isle?”

  Emma clasped and unclasped her hands. “I’d prefer not to say.”

  “Why? We have never harbored secrets between us. Why now?”

  “Because if you misunderstand anything I say, you’ll go straight to Robert. He’s already forbidden me to speak of Ciar. I simply don’t feel as if I’ll be taken seriously by you or anyone in this household.”

  “I see.” Janet sniffed, the chair creaking as she paused. “I also can confidently say I understand. If you recall, after I left Glenmoriston with my father, I was ruined. Moreover, it was nearly a year before I saw Robert again, and it took all but an act of God to prove to Da that Robert’s actions had been in consideration of my well-being.”

  Emma smoothed her fingers over the quilt. What she wouldn’t give if her cloud had a silver lining like Janet’s. Things seemed so hopeless. She didn’t even know where Ciar was, or if he’d been hurt. Or…

  “I’ll say this,” Janet continued. “Explain your story, and I give you my oath nothing you say will go beyond these walls unless you grant me permission to discuss anything in particular with Robert.”

  The bacon wafted. “May I have a cup of tea?”

  “It is most likely cold.”

  “That’s all right.”

  A china cup tinked as Janet poured and then passed along the cup and saucer. “There’s still a bit of warmth in it.”

  Emma took a long drink and rested it on her lap. “So many things happened at Achnacarry, all to which you were witness. Ye ken, Ciar gave me Albert—such a dear and thoughtful gift. Lord, I miss that dog.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “The soldiers left him on Kerrera. I pray Nettie is feeding him.”

  “I’m sure she is.” Janet patted Emma’s arm. “So…as I observed, Dunollie paid you a great deal of attention at Achnacarry.”

  “He did.”

  “And you enjoyed his kindness.”

  May as well have out with the shocking details. “I kissed him—or he kissed me. In the passageway.”

&nb
sp; “Whilst we were there?”

  “Aye.” Emma finished drinking the contents of her cup and handed it and the saucer to her sister-in-law. “The kiss was rather improvised, and I wasn’t expecting him to, but when he did, my entire body felt like it was floating on a puffy cloud.”

  Janet hummed a wee chuckle. “I ken that feeling all too well. But Dunollie should not have taken liberties.”

  How could Janet say such a thing? Emma knew something of the liberties Robert had taken when Her Ladyship was but a guest at Glenmoriston, especially kissing—kissing and moaning that could be heard throughout the house. And after Emma’s adventure with Ciar, she now knew why.

  “Ciar said the same,” she explained. “He apologized over and over.”

  “Is that why he gave you the dog?”

  “I don’t think so. He gave me Albert because we bonded instantly, and Dunollie thought he might help me.”

  “And thus your affection for the big laird grew.”

  “It did.”

  “But even then, what prompted you to go alone to Fort William?”

  “I wasn’t alone,” Emma hedged. “I was with Sam.”

  “A mere lad of sixteen, mind you.”

  “He was the only person at Achnacarry who I thought might agree to help me.”

  Janet’s chair again groaned with movement. “I would have helped you.”

  Emma dragged a pillow across her midriff and hugged it. “I think not. You would have told me to let the men handle it. You even wrote missives to Robert and your da, remember?”

  Since Janet hadn’t reacted too overbearingly to the kiss, Emma explained the rest, from meeting with the governor and figuring out the number of steps to the sally port, to the night of the breakout and how they managed to slip away from the dragoons. She even went so far as to explain about Ciar’s hiding place in the cellars of Gylen Castle and how he’d slept on the floor.

  At first.

  Nonetheless, Emma would carry every intimate and precious detail of their romance with her to the grave. She’d atone for her sins on Judgment Day if she must, though she couldn’t fathom how loving Ciar was a sin.

  Those fleeting moments with him were the happiest days of her life. She would treasure them and never allow a soul to utter a word of condemnation about the feelings they shared.

  “I cannot believe how strong you are,” Janet said, her voice sincere. “Your tenacity never ceases to surprise me.”

  “Before we went to Achnacarry for Kennan and Divana’s wedding, I never thought I’d fall in love. Ye ken I never wanted to leave Glenmoriston because it is so familiar to me. But now I want to run from this place and never return.”

  “Oh, dear,” Janet whispered. “We certainly do not want that. You are our sister, and we love you no matter what. You know that, do you not?”

  Emma squeezed the pillow. “Love me though I am ruined?”

  “Of course. Nothing has changed.”

  “Everything has changed.” She flung the pillow aside. They still thought of her as a fragile waif—an incomplete person to be hidden away and only whispered about. Emma clenched her fists. “After all I have said, do you not understand? I love him.”

  Janet heaved a long sigh, one expressing frustration. “Perhaps I ought to write to Dunollie.”

  “What good would that do? Unless we’ve received word of his pardon, he will not be home to intercept a letter.”

  “You said he’d gone to Dunbarton to find one of the guilty sentinels?”

  “Aye, and I’ve not heard from him since.”

  “I have an uncle nearby in Glasgow. Perhaps I’ll start by writing him. Will you allow me that?”

  “If you think it might help, I’d thank you.”

  “This is a precarious path you’ve chosen, but believe me when I say I want to help you. More than anything I want you to be happy.” Janet clutched Emma’s hands. “We first need to figure out where we can find Dunollie. In the meantime, I’ll work on softening Robert’s anger.”

  A heavy weight began to shift from Emma’s shoulders. Was there hope? “I would give the world to make him understand.”

  “Time has a way of helping men forget.”

  As long as Ciar doesn’t forget me.

  “I’ll send Betty in and ask her to draw you a bath. That ought to make you feel a bit better, dearest.”

  Though Emma nodded, she doubted anything except receiving news that Ciar had cleared his name would make the melancholy pass.

  * * *

  The two-day journey to Glenmoriston was pure torture. Ciar didn’t give fig about his nagging headache. The agony was the endless time it took to ride through the glens and over craggy mountains.

  If the horses had been able to keep going, he would have ridden all night, but Ciar and his men had been forced to stop at the tavern in Laggan last eve. Though he hadn’t slept overmuch, the respite did afford him time for a bath and a shave, which would help him pass muster where Grant was concerned.

  Now, as they started up the north shore of Loch Ness, he could hold back no longer. He beckoned the men with an arcing wave of his hand and cued his horse for a gallop. He rode as if chased by the devil, leaning over his mount’s withers, keeping his elbows tight to reduce the drag.

  The wind howled from behind, making the loch’s waves crest with whitecaps. Above, the clouds hung low, threatening to release their ire. And to his left, the birch and sycamore trees fought with the gale, popping and rustling, agitated in restless fury. Leaves scattered through the air, hinting at the change of seasons. Even as rain spat from the skies, Ciar refused to slow the pace.

  His heart hammered at the signpost to Invermoriston and he turned northward, riding along the River Moriston. The gelding slowed to a trot as his iron shoes thundered across the timbers of the bridge spanning Moriston Falls—the very place Emma had spoken so fondly of. The bower her grandfather had built was clear now. Funny, after all the times Ciar had traveled this route, he’d never noticed how the rush of the water boomed around him, nor had he seen the bower tucked among the trees.

  And now he was so close to her, his heart twisted into a hundred knots, making his chest ache. Up the hill he rode until Grant’s expansive manse came into view. Ciar reined his laboring horse to a stop, scanning the numerous windows above the ground floor. Did one of them look out from Emma’s bedchamber or was her room rear facing?

  Livingstone rode in beside him. “What’s the plan?”

  Ciar’s gaze slipped to the brass knocker. “I suppose I’ll rap on the door and see who answers.”

  “Do you ever answer your own door?”

  “Nay.”

  “So will you speak to the lass first, then?”

  “I’ll try to.”

  But his plans were thwarted when Grant stepped outside with a healthy contingent of men at his flanks. By the scowl on his friend’s face, this wasn’t going to be easy.

  Ciar dismounted. “Were you expecting a battle?”

  Robert’s eyes grew dark as he swirled the palm of his hand over his dirk’s pommel. “Perhaps. I wasn’t expecting you to show your face on my lands, for certain.”

  A tic twitched at the back of Ciar’s jaw. “No? Is there a rift between us of which I’ve not yet been informed?”

  May as well make him spell it out.

  “Bloody oath there is.” Thrusting his hand toward an upper window, Grant continued, “I’ve a sister inside who hasn’t come out of her chamber in days. Moreover, she’s ruined on account of you and your carelessness.”

  A shadow moved behind the curtains. Was it Emma? Dear God, she must be at her wit’s end after her ordeal. If only the wind had been with him on the voyage from Dunbarton, he might have arrived before the dragoons took her.

  “I was delayed.”

  “You left her alone on an island. Do you have any idea how fragile my sister is?”

  “She insisted, but—”

  “Insisted? And where were you at the time? Or was your mind a
ddled because you took advantage of an innocent maid?”

  A lead weight dropped to the pit of Ciar’s stomach. Had he taken advantage?

  Nay.

  He’d fallen in love. Emma had shown him so much about what it meant to be alive. How could he explain it all in a few words?

  He spread his palms at his sides. “I love her.”

  “You?” Grant guffawed. “A condemned man?”

  Livingstone hopped off his horse. “Wilcox granted a pardon.”

  “I should have guessed since you’ve returned from the dead. Nonetheless, that still does not allay the carelessness in the way you treated my sister.”

  “Carelessness? I did nothing but treat her with respect.”

  “Aye? Then why in God’s name did you not send her back to Achnacarry with the stable boy?”

  “Because she was seen with her dog. She picked the locks both to the sea gate and to my cell. Had she returned with the lad I feared there would be retribution.”

  “Except Wilcox showed up here. Not at my father-in-law’s keep.”

  Ciar raked his fingers through his hair. Damnation, he hadn’t considered that. Mayhap he should have sent Emma back with Sam. “My actions were only in your sister’s interests, you must know that.”

  “I know nothing except that I found my sister starved and locked in a pillory. A disgrace no gentlewoman should ever experience.” Grant thrust his finger toward the drive. “Now take your men and leave my lands afore I lose my temper and end this in a duel.”

  “Ye must ken I do not want to fight you.” Ciar flicked his scabbard’s leather strap, releasing the hilt of his sword. “But I cannot tuck my tail and run. Not until I’ve seen Miss Emma.”

  Grant was a formidable swordsman, but Ciar was bigger and had the stronger arm. They’d sparred many times before, and either Grant was willing to die for his sister’s virtue or he was bluffing.

  Taking a step forward, Ciar dared to hope. “I’d marry her today if it would change your mind.”

  But Grant’s expression grew darker as he thrust out his chin. “How can I allow my dear, frail sister to marry a man who has no concern for her well-being? Must I say again that you ought to have sent her back to Achnacarry.” Robert’s sword whooshed through its scabbard as he drew it. “But no, you opted to take her to a ruined castle on a barren isle where you then abandoned her. How many times must I repeat your offenses?”