The Highland Laird

by Amy Jarecki

  His gut clenching, Ciar readied his weapon. “You were not there to judge. As I said before, every decision I made was to uphold your sister’s welfare and protection. If I had known she would have been safe on Lochiel’s lands, I would not have hesitated to send her back with Sam.” Crouching, Ciar circled to the right. “However, at the time I believed her life was in danger, and the only way I could assure her safety and clear her name was to take her into hiding with me.”

  Grant countered, sidestepping. “But you failed miserably.”

  Bellowing like a mad bull, Robert attacked with a thrust to the heart.

  Lunging, Ciar defended with an outward parry as he drew his dirk with his left hand.

  In the blink of an eye, the bull-headed oaf bared his teeth and swung back, aiming a deadly strike.

  Ciar jumped away from the hissing blade. “Stop this madness! What is it you want? Lands? Wealth?”

  Grant sidestepped and thrust again. “I want never to set eyes on your grisly face again.”

  Defending every strike, Ciar’s sword clanged as Robert attacked in a fit of rage. The bastard hacked at every soft spot imaginable, making it impossible to shove him away long enough to reason with him. Their blades stalled, clashing in a struggle of one weapon against the other, the iron screeching until the swords met at the hilt. Refusing to injure his friend, Ciar pushed Grant aside and smacked his shoulder blade with the pommel of his hilt.

  The bull of a man stumbled and whipped around.

  “No!” Emma’s voice rang out with the tenor of a bell.

  Ciar’s gut twisted as the sound of slippered footsteps approached. Albert barked.

  Robert’s blade flashed.

  “Stooooooop!” Ciar yelled as time slowed. He booted Grant in the hip. As the man fell, his blade swept forward, slicing across Emma’s arm. Down she went as her shrill scream prickled like tiny knives in his back.

  With his next heartbeat, Ciar dropped to his knees, wrapping the only woman he’d ever loved in his arms.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Emma felt no pain. Ciar’s arms enveloped her—warm, loving, protective. He was here, and that was all that mattered. After all the worry she’d endured, at last he had come for her.

  He pressed his lips to her temple. “I’m so sorry, my love. We had no wind sailing up from the Firth of Clyde. The voyage took an entire sennight.”

  “I cannot believe you’re here.” The dog licked her face. “And you brought my precious Albert!”

  “He missed you so very much. We both did.” He wrapped a cloth around her arm, tying it snugly. “This is my cravat. It will stanch the bleeding for the now. Are you feeling faint?”

  She smiled at him, brushing her fingers over his smooth, beardless cheek. “I’m so happy to see you a wee scratch cannot affect me in any way.”

  “I’m afraid ’tis more than a scratch, mo leannan.”

  She closed her eyes, relishing the deep tenor of Ciar’s voice. Masculine, yet gentle.

  “Release my sister,” Robert growled like a belligerent boar.

  “No!” Emma cried, clinging to her Highland hero.

  “You’re bleeding,” said Robert. “Fetch the healer at once,” he ordered one of his men.

  Ciar rose to his feet, cradling Emma in his arms. “She needs rest,” he said. “Have you bandages?”

  “You will put my sister down this instant,” Robert demanded.

  Emma flung her hand toward her brother, found his tartan sash and grabbed it. “If you truly love me you will cease this mindlessness.”

  “I agree!” called Janet, over the patter of her feet running from the house. “You are being overbearingly rude to our guest.”

  “Thank you, Janet.” Emma smiled in Janet’s direction. Bless it, she would stand up to her brother and bear the consequences. “I will only return to my chamber if the chieftain of Dunollie takes me above stairs. And if you deny him, I will insist that he take me elsewhere.”

  “I adore your fortitude, lass, but you need to have your arm tended before we can go anywhere.” Ciar started for the house. “We’ll finish our conversation later, shall we, Grant? And mind you, it hasn’t escaped me that your sword was the one which struck Miss Emma. Furthermore, I did nothing but defend your attack. Prepare to accept my offer of marriage forthwith. I shall not be denied.”

  Janet kept pace, the tap-tap of her slippers moving swiftly. “Are you suffering, my dear?”

  “I’ve never been happier.” Emma brushed her fingers along Ciar’s chin. “You’ve shaved.”

  “A man must put his best foot forward when wooing a wife,” he whispered, marching inside. “Now try to keep quiet until I have a look at your arm.”

  Emma’s stomach fluttered. In fact her entire body was aflutter. Wife? Did he truly say “wife”?

  “I’ll bring up some willow bark tea,” said Janet. “You mightn’t feel pain now, but I guarantee it will hurt a great deal more once the excitement abates.”

  “Thank you.” Ciar hastened the pace. “Which way, my love?”

  “First landing. Fourth door on the left.”

  The ninth step creaked as they climbed just as it always did. “I would have been here sooner, but when we returned to Gylen, I was bludgeoned by one of Wilcox’s men—was in and out of consciousness three days. But I must tell you every time I opened my eyes I longed to hold you in my arms again.”

  “I kent something horrible had happened.”

  “But it was worse for you. I am so sorry I wasn’t there when Wilcox arrived.”

  She curled into him, never so thrilled to be alive. “’Tis all forgotten now I’m in your arms.”

  “Arf!” Albert yipped as Ciar strode through the corridor.

  “There’s my dog, come, laddie!”

  “Fourth on the left?” Ciar asked.

  “Aye.”

  He strode inside along with Albert. “He’s excited to see you.”

  “Truly? I was afraid I’d never see him again.”

  Ciar rested her on the bed. “You’ve bled through my makeshift bandage. Where can I find cloths?”

  “There ought to be a stack of clean ones beneath the washstand.” Emma patted the mattress beside her. “Come, laddie.”

  Albert jumped up, wriggling and rubbing his head in her lap.

  She wrapped her arms around him and ran her fingers through his fur, laughing even though her arm throbbed with her effort. “I’ve never been so happy to be injured.”

  “I hope Robert didn’t cut you too deeply.” Ciar returned to her bedside. “Albert, down.”

  “Nay.” She held tight. “I want him here.”

  “Then you shall have him.” He chuckled and slid a cloth beneath her arm. “Can you open and close your fingers?”

  As she did, Emma hissed with a sharp pain.

  He brushed his knuckle across her cheek. “I’m so sorry, mo leannan. I should have reacted faster.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. Robert doesn’t understand. He thinks you took advantage of me.”

  He kissed the place where his knuckle had been. “Did I not?”

  Emma closed her eyes and sighed. “Never in all your days diminish what we shared. It was magnificent and pure.”

  “Nothing short of miraculous,” he said, his breath whispering along her nape.

  She scraped her teeth over her bottom lip, dying to ask about what he’d meant when he carried her into the house. “Um…would you mind repeating what you said after I noticed you’d shaved?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Ye ken…what was it you said about wooing a wi—”

  “Good heavens, Miss Emma.” Betty burst through the door. “You must forgive me. I was in the kitchens when the accident happened.”

  “Step away from my sister’s bed,” boomed Robert in a most unpleasant tone. “Mary Catherine, the family’s healer, has arrived.”

  As Ciar’s warmth moved away, the chamber filled with excitable people all yammering at once.
>
  “I’ve brought a tincture of willow bark tea,” said Janet, moving close. “This ought to take the edge off the pain.”

  Albert moaned.

  Emma reached up. “Ciar!”

  “I’m here.” His voice came from the foot of the bed. “You’d best drink Her Ladyship’s tea.”

  “How are you feeling, Miss Emma?” asked Mary Catherine, taking her hand.

  She glowered, hopefully directing her ire at her brother. “I was much better when Dunollie was tending me.”

  “Well, he’s not a healer.” The woman examined Emma’s arm and removed the bandage. “Oh, dear, this needs compression. Betty, apply a cloth, quickly.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Ciar.

  “No,” Robert groused. “I must speak with you in my library.”

  “But Emma needs—”

  “I concur with Grant,” said Mary Catherine quite tersely, as if she’d entertain no argument. “Everyone out aside from Betty and Lady Janet—that is, if you have the stomach for it, given your condition, m’lady.”

  “I would prefer to be no place other than at my dearest sister’s side.” Janet placed the mug in Emma’s free hand. “Heed me and drink this down before she starts.”

  “Robert!” Emma howled, ignoring everyone else. “You be nice to Dunollie or I will never speak to you again!”

  “I’ll hear him out. Then I shall decide what is to be done.”

  The door clicked shut, and the men were gone.

  Emma relented and drank the bitter tea. If only she hadn’t been injured, she would stand between her brother and the Highlander who’d stolen her heart and refuse to budge until Robert relented.

  She placed the cup on the side table. “I cannot remain here while my brother acts like an angry bull.”

  “I think he kens how you feel about Dunollie.” Janet brushed the hair away from Emma’s forehead. “I made certain of it.”

  “Oh?” she asked. “Tell me.”

  “Let us just say the laird of this house kens his wife and sister will be moving to Achnacarry if he doesn’t pull his stubborn head out of his backside.”

  * * *

  Grant slumped into the chair behind his writing desk, a dark scowl fixed on his face, making the knife scar he’d received in a duel with Kennan Cameron puckered and red. Kennan was Janet’s brother, but the two men had been sworn enemies at the time. Ciar remembered the incident as if it were yesterday—in fact, the ordeal was most likely what had started Grant’s love affair with his wife.

  “Sit.” The curmudgeon gestured to the chair across the board. “You look like shite.”

  “Was just thinking the same about you.” Ciar glanced to the sideboard. “Mind if I pour?”

  “My thanks,” Grant responded.

  Ciar sauntered over and pulled the stopper out of the decanter, pouring two drams. “Ye ken I’d rather be with Emma at the moment.”

  The mad bull scowled. “You’re not going anywhere near her.”

  Ciar placed a glass in front of his friend and took a seat across. Saying nothing, he studied Robert and sipped. How many times had they sat in these very chairs and enjoyed a roll of the hazard dice or a game of cards? The library hadn’t changed much in all that time. The walls were lined with hundreds of leather-bound books, the family bible sat on the table near the white marble hearth between two wing-backed chairs, the old globe rested in a stand near the window. How Ciar would like to be anywhere on that round map aside from here at the moment.

  Robert turned the glass between his fingers and stared at the amber liquid. “Bless Janet. She’s the reason I haven’t ordered my men to tie you to a whipping post. Lord kens you deserve it.”

  “Perhaps I do.” The old lead ball churned in Ciar’s gut. In truth there were many things he would have done differently, though hindsight had a way of making men wise. “However, I’ll tell ye true here and now, Emma was seen fleeing Fort William with me—mainly on account she brought her dog. They even shouted ‘Grant’ as we were fleeing. We headed for Corran, where Dicky MacIain took Sam across the loch. I swear to you on my life your sister would have been caught right there had she been on the ferry with the lad.”

  Robert sipped, his eyes wary. “How can you be so certain?”

  “We hid beneath the pier whilst redcoats rode in. They searched for us—even waited for Dicky to return from crossing the narrows.”

  “Good God, ’tis a wonder you slipped away.” Robert set his glass on the desk. “But you shouldn’t have fled with her in the first place.”

  “Oh, I see.” Ciar guffawed with a sardonic snort. “I should have tucked tail and run like a coward after she risked all to break into one of the Highland’s most secured fortresses to help me escape.”

  Robert glowered, his scar even redder now.

  Perhaps it was time to stir up the past. “As I recall, two years ago you fled into the mountains with Janet in the midst of a snowstorm, mind you.”

  “That was different.”

  “Was it? I think not overmuch. Allow me to remind you—the woman who would become your wife slapped a soldier at the Samhain gathering and all hell broke loose. I was there.” Ciar leaned forward and drove his pointer finger into the table. “We rode out together and found Kennan beat half to death. Remember? Then we decided I would take him to a healer whilst you went after Janet.”

  Wiping a hand across his face, Ciar could have sworn Robert almost smiled—the impetus encouraging him to continue, “What if it had been the other way around, and I’d been the one to go after the lass?”

  Robert’s knuckles turned white as he gripped his glass. “Do not even think on it.”

  “All I am saying is my actions were to protect Emma, nay to harm her.”

  “Then why was she alone when Wilcox raided the Gylen ruins?”

  Ciar shot another longing glance at the globe. Perhaps a jaunt to Spain would suit—as long as he took Emma with him. “I asked her to stay with Archie and Nettie, my tenants on the isle, but the lass refused. She said she was more comfortable in the…” He hated to say “cellar.” The word made the place sound like a dungeon rather than a comfortable shelter. “In the labyrinth of secret chambers my father and I built should something like being wrongly accused of a crime happen—though we were both preparing for the advent of a political upheaval.”

  But the explanation only made Grant grow redder in the face. “You agreed to her ridiculous request? Where was your mind? In your cock, I gather.”

  Mayhap it was. Ciar sipped his whisky. Damnation, the arse wasn’t making it easy. “I planned to be away only three days, and Emma insisted she could care for herself. After all, she had plenty of food and Albert to guard her.”

  “Ah yes, the dog.” Robert leaned forward and rapped his knuckles on the desk, making the ink pot and quill rattle. “I still believe you should have returned her to Achnacarry forthwith. Had you done so, her reputation might have been salvageable.”

  In truth, the moment she left for Fort William, she’d compromised herself, not that Ciar cared a lick about whether Emma’s virtue was ruined or not. But what really needled him was Robert’s bravado. The man seemed to let on as if he’d had a list of suitors lined up to marry the lass, which after every indication from Emma, was not the case.

  Ciar squared his shoulders. “I offer for her hand in marriage. Right here and now. I am prepared to wed your sister today.”

  Grant drank, his color returning to its normal pale tone. “It gives me no great pleasure to admit I’ll have to consider your suit.”

  Ciar regarded his friend across the desk. What was he hiding? What did he want? “Why are you battling me on this? We’ve been friends since we were bairns. Ye ken I’ll give her a warm home where she’ll be happy. She’ll want for nothing.”

  “But what of you?”

  “Me?”

  “She thinks she’s desperately in love with you.”

  Ciar’s heart skipped a beat. “I hope she is. I love her more th
an anything on this earth.”

  Grant stood and grabbed the bottle from the sideboard. “Then why did you not declare your true feelings afore you offered for her hand? Must I repeat that Emma is fragile. She needs a husband who will be patient with her, a man who will be gentle and kind and understanding…”

  “I’m all those things.”

  “Pardon me, but I’ve fought beside you. You’re a beast.”

  “Aye, in the midst of battle, but when it comes to Emma, I’m naught but a lamb. I will challenge anyone who speaks against her.”

  “Perhaps, but after all that has transpired, I still believe you don’t deserve her.”

  “I ken.” Ciar stood, placed both his palms on the table, and gave Robert a dead-eyed stare. “But I give you my word I will spend the rest of my life proving that I do.”

  “Very well. I’m afraid you’ve left me with few other options. I will speak to the vicar, but heed me, if I ever hear a word of my sister’s unhappiness, I will personally take it out of your hide.”

  An enormous grin split Ciar’s face. “I’d think no less.” Clapping his hands, he turned toward the door. “I cannot wait to tell her.”

  “It will not be you who gives her the news. In fact, I will not allow you to see her until the wedding.”

  The grin instantly fell. “You cannot be serious.”

  “I am, and that is one of my conditions.”

  “One?” There were more? Ciar’s shoulders slumped.

  “She has a sizeable dowry, you may be aware.”

  Quickly regaining his composure, he sliced his hand through the air. “I do not want a farthing.”

  “Good, because I insist the dower funds will be made available solely for Emma’s use. She will exercise her discretion as to how the coin is invested and spent.”

  “Agreed,” Ciar responded immediately, needing no time to consider the demand.

  “Then leave me.” Robert tossed back the remainder of his whisky. “I’d best see to her comfort. After all, as you categorically pointed out, it was my blade that cut her…even though had you not irked me beyond all reason, the accident never would have occurred.”