Margo Maguire (3 page)

Lachann’s men were at work unloading their horses and all the equipment they’d brought—weapons and gunpowder—from the
Glencoe Lass
. Lachann mounted his horse, and while he waited for Duncan and Kieran to do the same, he looked up toward the castle where his fate awaited him.

He hoped Catrìona was at least beddable. He had no need of a great beauty to bear his children—only an honest wife who understood the requirements of their clan. ’Twould not be amiss if his future wife had a deep concern for her people—the way the fair young woman at the healer’s cottage had cared for her injured friend.

’Twas a most attractive trait, mayhap even more than her comely features or the pale golden hair she’d tied into a thick plait down her back. Lachann chose to ignore the pull of attraction at the thought of her blue-green eyes and her clear, sun-kissed skin. He’d sworn off beautiful women after Fiona. He’d learned the hard way they were more trouble than they were worth, and he knew only a handful of them who could be trusted—his brothers’ wives and his sister.

“There were no guards at the pier,” Lachann said.

“Mayhap they were not at the pier because we arrived a day earlier than expected,” Duncan remarked.

“What good are such guards then, eh?” Kieran said. “A warrior should be ready at any time.”

Both Lachann’s men were right. There should have been an armed contingent of men to meet them when their ship put into the harbor and when the
Glencoe Lass
approached the pier. If there had been any lookouts at the top of the castle walls, they’d have seen Lachann’s ship coming from a long way off. But Laird MacDuffie would have had no assurance that it was friendly. He should not have assumed it would be the MacMillan brig, or even a benign trader.

“Their defenses are exceedingly poor, Lachann.”

“All the better for me,” Lachann said.

“Aye,” Duncan agreed. “MacDuffie cannot fail to see the value you bring him.”

They started for the road up to the castle, but Lachann was distracted by the sight of a tall, burly Kilgorran staggering drunkenly in the opposite direction. The man made his way into the village, alternating between muttering and shouting a string of curses so vile that Lachann’s ears burned.

Lachann rode on for a moment, then halted, realizing what the drunkard’s destination was. The healer’s cottage. “Wait for me here!” He turned and took to the lane that led to the cottage.

“Do you think this is wise, Lachann?” Duncan shouted after him.

Chapter 2

L
achann did not stop to think about wisdom. The drunk had to be on his way to the healer’s cottage, and he was not so jaked that he could not do more damage if he wished. And from the sound of his words, that was his intent. He was likely to kill someone.

Lachann was only a minute or two behind the drunk, but when he came to the cottage, the man had already managed to pin the fair-haired lass up against a wall and was shouting his vile abuse directly in her face. The injured woman was trying to get up from her pallet—to help, Lachann supposed.

The lass struggled to get free, but the bastard’s hands were at her throat, and her face was turning a livid shade of red. Lachann wasted no time, but yanked the bloody fool off the woman, whirled him around, and landed a punch that dropped him to the ground.

The woman’s attacker lay insensible on the floor.

“Weel now,” said Janet, “ye’re a bonny fetcher, are ye no’, lad?”

Lachann paid no heed to the woman but knelt beside the lass, who’d slid down the wall to the ground, looking stunned. “Are you all right?” he asked.

She swallowed tightly and gave a wee nod, but there was a look of shock about her lovely eyes, and she seemed to be in no small amount of pain. Lachann tipped her chin up with two fingers and saw that a bruise was already forming ’round her throat.

He resisted the urge to caress the injury, to try and give her more comfort than he ought, considering his purpose here on Kilgorra. “ ’Twill be sore for a few days.”

He heard Duncan’s voice behind him. “Lachann.”

Both his men stood at the open door, peering into the croft. Their expressions reminded him he should not allow himself to become distracted by an altercation taking place in the village. “Aye. I’m coming.”

Even so, he bent down and picked up the drunkard. Tossing the blighter over his shoulder, Lachann stalked out of the cottage and down the path. He heard his men mount their horses behind him and follow as he headed down to the pier once again. When he arrived at the water’s edge, he realized he had an audience of fishermen, arriving in their fishing boats with their catch. He ignored them and threw the fellow into the drink.

“
Gesu
, Lachann,” Duncan said. “What if he drowns?”

“No great loss to Kilgorra, then,” Lachann replied.

The drunkard came up sputtering, and Lachann leaned forward to address him. “If I hear of one more bruise on either of those women, you sorry excuse for a man, you’ll answer to me. And I will not be so gentle next time!”

Lachann strode back to his horse and mounted up as though naught had happened to deter him from his destination. He glanced ’round and took in the faces of the people who stepped out of the shops and cottages and were walking down the various paths from the village to the pier to see what the disturbance was.

Kieran laughed aloud as they started up the road that led to the castle. “ ’Twill be an arrival they will not soon forget, Lachann!”

Lachann forced away his feelings of concern for the lass at the cottage and her injured throat. She was with the healer. He had done all he could for her.

Truly, he wanted to do no more. Such a woman could be poison to his purpose here.

“Did you see the look on that bawbag’s face when he surfaced?” Kieran added with a laugh.

“Aye,” Lachann replied. “A tyrant never expects any ill treatment in return, does he?”

“Lachann, what if MacDuffie hears of this?” Duncan asked, his tone serious. Worried.

“You can be assured he will, Duncan,” Lachann replied. “As will every other man on the isle—men whose laird I intend to become. They’ll do well to understand I’ll brook no unwarranted bullying on this isle.”

“Aye, but—”

“ ’Twill be known that I am not a man to be trifled with. Aye?”

Kilgorra’s only village lay just beyond the pier, a hilly little town tucked beneath a wall of craggy cliffs above it. The distillery was at the rear of the village, standing beside the bank of a wide river that flowed from a waterfall dropping impressively from the crags.

Behind the distillery was a large wooden granary for storing the barley before it was used in the distilling process. As the
Glencoe Lass
had sailed into Kilgorra waters, Lachann had seen cottages amid well-tended fields up in the hills. Everything he had seen of the isle had so far pleased him, except for the beaten woman.

Lachann and his two cousins rode up the path to MacDuffie’s castle. No one could attack the stronghold from the sea, and there was only the one road that led to it from lower ground. It seemed a perfect location.

The MacMillans entered through the outer gate into a wide bailey, where numerous buildings stood, from the armory that sat empty and dormant, to a smithy, and a large, stone building that had the look of a barracks. Clearly, Kilgorra had once been a mighty force in the Minch.

As matters stood now, there was no one to stop a raiding ship from sailing freely through Loch Ewe and on down to Loch Maree, where Braemore lands lay.

Braemore had met one such attack in spring, when pirates had sailed down to Loch Maree from the Minch, right past Kilgorra. The battle had cost Lachann’s clan dearly. Their treasure had been preserved, but they’d lost too many men to the marauding pirates.

’Twould never happen again if Lachann had his say, and Kilgorra was strategic to his plan. The isle guarded the seaway to Braemore, and since Lachann’s clan had recently become wealthy beyond imagining, it needed the protection Kilgorra could provide. He knew rumors were spreading of the French gold he and his brother had discovered three years earlier. He intended to do everything in his power to protect against rival clans and raiders who would use any means to take their gold.

They rode through the inner courtyard and saw the huge stone Kilgorra Keep beyond, with its tall towers and a parapet rising from its roof.

Duncan tipped his head toward the massive wooden door of the keep, where a stoop-shouldered, bald-pated man stood waiting beside a younger fellow. “That must be Laird MacDuffie,” Duncan said. “But there was never any mention of a son.”

The second man had a thick head of dark red hair and was far taller than the other. Lachann looked closer.
Gesu, no.

“Lachann . . . ,” Kieran said warily. “That man . . . standing beside MacDuffie. Is that . . . Could that be . . . ?”

“Aye. I think it is,” Duncan said, giving voice to Lachann’s worst nightmare. “ ’Tis Cullen Macauley.”

“Ach, do you think he brought his wife with him?” Kieran asked. Both cousins knew what Fiona had meant to Lachann. They knew he’d loved the lass to distraction and her father had halted their wedding in favor of the wealthier Macauley.

Lachann put his hand on the hilt of his sword.

“Lachann, you cannot,” Duncan said.

“Aye. I most certainly can.” He would rid himself of his most hated enemy and make Fiona a widow all in one slash of his sword.

“Not if you want Laird MacDuffie’s goodwill.”

“It sickens me to say it, Lachann, but he’s right,” Kieran said. “We do not know what Macauley is doing here.”

Lachann did not care. All he knew was this was a Macauley. Worse, this was Cullen Macauley—the bastard who’d stolen his woman.

Lachann’s hand tightened on his sword. He narrowed his vision as his mouth dried and his heart sped up. But some part of his brain took in Duncan’s words, and he knew his cousin was right. He hated the thought of backing down now, while he had the bastard within reach.

But knew he must.

Chapter 3

“L
et me up, Eòsaph,” Catrìona demanded when her lover pinned her to the shabby bed that lay in a small room at the back of the deserted chapel. He was nipping at her neck and breasts, and ’twas all becoming too tiresome for words.

Cullen Macauley was far more interesting. Unlike Eòsaph Drummond, Macauley had come from the Isle of Skye, where the wealthy MacDonalds ruled.

And he was intent upon courting her as his wife.

Macauley pleased her well. He was handsome and refined, a far cry from the lovers Catrìona was accustomed to. And after all these years, she was going to have two candidates to choose from. ’Twas as though fate had decided to play some strange jest upon her.

Mayhap ’twas to balance the scales after bringing beautiful Anna to Kilgorra with her mother years ago. How could Catrìona ever have hoped to compete with her father’s new family? And when Sigrid had gotten with child, her father had seemed to forget his “wee wren,” as he’d liked to call his one true daughter.

He’d called Anna his golden lass and had showered his attentions upon his new young wife’s comely daughter.

She pushed away from Eòsaph and pulled on her clothes. “I must go. We have much to do up at the—”

“Will you meet me on the morrow, Catrìona?”

Her hands stilled for a moment, and she gazed down at him. “Do you never tire of . . . of”—she gestured toward the unkempt bed—“this?”

“Are ye daft? Ach, no.” He took her hand and put it on his swollen erection. “Even now . . .”

Catrìona laughed, retrieving her hand to finish dressing. She was anxious to meet the young man from Braemore who would arrive on the morrow, though no one knew quite when his ship would put into the harbor. So she’d made plans to meet Cullen at the distillery, which had become her favorite trysting place, by far.

She went to the creaky old door and opened it. “I cannot meet you tomorrow, Eòsaph. I’ll send word to you when it suits me.”

He reached for her. “When?”

She pushed him away, irritated now. “You know I can make you no promises. We have guests arriving, and I’ll have duties to attend to.”

Catrìona followed the narrow path back to the keep, her thoughts on Cullen Macauley and his reaction to the news that Lachann MacMillan was coming to marry her.

’Twas almost as though he’d known.

But how could he?

Ach, what did it matter? She’d taken him to her bed, well aware that her father had made a tentative pact with the MacMillans stipulating that Lachann would become her husband.

But only if she agreed to it after they met.

’Twas so very amusing to see Macauley taking more notice of her than of her impossibly innocent stepsister, Anna MacIver. For the first time in her life, Catrìona was the one coveted—
desired
—by an incredibly interesting, sophisticated man.

It wasn’t until she reached the door of her father’s keep that she realized something was amiss. There was far more activity inside than she expected.

The MacMillans had arrived early.

A
nna sat against the wall of the healer’s cottage with her hand at her throat.

“Come on up, lass,” Janet said, reaching a hand down to help her. Kyla was weeping quietly on her pallet.

“Where is he?” Anna asked. “Where did MacMillan take Birk?”

Janet shrugged and shook her head.

Anna rose to her feet and started for the door, but three familiar young boys came running up the hill toward the cottage, laughing. Angus MacLaren called to her. “Anna! Ye should’ve seen it! He threw Birk into th’ drink, he did!”

“Who, Angus? Who threw—”

“The stranger,” the boy quipped before running off with his friends. “He dropped him into the sea and threatened him about puttin’ bruises on any more women.”

Anna leaned back against the door.

“You do’na believe the Braemore man will take any further interest in Birk, do ye?” Janet asked, rocking Kyla’s bairn, Douglas, in her arms. “His business is with them up at the keep, and no’ wi’ the likes of Birk Ramsay.”

“Aye,” Anna rasped. But the man had come to Kyla’s aid, and then Anna’s—all within minutes of his arrival.

But mayhap Janet was right. He happened to have been standing on the dock when Kyla had nearly collapsed, and he’d later recognized Birk as Kyla’s husband—or a threat, at least—on his way up to Janet’s cottage.

Lachann MacMillan had not needed to go out of his way to assist them. Still, it had been a glorious rescue, like the ones recounted in tales of old.

“If ye’re all right, Anna, ye should hasten up to the keep,” Janet said. “Ye know they’ll be wanting ye with MacMillan arrivin’ early. Wait until Catrìona sees the braw lads that sailed in this time!”

Anna ignored Janet’s reference to Catrìona’s inordinate lusting after the men of the isle and the seamen who came in to trade. It had naught to do with anything now, for Catrìona would marry Lachann MacMillan, and ’twould be his responsibility to deal with the wife he’d chosen.

Anna knelt down beside her friend. The cuts and bruises on Kyla’s face should not have shocked her, for she’d seen the results of Birk’s beatings before. But the man’s brutality was never easy to witness. She hoped MacMillan had put the fear of God into him.

Anna swallowed and winced at the pain in her throat. ’Twas uncomfortable, but she’d survived injuries at the hands of her stepsister, who’d treated her with malice from the day she’d come to Kilgorra with her mother. Anna did all in her power to avoid the nasty-tempered witch.

But Ky could not evade her own husband for long. There wasn’t a hiding place anywhere on the isle where he would not find her if he was of a mind to search.

Anna delayed her return to the castle, quite willing to endure Catrìona’s wrath for Kyla’s sake. She wrung out the cloth in the bowl Janet had filled with water and dabbed at the cuts on Kyla’s forehead and lip. The lass was trembling fair to shake the pallet beneath her. “Ah, Kyla–you’re all right now. We’ve got you, Janet and me.”

But Kyla shook her head, and the tears streaming down her face tugged at Anna’s heart. She’d been horribly betrayed by the man she loved. Nor was Kyla the first woman to suffer at the hands of her husband. Anna had long ago resolved never to let it happen to her.

She gazed down at her friend, wishing she could say something of substance that would comfort her. Kyla was more a sister to her than the one who was connected to her by her mother’s second marriage. Both Kyla and Anna had been orphaned young, and when loneliness and fear had darkened the days of their childhood, they’d clung to each other for comfort.

“No,” Kyla whispered. “No one’s got me but Birk.”

“Aye,” Janet railed. “And the lad’s turned into a right wee bawbag.” She put Douglas on the pallet beside his mother and got busy mixing a potion that would help ease the worst of Kyla’s pain.

“He has,” Anna whispered, her temper flaring. “I hope he drowns.”

“Anna, no,” Kyla whimpered.

“And why wouldn’t I hope such a thing?” Anna demanded, unable to contain her anger. “The damned dolt is likely so jaked he can’t even swim—”

“Because he is my husband. He drinks to quell his headaches.” She said the words, but her voice was tremulous.

“Oh, aye. And a fair bit of good that’s done him,” Anna said acerbically.

“Ye’d best finish here, lass,” Janet said to Anna. “Ye know how Catrìona will behave when the MacMillans arrive up at the keep and you are not there to serve them.”

Anna blinked back her tears of anger, aware that Janet was right. ’Twas likely Catrìona had already gotten herself into a state with the early arrival of Lachann MacMillan.

“Kyla, you know I must go, but I want you to stay here until I get back.”

“No, Anna,” Kyla whispered. “I must take my son and go home.”

“Are you daft? You can do no such thing,” Anna cried, causing the pain in her throat to flare. “You’re in no decent condition. I’ll come back for you and we’ll find somewhere—”

“No use delayin’ it, Anna,” Janet said. “Birk won’t be back. At least, not for a while. He knows MacMillan will wed Catrìona and become laird. He will’na care to risk the man’s ire.”

“Aye,” Kyla added. “Go now. Before your sister gives you a beating like mine.”

Leaving Kyla this way was the last thing Anna wanted to do, but she gritted her teeth and went for the door. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, then we’ll find a place for you to stay where Birk won’t find you.”

Kyla turned her face to the wall in resignation.

Anna hesitated a moment, but she knew she could not stay. “I
will
come back for you, Kyla,” she said before picking up her basket of berries and leaving Janet’s cottage.

She hurried down the path to the pier and searched for signs of Birk floundering about in the water.

Young Angus and his two friends skipped onto the pier. “He climbed out and went away,” the lad said with a great belly laugh. “Ye should’ve seen him, Anna! Sputterin’ and cursin’ to beat all!”

“Angus! Does your father know you’re wandering about the village?” Anna asked. Donald usually kept a close watch on his mischievous son. Ever since his wife’s death, he’d kept the lad inside the castle walls and under the watchful eye of his brother, Alex, to minimize the amount of trouble the boy could get into.

“Only if ye tell him, Anna!” he shouted as the three young lads ran up the path to the castle walls.

Without further delay, Anna followed the lads up the steep road. She wished she’d been able to see Birk brought low by the man in the red plaid. If anyone ever deserved it, ’twas Birk Ramsay.

He’d been a braw young fisherman two years ago when he’d courted and wed Kyla. But soon after he’d gotten her with child, taken a bad fall, then he’d started with the drink, and he had not been a pleasant drunkard. ’Twas as though someone other than Birk lived inside his body. He’d beaten Kyla so viciously that she’d nearly lost Douglas when the bairn was barely started in her belly. A few months later, he’d burned his own boat in a fit of temper, and now he had to work on his father’s birlinn as he’d done as a lad.

Everything seemed to set him off, from the crying of his own son to the paltry state of his larder. And it seemed Kyla was to blame for it all.

Anna arrived inside her stepfather’s fortress. She circled ’round the bailey and past the huge Bruce Tree in a small close, and on to the back of the keep, where the kitchens and scullery were located. Taking an apron from a hook, Anna joined Flora, the castle cook, who was working at a frantic pace along with Nighean and Meg, the two scullery maids, to produce a suitable meal for the newly arrived men from Braemore.

Already, someone had summoned the fiddlers, and they were upstairs near the great hall, tuning their instruments, making ready to entertain.

Flora stopped what she was doing and looked at Anna. “What happened to yer neck, Anna? Ach, no! ’Twas the
sluagh dubh
!”

“Nay, Flora, ’twas—”

“I’ve always said that nasty boggle on the isle would do ye harm one day. Years ago, I told Gudrun—”

“ ’Twas Birk. Not the
sluagh dubh
.”

Flora narrowed her eyes, muttering something entirely unholy under her breath. She did not care for Birk any more than she liked the
sluagh dubh
. “How did this come to be, lass?”

“Well, after he beat Kyla nearly to death, he came up to Janet’s cottage, grabbed me by the throat, and pinned me to a wall.”

“No.” Flora covered her mouth in horror.

Anna tied a cloth ’round her neck to hide the bruise Birk had given her. There was naught she could do about her raspy voice. “But then Lachann MacMillan dumped him in the sea for it.”

“What? MacMillan did
what
?”

Anna grinned. “At least, that’s what Angus MacLaren told me.”

“Serves him right, and more. Did he drown?”

“I wish. But Angus said no,” Anna retorted.

“Ye ought to take Kyla and the bairn into that wee curragh of yours and sail as far from Kilgorra as you can go,” Flora said, taking hold of Anna’s arms.

“You know she will not leave her husband.”

“If anyone can convince her, ’tis you, lass.”

“Where would we go, Flora?”

“To your father’s people.”

“The MacIvers?” Anna retorted. “Gudrun said that when my father died, the new laird of Kearvaig drove my mother out.”

Flora furrowed her brow. “Ye could go to your mother’s people, then.”

Of course Anna had thought about that. Often. But to sail across the open seas to the Norse country? The mere thought of it terrified her. She could contain her fear of deep waters long enough to row her curragh across the narrow straits to Spirit Isle, but not all the way ’round the north of Scotland and across the North Sea.

Besides, she did not know her mother’s people, except by reputation. ’Twas said Sigrid had come from a prestigious family in Norway. But all connections had been lost. Anna had no idea if her mother’s family still lived. Or where she might look for them.

“Flora, I have no money for passage either by land or by sea,” Anna said sadly. “How would I manage it?”