The Outcast Highlander (17 page)

Robert pulled away and gathered his legs to his chest, staring at a spot on Broccin’s shirt as he recounted the nightmare. “Kensey was walking on the moor and I saw a bad man coming up behind her. And I called for you, but you did not come for her. And I could not protect her as my father asked me to because I am just a boy.” The tears started falling down Robert’s cheeks again. “I promised, but what if I cannot keep my promise?”

“You don’t have to worry about that, lad,” Broccin said. “I promise I will take care of you and your sister, so what do you think of that?”

The boy sat for a moment without speaking, but his hug told Broc that he might be willing to accept the help. Robert’s eyes drooped as they sat and his breathing settled. He hugged Broccin tightly before slipping back under the covers. “Will you sit with me until I fall asleep?” Rob held onto Broccin’s shirt.

“Aye, lad, I will.” Broccin sat, watching Robert fall asleep and heard the padding of bare feet behind him. He recognized her sweet, rosemary scent, but did not turn to her.

“Is he alright?” Kensey whispered, standing just behind Broccin’s left shoulder. “I heard his cries. Perhaps the whole castle heard him.”

“The lad’s fine. He just had a bad dream.”

“What was it about? You know he’s been having nightmares since mother… This is the first night I’ve not slept in here with him. Did he tell you? About the dream?”

“Aye,” Broccin said, turning to her. Her hair was loose and hung onto his shoulder as she leaned over him to get to Robert. He wanted to reach up and twist his hands in that hair, and pull her to him, never to let her go.

“He said he saw you on the moor, and you were in trouble, but he couldn’t save you; he called for me, but I did not come.” Broccin stood and walked around the bed to the chairs that sat facing the fireplace. A small fire still glowed in it and Broccin placed another log on the fire. His voice caught in his throat as he said, “He asked me to protect you.”

Kensey glanced her fingertips over Robert’s brow and cooed to him as he slept. “He is such a sweet boy.” Broccin turned to look at her and saw the tears creeping down her cheeks. He wanted to ask her, just to know, what was wrong. When her eyes met his, he saw a sadness there he had never seen in her and couldn’t help himself.

He stood and walked to her, placing a hand carefully on her shoulder. She flinched, pulling away. “I promised him I would, lass.” She walked across the room and sagged against the wall. Broc hopped up just in time to catch her as she fell.

She was weeping. Not just crying, as though she’d cut her hand. This was the kind of weeping she’d no doubt done when her mother passed. Would she still be mourning?
      
He’d never seen her cry, let alone sob like this and it unnerved him. Someone who was always the delight of those around them, the light of the feast, the joy of everyone who knew her, and the eternal smile, was crying like she’d just lost someone she loved.

“What’s wrong, lass?” he asked, almost whispering into her soft hair that toyed with the stubble on his cheeks.

“I… I don’t… I can’t… there’s… Duncan…” she sobbed.

“Duncan?” he asked, pulling her sharply away from him and looking into her eyes. “What has he done to you?” When she didn’t answer, he shook her slightly and vowed, “If he’s harmed you, I swear to God, I’ll kill him.” She mewled in pain, and he examined her arms where his hands crushed a large bruise. He pulled away, as though he’d touched a hot stove, and began plotting the ways he could punish Duncan for hurting this beautiful woman.

“No, no… he’s… it’s not… it was… it was Malcolm.” Her breathing was so ragged and her sobs contorted her entire body so, that Broccin relaxed her back onto his shoulder, which she embraced and wetted with her tears.

“Malcolm?” Broccin growled. “What in God’s name has he done to you to make you cry so?” He placed a warm hand on her head and smoothed her hair as her breathing returned to somewhat regular intervals and she was no longer gulping down air.

“I promised Duncan I wouldn’t.” She pulled away from him. “He said Malcolm didn’t mean it. That it would only make you angry.”

Broc shrank back when she pulled from his grasp. She did not belong to him, she belonged to Duncan. And he had no right to question her like her protector when she would be with another man. Still, he couldn’t help wanting to find Malcolm and beat him until he talked.

“Aye, lass, if that is what you wish.”

“I promised him I wouldn’t, but I need to know.” She turned querulous eyes on him. “I just can’t hold this inside myself and I need to ask you why.”

“Why what, lass?”

“Why would you tell Malcolm you were sure I was in love with him?” Her pleading eyes raked over his face and he couldn’t find the words. He racked his memory for when he’d spoken such craziness. He hadn’t even considered Malcolm when it came to Kensey. He was so worried about protecting her for Duncan. Keeping her for Duncan. Or just loving her himself. But Malcolm?

“I didn’t do anything of the sort,” he argues.

She searched his eyes, questioningly and gave a resigned sigh. “He swore you did.” She whispered, looking at her hands nervously.

Broccin read her unwillingness to argue as a sign there was something else wrong. “What happened?”

“Oh, Broc.” She collapsed on his shoulder again. He resisted the urge to put his arms around her. “Malcolm tried… well, he tried to… oh, I can’t even say it.” She began to sob again and buried her face in the crook of his neck. Her breath was hot against his skin and he tried not to focus on her nearness. But he soon found that unnecessary as the reality of what Malcolm had tried to do set into him. Then, all he could feel was rage, burning hot and low. And growing.

“He took me into the corridor and it was so dark.” Her voice seemed tiny, all of the sudden, and Broc wanted so badly to take her in his arms and promise her everything would be alright.

“He put his hands all over me and I could feel him… his… it was horrible…” She stopped. “The next thing I remembered, I was in Duncan’s room and Brigid was helping me into my night dress. Duncan wouldn’t even talk to me about it.”

Broccin’s fury, where it had been a spark now raged out of control. “What kind of man does that to the woman he loves?” he blustered. “And Malcolm told you that I told him to… to… take you, is that what you thought?”

“He said you told him I loved him.”

“Where would he get a notion like that?” he wondered, then it struck him. He’d told Malcolm that his brother had already obtained Kensey’s affections. But Malcolm had taken it to mean the wrong brother.
That’s why he seemed so surprised to hear that Kensey loved Duncan,
Broccin thought
, because he didn't believe it was Duncan I was speaking of. He thought I spoke of himself.

“Och, lass.” He looked down into his lap. “I believe I said something at dinner tonight that could have been construed as what he thought he heard.” When he finally met her eyes, there was an oblique question there that he knew he had to face. “I did not mean for this to happen.” When he finally searched out her eyes again, he saw forgiveness and understanding there.

“It’s not your fault, Broc.” Kensey touched his hand. He flinched under her touch, but she left her hand over his, the tiny expanse covering only part of his. “You didn’t mean to set him after me and had no idea he’d try to... how could you? Anyway, I believe you.”

There was something so seductive and yet so fragile about the innocence she showed him. His heart split at the thought of her being crudely handled by his brother, and it was all he could do from going down to the lout’s bedroom and beating some sense into him. But he knew she needed someone here to listen to her, just at this moment, and he wanted so badly to do something right for her, after failing her so completely.

“I wish I could take it all back, lass,” he said quietly. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that and I hate myself for ever putting such a notion into his head.”

“Don’t, please.” Kensey pulled his face down toward her with her hands so he could look her straight in the eye. “I don’t blame you, so don’t blame yourself. If we don’t place the blame where it belongs, it will eat us inside out.”

She gave him a gentle smile that made his heart skip a beat and he watched her graceful movements as she turned and leaned over to kiss Rob’s forehead. The boy rustled in his covers and turned over quietly after she rose from the bed. Broccin stood at her side and gazed into her shining green-blue eyes as she looked up at him. She leaned towards him, swaying in what seemed to be utter exhaustion. Her eyes were barely open, but fluttered wide every few seconds. Her lips pursed, relaxed, inviting. He wanted to kiss her. To just take her in his arms and kiss her deeply. To tell her how he much he wanted her, how much he’d always loved her.

But after what had just happened to her, how could he even think she’d want to receive unwanted attentions? It would be worse than Malcolm, because Broc knew better. He’d seen it in her own hand.

“You’re tired, lass.” He caught her arm as she swayed in case she missed the bed, but she landed firmly on her backside. She yawned and gripped him to steady herself in her tired wobbling.

“I’m not tired,” she yawned, swaying toward him again. “I just need to get back to my room.”

He reacted as he saw her swaying forward again, this time with eyes more closed than open. He caught her in his arms and hoisted her up, carrying her as a bridegroom would his bride. As Duncan had carried her earlier this evening when she fainted. Despite his better senses, he carried the sleeping beauty back to her room and laid her into her bed, trying to ignore the havoc her smell and her presence wrought on his senses and his imagination.

***

“Ah, Brigid, my love, bring me another pitcher,” Alec called greedily from the table where he sat with Broccin, the two having their dinner. When she returned from the kitchen, Brigid was practically glowing. She set the pitcher down in front of Alec and sidled up next to him on the bench. She kissed his neck and whispered something in his ear, then giggled as a look of near shock came over his face. Broccin smiled at their obvious infatuation with one another, even after four years of marriage, though he made the pretense of not watching the two.

Alec guzzled more of the ale she’d brought and then looked at her with a pair of eyes that even Broccin could read. Alec stood from the table and almost ran towards the corridor. Broccin could hear him bounding up the stairs shortly afterwards.

“Well, brother,” Brigid laughed, her gold eyes twinkling. “I must be going. I should not keep my darling Alec waiting or he will have your hide.”

“By all means, lass,” he smiled, waving his hand after Alec. “Go. For it appears your interlude awaits you.”

“Aye, he does that.” She stood over him for a moment, him guzzling food, her watching with a smile only a woman could read. “I wish you the same happiness I’ve found with my Alec for yourself someday.” Broccin stopped eating, as though she’d frozen him.

He couldn’t speak. Something inside of him was twisting around and he wasn’t sure exactly how to respond to that.
I can’t,
he thought.
Not when the woman I love is in love with someone else.
He grunted. He found himself oddly drawn to confide in Brigid, even as she had the look of the bedroom in her eyes and would probably rather join her husband than share secrets with her brother.

“Thank you, sister,” he said quietly, stabbing a potato. “Would that your wishes could come true.”

“And why can they not?” asked Brigid, her interests suddenly perked. She sat back on the bench and swung her knees around so she was facing him.

“It’s not important,” Broccin insisted. “Go to your husband.”

“Och, stubborn man.” She swore. “It is of grave importance. You are my brother and I want you to be happy.”

Broccin laughed to himself. Brigid always was the one to believe in fancy and fairy tale. She was the expressive one. The one who could and would tell you everything in her mind and on her heart.
Thank the good Lord I didn’t pick that up from her
, he thought.
Some thoughts are just part of a man’s private intercourse, and have no business in the public sphere.

“I thank you for your concern, dear sister, but my futures are truly beyond saving, I believe.”

“Why?” she persisted.

He could see that he never should have opened this closet into his heart. “I have my reasons, lass,” he assured her. “I just do.”

“You cannot leave it at that, Broccin,” she looked into his eyes, studying them before he turned away from her probing glare.

“Aye, I can.”

“No, you can’t,” she went on. “I will not let you throw your life away pitying yourself and trying to make it seem like that’s the way it is supposed to be.” She refused to listen to him. “There is someone God made for each of us to love with all our hearts. And I believe that with all the belief I can muster.”

“I believe you do,” he chuckled. “But I cannot help it if I don’t believe it myself.”

“How can you say that?” she probed. “Because you were stung by Elizabeth?”

That was a blow Broccin had not expected. He lowered his eyes to his plate and couldn’t speak for a moment or two. Conflicting emotions arose in his heart. The pain of lost love. Again. Perhaps this was his doom. To love and lose.

“I do not wish to discuss Elizabeth, if you please.”

“And why not?” she asked, her voice rising. “Because you think if you keep silent, you will suffer alone?” When he raised his eyes to hers, she swore, “You cannot even see what’s in front of your face.”

Those words caught him off guard. He almost didn’t dare to ask for elaboration, for fear his hopes would be raised and then dashed to pieces once again. “What do you mean by that?” he finally asked.

“I’ve held quiet long enough,” she said. “I’ve been watching the two of you dance around each other for the last month full and I’ll not watch it any longer.” She braced her hands on the table as if she had something to say that was taking all her strength to muster courage. “I know you are in love with the lass. And I’ll not stand by and watch you hurt her because of Elizabeth. I’ll not stand by and watch you break her heart because yours has been broken.”