A Highlander’s Homecoming (24 page)

“I’m sure you do.” He gave her his best leer, attempting to put her on the defensive. “And I must say, yer a fine-looking piece for a woman who’s rumored to be with child.”

“Rumored,” she repeated. “Aye, that’s the key here, MacDowylt. And the proposition I have for you is no exactly what yer thinking. It’s business. Though”—here she trailed a delicate finger carelessly around the low-cut neck of the nightdress she wore—“it has the potential to be more. Much more.”

Malcolm took a step back, holding out the chair his brother had earlier vacated for his beautiful guest. “Have a seat, my lady, and we’ll discuss this . . .
business
of yers.”

He returned to his own chair, leaning forward as he sat to disguise his obvious response to this woman.

No point in letting her know of his physical interest in her. Not yet anyway. She was, after all, the daughter of Lardiner. And as much as he distrusted that man, he trusted this woman even less.

Roland, his world a red-hot haze of fury, kicked the tinder basket off the hearth in the laird’s solar, scattering bits of wood and wool as it tumbled across the floor.

Where the hell was Shaw anyway? He’d sent that deformed idiot lad to fetch the man. How was he to function as laird if his second in command didn’t come when he was called?

And Agneys! His ungrateful bitch of a daughter would pay for her disobedience tonight. The bruise she wore on her cheek was nothing compared to what he’d
leave her with next time. As soon as he had this annoying MacDowylt out of the way, he’d see to her punishment personally, laird’s widow or no.

Conspiracy! He could see it clearly now. They all conspired against him, just to make his life more difficult than necessary.

They’d pay. “They’ll all pay,” he vowed, looking for something to throw to vent his anger.

“I’ve brought him for you.” Jamie stood in the doorway ahead of Shaw, with that pathetic half smile of his.

“Get out of here, you misshapen whelp!” he yelled, coming as close as he had all evening to happiness at the fear in the lad’s eyes.

The child’s voice grated on his sensitive nerves. The burn-scarred deformity of his face disgusted Roland. Looking on the whoreson made him think of . . .

“It’s no my conscience,” he muttered aloud. That bitch, Jone, had brought it on herself by sleeping with the laird in the first place. Her brat should have died in that fire with her.

“I beg yer pardon, Lardiner . . . er . . . my laird.” Shaw stumbled over his words, his eyes darting to the door as if he thought of escape. “Were you speaking to me?”

“No!” Roland yelled before catching himself. He needed this man to follow his commands flawlessly. Angering the fool would not serve his purpose at the moment. “No,” he repeated, quietly this time.

“You sent for me, aye?”

Roland felt much calmer now. In complete control of his emotions. “I did. On the morrow, MacDowylt will, I am sure, accede to my wishes and go after the
MacGahan half-wit. As we discussed, you’ve picked the men you can trust to go along with you when you accompany him?”

“I have indeed. The most generous payment you offered was incentive enough to recruit them.”

“Good.” Roland rubbed his hands together. At last his plans were coming together. “You’ll make sure they understand, aye? Neither Isabella nor the MacDowylt are to make it back to the castle alive.”

As Shaw nodded his agreement, a noise outside the door caught Roland’s attention. An odd scraping sound.

“Go,” Roland ordered his man as he flew to the door, throwing it open and lurching outside. Down the hallway, his pathetic limp having slowed his escape, Jamie cowered against the wall.

In a fury, Roland reached the child, grabbing a handful of his filthy hair and dragging him up off his feet.

“You dare to spy on me? Yer laird?”

“Yer no my laird,” the boy cried. “You killed my laird. I saw you on the stairs after you’d pushed him down.”

The red haze filled Roland again, and he flung the boy into the wall, fighting to catch his breath as the small body crumpled into the corner.

“You’ll regret those words,” Roland said, kicking his foot into the soft little mound hunkering in front of him.

Ignoring the child’s screams, he had drawn back his foot to kick again when a weight landed on his shoulder, pulling him back and off balance.

“Here now, what’s this?”

A large man, much larger than himself, moved in between him and the object of his fury.

“This is none of yer business, whoever you are. Be on yer way.” He’d deal with the intruder later.

“Oh, I dinna think so. My business or no, I’m no going to let a full-grown man bully a wee bit of child.”

Roland’s whole body shook with his fury as he attempted to push past the man only to find himself flipped around, his face ground into the stone wall with his arm wrenched up behind him.

“You have no idea who yer dealing with. I’ll have yer name,” he sputtered. “And on the morrow, I’ll have yer head mounted in the courtyard.”

The interloper had the nerve to laugh—laugh!—as he let go of Roland’s arm, allowing him at last to turn around.

“Patrick MacDowylt, at yer service, Lardiner. Yes, I ken who you are, and I’ll tell you honestly, it’s no
my
head I’d be concerned about if I were you.”

A second MacDowylt? Roland watched as the man strolled away, realizing only after he was out of sight that the child had managed to sneak away as well.

Roland smoothed his shirt and plaid back into place as he returned to the laird’s solar. His solar now.

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. They’d all be dead within days. The MacDowylts and that rotten child, too. Dead. He’d see to it if he had to slice them apart himself.

No one would take from him what he’d worked for years to achieve.

He
was the MacGahan now.

Chapter 22
 

Isa stretched her back before squatting down to fill her bucket with water from the stream. The muscles in her legs trembled, deliciously tired, as if she’d played on the slope of a steep hill all night long.

No hills, perhaps, but she certainly had played.

She grinned like a crazy woman, not caring one bit what anyone might think of her this morning.

And what a beautiful morning! Everything around her seemed brilliantly sharp and new. The sweet-smelling spring air caressed her face with its warmth and she felt the promise of new birth carried in that gentle breeze.

Time to begin her planting today. Robbie should wake soon, and they could have their morning meal while the water heated for her bath. She needed to put on a new porridge to simmer for tonight.

Jamie should arrive this day. She’d expected him yesterday, but he must have been delayed with his chores.

So much to do, so many things to organize now that Jamie would be staying with her. With them. Just like a family.

Such a lovely day. Even the waters felt warmer than they had only days ago. Holding her hands down beside her bucket, she allowed the stream to ripple through her fingers. The waters caressed her skin as if they were alive.

Or perhaps she simply felt more alive.

Chuckling at her own silliness, she reached for her bucket and froze.

What in the name of all that’s holy?

She dropped to sit on the grassy bank, staring at her hand. A mark covered her palm. A mark that hadn’t been there yesterday. A mark identical to the one on Robbie’s arm.

Plunging her hand back into the water, she scrubbed at her palm, but as if the mark were a part of her, nothing happened.

What could it mean?

“Robbie?” she called. “Robbie!” Louder, as she rose to her feet, running toward the cottage.

He met her halfway down the path, one hand clutched to his chest as he ran toward her.

“What?” His face was pinched with worry and he grabbed her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

In answer to his question, she held out her hand, palm up.

He stared at her hand, much as she must have, before meeting her eyes. “Where did that come from?”

“I was hoping you could answer that since it’s identical to the one you wear on yer arm. Where did yers come from?”

He didn’t answer right away, but instead trailed a finger over the mark on her palm, setting her skin to tingling as if feathers brushed against it.

“It’s no exactly the same. It’s much smaller.” He looked away, reaching up to scratch at the mark on his arm.

What did
smaller
have to do with anything? And why did it suddenly feel so odd?

“Look!” Isa held up her trembling hand, staring at her palm, watching in fascination as the mark slowly disappeared. “It makes no sense. It’s gone. I scrubbed it in the water, before, and there was no even a smudge. And now . . .” She let her words trail off.

The mark might be gone but she felt as if hundreds of tiny, invisible creatures covered her skin. Her hand continued to tremble, beyond her ability to control, until Robbie grabbed it, clasping it between his own.

As suddenly as the whole bizarre experience had begun, it now ended.

“It’s no gone. See for yerself.” He turned her palm over and there it was, now on the back of her hand.

“I dinna understand any of this, Robbie.” Certainly she’d seen more than her share of strange occurrences, but this one frightened her.

Robbie half turned from her, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. “We need to talk, Isa. Though I canna explain
why
this has happened, I may have an idea as to the source.”

“And?” she asked even as a hard lump settled in the pit of her stomach. This had the feel of the Fae to it.
It must be her mother’s people behind this, but why? Why would they plague her now, just as she’d finally found some measure of happiness?

“It’s long past time I told you how I came to be here.”

“But why would that have any bearing on . . .”

He held up his hand to stop her words, his head tilted to the side as if listening. “Do you hear that?”

In the distance, a horse approached, its gait slow and unsteady. “That would be Jamie come at last. You should probably finish with yer clothing before he gets here.”

In all the turmoil over her hand, she hadn’t even noticed that Robbie had barely taken the time to wrap his plaid around him, throwing all the excess over his shoulder to trail on the ground before coming to her aid.

“Go on with you. I’ll wait here for him,” she said

He nodded his agreement, his eyes dark and serious. “But after. We still need to have that talk.”

“Aye,” she agreed. “And we will. Now go.”

She watched him walk away, gathering the excess of his plaid into a ball and holding it against his bare chest.

Even in a loosely wrapped plaid that man had the finest backside she’d ever had the pleasure to admire.

With a sigh, she turned her face toward the sound of the approaching horse and headed down the path in that direction. She could see them in the distance now, through the trees. As she’d surmised from the sound, it was the old horse Jamie always rode.

She called out his name and lifted her arm to wave in greeting, but he didn’t respond, though his mount stopped and lifted her head.

Odd, that. As odd as the boy riding all hunched over the horse’s neck that way.

“Jamie?” she called out again. Lifting her skirts and walking more quickly, she accelerated her pace, running until she reached his side.

“No.” Her agonized groan was ripped from deep inside as she pulled the little body down from the old horse’s back. “Jamie? Jamie!” she cried, falling to her knees with the child in her arms.

Blood crusted down the side of his face, the skin that had been smooth and clear now scraped and raw. When his good eye fluttered open, she felt as if her heart might burst.

“Thank God,” she sobbed, rocking him in her lap, pushing his tangled hair away from his face.

No matter what had happened to him, he would recover from it. He had to. In that brief moment she’d thought him already gone she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

His whimper snapped her back to reality and she struggled to her feet, stumbling back up the trail toward the cottage, her long skirts catching between her legs as she tried to run.

“Robbie,” she yelled, gasping for air, hardly aware of the tears streaming down her cheeks as she ran. She needed Robbie. He’d know what to do.

And then he was there, lifting the boy’s weight from her arms, guiding them back to the safety of her cottage as the terror gripping her heart quickly turned to fury.

“Isabella! You must calm yerself or you’ll wake the lad.”

They’d tended to Jamie’s scrapes and bruises as best they could. It was the wounds they couldn’t see that worried Robert now.

Both Jamie’s and Isa’s.

“I am calm,” she hissed, stabbing her poker into the fire with a force that sent sparks flying. “I’m sure his little rib is broken and I just canna see how Roland could be such an animal as to do that to a wee lad like Jamie.”

Robert had wondered that himself.

“Do you believe me now that it’s no safe for you to stay here? No you or the boy, either one. When he wakes, we can be on our way to MacQuarrie Keep.” Where his family could see to their safety when he was no longer able to.