Meghan: A Sweet Scottish Medieval Romance (2 page)

“
T
wenty-seven
,” Baldwin announced, marching into the room where Piers sat poring over his new survey.

It was a lesson Piers had taken from old King William: One could hardly rule a land unless one knew precisely what one held to rule. Following William the Conqueror’s example, the first thing he’d done upon receiving this fief was to survey his holdings, meager though they might be. And it was a good thing, as it seemed his stock was dwindling quickly. He might never have known until they’d been seriously depleted.

Thieving, conniving Scots.

“Twenty-seven!” he exclaimed. He didn’t know whether to be angry or amused. At last count—only yesterday evening—the sheep had numbered thirty-four. “When did those savages have the occasion to rob me yet again? I thought I told you to set a man to guard those mangy beasts?”

“The Scots?”

“Them, too, but I meant the sheep, Baldwin. The rotten mangy sheep. I thought I told you to set a guard for them?”

Baldwin’s ears reddened. “Well...” His face twisted into an abashed grimace. “I
did
set a man to guard them, you see… though it seems I set a wolf to guard the sheep’s pen.”

“A wolf?” Piers lifted both brows. He couldn’t wait to hear this one.

Baldwin winced. “I appointed Cameron,” he said, looking abashed. “He was already keeping watch over his own sheep, you see, and I—”

“Cameron!” Piers exploded. “The half-wit who refused to leave his parcel and hut?” He tossed down his quill in disgust. “Baldwin! Whatever were you thinking to put a thieving Scot to guard against his thieving kinsmen?”

“Well, I thought—”

“That he would give his loyalty to an Englishman over his own countrymen?”

Baldwin frowned. “Well, he did stay when the rest abandoned us,” he pointed out.

“Only because he’s a stubborn old man who refused to leave his land to a Sassenach. His own words, do you not recall? His behavior was certainly not born out of any sense of loyalty.”

“Aye, but it’s not what you think,” Baldwin said. “He merely fell asleep, is all.”

Piers sighed and slumped within his chair, smacking his head in exasperation against the high back of his seat. He rolled his eyes, then stared up at the ceiling, noting its rotten condition for the first time.

He frowned.

How had he missed that before now? His chamber was directly above. He was going to have to fix that crumbling ceiling soon, lest he plummet through the floor onto the table in front of him and find himself fare for the band of misfit Scots who had remained with this ruined demesne.

“My lord?”

Piers turned his attention from the rotting floorboards and eyed his longtime friend with a mixture of bemusement and displeasure. It seemed to him that Baldwin had taken to behaving less like a friend and more like an underling, and though this new manner of his wasn’t entirely without its merits, he was nevertheless uncomfortable with Baldwin’s unexpected attention to the proprieties. He much preferred the drunken companionability he and his men had shared in the years before his enfeoffment.

Truth to tell, he’d never expected to find himself lord—or laird, for that matter—and he’d certainly never aspired to it. It seemed wholly unnatural to him now to be fussed over as though he were some grease-lipped lord casting dinner bones to his dogs. He was a commander first and foremost. It had been his skill at arms that had won him this little piece of the Highlands, and he didn’t see the need to change what had served him so well for so long. His men worked well beside him because they were foremost his fellows. He didn’t want, or need, a bunch of knock-kneed lackeys running about according him undue honors.

“Sire?” Baldwin’s tone clearly revealed uncertainty over Piers’ mood. “What is it you’d have me do?”

“You might first cease to call me
my lord
,” Piers suggested, his tone unmistakably provoked. “And
sire
, as well, as I am not your accursed father either.”

Baldwin lifted his head in surprise. “What is it you’d have me call you... if not ‘my lord’?”

Piers thought the answer rather obvious. “What is it you called me before?”

Baldwin cocked his head a little uncertainly. “Lyon?”

Piers responded with a droll grin. He’d been given the name by his men after a particularly bloody battle; they’d said he’d appeared to them coming off the battlefield, with his long, gilt mane of hair and bloodied face, like a lion fresh after its kill. It wasn’t an honor he was particularly proud of, but he’d gotten used to the name after all.

Baldwin’s brows lifted. “But you don’t like that name?”

“I prefer it to
my lord
.”

Baldwin’s lips curved into a companionable smile. “If ’tis your wish...”

“It is,” Piers assured him. “I’m no different now merely because I have a parcel of land. Why should we resort to ceremony after all these years? I didn’t like the name before and you hounded me with it anyway. Why not still?”

Baldwin nodded, his grin spreading from ear to ear. “I am relieved to hear you say so.”

“Are you now?” Piers was relieved as well at having settled the matter once and for all. But now wasn’t the time for maudlin expressions, as he still had these annoying Scots to deal with.

And yet... strangely enough, though the Brodies had all but robbed him blind, it was a simple enough task to temper his anger against the thieving curs.

Why was that? he wondered.

As accustomed as he had become to the intrigues of court and the stealth of warfare, this matter of feuding seemed more like sport.

In fact, Piers could scarcely help but admire these Scots. They fought their battles fiercely, and by some strange code of honor that somehow appealed to him. They spat upon your boot; you drew your sword; they stole your goat; you stole their sheep; and so on and so on—though bloodshed seemed proscribed—and all of it done openly, as though thieving your good neighbor were the most natural and honorable thing to do. Thus far, not so much as a single beast had been harmed, although Piers had not enjoyed a moment’s peace since first he’d stepped foot upon these Highlands.

It was more than apparent that a bond of blood was as binding as a Scotsman’s honor would allow—that they defended kith and kin unto their dying breath.

It was also apparent that an outlander would always be just that... an outlander.

Well, Piers was perfectly accustomed to that. He didn’t need their approval. David of Scotia might, but he surely didn’t. He had grown up an outsider, didn’t they know; his father was a king and his mother a harlot.

And while his mother had slept in a different bed many a night, Piers had slipped away and curled beneath a pew in the chapel to close his eyes and dream of all the things he wanted in life. And he had wanted so much.

He had wanted to go away and study at one of those places he’d only heard speak of... He’d wanted to read until his eyes went blind... He’d wanted to learn things, and do things, and see things. He’d wanted to know why the sky was so blue and the grass so green. He’d wanted to know what stars were made of, and why they burned so brightly. He’d wanted to know why his veins were blue while his blood was red. He’d wanted so much more than a bed on a cold, hard floor and to stand alone behind invisible doors... watching other children at play.

Although, in truth, why should he have cared if the other children were outside playing and laughing? Thanks to his mother, he’d been able to study with the Archbishop of Canterbury and that had been no trifling thing. He’d had every reason to be grateful and no reason at all to yearn for something so negligible as dirty knees or silly games.

“Curse it all,” he exclaimed, lifting up his pen and rapping the quill’s end upon the wooden table. “We’re going to show these Scots that we can feud with the best of them.”

And enjoy it every bit as much.

That’s what it was going to take to win their alliance, he surmised.

Or not.

Either way, he would relish the sport.

Though at first he’d been taken unawares by their unanticipated raids, some part of him reveled in this honest form of warfare, where one’s enemy stood up to be counted, and one’s friends openly declared they’d as soon pluck out your eyes if they could profit from them. There was something particularly heartening in that unrelenting honesty.

Aye, he was perfectly pleased to play their games.

“These savages will not run us off this land,” he vowed. “You’re a witless fool,” he reprimanded Baldwin, but he knew his eyes didn’t quite conceal the smile he hid. “I should take the price of those beasts out of your hide, you realize?”

Color returned to the tips of Baldwin’s ears. “I wouldn’t fault you for it, Lyon,” he said, but neither did his smile vanish either. “So what would you have me do?”

“What else?” Piers grinned. “We steal the beasts back—and a few more for good measure.”

Baldwin smirked. “If I didn’t know better,” he said, “I’d think you were enjoying this.”

Lyon lifted a brow. “And you would be right,” he returned, rising from his seat and taking his sword from where he’d placed it upon the table before him. He slid it into his scabbard and winked good-naturedly at Baldwin. “Now, let’s go teach these Scots how to commit a proper thieving.”

I
t was a raven
, no mistaking it.

Its blue-black wings pummeled the air in obvious distress though it made not a peep as it flailed about the rafters searching for escape. Within the silence of the chapel its flight for freedom—like a soul fighting to be set free—was a struggle that stirred Meghan Brodie’s heart.

She had cast open the shutters to the bright summer day and the poor bird flew inside as though it had been anticipating her appearance at the window. It startled her, certainly, but Meghan wasn’t the least bit superstitious, else she might have considered this an evil omen.

Certainly, her Grammie Fia, would have claimed it to be so.

The last time she recalled a bird flying into their home—and it had been a sparrow that time, not even a wicked raven as this was—her dear grandmother had taken great pains to make it fly out the same way it had flown in, so that it might take with it whatever curse it had brought into their home. Else, old Fia had explained, the sparrow would die and the one who’d let it in would remain cursed for all eternity. In her quest to set the sparrow free, her grammie had blocked off every window and every door except for the one the bird flew in through, and then had stood speaking to the creature for hours, until she’d managed to coax it into her hand with breadcrumbs. And then, with blessings for peace and love, she had cast it back out the door.

Meghan hadn’t believed a word of it, of course. She’d thought her grandmother incredibly silly, while her brothers had simply thought her mad—as everyone else did. Superstition was, in Meghan’s opinion, merely a way of explaining away circumstances one could not comprehend. Nothing more. When it came to such notions she was truly quite unromantic. Her mind couldn’t embrace the mystical, although her grandmother’s tales had been useful for frightening wee grandchildren into good behavior.

The memory brought a wistful smile to her lips.

All that Meghan remembered of her dear mother was her sad, grieving face; she’d lived only until Meghan’s third summer. Her da she remembered not at all, as he’d died when Meghan was but a bairn. But her grandmother, the old lovable lunatic, had walked the halls of Meghan’s home until Meghan’s sixteenth winter, all the while talking to faeries and wraiths—at least that’s what Fia had claimed. Meghan suspected she’d merely been too abashed to admit she liked to talk to herself, as Meghan was wont to do—och, but she made no apologies for it. She liked her own company and that of animals so much more than she did people.

People, Meghan often thought, were entirely too fickle in their attentions, and never seemed to look beyond the mask of her face. It made her uncomfortable, and truth to tell, she must not see the same person in the looking glass, for she couldn’t conceive what it was about her face that made men daft in her presence and women loathe her at a glance. It seemed to Meghan that nobody cared one whit for the person behind the face.

Both her mother and grandmother had been blessed with loveliness, but Meghan hadn’t inherited their delicate beauty at all. Her cheekbones were much too prominent, her lips too full, and her auburn hair a riotous mess of curls that refused to remain bound. At least she hadn’t the tendency to freckle, although the sun colored her skin much too dark every summer.

Her most distinguishing feature, she thought, were her eyes. She had her da’s eyes, she’d been told. Betimes they appeared nigh black, but they were in fact the pure, deep shade of a forest glen. It was the same eye color her brothers shared, all but for Colin, whose eyes were the pale shade of a cloudless summer sky.

She lifted her gaze once more to inspect the chapel’s ceiling as the raven began to caw. Its blue-black wings beat the rafters in growing distress, and Meghan frowned.

The chapel had once been naught more than the ruins of an old stone temple built by the auld ones. Its ceiling had stood wide open to the heavens for most of her life, but her brother Gavin recently erected a sloping wooden shelter, and the new wood was sturdy and true, reinforced by beams that were braced along the stone walls. No amount of thrashing, not even from stalwart Mother Nature, was going to raise it.

The poor raven had nary a chance.

She stood there wondering how best to get the bird out of the chapel.

What might her grammie have done?
Her sweet, mad grandmother had had a way with creatures that far exceeded what paltry influence Meghan thought she had.

Although Meghan had been raised by her three brothers, she’d spent the greater part of her childhood with her grandmother, either searching for herbs to make potions, or listening to tales of faeries who peeked out from behind trees in the woodlands. Och, but as loony as the old woman had seemed, Meghan missed her fiercely. She knew her brothers loved her well and truly, but it was a burdensome thing to be the only woman in a household of men.

Not to mention lonely.

If it weren’t for Alison, the MacLean’s daughter—her best friend—Meghan didn’t know what she would have done.

Leith, her eldest brother, was laird of their clan. He was sweet and good, even if he was entirely too overbearing and protective. With all his rules, he kept Meghan from living life just as surely as though he were a wall she could not pass. What he didn’t seem to realize was that she had her own little tunnel burrowed beneath those bulwarks, and the defiant thought brought a tiny smile to her lips.

Her brother Colin, on the other hand, was much too unconcerned with anything but women and drink. Blessed as he was with good looks, Meghan only wished he didn’t give the pursuit of his own pleasures such import above all else.

Poor, sweet Alison hadn’t a bit of a chance with him.

And then there was her dear brother Gavin, the only brother younger than herself. Gavin held another view entirely from both Leith and Colin. He was the one who disregarded the mind and physical beauty altogether, believing it a sin to worship the temple of the spirit and a complete waste of one’s time—a woman’s, at least—to ponder any of life’s mysteries. Alas, that was something Meghan was wont to do. Her youngest brother encouraged her incessantly to seek to purify her soul, lest she end like their mother and grandmother before her—mad and all alone.

But Meghan rather relished the thought of being alone, didn’t he realize? And if people thought her mad... well, then... She shrugged. They’d simply think her mad and maybe leave her be, wouldn’t they? And that was a good thing as far as Meghan was concerned.

She only wished Gavin would live a little more and leave off with the preaching, for his own sake, certainly not for hers. Meghan had no qualms about boxing his ears when he carried on too much. She loved each of her brothers dearly—as she knew they did her—and she’d do anything for them, anything at all, except listen to Gavin’s accursed sermons. Her poor brother, they were nearly as harrowing as the poor raven’s unrelenting cawing.

Mercy, but she had no notion what to do to help the accursed bird.

She stood, hands at her hips, before the open window, frowning after it as it flew about the rafters and finally lit upon one of the support beams. And there it remained. She could swear it stared down expectantly at her.

“Och now, I canna help ye all the way up there, don’t ye ken, ye silly creature.” Despite that she knew it was an absurd thing to do, she extended her hand to the agitated bird, and demanded, “Come down here now!”

The raven merely flapped its wings, and cawed at her.

Meghan crooked a finger at it. “Dinna speak to me so rudely,” she told the bird. “I canna help you if ye will not let me.”

The raven quieted and cocked its head, peering down at her curiously, though it didn’t move.

Had she expected it to?
It was ludicrous to be nettled by the bird’s lack of response, but she was.

“I’d wager you’d come down for Grammie Fia. Foolish auld bird,” she scolded the creature. “Stay, then, if ye—”

“What are ye doing, lass?” a voice interrupted at her back.

Meghan shrieked in startle, casting up her hands. She turned to face Colin. “Och, ye scared me, ye ill-bred oaf.”

Her brother merely grinned at her, and cocked his head, in much the same manner the bird had, and Meghan narrowed her eyes at him. “Did no one ever teach you any manners?”

“Ye know the answer to that, Meghan, love,” he said. “I learned my good manners from the same place you did.” He winked at her and chuckled. “Only it seems to me ye learned a few more lessons from daft auld Fia than I did. What do ye think you’re doing, talking to that witless bird? You don’t think it understands, now do ye?”

Meghan’s cheeks flamed. She peered up at the bird, and then lifted her chin as she faced her brother, her hands going to her hips once again. “Of course not. I was merely trying to help the silly thing is all. It flew in through the window,” she explained, undaunted by Colin’s amused expression. “And now he canna seem to find his way back out.”

Her brother smiled benevolently at her. “Meggie, dearlin’, ye have a good heart, lass, though you’re wasting your sweet breath. That bird does not ken a word you’re speaking and you’d do better to smack your bonnie head against a wall for all the good you’re doing.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Meghan frowned up at the bird. “Ungrateful creature.”

Colin’s lips curved into a roguish grin. “Of course I’m right.”

“Och, though I hate it when you are, wicked gloating knave.”

He lifted a brow at her. “That’s another thing you learned from auld Fia, and I’m here to tell ye, ’tis a foul thing to hear you speakin’ like a mon. I’ll warrant you’ll never find yourself a mate with that rotten tongue o’ yours.”

“Good, then, silly oaf. What would I be wantin’ with a mon, when I’ve my hands full with the three of ye already?”

Colin’s smile turned ribald and Meghan lifted a brow at him in censure. He was the only one of her three brothers who would speak so frankly to her of matters between men and women, but she didn’t particularly want to hear it.

“I could think of a few things,” he said plainly, “though if I told you then I’d have to box your ears for listening. And then I’d have to kill the fools who fell prey to your curiosity.”

“Nay, ye would not,” Meghan said with absolute certainty. Her cheeks burned with chagrin. “Because there’s not a mon under God’s heaven I’d care to burden myself with long enough to appease any such curiosity.”

“Well,” Colin countered, shaking his head as though she were no more than a wee misbehaving child, “as I said... you’ll never have to worry over such things, anyhow—not with that foul mouth.” He peered up at the squawking bird, his cheeks turning suddenly pink as he said, “Anyway... I only came to tell ye something...”

Meghan’s brows lifted. “
Something
?”

“Aye. Alison awaits ye in the meadow.”

“Alison?” Meghan’s brows lifted higher in surprise, and then she narrowed her eyes at him, scrutinizing his expression. “You saw her?”

He nodded, his hands going to his hips. “I did, Meghan, and dinna look at me like that. I didna say a bloody thing to the wench.”

Meghan narrowed her eyes at him. “That is precisely the trouble,” she enlightened him. “How could it possibly hurt ye to sit and visit with her for a wee bit, Colin? She likes ye so verra much—though for the life of me I canna see why.”

“Why thank you,” he said, looking offended.

“You’re not verra nice to her, Colin.”

Colin’s face twisted into a grimace, and his cheeks turned, if possible, a deeper shade of red. “Och,” he protested. “She’s sweet, Meghan, if only she didna have those crossed eyes.”

Meghan gave him a disgusted look. “There is naught wrong with Alison’s eyes.”

“It makes me uncomfortable to look at her.”

“Arggghhh!” Meghan shook her head in disgust. “To think I share the same blood with ye, Colin Mac Brodie. I canna believe ye would be so cold and cruel to a poor lass merely because her face does not suit ye.”

“Cruel?” His hand went to his chest as though affronted.

Meghan pleaded with him. “If ye would merely sit and talk with her just once, Colin, ye would see how verra sweet her heart is—and how very smart! Alison MacLean would make any mon a fine wife. Ye should feel fortunate to have her devotion—even undeserving as ye are.”

“Och, now,” her brother objected, meeting Meghan’s gaze with his sad soulful eyes. “Dinna be so fierce with me, Meggie.” His gaze lowered unhappily. “I would never hurt the poor lass. I merely dinna wish to wed with her is all, and I canna see the point in misleading her. I have ne’er been mean to her.”

“Never?” Meghan eyed him shrewdly. “Swear it upon your manhood, Colin. May it fall off and rot like a worm on the ground if ye’ve made her weep yet again.”

He cast her a pained glance, grimacing. “Meghan! You’re cruel to be sure.”

“Swear it,” she demanded of her brother.

“All right! I swear it,” he declared. “Although I canna be certain she was not weeping already,” he amended quickly.

“Colin!”

He held up both his hands in protest. “I dinna do anything, Meg. She came about and found me with Suisan. I canna be faulted for that.”

His hand went to his groin—an unconscious gesture, Meghan realized, and she suppressed a grin. He
did
have a point, she was forced to confess. He couldn’t be faulted for that.

And he was right; it would truly no one at all—most of all not Alison—for Colin to lead her astray. Alison was not like Meghan. Her feelings were entirely too tender.

“Can ye not see that I canna be false to her?” Colin asked, his brows lifting in supplication. “It would not be right, Meggie.”

Meghan frowned. “Aye,” she conceded, though grudgingly. “I do, ye miserable wretch. I only wish—”

“I ken what ye wish, Meggie. And you’re a good soul, to be sure, but I dinna want a wife, anyhow.”

Meghan understood that better than anyone.

“And if I did,” he added, speaking honestly, “the MacLean’s daughter is not the one for me.” He made a gesture at his breast that made Meghan blush. “I’ll be wantin’ more from a lass,” he said. “Not merely a bonnie face, but
more
if you know what I mean?” He lifted his brows.