A Highlander's Second Chance: Highland Temptations Page 3

  He wished to say no, that she had not. “The truth of the matter is, ’tis been years since I last set eyes upon her. I did a great deal of roaming about before coming here to stay. I made certain always to send everything I could spare to her, and her messages always found me, but I never saw her. Five years is a great deal of time, especially as she was a mere slip of a lass then. Barely thirteen, if I recall. She must be the youngest lass there.”

  “I couldna say.” Douglas shrugged, scraping mud from his boots before entering Clyde’s cottage. “I set eyes upon none but herself and the lass who met me at the gate. Yet I always felt they were watching me.”

  “They more than likely were.” Clyde set water to boil. “Tea? I never cared much for it before, but have come to enjoy a cup. It takes the chill from my blood.”

  “I can think of another drink that takes away the chill.” Douglas snorted. “Have ye any of that?”

  Clyde shook his head with a mournful frown. The truth was, he’d given it up. The dark days after losing Janet and the bairns had left him in a perpetual state of intoxication. He’d lost days on end. An entire fortnight at the worst of it.

  For years, he had questioned his doings during that lost time. Had he hurt someone?

  Never again would he touch a drop except during feasts or celebrations, and even then, he drank very little. The taste alone brought back too many painful memories.

  “Well?” Douglas prompted. “When will ye go, then?”

  “I still have not said I would.”

  He growled. “What is stopping ye? I’ve already told ye how needed ye are. And Mary is there. Do ye not wish to make certain she can manage herself in a fight?”

  The man had not the slightest idea how this pained Clyde, or else he would not be speaking so. “I would rather she were not there at all. That she might find a decent man and marry and bear children.”

  “There is little chance of that happening now, as she is.”

  “Ye dinna need to tell me that.”

  “What is the use of mourning what is not? She will not leave the place. She is just as dedicated as any of them. To be frank with ye, I respect that. I respected the woman, as well. Ailsa Dunne, the name is. Husband was a Scottish soldier. Killed by the English, or so I heard.”

  They had something in common, it seemed. Only Clyde had not merely lost his wife. He’d lost his treasures, his darlings, his bairns.

  “What makes her believe she is fit to train women to act as assassins?” he asked, not expecting an answer.

  “Perhaps her husband taught her a thing or two, being a soldier, as he was.”

  This did not sit well with Clyde. It did not explain what gave this Ailsa the right to believe she could adequately prepare a group of women to conduct themselves safely in highly dangerous situations.

  But that was not his concern. His concern was Mary.

  What was he to do? What would Janet have him do?

  * * *

  “And that is it.” Clyde stood before Rufus, waiting. Hoping he had not destroyed the single bright light his life had held in years. “I dinna expect to stay for always—”

  Rufus stood, his face still blank. Was he thinking things over? Trying to imagine a way to order Clyde off his property?

  “I canna tell ye what it means to me that ye felt ye needed to come to me with this,” Rufus began. “Ye might have simply mounted with a few supplies and rode away.”

  “I would never—”

  “I know ye would never, but some would. Of course, ye ought to go. Tend to what needs tending.”

  Was it to be that simple? While Clyde held Rufus in high esteem and knew him to be fair, he’d not expected it to end so quickly. He’d thought they would at least speak of a length of time he’d be gone, or perhaps discuss the right day for him to be on his way.

  “What of my work here?”

  Rufus grimaced, but briefly. Enough that Clyde knew his absence would come as a blow. “I canna feign indifference. We shall feel your loss. But there is nothing here that canna be managed. I shall bring on another hand.” He chuckled. “Perhaps two, since ye have been known to do the work of two men. Aye, we shall miss ye greatly.”

  “I feel as though I am deserting ye,” Clyde admitted.

  “There is nothing but the strength of a promise keeping ye here. Two promises, now that I think on it. Ye promised to help me build the land back from what it had fallen into. So far as I am concerned, ye lived up to yer word and then some. And I promised ye would always have a home here so long as ye saw fit to claim it. That home will still be here for ye when ye return, should ye choose to do so.”

  “I see no reason why I would not.”

  Even so, Rufus lifted his shoulders. “One never knows. I could not ever have imagined wedding the sister of the man who stole my family’s land. Do ye believe Drew intended to wed a reiver? Nay, of course he didna think to do any such thing. Life can surprise ye.”

  Clyde cleared his throat, suddenly uncomfortable in the presence of his friend. He was never uncomfortable in front of Rufus. With strangers, yes, and normally while in the presence of women aside from Davina and Anne.

  But it had always been that way with women. Aside from the sort who earned their daily bread by entertaining men. A fighting man often made the company of such women, especially after a battle. Never had he felt at ease in a woman’s presence. They had always been a mystery, and had normally regarded him with either blank-faced surprise, fear, or curiosity.

  That was worst of all. As if he were something to be stared at. As if he had no human feeling.

  Rufus had never spoken with him in this manner. So personal. It was amusing when he thought of it that way. They’d already been through a great deal together. But men did not speak of such things easily. Not men such as themselves.

  “I’ve no such notions in mind,” he muttered, staring at the floor for lack of anything better to look at. “I’ve long since passed that time of my life.”

  “Ye are hardly an old man.” Rufus chuckled, attempting to lighten the dark turn their meeting had taken. “I would not be so hard on myself if I were ye.”

  He could not possibly understand, and Clyde knew better than to try to make him do so. To Rufus, while life could be a terribly unfair thing—his parents murdered, his brother driven out of the country, his ancestral home desecrated—he had been able to set things right.

  He still believed such things were possible. That life could be set to right again, and all would be well. There was no way for him to know of such deep tragedy, pain that set a man’s heart afire and left it little more than a charred lump.

  Clyde hoped this would never be the case for his friend.

  “I suppose I shall leave first thing in the morning,” he announced, returning to the main point. “Douglas tells me the convent is three days’ ride south, not far from Edinburgh.”

  “Good enough. I shall see to it ye have everything ye need to keep ye fed along the way,” Rufus vowed. “And dinna forget to send word from time to time. Davina will fret, ye ken, and it would make her happy to know ye are doing well.”

  Clyde held his tongue. No sense in confessing how soon his friends would likely see him.

  * * *

  None of them knew, and he preferred it that way.

  They were unaware that his family home, the one he’d shared with his wife and bairns, sat overgrown and abandoned less than half a day’s ride from MacIntosh land. If he’d ever told them, far too many questions would be asked, questions which he had no intention of answering.

  This was not because he did not care for his friends, but because he’d never found the words to describe what happened that terrible day.

  He wished he could say he had no memory of it, but it would be a lie, and he made a point of never lying to himself.

  He remembered every moment of it, each horrifying impression. Every smell, every drop of rain which had fallen on his head as he sank to his knees, disbelieving. Distrau
ght. Certain that he had, at some point during the ride through Inverness, fallen asleep, that this was nothing more than a terrible dream from which he would awaken.

  How could a man possibly live through such a terrible thing? And what would there be to live for once his three most precious possessions had been taken from him?

  “How ye would have hated that.” He chuckled as he cleared away what he could from the graves. The ground was still terribly soft, which made it easy to pull the weeds that had long since died. “Ye would have told me what a soft-headed fool I was for callin’ ye my possession, but ye were mine just as much as I was yours.”

  He sat back on his heels, regarding each of the rough markings in turn.

  One for wee Maggie, just learning to write her name. She was the same age then as Owen and Moira were now, and it pained him so to watch them grow with the memory of his golden-haired daughter always in his heart.

  Janet was in the middle. He’d found the three of them in the kitchen, huddled together in the corner with Janet’s body covering those of the children. She had done all she could to protect them, but it had not been enough.

  And Neill, who had been looking forward to his seventh birthday that summer. He’d considered himself quite the young man, always longing to prove himself older than he was. Clyde imagined he would have faced the soldiers as bravely as he could.

  The three souls most precious to him. All three of them taken away.

  “It has been far too long since I have been to see you, and that’s a fact. Forgive me. But you know there has not been a day when you are not the first thing I thought about upon waking, and the last upon touching head to pillow. You must know that.”

  As ever, no answer came. He liked to think she was there, somewhere, his Janet. That they all were, all three of them ever youthful, ever joyful. That they heard and felt his love, even now. Even after years of never looking upon their faces, or hearing their sweet voices. How had he ever grumbled and growled when his eager Neill had woken him early in the morning, asking if they might ride? How had he ever asked Maggie to take her singing outdoors so that he might have a moment’s quiet with her mam?

  What he would not give to take it back.

  If there was a heaven and hell, as he had always been taught, it left the question of how much worse hell could possibly be than the torment of blaming himself every day for the rest of his life. Could it be worse than wishing for that which never comes true even as he made a wish?

  Once the three graves were cleaned—he did wish he could plant flowers there or leave some small token, but there was nothing to be had so early in spring—he stood and wiped his hands on his trousers.

  “I suppose I must do this,” he murmured, looking down at Janet’s grave in particular. “Forgive me for not having paid Mary the attention she needed. I know now it was not enough to simply see to her needs. I ought to have visited, should have asked her what her life had become. It was easier for me to care only for myself, and to tell myself I was doing right by both of ye all the while so long as I sent my money to her.”

  He looked around, taking in the overgrown, run-down cottage that had been their home. The home in which Janet had always taken pride, humble though it had always been. She’d always loved flowers, scattering seeds to and fro whenever she managed to locate any. No rhyme or reason. It would have been lovely, had she been given time to watch it and tend to her wild garden.

  If only they had all been given time.

  “I am sorry this will take me so far from ye. I would rather be where I can look after ye. I might have asked Rufus to tend the ground here and make certain no one had come to harm ye in any way, but there was no time. I promise I will return, though I canna say when.”

  The fact was, he wished to be back very soon, but he could not make promises. Not when there was no telling how long it would take before Mary was able to get away from this group who had so clearly taken charge of her mind.

  “I promise I will bring her back.” He touched his fingers to the markers, each stone in turn. He did not need to give them much in the way of marking their graves, as only he had ever visited. He knew where they were and what joy they’d brought him in life. That was what mattered.

  He could only hope they forgave him for so many things. Leaving them vulnerable, for one. For not being there when they needed him most. When their lives had been taken so cruelly, so suddenly.

  He would never live on the land, and could never sell to another or even allow a tenant to make their home in the cottage. How could he? When his beloveds were there?

  Perhaps Mary would like to live there. He’d never considered this before, but now saw much sense to the notion. The cottage was falling to rack and ruin when it might be used again, but not by just anyone. He might ask if she wished to make her home there, where her sister and niece and nephew had once lived and laughed and played. Perhaps this would be enough to convince her to come along without his needing to resort to other means.

  One last look behind him after mounting, the horse already impatient and wanting very much to be on its way. There they were, lying beneath the ground, where they had been for years and would be until he joined them.

  Though his heart was already there and always had been.

  4

  At first, Ailsa was certain she had dreamed hearing a knock at her chamber door.

  She did not keep many rules when it came to how the young women in her care ought to treat her. She earned respect rather than demanding it. An important distinction which her Thomas had explained years ago, and insisted they knock before entering her chambers.

  That was very nearly the beginning and end of it, for she also wished for them to see her as their equal. She was not their mother. For one, she was not nearly old enough to be their mother, only five years older than the eldest of the assassins in her care. Her thirtieth summer had come and gone that year.

  And she was hardly an officer in an army. She was simply herself, and she would have no bowing and scraping.

  Except at this time of night.

  If there was one part of her day she insisted not be disrupted except in case of an emergency, it was her sleep time. She did not require much of it, perhaps five or six hours at the most, but they were precious to her. She suspected a childhood lived in a rather fractious home with constant fighting and a father with a taste for drink had something to do with that.

  It was only natural, then, that she assumed she had imagined hearing a knock at the door. Perhaps it had been an animal outside her window, or even a bat flapping its wings close by. She rolled onto her side, away from the door, and drew the blanket around her shoulders.

  She heard it again, and this time there was no pretending she had not. She rolled onto her back, pushing herself up on her elbows. “Yes?” she called out, perturbed and still half-asleep.

  “Ailsa, we have an intruder.”

  In a flash, she leaped from the bed and drew a mantle about her shoulders to ward off the chill before crossing the spacious yet sparsely furnished room and throwing open the door.

  What she found fairly took her breath away.

  Before her was Hilda, one of the young ladies of the convent, but Hilda was not the surprise.

  It was the man standing behind her, towering far beyond the arched doorway. Ailsa could not see his face, he was so tall. She craned her neck, peering up, and finally took in the full sight of him.

  Either this was the most unthinkable coincidence, or the man was Clyde McMannis. What were the chances of a giant—for that was the only word which came to mind—paying a call while she expected the large man Douglas McTavish had promised?

  Though this was hardly the way she had imagined them meeting. She’d wished to impress him from the first, to take control and take pains never to loosen her grip once she had established who was in charge.

  Her shift and mantle had not been part of her imaginings.

  Hilda chewed her lip, shifting from one foot
to the other. It was unlike her to appear so undone, so unsure of herself, but this had taken her as much by surprise as it had Ailsa. “It is my evening to patrol the inside walls,” she explained, looking and sounding for all the world like she might burst into tears at any moment. As if this were her doing.

  The man cleared his throat, a deep rumble. “Allow me to explain,” he growled. He sounded just as imposing as he looked. “I wished to test your gate, to find how easy it would be for an intruder to invade. I did not wish to alarm this young woman, nor any of the young women here. In fact, I had not imagined being successful.”

  Ailsa struggled to keep up with this, never having been one to rise easily or quickly from slumber.

  Hilda made a strangled sort of noise. “What would you have me do?” she asked, glancing up at the man.

  Leadership was more than instructing the girls. It was making decisions such as this, all of a sudden and in the dead of night. “This is the man we have been waiting for, or so I gather. Clyde McMannis.” She glanced at Hilda. “Return to your post. I will see to this situation. But keep it between us, if you would. No sense rousing the rest of our numbers. They will more than likely hear of it in the morning.”

  The fact that Hilda fairly ran down the stone corridor did not provide Ailsa with much comfort. If this man unsettled her so, how was she to conduct herself while on a mission? That could wait for another time. There were far more important things to be managed at the moment.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing here at this time of night, and in these conditions?” she demanded, staring at this beast of a man. She knew she ought not to be surprised, but no amount of chiding herself made a difference. There was simply no preparing herself for a sight such as this.

  He all but bent so that his head might clear the top of the archway between the corridor in her chambers, entering without being invited. This surprised her so, she had not the presence of mind to order him back. “I found it quite simple to make my way through what I suppose you consider a secure gate. Frankly, it would take a child little more time than it took me to open the pitiful lock you had in place.”