The Highlander’s Lady: Highlands Forever Read online

  “Will you send no one after her?” George demanded.

  Boyd looked down at the seated Donnan, who looked up at him. Would they? Should they? Yes, they should, if only to keep the lass from getting herself killed. “I had planned to ride out on the morrow but can start out tonight,” Boyd offered.

  George scoffed. “No. Not you.”

  Boyd’s eyes burned into his. “And why not, then?”

  Donnan stood, shaking. “This man is one of the finest in all of Scotland, sir. A laird in his own right, and he knows the Highlands like he knows the back of his own hand. I would sooner trust him to find a lass on her own than a dozen of yer men.”

  Boyd placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. “I would like to know why ye think it wrong of me to search for your intended,” he demanded, though he did it in an even tone which belied the fury coursing through his body.

  “I could not say,” George sniffed. “Perhaps you care too much for her. You speak of her with a familiarity which I cannot say pleases me overmuch.”

  “We all became fond of her,” Donnan said before Boyd had the chance to tell the man what he could do with his familiarity. “’Twas Boyd here who saw to yer betrothed’s safety once she crossed the border. She might have come to a poor end, indeed, were it not for him.”

  “Just the same, I would rather he not be the one to find her.”

  They stared at each other for a long moment, the air fairly cracking around them. Boyd decided to allow the Englishman to speak if there was anything he wished to say. He’d allow the man to dig himself a grave.

  He did not, either out of fear or wisdom. “I will be off now. My men will accompany me.”

  “Where will ye go?” Donnan asked.

  “I do not see as how that is any of your concern,” George spat upon turning away. “I thank you for your hospitality.” If only he meant it. Was this the way of the nobles? Empty words, empty gestures?

  “I expect ye will be off to find the lass,” Donnan murmured without looking at Boyd.

  “Aye,” Boyd grunted, staring at the empty doorway through which their guest had just passed. For now it was a matter of pride, finding Olivia before her betrothed did.

  Though just what he intended to do with her once he found her was a mystery.

  11

  “Olivia! Where is that girl?”

  Olivia ran as fast as her feet would carry her. “Here! What can I do for ye?”

  Greer Stewart, wife of the laird, sighed. “Olivia, are ye entirely certain ye earned your living as a maid before this?” She held up a torn kirtle. “I asked ye to take this to be mended yesterday evening, yet ye did not. And none of the chamber pots have been emptied this morning.”

  Chamber pots. Never again would Olivia take for granted the emptying of a chamber pot. How had she spent her entire life never giving a moment’s thought to the indignities the maids suffered? It had seemed to be natural, entirely normal. The way of the world.

  She filled the chamber pot, and her maid emptied it.

  Now? She wished she could go back and thank her maids every day for all they’d put themselves through for her sake.

  “Forgive me,” she whispered, curtsying as best she could while leaving her eyes downcast. “I have been slow about my work this morning, and I ask ye to have patience with me.”

  “Have patience with ye?” The mistress of the house laughed. “Why would I do that, tell me? ‘Tis ye who are sleeping beneath this roof and eating our food because I took pity on ye when ye arrived a fortnight ago. Ye told me—vowed, even—that ye had been a maid in the MacNair household. Yet ye seem to know not the first thing of behaving as ye should.”

  Olivia braced herself. This would be it. The moment when the mistress would dismiss her, sending her out into the Highlands to fend for herself once again. The thought of the three days she’d spent riding—hungry, frightened, lost beyond measure—brought furious tears to her eyes.

  Instantly, Greer softened. The sharp creases at the corners of her amber eyes smoothed as she settled her large form onto a chair. “Come. Sit, lass. Tell me. What is troublin’ ye so?”

  Olivia sat beside the wife of the laird, her mind racing desperately from one lie to the next. She simply had to convince this kind woman whose patience had been worn thin that she deserved to remain in the household, under their protection.

  Arguing that she had improved greatly in a fortnight would not do, for she ought to have been much better at this work than she was when she arrived. Yet she had improved, no doubt. She no longer retched when it came time to empty the chamber pots, for one.

  That would hardly help matters.

  “Is it something ye feel ye canna share? Something… secret?” Greer ventured in a delicate tone.

  Little did she know she gave Olivia an idea. It was not a lie, not precisely.

  She sighed, staring down at her trembling hands. They were not a lie, either, for they trembled in true fear for her life should she lose this position. “There was a lad.”

  “Och, isna there always?” Greer sighed. “Terrible things, truly. If it were not for my Calan, I would be certain of their wickedness through and through. He is perhaps the only good one of the lot. What did the lad do to ye that has ye so out of sorts, lamb? Is there something the laird might do to help ye?”

  “Nay, nay,” Olivia whispered, eyes widening. “Nothing like that. But he did lead me to think…”

  “Say no more,” Greer growled. “The scoundrel. Braw, I take it?”

  Braw. Braw? She searched her memory. What did braw mean? Oh, yes, handsome. “Aye. He was that. Tall, thick shoulders and arms, wide as a doorway. A fine face, quite strong.”

  “I suppose he had his way with ye and left ye, then?” Greer patted her hand when her jaw fell open in shock. “Dinna worry yourself, lass. Many of us have been in the same terrible spot. A man tells us he loves us, has his way and moves along. ‘Tis a terrible thing. I wish I had a moment with that poor excuse for a man, that I might tell him a thing or two about what it means—”

  “Please, ye dinna have to do any such thing. And I thank ye for listening to me. I could not share this with anyone, and it has weighed heavily on me.”

  “And he would be the reason ye left home and came to us, then?”

  Yes. That suited her well. “Aye,” she murmured, eyes downcast once again. “I canna help but think of him still.”

  That was certainly not untrue. Her every day—from the moment she opened her eyes until the moment she closed them again—was filled with him. This-or-that man’s height or hair or eyes reminded her of Boyd. She would hear a rich, hearty laugh and her head would snap about, seeking him the way she would seek shelter from a storm.

  When had she grown to need him so? Even these few weeks without him had done nothing to lessen the ache in her breast whenever the memory of his kiss invaded her thoughts. His arms about her, so tight, crushing her and giving her life all at once.

  He’d awakened a deeper knowing in her. An understanding. Now that she had been kissed and held, had heard her name spoken in a harsh, breathless whisper that sent fire racing through her veins, there was no returning to the girl she’d been before.

  And certainly no marrying a man she did not know or care to know.

  Yes, he had ruined her. If not in the manner to which Greer hinted, in other ways which made life difficult.

  “Forgive me, ma’am, for allowing my heartache to distress me so. It has gotten in the way of my work, to be sure, and I will do all I can to do better for ye. Ye have been so good to me.” Olivia took her hands and all but kissed them out of gratitude.

  “Now, now,” Greer chuckled. “Ye need not carry on so. Go about yer duties, then, and I shall see ye when ‘tis time for the midday meal.”

  She handed Olivia the torn kirtle. “And ye might take this for me now, perhaps?”

  “Aye, I will that.” Olivia curtsied and ran from the mistress’s chambers as quickly as her feet would carry her,
lest she caught up in another lie.

  It was a terrible thing, truly, and there was no escaping the deep, persistent belief that her mother looked down upon her from the heavens and shook her head in shame for her only child. A child willing to be kissed in such a way, who would then tell dreadful lies to a kind woman.

  Such as the lie regarding her having been a maid.

  “The mistress needs her kirtle mended by the evening meal,” she announced to the room of women who tended to such work. They sewed, mended, wove throughout the day, stooped over their work, though the gossip and laughter which floated from the square, stone structure just inside the castle walls never failed to stir envy in her breast.

  One of the women sighed, taking the kirtle from her to examine the tear in the elbow. “If the mistress keeps eating as she does, t’will not only be the elbows of her kirtles that need mending.”

  “Fiona!” another of the women scolded, laughing. “Ye mustn’t!”

  The youngest girl by far—she could not be older than ten years—was called over and Olivia could not help but take note of the resemblance between her and Fiona. This was her daughter, it would seem, trained to perform the same duties as her mother. A pale, thin, freckled girl who Olivia suspected would one day grow into loveliness.

  “I will leave this to ye, Cairstine,” Fiona murmured, handing over the kirtle with such care as if it were a holy relic. “I know ye can sew neatly and beautifully, can ye not?” Olivia bit her tongue to keep from smiling at the child’s awe at being left to such an important task.

  She dashed back to the keep then, careful to avoid crashing into a cart laden with goods and a group of the laird’s guard on their return from patrol. There was no end to the motion and activity in the courtyard from before the sun rose until well after it had set.

  Nothing left to be done but empty the chamber pots into the trench dug well away from the keep. It was best to have this done quickly, to get it over with and be glad the deed was finished until the next morning.

  To her surprise and relief, she found the pots had already been gathered and were being emptied at that very moment by a dark-haired maid with whom she had already formed what felt like the beginnings of friendship. “I heard the mistress chastisin’ ye,” Mairi whispered with a wink when Olivia joined her.

  “Ye should not have to—”

  “Tis no trouble,” Mairi assured her before turning her head away from the muck she emptied. “I would rather have ye on here with me than lose a friend.”

  A friend. Two simple words, but they filled Olivia with deep, resonant happiness. She had a friend of her own, a true friend who was hers and not the product of parents who knew one another, thus forcing them into each other’s company.

  For she had nothing to offer this Mairi, just as Mairi had nothing to offer her but the sorts of things one friend did for another. Such as helping with work.

  They finished this together, then afterward took to the task of unearthing potatoes from the kitchen garden. There was no ignoring the murmurs of appreciation from a gathering of the laird’s guard who happened to be passing their way.

  Mairi tossed her head, pretending to be outraged by the attention. Olivia knew better. Tamhas, one of Calan Stewart’s most trusted guards, was chuckling. He happened to be the young man to whom Mairi had already given her heart.

  Though he was not aware of it yet.

  “Dinna ye fancy any of them?” Mairi whispered once they had passed without Olivia’s notice.

  She shrugged, keeping her eyes on her task. “Nay, I dinna,” she sighed.

  “Have ye eyes, lass?” Mairi giggled. “They certainly do, and I have seen more than a pair or two trained on ye.”

  “Ye never have!” Olivia gasped.

  “I have, indeed.”

  Olivia turned this over in her mind, unhappy. “There is one I have taken note of, and he makes me want to be sick whenever he comes near.”

  “Och, ye mean Alec,” Mairi spat. “Has he tried to get ye into a corner yet?”

  “Nay, but he has looked at me. I dinna like the manner in which he looks at me. As if—”

  “As if he can see straight through to your shift,” Mairi nodded. “Aye. More than once have I wished to thumb his eyes from their sockets.” She lifted her hands, flexing the thumbs in and out. “Ye are new here, and he takes interest in ye because ye are new. He will grow tired of ye soon enough and then it will be for the next lass.”

  “That hardly seems fair,” Olivia murmured, lifting her basket filled with new potatoes and carrying it to the kitchen door.

  “Nay, but ‘tis the way of it for those such as ourselves,” Mairi shrugged before stepping inside.

  Olivia followed obediently, going through the motions while in her mind she went over Mairi’s resigned words. That was the way of it. Allowing a filthy man with filthy thoughts to look at her, to allow his eyes to trail over her body. To know there was nothing to be done even as her skin crawled and her teeth ground together.

  She could not demand he keep his eyes and his thoughts to himself. Not if she wished to remain in the household. Not if she did not wish to reveal her true self and ruin any chance of hiding from George Ainsworth.

  Even degrading herself as a maid was easier to stomach than the notion of forcing herself to marry him.

  12

  After a fortnight, one thing was certain.

  Olivia Smythe, daughter of the second Earl of Carlisle, would be the death of him.

  If she had managed to live this long, she might be better left alone. Perhaps he ought to return to his clan, the way he should have done at the start.

  She was not his responsibility.

  And he told himself this as he untied his palfrey’s reigns from the spruce beneath which he’d tied it the night before. He said it again as he swung up into the saddle and settled in for yet another day of riding.

  Searching for her.

  The lass was surprising, for certain. He had expected to find her cowering and weeping and half-starved within a half-day’s ride of Donnan’s keep.

  Not so. And he’d heard nothing of her, either.

  That was when he had begun to fear the worst, and many was the roadside cutthroat who had been questioned—at times with the use of fists—as to whether he had seen the lass who’d run from Donnan MacNair’s home.

  Rather, from her intended, though there was no reason to bring him into any of this. If the man had a bit of sense beneath that golden hair of his, he would have returned to England long since.

  Though Boyd had his doubts, as the man in question had struck him as anything but sensible.

  Which made it all the more important that he find her first, not George. She might have behaved foolishly—worse than foolishly, truly—but she did not deserve the wrath Boyd was certain George Ainsworth would rain down upon her once she was discovered.

  And just why had she run away?

  Was she not the one who had spoken to Ann MacNair about the duty of those of the nobility to marry other nobles? Had she not made it plain that the daughter of an early had no choice but to wed the man her father had chosen for her?

  Why, then, would she flee before she had even spoken to the man when he came to fetch her? He might not even have truly been George Ainsworth, but she never would have had the chance to know for certain.

  No, rather than wait and see for herself why the man had come and whether she could send him home with the promise that she would return to him once the fighting was through, she fled into a countryside she knew nothing of. Alone, with only the food she had taken from the kitchen to sustain her through a journey which might have lasted many days.

  The lass was many things, but she was not daft. She had not taken leave of her senses. In fact, he thought he had not known such a sharp-minded lass in all his life. Still, she had taken these chances, knowing what might become of her.

  This told Boyd that she had either been truly frightened of the man, or that she detested
him enough that running blindly into the night seemed the better choice.

  Yes, it would be best he found her first, rather than her intended. He had far too many questions which had yet to be answered.

  Though the chances of them being answered by her were looking worse all the time, with each passing day in which he did not locate her.

  That morning, as he rode through the lush, pine-studded woods which he knew comprised the southern border of the land belonging to Clan Stewart, he knew this would have to be the end. If he did not find her here, he would need to go home. His clan needed him now more than ever.

  Word from the border hardly eased his troubled mind. There were skirmishes every day, with men falling on both sides.

  It was only a matter of time before war was declared formally and the men called upon to march south, to defend what was theirs before the English spilled across Scottish soil.

  And when the time came, he would need to be with his can. Not roaming the Highlands in search of a faithless woman who had not the courage nor the good sense to stand up and face the man and tell him to go home, that she had no desire to ride with him.

  “As if it would be that easy,” he chuckled to himself. It was a bitter sound, to go with his acrid thoughts. Rancorous and muddled and anxious, both for her and his homeland.

  The day was soft, the morning sun warming the soil and drying the dew in the trees. The fresh, bracing breath of pine and earth mingled together to create a scent he could only think of as the scent of home.

  His home, his land. His, no Englishman’s. He longed to fight for it again, no matter whether or not other responsibilities tugged at his sleeve like a spoiled child in need of attention. Such as a clan full of women and children whose men would march off to fight, leaving them in need of one to watch over their interests.

  Even the beauty and majesty of the morning was not enough to calm his troubled mind. Perhaps Calan Stewart’s always warm, and welcoming nature would be what Boyd needed.

  He met up with three armed guards and raised his hand in friendship. Before he could open his mouth to speak, one of them recognized him. “Boyd MacPherson,” the lad said, grinning from ear to ear.