The Highland Wife
The time had come to steel himself, to banish again any empathy or sympathy that would mark him as weak. To be the warrior he had trained so diligently to be. To kill and kill again, or else be killed.
Rob pulled in a harsh breath and observed the fighting, searching for identifying characteristics in the combatants. The few men he did recognize from the evening before in Craigmuir’s hall looked a sight more refined than the great, hairy, half-naked brutes who fought them. A ragged, unwashed band, these raiders who had come to do battle.
And at the moment, they were prevailing.
Quickly he turned and pulled the wounded laird to his feet. “Go in!” he shouted to Mairi. After a quick glance to insure the armory was empty, he shoved her and her father inside. “Bar the door!”
Satisfied that they would be safer there than anywhere else in this godforsaken place, Rob drew another deep breath, dashed forward and fully engaged in the slaughter.
When the clangs and shouts of the fight finally diminished, Mairi heard a frantic knocking. Hurriedly she peered through a crack between the boards and threw open the door. Young Davy, her father’s foundling squire, rushed in.
“Did ye see him, m’laird?” the lad asked as he dropped to his knees on the dirt floor of the armory beside his master. “Afore ye fell, did ye see?”
“So it’s over then?” Mairi asked absently, shoving the gangly bairn out of the way.
“Aye!” young Davy answered, his voice full of awe. “The handful left standin’ turned and ran just now. Laird MacBain gives chase! God’s nails, he’s ruthless, that one!”
Then his gaze dropped and focused upon his master’s wound. “Ach, sire, ’tis verra bad, this here!”
Mairi motioned him back outside. “Get some of the men. We must move him into the keep. ’Tis too dark in here to treat his wound.” Mairi pressed both her hands over the gaping gash in her father’s side. “Make haste, Davy!”
Her sire might not live the night, she reckoned, but she would not give him up just yet. “Hold on, Da,” she whispered, struggling to imbue her voice with hope.
His wan smile worried her more than a gruff reprimand would have done. One of his huge paws wrapped around her bloody wrist. “Lass, get…get you from Craigmuir, lest Ranald find you here when he comes back.”
“Ranald?” Mairi’s disgust made her grimace. “Aye, I should have guessed this was his doing,” she growled. “Greedy wretch! Th’ cowardly bastard didna swing his own sword today, I’ll wager ye that!”
“Nay, he’ll be elsewhere so he can look innocent of it. But he’ll come once he hears I’m dead, daughter. He is my tanist, God rot his hide.”
Mairi tossed her head in disgust. “We can hold Craigmuir against the likes of him anyday.”
“Nay, he’ll have my place here, Mairi. The clan decided that years ago,” he argued, gasping. “But he’ll no’ have my lass. I told him so…our kin’s too close.”
“Greater reason than that not to have him!” Mairi exclaimed. “I’d die first!”
He clenched his eyes shut and grimaced. “Wed MacBain this night, Mairi…and begone afore it’s too late.”
“Hist!” she said to hush him. She would wed, but she’d not leave. “Ranald sent those men to do murder, Da. He should be punished for it, not rewarded with Craigmuir!”
“May be, but he…he will have it nonetheless,” he insisted. “Just marry and go, hinny. Please!” he gasped the word and groaned.
“As ye wish, Da.” She’d not leave, of course. She could never desert her father when he lay mortally wounded. Nor would she abandon her home as a boon for that dastardly cousin of hers. But she would wed MacBain as soon as someone could fetch the priest. Not only to fulfill her father’s wish. She wanted to.
Ranald MacInness would never claim her as his wife if she had to wed the devil himself to prevent it. Fortunately, it would not come to that. She had a perfectly good husband-to-be at hand, thanks to her father’s foresight.
When the men—grimy from battle and grieving for those lost to it—had moved the laird into the hall, Mairi made him as comfortable as she could. Someone had brought a pile of blankets and furs from his bed abovestairs and placed them upon one of the long oak trestles used for meals.
It looked to Mairi like a bier, which she realized it soon would be. She had stopped his bleeding at long last, but not quickly enough to save him.
His tunic, the blankets that covered him and her own sleeves were soaked with his blood. Her father was not long for this world, she knew.
“I am with ye, Da,” she whispered. “I’m here.”
The priest had come and administered rites. He now stood by, praying silently for his old friend and laird. There would be further duty for the Father Ephriam if only her betrothed would get himself within the hall.
Where was MacBain? Mairi wished with all her might that he would arrive in time. Her father would rest so much easier if he could witness the wedding and know that she had at least complied with one part of his behest.
Seeing the marriage accomplished would give him peace in his final hours. There was little more she could do for him, other than grieve for him when he was gone, and then avenge his death.
That, she vowed she would do. It was her duty as well as her heart’s wish. Ranald MacInness would die a gruesome death for this day’s work. She could envision his dark hair whipping in the wind, that smirk permanently frozen on his face when they mounted his head upon a pike outside the gates of Craigmuir.
A scant hour later, when she had almost given up, MacBain strode in, followed by several of her father’s men. No decently groomed lord now, he wore a savage look upon his face and carried himself like the victor he had proved to be. Her father had chosen wisely for her. And for Craigmuir.
When MacBain stopped several feet away and remained silent, Mairi beckoned him closer.
“We must wed now,” she announced clearly, fearing for some obscure reason that he would object to the haste. He merely looked at her, a question in his sharp gray eyes.
“My father is dying. He desires me safely wed to you without wait. I would have it so.”
The baron turned to the priest, who nodded in agreement with her words. From his sleeve, Father Ephriam drew the parchments prepared long before MacBain had arrived, and handed them over to her betrothed.
Within moments they had signed them and the official deed was done. Even without the spoken vows to follow, they were contracted man and wife. All that remained were the words of acceptance and, later, the consummation. She grasped his hand, eager to proceed for her father’s sake.
Her sire looked on from the table upon which he lay. With great effort to suppress her tears, Mairi smiled at him, telling him with her eyes how dear he was to her.
No matter that he had been a gruff old father who reprimanded far more often than he praised. She could see his caring much more clearly now than ever before in the provision he had made for her.
“Lord Robert Alexander MacBain, wilt thou have this woman, Mairi MacInness, to wife?” the priest droned.
“Aye,” his lordship answered gruffly, squeezing her small hand gently in his. Mairi noted bloody smears on both and shivered with dread that this presented a bad omen. Nay, she thought, this marriage was a good thing. The blood just spilled would bond them inexorably.
She watched the baron slip a gold crested ring off his smallest finger and slide it onto her third. A circle of fire it was, hot from the heat of battle, wet and slippery with sweat and gore he had shed for her and hers. She made a fist to keep the ring in place. A fist full of vengeful promises that must be honored.
“Lady Mairi MacInness, do you take this man to husband?”
She glanced up at MacBain—called Robert, so she had just learned—and caught a fleeting look of apprehension. Did he fear she would say nay?
“I will,” she answered emphatically, and added a nod for good measure. Not for anything would she leave a doubt in anyone’s mind. This was her choice. She was this man’s wife now. As soon as humanly possible, she would make certain no man could alter that.
Strange and fearsome as he was, the man could fight. And he had done all he could to save her and her father during the attack. At the moment, she could think of no better recommendation than that for a husband.
Her new lord might not be a Highland man, but he was a true Scot. And when the wedding and bedding were done, he would be family. Then he could do naught but marshal her father’s men, give them their orders and lead them out to avenge the laird.
Ranald MacInness must die at his hand, and the MacBain must rule Craigmuir. She had decided. And no man—not even her father at his fiercest—had ever been able to sway Mairi MacInness once she had settled upon a true course of action.
The night through, Rob sat beside Mairi near the laird’s deathbed. Now and again, she would lean forward and adjust the covers, caress her father’s brow or pat his hand. Her strength and control impressed Rob. Not once had she wept for what was to come, though she surely knew.
Only once did she excuse herself to go abovestairs and then only for a short time. Long enough, however. The old laird roused himself and gave Rob orders to take Mairi away at first light.
He spoke haltingly, yet formed each word clearly and precisely. “Ranald wants her…and my place here. No matter what Mairi says, take her and depart.”
Rob nodded in understanding and grasped the gnarled hand the laird offered him.
“Leave me to my men,” MacInness instructed. “Travel light and swift. And watch your back.”
Rob did not ask why. He did not need to. Any man who wanted Lady Mairi would not relinquish her easily. MacInness’s tanist would follow. In his place, Rob would certainly do so. The woman was a treasure worth fighting for.
“I beg you, do not rest until my lass has seen her last of the Highlands. Never bring her back here. Promise you will honor my…my wishes! Swear!”
What alternative did Rob have but to give his word? A last request was a last request, after all. And the laird was Mairi’s father, and now also his, by marriage.
Reaching down, Rob grasped his sword and raised it enough for the old man to see. He bent his head and put his lips against the jeweled pommel, then lifted the weapon higher, as though swearing on the cross formed by hilt, cross-guard and blade. “I so vow,” he declared.
Chapter Three
Rob did not tell Mairi of the oath when she returned downstairs and again took up the vigil by her father’s side. Morning would be time enough to wrest her from the only home she had ever known, and without a proper departure.
She would have a much sadder farewell to endure before that time came. He sat beside her on the bench while she leaned forward, her elbows resting upon the table where her father lay.
Suddenly, Mairi straightened and jumped as though startled out of sleep.
“What is wrong?” Rob asked her. More to the point, he should have asked her what was not wrong?
“Did ye hear? The cock just crowed,” she muttered. He almost did not catch the words. “’Tis morn.”
Laird MacInness turned his head toward where they sat and smiled his adieu at the both of them. “Keep her…safe,” he said, and breathed his last as though well content to do so.
Noble till the end, Rob thought, admiring the man for facing death as he had done. Not with whimper or complaint. Only a smile and a demand for the safety of his daughter. Any man could be proud of such a death, and Rob saw that pride reflected on the faces of the laird’s men.
Mairi’s delicate fingers trembled as she closed her father’s wrinkled eyelids. Exhaustion, pain and grief had leached her features of their usual bloom, and lent her body a stiffness he wished would abate. She would do well to give way to her anguish now and be done with it.
Nay, he thought, chastising himself. She would not be done with it even if she wept for days, months. One did not relinquish a loved one to death so easily as that.
Rob could only imagine the terrible, all-pervading sadness he would feel forever did he lose the man he treasured as a father.
His real sire had been another matter altogether. Had Rob known how at the age of ten, he would have arranged a real celebration at that man’s passing, for himself, his lady mother and all the others at Baincroft who had fallen under the harshness of that wicked wretch’s hand. Even now, these long years later, he could never bear to call that one his father.
But then the Comte de Trouville had arrived from France to wed the widow. No finer man ever lived, Rob had decided shortly thereafter. He still believed so.
In all things, Rob struggled daily to measure up to the comte’s fine example of what a noble knight should be. He called him Father from that time on, and always thought of him as such. Trouville’s son, Henri, was Rob’s brother in heart. And the comte’s death would crush both his sons beyond bearing.
Nay, he could not expect Mairi to banish her grief in a short span of time. Mayhaps not ever, since she and the old laird obviously loved each other well.
In direct opposition to his earlier avowal concerning a show of sympathy, Rob reached out and clasped her upper arms from behind and drew her away from the body of her sire.
Though she resisted, he turned her to face him and pulled her close, surrounding her with his arms. “Weep now,” he suggested.
For a moment she fought him, pushing and pounding upon his chest as powerfully as the small space between them allowed. Then, of a sudden, she collapsed against him, her small shoulders heaving as she sobbed.
“Better,” he murmured into the fair, silken hair that had come loose of its plait, running his hands along her back, cradling and comforting her as he would a distraught child.
Over her head he shot dark looks at everyone around them until they moved far enough away to afford Mairi some privacy to mourn.
He waited patiently until she grew still again, wept out. Then he again took her by her shoulders and held her gently away so that he could see her tear-ravaged face. So lovely, she was, even in the throes of bereavement.
Rob raised a hand and brushed her cheeks with one finger. “We must go now,” he said, hoping his words sounded as gentle as he meant them to.
“Go?” she repeated, her widened eyes searching his for meaning.
“Aye. Now. We go to Baincroft.”
She pulled back from him, aghast at his words. “Nay, we cannot! What of Father?”
Almost desperately, she backed to the trestle where the body lay. With one hand she reached behind her and grasped the old man’s bloody sleeve.
“I promised him,” Rob explained, each word clear and firm, brooking no argument, knowing that she would leap upon any further display of tenderness in order to have her way.
He was uncertain whether he could deny her anything in her present state unless he braced himself against her pleas.
“We will go now,” he repeated.
She flew at him then, shoving him backward with the flats of her palms. “Go then! Get out! Coward! If ye think that I will let—”
The remainder of her words were lost on him as he caught her arms and secured her wrists with the long slender tail of one flowing sleeve.
It pained him to restrain her, yet this was necessary for her own protection. Mairi would never go willingly, but she must go nonetheless. Above all, he must keep her safe as her father bade him do.
With MacInness dead and Mairi gone, there would likely be no further attacks on this keep or its inhabitants. The tanist had instigated the first invasion. Now he would simply come and assume command as the new laird. Then he would almost surely come for Mairi. What man would not?
Rob would have to kill him then, he decided. Though he’d recently found it pained him to take a life, in this instance he would not mind overmuch.
He grunted when the sharp toe of Mairi’s sturdy shoe bruised his shin. She was making this much harder than need be, but he had to admire her mettle.
Fury at him for dragging her away might even set aside her sorrow for a time, he decided, justifying his necessary rudeness. Let her think him craven and heartless if it helped.
She could rant and rave all the way to Baincroft and that would be fine with him. Better so, than to have to watch her weep throughout the journey. Aye, this would serve to get her past the worst few days.
Her shouts and curses when he bent and hefted her onto his shoulder were likely startling the mounts in the stables outside, Rob mused. He could feel the harsh, angry hum of her voice where her wriggling middle made contact with his shoulder, but he was immune to the sounds of it, thank heaven.
He had discovered a few advantages to his deafness over the years. This was definitely one to add to the list.
Mairi ceased her struggles when her husband placed her in the saddle and proceeded to mount behind her. She agonized over the confusion their hasty departure was causing among the people who stood by and watched. There was nothing she could say to them to explain it and not a thing they could do to help her.
Her father’s squire watched with tears in his eyes. Poor Davy.
What must he and the rest think of her husband, forcing her to abandon them to Ranald’s mercies? And to leave her father to be interred in the family vault without even hearing a Mass said over him?
“Oh, please! Please stay,” she begged, to no avail. MacBain simply clicked his tongue, nudged his mount and rode through the gates his man had ordered opened.
Mairi held herself as stiffly as possible, hating the feel of this man’s body against her back, his arm surrounding her middle like a yoke of steel.
She raised her hands, still bound by the silken tail of her sleeve and pounded them against his forearm in one final protest. Her only reward was the bruise caused by the links of his chain mail.
Tears gathered and slid down her cheeks like a hot, sluggish waterfall. She held her breath to calm her grief and alarm. Her desire for adventure had flown away in the face of reality.
On a mount laden with their supplies as well as rider, MacBain’s man rode ahead of them, leading her saddled mare. He had tied pouches stuffed with food on either side of his saddle. She could see the outline of several loaves of bread. Her mare carried two unfamiliar packs as well as one of her father’s, containing what she supposed to be her gowns.
A fold of her red woolen surcoat poked out of the pack’s flap like the mocking tongue of an impertinent child.
Mairi leaned sidewise and peered behind them only to see the gates of her home swing shut. Try as she might, she could not stifle a groan of purest misery.
The arm MacBain had locked around her tightened, and he had the audacity to pat her side as though to comfort her. She reached down and pinched his thigh through the heavy hose he wore and had the satisfaction of hearing his sharp intake of breath.
“I will kill ye fer this, MacBain!” she announced.
He rode on, urging his horse to a gallop as they turned sharply off the main road and cut through the forest. Then she had little breath for curses. He bent her forward beneath him to avoid low-hanging branches, all but pressing her face against his mount’s sweat-pungent neck. The stiff horsehair abraded her cheek.
Add injury to indignity, why don’t ye? she thought with a further burst of fury. The heat of anger dried her tears and lent her purpose.
“Ye’ll pay fer this, MacBain! I will make ye dreadfully sorry fer this day!”
The wretch did not bother to acknowledge her threat. He rode on south by southeast at a quick and steady pace, forcing her from her duty as a Highlander’s daughter toward an uncertain future as a Lowlander’s wife.
And to think, she had embraced this fate of her own free will not an hour past! If only she had known MacBain would betray her this way and make her break her vow of vengeance, she would have denied him her hand and wished him to the devil. She would have held Craigmuir against Ranald and mayhaps killed that blackguard herself!
Why did she always act without proper thought aforehand? Her thoughts about MacBain had been in no way proper and just look where they had led her.
Poor Da. At least he had died believing her compliant for once in her life. Welladay, she was through being that!
Later in the day when they came upon a stream, Rob decided they were far enough away from Craigmuir to halt for a while, water the horses and allow Wee Andy a rest.
When accosted on the wall walk by the intruders, the poor fellow had taken a blow to the ribs that left him badly bruised despite his generous padding of fat. Riding in such a state must be painful, indeed, and no just reward for the man’s valorous deeds. Rob felt he could stand a short rest himself.
Surely his new wife would not be foolish enough to risk returning to Craigmuir alone, but he meant to keep close watch on her. He knew she had hated leaving her father immediately on his death, and Rob greatly sympathized. However, the old man had the right of it. Mairi must be well away before the laird’s successor arrived.
That cousin of hers must have been extremely impatient to have both Craigmuir and the lady to mount such a vicious attack. He would have been laird eventually anyway. Mairi’s impending marriage must have led him to the act. Rob had formed an instant dislike of Ranald MacInness when introduced to him, and had not been at all surprised to hear he was behind the deed.
It greatly disturbed Rob to leave Mairi’s home and people under such leadership, but there was naught he could do with only one nearly disabled man at his side and the very law of the Highlands against him.
Craigmuir, he could not hold safe from the new laird at present, but the woman, his wife, he would protect until his last breath. He would not risk having her widowed and wed to a kinsman who placed no value on the lives of his future tenants and clan. Later, once Rob had Mairi secured at Baincroft, he could return with more men and set matters to rights for them.
Telling her this would serve no purpose at present, however. She was not ready to hear it. In her need for immediate action against her cousin for his treachery, she would not welcome the necessary delay.
He dismounted and reached up to assist her down. She allowed it, glaring at him balefully as he set her on her feet.
“Untie me, ye fiend!” she ordered, presenting her hands to him.
Rob did so in a perfunctory manner and stepped back, gesturing toward the water. “Drink and wash.”
He watched her regard her sleeves—the ends still covered with the dried blood of her father—and saw the effort it took for her to quell a surge of grief. How he would love to hold her again, comfort her, gentle her anger and explain more fully why he had dragged her away so swiftly.
She would not thank him for it, he decided with a shrug and turned away to lead his mount to the edge of the swiftly flowing stream they would shortly need to cross.
“Do you hurt?” he asked as he joined his friend and lay a hand on his shoulder. Lank blond hair, darkened with sweat, clung to Wee Andy’s forehead just beneath his tight-fitting leather helm. His face always looked ruddy, but pain had paled him.
“Nay.” Andy shook his head, but the tightened lips and furrowed brow told the truth of it. Rob had tightly bound the injured ribs for him, but he knew that did little to prevent the pain of jostling in the saddle.
He recalled the times he had suffered the same after tourneys himself. Regretfully he made the signs to say they must ride again soon. They will follow, he added.
Andy nodded, glanced at Lady Mairi to show he understood why, and knelt carefully at the water’s edge to scoop up a drink.
Rob also looked at his wife who was leaning over the bank to dip and scrub fitfully at the sleeves of her gown. Her face and the golden hair around it were wet where she had washed away her tears.