The Highland Laird's Bride

Clan Fergusson didn’t have a council. A council meant order, trades and barters. It meant a keep that was well-run and fair. They’d had a council in her youth, but her stepmother, Irman, wouldn’t allow any opposing opinions. The elders had been ignored or shamed until none came forward any more to offer advice.

It didn’t matter. No council would have been able to steer her father away from his follies. And she didn’t need a council to steer her away from getting rid of the Colquhouns.

‘In matters regarding this clan, you’ll deal with me.’

For a moment, Bram stilled and she felt as if he laid a trap she couldn’t see. Foolishly, she might have opened the gates to him, but it didn’t mean she agreed to anything more.

‘Shall we eat?’

She didn’t want to sit. She wasn’t the clan’s mistress. He probably expected traditions and courtly manners. But she never sat with her clan and she didn’t know what to do. ‘Nae.’

‘A walk, perhaps?’ Bram said.

A walk would get them outside, where she could breathe. Once he said what he was here for, perhaps he’d leave her alone and she could have peace in the forest.

‘Aye, a walk.’

Chapter Six

He’d done it. Satisfaction brimmed through Bram. The wait was over and the plan could be implemented. In the meantime, the obvious reparations to the keep and land could begin. Either something had happened here that Lioslath wasn’t telling him or the Fergussons lacked decent farming and carpentry skills. The houses were riddled with overlapping patches, the roofs covered in thinning thatch. The keep was in worse shape.

There were many improvements to make before winter. They would need cooperation between the clans to get them done and getting the clans to cooperate would take time.

He knew this visit would not be a welcome one, but this clan’s anger had an edge to it. Since they arrived, they’d kept extra guard to prevent bloodshed. Lioslath barring the gates for weeks had imbedded the animosity between the clans. Even now with the feast beginning, it was there. Beneath the sounds of scraping and tearing of food, and the adjusting of elbows and shuffling of legs, there was the air of anticipated battle.

He needed to come to some agreement with the clan’s mistress. But would she be agreeable if she was hungry and fainting? Even more so, could he remain reasonable when she was so breathtakingly beautiful to him?

In the sunlight, her hair was raven black and just as incandescent. If it had been long, he knew its darkness would have consumed even the brightest of summer skies.

But its chopped length surprisingly pleased him. It didn’t hide any of the womanly figure underneath. So he saw the graceful arch of her neck, the creamy texture along her nape. He could so clearly see the intimate spot where he might hover with his lips, where he might graze with his teeth, where he might kiss.

He’d teased her about a kiss. But what had started as calculated flirting, now, in sunlight, became something more like a truth.

It was a complicated attraction and one he didn’t want, and which she didn’t reciprocate. She wasn’t accepting his food and she didn’t raise her eyes to his. In fact, she kept looking outside the gates.

‘We can take food with us,’ he offered.

‘With us?’

‘I want to know the extent of the necessary repairs to be done before winter.’

‘Are you expecting me to show you around the...my clan?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Doona you have responsibilities here?’

He shrugged. ‘Doona you need to eat before we go?’

‘Aindreas brought me food while I dressed.’

‘The venison. Do you not want to take some of what is offered today?’ Bram asked. They may be talking of only food, but at least she talked. Sometimes, the most heated discussions started with banalities.

‘Ah, aye, the food today was conveniently made.’

‘There was more yesterday,’ he said, letting her know he’d expected her to open the gates yesterday.

He caught the slight curve to her lips before she looked away. He’d let her enjoy her victory, since he didn’t intend to give her others. ‘You must be eager to leave the confines of the keep?’

‘Very,’ she answered with the expected anger in her eyes. But there was also vulnerability. A complicated emotion he didn’t want to see.

It wouldn’t do to feel more for this clan or this woman. Curbing his tongue, keeping his patience, he stepped back so she could walk in front of him.

He had managed tough negotiations before; this was no different. When tempers were high, coming to any agreement was often protracted. But in the end, he always prevailed and he’d do so again. But how?

There were secrets here and he knew precious little about this woman. A woman who held daggers and arrows. Whose hair was black as night and whose eyes were bright as a summer sky. ‘Are you averse to our making improvements and of using our supplies?’

‘It would be foolish of me otherwise, wouldn’t it?’

‘But you do not like it.’

‘Nae,’ she said bluntly.

He’d get no further in that argument. ‘The fences surrounding the keep and the gates need minor changes,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘What of the keep?’

‘The stones hold, but much of the timber needs replacing.’ She hurried her pace towards the gates. ‘I doona want to talk of the keep today and I doona want to talk of improvements. What repairs are needed we’ll make in the spring.’

They couldn’t make repairs on their own. The platform by the gates was crooked. The entire village was riddled with haphazard structures as if the maintenances were hurriedly or half-heartedly done.

‘Why are the keep and village like this?’

‘You knew of our clan’s poverty when you made the agreement with my father.’

He knew something of their poverty, aye, but now that he had a closer look, it appeared as if the damage was purposefully done. He couldn’t imagine any carpenters with so little skill.

‘You’re not telling me everything.’

‘Nothing has ever been easy or comfortable here. That is all you need to know,’ she retorted.

There had to be more to the damage here than her words belied. There were few horses, no sheep, and their fields were bare. There were too many repairs and winter stores to make up as well, if he was right about her lack of stored food. He knew what it was like to be hungry and he wouldn’t wish it even on this obstinate woman.

Their survival was precarious here, as was their future prosperity and stability. With King John Balliol now held prisoner at the Tower, the English King Edward began to set up many sheriffs and governors. This clan’s protection, and its alliances, would be more important than ever.

His brother Caird had warned him that there was a lot of work to do here, but even now he could feel his blood coursing excitedly at the prospect. Bram enjoyed hunting and he enjoyed play. But he also loved a challenge and the work needed here filled him with a sense of anticipation.

No. He had to stick with the plan, which meant, come springtime, he would be gone.

They walked around his camp, but Lioslath’s eyes remained resolutely on the village ahead. If she continued to ignore him, he wouldn’t be accepted by this clan despite the supplies he brought.

She said she would accept his help, but she clearly didn’t want to. She was full of contradictions. He wanted to implement his plan, but she forced him to remain idle. He offered the feast in friendship and supplies in goodwill; she didn’t want to eat or discuss repairs. There were too many contrasts and contradictions. Too many factors competing.

Competition. The thought sparked an idea.

They’d never mend relations with tempers so high. They had to make peace if he and his men were to stay the winter and he thought he knew how to do it. ‘Winter is coming and some improvements can’t wait until spring. Our clans must work together to begin these repairs.’

‘Isn’t that why you feed us?’ she said.

‘It isn’t enough. What is needed after these many weeks is distraction. A faire. Some competitions.’

‘You want us to do what?’ Lioslath gasped.

‘We must have a competition between clans,’ Bram said.

Games. He wanted to play games in order to defuse a fight. ‘How are games supposed to stop fighting?’

Lioslath could feel the air clearing since they’d walked out the gates. Near the village was the forest she treasured. Even though she was supposed to be showing him the fields and the village, already she was walking to the trees, to peace.

And he mentioned games?

She was done with this conversation. She didn’t want to stay around listening to him until he twisted his words so she agreed with him. He wanted to talk of the village and of the fields, but to her the forest beckoned. She couldn’t wait to get to the trees, to feel the soft dirt under her feet. To hear...silence.

‘Are you being wilfully obtuse or do you truly not realise?’

‘What will it take for you to leave?’ she said, not wanting him in the trees with her.

‘Go?’ He frowned as if trying to guess what truth she told. ‘As the clan’s mistress, doona you want to appease ill tempers?’

She wasn’t the clan’s mistress. The only temper she ever cared about was her own. ‘Nae.’

His frown increased, his eyes troubled. Then everything eased and he stepped back.

‘You’re a lady, I apologise. You’ve never been in a situation like this before. However, I ken what will start riots and this competition will help.’

A lady? Clan’s mistress? He might as well have been speaking French. Even his manner had gone all courtly. She wasn’t gentle born. She had never cared about cookery or ensuring freshly swept staircases, or gentling tempers. She had given Aindreas her bow and arrows, but she felt the comfort of her small blade hidden in the folds of her tunic. The small blade she currently wanted to throw at Bram.

‘You cannot be sincere about these games,’ she said. Although what else did she expect from a Colquhoun who laughed all the time? ‘This is a trick, a...jest.’

‘Nae a jest. Nae a trick. Simply games. A competition,’ he enunciated. ‘We need a swimming contest across the lake, wrestling, bowls, horseshoes and archery.’

‘With teams, scoring, prizes?’

‘Aye.’

He sounded relieved, as if she agreed with him! After everything she’d been through this year—death, vulnerability and soon starvation—he wanted to play games. ‘Frivolous amusements. They serve nae purpose.’

Bram rolled back on his heels. Lioslath understood nothing, or she wilfully battled against him. Neither would do. This woman wasn’t who he thought she would be. Her father died in April. Surely, by now, she had knowledge of clan affairs? After all, women cared about the temperaments of the people around them, even if they did not deal with the politics of leadership.

And now, in both of the clans, the men’s temperaments were too high. They needed cooperation and a way to release the tension.

‘They serve the purpose of men who want to fight each other. They give direction to their aggression so it is not spent on each other. We need to set it all up and fast or these men will be at each other’s throats by midnight.’

‘Those games will not feed my clan, or make their homes stronger, or provide—’

‘Those issues would have been addressed weeks ago if you had opened the gates.’

Lioslath winced and he knew he’d hit his target. Being blunt wasn’t normally in his nature when courteous words worked just as well. But courteous words were wasted with her.

‘We need cooperation and there’s nothing else more expedient to address raised tempers than a competition. What they need now is a test of wills.’

‘This isn’t a test of wills. I’ve hunted plenty to know when a prey is being manipulated from the safety of their lair. Come here, little vole, you’ll get some food for your belly and then I’ll get food for mine!’

‘I set this up so our clans doona start fighting!’

‘You make it all my fault. Aye, vole, it’s all your fault you’re in my soup because you were so hungry you ate the scraps in my trap!’

He would have his way in this. ‘Are you saying I manipulated you when I put the food outside the tunnel?’

‘Aye, what else was it?’

‘A peace offering. A gift to show nae ill will!’

‘And the fact that I took it? Didn’t that obligate me then to open the gates?’

He’d done it to soften her towards them. ‘You opened the gates to save your honour.’

‘Because you were in my bedroom,’ she pointed out. ‘Ah, I’ve been blind. You’ve done it over and over. Here, starving people, here is some food. Here, Clan Fergusson, here’s the promise of sheep and a strong alliance.’

Her words cut too close to the truth. ‘Careful, Fergusson. Who is twisting words now? The deal we made was a matter of diplomacy between your father and me, made by consenting parties—’

‘We’re not consenting. You merely starve our bellies until we feel as if the starvation is somehow our fault! These games you suggest aren’t a compromise, they’re coercion!’

‘I am Colquhoun. I am laird. I do not coerce!’

She smiled. ‘Of course you wouldn’t, how silly of me. We are only here for your pleasure.’

Shaking his head, he looked around. Their words were not going unnoticed. They were outside the gates now, past the camp and too near the village. There were no benches and tables here, but freshly cooked food lay on carts. Many villagers were taking the food and carrying it to the communal tables. Too many villagers who walked slowly and could hear their every heated word.

Bram ran his hand through his hair. Frustrating Fergusson! Did she not know women were meant to be gentle? To smile? To be meek? That was what was needed today, a biddable female. She was unexpected. And he was constantly guessing with her. It wasn’t only her beauty he couldn’t ignore, it was the mystery of her. How she hesitated around her siblings and clan.

How she ignored his status as laird and his coaxing smiles. How she angered at his reasoning. Frustrating female!

He was again brought to a point he didn’t want to be with her. So quick to lose his patience. She put him in a position of defence again and he would not have it. ‘Are you saying you doona want this competition?’

Lioslath pointed to the village. ‘Aren’t we walking so I can show you what you so generously want to improve?’

He’d get no further with her. Stubbornness. She might have eaten, but he hadn’t. He eyed their offered food, but the colour of the pottage wasn’t appetising, so he grabbed two of their rolls and some boar.

Following Lioslath, he took a bite of the bread and quickly spat it out lest he risk breaking a tooth.

‘Bread not fresh enough for you?’

‘Nae, ’tis fine.’ No bread should have stones and pottage shouldn’t be grey. But he wouldn’t admit that. She believed he liked easy and thought him pampered. Confirming this idea wouldn’t get her agreement to the rest of his intentions for today.

The feast was only the beginning of mending relations with this clan. It would take the games event to truly achieve cooperation. Then his plan to remain for the winter would be secure.

As if she knew he lied about the bread, Lioslath smirked and hurried her steps towards the village.

* * *

Restless, agitated and still too far away from her forest, Lioslath wanted the afternoon to end. It wasn’t only Bram and his demands, it was their clans observing each other, observing her and Bram. Though she was outside, she felt trapped. Trapped by the role here that she didn’t know how to do and trapped by her longing to be better.

Barely keeping her temper, she pointed to the roofs, and to the wood rot. Talked of the ploughing still to do in the fields and the trenching through the village. All needing to be done before the dirt froze.

Bram asked questions, and she knew he missed nothing. She felt the familiar prick to her pride. Fergusson keep and land were falling apart.

It hadn’t always been so. When she was a child, her parents had worked tirelessly and the keep had been beautiful; the clan had been prosperous.

Then the wolves had come and raided the village right before a sudden frost descended. The wheat harvesting hadn’t yet been completed and most of the bales of oats and barley hadn’t been stored properly. They suffered too much as the harsh winter continued. Suffered more with her mother’s cough and sudden death.

They’d never suffered a winter like that again, but they never recovered from it either. Her father most of all.

As the years went by her father took riskier chances. Desperation to recover what they lost engulfed his every action. The marriage to the Colquhoun clan was simply another attempt. When the letters of agreement occurred, when her father left to secure his bride, he regained some pride. His sense of purpose, of optimism, returning.

But Clan Fergusson was cursed. For when her father returned from that fateful trip to Colquhoun land, he had no bride. Determined, desperate, he left again and never returned. Then Bram sent his letter offering help, but he never came. When the English garrison stormed the keep in July, they’d been too vulnerable to withstand the demands. The English caused far worse damage than an ice storm. They arrived just as the barley was harvested and they stayed to harvest the oats and wheat before burning the rest.

The clan was gleaning for remains when the Colquhouns arrived. Lioslath had had enough.

She was tired of being told she didn’t understand. She was sick of feeling as though she didn’t understand. She did understand. Laird Colquhoun wrote a letter saying he’d come with aid, but then days, weeks, months had gone by.

So it was up to her to help her clan. She hunted; she provided food. She confronted the English until they left and she intended to confront Bram until he left as well.

She thought closing the gates would be enough. She thought giving supplies to the English would be enough. She failed on both accounts. She wasn’t ruthless like her father, or gentle like her mother. Bram’s very presence was a bitter reminder of how inadequate she was.

When they turned a corner and she saw her siblings playing with Donaldo’s children, she couldn’t go any further. She couldn’t walk through her land with the weight of Bram’s pity on her shoulders like this. It would only be worse if he saw she couldn’t talk properly to her siblings as well.

‘I’m leaving!’ she said, turning away from the villagers and their clans. Turning away from the decimated fields and the derelict keep, and a Colquhoun laird who noticed everything.

His eyes widened in warning, but she marched around him. She didn’t need to see him to know he followed her. It was simply that awareness. Like when he spoke, the low timbre of his voice. It was something that curled inside her. She hated her acute awareness of him almost as much as she hated his accusations and pity.

All day she walked beside him, answered his questions and talked to her clan. All day she watched him. As a huntress, she admired how a man his size strode so stealthily, so deadly and silently.

She shivered. Why was she noticing him? Of everyone she had ever known, why did she feel this...desire for him?

She couldn’t avoid it now. It wasn’t hunger and it wasn’t weakness. Her body was acutely aware of him. After all those weeks of watching him, she knew that her eyes were no longer filled with hate, but something like admiration. For Laird Colquhoun!

* * *

She was almost out of breath by the time they reached the forest on the south side. The forest was deeper and darker here. It was her favourite part of her land and one she could not see from the Fergusson keep.

A few steps inward and she smelled the musty earth and the sharp bite of autumn’s leaves. The smell was freedom and home. Bram might have thought he trapped her in her home with his siege. In truth, he kept her away from her home, which she always found in her forest.

Bram remained silent, but his will was a force she could feel and its force was ruining her sanctuary. Bram practically hovered as he walked beside her and he almost blocked the sky through the trees. He looked wrong in her forest.

The brightness of his hair didn’t blend, the broadness of his shoulders and bulk of his build like a boulder that suddenly appeared amongst the tall and graceful tree trunks.

He was wrong to be here as well. This forest was hers. Clan Colquhoun had no place here. But he was there, like a storm that kept battering against her.

Her hand fluttering to the hidden blade at her waist, she rounded on him. ‘I showed you what you wanted to see. Why did you follow me?’

‘We were in front of your clan and mine. My not leaving the village with you would have looked like a slight. So I strolled out with you as if we wished to talk privately.’

Stroll, she had practically ran here, but he kept his pace with her and wasn’t out of breath. To everyone, they probably did look as though they walked away from the village. Again, she made a foolish choice. She was unused to wondering what others thought or what appearances should be.

She had been hidden away most of her life, and for the rest of it, she hid herself away. She was hiding now, but the Colquhoun wouldn’t leave her alone. She clenched the blade she’d hidden in her clothes.

‘So we talked privately and now you can go!’

‘Nae, we must truly talk. We must come to an agreement.’

The competition again. His tone changed until it was as blunt as hers. It wouldn’t make her change her mind on its futility, especially when he used the word ‘must’. The very word curbed her freedom. She had heard it from her stepmother and in the end from her father.

She knew he would continue to argue about the games until she couldn’t refuse. However, what Bram couldn’t control was how the competition would go.

Bram might bring his food and his supplies. He might order this competition. But she would choose who the winner would be.

Bram didn’t move. He didn’t even realise he needed to move, until she threw the knife just past his left ear.

She knew he hadn’t seen the blade, but there was no mistaking the fury and the shock in his eyes when he heard the thunk of it embedding in the tree behind him.

Brutal silence as storm-grey eyes stared at her.

Lioslath smiled. ‘That’s my agreement to your competition. Satisfied, Colquhoun?’

Chapter Seven

Trying to remember it would all be over soon, Lioslath suffered through the hanging of tabards and flags. She grimaced as her clansmen built hay men and targets, as they argued on markers and where to pin them to trees. It was all so wasteful.

Dog reappeared and walked next to her, his keen eyes taking everything in. Unlike her, he seemed happy about the proceedings. Probably because he was finally fed and had roamed the forest last night.

She wished she was as content as him. But she continued to feel yesterday’s turmoil of telling her clan about the competition and waiting for Bram to surprise her in the night.

Needing to remain calm, she knelt, keeping her head just above Dog’s, and waited until he leaned into her so she could put her arms around him. She never squeezed, though she wanted to. She never forgot he was a wild animal, so she kept their hugs brief and infrequent. But she needed it and was glad he gave it. He was her familiar when everything around her was unfamiliar.

Standing again, she noticed her brothers busily making hay men. At least Eoin made them, while Gillean undid them. There wasn’t enough hay for large ones. She knew it had to have been a Colquhoun who suggested using the hay. The Fergusson clan knew they needed it. Every stalk would have to be picked up and stored before winter.

The cold would be upon them soon. This was a day wasted when her clan needed to work, not to play.