A Highlander's Home (22 page)

             
“Lady, stop.  Stop now.  It’s over.”  They looked down at the unmoving body.  Lady MacGregor stared at him mercilessly.

             
With tears welling up in her eyes, she whispered, “They took my son
s
.  They killed
them
.”

             
Raine hugged her and held tightly, fighting back her own tears.  She had promised herself that she would not become attached to Leith, but she had failed.
Miserably.
His mother had been like a mother to her, her people had become as her own, accepting her as their own.  Now all of that was gone.

             
“We should go downstairs and let them see you,” Raine told her.  “Let them see you, the mother of the laird of Hell’s Gate, and tell them that their leader is dead.  Tell them that you are claiming this keep as the property of the MacGregors.”

             
The older lady smiled sadly and shook her head.  “No,” she whispered.

             
“No? You have to.”  Raine shook her.

             
She grabbed her hands to still her, and said quietly.  “It is not my place to claim this keep.  You are his wife.”  She cupped Raine’s cheeks.  “You claim it.”

             
Raine swallowed and looked over her shoulder at the battle scene below.  Bodies were lying still, covered in blood, while others were writhing in pain.  Which men were Leith’s and which were Alisdair’s was impossible to tell.

             
Stiffening her spine and taking a deep breath, she nodded to Lady MacGregor and looked at her ladies.  They were a raggedy bunch to be sure.  Skirts were ripped, curls were askew, bodices torn, blood splattered about on cheeks and hands.  They stood tall, and cleared a path for her.

             
Raine lifted her skirts, stepped over the still moving man full of knitting needle holes, and made her way down the hall. 

             
“Your Laird
is dead!  The keep is ours!!” he yelled after them.

             
Lady MacGregor calmly met Raine’s gaze, picked up her chair leg and wacked him in the stomach.  They continued on their way toward the courtyard.

             
It was a solemn procession as they made their way through the aftermath of the battle that had been fought. 
Raine tried not to look, weaving her way around obstacles whether they were broken furniture or broken bodies.

             
The smell of smoke from the burning fires outside made their way to her, causing her to gag on the taste of burning wood and burning flesh.  Just as she stepped outside, her ladies fanned out on either side of her, they all gasped.

             
The site was something that she would not forget.  The rank smell of death bombarded them.  A few children ran about crying before their mother’s darted out of hiding to snatch them up.

             
The battle was over but the price of victory was high.  Raine thought she knew most of the people in this village that she had lived in for these past months but most of these men she did not recognize.

             
A blonde lady that Raine knew to be the love interest of Robbie suddenly appeared and was running toward the outer wall.  Her son trailed behind, his little feet thudding against the dirt. 

             
She threw herself against a tall man with a full head of red hair.  When the boy caught up to them, he was scooped up in the man’s arms and squeezed.  Raine covered her mouth with her hand.

             
Robbie!  He was alive!

             
Lady MacGregor saw him at the same moment and let out an excited cry.  “Robbie!!  Robbie!!”  She hiked her skirts up to her knees, not caring about propriety, and ran as fast as she could to her son.

             
She threw her arms around his neck and plastered his dirty, bloody face with kisses.  He laughed and kissed her cheeks in return, wiping away her tears.  “My son.  Oh, my son!” she repeated.

             
Raine made her way to them slowly, wanting to give them time to reunite, when she heard footsteps scuffling towards her in the opposite direction.  The light was fading and the noise had come from the shadows cast by the outer wall.  She grabbed the hand of one her ladies, motioning for her to look in that direction. 

             
The scuffling grew louder.  Suddenly, her lady gasped and stepped back.  “My lady!”  She pointed, her jaw almost dragging the ground.

             
Raine strained to see.  The outline of a man began to emerge, limping slightly, holding a sword. 
The large shadow moved slowly but with purpose as he limped steadily towards the gate. 

             
Her heart began to race as the
silhouette
became clearer, larger, closer.  Her hand fluttered to her throat as she swallowed.  No, it couldn’t be.  Alisdair had proclaimed so loudly and surely that he had killed Leith.

             
The last ray of sunlight cut its way over the top of the outer wall as the sun neared the earth, completing the day.  It lit on the top of curly, jet black hair, then made its way over broad shoulders splattered with blood and finished its illumination as the man pushed himself off the wall and turned to her.

             
“Leith!” she whispered to herself. 

             
It was him.
I
t was really him. 
If she had wondered at Lady MacGregor’s lack of modesty for a woman of her time when she hiked her skirts above her knees to run to her son, it did not compare to the way she tossed
away
all propriety that she had learned in this century to the wind as she fairly threw her skirts over her shoulders to free her legs as they spun up a cloud of dust in their haste to carry her to the huge Scotsman who remained standing at the gate. 

             
It took all of his strength for his wounded leg to hold him upright as his wife barreled into him, knocking the breath out of him as he was rammed into the wall.  It was the only thing that was holding them up.

             
Their lips met, mouth crushing mouth, lips moving against each other yet still in unison.  Hands tangled in hair, arms wrapped around shoulders and waists.  They couldn’t seem to get close enough.

             
She was mumbling something against his mouth.

             
“What?” Leith asked, biting her lips.

             
Pulling back only long enough to speak, she said quickly, “He said you were dead. 
He said he killed you, and the K
eep was his.”

             
Her lips were on his again before he could respond.  He pulled back, and pushed the tangles of hair away from her face. 

             
“Who?  Alisdair?  My cousin?”

             
She covered his hands that framed her face with her own.  Tears threatened as the tension was on the verge of releasing itself.  She nodded, biting her lip
.  Then the sobs came and she buried her face in his shoulder, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and digging her nails into his muscles.

             
He smoothed her hair, shushing her, and rocking slightly.  Her entire body shook against him as she cried and mumbled
incoherently
about knitting needles.  When her sobs turned into little hiccups, he hooked his finger under her chin and looked into her eyes.

             
“Lass, I’m no’ dead,” he said softly.  His hand sw
ept through the air.  “And the K
eep is still mine.  And when I find my cousin, he will be punished for this attack on his own family.”

             
“He will not be punished, I’m afraid,” came the voice of Robbie as they neared the couple.

             
Raine stepped aside to make room for Lady MacGregor to have her turn assaulting her
eldest
son with kisses and hugs and tears, rubbing her hands over him asking if he was hurt.

             
“Och, mother, of course I’m hurt.  I’ve just finished a battle,” he laughed as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and grabbed Raine with the other.

             
They started toward the keep, still limping.  “Alisdair will be punished, I swear it,” Leith claimed, flinching with each step.  He had managed to escape the battle with mostly just a few cuts and bruises, but the last man he had fought had blindsided him
in an effort to waylay him as Alisdair made his way to the Keep
.  Caught off guard, he had stumbled and the man had run his sword up the length of Leith’s thigh.  He knew it was not life threatening, but it hurt like hell all the same.

             
It was Lady MacGregor who spoke up.  “No, my son.  You cannot punish him, although I would not stand in objection of it.  He is dead.”

             
Leith stopped and turned.  He had wanted to teach Alisdair a lesson, perhaps let the
Q
ueen
confiscate
some land as retribution for Alisdair invading Leith’s borders, but he did not wish him dead.
  T
hey were cousins
.  They had played in the dirt together as children, chased each other with swords. 

             
He sighed, and starting limping towards the keep again, leaning heavily on Raine, who was
strangely
silent. 
This surprised him since she was usually chatting nonstop and usually to point out how he was at fault in one way or another.

             
“Och, I for one be glad that mon is dead.  I remember playing with him when we were naught but wee lads, but today was a far cry from child’s play.  The mon who attacked us and our families today was not the little boy who was our playmate when we were boys.”  Robbie spoke the truth, but it cut Leith to the quick that it reflected his own thoughts.

             
Robbie cleared his throat and threw a glance around Leith and craned his neck to ask Raine, “So, uh, lass, ye’re ladies delivered death by knitting needles?”

Chapter 18

             
Her gaze swung to meet his, ready to defend her actions.  “They broke down the door!”

             
She balled her fist in Leith’s shirt.  “He said that he killed you.  He laughed at your mother, his own aunt, when he told her that her son
s
w
ere
dead.  He said that he was lord of the keep.”  Before she could finish, her lip quivered and her voice caught.

             
Leith hooked his finger under her chin and pulled her gaze to his.  “And would that be so bad, lassie?  You’d be rid of me for good if it had been true.”

             
She gazed into those blue eyes that she was becoming so familiar with for what seemed an eternity.  Then she swatted him and exclaimed with a little too much bravery, “Ha!  And trade one tyrant for another?  I don’t think so.  Before you know it, he’d be shouting orders and having me do his laundry.  No, thank you.”

             
She stole a peek sideways.  “Besides,” she said nonchalantly, “he had bad breath
.”

             
The mood was lightened and the small group all laughed for a moment.  Then Leith had a thought.

             
“What did ye mean, Rob?  About the needles?”

             
Robbie replied, “Don’t ye listen, mon?  Ye’re wife’s ladies unmanned one of Alisdair’s guards with their knitting needles, at her behest, and Mother whacked him on the head with a chair leg. He should still be there, waiting for a good interrogation.”  He smiled ear to ear.  He loved interrogating the enemy.

             
Leith shook his head at the wonder of it.  Would his wife cease to amaze him? 

             
“Tell me everything later.  After a hot bath and some stitches,” he told her as she helped him hobble into the keep.

             
Robbie guided the woman at his side toward the barn.  “I’ll be along anon.”

             
Lady MacGregor told them, “I’m going to get some order in place here.  Your men need food and a doctor as well.  I’ll come see you after awhile, my dear.”  She tiptoed and kissed him once more.

             
She called after her other son, “Robbie, you behave yourself young man!  And do not dishonor that girl!” 

             
He looked over his shoulder at her and had the grace to blush through his smile.

             
Robbie was not the son who needed the warning.  Leith had rushed the surgeon through the process of stitching up his leg and a few other wounds and fairly tossed him out the door.  He had suffered through a bath, washing away the blood and dirt of war.  He was barely inside of his trews before she pushed past his manservant and declared privacy with her husband.