Across a Dark Highland Shore (Hot Highlands Romance Book 2) (9 page)

“‘Tis best to live life as bravely as one can.”

He kept his cheek pressed to her neck. “I dinna have time to say goodbye to him, Isobel. He was just…gone. My brother, my best friend, no one was better.”

“Sometimes it is best we do no’ say goodbyes.”

After a long moment, Leith flicked the reins and the horse continued on toward the chapel.

“Who are the two men that follow us at a distance?” Isobel asked. “I canna make out their faces.”

“So ye noticed them. Ranulph and Dugald. Two more loyal men ye willna find in all of Scotland. They are no’ vera discreet, as ye have probably discerned, but they are excellent horsemen. They and their beasts know how to avoid the rocks and roots and peat pots beneath this cursed deep snow. My horse is also vera good at avoiding such things. They know the land and where the bogs lie. I didna require a full escort today, but I didna think it wise to come here alone, after what happened to Logan.”

“I did notice them, but ‘twas something else that bothered me.”

“Yea, Isobel?”

“I felt someone watching us in that glen and I dunna mean Ranulph and Dugald. I too felt the presence of something auld, something heavy and cruel.”

Before long, they’d reached the top of the hill. The sky was a twisted ribbon of gray and lavender cloud; a lone wolf howled in the distance. Leith guided the horse down a path that lead southwest from the glen, one that was closely pressed by snow-covered shrubbery and wind-twisted pines. The trees were gaunt, with deeply fissured bark, and seemed frozen in time.

The chapel was practically hidden by the grove of pine trees, and Leith slid gracefully from the horse, tying its lead to a branch before he helped Isobel down. He took her hand and led her inside the small stone chapel, which was fronted by a burial aisle built for long dead Macleans. As Leith approached the altar, Isobel studied the beauty and grace of the small structure.

Candelabras graced stone walls that met with dark beams arching overhead. Behind the aisle was a chancel and nave; the chancel was lighted by pairs of lancet windows inset into the north and south walls. There were windows along the east and west sides, too. Memorial tablets dedicated to the Maclean family hung on the walls, and there were intricate wooden carvings of saints throughout. There was a carved Crucifix above the chancel, and two quaint rows of wooden benches. 

Outside, Isobel could see that snow drifts had covered the graves, leaving only the tallest stone monuments visible. She felt Leith’s stare and turned her head to find his amber eyes regarding her. She could not read his expression.

She ran her finger along the back of a bench. “The chapel is a bit…dusty. ‘Twould seem the Macleans are no’ ardent Catholics?”

He smiled wickedly. “Nay. That would mean we’d have to espouse celibacy, and the Macleans are a lusty bunch. But that is no’ to say we are faithless. Far from it.”

“’Tis quiet, and tranquil here. Is that monument there, the tallest one,” she pointed to the cemetery outside the window, “where Logan is buried?”

He joined her at the window. “Yea. He is buried near the south wall. His dog is buried at his feet. A vera loyal creature. The dog tried to protect him but it, too, was killed by an arrow.”

“I am sorry.”

Leith continued to stare at the snow-covered land. “Some say that friendly fairies used to live here,” he said. “That they used their magic powers to perform small, magical tasks for people who left requests here.”

“Used to live here?” Isobel said.

“One day someone left a small piece of wood with the request that the fairies transform it into a towering ship’s mast. They moved out that vera day and have no’ been seen or heard since.” A smile tugged at his lips.

“I dunna blame them.”

A pile of snow shifted from the rooftop and fell outside the window, startling them both.

“Fairies?” Isobel said, smiling.

“E’ery time something like that happens, when something seems to move on its own or I think I see someone out of the corner of my eye, I think it’s Logan, trying to tell me something. That he is near.”

“Mayhap he is,” Isobel said. “Mayhap the people who love us ne’er really leave us.”

Leith sat on the nearest bench and Isobel sat down beside him. For a while, they were silent. She studied his proud profile.

“I ken I am no’ handsome like my brother was,” he said. “It’s the scar. It divides my face. Ah well, at least half of my face is still handsome.”

“How did ye get the scar?”

He gazed at her coolly. “’Tis a story for another time.”

Isobel reached out to touch it and he flinched, but he did not move away. She closed her eyes as she traced the scar softly with her fingertips. She heard his quick intake of breath and in her mind, she saw darkness and slashing rain, the flash of many swords, blood spattering high grasses beneath the moonlight. And then, something unexpected.

She snatched her hand away and when she opened her eyes, he was staring at her hard.

“Ye were wounded in a fierce battle.”

He arched a dark eyebrow. “It would be fair easy to guess I’d gained this scar in battle.”

“Yea. What surprised ye is that the foe ye raised yer sword against turned out to be a woman disguised as a man. Ye couldna kill her and she took that moment to slash yer face and escape. Ye let her run and no one kent it.”

He stood up and walked to the end of the bench, leaning his tall frame against it. “I’ve ne’er told anyone about it. How can ye see these things ye see, Isobel? For ‘tis true. Had the wind and rain no’ knocked her cap from her head, spilling her long hair down her back, I would have pinned her heart to the earth with the point of my sword.”

“I dunna know how I see these things. Some people are mysteriously connected. Why ye and I are connected, I canna say. It may no’ always be so.” She paused. “Though she was yer enemy, ye are glad ye didna kill someone so brave.”

He ran his hand through his midnight-dark hair. “Aye. ’Tis true. But by God, a young woman! On the battlefield!”

“Like Joan of Arc.” Isobel looked away from him. “Women can be vera brave, too.”

“I’ve ne’er doubted it, Isobel. Women
are
vera brave. I’ve often thought them braver than men for the things they must endure. My mother was brave. Do ye know, she gave her life to protect me and Logan when we were just babes?”

“What happened?”

“Some of the women were in the orchard with their children. We were only old enough to be just walking then, I’m told. Myself and Logan. ‘Twas a warm, beautiful day. The sun was shining. A party of drifters came upon the women and despite being offered food and drink, the drifters raped and killed a few of the women. My mother had a dirk hidden in her skirts. She’d seen the drifters coming and had a bad feeling about it, so she told some of the women to take to the heather.

“They gathered up the children, including Logan and myself, and ran into the brush to hide. As I understand it, the drifters were travel-stained and weary, their horses sweat-streaked and flecked with spume. A vera desperate sort.

“My mother fought valiantly but she was stabbed just as my father and his men, including my uncle Rolph, came riding over the hills. Their rage was such that no’ a drifter was left standing. My mother died in my da’s arms.” He paused, frowning. “The drifters paid with their lives but it couldna bring my mother back. I dunna remember her face. I was too young. I am only alive because of her bravery.”

“That’s something we have in common,” she said. “Brave, unselfish mothers. My mother also died protecting me.”

“How?”

“’Twas a fire in our croft. I was eight summers. She pushed me to safety. But she didna survive. ‘Tis why I have the ugly scars. Much uglier than yers. Whereas ye were cut, I was burned.” Her face flamed at the memory of his eyes assessing her naked flesh as she stood in the wooden bathing tub, at the feeling that surely he’d been repulsed by what he saw. She decided to talk of other things. “Yer mother is also buried here?”

“Yea. And my father. He died three years ago. A vera brave man. All those battles where he charged into the fray with a seeming disregard for life and limb, for regimen and drill and odds, only to grow auld and become a sick, weak man and die quietly in his bed. It was vera hard to see him that way. He is one of the reasons the Macleans are known as the ‘race of the iron sword’.”

Leith’s eyes had a faraway look in them. “On his death bed, when he was reminded that he’d been in at least nineteen battles, he laughed and said he should’ve made it an even twenty and asked someone to hand him his sword. He actually tried to get out of bed. But he was too frail.”

“I am the bastard daughter of Brodie MacKinnon. Brodie loved my mother but he was already married to a shrewish woman, a marriage of convenience. A marriage made for practical reasons.”

“Is there any other kind?” he said gruffly.

“I think there could be.”

“A marriage for love is undertaken with greater risks.”

“Aye, Highlander. But there may be higher costs for taking a marriage that is devoid of love and affection, lacking in passion and excitement and understanding.”

He frowned.

“Anyway, I didna really have a chance to know my father until later in life and just as I was beginning to know him, he died.” Isobel turned her gaze back toward the snowy churchyard. “Why have ye no’ married before Lady Katherine?”

“There have been other women. The kind that would have this face.” He frowned. “Truth be told, I was married once. I was young and I willna speak of it. Until Jocelin, I abhorred the idea of marriage. I thought of it as a game and refused to be caught. None of the proposed matches after Jocelin…well, none would bring a benefit to the clan as a match with Lady Katherine would. So I successfully avoided another marriage for years.”

Her gaze once again sought his. “So others have since tried to snare ye into an abhorrent, life-long union?”

“Countless, countless numbers.” A playful smile danced on his rugged face.

“Perhaps they came to realize that their failure at capturing ye as a husband was actually their vera good fortune.”

He laughed.

“So why marry now, and why Lady Katherine, yer brother’s fiancée?”

“It would bring a much needed peace with the Campbells. And I promised Logan I would take care of her, and the clan, if anything happened to him.”

“He had a premonition?”

“Aye.”

The snow had begun to fall again and it ticked softly against the windows. Isobel rose and turned her back to him as she watched it. “Isn’t it always true that the one ye canna have becomes more desirable by far than all those that fall freely at yer feet?”

“’Tis a match that makes sense from a practical point,” he said. “It would unite our clans and bring years of peace. Lady Katherine is a Campbell. It would….”

Isobel turned to face him. “Ye dunna have to convince me of the reasons why. Love, desire,
practicality
…it chooses whom it chooses. And we often have no say in the matter.” She frowned. “Ye seem to take this all in stride though. I mean, ye seem to take it for granted that she’ll change her mind and eventually agree to marry ye in place of yer brother.”

“How else could I take it? It’s what Logan would’ve wanted. Eventually she will see it.”

“Are ye so certain?”

The lines around his mouth tightened.

“Ye dunna seem to realize that Lady Katherine views the prospect of marriage to ye as she might view her own approaching execution.”

He laughed again, an explosive sound in the tiny chapel. “Then we have a lot of work ahead of us. I ken I canna ha’e with her what she had with Logan. I dunna expect it.”

“Perhaps it is because ye dunna expect it that ye will fail.”

“What do ye mean, Isobel?”

“I mean, Lady Katherine is no’ a woman who can be won over with practicality and logic. She has been pampered and admired probably since she was a cooing babe. She is proud and expects praise, romance, and unwavering devotion. If ye dunna think ye can make her fall in love with ye, then she willna.”

“I am who I am. If she canna hav’e me as I am….”

“Ye arena
listening
to me, Highlander. Start by listening to me. I ken in comparison to Lady Katherine I seem barely a woman, but a woman I am. And more qualified than ye are to tell ye what a woman wants from a man.”

He took a step closer and she had to crane her neck to look up at him. There was amusement in his eyes.

“Yer vera set in yer ways, Highlander. That will have to change posthaste.”

“Indeed?”

Isobel crossed her arms over her chest and began to tap her foot. “Och, but where do we begin? Did Logan recite poetry for her? Did he bring her pretty gifts? Did he dance with her?”

“That’s an annoying habit of yers, tapping yer foot.”

“Aye. I have many faults. But we were discussing yers.”

“By all means, continue to expound upon my faults.”

“Nay, Highlander, ‘twould take too long.”

He arched a dark eyebrow and she began to pace, to walk back and forth along the narrow aisle.