At The Laird's Command (Sword and Thistle Book 3) (16 page)

In a flash, my sister hurled her fist like a man and cracked Brenna in the nose. The blow should have felled the maidservant. Truly it should have.
 

It haunts me to this day that it did not.
 

Because in her desperate jealous fury, Brenna twisted and turned, trying to shove me off the wall with all her weight. And when I let go and ducked down…she went right over.

I heard her howling scream.

I heard the horrifying thump of her body on the rocks below.

I didn’t look to see where she landed.

When I
did
look up, it seemed every guardsman in the castle had come running. Not just them, but the laird and Ian, too. And seeing these men, my heart sank, for both my laird and Ian were bleeding from the nose and mouth as if they’d been in a fight for their very lives. Had they been battling each other or was the entire castle under attack?

“
Heather
!” both men called to me in distress.

God help me, I felt a tenderness for them both.

But the heart does not lie in such moments.

“My
laird
,” I cried, panting, on the cold, hard, ground. “You’re bleeding.”

His face was a mask of terror and grief as he dropped to his knees by my side. “Oh, lass. Lass!
You’re
bleeding. Oh, my Heather…”

“She’s been stabbed,” Arabella snapped, shoving him out of the way to press her hands against the wound. “No thanks to you, laird.”

“It’s not his fault,” I whispered, but I felt my breath tighten and shorten as the laird squeezed my hand. “But the child…”

I trailed off, my eyelids seeming very heavy suddenly.

“Don’t close your beautiful violet eyes, Heather,” the laird commanded. “Stay with me, Heather. Stay with me.”

Stay with me.

Those seemed the only words I had ever wanted to hear from him, but were they too late now? Moments later, Malcolm was on the sea wall, eyes flashing for danger he could use his sword to conquer. “What’s happened?”

“Davy’s dead,” Arabella sobbed. “That’s what that little bitch said. And she tried to kill my sister, too.”

From the far away place I was drifting in the cold, I had the absurd thought to scold Arabella for using such language. It wasn’t ladylike. But my senses returned a bit as I heard Malcolm say, “Davy’s not dead.”

“You can’t know that,” Arabella cried, her tears wetting my cheeks as she tried to staunch the bleeding from my wound.

“I think I do,” Malcolm said, as we heard horns sound in the distance.

Ian braced himself against the sea wall, peering in the direction of the sound. “There are ships coming. The shields are MacLennans.”

And Malcolm actually smiled.
 

“That’ll be Davy on the prow, then,” the laird said. “He snuck out of the castle and went for reinforcements. He got them.”

“It’ll be a real fight now,” Malcolm said. “And one we can win, laird.
Sgurr Uaran!
”

That was the Macrae battle cry.

And it was the last thing I heard before my world went black.

Never leave my side.
 

Stay with me and be mine for all your days.

These were the words I heard whispered over me as I came in and out of consciousness. At some point, I became aware of bandages around my ribcage, and an intense pain whenever I shifted.

“She couldn’t have been luckier in the placement of the wound,” came the voice of the physicker above me, instructing Arabella. “It was deep enough to penetrate the muscle, but managed to merely graze all the most vital things inside.”

Given the throbbing agony, I didn’t feel especially lucky. But I was alive, and in the laird’s bed, I saw, when I finally opened my eyes. It seemed as if half the castle was crammed into his quarters. The laird was in an armchair at the side of the bed, holding my hand. My sister was there, too, hurrying to fetch me something to drink. And Ian was at the window, staring out over the loch with a faraway gaze.

“What happened?” I asked, though my voice was a scratchy, throaty sound.

“The siege is ended,” Arabella said, excitedly. “Davy did it! Clan MacLennan broke the blockade and sent Donald ships to the bottom of the loch. What remained that were fool enough to attack the castle walls were shot down or cut down and sent to a watery grave.”

The siege was ended. I could scarcely make sense of that, and how it changed our circumstances. For so many months we had lived as prisoners in these castle walls, suspicious of one another, unsure of the future. But now it was over…

“What of the laird’s marriage to the Donald girl?” I asked, for I was sure that must have been part of the negotiation to end the battle. “Or will it be a MacLennan bride, now?”

“It will be a MacLennan bride,” our chieftain said, exchanging a tense glance with his second-in-command. Ian crossed his arms over himself—a gesture I now knew was one of self-protection rather than defiance.

Ian was in pain. Terrible pain. I could guess why. And it did not all have to do with me—or even that Brenna had schemed against us for his sake. The last time I saw him, I had confessed to him the laird’s command that I win his affections. That I was supposed to lure him into loving me so that he might take me as his own once the laird was dead and gone. And Ian had exploded into a temper of both wounded pride at being manipulated, and the deepest
hurt
at being so mistrusted by the man he had dedicated his life to.

“Fetch some more water for your sister,” the laird commanded Arabella, taking the cup from her hand.

“There’s a whole jug right here by the bed,” she said.

“Go get another one,” the laird snapped, with a hard stare, making it plain that he wished for her to go. “Or do whatever it is that you must do to prepare for your own wedding, which you can have on the first day Heather is strong enough to see you respectfully married.”

Arabella glanced at me as if she would argue, but I nodded.

So she kissed my cheek and reluctantly went to the door. “Do not tax her, my laird. And if you make her cry again…”

The laird raised an eyebrow to see what Arabella would threaten.

She should have cowered but she stood her ground, her nostrils flaring, and letting him guess what revenge she might take upon him.

“Her heart is as precious to me as it is to you,” the laird finally said.

Arabella harumphed at that, but went on her way, leaving me alone with the laird and the man he had given me to.
 

For Arabella’s sake, I’d kept the tears from my eyes, but now wetness gathered on my lashes. “Have you met the girl you’re going to marry?” I asked, too weak to lift my head from the pillow, but trying to muster the strength to accept it. I was a mistress either way. Men kept wives and mistresses both. Whether I was Ian’s mistress or the laird’s mistress or a harlot for any man in the castle, there would always be wives to contend with.

The laird brought my hand to his lips. “Lass, I told you in my own way, I would be as faithful to you as a husband. You must know that. I was never going to marry the Donald girl and—”

“He wasn’t, ye ken,” Ian broke in, his eyes still on the loch. “He was going to make me kill him, instead.”

I gasped at this.

“That wasna
precisely
the plan, Ian,” the laird snapped.

“Near enough, though,” Ian replied, grinding his teeth. “Whether I was the one to run the sword through your guts or let someone else do it, the end is the same. So, I’ll have you know the truth, Heather. He was—”

“Was never going to marry the Donald girl!” the laird shouted, then calmed himself when he saw me startle, wincing at the pain. “And thanks to Ian, I won’t
have
to marry the MacLennan girl either.”

I glanced at the window, curiosity swirling in my chest. “Thanks to Ian?”

Ian rolled his neck, as if it pained him. “I’m the laird’s kinsman. I have holdings of my own. Some women—not you, of course—would find me to be a catch. I have offered myself as a groom in the laird’s stead, and if it be acceptable to the MacLennans, the laird will release me from my vow of fealty and I will swear it to the MacLennan, instead.”

Oh, the hurt I felt for Ian in that moment. It left me nearly breathless. He wanted to be released from his vow to the laird; he wanted to get away from us both. He felt betrayed and wronged and abandoned, and yet, he still wished to do this one last service to his chieftain. And to me.

“So you see, lass,” the laird said, kissing my palm softly. “I will not have a wife. Only you. If you will still have me…and I realize this may be no easy answer for you. I don’t know that you can forgive me. I should not blame you if you hated me to the marrow of your bones. But you are alive, and safe, and that is more than I could have asked for only a few days ago.”

As my heart swelled with his words, Ian turned, his cheeks puffing in anger. “More than you could’ve asked for? No. You could’ve
asked
. You could’ve asked me. ‘Look after her, Ian. Love her as I do.’ And I’d have done it or died in the trying. You could’ve asked, but you didn’t. You asked it of
her
. You trusted her. But never me. No matter what we’ve shared. Battles. Strategies. Pleasures of the flesh. You’ve never trusted me when I have proved nothing but worthy of your trust. Let
that
be on your head.”

The laird was a proud man—more afraid to let his men see him in a moment of weakness than he was afraid of death. But his head drooped in acceptance of this chastisement, and he pressed his lips together. “You’re right. You’re exactly right. And I’m sorry for it, Ian.”

There was a moment when, in the bunched up silence, I thought there might be a reconciliation. But then Ian let out a long breath and strode to the door. “Sorry isn’t good enough.”

“Ian!” I called after him.

“Don’t waste your strength, lass,” Ian said, with a shake of his head. “You two love each other. You have no feelings for me whatsoever. Even if you did, it’s my fault you were stabbed. All because of a little maidservant whose name I couldn’t have told you two weeks ago. I never even
noticed
her and yet she she nearly killed us all for an unrequited love. I could almost pity Brenna. So I don’t wish to dwell upon the humiliation of what’s passed between the three of us lest I go as mad as Brenna and find my own end on the stones below the castle walls.”

“You’re nothing like Brenna,” I insisted, squeezing the laird’s hand to reassure him as I added, “And of course I have feelings for you. It is only that—”

“You’re
his
woman, not mine,” Ian finished for me.

“I am my own woman,” I said, deciding the thing in that very moment. I would not be
given
anymore. I might give, but I had proved myself to my laird. Now he would have to prove himself to me. “I’m sorry, but I
am
.”

“I’m not sorry for it,” Ian said.
 

And with that, he slammed out the door.

“Brooding bastard,” the laird muttered, as if he were one to talk.

Very softly, I murmured, “Do you not see that you tore his heart out?”

 
The laird swallowed, hard. “I suppose after your time together you see him more clearly than I do. Is it Ian that you want, then, or perhaps you’re done with us both?”

What
did
I want?
 

“You broke my heart, John.” My voice cracked on his name and tears spilled from my lashes. “I surrendered everything to you. I gave you my body, my shame, and my obedience. I trusted myself to you, body and soul, and you broke me.”

“Yes,” he admitted, his voice thick with emotion. “You must think me a monster, but I broke myself, too, if it’s any consolation. I will never be able to tell you how I suffered to send you away. Even if I could, you shouldn’t care. I can say only in defense of myself that it was all done for love. It was because I feared you would rather
die
with me than
live
for me.”

“I would have, that’s true,” I confessed, angry that my heart, for all its cracks, still insisted upon it. “I would, still. Yet, if there is a child in me I would want her to know a better life than living always at the whim of a man who can discard her mother.”

“A
girl
, is it?” the laird asked with a start, his eyes widening with something akin to delight. But then the rest of my words reached him and his shoulders slumped again. “I would never discard you,
mo chride
. Never.”

“Never
again
, you mean.”

I was provoking his temper, but he managed to keep it in check. “In facing death, lass, I did for you the best thing I knew how to do as a laird. But perhaps what you need is a man who is not the laird. You need a man who can make a wife of you—”

“
Don’t
,” I said, with a violent shake of my head, sure that he was about to do it all over again. To send me away from him to some man of his choosing, without my having a say in it. “I don’t want some other man.”

The laird’s eyes widened. “I wasn’t speaking of another man. I was offering
myself
to you, lass. The whole of me. If you will have me, I will give up my position as laird.”

I blinked at him, furrowing my brow, not letting myself understand. “Give up your position as laird? I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

“Because it’s never been done,” he said, his brow furrowed too. “At least, not that I know of. But that wouldn’t stop me. I will face too much opposition in marrying you—it will cause people to scheme against us both. So I will resign my lands in favor of Ian in exchange for his blessing to wed you.”

Oh, the awkward pain of asking Ian for his blessing! And yet…and yet…this man, this proud man, was offering me marriage. Marriage! As if I were a respectable girl. “You cannot mean that.”

The laird nodded, gravely. “I do. I thought once that you were sent by the devil to tempt me. But now I think it was something of divine providence that brought you to me. I am no good without you, Heather. Not good as a laird and not good as a man. I had the chance to see that, while contemplating my death, and I thought it would be a short time of suffering without you until the end. But now I face a whole life ahead, and I will do anything to have you with me. Anything but
force
you to have me.”