Ian's Rose: Book One of The Mackintoshes and McLarens (16 page)

Rose was nowhere to be found. He began asking every woman he came upon, if, by chance, they knew where his wife was. After the fifth
“I do no’ ken”
he began to worry. Worry turned to an unsettling anger and frustration, thus his need to shout at the top of his lungs.

A younger woman, whose name he had yet to memorize, hesitantly came to him. “M’laird, I saw her leave early this morn with Della, Ronna and a few others,” she stammered.

“Where did they go?”

Shrugging her shoulders, she answered as best she could. “I do no’ ken. I only saw them leave and head south.”

Perturbed, Ian ran a hand through his hair. “And ye did no’ think to ask them what they be doin’?” His voice was harsh, filled with frustration.

The young girl’s shoulders fell as she stared at the ground. “But she’s our mistress,” she murmured. “I did no’ think it me place.”

He felt ashamed. ’Twas no’ her fault his wife had left without telling anyone where she was going. “I be sorry, fer yellin’ at ye. Please, if ye find anyone who kens where they went, find me and tell me at once.”

The girl gave a nod and a curtsey before scurrying off.

Ian found Della’s youngest boy and sent him back to the quarry to fetch Brogan and Andrew the Red.

As he paced nervously around the encampment, a sense of unease came over him. It had been his decision to not have men at the gates. His decision as well to only have a few men on patrol. Plagued with guilt, angry that his wife had left without word, he was soon consumed by anger. He had been so focused on building the tower and other buildings that he had not taken the time to think of any scenario that would require strong defenses. Daily training had been replaced with daily, non-stop work on the tower and wall. Not once had he stopped to consider the actual safety of his clan.

He had even dismissed the idea of Brogan and Andrew protecting his wife. She was among her clanspeople. What would she need protection from? Apparently, from her own foolish and stubborn self.

Brogan and Andrew came racing into the encampment on horseback, worry etched into the lines of their faces. “What happened?” Brogan demanded as he slid from his horse. “The boy said Rose be missin’.”

Quickly, Ian filled the two men in with all he knew at this point. “They left without word, apparently,” he explained. “Why would she do somethin’ so foolish?”

Whatever thoughts Brogan or Andrew had on that particular matter, they kept to themselves. “I shall call all the men back,” Andrew offered. “We shall form a search party.”

For once, Ian did not think about towers or quarries or work. His only concern was his wife.

* * *

“
W
hen we get back
to camp, I’ll have me boys help unload,” Della said from the back of the wagon. “I can no’ wait to have a dry floor!”

Rose was just as excited about the prospect as the rest of the women. “I fear we will no’ have enough wood to go around, though,” she said. “Mayhap when the men see how easy ’twas to dismantle the bins, they’ll go back and get the rest fer us.” That was if she could get her stubborn and distracted husband to let go of a few men for a few hours. Hopeful that once he saw the kind of progress ten women had made in a few short hours, he might not be against the idea. There had to be a way to get through his thick skull. Mayhap coming back with a wagon filled with wood would be the one thing to help him see the errors of his ways.

“There be home,” Rose said over the sound of the creaking and groaning wagon. She could just make out the tall wooden wall and the gate. “’Twill no’ be long now and we will have dry floors and verra thankful husbands.”

Little did she know there was nothing further from the truth.

* * *

P
roud
and happy were as far from what Ian felt than the moon was from the earth.

As they pulled the wagon through the gates, the women were met by furious husbands.

Rose took one look at Ian, and for the first time since meeting him, she was actually afraid. Oh, she knew he’d not lay a hand on her in anger. But from the glower on his face, he was mad enough to bite his sword in half.

Tamping down her fear, and pushing away any good sense she might previously have been using, she offered him her brightest smile. “Ian!” she called out to him. “Ye be back early. We have a surprise fer ye!”

Like a hoard of angry bees, the men stormed forward, each one after his own wife. Ian appeared to be the angriest of all, if his purple face and piercing gaze were any indication. “Where. In. The. Bloody hell. Have. Ye. Been?”

He gave her no time to respond. “We have been worried sick!” he shouted as he grabbed her about the waist and lifted her out of the wagon. “Ye hie yerself off and do no’ tell a soul where ye’re goin’? And ye take nine innocent women with ye?” He was certain that whatever they had done, Rose had been their fearless if not addlepated leader. “Ye will never put me through such anguish and worry again, wife!”

Rose knew there were times she should simply let her husband be angry; like water boiling in a pot, it would eventually run dry. Knowing that and allowing it were two totally different things. They were standing in the middle of a crowd of people. He was showing her not an ounce of respect. When he finally stopped his tirade long enough to draw breath, she took the tiny opening to let off a wee bit of steam of her own.

“Are ye quite finished?” she asked, crossing her arms over her breasts.

He looked as though she had just slapped him. Stunned that she dare utter a word at that moment. Rose ignored him.

“I
did
tell someone where we were goin’,” she informed him in a stern, sharp tone. “I told Leona and I even told
ye,
days ago, what me plans were, but
ye
were too busy to listen.”

Until she uttered those words, she did not think his face could grow any darker. But it did.

“Ye told me? I think not, wife of mine! If ye had, I would no’ have been worried to the point of madness! Do ye have any idea how unsafe it is to venture far from these walls? Do ye have any idea the worry ye set upon me and the other husbands?”

Rose stepped forward, and with her index finger, she jabbed his chest. “Do
ye
have any idea the work these women have done since arrivin’’?” she demanded. “Do
ye
have any idea how hard it be to keep food and kin
dry
in this weather? Can
ye
count the number of times we all asked fer planks to help keep us and our food stores off the ground and safe?”

He tried to respond, but she’d not allow it. She was furious with him, for a whole host of reasons. He’d ignored her pleas, had ignored her concerns. “Nay, ye can no’ tell me because ye do no’ listen! We took it upon ourselves to get the planks we needed, because neither ye nor the other men here give one rat’s arse about what we have to endure on a daily basis.”

The other women had backed away from their husbands to stand with Rose. A united front of sorts, just as angry as their mistress was with how their men were behaving. “Because ye would no’ help us, we solved the problem ourselves,” Della chimed in, shooting her husband a most furious look of contempt.

“Aye! No’ that ye care, but we have worked hard all day dismantlin’ the bins from the auld granary,” Ronna added.

Ian’s eyes flew wide with shock. “Ye went all the way to the auld keep?”

Rose nodded. “It be a mile away, Ian. ’Tis no’ as if we rode all the way to Inverness.”

How far they had gone did not matter. Before he could manage to explain to her why he was so angry, his wife spoke once again, summarily dismissing him and thus ending their conversation. “Now, if ye will excuse me, I be tired and dirty.” And with that, she headed to their tent, leaving a very angry husband behind.

* * *

H
ow dare
he humiliate me in front of the clan?
Rose fumed all the way back to her tent.
Ian Mackintosh be a stubborn, pigheaded man and an eejit to boot!
Storming inside, she sat on a stool to remove her boots. As she pulled off her second boot — silently cursing her husband to the devil — Ian entered the tent.

Weeks of pent up frustration came spouting forth and she could do nothing to stop it. “Have I once complained of anythin’?” she demanded before he could say a word. “Have I once complained of havin’ to bathe in the freezin’ cold loch? Have I once complained of ye workin’ from sun-up to long after dark?” she tossed her boot to the floor. “Me only complaint in these past weeks, nay
months,
is wet floors. Wet floors, Ian! And I do no’ complain because ’tis a harsh life I do no’ want to live. It be no’ healthy to be constantly damp or soaked to the bone. This one thing, one thing I have asked of ye and ye were too busy to help.”

Shooting to her feet in exasperation, she continued with her tirade. “I be no’ a fool or an impulsive woman, Ian Mackintosh. I left a home — the only home where I felt safe in a verra long while, and left me one true friend as well — to follow ye across Scotia, to build a life with ye. I have been workin’ just as hard and just as long as ye, and what thanks do I get? None! And when I ask fer a small thing, planks to keep us off the muddy ground, planks to keep our food dry, what do ye do? Ye start takin’ our wagons, and yer men set to tossin’ our precious food on the ground.”

She was hard pressed to remember a time in her life when she had been this furious with anyone, let alone the man she loved beyond all measure. “If anyone is to blame fer me bein’ so desperate as to go back to that place that holds so many ugly memories, ’tis
ye,
Ian Mackintosh. ’Tis
ye
.”

Loathe as he was to admit it, his wife had a point. But if she thought to make him feel guilty for not listening to her earlier pleas for assistance, she would have to wait a very long time for an admission of culpability. Or an apology.

The matter at hand was not wet floors or mud or his lack of understanding. Nay the point was she had left without escort and without leaving word. He could not count telling Leona Macdowall as
leaving word.
The woman was as addlepated as her father had said she was.

“Had ye come to me—” he began to explain before she cut him short.

“What would ye have done today that would be any different than the other times I asked?” she spat out angrily.

Though he was furious that she had taken such a dangerous risk today, his fury began to subside when he saw how hurt she was. Aye, she was angry, that much was evident in her pursed lips and the fury blazing in those lovely eyes. But for the first time, he could actually see her pain.

“I will only apologize fer raisin’ me voice in front of the clan,” he told her. “I will no’ apologize fer bein’ worried or scared half out of me mind that somethin’ bad had happened to ye.”

To Rose’s way of thinking, his half apology was a step in the right direction, but he had far to go. “Then ye do no’ see the entirety of our problem.”

Raising one brow, he bade her explain herself.

“Ian, I love ye. But these past few weeks I feel as though I am the least important person in yer world.”