Passion and Plaid - Her Highland Hero (Scottish Historical Romance) (2 page)

Kenna collapsed in a decidedly un-dignified
fashion upon the mattress and watched as Gavin took off his boots, his sporran,
and the five knives he had tucked in various parts of his clothing. She pushed
herself up on an elbow and smoothed part of her riding skirts, then pushed her
own boots onto the floor with a clunk.

“Seems a bit odd for a husband to sleep on a floor
instead of with his wife, don’t you think, Mr. Macintyre?”

“I suppose,” he said. “Mrs. Macintyre.”

She turned away from him as Gavin slid under the
covers behind her and draped an arm about her middle. She reached back and
grabbed his hand, pulling his other arm underneath her neck and snuggling
backward against his hard, warm chest.

“Did you notice there was no one down stairs?”

“Aye, I did. I’d think nothing of it. It’s late,
inn’s quite a ways from where people live,” he said. “Something bothering you?”

“No, well, it was, but what you say makes sense. What
would I do without you, Gavin Macgregor?” she whispered as she closed her eyes
and felt lips press on the back of her neck where her hair parted. Instinctively,
her hand went to the tiny thistle flower he’d given to her when they were
children and her Ma put into a pendant for her. It never left her neck.

Gavin said something she could barely hear.

“What was that?”

“I said you’d probably have gone through a whole
lot less trouble without me.” There was guilt in his voice that Kenna didn’t
like.

“Don’t say that. Without you, I’d be home in Fort
Mary knitting. There’s nothing I have ever wanted more than the life that I –
that we – have.”

He hummed softly and kissed her neck again.

“I do have one question,” he whispered.

“And that is?”

“When I was a lad, that first time you saw me, why
did you come up to me?”

“If you’ll recall, Gavin Macgregor, it was you who
come to me the first time.” She pulled one of his hands up and kissed his
finger.

“Ach, I suppose you’re right. But the next time,
at the games when you watched me toss the caber, what was it then? You could
have ignored me then, too.”

“Well,” she said thinking back. “That time, it was
you who asked me to come see you. I don’t remember ever approaching you.”

He pinched her stomach and laughed.

“You great brute!” she laughed and elbowed him. “I
suppose I did have an eye for you.”

“Aye, you did. But why?”

“If you’ll remember, you spent a great deal of
time flexing your legs, showing them off before you threw that log. I was a wee
lass, couldn’t help myself. My baser interests took over.” She giggled softly.

“So that’s it, then, you like me only for how I
toss a log?”

He pulled her tighter against his chest and she
let out a contented sigh.

“I saw something in your eyes, even as a boy,
Gavin. I knew you were different than anyone else in Fort Mary. I can’t say how
I knew, or even what it was, but it turned out to be right, aye?”

No words came in response, only a soft brush of
lips behind Kenna’s ear that sent a chill around her shoulder. She closed her
eyes, secure, safe, and warm in Gavin’s arms.

Sleep came quickly and held her – held them both –
until well past dawn.

M
ornay’s Cleft

August 16, Morning

––––––––

S
lowly, Kenna’s eyes opened, and she inhaled
deeply. A scent of burning wood filled her nose, but not the sort that would be
used for a hearth fire. She reached back for Gavin and then when she didn’t
feel him behind her, called his name.

“Where’d you go?” she asked, rolling over and
finding the bed empty.

Kenna stood up, shrugged and stretched her arms
high above her head until her shoulders popped and twisted back and forth, then
kneaded her back where it was sore from the previous day’s ride. Out the small
window, she saw that there was a haze settled in over the little village and
when she opened it, the smell of burning oak, hazel and fir trees stung her
nostrils. Up the hills that flanked Mornay’s Cleft, the trees had been cleared
away and others of them were lit on fire, as though someone was trying to clear
the land.

She changed clothes in silence, wondering about
the smoke settling over the village, but in the front of her mind was getting
back on the road. The night before there was no one out after dark, which she
dismissed, but not having a single soul walking around of a morning struck her
as very odd. Even more than that, the
inn
was silent. No one taking
breakfast tea, and of all the smoke she smelled, none of it was the sweet stuff
from a pipe like the one her Da and most other men smoked of a morning.

“Ach! Ke - Mary!” Gavin shouted from downstairs as
soon as she emerged from the room. “I thought you were going to sleep the whole
day through, it’s almost two hours past dawn.” His smile was every bit as
disarming and sweet as the first time she saw it, for a moment making her
forget about her unease.

“And a good morning to you, husband.” The word
still made a pleasurable little lump in her throat. “And to you, Duggan.”

The two men nodded, Duggan lifted his floppy hat
off the top of his bald-in-the-middle head and greeted her. “Breakfast?”

“Oh yes please, I’m famished. Those sausages last night
were brilliant, but maybe something a little lighter? I don’t like riding on a
full stomach.”

“Well you’re in luck,” Duggan said. “Sausages are
gone. But there’s porridge on the boil if that’ll suit. Oats and milk, little
sugar in the mix. Got a few bits of bacon too if you’d like, though not much.”

“We couldn’t take the last of your food,” Gavin
said. “You won’t even let us pay you.”

Duggan shook his head. “Needs to be used up. It’s
going old. You two have some tea and I’ll fry it up. I could make coffee too if
you’d like. Got a tin from a traveler what came through here a few days past.
Never had the stuff meself, but it seems to be getting a bit popular with the
old men what come here of a morning. Pipes too, if you’d like.”

“I’ll try some, never had the pleasure,” Gavin
said. “Coffee, I mean. Never took a taste for pipes.”

“Ach, not now,” Kenna said. “Just tea for me. I
find I’m not very adventurous early in the day.” She wanted to add that she
didn’t particularly want any bacon either, but Duggan had already snorted a
laugh and gone back to the kitchen.

As soon as he was gone, Kenna turned to Gavin and
put her hand in the crook of his arm.

“It’s bothering me again, the inn being empty and
all. It made sense last night, but an inn? Empty of a morning?”

“Place being empty...it is a bit odd.” He agreed,
nodding. “Something else vexing you?”

“Aye, the whole town, it’s just empty. Not a soul
on the street. No carts carrying goods to Edinburgh. And this place too,
there’s no one here. It’s strange, dinna you think?”

Gavin nodded slowly and tucked his hair behind his
ear, leaning close to Kenna.

“I dinna know if this is what you mean, but Duggan
did mention something about the local mayor. He said he’s really taken to his
tax farming and keeps raising the rates on everyone. Says it’s getting to the
point no one can keep up, especially the poor farmers.”

Just as he finished, Duggan returned with two
steaming mugs, and two bowls of porridge balanced precariously on his thickly
muscled forearms. “Grab ‘em,” he said to Gavin. “Right, be back with the
bacon.”

Before he was through the door, Gavin had a spoon
in his mouth. “Ever since I was a wee lad, I’ve loved this stuff. Nothing more
Scottish than sweet porridge on a foggy morning, aye?”

“It’s not fog,” Kenna said. “It’s smoke from the
hills. Someone’s burning the woods. Clearing them.”

Gavin opened his mouth to say something, but was
interrupted by Duggan’s dropping a tin plate with a few hunks of bacon in front
of either one of them. “It’s old,” he said, “but eats damn good.”

“How old is old?” Gavin asked as he took a bite.
“Tastes good to me.”

“Smells a mite funny, but tastes plenty fresh.”
The innkeeper gave one of his crinkle-eyed winks to Kenna. “Anyway, Mrs.
Macintyre, you’ve not said where you’re going. I suppose you’ll be leaving
soon?”

Gavin nodded, but Kenna answered. “Aye, we will,
but one thing’s got me a wee bit confused. When I awoke, there was a great lot
of smoke all around. Why?”

“Ach, the fires.” Duggan’s demeanor suddenly grew
cloudy. He blinked a couple of times and took a drink from his mug. “I was
tellin’ your husband. The mayor, an Englishman called Willard. Steven Marlowe
Willard. He bought up the land on the hills what make up the thing Mornay’s
Cleft is a cleft ‘tween. At least I think he bought it. There hasn’t been
anyone living up there for years and years, all the way back to the days when I
was a laddie half his age.” He tilted his head toward Gavin, whose face was
pointed directly at his plate, and whose mouth was alternatively full of meat
or oats.

“Is he...why is he burning the forest?” Kenna took
a much more reasonable bite than Gavin.

Duggan shrugged. “Not a-one of us is sure. Lachlan
and Egan, two farmers what’ll be in for a late breakfast when they get their
affairs settled, they’ve decided he’s trying to clear them to make farmland.
Around here, turnips and oats are about all what grows. Well, that and sheep,
but those don’t spring from the ground last I checked.” He laughed, and
continued. “They believe him to be trying to take over this town, and the one a
ways off, Duncraig. Say that he’s going to clear all this land, set up some
kind of plantation and apply for a monopoly from the Crown. Drive us all out of
business, and then when all the farmers got no place to turn, pay them terrible
wages to work his land.”

Kenna raised her eyebrows, considering what he
said. Gavin took another bite of bacon, but mumbled something.

“What was that? You’ve half a pig in your mouth,
husband.”

“What I said was,” he swallowed, “I said that
sounds familiar. Planning to take over a big part of land and drive the regular
people out of business. What else is he doing? You told me he’s always hoisting
the tax rates?”

“Aye,” Duggan clicked his teeth and sucked air
through them. “That he is. It’s a strange thing. But maybe these two would be
better to tell you of it, though people here, we don’t much trust outsiders.
Something about you though, lass, you seem to loosen tongues.”

Kenna blushed and turned to see two old men, just
as Duggan described them, bumbling through the door. They looked quite a pair –
one tall and lean, the other man who pushed the skinny one aside was a squat,
powerful looking square of a man.

“I can’t tell you about any of that,” the shorter
one said to the taller man. “It’s all what I can do to keep the farm afloat
with Willard’s damnable taxes and how they keep going up every season.”

Gavin stood up and pushed his plate across the top
of the bar to Duggan. “I’ve to go check the horses. Need to be on the road
before too long, and I need to make sure that-”

“Ga...Hamish?” Kenna whispered. “Is there any way
we can stay? I’ve got such an odd feeling about all this. Something’s just not
right.”

“Stay? Nay we canna stay, we’ve got to take Alan
north.”

“This is going to be awful,” she said. Gavin knew
before she spoke what was to come next. “Is there any way you can take him and
come back? If you make good time, it’s only a day or so of a ride from here and
I’d...”

“Feel a lot better if we helped these people?” He
finished her sentence. “Aye, me as well. Why canna we just be greedy and
selfish?”

“Because if you were, I wouldn’t have stayed in
love with you for this long.” She smirked. Under her breath, she continued,
“I’m sorry, but I don’t care about the wedding. Just being near you is good
enough for me, and anyway as soon as we figure out some way to help these
people, we can go on our way.”

Gavin sucked one of his lips between his teeth and
dragged them along, rasping over his stubble. “I don’t know why you can
convince me of things like this, Mrs. Macintyre, but aye. I’ll do it.”

She smiled and threw her arms around his neck.
“Wait a tick, what about the others? John and them?”

“Write a letter,” he said. “Tell them to hold off
for a few days. The lot of them weren’t set to head north for a time still.
Right, you talk to them and I’ll go check with our friend. Aye?”

“Thank you, Hamish. You’re...I dinna what I’d do
without you.”

“You say that a lot lately,” he said as he turned
for the door.

The two men sat at a table near enough to Kenna
that she could hear them, though they were talking so loudly that wouldn’t like
to have been a problem if she were in another building. Just like with Duggan,
she instantly felt a fondness for the loud pair.

“Tall one’s Lachlan and the bulldog is Egan. Good
sort, both of them.”

Kenna nodded and turned to introduce herself, but
Egan beat her to it.

“What’s this then? Haven’t seen a lassie this fine
in Mornay’s Cleft since...well, since you were a lass, Lachlan.” He laughed so
hard he wheezed, and the other man slapped him on the back.

“Be decent, Egan,” Duggan said. “She’s a married
one aside from being a fine one. Her husband’s out tending their horses.”

“Ach I meant nothin’ by it, sorry if I offended.”

“No, no, not at all – I’m flattered,” Kenna said,
smiling. “But I do have a question for the two of you. When I woke up this
morning there was a smoky haze over the whole place.”

“Aye, from the bastard mayor burning the
countryside. He’s plotting to make a plantation and ruin everything in the
town, you know. And not only this town, but the next one over too.” Lachlan
took a long swallow of black coffee when Duggan delivered it. “That’s not all
though. Whatever he’s doing up there, that’s to be seen, but what is for sure
is that with every turn of the seasons, the taxes get higher. All of them. And
when you can’t pay in coin, he forces you into agreements to pay more later on.
When exactly that is, he never says.”

“How is that allowed?” Kenna asked. “Isn’t he a
representative of the Crown? How can he do whatever he wants?”

Lachlan and Egan both shrugged at the same time.
“We farm the land, he farms us. That’s the way of it. Not so different from
what happens all over the country. Here though, these are old towns filled with
old people. No one cares much, so he gets away with more. He wasn’t always like
this though,” Egan said.

“Nay, he weren’t,” added Lachlan. “Until his
daughter died, Willard was as good a man as you could have for a mayor, but
since then.”

Egan packed a clay pipe full of tobacco from a tin
that Duggan offered, and lit it from a little sliver of wood he touched to a
candle. He puffed twice and the sweet smoke momentarily took Kenna home.

As she was mulling over what the two men said, a
blundering, irritated-looking Gavin came in the front door and sat down heavily
beside her. “He’s gone,” he said under his breath.

“What do you mean? Who’s gone?”

“Shh! The sheriff, he’s...the boy watching the
stables let him go. Greasy bastard promised the boy a sack of Crowns if he did.
Can’t blame the lad. But we
had
him, Kenna!”

Kenna flinched at Gavin’s use of her name and wrapped
her fingers tightly around his. “Listen to me,
Hamish
and listen well.
We’ve got the most important thing in the world. We’ve got
us
. We’ll
find him again but right now that doesn’t matter.”

“Aye, but I blame myself, I –”

“No,” she cut in. “That’s...not right. He lied to
a boy who had no reason not to believe him. Alan will get what’s coming to him,
and sooner than later.”

“And,” Duggan cut in, “it’s my fault anyway. I
went back on my word. I broke a promise. My honor’s in a shambles. I promised
the boy would keep him as he was. I even secured shackles to the man’s ankles
myself. I warned Rory.”

“Duggan,” Gavin said. “None of it is your fault.
You’ve been more than kind. I should’ve been with him myself.”

“Both of you stop,” Kenna said. “If what you say
is true about the taxes squeezing people so tight, the boy likely just did what
he thought would help his family.”

“You two...” Duggan said after clearing his throat.
“Keep your voices down. I swear to you I’ll do anything I can to help remedy
what I’ve done.”

“Uh,” Egan stood looked out the window for a
moment before pulling Lachlan to his feet. “We’ve got a place...we’ve got
somewhere to be. Let us out the back?”

Gavin and Kenna both looked back and forth from
each other to Duggan. The innkeeper signaled the two men to leave through the
kitchen, which they did although not without bumping into one another. Lachlan
cursed, Egan grumbled, and the tall man gestured his friend through the door
first. At almost the same instant those two departed, the front door swung
open, apparently on its own accord.

In the doorway, framed by the morning sun, was a
man wearing a long, straight, black waistcoat with lace frills poking out of
his sleeves. He was long, lean and tall, standing at least a head higher than
Gavin; a head and a half higher than Kenna. As he stepped in and swept his
embellished tri-cornered hat off the top of his head, then ran his hand from
his forehead over his hair, Kenna saw that his temples were gray tending to
white, but the rest of his slicked-back hair was as black as his cloak.