Passion and Plaid - Her Highland Hero (Scottish Historical Romance) (4 page)

“He’s not the only distracted man amongst you, is
he, John?” She let an impish grin crawl across her face. “But I guess we have
no time for that sort of thing now, do we? But dinna worry. Gavin’s not the
type to let himself get in too much trouble. And he certainly wouldn’t let
anything happen to Kenna. We’ll find him. Everything will be fine.”

“You’re right, of course.” he said in a tone that
said he was trying to convince himself and kissed her gently on the forehead.
“Thank you, Lynne. I don’t know where I’d be without you keeping my head
straight.”

With a last glance around to see if he could still
see any of his friends, John pulled Lynne tight and held her for a second until
she squeaked.

“What was that, then? Afraid I’m going to vanish?”

“Aye, a little. Will you do me the honor of
joining me on a leisurely ride this fine evening?”

“Be happy to,” she said as John swung himself up
in the saddle and pulled her up after him.

Lynne settled in behind John, with her arms tight
around his middle. For some reason, she just needed him extra close to her that
night. The heat of his body against her chest, his slow, patient breathing,
something about it just made her feel safe. With Lynne’s head against his back,
John snapped the reins and turned north.

 M
ornay’s Cleft

August 17, Morning

––––––––

W
hen Kenna awoke and looked around the
early-morning haze that had settled into Mornay’s Cleft from the fires that
never seemed to stop burning, she felt tightness in her chest that wasn’t from
the smoke. Though she could count the number of times they’d woken up in each
other’s arms on two fingers of one hand, Gavin’s absence already made her ache.

Her thoughts remained on Gavin for the entire
morning, through dressing, through a delicious breakfast, and through a short
conversation with Duggan.

“It makes perfect since, it does, how you and
Gavin act.” Duggan said as he wiped a mug and poured her another cup of tea.

“What’s that, then?” Kenna asked.

“The way you two fawn over each other. You canna
be married! I’m sorry, that was a bad jest.” Duggan laughed loudly at his own
joke. “And when are you to try this coffee? Lachlan and Egan can’t get enough.”

“I heard it can cause hysteria,” she said. “Makes
men act rashly.”

“Unless you count bawdy jokes and a naughty rhyme
or two as rash behavior, I’ve seen nothing of the sort.”

“And anyway, it smells so awful when you make it.
Like bitter dirt.” She wrinkled her nose without thinking about it and took a
sip of the strong, black tea she loved so much. Something about the slightly
tangy acidity of the drink helped cut through the humidity of the Lowland
morning, through the almost stifling wetness of the day.

“Ach, suit yourself. Anything you’re wanting to do
today or will you just be warming a stool?”

“I’ve to get out. I canna stay cooped up in here
all day again. I need to take some air, stretch my legs. And there must be a
thing or two around town that’s worth seeing, aye?”

“Well, wee li’l lass, this isn’t Edinburgh.”

“I’m not meaning any grand castles or theaters,
mind you. I’d be content with a nice stream or a brook. I’m from Fort Mary, a
town with not much more than a few farms and a kirk off the town square.”

“We’ve both of those things. Got a fine kirk, and
an open square. Now that you mention it, if you’re to be here for more than a
pair of days, that square will be host to a festival. The only one, actually,
what we have all year. Well, the only one not claimed by some religious sorts
of feelings. A great big celebration.”

“Oh, I’d like that. Does everyone in town come
out?”

“Aye, and not just this one. The farmers from
Duncraig come as well, and as time’s gone on, more and more come from miles
around. There’s a feast, a dance, and contests. Vendors from Edinburgh usually
set up stands all about the grounds, often enough, Scots come from as far
afield as the Highlands to sell their whiskies and woolen goods. It’s a time to
relax between the two harvests. And I’d be remiss if I didna mention the
costumes.”

“Costumes? People dress up for it?” Kenna giggled
a bit.

“All manner of costumes. It’s a bit strange I suppose,
but that’s what we’ve always done. In a couple of days, this inn will be packed
to the brim. I make more coin in the two or three days before the festival than
I do the rest of the year feeding Lachlan and Egan.” The big Scotsman laughed.

For a moment, Kenna’s thoughts fell back to Fort
Mary when she was a child and spent every festival hoping she would see Gavin.

“Is that – the festival – when boys and girls
meet?”

“Oh I see a twinkling of an eye, do I not?” Duggan
grinned, the lines in the corners of his mouth disappearing under his beard and
his eyes closed to smiling slits.

Kenna too smiled, and looked down at the bar
hoping he didn’t see her blush. “Aye that might’ve been when Gavin and I...”

“It is,” he said. “A place like this, like
Mornay’s Cleft or Duncraig, even the young ones work at the ground most of the
year. Not much time for anyone to do much else, you know?”

“Aye, Fort Mary’s the same. My Da, he owned – or
well still owns, I suppose – a farm. And rare was the time when we weren’t working
at it. The festivals were the only time we got together with much anyone else
who dinna live down the road.”

“We do the same, mostly,” Duggan said, nodding.
“This year though it’ll be a little different. It’s the first festival since Mayor
Willard went...well, became so touchy about certain things.”

“Oh?”

“Like Lachlan told you, he wasn’t always like
this. Hasn’t always been so crooked and greedy. He’s been here neigh on ten
years now – actually this will be his tenth. And until last year, he got on beautifully.
Willard came to festivals, even showed up at the kirk on a wedding day or for
funerary rites. But then year last, he was...” Duggan trailed off, gazing at
the floor. 

“Those men, they said something about his
daughter?”

“You remember how he dressed? The long black cloak
and the formal hat?”

Kenna nodded, and remembered how odd she found his
dress, considering the heat in the high daytime.

“That’s his way of mourning; at least I think it
is. She wasna much older than you. Younger mayhaps. She traveled between here
and Edinburgh, then up to the highlands, to help her father with town business,
administration, some such things that the particulars of which are lost on me.
I dinna know what happened, not exactly, but she was kidnapped by bandits on the
road and, well...let’s say she didn’t return safe.”

Kenna couldn’t help but touch her chest.
“That’s...that’s awful.”

“Aye,” Duggan said. “And I dinna blame him for
being upset, not at all. But what he did afterwards hurt a great many people.
He decided that it wasn’t bandits what killed his precious lass, was all of us
Scots. So, he started in with the double and triple taxing, banning of clan
Mornay plaids and of pipes and all of that. Wants to punish us. He missed the
pipes though, so he let them return, but only when he says.”

Kenna just stared at him in disbelief.

“It’s rough, it is. But that’s the way of things.
We’ll get over it. Something’ll happen and Willard will come around.” He tried
to muster a smile. “But for now why not just go see a few things? Hand me that
and I’ll draw you a map.”

Taking the long napkin from Kenna, dipped the
quill he kept on the bar top and went to work sketching a little drawing of the
town before he brushed it with the back of his hand, blew off the dust he
sprinkled over top to absorb the ink, and held it at arms’ length.

“There. A fine map. Of course, it would have
likely been twice as easy just to tell you to go out the door and turn left on
the road, as there’s only the one, but then again, I’ve not drawn a map in some
time.”

Kenna giggled softly as she took the cloth and
then leaned in and gave Duggan a kiss of thanks on the small part of his cheek
not covered in red beard.

“I dinna know what you’re wanting to see, but I
expect you’ll be wanting to figure out the mayor.”

Kenna’s eyes told him everything when she opened
them wide in surprise.

“Ach, so I’m right. Good. You can talk to the men
what run the shops here and here,” he pointed to indicate the stores. “But they
can be...unwilling. As I told you earlier, the people here are scared. We dinna
like to talk to strangers unless we know they’re not the mayor’s cronies. But
it might be worth your while if you can get them to talk. ‘Course, I’mna sure
you’ll get anything you dinna know already. Maybe best to go to the source?”

“I couldn’t...the mayor’s house?”

“No, no, lass,” Duggan laughed. “I wouldna expect
that even from you. No, he holds local court most weekdays at the town hall.
Answering requests, handing down judgments and mediating disputes – magistrate’s
business, aye? There’s a wee place you can sit and watch if you want to see him
at the bench.”

“Bench? I thought he was mayor?”

“Aye, but being as how this is so small a town, he
does the jobs of both mayor and magistrate.”

Kenna pulled a small bound notebook and pencil she
had tucked into the thick belt about her waist and began to scribble.
Mayor
– Town Hall
, she wrote, and then made a note about the likely uselessness
of talking to the townspeople. “And what about the kirk?” She looked up at
Duggan and tapped the butt of her pencil on the diary.

“Ach, is she writing a newspaper now?”

She giggled, “No, just making sure I don’t miss
anything. Any reason to visit the kirk?”

“It’s plain, but nice enough I suppose. The
Presbyter works about six or eight towns around here, travelling betwixt them
so he comes only once a fortnight. He willna be there for a week yet. It’ll be
open though, and there’s usually some kind of gathering about noon. I dinna
what you could get from a bunch of farmer’s wives though – and that’s who
gathers.”

“Right, thanks Duggan,” Kenna said.

“Oh, Kenna?” He said as she pulled open the door.
“One more thing. Be back by dark.”

“Aye, I will. But why?”

“Mayor’s rules. No Scot on the street after dark.
So far as I know, no one has tested him on it, but given how cruel he’s gotten
lately I’d hate for the first person he catches to be someone who brings such a
light to a room as you.”

––––––––

O
ne thing Kenna could say for sure about Mornay’s
Cleft is that the town had a stunning beauty to it that almost took her mind
off Gavin.

Almost.

As she walked slowly from the inn to the square in
the center of town, she found herself entranced by the hills that the mayor had
taken to burning. The fire-kissed part of them was behind her, to the south,
and the haze had already broken for the day, so all she saw in front of her
were green hills, large and rolling, covered with the soft green grass she’d
grown up loving, broken up by clumps of rather big, ancient firs and oaks. All
along the side of the road, and all the way up the hills were little purple
puffs of flowering thistle.

The one she had on her neck, the one Gavin gave
her when they were wee ones, was the dark, almost indigo purple of the
highlands thistle. The local variety tended lighter, somewhere between the
azure of the cloud-spotted sky arcing over her head and the pastel blue on Clan
Mornay’s traditional plaid – which had apparently been outlawed since the mayor
went on his tear, though Duggan still displayed a swatch of the cloth behind
his bar.

And then, when she finally took her eyes off the
hills and looked to the side of the beat-down path she trod, a little, round,
thorny ball rolled along beside her and thumped against her foot. Bending down
she plucked it off the road and held it up. As she turned it between her thumb
and forefinger, Kenna fixated where sunlight bounced off tiny dew droplets that
were gathered on the leaves encircling the almost fully-closed flower. Her hand
went to the pendant at her throat and she closed her fingers around the symbol
of the promise that neither she, nor Gavin, knew they were making.

Fiddling with the thorny little ball, she let her
thoughts drift for just a minute more before she tossed it to the ground and
shook her head to clear it.

Alright, I dinna have time for this, at least
not if I want to keep my wits about me.
She laughed, shook her head again
and glanced at the map Duggan had drawn. He’d marked the kirk, which he said
was very nice, though likely empty since the Presbyter only came around once
per fortnight to deliver service. On the other side of the square were located
a pair of shops which sold things the local farmers needed, but specialized in
arranging transport of goods to market. She wondered how their mood would be if
she were to drop in.

But none of that seemed very interesting.

A moment later, her eyes settled on the crude
drawing of the town hall and she tapped her finger on it. For some reason a
knot pulled up in the back of her throat. She thought of the mayor’s strange
dress, his board-stiff posture, and the way he’d just stared at Gavin and her. Lachlan
and Egan had almost stumbled over themselves trying to get away before he made
his entrance, and Duggan was so irritable when the mayor left that he barely
said anything afterwards.

She didn’t want to see him again. She wanted to
pretend that everything was fine, and this was none of her business. She wanted
to ignore it all, go back to the inn and refuse to leave until it was in her
Gavin’s arms. That’s all she could think about – Gavin’s familiar scent, his
soft hair, and his strong hands clasped around her back. His lips on hers, his
touch and the way he stirred her heart.

But then another, much less pleasant tension
pulled at Kenna. The slicked-back hair, gray on his temples with the small,
ribbon-tied pony tail, and Mayor Willard’s dour, dangerous, snide smirk. She
shivered in the growing heat, as she remembered his lip pulling back over his square,
even teeth when he made his remark about not seeing any rings on either of
them.

To her surprise, during all her clouded thoughts
and remembrances, Kenna had walked all the way to town. Before her, the town
square opened up with three buildings in the middle. The largest was made of
white brick and wood. Though modest in size, it was of a style that reminded
her of the Crown-built buildings she’d first seen in Edinburgh.

Gavin would be brave. Gavin is being brave. He
misses you as much as you miss him. Go through that door and get to know what
you’re up against.
Kenna steeled her nerves as she approached the heavy oak
doors and grabbed the ornately-carved handle.

Up against
. Like she was halfway through a
battle, she thought. As she opened the door, what was a rather faint tapping
sound when she was outside became a booming noise of wood slamming on wood. It
was Mayor Willard, she saw, violently banging his gavel on the top of a podium
where he stood.