When the Laird Returns (2 page)

T
wice she turned and looked back at him, her face flushed and deepening in color as he watched. Her eyes, green and solemn, looked away before returning to him as quickly. Almost, Alisdair thought, as if she could not believe he were real.

They’d not exchanged names, but they’d touched as intimately as man and wife. He could still feel her pressed tightly against his body in that last second before her feet had touched the ground.

Her slender figure was framed against the whitish blue of the summer sky, her hair flowing against her back in a delicate fan. She crossed the land bridge keeping the horse at a walk, making him wonder again at the state of her injury.

Despite her claims, he’d seen pain in her eyes.

Who was she? A cautious woman, evidenced by that
slight change of expression from curiosity to wariness. A lovely woman, an enigma who spoke troubling words.

He raised a hand and scratched his beard with his knuckles. Now, that was probably why she’d run from him. But it was a tradition of his not to shave until he had finished his voyage and was home once more.

What did she mean that this was Drummond’s land?

He glanced to the side, distracted by a blur of color. An ocean of sheep filled the glen, their lean bodies showing pink through their sparse tan fleece.

Frowning, he took a few steps forward, only to be called back by a voice.

“It’s a fine place,” Daniel said. “For all that it’s nearly gone.”

Turning, Alisdair faced his first mate. Most of the crew had followed him and were now roaming through the ruins. They, like him, were descendants of the people of Gilmuir, and the sights they saw today would be told in a hundred tales back home.

“The fort’s not there,” Daniel said abruptly, his voice tinged with amazement.

Alisdair spun around to discover that Daniel was right. He’d been so distracted by the woman that he’d never realized that Fort William had vanished. Built after Culloden, the fort had been an English stronghold for this part of the Highlands.

“It’s an ugly thing,” his mother had said. “A blight on the landscape.”

“A fortification built in the style of English forts,” his father had contributed with a smile. “We used the design in our first settlement here.”

With Daniel at his side, Alisdair walked across the barren
earth that separated the two structures. An outline of bricks marked where the building had once stood, but there were no walls remaining, no doors, only a few wooden supports where he imagined the stable might have been.

“It looks to have simply disappeared,” Alisdair said, startled to feel a surge of satisfaction.

Daniel nodded, studying the layout of the fort. “I wonder why they left?”

“Why stay?” Alisdair asked with a small smile. “They had already accomplished their aim.” His own dislike of the English was due more to their encroachment in Nova Scotia and their paternalistic attitudes in the Orient than to the Crown’s behavior in Scotland. His father was half English, a fact that most of the MacRaes of Cape Gilmuir conveniently ignored.

“What do you know of the Drummonds?”

“A thieving bunch, I’ve heard,” his first mate said. “They were forever stealing our horses and our livestock.”

Alisdair stifled a smile. The MacRaes had claimed this land centuries ago, had fought to keep it, had built from stone a fortress that commanded the surrounding countryside. People with such determination would have been as fierce as the Drummonds and no doubt as guilty of their own reiving.

Turning, Alisdair walked across the land bridge, leaving Daniel behind. The land was no longer a lush green; the voracious sheep had transformed the grass beneath his feet to dusty earth.

“Get off MacRae land,” Alisdair said, reaching the shepherd of this damnable flock.

The man was dressed in brown breeches, a tan shirt, and boots that looked worn enough at the seams to fall apart with each step. His hair was a muted blond, his face not yet
formed with character, and his brown eyes shone with a cool arrogance, betraying his youth as nothing else could.

“You’d be Magnus Drummond, then?” the shepherd asked, his gaze traveling from Alisdair’s boots to the top of his head. “You’ll not be looking like him.”

“I’m a MacRae,” Alisdair said, capable of his own arrogance.

“And why should I care?”

“Because this is MacRae land,” he said, his irritation growing.

“There haven’t been MacRaes here since the old times,” the young man said. “Or are you thinking I should go back to Drummond and tell him that I’ve seen a ghost?”

“I’m thinking,” Alisdair said carefully, “that you should get off my land.”

He glanced around, searching the flock. There, on the periphery, was a belled ewe. Sheep were not stubborn as much as stupid, an entire flock following a leader unquestioningly, even occasionally to their death. Sheep were raised at home, not only for food but to supply his mother and the other women with wool for their looms.

Striding now to the edge of the flock, Alisdair gripped the ewe’s bell collar and began walking her toward the southwestern corner of the glen.

“You can’t do that,” the shepherd said, coming up behind him and waving his staff.

“Get them off my land,” Alisdair replied calmly. The sheep followed in an arrow shape behind him, drowning the shepherd’s protests with their bleating.

The young man grabbed Alisdair’s sleeve, pulling on his coat. Alisdair brushed the dirty hand away and continued walking.

“Drummond’s not going to like this,” the shepherd shouted.

One eyebrow rose, Alisdair’s disregard for Drummond’s opinion implicit in the gesture. He stopped, facing the shepherd. “Where is this Drummond of yours?” he asked.

“You mean to tell him it’s your land?” the other man asked incredulously.

“I do,” Alisdair said tightly.

The young man studied Alisdair for a moment, as if measuring the breadth of his resolve. “That’s one meeting I’d like to see,” he said. “I’ll gladly give you directions to Fernleigh.”

“And take your sheep from here,” Alisdair added.

He nodded, hooking the curved end of his staff in the ewe’s collar. Smiling broadly, he led the sheep away.

Alisdair watched him for a few moments before beginning the walk back to Gilmuir. The sun tinted the old ruins gold, and for a second Alisdair could almost believe the place whole again. The crew of the
Fortitude
still milled about, or stood transfixed on the headland, gazing down at the loch. Their presence gave the castle life, summoning a vision of what it might have been like to live here before the English bombarded Gilmuir.

His home in Nova Scotia had begun as a settlement of clustered wooden huts, gathered together in the shadows of a fortress. Over the years, the huts had been replaced by stone cottages offering more protection against the severe winter winds. Homes were adorned with animal skins and the bright wool of newly woven tartans. There was a smell of newness to each house, filled as it was with recently hewn wood crafted into beds and chairs and tables.

There was nothing about Nova Scotia that was old and revered or hinted at timelessness like this old castle. Yet the
MacRaes who lived there had willingly given up their past to guarantee a future not only for themselves but for their children.

Perhaps it was foolish to care about Gilmuir, to want it left sacrosanct and untouched. He didn’t live here, nor did he plan to, his home being either aboard ship or on an island named for this somber and deserted ruin. But Alisdair couldn’t shake the notion that this land and its fortress belonged to the MacRaes, whether absent or not.

Her home was only a few miles away, perched upon the highest hill on Drummond land. Originally, Iseabal had been told, Fernleigh had been nothing more than a mound of earth encircled by a deep trench. Over the centuries, the Drummonds had added a wooden fortress, then framed it with stone. That structure had stood until her father had rebuilt the outside walls with brick taken from the English fort.

Fernleigh towered over the landscape, a square red sandstone box. Her home was not a cheerful place, or a happy one. While laughter rang within the stone walls, it was a response to a drunken jest, or an uneasy chuckle at her father’s wit. Most commonly heard through the narrow hallways and drafty rooms of Fernleigh were her father’s shouts of anger.

“I’m an important man,” he’d told her once. “A man feared and respected throughout Scotland.” Not an idle boast, she suspected, since many a visitor from Edinburgh or Inverness came to their home, spending days in conversation with Magnus Drummond.

Life at Fernleigh was not wholly dour. There was luxury in their garments and their choice of meals. But such sparse pleasures never made up for the fear.

Iseabal couldn’t remember a time when she’d not been
cautious of her father in a visceral way, one that dampened her palms and set her stomach to churning. For the most part she remained out of sight, having discovered that the fewer times he saw her, the less she was punished.

He was a man who sought out his enemy’s weaknesses and used them to his advantage. Such cunning had kept the Drummonds safe over the years. But her father extended his wariness to his family, and saw a foe even in her mother and herself.

As she grew, Iseabal realized that her father would never soften and she could never be a daughter who pleased him. They would never come to understand one another. With that realization came a curious freedom. She was released from the obligation of trying to love her father.

She gave the reins to Robbie, and the stableboy took them, not questioning why she’d returned home walking her mount. Robbie was her companion in misadventure, never speaking of her secret visits to Gilmuir. Nor did he tell anyone of the stones he hid away for her or of the many times he’d reported her father’s movements.

“He’s back early,” Robbie whispered, glancing around.

Forcing a reassuring smile to her face, Iseabal nodded. “Keep these for me,” she whispered, handing him her leather sling holding her tools.

He ducked his head in agreement, having done so often enough in the past.

Iseabal headed for the kitchen entrance. Neither the cook nor her helpers acknowledged Iseabal’s presence as she passed through the large chamber. A sign, she noted, and not a good one.

All the corridors of Fernleigh led to a small, round room, probably the original keep. Now it acted like the hub of the
structure, connecting corridors. Built into the curved wall was a staircase winding up to the second and third floors, the steps rounded and worn.

The only illumination in the keep was from the archer’s slits high up in the brick. In the summer a soft breeze sighed through Fernleigh, but in the winter the cold was nearly unbearable.

The staircase, the two entrances to the hall, and the front door were each guarded by a young man attired in black breeches, white shirt, red vest, and a black coat with shiny silver buttons bearing the Drummond crest. A costly uniform for a parsimonious laird, but sometimes her father’s penury fell victim to his pride.

The men were handpicked for their stature and courage in addition to their prowess in battle, the latter ascertained not through war, but in the taverns of Inverness. If a man was willing to fight for a slur, or use his fists to solve an argument, then Magnus Drummond secured him in his service.

Iseabal passed in front of the guards neither expecting nor receiving a greeting.

Her mother’s chamber was on the second floor, while hers was on the third with the servants. She began to climb the worn steps cautiously, her shadow dancing on the curved wall behind her.

“Where have you been, daughter?”

Iseabal stared down at her father, dread escalating to panic. He was dressed in a similar fashion as his guards, but instead of trousers, he wore knee breeches and richly patterned stockings. He had removed his coat, a familiarity that would never be permitted the other men.

His clean-shaven face might have been pleasant at one time, but a lifetime of anger had stamped itself on his fea
tures. His hazel eyes, ringed with wrinkles, were hooded and unreadable. Long lines bracketed his cheeks as if pointing down to a sullen mouth or upward to a deeply furrowed forehead.

“Come and talk with me,” he said, almost affably. Turning, he entered the clan hall.

His geniality didn’t reassure her. Iseabal took a deep breath, willing herself to be brave, and made her way down the stairs, one hand braced against the wall for support.

The clan hall was an ugly place, but it had not always been so. Once, the stone blocks of the walls had been painted a pale blue, a color that softened the angles of the room. Over the years, the paint had faded to expose splotches of gray. The flooring beneath her feet, made of rocks hewn into a square shape and then mortared with dirt, had been worn down until the corners were rounded and the surface dangerously uneven in spots.

Above the arched and cavernous fireplace was the only thing of beauty in the room. The whispered tale of this first Drummond said he was a knight, a pilgrim of sorts, coming to Scotland from England. As a child, she had come to the hall and stared up at the figure backlit by the sun.

The knight was pictured kneeling on the ground, the sunlight illuminating him as if in benediction. Beside him on the ground was a reed basket signifying, she’d been told, that he’d come to his new home with few possessions. His sword was planted in the ground, his forehead leaning upon the hilt. Etched into the gold and silver was one word in Latin. One of her innumerable suitors, a man learned in such things, had translated it for her.
Loyalty.

Once, she imagined, the colors might have been vibrant. Cobalt and crimson, golden yellow and purest white. But age
had dulled the colors, rendering the lead holding the picture malleable. Consequently, there were missing sections that had been patched with iron plates, the result being a crude yet impressive work of art.

Through the years, Drummond men had taken his oath of loyalty as their own, their fealty sworn to Scotland and their clan. Her father, however, seemed to have twisted the tradition and now swore allegiance only to himself and his money.