Much Ado About Highlanders (The Scottish Relic Trilogy) Page 21

  How different from today, Kenna thought with growing anguish. She was to arrive wearing a borrowed dress and cloak, carrying no gifts, bringing with her nothing from her people, escorted by none of her clan. She was a runaway bride who had dishonored the MacKays and Macphersons on her wedding day and was now being dragged back like some captured renegade. She had no more value than a sprig of trampled heather.

  Kenna’s mind raced with uncomfortable and hostile situations she would surely face. She fought imaginary arguments, resisted penalties she’d be forced to pay. The folly of Alexander’s blunder on their wedding night no longer mattered. Everyone seemed to know that Kenna’s plans had been made days before the wedding. Fault lay with her. Bumping along on this trail, she broke out in a cold sweat thinking how she’d be received by the laird and by Lady Fiona. Considering everything, how could they be expected to treat her?

  She knew her own temperament. Would she be able to keep a cool head? What were her options? What was she to do?

  “If you ride any slower, we might not reach Benmore before winter.”

  “I would like that. So much more time together. Just the two of us. I imagine we’ll not have a chance like this again for quite some time.”

  He wasn’t fooled.

  “Plainly, something is bothering you.” Alexander pushed his horse so near that their knees rubbed. “Talk to me, Kenna.”

  She hesitated, but for only a moment.

  “Your family hates me. They have every right to. I’ve given them reason enough.”

  She was relieved to throw off the weight she’d been dragging for days. Running away was no longer a possibility. She wouldn’t leave him. She wouldn’t break her promise. But that didn’t make any of this easier.

  “How do I apologize?” she continued. “Do I get on my knees and kiss your father’s ring? Your mother’s feet? Should I do penance working in the kitchens? I need an answer. I need to know what I can do to make the past go away.”

  “Difficult problem.”

  Alexander was taking her seriously. His frown told her so. She followed his eyes as he turned his gaze out across the wild, green Highland hills, across the patchwork of hawthorn and pine groves, across purple flowering fields toward the white-peaked mountains to the south.

  “Kenna, if it’s penance you think you deserve, there is one thing you can do.” His face was grim as he reached over for her hand.

  She looked up into his face, feeling his support.

  “The next time we’re in bed, I’ll show you.”

  Kenna tried to pull her hand away, but he wouldn’t let go. She slapped his arm with her reins, but he just laughed heartily.

  “This is no time for humor, vile beast. I’m genuinely upset at the situation I’m riding into.”

  He brought both of their horses to a stop and waved his men by.

  “Kenna, I’ve told you before: there’s no basis for you being upset. What happened after the wedding was between the two of us. We’ve reconciled. Better than reconciled. From now on, all will be well. I’m telling you.”

  “It can’t be,” she told him. Why couldn’t he understand? “Even if the immediate aftermath of our wedding were unblemished—which it’s not—look at me. Look at the wild woman you’re taking home to present to the daughter of King Jamie.”

  “This is just my mother you’re talking about,” he reminded her.

  “You’re no help.” She let out a frustrated sigh. “Look at me. See me for who I am. For the qualities I lack. I’m not fit to be the wife of the laird of a clan like the Macphersons. Your family will see this, if they haven’t already. I knew this in my heart when I ran away before.”

  “Kenna.”

  “But don’t worry—I’ll not run away again,” she assured him. “I just have to learn to accept my lot in life. I need to grow accustomed to a life of misery.”

  “You’ll not be miserable. I promise you that. This will all work out to the satisfaction of everyone. Let me explain it the way I see it. The way my family and the rest of the Macpherson clan will see it.”

  “You’ve told me already,” she reminded him. “You jest about doing penance in your bed, but there’s truth in that. Your people will be satisfied so long as I produce a child every year for all my child-bearing years, which will make you the pride of the Highlands and me an old woman before my time. If I survive. And we both know how that worked out for my own mother.”

  He leaned forward and took her chin. His blue eyes bore into hers. There was no hint of humor in them now.

  “I don’t want a single bairn, if the price is your life. You, alone, are all I want.”

  Kenna shook her head. “I’m sorry I said that about my mother. I didn’t mean it. I’m just overwrought with everything.”

  “Let me tell you why the Macphersons will love you.” He caressed her cheek. “Six months ago, I was to marry a bonny lass in an arranged marriage that was sound business for both of our clans. I didn’t know her any better than she knew me. I was doing my duty. My people respected me for it. Still, she was a stranger to all of us. But today, I’m bringing back a beautiful and courageous young woman that I’m deeply in love with. A woman I now know as well as I know myself. She’s a lioness without fear. She’s a woman fit to be a queen.”

  Kenna’s troubles evaporated like morning mist in the Highland sun.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said you’re beautiful.”

  “Nay, after that.”

  “That you’re fit to be a queen.”

  “Before that.”

  He brushed her lips with his. “That I’m deeply in love with you. And my people are no fools. They’ll know that you’re the first woman to claim my heart.”

  She wasn’t a crier. She never had been. She despised women who couldn’t control their emotions. But here she was, weeping like a child.

  “My love.”

  Suddenly, one of the warriors shouted back at them. “Riders coming.”

  She batted her tears away and looked where he was pointing. Three mounted warriors had emerged from a grove of oaks and were racing down into the valley. The hard-charging riders were coming directly at them, and Kenna looked questioningly at Alexander.

  “Macphersons,” he said to her.

  The thundering hooves grew louder as the riders approached. It seemed that in only an instant they’d covered the ground between them. The air was suddenly filled with the sound of shouts of welcome and friendly banter. The smell of leather and sweating horseflesh and men. The ruddy faces, the plaids, and the flash of metal in the morning sun.

  The confidence that had been eluding her seeped back into her bones. This was the world she’d grown up in. This was the world she knew best.

  Kenna recognized the dark blond warrior. Alexander’s youngest brother, Colin. Kenna sat up in her saddle. The Macphersons looked with interest at her, and she heard murmurs of approval as they streamed around them.

  Colin rode directly to Alexander. The two brothers embraced one another from the backs of their horses. He then turned his young and smiling face to her.

  “Kenna.” He bowed.

  She bowed back. “Colin.”

  “My wife told me, in no uncertain terms, that I’m not allowed back at Benmore until I apologize to you with all the eloquence I can summon, and convince you to forgive me.”

  Colin had the same sincere blue eyes as her husband, but his expression bespoke mischief.

  “Eloquence? You?” Alexander said. “Plan to be sleeping with the horses, then, laddie.”

  “Again,” one of the others added, to laughter around him.

  Colin ignored them all. “Accept my sincere apology. The night of your wedding, I played a misbegotten prank, but please believe me when I tell you I had no idea that this doddering old barnacle would fall fast sleep the moment he fell into the wrong bed.”

  “Oh, you hoped he would remain awake. And what would that have led to, I wonder?”

  “Led to?
” Colin’s demeanor lost some of its mischief. “Uh, nothing. Nowhere. What I meant to say was that he would have recognized he was with the wrong wench . . . uh, woman, and left her immediately.”

  “To end up with the next ‘wench’ you had waiting for him?”

  “There was no other wench. I mean ‘woman.’”

  “Unrivaled eloquence, brother,” Alexander commented with a smirk.

  “And you expect me to believe that?” Kenna asked Colin.

  “Aye. You should. You must. You see, I was only returning the favor to my oldest brother for a dozen pranks he’s played on me. This has always been the way between the three of us. There was no harm intended—”

  “But with that prank, an insult was directed at me.”

  The roguish look was gone. In its place, Kenna saw remorse.

  “I apologize. Truly. It was a foolish, untimely prank. And what troubles me most about it is that I caused you pain. It was never my intention.” He reached out for her hand. “Could you forgive me?”

  “If you don’t,” someone said, “Tess may decide the stables are too good for him.”

  “Then it’s off to the sty with him,” another added.

  She took Colin’s hand tentatively. “Your wife has never shown me anything but kindness and friendship. But are you really here because of Tess’s threats, or did you wish to make peace with me yourself?”

  Colin lifted her hand to his lips. “It was my wish. Well, mostly mine. I’ve been looking forward to your homecoming for months, just for the opportunity to tell you this.”

  She smiled. “Then we shall travel to Benmore as brother and sister, and I’ll make certain to tell Tess that I have accepted your apology without reservation. No doubt due to your eloquence.”

  A cheer went up from the men around them. She withdrew her hand and placed it in the folds of her cloak as she turned to her husband.

  “Ah, those teaching moments,” he murmured. His eyes shone with what she now knew to be love for her.

  Colin maneuvered his charger between the two, breaking their moment.

  “Out of the way, gargoyle,” he said over his shoulder at Alexander. “M’lady, now that I’ve been forgiven, may I escort you the rest of the way to Benmore Castle?”

  Before she could answer, their attention was drawn across the valley to a dozen more riders.

  “Are you expecting more Macphersons to escort us?” she asked, looking from Colin to Alexander.

  “Look again, lass. Is that not the MacKay banner?”

  “MacKay?” Her people. The surging and ebbing of emotion she’d been feeling today was swept away in an instant. Her heart swelled. Her clan had come. In spite of all she’d done, she hadn’t been deserted by them.

  Kenna watched the Macpherson warriors part as two men rode through the throng.

  Robert. Allister. The best of the MacKay warriors and stalwart defenders of the clan. These were fighters she’d doted on, followed about like a puppy as a child. These two men had been generous with their time and kind to a lost girl with a mother dead and a father withdrawn.

  “My two friends,” she began in greeting. She stopped.

  Another man rode in behind them. A man she thought would never come.

  Her father.

  The immediate joy she’d felt at seeing the MacKays evaporated into thin air. The smile disappeared from her face.

  The two eyed each other silently. His hair was grayer. Deep lines that were absent six months ago etched patterns around his eyes. He’d aged in ways that were easy to see. But he was still fit. He had no paunch about the middle like many men of his years. He sat astride his stallion with the confidence of a commander ready for battle. His eyes were clear and sharp.

  “Daughter.” He nodded his head.

  It was one word, but it was said with that same tone she knew so well. She took it like a slap, that chilly air of formality she’d faced for eight years. But she’d never become accustomed to it.

  Magnus MacKay had forgotten how to be a father to her after Sine’s death. Keeping her at arm’s length, he’d showed no interest in what she did or where she went or who she spent her time with. Kenna simply didn’t exist, until it was time to marry her off. Only then did she have some value in his eyes.

  The words came back. The insults he’d heaped on her before the wedding. The reminder that he thought so little of her. That she was so unworthy of the mantle she was to assume . . . and of the man who was to be her husband. She’d known for a long time how he felt. Their argument that night had only sealed Kenna’s decision.

  Magnus MacKay was the reason she’d run away on her wedding day. To succeed in discrediting him, to dash his elaborate plans and alliances, was to be her revenge.

  Magnus glanced only once at Alexander, nodding his greeting before fixing his gaze again on her.

  “Father, it wasn’t necessary for you to come.”

  She knew a message had been sent to the MacKays about her pending arrival at Benmore. But she’d never thought he would come. When he wasn’t feuding with the Sutherland lairds, he loved to hunt at this time of year at a lodge in Altnaharra, at the southernmost edge of MacKay territory. He was here not to support her, but to remind the Macphersons of the terms of the marriage.

  “And how are my brothers?”

  “Giles and Ninian are fine strapping lads, growing an inch a day, it seems. You’ll not recognize them.”

  “I think I will.”

  “Perhaps. This is their first summer at Altnaharra, you know. Why, the pair of them even managed to kill a boar that was twice their weight together. The beast charged out of a thicket at them. The lads drove their lances clean through that tough old hide and right into the heart.”

  Kenna saw the way light shone in his eyes at the mention of his sons. She’d killed her first boar with a lance at the age of thirteen after being thrown by her horse. It had been a near thing. Kill or be killed. Allister had been proud of her. All the men had been proud. But she’d begged them not to tell her father. She’d been foolish enough to think that he’d care enough to punish her for riding steeds far bigger than she could handle, never mind trailing after MacKay hunters.

  “They wanted to come,” her father added. “They’ve missed you.”

  And she’d missed them, too. Kenna loved the twins, and Giles and Ninian adored her. From the time they could crawl on their pudgy hands and knees, she’d been the target of their affection. The eight-year-olds’ bedchamber was her last and most difficult stop before fleeing Castle Varrich on her wedding day.

  She and Alexander would make arrangements. She’d see her brothers. Right now, there was nothing else that she wanted to say to her father. A heavy silence fell over the company. Kenna wanted to order him to leave. To tell him that he wasn’t wanted. But for the sake of her husband, she wouldn’t make a scene.

  “I’ve sent for your trunks to be brought down from Castle Varrich,” the MacKay said, breaking the stalemate. “They should arrive soon enough. But Lady Fiona has assured me you’ll not be wanting for anything before your things arrive.”

  “That wasn’t necessary, either.”

  He ignored her. “Now we need to proceed to Benmore Castle. There, I’ll present you to the laird. The Macphersons will ride ahead. You will ride beside me—”

  “Nay,” she interrupted. “I’ll ride with my husband.”

  Kenna didn’t have to look for Alexander. He was beside her, taking her hand.

  “A fine idea, Kenna,” he said breezily. “In fact, how about if you and I ride ahead and beat the rest of this company to Benmore. You’re one of the best riders in the Highlands. So how about it? Shall we leave them in our dust?”

  She looked into his laughing eyes and wished she’d told him already how much she loved him. He praised her in the face of denigration. He stood with her when she was alone. He buoyed her when she foundered. And he was here for her, protecting her from her father, and from herself.

  “This is her fir
st visit to Benmore Castle, Alexander,” Magnus MacKay said, the words chopped and icy. “As her father and as laird of—”

  “Hold a moment, Magnus, if you would,” Colin broke in.

  Another rider, this time coming after them from the west. In a moment, Kenna recognized the man.

  It was James Macpherson, riding like the devil was on his tail.

  Chapter 24

  With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord,

  not with love.

  He looked like James. He acted like James. He spoke to Kenna’s father like the politician the family always knew him to be.

  But I’ll be damned if it is James, Alexander thought.

  Something was definitely not right.

  Alexander grasped his brother’s forearm once everyone was past the excitement of his sudden arrival. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” He wouldn’t look Alexander in the face. “Let’s get along to Benmore.”

  Colin joined them. The look the youngest brother exchanged with Alexander said that he too had noticed something was amiss.

  “By the devil, James, they normally mistake you for a Highland steer, but right now you look like some whipped ginger cur.”

  “One more word and I’ll show you whipped,” James retorted.

  “Where are our men?” Alexander asked.

  “At Oban. I wanted to catch up to you before you reached Benmore. Hell, I arranged your reunion with your bride—I should be part of the celebration.”

  “A fine mount,” Alexander said, glancing down at the steed. “Borrowed from the MacDougalls?”

  “And he came all this way with no sword and no dirk,” Colin added. “Naked as an infant.”

  James’s hands tightened around the reins. The horse pawed the ground.

  “Did you hear that Evers turned east?” James asked, trying to steer the topic. “The Grahams stopped him, but at the cost of good men and too much blood. Still, the lads turned him.”