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Secrets Of A Highland Warrior
Secrets Of A Highland Warrior
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Secrets Of A Highland Warrior

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Now that he had seen her this close, exchanged a handful of words, he couldn’t shake the feeling of déjà vu. As if...he knew her already.

‘You threatened me with shears,’ he said ignoring her question and adjusting his large body in to one of the chairs. For an instant, he was distracted by the fact the chair was not too small for him. He stretched, liking the fact he could do so. At home, there were no chairs built for him and he didn’t ask for them to be. In truth, he preferred to stand, but knew in this negotiation, his size would be to his detriment. He was here to find answers, not intimidate.

She shrugged. ‘They were handy and you arrived on short notice.’

‘They’re sharp. You could do me harm.’

‘I ensure their usability, that is all.’

‘For gardening,’ he guessed.

‘Of sorts,’ she said, tucking the shears in her belt and laying her hands in her lap. ‘What are you here for?’

‘To claim the land,’ he said. ‘What is it you do here, Ailsa, that you need shears?’

She sighed. ‘I heal. I’m the healer...you seemed surprised.’

Not surprised, but somehow, oddly pleased. She was intelligent in more ways than one. ‘Aren’t healers old and wizened?’

‘They don’t start out that way. Rhona, my mentor, died two winters past. So I’m it now. Though my father...’ She shook her head.

‘Though your father?’ he prompted.

Her eyes narrowed and he saw the spark of fire she held when she’d aimed her shears at his throat. ‘I’m a healer, Lochmore, and that’s all you need to know.’

‘Though we are to marry?’ he mocked.

Her frown increased and he found he didn’t like it. When she talked of Rhona, even that little bit, something of the true Ailsa had emerged. It was that which he wanted to coax from her, even though he had no business here except to secure the McCrieff land. He certainly didn’t need the complication of this woman or the Tanist’s proposal.

‘If we marry,’ she said. ‘Why are you here? The land is already yours since the King decreed it. Despite, if I understand correctly, our not answering your letters. You didn’t have to come here and demand that we agree.’

‘It is uncertain otherwise.’

‘So you recognise the fact we could have fought you for it despite what King Edward granted. That men could die.’ She canted her head, the tension in her body easing a bit more. ‘You care about that?’

There was much and little that he cared about. He tapped the chair’s arm for a beat before he answered. ‘If no blood needs to be shed, it would be foolish to insist on it.’

‘And yet you don’t agree to marry me in order to avoid the shedding of blood. You’re a fool.’

‘A fool?’ he repeated.

‘When there’s so much to gain and you baulk, yes.’

‘Men die every day for bits of land.’

‘So saving your men isn’t enough to marry me?’

‘My men? I know the worth of Lochmore swords and do not expect any of our blood to be spilled.’ Another tap on the chair’s arms as he waited for her to reply. When she didn’t he said, ‘If you remember, you did not immediately agree.’

A moment of hesitation before she arched a brow. ‘We are enemies, are we not?’

Something punched through him fast and hot when she repeated his words from earlier. He thought there wouldn’t be a battle today, but perhaps he’d found a worthy one.

‘Not good enough,’ he said.

She sighed. ‘We didn’t answer your letters so obviously McCrieffs don’t agree with the transfer. Marriage would help because if we marry, the transference of land would be done without bloodshed. I, unlike you, do care if blood is spilled. Whether you believe it or not, I care about any man, whether he be Lochmore or McCrieff. I am a healer.’

He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. This brought them closer though she didn’t acknowledge it...or realise it. But he did, he was a large man, and with little effort he could yank her off the chair and on to his lap.

Clenching his hands to prevent himself from doing just that, he shook the idea from his thoughts. His inexplicable desire for this woman, for this McCrieff, had no place here.

And yet...they talked of marriage, so how could he stop his thoughts straying? ‘You would help heal Lochmore men. Are you now saying we are not enemies?’

‘We are.’ Ailsa stood and her gown gracefully fell around her, though her own movements were uneven as she secured her shears. ‘We will always be.’

He agreed, but he was surprised by her answer. ‘And yet—’

‘I agreed to marry you?’ she interrupted. ‘Know this, Lochmore, I was told of the Great Feud as well as you. Our clans have the right to hate each other.’

Maybe here were the answers he sought. ‘Such vehemence for such old history. There’s more you’re not telling me. You revealed your anger when you shouted at your father.’

She skirted around him and he felt the impatient brush of her gown against his legs. ‘This history keeps occurring. Even now, I worry about what is happening in the Hall.’

He did, too, but he was more fascinated with watching her pace the small room.

‘When did the King make the decree of McCrieff lands?’ she asked.

Her father was a fool to have kept her in the dark. Her ire was justified. Maybe was even angry at herself for not realising that something was amiss. ‘Last winter after Balliol was crowned.’

She didn’t hide the flash of incredulous anger that crossed her fine features. ‘That is why your men crossed the border to McCrieff land?’

He nodded.

‘Were they celebrating?’

They had been. He’d never seen his father in a rage before, but he had been that day. The men thought a victory had been made. That the land, just because a king decreed it theirs, was theirs. His father had pointed out when it came to bordering land that had been fought over for centuries, nothing was that clear. ‘They were punished.’

‘Two McCrieffs died that day.’

‘And you are the healer,’ he said. She didn’t act like Lochmore’s healer with her gentle ways. Ailsa was fierce. She’d likely stab Death in the heart before it came to take her clansmen away. Anyone she truly cared for she’d most likely... Then a thought occurred to him. ‘Or were you close to one of the McCrieffs?’

‘I’m close to every McCrieff. I care for them all.’

Not a lover or a husband, then. Still, her pacing seemed to increase as he asked his questions. There was more here. As the son of the Chief, he, too, cared for his clan, but losing a clan member would be different from losing Paiden. If that had occurred, it would be a loss he would roar against until his dying day.

‘Did you lose someone else?’

She suddenly hugged her body, her hands roughly rubbing her arms as if she was chilled. ‘We should be talking about my father’s proposal for us, not my childhood.’

‘Your childhood?’

She made a sound of frustration, of anger. ‘You don’t deserve my secrets, but know that I have just cause for my reservations about this marriage,’ she said. ‘But even then, I ask you, can you not see the benefits?’

His body recognised the benefits. His desire couldn’t avoid them. That red hair and rosy lips. Those blushing cheeks. Her fiery temper.

Even now when he was refusing such connection to her, his body conjured images. How he’d wrap the flames of her hair around his fist as he plundered those lips, as he coaxed her to her knees...

Hands suddenly greedy, he clasped them before she could tell what was truly in his thoughts. Her. She talked of past deaths and he could only think of her. Her father was foolish or maybe wise to leave them in this room together...alone. The small unadorned room only highlighted her worth and he kept noticing it.

‘You don’t want more deaths, Ailsa. I understand. But your father prevented McCrieff deaths when he confiscated our weapons,’ he said. ‘Of course, he could kill us. How would I know, since this is our first meeting?’

‘As if you’d simply let him. You’re wasting time, Lochmore.’

Until her father’s return. Her father had made it all too easy for them to come to McCrieff land. Now he understood why.

Sighing, Ailsa continued, ‘We know nothing of each other, but that matters not when it comes to our clans. If we marry, no one dies.’

‘Perhaps today, or for the next sennight, but distrust and animosity between our clans runs too deep,’ he stated.

‘Marriage is permanent. The change would be permanent,’ she said.

‘One was tried before and failed. And we all know whose fault that was.’ Legend had it that a woman who had promised to marry a McCrieff had married a Lochmore instead. True or not, it was also well known that the McCrieffs retaliated and relations deteriorated from there.

A slight frown. ‘What is known and what is speculated does not matter. The fact is we can start anew.’

If she had experienced the deaths of people she cared for, how could she believe so naively? Frederick, the Tanist, proposed it, but he also said he would remain Tanist and that nothing was a guarantee. ‘Did you not hear your father? This is not about starting anew. This is about preserving McCrieff power.’

‘That’s why you care,’ she said. ‘Not for lives, but for power.’

Power was everything. Lochmores were given McCrieff land because they held more power. For once, he’d like control of his life. With power, he could.

‘Don’t you care about it? You want to marry and, by doing so, you preserve the land you have regardless if the King says it is Lochmores. I could not wage battle against your family. Further, you also probably prevent King Edward from taking any more away.’

She opened her mouth, closed it abruptly.

‘You didn’t think that?’

‘I told you why I want it. For lives, which appears to be nothing you care about.’ She fingered the shears around her belt. ‘It doesn’t matter. In the end, the outcome is the same. Two people who have...position and influence in both clans marry.’

‘You think I gain power by marrying you though your father said otherwise?’

‘You certainly don’t lose it. There would be no fight over the land by the border.’

‘I’m Lochmore’s Chief, I could marry anyone and gain other lands.’

‘But none closer or convenient. And for that matter, none merely handed to you.’

Ailsa’s beauty was one thing, her unexpected intelligence was another. Everything about her was unexpected. She was fair of face and body. Mere hours in her presence and he knew she had a fine mind as well. There would be no burden to marry her.

He wouldn’t voice it, but there was a possibility to gain all the McCrieff lands. An achievement none of his clan would expect. All of this done without bloodshed, but there was a catch. There was always a catch when it came to the McCrieffs and the Tanist confessed it. He didn’t intend to concede power. By doing so, Frederick projected to his clan that McCrieffs remained in power.

Where would that leave him? Waiting for the warrior’s death, counting the years until he could wrest control...even if he could. However, it was inconceivable that Frederick would want that for his daughter’s children. Maybe the old man had hope to combine the clans as well. Frederick, as a McCrieff, would be in a better position to know if that hope was possible.

So he married a McCrieff’s daughter, which solved nothing now and only perhaps gained something in the future. Even with all this disclosure, and the almost certainty that Frederick would want a brighter future for his daughter, Rory still sensed a trap.

It was Frederick’s movements before he left the room, a jitter to his leg, his sword hand opening and closing. The frequent glances to the door as if he expected it to burst open. His readiness to be on the other side of the door. He left giving the pretext of privacy, but was it possible he stood on the other side of the door to guard it?

For now Rory could hear muffled voices and the clinking of goblets. There was much talking and occasional shouts of merriment. Was he being merely suspicious?

The danger surrounding him hadn’t been the travelling on McCrieff land, or the offering of marriage. The danger was something he couldn’t see or understand. And for a moment, Rory wished for his sword so he could lay it firmly against Frederick’s neck and demand the truth.

There were lies everywhere. That same instinct that told him something was wrong with his past told him something was wrong now. There was disclosure in this room, but something still felt amiss. Secrets, he saw them everywhere, he’d been trained at it since he was very young.

He knew, though he had never been told, he was not, and could not be, Chief Lochmore’s son.

Though he emulated his parents, though he behaved and trained as the son of a chief should, something inside him warned that he didn’t belong. And it was that which made him refuse the offer now. Not some trap or unknown future. Not some false sense of pride that he wasn’t a pawn to game. They were all pawns and everything a trap. It was that frisson of something amiss that held him back.

‘As the son of a chief, as an enforcer of King Edward’s decree, I cannot accept this offer.’

‘Why, because of this power?’ she scoffed. ‘Because you will not have any since my father will not concede his?’

Power. It was all about power. She might think he held off because of her father, but in fact, he held back because he had none. ‘Power is everything.’

‘So shortsighted! Today we could have some peace. Blood would not be spilled.’

Rory stood then. He was irritated that he could not tell the full truth because he knew these people weren’t. Since that was the case, he’d continue to argue what was known. ‘Shortsighted? A marriage isn’t only for today, it’s for the future. And your father’s proposal curtails mine.’

Small room and a woman who should have looked insignificant against his size now that he stood, but she raised her chin defiantly and he saw nothing but her own stubborn strength and fire.

He had some of his own and his impatience with these people, with his own circumstances, roiled harder inside him. But when he took the steps necessary to be even closer to her, to now intimidate her, she held her ground. And he knew, absolutely knew, he lost some of his. Despite the facts and the glaring falsehoods, he wanted her.

‘I have shears, Lochmore.’

‘Call me Rory.’

A flicker of something across her stunning green eyes and the elegant lines of her neck moved when she swallowed. When he stood with her at the dining table, she had not shown this wariness. Was it the privacy of the room and the fact they were alone? Or was it because his asking her to call him by his name felt too personal?

‘If we are to marry, you would need to say my name,’ he said.

‘But you said we would not marry?’

‘Perhaps you persuaded me with your shears.’

Her eyes narrowed, and he couldn’t help the curve to his lips. She didn’t believe him. Good, she shouldn’t.

He shouldn’t marry her either and that had nothing to do with what they discussed. There was every chance he could leave today without marrying her and there would still be no bloodshed. Frederick could take him prisoner if he refused the proposal, but that would bring the entire Lochmore clan here, and, if Frederick cared for his daughter, he would not jeopardise her life.

Another scenario could be him leaving here and informing his father that he had ensured the border’s safety. A partial untruth, but he’d bet his life that Frederick, meeting him and his men, wouldn’t now fight over something that was almost...personal.