The Touch 0f Her Hand (Highlander Heroes Book 1) Read online

  He regarded her a moment more. She detected a resignation about his tired features, which caused Tess only a momentary pang.

  Let him stew, she thought. Let him taste guilt. He deserved it.

  Conall turned and went to the door, which remained half open. He pulled the heavy timber wide and stepped out onto the landing at the top of the stairs. He stood there for several minutes, while Tess chewed her lip.

  Someone came. She detected the soft and light brush of feet slowly moving up the stairs. Still tucked in the far corner, Tess leaned to her left, to peer around the door. Conall’s huge form blocked her view. Two shapes, one tall and one short, advanced toward the tower room.

  Tess slowly stood at the same time Conall moved again, backing into the room, as if he led someone.

  When Conall fully stepped aside, Tess clapped both hands over her mouth in dazed joy.

  Walking into the tower room were both Bethany and Angus. Tears surfaced and fell instantly. Tess watched beautiful little Bethany, holding Angus’s hand, lead the blind man into the room. Bethany’s eyes moved from the floor and their steps to Angus’s face, watchful and so very dear.

  Tess rushed across the room, falling to her knees in front of Bethany. The child didn’t smile, but her brightened eyes told Tess that she was happy. She squeezed Bethany into a teary and joyful embrace. She kissed her face and her hair and pressed her again into a hug. “Oh, I am so happy to see you, darling.” She pulled back and looked into the little girl’s eyes, smiling like an idiot, while the child silently contemplated Tess. She didn’t care. She kissed Bethany again. And then she stood and faced Angus, placing her hand on his weathered cheek. The old man smiled, covering Tess’s hand with his.

  “Angus,” was all she could think to say, her joy in sobs undoing her.

  “Aye, lass.” The old man smiled. The scent of good tobacco hovered about him. He wore clean and tidy breeches, hose and tunic. New shoes of soft leather covered his feet and his formerly long stringy hair had been trimmed short and neat.

  Tess hugged him. Angus stiffened in surprise at this, though he patted her back with his free hand. She continued to cry, unable to stop.

  “Promise me, Tess,” Conall said from behind her. “No more.”

  She closed her eyes and bit her lip. From his tone, she understood that his ‘apology’ was now complete—and with purpose—and she owed him something now, her vow to never again attempt to flee Inesfree.

  Tess released Angus and turned to Conall. While he appeared as he ever did, large and foreboding, it was also apparent that he was holding his breath. She grasped at once that this gesture served another purpose: returning Bethany and Angus to her was the greater part of his apology.

  She nodded shakily, smiling and crying still. It was an easy promise to give. “No more. I promise.” She gave no thought at all to the fact that she had just pledged her life away.

  She felt Bethany take her hand, the other still holding Angus’s, and Tess knew she would pledge him anything at all right now.

  His eyes, that mesmerizing blue she was sure would never not affect her, relaxed ever so slightly as he gave a quick nod, though his jaw remained clenched.

  CHAPTER 16

  “Do you have any idea what you’re about with the lass?” John Cardmore asked Conall, in his frank and aggressive way, but showing a frown that suggested he, himself, was sore confused by the whole situation.

  Conall offered a scathing chuckle. “I have no idea, John.” He sighed loudly. “She twists me in knots. She will no bend—tis I who bends, it seems—and on any given day, I want to throttle her and send her away and...” His hands had moved while he spoke, punctuating his words and thoughts. He just wanted to take her in his arms and make her feel whatever it was he fought against any time he was near her. He wanted to be gentle, make her forget every pain he’d caused her at the water’s edge. “She torments me.” He raised his eyes to his captain and friend, found the old man staring at him with a growing comical look about him. Conall frowned, “What?”

  “God’s teeth, boy! Are you daft?” Now John, too, scowled heavily. “Dinna you ken when you’re in love?”

  Conall’s jaw fell. “In love with Tess?”

  Inside his grizzled old face, John Cardmore’s eyes rolled with exasperation. He threw up his hands in frustration. “Jesu, if I dinna spell everything out for you, you’d ever be without a clue. Moping whilst she’s gone. Eyes dogging her whilst she’s here. Bringing her boons to make her smile. Conall, me boy, you got it bad.”

  “I am no in love with Tess,” Conall argued, his words slow and thoughtful.

  “If the bird quacks, it’s likely a duck, boy,” said John sagely.

  And the old man, who’d barely smiled over the past fifteen years, guffawed noisily, his teeth flashing, slapping his knee at his own clever wit. And to himself, when Conall had abruptly left the table and the otherwise empty main hall, “Ach, now John, how we do like that boy.” And he chuckled some more.

  “WELL, NOW,” SAID ANGUS, sitting comfortably in a sturdy chair in front of the huge hearth in the main hall, “I dinna rightly miss it, was lonely most the time.” The hounds had taken to the old man, and at least one or two were forever at his feet, and at his side when he moved. “The laird is kind enough to give this old man a better home, and a full belly every day. He says he’s gotten word to Fynn about me change of circumstances.”

  Angus’s happy smile, uninterrupted even as he pushed the pipe between his teeth, was one of Tess’s favorite things these days. “That is good news, indeed,” Tess said. “Won’t you come outside with me, Angus? I’ve had a comfortable chair set within the herb garden. The sun shines. You could keep company with me while I work.”

  The old man’s bushy brows rose over his cloudy eyes. “Well, don’t mind if I do.” He uncrossed his legs, left his pipe in his mouth and stood. “Where did the bairn get to?”

  “Who can say with that child,” was all Tess could offer as she took Angus’s arm and walked him out of the hall. “She’ll be ‘round at some point, I imagine.” But it was strange, as Bethany had quite taken to Angus and was often by his side, watching him with a such a keen interest, trying, Tess assumed, to understand his blindness. She was very protective and watchful of Angus. Tess liked that. She knew Angus did, too.

  Tess steered Angus out of doors.

  “Ah, warm today,” he commented, lifting his face just a bit toward the sun. The leathery surface of his skin told Tess he had often spent time outdoors.

  “Wonderfully so,” she agreed and brought him across the yard to her little plot, sitting him in the chair she herself had commandeered from the hall only this morning. “There.”

  Tess set to work then, while Angus sat contentedly beside her, listening to all the goings-on within the yard. And when the sound of the gate rattling upward reached her ears, she gave it no thought at all.

  Hardly any words had been spoken between Conall and Tess since he’d revealed Angus and Bethany to her in the tower room over a week ago. Without discussion, the door to the tower room had been unlocked and she’d resumed her tending of the garden, though she’d been sadly informed by Eagan that he no longer needed in the kitchen. No longer required by Conall, she’d thought, but didn’t argue. She was happy to fill up her day with Angus and when tolerated, with Bethany. And she truly hadn’t thought of escape since.

  Three nights ago, Tess had returned to the tower to find that the entire chamber had been swept clean and a fire burned cheerfully from the rarely used hearth. In addition, a striking carved headboard and bed had been fitted into the room. It was covered in a delicate embroidered blanket of fine and soft cream wool. Underneath, the furs were heavy and thick over a canvas-covered mattress filled with straw and feathers. Tess had never seen a bed so beautiful. Across the room, nearer to the hearth, sat another bed, this one much smaller, with a similarly embroidered blanket and clean furs. Tess did not know whether Bethany was pleased or not by their new circums
tance, but she had every night since slept in the tower with Tess.

  The morning after her reunion with Angus and Bethany, Tess had sought out Serena. She’d found her easily, overseeing the half dozen laundresses making soap in the large closet off the kitchen. The lower half of the faces of all the women, Serena’s included, were covered with the veils of the wimples they wore today, pinned up over their mouths and noses, offering protection against the caustic lye. Tess met Serena’s pretty brown eyes as she stirred the hardwood ashes and water inside the metal bucket, suspended over a low flame.

  Serena gave a brief nod and tapped one of the elderly laundresses to take over stirring the pot, removing that woman’s narrow eyes from Tess, then moved toward to the door where Tess waited. Together, the two women stepped out into the corridor.

  Tess caught Serena’s strong hands in her own. She met her brown and wary eyes straight on. “I don’t want to be forever begging forgiveness from you,” she began earnestly. “So, I propose that I never again treat you so poorly, when you have been nothing but kind and wonderful to me.” When Serena said nothing, Tess pressed on. “I am sorry, Serena. It was wrong, my behavior toward you. I am deeply shamed.”

  The other woman squeezed Tess’s hand in return, her shining eyes seeming to hint at a smile beneath the veil. “Oh, Tess. You do try me!” But she hugged Tess, who teared instantly at such generosity from her.

  “Oh, thank you, my friend,” Tess cried into her shoulder. “I could not have borne it if you hated me.”

  Serena pulled back sharply, her hands on Tess’s arms, her gaze fierce. “Never could I hate you, Tess. You have a difficult circumstance, I do know. You are allowed... your missteps. But please, no more,” she requested with a nervous laugh.

  Tess grinned ruefully. “I won’t. I promised him.” At Serena’s quizzical look, Tess explained, “For Angus, and for Bethany, I’ve promised I won’t ever again try to flee.”

  This pleased Serena greatly, Tess could see.

  “You are a better friend than I deserve, Serena. Truly.”

  TESS HAD ONCE AGAIN filled the basket beside her with several varieties of herbs. Deciding it must now be nearing noon, Tess knew Eagan would need the marjoram and rosemary for the dozens of pheasants that he would prepare for tonight’s dinner.

  Tess rose and stretched but reined this in as she spied Bethany flying by. Bethany and a boy about her age ran around the bailey, ducking between the unmoving cart and wagon. They sped around two soldiers near the smithy and past two seated knights, both wounded, idling their time by whittling.

  “Bethany is playing with a fellow her own age,” Tess said, for Angus’s benefit, as he sat nearby. She’d just yesterday told him of the brief and incomplete history of Bethany, and how she hadn’t spoken since the MacGregor had found her. “They’re darting all around. She looks happy.”

  Angus smiled. “As she should, aye, lass?”

  “Oh, indeed,” Tess agreed, hands on her hips while she continued to watch the pair, a soft smile enhancing her features. Eventually, they ran out of sight.

  “Has she blonde hair?” Angus asked, pipe in hand, slanting his head.

  “Yes, and bright blue eyes.” Tess picked up her basket and reached for his hand. “I’ve finished up for today.” They began to walk back into the keep, as Tess continued, “She doesn’t smile, not outright. But I can see it in her eyes. They lighten. It’s a wondrous thing to see.”

  “Bairns should always smile,” Angus observed, shuffling alongside her.

  “I think it will come,” Tess continued. “Her hair, by the way, is thick for one so young.” Tess laughed a bit. “Though it never did meet a comb it enjoyed.” Angus chortled at this and she went on, painting a picture for him, “She is too thin, I sometimes think, but seems overall very healthy. She has a child’s pure skin, with only ever a slight flush about her cheeks, though no freckles at all. She is darling now, but she will be a great beauty one day.”

  They entered the keep, leaving the sun out in the yard.

  “Like you, lass,” Angus guessed.

  Tess gave a small smile and bumped her shoulder lightly into his. “I’m passable, I’d say.”

  “More so, I’d guess, or the laird would no be so keen on you,” came this bold statement.

  This stopped Tess, which caused Angus to halt as well. “He is no such thing.”

  Angus leaned toward her and lowered his voice conspiratorially, “They all stare at you, I ken, but his is ... brooding. I can feel it.” He drew out the word ‘feel’.

  All teasing aside, Tess thought to inform him, “Angus, you now know my circumstance here. They all hate me. I am the outsider, and half-English at that. Never mistake it for something it is not.”

  “He dinna hate you and well you ken it. And they do stare, lass. They dinna want to, but they canna help themselves.”

  Tess made a face and started walking again, bringing Angus along with her.

  “You are a fanciful old man, my friend,” she told him, trying to put an end to the conversation.

  “He’s here now,” Angus said. “He’s watching you. Can you no feel it?”

  Unnerved, Tess lifted her eyes and scanned the hall.

  “Am I right?”

  “Yes,” she answered unconsciously, her eyes on Conall, who was indeed at the end of the hall, at the family table atop the dais, his eyes most definitely on Tess. Gooseflesh rose on her arm, but she didn’t know whether to attribute this to Conall’s heated stare or Angus’s unseen knowledge of this. She met Conall’s eyes and moved not at all.

  “You need only to smile, lass. That’s all.”

  Tess did smile, nervously, mayhap more as a reaction to Angus’s foolish statements and this silly mischief. But Conall smiled back at her. Surrounded by his bailiff, his clerk, his steward, and several of his soldiers, apparently about the castle’s business, he paused and smiled back at her, just lifted his lips ever so slightly, as if he, too, were surprised by this turn of events. The men gathered around him then turned to see who had earned this rare boon from their laird. Tess blanched a bit, as these faces showed not any façade of agreeableness to match their chief’s. Her cheeks heated to such a noticeable degree that she felt Angus’s comforting hand cover hers.

  Now unsettled, Tess scurried along, forcing Angus to accelerate his normally unhurried pace. Scrupulously avoiding letting her eyes stray again to the far side of the hall, she settled Angus in his chair by the hearth, and made a quick exit out the main door, heading to the kitchens the long way around to avoid having to pass close to the table, and Conall.

  SHE COULDN’T VERY WELL avoid him completely, Tess determined the next day, still nervous about any possible encounter with Conall. She’d been allowed more freedom and didn’t want that spoilt just because she couldn’t seem to be within eyesight of him without losing her breath. “I just have to learn to deal with it,” she resolved, skipping down the stone steps, wondering what exactly it was, deciding that any further investigation into it was foolhardy.

  She had desired to be out of doors again today, but the sound of rain dancing off the stone of the keep had changed her plans. She sought out Serena instead, hoping she might be of assistance for an idea Tess had chewed upon late last night.

  As she reached the landing, Tess turned the corner to reach the lower stairs and promptly collided with Conall’s chest. His hands reached out to steady her, and Tess wasn’t wholly certain how she successfully tamped down an exclamation of surprise.

  She should have been frightened to be in such close proximity to him—after what had happened the last time they’d been this near, the last time they’d touched—but she was only aware of the distracting sensation of his touch, warm and familiar. For a moment, they only stared. His gaze appeared neither unfriendly nor unkind.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled, and his cheek twitched. He dropped his hands from her arms.

  She shook her head to ward off his unnecessary apology but could produce no words to
strengthen this. Voices belonging to those busy in the hall below drifted up to them, the only sound around them for a long moment.

  “I’m headed off to—”

  “I was looking for—”

  They’d spoken at the same time, words rushing out to fill the uneasy air between them. Short bursts of edgy laughter escaped them both, emerging as strong puffs, as if they’d been holding their breaths. Tess breathed in the scent of him and swallowed hard.

  “I’ll be taking a party to the border,” he said, and Tess considered that he’d never before informed her of his plans for any day from the time since she’d first come. She had no idea what that meant, taking a party to the border—though the heavy leather breastplate covering his chest had not gone unnoticed—but she acknowledged the delight she felt that he’d shared it with her.

  “I’m off to find Serena. I thought she might help me with a project,” she told him, to which he raised a brow. “I wonder if I might be allowed some fabrics and sewing notions.” When his expression didn’t change, she rushed on, “I had often made my own clothes at the abbey. Here, I am stealing all of Serena’s,” she said with a nervous laugh, “which hardly seems fair. I could—”

  Thick brows lowered briefly over his dark blue eyes. “We have clothiers in the village,” he said, “they depend upon the income.”

  Tess bit her lip and pled her case. “I would not infringe upon their trade. Angus and I, now, we are only extra persons. It would not reduce their income.” He seemed to consider this. “I haven’t anything, really, to occupy myself,” Tess continued, “now that I ...am not needed in the kitchens.”

  Oh, and here she had been faring so well, putting words and sentences together before him without sounding like a halfwit. But here he was, ruining all that, just because he’d lowered his eyes, and was now staring at her lips.