The Truth of Her Heart (Highlander Heroes Book 5) Read online

  And what did he get? He gained the protection of the Sutherland, she must assume, but traded his daughter and possibly several hundred acres of his not inconsequential land holding. John Bryce was a large landholder, but not a great lord, with neither a title nor an army, which essentially made him naught but a vulnerable farmer.

  “Go on, then,” said the earl, waving a careless hand in Maggie’s direction. “We’ve contracts to settle, and your bridegroom has rutting, as you say, to consider.”

  Maggie ignored the answering guffaws, and allowed Elizabeth once again to take her hand, this time pulling her away from the hall. They spoke not at all, but ascended the main stairs, onto the second floor’s narrow corridor and the next set of steps that led to the third floor. Elizabeth delivered Maggie to her chambers and only then spun her around to advise, her voice laced with sympathy, “It won’t be that bad. It won’t be awful. Maybe for the first few years, and then you’ll have children and he’ll leave you alone.” Her brows lifted, she forced as smile. “And then you’ll have your own keep to manage and children to raise and it will be fine.”

  Maggie stared at her, her mouth falling open. It won’t be awful. Dear Lord! So much to look forward to!

  Elizabeth was lucky, in that her husband was kind and not at all coarse or violent. She smiled at her friend, expressing some appreciation for her attempt to cheer her, as if that were possible now.

  “Thank you, Elizabeth. For everything.”

  “Very well, and now I’ll get to the kitchens and make sure we don’t embarrass ourselves in front of the earl with some less than fabulous supper.”

  Maggie nodded, her tight smile still in place, and closed the door behind her. With one hand on the door latch and the other flat against the cool wood of the door, Maggie leaned her forehead against the door and sighed. Closing her eyes, she resisted the urge to weep.

  It might only be awful for the first few years, Elizabeth had suggested hopefully.

  Forlornly, she turned and leaned her back against the door, staring straight ahead, seeing nothing, and wished her mother were alive still. She’d not have allowed this. She’d have immediately put a stop to the very idea. And she’d have given Kenneth Sutherland a mouthful—without cowing in the face of his dreadful threat—and would have had that boorish man begging forgiveness for his uncouth behavior.

  Twenty minutes later, in which time Maggie had done little more than flop onto the bed and lament her sorry fate, her father barged into the chambers. She jumped from the bed, hoping to God he might say that the Sutherlands were severely displeased with her and had begged off. She thought she could bear her father’s immediate displeasure over that more than she could stand to be married to that man belowstairs.

  No, that was not the case, she sadly learned right quickly.

  “Maggie, I’m tempted to beat some sense into you,” he growled out, no preamble given. “You’re goddamn lucky the man still wants to wed with you, and that the earl will let him.”

  “Lucky?” She scoffed. “Father, I would not consider myself fortunate to be married to that man.”

  “Aye, you’re just like your mam, curse her wretched soul.”

  Maggie gasped.

  “But you’ll no have love and all its frills, lass,” he said harshly. “The world ain’t made like that, and you weren’t born as such who could make it so.”

  In an exceptional move, Maggie grasped at her father, clinging to his forearm. “Please father, I’ll marry anyone, any other Sutherland if that’s the name you need me to wed, but not that man. I beg you—”

  “Think you’ll get a better deal?” He jerked his arm, his lips thinned.

  “Hah!” She derided, removing her hand from him. “The deal is yours and not meant for me. I’m naught but the chattel, sold for rutting and—”

  “And what did you want? You’re a woman, rutting and birthing are what you’re made for, that’s what’s expected of you!”

  That’s all that’s expected of you, she thought he meant.

  “I won’t do it,” she said, with a rare burst of defiance. Crossing her arms over her chest, she stalked away from her father and toward the window. “I won’t have anything to do with—”

  Her words were yanked away, as was her person, spun about by her father’s meaty paw, turned around just as his other hand swung out and cracked her smartly across her face.

  Only his hand on her arm kept her on her feet, though she stumbled with the force of the blow, throwing out her hand as the ground came close. But she was jerked straight, her face brought close to his.

  “You’ll do it, goddamn you!” He hissed at her. “You’ll do it with a bloody smile on your face! And I’ll hear no more about it!”

  It wasn’t the first time her father had hit her, but it had been a very long time since she had felt the back of his hand. There was no point in leveling any accusatory glare upon him; he’d proven immune to that justified impertinence when she’d tried exactly that many years ago, when she was so much smaller, so much younger.

  He towered over her, red-faced and seething while they squared off.

  Shaking herself free of his arm, she allowed only anger—and sadly, a bit of hatred—to color the glower she did fix upon him. And then she turned her back on him.

  I don’t deserve this, she thought with no small amount of self-pity. Staring blindly out the small slit of a window, she heard him leave, closing the door with a sharp thud.

  Chapter Two

  THREE DAYS LATER, MAGGIE once again found herself with the long strap of the basket slung over her shoulder and on her way to the river and the sea. She’d barely spoken any words to her father since he’d struck her. Sadly, she could not honestly say that she’d even been rewarded with his indifference to her silence, as he paid her so little attention that she wasn’t sure that he’d realized she wasn’t speaking to him.

  She was more than an hour into her walk, idling carelessly, finding more cold and hard stones in the river bed. She had no use for them of course, nor the shells she’d collect from the shore when she reached it, but the hunt brought her peace and the textures and colors of the rocks and shells brought her joy. She’d already unloaded several baskets into Elizabeth’s kitchen garden. The plot would see no activity until spring, and mayhap the addition to the soil would keep weeds at bay. She had no idea if that might be true, but she’d boldly suggested as much to Elizabeth.

  Three nights ago, Adam and Elizabeth had hosted a dinner for the Earl of Sutherland, with Maggie and Kenneth toasted as newly betrothed. At the time, she’d been particularly peeved, the imprint of her father’s hand still stinging and the introduction to Kenneth Sutherland still miserably fresh in her mind. She’d forced herself to smile, had listened to more tasteless chatter, had even bowed her head meekly when the Earl of Sutherland had made mention of the rising red stamp on her cheek, cautioning her, “Likely to be more of that, if you dinna learn to mind yourself and your tongue.”

  Her soon-to-be husband had, for the most part, ignored her presence, choosing instead to band with his brothers-in-arms, making raucous noises and telling wild tales of bloody battles that seemed to have no place at the supper table.

  However, she could now objectively look back and say the meal had not been horrible, not completely. Perhaps her own certain distress that day had only made it seem so at the time.

  Bending down presently, she reached for and scooped up a smooth stone that was banded with lines of pink and gray. Another caught her eye, this one dotted with flecks of silver that sparkled under the midday sun. She added both to her basket and continued on, intent on dwelling no more on her unfortunate circumstance. She must embrace Elizabeth’s prediction, that one day she would be happy, with bairns to love and a home to oversee.

  At one point along her trek, well before she’d reached the sea, Maggie turned back and considered the distance between her and the keep. She’d come to an open area along the river, where no trees crowded the banks, and
the keep, sitting not quite majestically atop a small berm, was clearly visible. ’Twas a pretty view, to see the keep nestled among rolling hills and clusters of the regal pines.

  The sky then caught her attention. A surging line of thick gray clouds would soon overtake the clear blue above. It was a curious sight, as the line between blue and gray nearly cut the sky in half. She watched the far clouds moving for a few moments, wondering how much time she had before the sun was shuttered behind those patches of gray.

  She resumed her walk, reaching one of several small sections of the river that were thin and shallow. It was funny that all these weeks she’d been walking this route, that area across the water had seemed to her to be a dangerous place, home to the unpredictable Mackays and their kin, surely a violent and treacherous place. Today, she gazed rather longingly across the river.

  She’d not ever be found by any Sutherland if she dared to cross onto Mackay land. Never have to wed Kenneth Sutherland.

  The notion came unbidden, and innocently enough.

  She did not let it go, as she should have.

  She glanced down at the ground beneath her feet. She pushed one foot forward, the toe of her thick leather boot peeking out from the hem of her gown. She moved the other foot as well, stepped onto a rock that was not wholly submerged in the water, and then another, further across the river. She had to skip to the next one and the one after that.

  And then she was on the other side, looking back onto Sutherland land from her precarious position on Mackay soil. Biting her lip, she stood very still for many minutes, trying to decide if fear might send her back, or if fear might propel her further.

  For several seconds while the enormity of what she dared crashed into her, she only backed away from the water until finally, she turned and ran, away from the open area of the river bank, deeper into Mackay territory. At first, her thinking wasn’t particularly defined or conscious, but she did eventually acknowledge to herself that she was actually, and now purposefully, moving away from the Gordon keep and the Sutherlands, and the bleak future designed for her. Her mouth formed a small o at the very idea. Her mind began to whir.

  When snow began to fall, she pulled her hood up and over her wimple and clutched her hands in the folds of her cloak, stepping around short scrub brush and over the cold, hard ground.

  She walked for quite some time, the continued snowfall naught but a gloomy backdrop to her heart-pounding boldness. But where might she go? She couldn’t return to her own home; her father eventually would as well, and there would be hell to pay for her dereliction. She had no other family, none that remained, none that she knew. And just as the winds began to howl and snow punched her in the face with stinging barbs that she was forced to tuck her head down nearly into her chest, Maggie remembered the abbey at which she and her father and their small group had begged respite for one night while traveling north to the Gordon keep so many weeks ago.

  Oh, but it had been lovely. Not the formidable Abbess Joan Alnwick, who had quite terrified Maggie with her stern demeanor and unwelcoming tone, who had only given refuge to their party after her father declared that he was about the business of the Earl of Sutherland.

  The quiet and the peacefulness of the abbey had intrigued her. Often throughout the night, she’d been lulled to serenity by the faraway sounds of chants and prayers and hymns, the hypnotic noise seeming to thrum through and live in the cool gray walls. She’d felt that any novice or nun she’d come upon during their brief stay must surely walk on air, their gait so tranquil and smooth, seeming to float along the quiet, candlelit corridors. And when they’d joined the ladies of the house in the refectory for a light repast before their departure, Maggie had been delighted with the smiles and giggles exuding from one particular table of girls about her age, and many younger. They’d seemed so happy. Never mind that they were garbed in dreadful and uniform gray dullness, nor that they must rise several times during the might for prayers and matins. Never mind that the entirety of their vocation, for the rest of their lives, would require naught but labors and prayers, and prayers and labors. Never mind that the Abbess Joan was indeed a dour character, likely to shrivel a girl with merely one glare from her shrewd brown eyes, Maggie had thought, even at their brief interaction.

  There was joy and peace and a sense of comradery and wellbeing there, Maggie had thought rather wistfully at the time. Surprised at her own daring, she decided right then and there that she would indeed find shelter now, and when the snows cleared and the sun shone, she would better be able to determine her direction and head south.

  To her new life.

  “YOU’D NO’ HAVE TUPPED her,” said Daimh, addressing his brother.

  “I could have,” returned Donal, “if we’d no’ taken to the road, being on our way.”

  “She’d no’ have any part of it.” Daimh said, shaking his head.

  It was only those closest to the brothers who could tell the twins apart. Born of a litter, they were sometimes teased, Donal being the runt then, but still large and broad—as pretty as ye are tall, their sweet mam often mused. And it was no lie. The twins were possessed of thick and glossy brown hair, hazel eyes to tease and tempt, and pleasing grins which they put to good use in their never-ending quest to win over any fair-haired wench, lady, or—as their captain had once quipped—“any female, be it animal or no, so long as she contained within the requisite parts”.

  “She would have,” insisted Donal, “And I’d have made sure she liked it. I’d no’ do it half-arsed like you, brother. And no’ like Hew,” he said, inclining his head toward the lad riding nearest them, knowing the very earnest young man listened intently, “who does no’ do it at all.”

  “Are you blushing, Hew?” Asked Daimh. “Still have no idea what the tupping’s all about?”

  “Aye,” laughed Donal, “but he’ll get it when he finally gets it.”

  “Aye, and won’t you shut up now?” Begged their captain, Duncan McEwen from behind. “You’re turning the mead in my belly sour.”

  Daimh chuckled. “Och, that’s the picture we put in your head, Duncan—young Hew with his trews around his ankles, a squinty-eyed wench before him, and him wondering where to put the little Hew.”

  The twins laughed uproariously at this, while Duncan said, “Aye, and that’s the right of it, but bloody bollocks, do you two ever talk about anything else?”

  Donal and Daimh exchanged grins. Donal wondered with a shrug, “What else is there?”

  Duncan rolled his eyes. “There’s only several wars going on at once, there is.”

  “Plenty of war indeed. And here we are, roving ‘bout the crags and beinns, naught but scouts while Pembroke rides roughshod over the Bruce down at Methven.”

  Duncan turned a scathing eye to Archibald Fraser. “Get over it already, Archie. Methven was months ago. ’Tis done,” he reminded the wretched man, not for the first time. “We’ve been charged by the Bruce himself—the king personally and specifically tasked the lad with ridding the north of that scourge, the one they call Alpin.” Duncan’s voice was tight, grounding out the words, perturbed that he so often needed to have this conversation with the man. “You want another massacre like that one at Wick? Like the one we saw no’ ten days ago in Helmsdale? Think those bastards who did that should go unpunished?”

  Archie, being of an age with Duncan, which was twice the age of any other man in this unit, made a noise that was unmistakably disapproving, but said no more. He scratched at his thick, more-gray-than-brown beard and turned his black eyes onto the trail again. Duncan supposed there might be some truth to what the twins often presumed, that Archie would be only half as miserable if he plowed the wenches twice as much. As if any would let him. He stood about as much chance as the infamously shy Hew, Archie’s hindrance being his God-awful mug, only made uglier by his perpetually menacing scowl.

  The lad who’d been tasked by the Bruce to rid Caithness of the thieving, heartless Alpin was Iain McEwen, nephew to the great Do
nald Mackay, holding lands for the Mackay chief in southern Caithness, currently riding point as they finally made their way back home, if only for a wee bit.

  Duncan and Archie had been swinging claymores for years when the lad took his first breath. Ten years ago, Duncan would have said Iain McEwen, his brother’s son, boasted as many assets as he had weaknesses, being proud and strong but impetuous and impatient, fierce and decisive in battle but then not always compassionate with the people under his care. He was hot-headed and irrational at times, but then cool under pressure and there was none you’d choose before him to have your back, if need be. Duncan liked to think he’d played some part in toning down the lad’s flaws, as he’d matured and settled into the role of laird to hundreds of people. He could safely say the lad’s virtues far outweighed his faults these days, even as shades of the former reckless boy reared its head now and again. Sadly, Duncan understood that seven months as a prisoner of the English was what had changed him most, had tamed all the wildness and recklessness.

  Just now, Iain stopped, several lengths ahead of the rest of their party. The other men—the twins and Hew, and Archie and Craig, that one as quiet and simple as his namesake rock—reined in as well. Duncan rode forward, until the nose of his destrier stood side by side with the lad’s.

  They sat atop their mounts, on the crag that overlooked the River Oykel, and stared out over a view they’d been treated to a hundred times before.

  But Iain McEwen saw not the vista; not the swell and curve of a line of Scots pines, dusted still with a coating of the wet snow that had come a fortnight ago; not the river itself, which meandered lazily, forming its own valley between the hard rock of earth; nor even the familiar cairn below, the ancient rock formation, taller than any man and shaped so peculiarly like a bee’s hive that Duncan would never believe it wasn’t man-made.