A Highlander's Reiver (Highland Temptations Book 3) Page 2

  Yet this was all they had. This pitiful excuse for a family was all they had. Their only home. It was this, or starve.

  Or freeze in the coming winter.

  “Have ye eaten yet?” she asked as she prodded him into the house.

  “Aye,” he grumbled, waving her off. The men were all either asleep after the revelry of the previous evening, or had yet to come home from whichever public house they’d spent their night and ill-gotten gains.

  Money seemed to burn holes in their sporrans, the fools. No sooner did they steal than they spent it. She often asked herself, after watching them stumble home or listening to their pained groans upon waking, why they did not spare themselves the agony by simply tossing their coins into Beauly Firth.

  The result would be the same, though they would feel much better in the morning.

  “What did ye eat, then?” She looked about, wondering where to begin with the awful mess that had been left for her after she’d closed herself off in her room in hopes of avoiding the worst of what went on elsewhere the night before.

  While Malcolm Stuart had always forbidden the men from trying anything untoward with her, there was no telling what a man in his cups was capable of. And thus, she stowed herself away on evenings like last night.

  “There was roast boar in the larder,” Liam answered as he stacked dirty mugs, frowning at a puddle of what had once been the contents of someone’s stomach.

  Anne darted across the room when it was clear what he intended to do. “Ye know this isn’t your work to be done,” she hissed, yanking the mugs from him. “Ye know what Malcolm will do if he sees ye helping me. Are ye daft, lad?”

  The way he flinched when she said it. How she hated seeing the light leave his eyes. He’d only wished to be helpful, good lad that he was. Always striving to prove himself, always trying so hard to be of use. She knew, too, that in this instance he wanted to be of help to her in particular. This was a woeful sight which she had no great desire to dirty her hands with.

  Yet Malcolm would roar down the very walls of the house in which they stood should he see Liam turning his hand to work which ought to be done by a woman. Och, how he would strike the lad down with sharp words and sharper blows.

  How she would hate him for it with every ounce of her strength.

  That was nothing new. She’d hated Malcolm Stuart for as long as she could recall. While she had little understanding of decent men—almost none, her father being the only one she’d ever known—she knew her mother’s brother could never be called one.

  None of the members of their so-called family could. Nothing but thieves, all of them, with her uncle at the head. How he liked to sit in his chair by the fire while they returned at the end of a day’s pinching, one by one, bragging over how they’d fooled the men or women whose goods they’d stolen.

  There were times when they would even laugh over the misery they’d caused. Those were always the worst times, when a great pantomime of weeping or fumbling about would take place. Only the lowest thief lingered that they might watch their victims at the moment they realized they were victims.

  She would never do that. She did not wish to see or even consider that what she stole came from a person. That the person in question would at some point take note of what went missing.

  Which was why she preferred to go out at night and do a little reiving. Taking a head of cattle was not the same as stealing a sporran or slicing open the bottom of the pocket beneath a lady’s apron, so the contents spilled out. She need not look at her victim or, even worse, touch them.

  She need not think of them finding they’d been robbed, or ask herself what the silver she’d stolen had been meant for. She need not imagine them going hungry that night for lack of the pence needed to purchase bread.

  The only reason Malcolm allowed her to remain in his household, other than the fact that she cleaned up after the human swine who lived there, was her skill at reiving. Not only was she fleet of foot and small enough to disappear into the shadows, she possessed a deft touch and knew how to calm the animals.

  A frightened beast would plant its feet and refuse to budge, if it did not decide to buck and fight and cause enough of a commotion to wake those in the house.

  Understanding the poor, terrified creatures came naturally to her, as did understanding her small, good-hearted brother. Malcolm would dismiss this as womanly softness. He liked to do that, to wave his hand and make light of her skill.

  If it weren’t for the fact that she’d have no way to make a life for them on their own, she would remove her brother from their uncle’s care and protect him. She would see to it that he grew up to be good and fine and honest. Respected, even.

  If only she knew how.

  “Och, must ye make such an unholy noise out here?” Malcolm’s surly growl made her cringe, as it normally did.

  She turned from the wash bucket to find the great redheaded bear of a man stumbling into the main room which served as kitchen, dining hall, even bedchambers when they had guests. He rubbed sleep from his bloodshot eyes before running both hands through overlong hair. It stuck up in all directions by the time he’d finished. A loud belch burst from his lips, and he groaned before falling into his customary, high-backed chair before the fire.

  If she had not hated the man for all she was worth, Anne might have felt sorry for him.

  “Is it noise I’m making, then?” she asked, drawing her wrapper more tightly closed. “Perhaps ‘tis because of the unholy mess ye made last night. Or would ye prefer it if I left puddles of sick about the place for ye to step in?”

  The man all but turned green at the suggestion. “Enough.”

  “Perhaps ye ought to be the one cleaning up after yourself.”

  “I said, enough!” He could still sound menacing even when in terrible shape, perhaps for the same reason why a kicked and starving dog sounded most vicious.

  She turned to Liam, who had taken his customary place in the corner furthest from his uncle. Not his uncle, truly—Malcolm was the brother of Anne’s mam, but she’d died soon after giving birth. Liam was the son of Kendrick MacDonnell’s second wife, who’d done her best to be a loving stepmother to Anne. The only mother Anne had ever known.

  Now, they were both long gone, and look what life had given Anne and Liam instead.

  Malcolm belched again, a miserable sound that made her clench her teeth.

  “Fetch me a mug, lad,” he muttered, waving a vague hand in Liam’s direction.

  “Ye haven’t had enough?” she asked under her breath.

  Trust him to hear just as well as ever, even when in the depths of misery as he was. “Aye, lass, and I’ll thank ye to keep yer wicked mouth shut. Every man knows the best way to cure himself of this wretchedness is to drink first thing. Not to intoxication, mind ye.”

  “Aye, Liam. Ye would do well to remember this,” she smirked.

  “He would, if he intends to be a real man,” Malcolm retorted.

  How she loathed him for saying it. As if being a real man meant thieving and drinking and causing mischief. As if there was no hope for him otherwise.

  Malcolm took the mug and drank deeply, some of the wine escaping and running down his chin, into the flame-red beard of which he was so vain. She turned away, sickened at the sight of him. Even scrubbing vomit from the floor was better than watching him make a sight of himself.

  “Liam, fetch the bread and roast from the larder and eat,” she instructed, shooting him a look which meant she was in no mood for his arguments. “Ye must fortify yourself, for the snow will be falling soon, and ye shall need to stay warm.”

  Malcolm snorted when the lad was out of the room. The poor thing had taken off like a shot the moment she’d given him reason to do so. Whether he would eat was anyone’s guess, as he’d already had his morning meal—or so he said, likely in hope of silencing her questions.

  “As if a few extra meals will be enough to fatten him up,” Malcolm muttered, tilting his head to re
st against the chair’s high back, then wincing when it made contact.

  “Perhaps if he’d been taken better care of as a wee one, it would be easier for him to put on weight,” she replied with an arched brow. “Perhaps if he’d been given proper food, he would not be so small now.”

  Malcolm waved a dismissive hand. How she wished she could chop it off. “Och, when your da was a runt? The lad was meant to be slight. He could eat an entire full-grown sow from head to tail and not put on weight. Dinna blame me for what he lacks, lass. I did the best I could for ye. Landing upon my threshold with nearly no explanation. And me, takin’ ye both in, even when I have no blood ties to the lad. All because he was your brother and my sister would have wished it so.”

  She sighed to herself. When he put it that way, she found it difficult to hate him quite as much.

  Though it was still no excuse to mistreat her brother.

  “You’ll be goin’ out tonight.”

  The abrupt change in subject drew her attention. “Will I, then?”

  “Aye, and I dinna wish to hear your complaints.” Malcolm rubbed his temples, wincing. She supposed his method of curing his illness had not taken hold. “You’ll return to the MacIntosh farm. ‘Tis been a fortnight at least, has it not?”

  “Near that.”

  “Then they shall be less inclined to keep watch,” he decided. “I know I can count on ye. Best reiver I ever knew.”

  She bit her tongue before a sour remark could cross her lips. A man such as himself considered being the best cattle thief high praise, she knew.

  There was no argument to be made, for she knew well the conditions of their life in Malcolm Stuart’s household. He provided food and shelter—though the shelter was hardly ever warm or dry enough and the food always seemed scarce—so long as Anne did his bidding.

  And she was skilled at reiving, of that there could be no doubt. So long as she kept Malcolm happy and brought in cattle for him to sell, he allowed them to live under his roof.

  It mattered not that she hated it, that she felt soiled and wicked afterward. The sort of filth that she could never scrub away clung to her skin, her hair. Her very soul.

  Yet it meant a home for Liam, and that was more important than her soul.

  “So be it,” she said with a sigh, as she always did.

  3

  “Och, so it’s Drew MacIntosh, is it?” The old woman in the healer’s shop cast a twinkling eye upon him. “And to what do I owe the pleasure today?”

  He grinned, though that grin faltered in a moment’s time. “I’m afraid it’s a tonic I’ve come for. If ye are able to provide it, ye ken.”

  “There has not yet been a condition or an ailment which my tonics could not mend,” the woman winked. “And ye well know it, man. What is it that troubles ye?”

  “’Tis not for myself, but for another. A lass.”

  The woman rewarded him with a sage nod. “Woman’s troubles, is it? Not to worry…”

  “Nay, nay.” He stammered and knew he was blushing, fool that he was. He simply could not bring himself to discuss something so personal with a healer who, charming and winning though she was, happened to be little more than a stranger.

  She waited, patient and alert. “Well, then? What can I provide?”

  “I dinna know why ‘tis such a difficult thing to tell ye.”

  “Why could she not come on her own?”

  Why was this so impossible? He had suddenly forgotten how to form words. “She is indisposed at the moment. She is… with child.”

  The woman’s snow-white brows knitted together over a long, thin nose. “I see. Ye are wishing for something to help her end this condition.”

  His jaw all but hit the floor when it became clear what the woman had assumed. “Nay! Och, for the love of God. She is Davina MacIntosh, my cousin’s wife, and she is quite ill due to the bairn. His bairn. Not mine.” This was perhaps the greatest humiliation he’d ever known, and he’d known his share.

  The woman’s eyes widened, a smile tugging at her thin mouth. “That is all? For heaven’s sake, Drew, ye need not have taken such pains. ‘Tis common enough, man! How far along is she?”

  “Many moons, but this is not the normal illness. I know enough to know that women often feel ill when carrying a child. Nay, this is much more serious. She has taken to her bed and most days canna leave it. She hardly holds down the broths we press upon her, much less anything more than that.”

  “I see.” She tapped her chin. “Aye, this is far more grave. I am pleased ye came to me, though I wish ye had thought of it before now. The poor thing could be spared this suffering. Rufus was correct in sending ye.”

  He shuffled his feet, embarrassed yet again. “He didna send me. ‘Tis my doing alone.”

  “And why is that? Why could your cousin not come on his wife’s behalf?”

  “He didna think of it, and has been too concerned with a number of other matters to consider it. He does not much appreciate my telling him what he ought to do, either. Though I canna blame him.”

  The healer snorted. “Few men do. Stubbornness, nothing more. It will take a bit of time to put the tonic together.”

  “I have other purchases to see to in the village and can return before going home.” He left the shop moments later, glad to have the errand over with.

  The truth of the matter was Rufus did not wish to take the chance of Davina using another tonic or tincture or anything which may cause more harm than good. He had little faith in what so many women who’d been through the house had to say. The lass ought to eat this. Nay, she ought to eat that. Teas made of foul-smelling herbs. Poultices applied to the soles of her feet which had done little more than further turn her stomach thanks to the stench.

  It seemed that much of the ordeal involved unpleasant odors.

  Oftentimes, the so-called treatments left poor Davina feeling worse than she had before putting them to use. He was not a cruel man—far from it, even if he had never been one to put much stake in emotions and the like.

  Except anger. Anger, he understood.

  The village of Avoch was chock full of people. Peddlers called out in hopes of capturing the attention of passersby. A group of men herded cattle down the center of the main road, leaving those on horseback or driving carts fleeing to the side to avoid being crushed. Children ran alongside the herd, calling out to each other and seeing which was brave enough to venture nearest the plodding hooves.

  He smiled to himself in passing, recalling the times he’d done the same.

  And knowing, naturally, that he would apply a switch to Owen’s backside if he ever did something so foolish. Lads were prone to such folly, and he supposed it was a natural part of life, but it was also a dangerous prospect.

  He’d never forget the screams of his young friend, Niall—or of his poor mam—when he was crushed under the wheel of a cart after bedeviling the team pulling it by throwing stones their way. One of them had struck their mark and caused the driver to lose control when the team reacted in fear and charged toward the threat. A lad of no more than eight winters, who’d been able to dart out of the part of the team had been no match for the heavy wheel.

  Twenty years had passed since that day, or roughly that many, and the memory still turned Drew’s stomach while gripping his heart. The screams…

  He shook off the images as he stepped into the tavern, where dozens of men gathered for their midday meal and to exchange information. There were a few familiar faces inside, belonging to men hunched over bowls of stew or cold roast and cheese. He nodded their way before drawing up a chair at an empty table near the fire where he could warm his hands.

  “Och, Drew!” One of the men called out from across the room. The smoke from the fire was thick enough that he could not see the face, but the voice sounded familiar. “How are the cattle at the farm? Have ye lost any as of late?”

  “Nay, and thank the gods for that.” He tucked into a bowl of stew, reflecting on what a blessing it was that
each head was accounted for. They’d lost nearly a dozen over the course of three months in spite of his every effort.

  Though the arrival of the twins had somewhat drawn his attention away from the problem. Fortunate for him and the rest of the farm, the theft had ceased.

  “Ye would be the only one,” another man shouted in reply, a note of disgust in his voice. “Cattle have been disappearing nearly every evening, sometimes two or three at once. It seems not a day passes when there is not a theft.”

  “Reivers,” Drew snarled. Foul things. Taking what others had worked so hard to own. The backbreaking effort they’d put into bringing the farm back to life. The sweat and even blood they’d shed.

  “If I ever found ‘em, I’d string ‘em up by their thieving necks,” one of the men grumbled, causing the others to grumble in agreement until the tavern seemed to shake from the sound.

  He could only add his voice in agreement.

  Hours later, Drew brought the team to a stop beside Rufus and Davina’s house. It sat nearest the road, at the end of a path leading from the stone wall bordering the land. He’d helped repair that very section of wall, along with so many others.

  The cart was laden with the goods he’d traded for in the village, though there was one particular item he’d purchased with silver from his own sporran. If only he had a few moments alone with her, that he might repeat the instructions the healer had shared with him.

  She was in bed, as ever, this time mending one of Rufus’s tunics. She smiled at his entrance. “I understand Clyde took the bairns home,” she explained. “He ordered me to rest in their absence, but I can only take so much resting.”

  “Ye feel uneasy?”

  “I feel as though I might crawl out of my own skin,” she admitted, putting the mending aside and stretching her fingers. “There are so many tasks to be seen to, and I am useless.”

  “Ye are tending to another task,” he reminded her with a wink. “Which is why I’ve come to visit ye.”

  “Not because ye wish to spend time with a bedridden woman?” She pushed her long braid over one shoulder before reaching out for the small bottle he held out.