A Highlander's Need Page 2

  “And the healer. A good one, I hope?”

  “She has been our family’s healer for as long as I can remember,” Donald explained. “As good a healer as there has ever been, I would wager.”

  “How would ye know? You’ve only ever had one,” Fergus grumbled, unimpressed.

  Tavis might die without seeing either of his sons. Brice ought to be here, he would be happier to see Brice than he would to see me.

  For they had not parted on the very best of terms. Fergus’s determination to join the army had been the reason for leaving home, along with being the reason for countless arguments full of bitter words which could never be taken back.

  Brice had suggested he accompany Fergus so as to assuage their parents’ misgivings, and it had worked. He had always been the more reasonable of the two MacDougal sons, always with a gift for smoothing over even the roughest argument with a well-delivered joke or sharp bit of insight.

  He’d been the favored of the two as well, a fact which had never been lost on Fergus. The less-loved child was never unaware of their stature, no matter how many times they received assurance of misunderstanding their parents’ true feelings.

  No, Brice had been easier to love.

  Yet as a man, fully grown with years of experience behind him, Fergus understood something he hadn’t the maturity to conceive of as a lad of seventeen; his father’s refusal to accept Fergus’s wishes to go to war was a sign of his desire to protect his son. It was an act of love.

  He dug his heels into the horse’s ribs to spur it to greater speed.

  Let his cousins catch up to him. He knew the way and could be there before midnight if he rode fast enough and did not stop except for water.

  By the time the Campbell house came into view, both Fergus and the gelding he rode were exhausted. Only the light from a three-quarter moon provided guidance as they closed in on the rambling old monstrosity which sat in the shadow of Ben Macdui.

  Would that the house had been built with the grandeur of the mountain behind it in mind. Fergus’s far-off ancestor had not much sense when it came to such matters, thinking size was the only important factor in a grand house.

  Anything to show off the power of Clan Campbell.

  And large the house was, surprisingly so. But it had been built with no consideration for appearance. Not like the Anderson house, which impressed without shocking the observer, and certainly nothing like the Duncan manor house. That was a castle, which the Campbell house only aspired to be.

  Rooms had been added on over time, one after another, along with towers and spires which served no purpose. How many guards did one need at a time? Who did the Campbells expect invasion from?

  The effect this achieved was the opposite of what the Campbells had aspired to. It made them look ridiculous—at least, it did in Fergus’s eyes.

  His father was dying in there. In that vulgar house so far from home.

  And yet he slowed the horse’s pace as they rode over a stone bridge which crossed the River Dee and led up to the front door. He told himself it was out of pity for the poor beast, who had put in nearly a full day of hard riding, but it was a lie.

  He knew it was.

  If the healer had claimed his father only had days to live before they’d made the ride to the River Eden, which would likely have taken at least five days or more, then another four days to the place where they had met up with Fergus…

  What were the chances of Tavis MacDougal being alive?

  He did not wish to arrive at the house only to find that he had missed his father’s last breaths, his last words. To know he’d been just as much a failure as a son as he had always been.

  He’d seen the faces of many dead men. Too many to count, both, on the battlefield, and off. Why did the notion of seeing the same blank peace on his father’s face chill him so? Why did he deliberately take his time in reaching the house?

  There must have been someone in one of the many guard towers who’d taken note of his approach, for a pair of riders met him halfway from the bridge.

  “I am Fergus MacDougal,” he announced.

  “Aye,” one of them replied with a curt nod. “We’ve been expecting ye.”

  "We’re to escort ye to the house and to Tavis MacDougal,” the other explained.

  Hope nearly choked him, gave him renewed strength when he’d been all but ready to fall from the saddle only minutes earlier. “Is he alive?” he dared asked.

  “Aye.”

  It was the only response he received, without additional explanation, but it mattered not. His father was alive. Perhaps they might smooth over any lingering disappointment or disillusionment and come to an understanding of each other.

  A pity it had to take so long to reach such an understanding, but it was better than never reaching it at all.

  He followed the pair of guards, dressed in black as Luthais preferred—as with the horses, which made them all but impossible to see when clouds drifted over the moon—through the entry hall and past the great hall where many members of the household were bedding down for the night.

  Why the leader of Clan Campbell could not see fit to grant them more comfortable accommodations in the house’s many bedchambers, he would never understand. No one used them except during clan meetings, and the lack of activity in the house told him there was no such event taking place at the time.

  Not everyone ran their households as Padraig Anderson did, he supposed.

  The direction in which the guards led him gave Fergus cause to ask, “Where are we going? Is he not in bed?” For where else would a dying man spend his final days?

  They offered no explanation, instead coming to a stop outside a door Fergus vaguely remembered as the door to Luthais’s study. He looked from one guard to another, wondering if it did not make more sense to have Tavis on the first floor rather than rushing upstairs and down when he needed help, before pushing the heavy, wooden door open.

  He found his uncle seated by the fire, his legs stretched out, his feet resting on a stool. He held a chalice of wine in one hand and turned with a pleased, convivial smile on his craggy face at his nephew’s entrance.

  He’d grown older, naturally, his bright-red hair thinner and streaked with gray, his eyes faded, even thinner than Fergus remembered him. As though he’d shrunk.

  This was not what held Fergus’s attention, however.

  It was the fact that his father sat in much the same position, with his own glass of wine, his feet also propped up close to the fire’s warmth.

  Yet his smile did not hold the same bright, cheerful appearance.

  In fact, he looked rather ashamed.

  Fergus’s mouth fell open, the exhaustion and grief and guilt he’d battled for hours hitting him all at once. And now, they were accompanied by confusion and budding anger.

  “What is this all about?” he demanded, his hands curling into fists at his sides.

  “We are sharing a toast,” Luthais explained, raising his chalice. “To the groom.”

  Fergus’s lip curled into a sneer as he turned to his father. “The groom?”

  “Aye, son.” His voice was just the same as ever, albeit with an edge of sorrow. “It’s sorry I am that we made up such a tale with which to bring you here.”

  “It worked,” Luthais crowed before drinking deeply of his wine. “And now, we can tell your son of the plans we’ve made for him.”

  “No one makes plans for me,” Fergus spat, anger taking the place of horror. Perhaps it was a natural development, one from the other. His horror at being so easily duped enraged him.

  The horror that his own father would agree to such deception.

  With that, his uncle’s smile turned to a sneer. “That is where you are mistaken, my nephew. For you are betrothed to a young lass from Clan Reid.” When Fergus merely gaped in stunned silence, he added, “You are to be congratulated, truly. It is a better match than you might have hoped for otherwise.”

  3

  “Moira!
You know you cannot hide forever!”

  “That is what you think,” Moira whispered, halfway up a sturdy oak tree. She pressed her front to the trunk, with one hand gripping a branch to either side and both bare feet balanced on the strongest limb she could find.

  “Moira!” Jamie’s singsong tones reached her ears as they echoed through the woods. “Come out! Come out! You know I’ll find you!”

  “Jamie!” Iain’s voice rang out, so similar to his twin’s, much like everything else about them.

  Moira could always tell them apart, however, both by sight and by sound. They could not fool her into mistaking one for the other, though this never stopped them from trying.

  “Aye!” Jamie shouted.

  “I checked the brook. She isn’t there.” The two of them met up not twenty feet from where Moira watched, biting her lip to silence the laughter bubbling up in her chest.

  The sight of her twin brothers scratching their curly, brown heads and turning in circles was nearly too comical to be borne. It was unfair, perhaps, to play these games with boys so much younger than herself. But they insisted that reaching the ripe age of twelve years made them men, and this meant they were keen to prove themselves.

  Finding Moira when she hid in the woods was as good a way to do this as any, since no one knew the woods and all their secrets the way she did. No one was as swift, as surefooted, as fearless.

  And they were becoming frustrated at their lack of progress.

  They began looking up, into the trees. She ducked behind the trunk, hiding her face. The bark beneath her feet was uncomfortably rough, but she was accustomed to it and felt no need to shift her weight. Such movement would only give her away.

  “I know what let’s do.” Jamie’s voice held a note of secret devilishness.

  “What?” Iain asked.

  “Let us practice the trick-shooting with our bows, since we are alone now.”

  Moira held her breath, straining her ears to listen. Trick-shooting? What was he on about?

  “Do you think it is wise?” Iain asked, always the more cautious of the two.

  “Moira is in hiding. She won’t find us and tell Father.”

  She screwed up her face in a scowl. Ooh, the little devil.

  So, this was how he wished to win? By cheating? For he knew she must be somewhere close and wagered on her flying at them in a half-crazed rage if they engaged in anything as daft as what they were hinting at.

  He would find out she was not so easy to fool as all that.

  She peered out from behind the trunk, watching with one eye as the twins positioned themselves roughly thirty feet apart, with Iain standing against a pine. He nestled a large pinecone on top of his thick, unruly hair so like his brother’s and sister’s.

  Moira’s nails all but dug into the bark. They would not attempt something so dangerous. No, worse than dangerous. Deadly.

  Jamie took his time drawing an arrow from the quiver strapped to his back. Oh, would that she had never seen to it that Father acquired one for each of the boys on their twelfth birthday. Was this what they had employed their time in practicing?

  Shooting objects off one another’s heads?

  Iain, for his part, looked confident as he stood there, waiting for the moment of truth. “Do take your time about it,” he smirked.

  Jamie nocked the arrow, holding it and the bow at shoulder-level. “What? You cannot remain still for a minute? You had better, or I might miss.”

  He was not serious. Neither of them could be.

  Could they?

  She watched, chewing her lower lip to bits, as Jamie drew back the bow. Iain drew a deep breath and steadied himself, eyes closed.

  She looked back and forth. Back and forth. Would they? They wouldn’t. They were merely testing her.

  What if they were not?

  What if she lived the rest of her life knowing she might have saved her brother from a terrible death at the hands of a hare-brained stunt?

  “Ready?” Jamie asked.

  “I think so,” Iain muttered through gritted teeth.

  Jamie began to count. “One…”

  “No,” Moira whispered.

  “Two…”

  “You wouldn’t,” she breathed.

  “Th—”

  “Stop! Stop! I’m here, I am right here, I’ve been watching you all this time.” She glared down at the pair of them. “You do not play fair, brothers.”

  Jamie doubled over with laughter. “I knew you could not remain hidden!”

  Iain, on the other hand, removed the pinecone from his head with a trembling hand. “It is good to know you were so certain. What would you have done if she did not call out?”

  Jamie shrugged while replacing the arrow in the quiver. “I would have shot high up in the branches. I would not have harmed you.”

  Moira swore under her breath as she shimmied down the tree, landing on the ground with a thump. “Both of you are no better than hedge-born scoundrels. And I will have you know that I wouldn’t have stopped you if it had been Jamie waiting there with the pinecone on his head.”

  Jamie’s fair skin turned an alarming shade of red. “You would not?”

  “No, and not because I feel Iain is the better marksman.” She stuck her tongue out at him before scampering away, laughing gaily as her brothers followed, shouting half-hearted insults.

  Of course, both boys—she refused to think of them as men and likely would never be able to after having raised them—meant more to her than her own life. They were well aware of this, which was why Jamie had been so certain of winning their game once he’d placed Iain’s life in danger.

  Even if there had never truly been danger.

  She emerged from the woods, still running—it brought her where she wished to be faster than mere walking, and she never took her time when there was a faster way of getting somewhere—but her lightheartedness did not last long.

  The sight of her father’s gray gelding hitched to the post beside the front door to their home took the heart from her, as knowledge of his presence normally did.

  The boys caught up with her in quick fashion, the laughter leaving their voices as they observed what she had already seen.

  “He ought to have been gone another three days, perhaps four,” Iain observed. They exchanged a knowing look. “Perhaps he finished his business at the meeting sooner than he expected.”

  Moira could not help smiling at her brother’s hopeful tone. He was a lovely boy who would make a good man one day, though their father had done little to teach him through example.

  Perhaps his frequent absence of late was the best thing he could give his sons, then. The less contact they had with him, the better.

  As for Moira, she’d spent years in avoidance of the man, spending as little time in his presence as possible while still maintaining his home and ensuring the preparation of his meals. She could not remember a time when he had inspired anything warmer than apathy.

  For that was the best he’d been able to muster for her, and for the boys whose delivery had killed his wife.

  Not that he had expressed great warmth toward her, either, at least from Moira’s recollection. The man was simply not possessed of the ability to display affection—even if he’d been able to feel affection, which she found doubtful.

  “Come, then,” she smiled, injecting what cheer she might into her voice. “He will be full of stories, which shall keep him employed in talking until it is well past twilight.”

  This was normally the case whenever Kin Reid returned from a meeting of the clan. His blood would be up, his desire to remind his sons of the importance of their clan, stronger than normal.

  Even Moira knew of the clan’s strength, the way their influence stretched through her home of Banff and far beyond.

  Not that she was supposed to know, she reflected as she escorted her brothers through the fields between the woods and the stone cottage with its sagging, plank roof. She was but a woman, and therefore though
t to be unworthy of such understanding.

  It was enough for her to wait at home by the fire, to tend the children and keep the house as though it were her own and not her father’s.

  Enough for some, perhaps. But not for her.

  Upon crossing the threshold, Moira immediately set herself to work so as to avoid conversation with her father. The boys, however, had no such occupation in which to take solace.

  “Where were ye?” Kin demanded, ducking to avoid smacking his head on the doorframe between his bedchamber and the kitchen.

  “Only in the woods,” Jamie explained, always the quick-tongued of the twins. “We had long since finished the chores and felt it would suit us to engage in practice with our bows.”

  This mollified the hulking man, but only slightly. He folded his body, taking a seat at the table in the center of the cottage’s main room. “What about ye, then, lass? Do not tell me ye were practicing yer archery.”

  She merely gritted her teeth and replied without turning from the pile of potatoes she peeled. “I do not need practice, as you well know.” She was by far the best hunter of the four of them—while it was no great feat to surpass her younger brothers, the fact that she’d outperformed her father time and again in the last several years was a thorn in the man’s breast.

  Perhaps if he would spend less time with his head in a mug of wine and more time at practice, he would be able to bring home a stag every so often.

  Kin Reid took this with uncharacteristic calm—which, upon later reflection, should have been when Moira first realized something was amiss.

  “Aye, I suppose ye are quite the archer, though I have never approved of ye running wild as though ye were a man.”

  She rolled her eyes, peels flying away from potatoes at an alarming rate as she imagined skinning her father alive. He may have sired her and supported her, therefore deserving her allegiance, but his attitude toward her and women on the whole made him repugnant.

  Only the presence of her brothers and the love she bore them kept her under the man’s roof. She would have just as soon seen him hire help than live another day in that cheerless home.