The Highlander’s Passion (Iron 0f The Highlands Series Book 3) Read online

  She was about to get undressed when she heard a knock on the door. “Daughter?”

  “Yes, Father?”

  Her father was standing on the doorstep, a shy grin on his face. “Daughter, with the arrival of Westford and all, I didn’t have the time tae give ye what I brought from the merchant’s guild.”

  “A gift?” Seonaid stared in surprise. Usually, when he came back from a voyage, he brought her something – a little string of glass beads, a curious stone he found on a shoreline, the precious mirror, rare and costly all the way from Italy. This time, when he’d returned two months ago, he’d brought nothing. She had been a bit surprised, but hadn’t said anything.

  “Aye. I had it made, and I had tae wait for it tae be done. Now, I reckon it’ll become ye…what do ye think?”

  He handed her a cloth-wrapped bundle about the size of a sack of grain. It was soft, like a sack, but not nearly as heavy and she felt her heart thump as she unwrapped it from the covering of linen.

  She stared, heart pounding, absolutely speechless. It was a velvet dress, in a gray color that was close to blue, the color the sky sometimes went in the evenings, in the misty distance. She felt her throat working, and tears sprang to her eyes.

  “You like it?”

  “Father?” she swallowed hard, composing herself. “It’s beautiful!”

  He grinned and blushed scarlet as she wrapped her arms around him, squeezing his spare, lithe body in a firm grip. He hugged her back, his arms hesitant and tender as he returned the embrace.

  When they stepped back, both of them were weeping.

  “I’m so glad ye like it. Your mother would have been so proud, seeing how you grew up. You’re so like her in some ways.” He swallowed hard. “I reckon she would have said this dress looks well on ye.”

  “Oh, Father.” The words were even more a gift than the dress itself. She felt her heart ache with tenderness and she put the dress down carefully on the chest where she kept her clothes, then walked lightly over and wrapped him in another big hug.

  “Och, lass,” he said, sniffing and blinking. “Get along wi’ ye.”

  He headed out into the hallway.

  Seonaid knew he was simply embarrassed to show his tears, and she turned to the window a moment, wiping away her own tears. She wanted to try the dress on, but she didn’t want to risk staining it. She was still hesitating when she heard a cry in the street – an angry, startled shout. It was followed by another, and then a scream of protest.

  “Brigands!”

  Seonaid didn’t stop to think. She had ever been impulsive, and the thought of anybody being attacked in the street outside sparked her rage. Besides, what if they were trying to get into the warehouse? Affront mixed with the rage and, grabbing a walking staff from behind the door, she ran out into the street outside.

  A MAN IN TROUBLE

  Everett McDowell looked around the street, shock keeping him rigidly in place. He felt his heart thump and tried not to fight or flee, but make a sensible response.

  What a sensible response might be to having started a riot, he wasn’t sure.

  “You scoundrel!” somebody near him shouted. Something unpleasant whistled past his ear, hurled by a member of the crowd that had by now gathered around him.

  More refuse followed it – whatever noxious things lay on the street were now raining down on him. He whirled round in alarm, and then started to run.

  “Liar!”

  “Cheat!”

  “Traitor!”

  Everett ran, but he feared there was no way he was going to be fast enough. He had gone too far, at least too far for the people on the street by the docks in Leith. Some of the crowd broke away, running after him. He ran, too, feeling outright terror now.

  “Liar!”

  “Gylas! What do you think you’re about?”

  A high, crisp voice rang out, affronted and commanding. Everett stopped running and whirled round again. Gylas – the local scrap iron collector, to judge from the wagon he was pushing – had stopped dead. He was looking at where the authoritarian voice had come from. Everett, surprised by the intervention, looked in the same direction.

  “There was a rabble rouser, Miss,” Gylas stammered.

  “That’s as may be,” the woman’s voice scathed him. “And when that happens, what should you do? Come to Captain McCarrick. Not start throwing things and damaging property.”

  The whole crowd – perhaps fourteen of them – turned to look at the woman. Some bowed their heads. Gylas himself looked upset. He was looking at his feet, not into the eyes of the speaker.

  Everett stared. The woman who spoke – and it was surprising enough that she was a woman – was tall, with long brown hair that fell in a curling mass down to beyond her shoulders. Her eyes were pale blue and her skin clear and radiant. He noticed, more than anything else, the strong regard these people had for her. The angry rioters had transformed into a silent crowd. Some of them looked shamefaced. A few dropped the rocks and other small things to throw that they were carrying.

  “He said that we should fight against the King,” one man spoke up. He spoke respectfully. The woman nodded to him. She turned her gaze on Everett. He felt himself wither.

  “You should know better than to speak so in this town,” she said tightly.

  “He was inciting treason, Miss!” a bolder man spoke out. She turned that inscrutable stare onto him and Everett was glad to be, for the moment at least, out of the line of its ire.

  “That’s as may be, Barnett. But causing a riot in the street is just as upsetting to the peace. And, if you had killed him? What then? Would you all become murderers, then? This is no time to take the law into our own hands. It would be best to fetch the magistrate for such cases.”

  “Miss, but…”

  “If you had called the magistrate, he might have arrested this man. As it is, we have no evidence of his treachery,” she reproached them all. “All we have is a riot. Next time, please. Find a person of some standing who can bring such miscreants to justice.” She raked the crowd with her stern stare.

  A silence fell on all of them. Then somebody pointed at Everett and shouted something incomprehensible.

  “Aye! But, what are we to do wi’ him?” somebody else called out.

  “We will make sure he leaves town,” the woman said firmly.

  As a desultory handful of cheers went up around the group, Everett felt his hope wither. She might have temporarily allayed his death, but now he had no choice but to leave town, and fast. The nearest place he could claim shelter was the abbey, but it was half a day’s ride from here, and he would be walking. He faced a real possibility of dying on the road.

  It was cold now, the winds blowing off the sea at night bitter and chilling. The thought of a night under the stars was frightening.

  The woman was looking at him. “You, sir,” she said. “Are to leave by the rear gate. Now.”

  He nodded, feeling resigned. He would go past the inn to fetch his belongings – a saddle bag that he carried himself and a cloak. He hoped he could make it there and back before the inhabitants set about him again.

  The woman cleared her throat, drawing his attention back to the present. She waited for the crowd to hush, then raised a hand. “Be on your way,” she said.

  As the crowd cheered, she gave them a harsh look. “And you will give him time to get himself gone. I will not have anybody becoming a murderer this night.”

  They grumbled, and Everett saw some suspicious glances hurled in her direction. His fist instinctively closed, and he wanted to attack anybody who threatened his protector. However, none did. Still muttering, they dispersed back to whence they’d come.

  He stayed where he was, head down, trying to avoid meeting anybody’s eye again. He heard footsteps approaching him and a shadow fell over the cobbles, thrown from the wavering light that sank over the sea. When he looked up, he found himself face-to-face with the woman.

  “Milady, I…” he stammered as he
took a step back. “Thank you.”

  “Miss McCarrick, will do,” she said dryly. He heard an amusement in her voice and wondered at it. “You are a rabble rouser, I agree with the rest of the town. You are foolish, to speak so. Do you not know you could have been killed? This is a peaceful town and we’ll have none of your fomenting hatred.”

  Everett wet his lips, thinking. She had a cultured voice, and the bearing of the gentry. Yet she had no guile or arrogance, and what she said was true. Part of it rankled. Had she no idea of the danger the town faced?

  “Miss, the people of this town are fools to send me away. Have ye not considered this coming war? What think ye, when the English attack? Would they let us send ships tae France, to call for aid? No. They’ll burn this town and I don’t reckon they’ll care for any who live in it.”

  “You have said enough,” the woman said darkly. “We’ll have none of that talk here. Don’t make me doubt my good nature in saving ye.”

  Everett chuckled bitterly. “You can call them back,” he challenged.

  She stared at him and he saw those slate blue eyes flicker, and wondered if she was not considering doing so. He took a step back, realizing he was a fool to underestimate this woman.

  She sighed.

  “I don’t wish to murder anyone, nor for good folk to have that on their hands. No. Come to my house and get provision. It’s the big one on Merchant’s Row. Then, take your steps from this town and I hope you never darken it again.”

  Everett grinned, trying to disarm her – he’d been told he was charming enough times, and with his brown hair and deep brown eyes, he thought perhaps those people spoke true. He met a flat, hard stare.

  “Do not assume that, because I saved your life, it is possible to treat me lightly,” she said, and this time he heard real anger there. “Use your advantage and get out of the town, before somebody throws something at you that will actually do some damage.” Her eyes mocked.

  He felt his eyes narrow in anger. This time, he was affronted. He nodded, his throat too raw with his emotions to trust himself with speech.

  “Yes, milady.”

  She glared at him a moment, then even the rage on her face was replaced with a distant coldness. She turned her back and walked away.

  “Och,” Everett spat. He turned away and walked up the street towards the inn. He might have done some stupid things, but he did have some sort of dignity, and he was not about to pursue her, asking her for assistance. She’d saved his life, and that in itself was hard enough to accept with grace.

  He walked swiftly up the darkening alley toward the inn, wishing he had chosen a more likely band of rebels to begin his army.

  “Och, you’re a fool, lad,” he told himself as he splashed water on his face in the tiny inn room in the fetid inn he’d chosen as his only possible sleeping place that night. “You’re a sailor. Not a bloody fighting general.”

  He laughed harshly at his own presumptuousness. He was Everett McDowell, not Robert de Brus! If anybody was going to rebel against the new king, it would be him, not the likes of a sailor from an unnamed fishing village on the riverside.

  “And now you’ve got yourself thrown out of the only place ye were ever likely tae recruit anybody. The best place to start. And saved by a lass, as well! Grand work, Mr. McDowell.”

  He grimaced and, lifting his cloak from the seat, he hurried downstairs. He would still have to pay the innkeeper, and hope he had enough provision to not risk death on the road.

  “Thank you, ma’am, for the sleeping place,” he said grudgingly to the innkeeper’s wife. “It seems I have tae move myself from this town rather fast.”

  “Sailing wi’ the trade wind, eh?” she asked. She laughed, as if that was a fine joke. “Now, lad – I got some advice for ye. Keep yer collar up, aye, and dinnae stay about on these streets after dark. There’s bad sorts out. Here.” She passed him a cloth-wrapped bundle.

  Everett took it, his throat contracting. Inside, he felt something warm and semi-soft. He peeked in, and found bread and cheese. A wrinkled fruit from the cellar was wrapped with it. Provisions.

  “My son went for a soldier,” the woman said. “I hope somebody did the same for him. Now, off ye go.”

  Everett felt a lump in his throat as he repeated his thanks. The woman had already gone inside, heading back to the kitchens.

  “Well, if that isn’t grand,” he murmured to himself. “Here I am, getting myself into awful scrapes, and two women save me. If this isn’t telling me I’m being a fool, rabble rousing, nothing’s going tae tell it tae me.”

  He stuffed the bundle into his saddle bag, gripped the handle in his own hand and headed out, trudging toward the town gates. Mayhap there were other ways to repel the threat from England, besides overthrowing their puppet-king.

  He kept his head down as the guard called out to him. “Name? And purpose?”

  “Jack Denham,” he said swiftly. “Rag man.”

  The guard chuckled contemptuously and Everett suppressed the very real desire to hit him. It compounded his impression of the town as a home of rude and unpleasant scalawags.

  “Off with ye, then,” the guard said. “The gate stays closed at eight of the clock.”

  Everett shrugged inwardly, narrowly avoiding mentioning the fact that he wasn’t in the least bit interested in coming back into the town, and walked out.

  On the road, he walked furiously away. He felt his anger slowly start to cool as he trudged along the cobbles, each step working out more of his rage. He reached a point where the road changed from cobbles to dirt, and kicked at a pebble, feeling simply annoyed.

  “I cannot believe it.”

  His first recruitment attempt had ended in ignominious conditions. He’d been almost killed by townspeople, and then saved by a lass with a sharp tongue.

  “Bother her,” he muttered.

  He knew, though, that he was grateful to her, which made it hard not to feel humiliated more. Worse than that, though, was the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

  He swore, blundering into the darkening tree line.

  Here he was, out in the woods, in perilous danger, at night, and he couldn’t stop thinking about a tall, commanding lass.

  I’ve never seen anyone like her.

  He still had no idea who she was – she’d mentioned Captain McCarrick, and, he supposed, that was either her husband or father. However, the villagers treated her respectfully, and being a captain’s wife or daughter didn’t necessarily command that kind of instant authority.

  The vexing fact was that she was beautiful. With that long oval face, generous mouth and the most arresting blue eyes he’d ever seen, she was undeniably a woman of striking looks. He couldn’t help the fact that his body had responded to hers at once, and part of him still wished he could lean forward and plant a kiss on her lips.

  “Och lad,” he told himself with some sadness. “She’d never look twice at you, laddie.”

  He had stopped by a river and there was just enough light left to cast a good reflection from the smooth surface of the water. He saw level brown eyes under a firm brow, a strong chin and full lips. He had brown curling hair, a thin nose and, in his opinion, the way his mouth crooked when he smiled, crinkling the corner of his right eye, was his most attractive point.

  “A lass like that’d only look at a fine lad.”

  He sensed that the McCarrick's were of fine standing – why else was she treated as second only to the magistrate himself, he reasoned? He was a just sailor from nowhere.

  “I dinnae even ken why I’m all caught up with this lot.”

  The fact was, though, that he did know. A Highlander by birth, he’d been raised in a fishing village by the side of a river. He had left with a trader at age twelve and, from there, found himself at the port. Thence, having no means to support himself, had fallen in with a group of sailors aboard a merchant vessel. It had been when he went back home, at age twenty, that he’d made his choice.

&nbs
p; “My father’s plight shouldn’t be the plight of any Scot.”

  He had returned home to find the fishing village almost empty, some houses burned. His father had been almost destitute, the house a ruin. He’d felt rage inside him then, like nothing he’d ever imagined feeling.

  “And this is the fault of lairds who take the side of England.”

  The village men had been called up to help the local laird put down a rebellion on his land against Baliol, the chosen successor to the Scottish throne. Chosen, to everyone’s ire, by the English king. That was why Everett hated the interference in Scots politics. It had reduced his father to a sorry state.

  “I might never have cared much for the old devil. But it angers me tae see him like this.”

  His father still relied heavily on the church, who Everett had approached for help all those years ago. Now at twenty-four, the rage in him against the English king still burned bright.

  He would not see other towns brought to poverty and pain because of it.

  He found a spot in a dry clearing and unrolled his cloak. He was going to have to camp here, and light a fire and hope the forest predators weren’t hungry. He shivered and drew out his supply of rations. It had been augmented with the innkeeper’s wife’s kind gift. He wondered, as he finished the rations he himself had brought with him for the trip, if he would have been responsible for the death of men like her son.

  “I reckon that’s what the lass would have said.”

  Already, he admired the lass from the street more than he would have expected.

  AN ARGUMENT AND A SURPRISE

  Seonaid frowned at the tally marks on the page before her. “Six bags, Father,” she called down the steps. The morning light shone in through the window, between clouds, making it easier to read the marks on the page. They were taking stock.

  “Aye,” her father called back. “I can see five. Eh, Logan…where’s that sixth bag of grain?”

  Seonaid bit back a smile as she heard barrels being rolled back, and the sound of the steward’s querulous voice. “I cannot see it here, Captain McCarrick.”