The Highlander’s Dilemma Read online

  “I'm sure it isn't,” Alf observed. “Or if it was, the whole castle would be in uproar, and it's not. Father said we should wait and see what happens.”

  “Father's right,” Conn said sadly. He turned to his brother, eyes red-rimmed and sorrowful. “Not much else we can do, eh?”

  “You're right,” Alf agreed calmly. “We can't. So we can't do much to change it either, yes?”

  Conn sighed. Alf reminded him of Father sometimes. Pragmatic, their father was a blunt, honest soldier; his role as commander of the garrison bearing out his nature. He was reliable in a crisis and never seemingly concerned about anything; from being outnumbered to losing at chess, he was always tranquil, always ready with some comment that set them all off laughing heartily, worries forgotten.

  “I know,” Conn said, feeling angry that his brother was right. “But I still worry. Leona's worried.”

  “Leona will tell you about whatever it is,” his brother said, sounding certain. “Leona trusts you.”

  Conn smiled a little sadly. “I hope so.”

  Alf stared up at him, eyes round. “Brother, of course she does. You can't mean you've not noticed that?”

  Conn chuckled. He couldn't say he had. One thing that had always confused him was how Leona felt about him. He had never been sure. Always teasing, always chiding, Leona gave the impression at once that she loved his friendship and that she found him a silly nuisance. He wasn't often sure which was truer.

  “I don't know,” he said honestly.

  Alf snorted. “Sure looks that way to me, Brother. And it's not like I have experience in these things.”

  Conn laughed. Alf was seventeen and though he had probably had many encounters with women, he was not experienced in the sense of having found the woman he wished to wed.

  I have.

  Conn had no idea how one was supposed to tell; all he knew was that he felt sure. He loved Leona. He loved her with every fiber of his heart and every breath of his life. He knew that now. He could not walk away. Could not live without her.

  “Thanks, Alf,” he said gently. “We should go down. Mother will wonder what we're up to.”

  “Mother's with Amabel,” Alf explained. “They're talking about something important...I don't know what. Didn't stay about to listen. Besides, that's unmannerly.” He grinned.

  Conn snorted a laugh. “It is. I'm glad you didn't eavesdrop. Where's Father?”

  He changed the subject, guessing what his mother and aunt might be discussing. If he had to talk to anyone about this, it would be his father, that blunt, honest soldier. He needed his guidance more than anyone's.

  “He was at the stables the last time I saw him,” Alf said slowly.

  “He's still down there?” Conn was surprised.

  Alf nodded, a smile on his well-formed mouth. “I heard him teasing me about my obsession with the horses. He's worse, though.”

  Conn laughed. He could imagine he would be. His father was interested in all matters relating to war. Though his interest in horses was limited – he had never been a keen rider of any horse but his own, a rather grizzled Clydesdale called Bert. This obsession with destriers was new.

  “Well,” he said slowly, “let's go and find him. And then we could put in some time in the practice ground, eh?” he rolled his shoulders experimentally, sure that practicing at sword-strokes would distract him from his thoughts.

  “Yes!” Alf punched the air with happy victory. “I still need to beat you.”

  Conn chuckled. “You can try,” he challenged.

  “You're on!”

  Conn cuffed his brother's auburn-haired head in an affectionate way. “Challenge accepted. Greatswords it is.”

  They laughed and, laughing still, headed down the corridor toward the stairwell.

  Conn walked to the stables, breathing in the scent of hay and warmth, smells that had filled his childhood and were now as familiar as the curve of his mother's cheek or a lullaby. He felt soothed.

  “Father?”

  “Conn! What is it, young man?”

  Blaine appeared from behind the largest, most broad-backed horse Conn had ever seen. He stared at the vast, sand-colored bulk in amazement.

  Blaine, wiping a hand over his black hair, grinned. “You look like I did when I saw him. This is Fearless. He has a fancy French name, but your uncle said that's what it means, and I believe him. The other one's called Dauntless. He's over there.”

  He pointed behind the vast wheat-pale back to a matte brown expanse filling the stall.

  “He's huge,” Conn pointed out unnecessarily.

  Blaine snorted. “You might say that again, young man.”

  “He's huge.”

  Blaine laughed uproariously. “Good one! Now, what's worrying you?”

  “I look that bad, do I?” Conn asked wryly. He leaned back against the gate of the stall, hands at his sides, and tried to find a sense of calm from somewhere.

  “Aw, son. You never look bad. But you seem tense. I can see it. And the horses look restless, which means they feel it too. Or so I've noticed afore. What's troublin' you, then?”

  Conn sighed. “You heard the news?”

  “From France? Aye.” Blaine had turned away, rubbing at a spot on Fearless' coat that was so miniscule Conn could see nothing.

  “It could mean...” Conn swallowed hard. “It could mean Leona's going.”

  “Going?” Blaine appeared, a strand of straw stuck in his dark curls. He looked dumbfounded. “Well, then, lad, go with her.”

  “It's not that easy,” Conn said immediately. Then he paused. His father had a point. Maybe he could go with her. He could always ask. They were betrothed, after all. “Well...” he licked his lips cautiously. His father, seeing the change in his expression, laughed.

  “Well, then! There you go! It's not that hard, either. Think about it. And don't even think about your Ma and me – we're settled here with enough to keep us busy till the winter. I'll miss you, but not as much as you'll miss her.”

  He meant Leona. Conn felt his heart clench and he nodded. “Yes, Father. And...And thank you.”

  Blaine chuckled. “No need, son. Now. What do you think? D'you think he's fit for riding on parade? Or what?”

  “I think,” Conn said, pausing with an exaggerated expression of thought, “that if he shines much more he'll blind people and then there'll be no need to fight them whatsoever. Sounds good, yes?”

  Blaine chuckled. “Well, one way of doin' it, I s'pose,” he agreed reluctantly. “Takes the fun out of it, though, doesn't it? At that rate, all we need's a dozen big mirrors and we're walking into every fortress from here to the coast. A thought, that...”

  Conn laughed. “I should've guessed!”

  Blaine grinned. “Well, it's a plan. Though I doubt Father Arnold would agree to help us make big mirrors for that.”

  Conn nodded. Father Arnold was the priest, a learned fellow who was more scholar than religious expert, and turned his hand to everything. People said he practiced alchemy, though that might have been a malicious rumor, for he seemed in all other ways entirely respectable. In any case, if someone needed something, from a more efficient way to make fire to a glaze for tiling, he knew it.

  “I'll go and find out if I can go along,” Conn smiled at his father. “Don't stay too long.”

  “I'll come up as soon as these lads are settled in,” Blaine said lightly. “Which means I'll be up by nightfall, but likely no sooner.”

  “Yes, Father,” Conn called to him. “Dinner'll wait for you.”

  “Aye, it will,” Blaine said, bending to fork fresh hay onto the stall floor. “I ain't never seen a dinner run away afore. Actually...”

  “Don't start!” Conn groaned, laughing as he ran for the stable door. “See you, Father.”

  “See you, son,” Blaine tranquilly called after.

  In the castle, Conn found Alf in the practice ground. He was facing their armorer, Douglas, in a hand-to-hand combat that appeared to be giving him
some joy: he had a fierce grin on his face, reddish hair plastered back from his brow with the sweat of effort, giving his brother a wave before turning his focus back to the man before him.

  At least he's getting his practice, Conn thought with a rueful smile. He really needed practice himself, but right now he had something else to concern him.

  “Leona?” He called it through the door of the solar. The fire was burning low now, dusk filling the place with coal-soft shadows.

  “She's in her chamber, Conn,” Alina's voice said.

  “I'm sorry for disturbing you, Aunt. Thank you,” Conn called back politely.

  “She'll want to see you, Conn,” she said softly.

  “Thanks, Aunt.”

  Conn headed upstairs, heart pounding in his chest.

  Upstairs, he found the bedchamber door locked. He felt a strange sensation – half excitement, half nerves – as he stood there, wondering if he should knock or call her. He had never been in her bedchamber before, and the thought of it both terrified and aroused him. He blushed.

  Come on, Conn! You should not think like that.

  He had no idea why he thought that, since he and Leona were betrothed, so wanting her was no bad thing. Still, he felt almost as if there was some sacred trust that prevented him from lusting for her. She had been raised with him, after all.

  “Leona?” he called.

  “Go away,” a small voice replied.

  “Leona, it's me. Conn.”

  “I know,” she called.

  Conn waited, feeling sad, and wondering whether he should listen or not. Something made him stay – Alina's advice, he thought. He stayed. A few moments later, the door opened.

  “Come in.”

  Conn stared. With her long strawberry-golden hair hanging to her waist, a plain blue day-dress on, her face damp with tears, she looked at once tragic and entirely desirable. He felt his body tie itself in knots of wanting.

  “Leona,” he breathed. He wanted to say he shouldn't come in, but she suddenly started crying again. He couldn't.

  “No, lass,” he said gently. “Aw, no. Come on. It's no' terrible.”

  “Conn! You don't understand!” Leona said, sobbing now. “I have to go! I'm leaving you...everyone.”

  Conn bit his lip. He had been seeing it from his own perspective – her leaving and how miserable he would be. It hadn't actually occurred to him that she would miss him, too. That she was leaving her home, family, and everything she held dear.

  “Aw, lass,” he said. He followed her inside and they sat on the bed together. “Aw, lass. Don't cry.”

  Leona blinked cornflower-blue eyes. “How can I not?”

  Conn nodded. “True. I'd cry too, actually.”

  Leona smiled at him through her tears. She looked misty-faced and lovely and he fought the desire to plant a kiss on those red lips.

  “Oh, Conn,” she said. She held his hand on her lap, his fingers clasped in all of her own.

  He sucked in a deep breath, feeling the soft linen of her skirt and smelling, this close, the rose of her perfume. “Leona,” he sighed.

  He wanted her. Wanted her so badly that he had to grit his teeth not to take her in his arms and push his lips onto those plush red ones, feeling the soft give of her body as he held her close. He wanted to push her back onto the coverlet, covering her with kisses, her body soft and yielding under his touch. However, he could not.

  “I don't want to go,” Leona breathed out tightly. “But I must.”

  Conn drew in a breath. “Could I...” he paused, hesitant to ask her, lest she tell him nay and close him out. “Could I go too?”

  Leona shook her head sadly. “No. He was clear in that.”

  “Who was?” he asked, though he guessed she meant the envoy from her grandfather's family in France.

  “Monseigneur Montaigne,” she said quietly. “He said it was me and Mother, and no one else.”

  “Did he say why?” Conn asked carefully. A horrible thought occurred to him. If Monseigneur took Leona away, was it permanent?

  “He didn't say.”

  “Oh,” Conn replied.

  They sat quietly for a while. Conn looked about, noting the crisp white linen of the cover, the dressing-table with porcelain pots of Heaven knew what, the ivory comb with traces of her hair.

  He sighed. He had known her all their life, yet this was the first time since they were too small to remember it that he had entered her chambers. He felt odd: at once welcome and impossibly alien in her space. It was an unusual feeling.

  Come on, Conn!

  He felt his body responding to the new intimacy and wanted to stop himself thinking as he was. He was here, in Leona's chamber, because she trusted him to be. She was not inviting him here for anything but talk. That was clear.

  “Leona?” he asked after a long moment.

  “Yes?”

  She looked up at him, blue eyes cloudy, lips wet. He groaned and looked at her hand. It lay in his.

  “If we...if I spoke to Uncle, or Father, do you think they'd help?”

  “Do I think they could reason with Monseigneur? No,” she said, eyes wide. “I somehow think not.”

  “And Alina?” he asked.

  Leona grinned at that. “Mother could reason with anything,” she said smilingly. “But I don't think she would. Not for this.”

  “Why?” Conn felt dumbfounded.

  “I don't know,” Leona said sadly. “She hasn't said. I think she sees something and hasn't told me.”

  “The future?” Conn felt his hair prickle upright. Aunt Alina was frightening enough for her unnatural calm, her unruffled, regal presence. Her ability to see the future terrified him. The whole thought of it – of other worlds and other ways of seeing – was something he was happier not considering. The Gift ran in Leona's family, though, and she had to contemplate it; a fact for which he felt at once sorrow and respect that she did it.

  “Yes,” Leona said in a small voice, nodding. “I think so.”

  “Well,” Conn said, breathing out in a rush. “I could ask her.”

  Leona smiled at him sadly. “She won't tell me, dearest. I don't think she'll tell anyone.”

  “True,” Conn said. His heart flared as if a fire kindled there. She had never before called him dearest. “Thank you,” he said, eyes wide.

  “Thank you?” Leona laughed softly. “Whatever for?”

  He blushed, shaking his head. Looked at their hands, clasped on her skirt. “I dunno.”

  They both laughed then. She smiled at him.

  “Oh, Conn, you're silly.”

  “I am,” he agreed, smiling down into her eyes. Those slanted blue eyes were the most beautiful things he’d ever seen, burning with an inner light. He leaned down closer, looking into their warm, teasing depths.

  He kissed her. Without thinking about it, his lips traced hers. He felt the touch of that sweet softness on his lips as a jolt that kindled fire in his whole body. And longing. He felt her lips touch his and part, gently, and, unable to resist it, let his tongue slide gently to lick along the line of her mouth. She tensed and he stopped, then, his arms around her, she relaxed suddenly. His tongue slid between the cushions of her lips and he tasted her sweet, clinging mouth.

  His whole body was on fire. He crushed her to his chest, her lips on his tongue and his lips on hers and her body soft and yielding against him. He pushed her back even as she pressed against him and they fell back, laughing.

  He was lying over her, looking down at her soft, sweet face. Her body was in the crook of his arm and her mouth, lips parted, still touched his own. He ran a hand down her arm and then stiffened, sitting up.

  “Leona,” he said, facing the wall opposite her. “This is wrong.”

  Leona smiled wildly up at him. She was breathing heavily, breath tight and strained. She laughed breathlessly at him. Then her face went serious suddenly. “I know,” she sighed.

  She sat up, hands running down her long linen skirts. She looked at her finge
rs, tracing a patch in the linen where a thread pulled, over and again.

  She looked up at him.

  “Conn,” she murmured.

  She put her hand, slender-fingered, on his shoulder. Drew him to her, mouth wet on his.

  “Oh, Conn,” she murmured, looking away, the kiss broken again. “I do love you.”

  He felt as if a stone had dropped into his chest, slung from a catapult. He knew it in that moment and it was the first time he had realized.

  “I love you, too, Leona,” he whispered, the realization a lump in his chest like stone. “I love you, too.”

  They sat together, hand in hand.

  They loved each other. They knew it. Now she would leave and go far across the ocean to France.

  CHAPTER THREE

  LEAVING THE SHORE

  LEAVING THE SHORE

  Water. It stretched out before her, behind her, to all sides. Gray and lapping, smelling of salt, seaweed, and cold, it made waving lines to the horizon, slapping at the ship. Lines that held her trapped.

  I cannot do this.

  She had just left the shore at Queensferry. The ride to the coast had taken five days. Now she was on board with the grim, silent envoy from her uncle. And she was seeing the last sight of the shore.

  I cannot go.

  Leona couldn't bear it. It was not simply that she was leaving her home, her family, her loved ones and all she knew: it was because she was leaving him. Conn. He filled her mind, every thought of him. She could not leave him. Could not go. Could not do this.

  “I can't,” she sobbed.

  “My lady?”

  She turned to the man who called her and saw the envoy crossing over to stand with her, dark-blue cloak blending with the gray clouds, face long and serious.

  “Yes?” Leona asked him.

  “Come, my lady. You should come below-decks.” His eyes met hers, but he did not say a thing. Did not smile.

  “I'll come directly,” Leona said tightly.

  “Come soon,” he urged. “You'll catch your death of cold.” He turned and walked away, looking back at her stonily as he climbed down through the door that led to the cabins. That look – so grave, so uncaring – snapped something in Leona's brain.