On a Highland Shore (23 page)

Look away
. Her mother’s words echoed in her mind. Was that what women were supposed to do—to look away from what they should not see, from what hurt them, from what they desired? Look away from anything but duty? Lie beneath a man someone else chose, bear his children, and manage his home? Was that all life was meant to be, to bring another generation into the world to repeat the pattern yet again? If so, she prayed she would have only sons, for she feared she could never tell her daughter to look away. Nor was she sure she could.

Tiernan found Nell at midday, coming to stand at her side in the kitchens where she was scrubbing platters after the meal. Around her Rufus’s staff hurried about, their complaints about all the extra work brought on by the Irishmen’s arrival stopping when he entered.

“Rufus doesna have anyone else to do tasks like this?” Tiernan said with a smile, gesturing to the tub of wooden trays before her.

“I volunteered.” At his raised eyebrow, she went quickly on. “It’s better than everyone dying of some horrible disease from eating on these things. I dinna think they’ve been washed since before I was born. This is the dirtiest place I’ve ever been.”

“It’s good of ye to do it.”

She stared into the tub, scrubbing at the same platter again, but loath to look up at him.

“Nell?” His tone was coaxing. “Are ye no’ speaking to me?”

She felt her cheeks redden. “I ken where ye were last night.”

“Do ye?” he asked, but his tone had changed, letting her know he knew what she meant.

She stole a look at him and regretted it immediately. How could anyone’s eyes be that blue? How could anyone smile like that? How was she to think when he stood so close to her? He brushed her hair over her shoulder, and she pulled herself away, beyond his reach.

“Nell. Lassie, when ye’re older…”

She lifted her chin and stared at him, outraged. “Oooh! Dinna say that to me. Ye think I ken nothing? That I dinna ken what happens between a man and a woman? I saw ye leaving her this morning. Ye kissed her, Tiernan!” He glanced around the kitchens. Let the world hear, she thought, but she lowered her voice anyway. “Ye’re not even old enough to be with her.”

His laugh was low. “But I am, lassie. And I please her well.”

“Ye think she likes ye,” she cried, her tears blinding her, “but she likes all men. She tells Rignor she’ll marry him, and she spends her nights with him when she’s not with ye. But it’s Gannon she really wanted; Margaret saw them in the hallway. She pulled her bodice down and offered herself to him, and he laughed. He laughed, Tiernan. And then she spent the night with ye. How can ye think ye were her first choice?”

His cheeks colored. “It’s not true.”

She nodded as quickly as she could. “It is true. And dinna tell me I’m not old enough to ken these things. My mother was my age when she married my father and only two years older when she had Margaret. Ye may be older than me, Tiernan MacMagnus, but of the two of us, ye are the child if ye think Dagmar cares a whit for ye. She’s using ye! She’s deciding which of ye can offer her the most. And trust me, it willna be ye! Ye have no wealth and no land. Ye’re a fool, Tiernan!”

She tossed the platter into the tub and ran from him, past the others who had watched them, through the door, and into the kitchen garden, where she threw herself against the wooden wall and sobbed until she was out of tears.

If her mother were here, she’d run her hand over Nell’s hair and tell her to ignore it, that you cannot change what you cannot change, and then she’d tell a long story of what life was like when she was girl, and Nell would be comforted. But her mother wasn’t here, nor would she ever be again, and more than anything, Nell hated that.

No one came after her. No one came to comfort her, or even seemed to notice that she was missing, and eventually she made her way back through the kitchens and into the hall. The people were gathered near the door.

“It’s some of yer Somerstrath people come,” one of the women said.

Gannon was entirely wrong, Margaret thought later through her tears. He’d called her a leader, but she was certainly not one. A leader would have remembered that some of Somerstrath’s people were still at the shielings, that they might hear of the attack and come home to find their loved ones already in the ground and their village destroyed. Which is exactly what happened.

The Somerstrath people arrived at Rufus’s fortress at midday, pale, shaken by what they’d seen, their fears of having been abandoned visible. Rignor greeted them calmly, telling them he’d been too busy to send for them, but she knew the truth of it, that neither he nor she had even thought of the people still in the mountains. She talked to them, apologized to them, overwhelmed with guilt when they brushed her words away, saying she’d had great losses and that they understood. She listened to their stories of stopping, as she and Rignor and Nell had, on the bluff, and seeing the village below, of finding the long line of graves marked only by crude wooden crosses, of stumbling through what had once been their homes and finding nothing and no one.

A leader would have foreseen this, would have prevented it, but she was no leader. Nor was Rignor, she realized anew, watching her brother’s gaze shift from a weeping Somerstrath man to Dagmar, who threw her hair over her shoulder and gave Rignor a long smile full of promise. The Inverstrath people crowded close, eager to talk to the newcomers, and Margaret turned blindly away, seeking solitude. She walked along the beach as quickly as she could, then stopped on the headland, letting the air and the waves calm her as they always did. She should have remembered the people at the shielings. Next time, she vowed, she’d do better.

The wind grew stronger, bringing the scent of the sea and the lace of the foam to brush her cheek. In the surf two seals played, sliding through the water with grace and speed. Their joy in the water and in each other lifted her heart; there was healing in these waters. And in her people, she realized; they had already begun to face the future. Now it was her turn to do the same. Her dark thoughts were simply a reflection of what she’d lost. She needed to remind herself that she was not alone, nor was the future entirely bleak. Frightening, and perhaps dangerous, but where there was life, there was hope. She had her duty to her people, and perhaps that would be enough. She turned her back on the water and the wind and walked back to the fortress. To the future. She would find the strength to face it, whatever it held.

Rignor was waiting for her when she returned to the fortress, leaning against the outer wall, his arms crossed and his face unreadable. She kept her expression sanguine as she approached him, but when he lifted himself from the wall with an agitated movement, her mood sank.

“Margaret.”

“Rignor.”

“Where have ye been?”

“Walking.”

“Alone?”

“Aye.”

“Ye should not go out alone.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Nor with someone apparently. What is it that ye want?”

He gave her a rueful smile. “To apologize. For speaking so vilely to ye earlier. I am sorry. I couldna understand how ye could do something so damaging to yerself.”

“I did nothing damaging to myself.”

He shook his head quickly. “That came out wrong, too, did it not? I’m sorry, Margaret. I lost my temper when I saw ye with the Norseman.”

“He’s half-Irish.”

“As if that’s any better. Margaret, ye need to be careful. People talk.”

People talk.
She thought of the comments last night about Rignor falling asleep in filthy clothing and stinking of ale from his drinking.

“I’m trying to protect ye, Margaret,” he said, his tone now soothing. “I’m sorry for my words this morning. My head was hurting something awful. I had no right to talk to ye like that.”

“No.”

“It willna happen again.”

“It had better not.”

“We’re all we have left, ye and Nell and me and a handful of our people. I was wrong, and I beg yer forgiveness.”

She nodded, feeling herself thaw. “We should have thought of the people at the shielings.”

“Aye,” he said, and sighed heavily. “I’ll have to learn this, to lead, will I not? But ye’ll help, Margaret. Tell me ye’ll stand by me and help.”

“Aye, I’ll help, but ye must promise two things.”

A shadow crossed his eyes, quickly gone. “Aye?”

“Never to speak to me like that again.”

“Aye. I willna. Never again. And the second?”

“That we will look for Davey.”

“We will. We will. With Uncle William’s backing and the favor of the king, I’m sure we’ll find him. Lachlan has enough wealth to equip an army.”

“Which he willna offer if I dinna marry him, Rignor.”

“But ye must!” His face suffused with color. “The king said ye must! I need this alliance, now more than ever. Ye’ll live by the contract.”

She shook her head. “How can ye ask this of me? Ye ken what he did!”

“That was before the attack, when we might have found another wealthy husband for ye. Look at ye, Margaret! Ye’re hardly a prize now, and even less of one without a dowry. If Lachlan will still marry ye, ye’d best jump at the chance. Ye ken what it could mean to me, to our people. Ye need to think of more than yer own desires.” He turned on his heel and marched away.

“Rignor.”

He turned at her voice, his expectation obvious. She kept her tone cold.

“Find out where Dagmar slept last night and then talk to me.”

“What does that mean?”

“She was not with Nell and me, Rignor. Discover where she was, then tell me again what to do.”

Rignor flushed deeply, then whirled away, his head high and shoulders back. She watched him leave, then turned to see whose gaze it was she’d felt upon her. Rory O’Neill, standing not ten feet away from her, raised an eyebrow.

“The cat has claws after all.”

She turned her face away, embarrassed to have had her cruelty overheard.

“I’m glad he apologized, lassie. And gladder still ye stood up to him.” O’Neill moved to stand before her, lowering his voice. “Gannon told me ye asked if he was going to stay after I leave. He is, and I’ll tell ye why. His mother was my cousin; his father was my friend, and a good man. He died fourteen years ago this summer with three of his sons, all killed by Norsemen.”

“Gannon told me.”

O’Neill’s surprise was obvious. “Did he now? I’ve never heard of him telling anyone.” He cleared his throat. “He kens what ye’re going through, ye see. He still bears the scar of their axe on his chest.”

She thought of the boy he had been, so young to face death. “Was it Orkneymen?” she asked.

“Many thought so. It’s sure they were Norse. If they’d kill those who share their bloodline, what pity d’ye expect them to show to those who dinna? It shows ye that no one is safe, aye?” He paused. “Ye can trust Gannon, lass; I do. That’s why I’m leaving him here.”

“And to see to yer own interests as well.”

“What kind of a leader would I be if I did not make sure our allies continued to be our allies? I have no designs on Scotland, Margaret MacDonald. But who rules the western coast here affects me and mine, and I’d just as soon it were not the men who raided yer home.”

“Ye think they’ll come back?”

“I do. I think they hit Somerstrath first to destroy yer father and weaken this part of the coast, then they’ll hit again to settle and raid from here. I’m leaving Gannon behind to protect this coast, but he’ll only stay until Scotland’s secure. Then he’ll go home. We’ll not be staying to claim land here, which is another reason to trust him. There’s nothing here he wants.” He paused, looking into her eyes. “I should say that differently. There’s nothing here I’ll allow him to take. I’ll leave him for a while with ye, but he has no future here, and no one should be thinking otherwise.” He strode away, leaving her looking after him.

Gannon spent another day on the field before the fortress, teaching Rufus’s men how to fight against the battle-axe, how to lunge and attack the opponent’s legs, how to watch for the moment just before the swing of the axe, when the wielder’s arms were raised and the rest of him vulnerable. Rufus’s men learned well, and the hours passed quickly. He’d not had a moment to think, and perhaps that had been for the best. The sunlight was slowly fading into the soft gloaming of summer’s evening. In the hall the evening meal would soon be served.

News had come this afternoon that there had been more raids, in Ayreshire to the south, and more in Ross, which probably explained why William Ross had not yet come. Rory said he’d leave with the morning tide, and Gannon wondered how long he and Tiernan would remain. His men were growing steadily restless. He’d sensed something more, too, watched his men watching the women of Inverstrath. He’d warned them that no misbehavior would be tolerated and reminded himself of the same, banishing his own wandering thoughts.

He shifted his weight, feeling the wool of the feileadh brush against him. It still felt strange; it would take more time to accustom himself to the drafts the skirt allowed. He’d already entertained half of Rufus’s people by forgetting to sit so he wasn’t presenting his wares, and the other half when he bent too far to pet a dog, but it had stopped the fearful looks thrown his way and set them all laughing, which was far better than them fearing him. And that, he suspected, was just what Rory had planned. Tiernan was wearing the kilt as well. Things were much better between them now, since Tiernan had at last come to talk with Gannon, a bit defensive at first. He’d relaxed when Gannon made no mention of their earlier disagreement, and soon the awkwardness passed.

As everything did, he reminded himself. The sun was setting earlier each evening, and more southward, its movement measurable against the islands offshore, a reminder that the summer days would not last forever.

“Gannon.” Margaret’s voice was soft.

He turned toward her with a smile. “Lass. Fine evening, is it not?”

“It is. And it would be finer still if we were searching for my brother.”

He felt a wave of disappointment, then chided himself. What had he expected her to say? She might not have fought his kiss, but they both knew any further attentions from him would put her in an untenable position. They’d hardly spoken in the last few days, but he’d not been able to stop watching her whenever she was near, could not stop his mind from its own meanderings, which went much further than a chaste kiss.