A Highlander for Christmas (2 page)

Chapter Two

“
D
id you hear what he said, Juliet?” Fiona whispered, and yanked her back away from the opening of the Clan MacLeon tent.

“He wasn’t talking about me!” Juliet whispered back, still straining to get closer to hear what the men were saying. “He couldn’t have been.”

“Who else?” Fiona leaned forward as well to catch more, but the sounds of the deep voices had stopped. “You’re the only ‘English lass’ at the highland games that I know of.”

Juliet had to concede that that was true. It was the second day of the games and she had watched Iain MacLeon compete for much of the day and a half that they had been there. They had just been taking a stroll after the midday meal and walking right past the MacLeon encampment when they heard him talking.

Fiona linked her arm to Juliet’s and straightened with a mischievous smile. “Let’s go have a closer look at him, shall we?”

Juliet’s heart began to pound with excitement. “Dare we? Your father said he’s the most famed…the most powerful…the most…” She swallowed hard, thinking of his bulging muscles when not an hour ago, he lifted the caber —a twenty-foot wooden pole that must weigh over twelve stone—and threw it the winning distance.

“Exactly.” Fiona continued to pull on Juliet’s arm. “And he just said that
you
are the bonniest lass at the games.”

How he could have thought that, if he was referring to her, was unfathomable. Her mother lamented that her shape was so very “round” and that she lacked the statuesque height and demure features that both her mother and her fair-haired sister shared. Her hair was more red than golden, a bright color that blazed in the sun and drew the eyes of many a man but, unfortunately, not with a wife on their minds. Juliet wasn’t entirely sure why she attracted the wrong kind of attention, but her mother was more than displeased by it, demanding large hats and high collars whenever they went in society. And then there was her voice. She shuddered just thinking of it.

Perhaps the chief of Clan MacLeon—Iain Alexander MacLeon, she’d learned—was of that ilk too. Perhaps he thought of her in terms of fire and tempest, not hearth and home.

She ducked her head as Fiona pulled her around the corner of the row of MacLeon tents, staring at the ground and letting her well-meaning—though too brave for sanity’s sake—cousin led her down the beaten grass path.

A troupe of pipers came around the other side of the row of tents, a song as old as time beginning from their bagpipes. They marched toward them dressed in their plaids, practicing for the performance to come. Juliet and Fiona froze, both in awe of the drumming and the bagpipes, so close and loud, the knees of the front men kicking against their kilts, the earth pounding beneath their feet. Juliet clutched Fiona’s hand, dead in the middle of the path, staring and awestruck, until the pipers were nigh to breathing upon the girls’ necks.

They were not going to stop.

They were going to have to do something soon or get stomped beneath God’s “Amazing Grace.”

Juliet’s heart raced as their faces grew closer, knowing she should get out of the way but somehow unable to. The music had cast a spell on her and she couldn’t move. It was the most heavenly song she’d ever heard.

“Come on!” Fiona tugged at her arm again, just before their marching feet overtook their frozen, statue-like state.

Fiona might appear a smallish young woman of little strength, but she wasn’t anything like that at all. She swung Juliet away from the marching throng, over a patch of grass and into the side of the tent they were standing in front of. The canvas buckled beneath the weight of the two of them, billowing in, caving with a slow kind of deflating and then bouncing them back a bit, but not enough to catch their balance. In they fell again, a sapling pole to their right creaking, then snapping, the sound of tearing fabric as if a big man had just bent over and ripped his drawers.

They both gasped and sputtered as they landed on something hard that was inside the tent. It moved beneath them and they heard a growl. A few shouts sounded from inside the tent against the din of the pipers. Juliet and Fiona looked wide-eyed at each other, hair fallen from their pinned coifs, dresses askew, suppressing horrified mirth.

“Who goes there!” came a thunderous voice, deep and velvety.

All laughter fled and the color drained from both their faces. They disentangled themselves from the canvas, still half on their backs, and looked up at the large man now glaring down at them. Fiona choked back some sort of sound—a half-laugh, half-groan. Juliet swiped the tangled mass of hair from her eyes and saw cross-tied laces of his shoes on thick calves. Her gaze traveled up to a heavy woolen kilt, deep red with green and gold, to a waist with a corded belt, tight with weapons, some sort of knife—broad and glinting in the sun, it made her eyes hurt to look at it. Up her gaze flew to a bare chest, strong, muscled, browned by the sun, arms like….like….

Oh dear Lord in heaven help her, it was
him
.

Her gaze flew to his face, to his eyes. They were blue and mesmerizing in this light, looking at her with such intensity. With his dark blond hair he looked like a lion just awoken from a comfortable nap. His gaze held hers for a long moment, as if she was his prey and he was hypnotizing her into a trap. She shook her head, thinking she was imagining it. Blinking, she tried to rise. He reached out a hand and grasped her arm. She couldn’t take her eyes from him, the pipes and drums thrumming in the background lending an unreal cadence to the moment. The chief of the MacLeon pulled her upright. Blue eyes and hair bright like the sun; she couldn’t see anything beyond his face and immense chest.

It was the man who had called her “bonny.”

“And what do we have here?” His deep voice rumbled against her ear as he drew her close. “Are ya tryin’ to cause wreckage upon my humble dwelling or is it just myself yer wantin’ to injure?

“Oh, no, I couldn’t possible cause injury to such a, well, that is…” She blinked several times while realizing that Fiona had disentangled herself from the other bit of canvas and was attempting a wavering curtsey, raking her own blond mass back from her forehead. “MacLeon, we meant no harm. Pray forgive us.” Fiona sank so low her nose nearly touched the fallen mass of what was left of the right side of his tent. “’Twas an accident, truly—we were about to be trampled by the pipers!”

His gaze swung forward toward the descending backs of the band of the musicians as their music faded toward the main grounds of the festival.

He straightened, squeezed Juliet’s arms a little to ascertain she was righted and let go, leaning his head a bit to one side as if to judge if she could manage to stand on her own two feet.

She wasn’t sure that she could.

He was so much larger close up—tall and smelling of a man that had been competing, leather and earth and sweat. Here was a man who was used to ruling and winning with his own bodily strength. A man like none she’d met in London’s stuffy ballrooms. A man that made her think of fields worked together, of children wrought beneath covers and born into a tight and loving family, of a strength, a love, that stood the test of time. Of someone who could know her, the real her, and perhaps not mind so very much all her many faults…

Oh, goodness, she had to get control of these wayward thoughts. Those things didn’t exist. Women just longed for them.

“Well, lass?” He reached out and rubbed his thumb against her jaw with gentle insistence, demanding that she hold his gaze.

“We were becoming hemmed in by the musicians and jumped aside. My apologies, sir. We meant no harm.”

His eyes lit up with curiosity at her words, her voice—which was always low and husky and “filled with a special warmth,” as one man had whispered to her, no matter how she tried to make it high and feminine.

One side of his mouth lifted a notch and his eyes lit with mischievous humor. “But you have done harm. Och, how am I to rest for the hammer throw?” He leaned in and Juliet could see Fiona’s eyes to the side of his shoulder grow wide with awe as he said in a low grumble, “What if you cause me to lose, lass?”

“I, uh.” Juliet looked up into those startling blue eyes and took a deep breath. “You can’t lose,” she said in all seriousness. And then lower, with more conviction, “You won’t lose.”

His serious face transformed movement by movement into a broad grin and then a deep chuckle. “And so I shan’t.” He bowed to each of them with a nod of his head and then asked, “You’ll be my guests, then, the two of you?”

Juliet shot a gaze at Fiona, not sure what he meant.

Fiona’s grin filled her whole face as she curtseyed again. Oh dear, she looked to be suppressing that gleeful dance that she did when particularly happy about something. “Do you mean to sit with the MacLeon clan and cheer you on?” Fiona queried with quirked brows. “And we will wave your flag?” she added before he had time to answer.

“Your father willnae mind? He’s of the Erskine Clan, is he not?”

Fiona shrugged. “We are not participating in the games this year.”

“Ah.” He smiled. “Then you have been searching for a clan to champion?”

“Not really, not since we saw y—” Fiona paused when she noticed Juliet’s big eyes and shaking head. “Er, yes, we’ve been watching the opponents.”

The chieftain shrugged. “Verra well. If you will champion the MacLeon Clan then all will be forgiven.”

The young women exchanged glances.

His gaze then passed over Juliet with a considering eye. “I will find you MacLeon colors to wear. I find I should like to see them on you.”

He turned then, and walked away toward the contest fields.

Fiona gasped as soon as he was out of earshot. “Juliet, did you hear that? He wants to see his colors on you!” Fiona grasped both of her upper arms. “It’s practically a declaration. Why, he may be going to my father right now to ask for permission to court you.”

Juliet took her cousin’s hands from her arms. “Or it could be that he is like many men and only full of disarming charm and wit.” She turned her cousin toward the wreckage of the tent. “We should try to fix this.”

Fiona looked around the area and then pointed to two men with MacLeon-colored kilts standing nearby, talking and stealing glances that them. “Aye, but we may need some help.”

Juliet laughed.

She couldn’t help it. If anyone could get the tent fixed without lifting a finger it would certainly be her cheerful blond cousin.

Chapter Three

I
ain knelt at the edge of the glen where the greens of the grasses and moss tinged the mountains before and behind him. He closed his eyes and heard the wind’s whistle against the rush of a nearby waterfall.

My Lord. My God. Give me wisdom. Put Your words in my mouth.

He tilted his head back and let the sounds fall around him and through him. He breathed in the beauty and felt it enliven him. He opened his eyes.

The colors of the green had changed, always changing depending on the light and the shadow, the mood of the ever-moving clouds above. The highlands. Home of his heart, where the greatest of the Scottish clans had gathered for three days now—feasting and competing and testing the elite among them. It was thus every year, but this year had been different for him. This year he was clan chief and held an English title and lands as well, his father having died a few short months ago.

He’d been well prepared for taking over the clan, but much had changed since his father’s time. After the death of Queen Anne, Scotland had finally agreed to unite with England and signed the Act of Union, uniting them into what they now called Great Britain. Many of the clans were unhappy about it, but their chieftains were also English nobles—having been gifted lands and titles for service to the kings over the centuries. This lead to ever-increasing conflicts of interest, particularly when chieftains were not taking care of their Scottish clans, using the backs of their people for wealthy gain to support their lives as English nobles and members of Parliament in London.

The MacLeon Clan was yet strong, he'd made sure of it. But it was a delicate political line that he walked, trying to keep his people happy while still having to attend Parliament in London and side with the Whigs or the Tories. He didn’t particularly ascribe to the passions of either party, choosing to remain as neutral as possible and depending on prayer and the inner voice of God inside him as the occasion demanded.

The weight of it rested heavy at times. Even now there was a man at the games who was hounding him to support a Jacobean rising on behalf of Queen Anne’s half-brother, James VIII. There were those who wanted the House of Stuart back on the throne and resisted the Hanoverian George I, who was now crowned king. Iain cared more about improving his clan, bringing in more sheep and finding developments in weaving—a recent interest—than the politics in London.

He rested his head upon one knee and closed his eyes.

“Lord, God, my Father in heaven. Give me this day what is mine, what You have destined as mine and nothing else. Nothing more and nothing less. Let Your will be done here this day for myself and my clan and…”

He paused as a breath of excitement stirred in his heart and the vision of the flame-haired Lady Juliet Lindsay, the daughter of Lord Ashland Lindsay, the Earl of Worland, flashed before him. The deep brightness of her hair shone against the darkness of his closed eyes.

“And as to her, Lord, the clan would not be well pleased with an English wife, especially one so indebted as her father—’tis a reputedly desperate state of affairs—but there is something about her…”

He felt the wind ruffle through his longish hair like a breath from heaven. He lifted his face toward it and exhaled a small laugh, the skin around his eyes feeling tight and crinkling from the hours under the bright sun, knowing God was listening to his heart’s longings and confusions, all his prayers.
“And lead me not into temptation.”
He chuckled, not wanting to continue the Lord’s Prayer with the next line, which would call her evil.
“Your will, not mine. Your will be done.”