A Highlander's Home (24 page)

             
The sun was high in the sky and the breeze ruffled his hair.  He sighed.  It would be a few more hours until he could hear her ask him that wonderfully tantalizing question again.

             
The keep was buzzing with activity, and the servants were busy preparing for the coming winter.  Children bustled about while their mothers shooed them hither and whither.  Pots were banging in the kitchen as Cook was trying to get in one more final wash before it was too cold to do again until spring.  The thin, summer tapestries were being replaced by the thicker, heavier ones, giving the walls a deeper, masculine feel.
 

             
He leaned against the wall and watched the bustling.  He loved this time of year.  The smell of a hot meal wafting through the great hall promising a full belly to everyone, the clean rushes with smashed cinnamon filling the air, the sun shining.  Too bad it wouldn’t last for long. 
Water was now flowing freely from the river, but there was a larger problem.
  Even though Alisdair had met his death, his father, Leith’s uncle, had taken control of his
son’s
lands.
  There would be a new feud.  As soon as Leith’s uncle gathered a new army, he would dam up the rivers again and the problem would begin anew.

             
The livestock had thinner numbers than he had ever seen, and they might prove weak enough not to survive the winter months.  He had written to the
Queen
and asked
for her
help, that perhaps the
Queen
could demand that Leith’s uncle stop acting like a spoiled child hording a toy that did not even belong to him.

             
Pushing himself off the wall, he started to walk to the stables when he noticed his mother and Raine exiting it.  His smile was automatic.

             
“Good afternoon, ladies.  Ye’re both looking well.”  His eyes found and remained on Raine’s bosom.  He had specifically asked the seamstress to make the bodices of her dresses as low and tight as possible without causing her discomfort.  She had more than accommodated his wishes.

             
His mother cleared her throat.  “Ahem.”

             
He looked up.  “Yes, Mother?  Something in ye’re throat?”

             
She swatted his
arm, and then
linked her own through his.  “Stop ogling the girl.  Good Lord, it will be evening soon enough.”

             
His laughter was bold and loud.  “That is true, Mother mine, but it is still so far away.  How ever will I survive the day?”

             
Raine picked up her skirts and walked past the both of them.  “You two are
insufferable
.”

             
Grabbing her about the waist, he brought her up sharp to him and planted a kiss firmly on her lips.  “It runs in the family.  We are not shy.  Ye should be used to it by now, lass.”

             
She couldn’t hold her giggles anymore.  “Oh, you’re
unbelievable
!” 

             
Escorting both women into the keep, they all parted ways.  Lady MacGregor to annoy Cook by trying to oversee what she thought was a disaster area, Raine to see to her ladies and make sure they were staying out of trouble and away from the
men folk
, and Leith to his warriors. 

             
Then he had a thought.  Perhaps his men could wait.  They had been practicing their fighting all day without him, what were another few minutes?

             
With a smile on his face, he watched from the hallway as Raine reprimanded one of her ladies for being too flirtatious with one of Leith’s men, but then laughed as they started joking and giggling behind their hands.  Her hair had been plaited and piled high on her head with soft curls cascading down her back and smaller ones framing her face.  The sun shone in through the windows, casting what he could only describe as a heavenly glow upon her.  She truly did appear as an angel.

             
The smile that had come so easily a moment before disappeared now.  He walked away briskly towards the fighting arena and his waiting men.

             
His smile faded. 
He
realized that he
would miss her when she was gone.

             
Wood splintered and slivers of it went in every direction and the boom of the table busting almost in half bounced off of the keep’s walls.

             
“Bloody hell!  Bloody, bloody hell!”

             
One half of the table glided through the air until it burst into a million smaller pieces as it made its deathly contact with the stone wall in the great hall.

             
Robbie chewed his mouthful of cheese and bread as he watched his brother throw himself into a fit of rage.  He gulped a swig of ale and leaned his chair back on two legs.

             
“Ye know, big brother mine,” he drawled, “ye never should have depended upon the
Queen
to help ye.  Ye should know better.  Och.”

             
Leith stomped over to his brother and kicked the chair out from underneath him.  “Bloody hell!”

             
Picking himself up and dusting the crumbs off of his arm, he casually replied, “Ye said that already.  Actually, ye said it a few times.  Say something else.”

             
“
Sh
e knows I am trying everything
in my power to avoid war with our
uncle. 
I have been patient. I have been willing to bargain. 
Everything I know to do as Laird I have done.  I simply wish to avoid battling my own flesh.
  Again.
”  Leith looked up at the rafters and let out a growl that turned into a full fledged howl.

             
Picking up a chair, he hurled it at the same wall that was the cause of the demise of the table.  It too splintered into a million pieces, never to be used again.

             
“If ye keep doing that, we won’t have any furniture left and all of our ar
ses will be sore as a whore’s –
“  A fist came up and met Robbie’s jaw, finishing his sentence with a bone cracking thud.

             
The two scuffled back and forth, sometimes their fists met their marks and sometimes they missed.  Blood dripped from a couple of open wounds, and a few ribs were sure to be sore on the morrow, but each man held his own against the other.  They had been doing this since they were old enough to walk.

             
That was how Lady MacGregor found them. 

             
She pushed herself in between them, ducking when a fist came a little too close to her nose.

             
“Stop it!  Stop it right now!!”

             
When the two showed no promise of stopping, just throwing punches around her, she raised her hand and with all of her might smacked it across the first cheek she found which happened to be Robbie.

             
The loud crack rooted them to the ground,
just as
it did when they were small boys.  Robbie planted his hand over his cheek feeling the blood rush to the skin.  She turned and repeated the same action against Leith, the cracking noise just a little bit duller.

             
“Now, I said to stop acting like children.  You are going to hurt each other and then I will have to kill one of you in retribution.  Now stop it!”

             
In unison they said humbly, “We’re sorry, Mother.”

             
She nodded in acceptance,
and then
threw her arms around first Robbie, then Leith, planting kisses on the hot skin that bore her hand print.

             
“Now,” she said, “what is going on?  It looks like a battle field in here.”

             
Leith raked his fingers through his tousled and slightly bloody hair.  “I have received a correspondence from the
Queen
. 
Sh
e will not help me. 
Sh
e says
s
he wants to be neutral and avoid being pulled into a domestic affair.”

             
Robbie snorted and wiped the trickle of blood from his chin.  His lip would be swollen for a week.  “Ye should have known that.”

             
Lady MacGregor and Leith shot him identical looks.  He held up his hands in surrender and licked his
upper
lip
that was quickly turning purple
.

             
“The
Queen
has no doubt heard about Alisdair. 
Sh
e thinks that if you would kill your own cousin, then you are capable – and probably willing – to battle your uncle as well,” Lady MacGregor thought out loud.

             
Leith kicked a piece of broken wood, sending it skidding across the floor.  “Yes, I came to the same conclusion.  There’s only one problem.  I did not kill my cousin.  Therefore I have no desire to kill my uncle.”

             
Robbie chimed in, “Ye can thank ye’re wife for that helpful little deed.”

             
He turned pleading eyes to his mother.  “I don’t want war.”

             
She cupped his large face in her smaller hands.  At one time, his entire little body had fit into her palms.  She smiled at the memory, so long ago. 

“I know,” she whispered, “but you might have to battle once more if
we are to survive.  My brother-
in
-
law will not show mercy.  He will not negotiate.”

             
His forehead rested against hers.  How he wished he could hide under her skirts and depend upon her and his father to protect him and the keep as he did as a child.  Now it was he who was the protector.  He must do whatever it took to save Hell’s Gate.

             
Sitting sprawled in a chair that had appeared from nowhere, Robbie said, “Och, come on now.  Why does he always get the loving? 
Ye do have another son, ye know, Mother?”

             
She laughed and came up to him, squeezing his cheeks together and soundly kissing his lips.

             
He jumped, protecting his injury.  “Och, woman, I said loving, not torture!”

             
They all laughed and walked slowly towards the kitchen for some cold ale.

             
Raine watched them leave, the burden of responsibility on her shoulders greater than she ever thought possible.  She had killed Alisdair.  Her ladies had killed his men.  Now, Leith was bearing the consequences of it.  Because of that, there would be no compromise with his uncle.  There would be a war for sure.

             
She slipped up the stairs to her room and softly closed the door.  She would feign a headache tonight and sleep alone. 
It wasn’t all a lie.  She did have the beginnings of a headache, and her
stomach
was in knots. 
Now would be the time to start distancing herself from everyone.  Soon the solstice would be upon them
,
and she would be free to leave.  Funny, she thought.  She had been freer here in this ancient time than she had ever been in her own.

Chapter 21

             
November had arrived.  There was no mistaking the chill in the air, the lack of warmth even when the sun shone which it only did rarely these days.  Even the animals seemed to be hoarding their hay for a little extra warmth for the night.

             
Leith had no idea of what ailed his wife.  His wife.  He needed to stop thinking of her in that way.  In a few weeks he would take her to the stones and she would be gone.  Then life here at Hell’s Gate would be back to normal.  Normal.  Is that what it was?  He had thought of it more as lonely.

             
Shaking the thoughts out of his head, he continued to the stables.  He needed time to think, to clear his head.  His men were readying for battle
.  In a few days, before the first snow, they would attack his uncle.  He shuddered at the thought of spilling his family’s blood, even if it was blood by marriage. 

             
He could remember playing with Alisdair as a child, how they had laughed and chased each other around these very stables.  He smiled crookedly.  Och, they headaches they had caused their mothers.  And the pretty lasses.

             
Glancing upwards towards Raine’s window, he stared for a moment.  She had complained of headaches more times than he could count.  How often did women get headaches so severe they could not just drink some herb tea and be well enough to share their husband’s bed?  He had not been in her bed for several weeks now and it was starting to annoy.