Margo Maguire (22 page)

Chapter 34

L
achann returned to the pier, where Count Leirvik and his men had gathered near their ship, no doubt wondering what had caused the explosion. Some of the villagers came forward to question Lachann, with Geordie Kincaid taking the lead.

“ ’Twas Cullen Macauley,” Lachann told them, “attempting to sabotage the cannon.”

“Did he set the fire, too, Lachann?” Kincaid asked.

Lachann nodded. “Aye. But this time, he managed to kill himself while spiking the cannon.”

“I can’na say I am sorry,” Kincaid said, and the rest of the people in the crowd muttered their agreement before heading back to their homes in the village.

“Who is Cullen Macauley?” Leirvik asked Lachann.

“ ’Tis a long story, Count. But ’tis late for telling tales. Shall we meet in the morn? There is much to be settled.”

The Norseman agreed.

Lachann knew Leirvik’s business was unfinished, and he hoped to prevent him from achieving what he’d come to do. They decided to meet with Anna in the great hall of the keep after a good night’s rest.

Lachann returned to the castle, intent upon finding Anna. Her uncle had made his intentions clear to her, but Lachann had said naught about his own. How could Anna make a choice when she did not know she had another option besides leaving? She could stay on Kilgorra.

As his wife.

He had only to determine whether her desire to leave the island was greater than what she might feel for him.

He stopped at the gate, thinking about the day he’d asked Fiona to go away with him. She’d shed a good many tears while telling him her duty was to her father, and that she could not go away with him. And she’d been steadfast in her decision.

The pit of his stomach began to burn.

He went down to the kitchen, and Flora told him Anna had gone out to the cottage with her friend, but that she would be back soon for their supper.

Lachann breathed a low curse. He’d hoped to have some time alone with Anna to make his proposal.

He wanted to talk to her before she saw Leirvik in the morn, so he hastened through the bailey and out toward the garden. But his blood ran cold when he heard her cries of distress.

Gesu
. He was certain the cries were Anna’s, and they were coming from the blacksmith’s shop. “Stop, Mungo!” she screamed.

Lachann broke into a run. Neither the fire at the granary nor Macauley’s attempted sabotage unnerved him as did Anna’s cries. He arrived at the smithy shop in time to see Anna pounding on Ramsay’s back and trying to pull him away from a trough full of water.

“Stop!” she screamed, but Ramsay kept his arms submerged.

Lachann did not waste time on Catrìona, who stood in the shadows, watching. He went immediately to the blacksmith and shoved him away from the trough.

Anna gave out a cry and pulled a bag from the water. She put it on the stone floor, but Lachann had to move quickly to duck away from Ramsay’s massive fist. The man roared and struck again, missing Lachann’s jaw by a hair.

With the next blow, Lachann caught Ramsay’s fist in midair, then he slammed his body against Ramsay’s as he kicked his leg behind him. The maneuver knocked the blacksmith off balance, and the man went down hard. The fall knocked the wind out of him, and Lachann took advantage of the moment to shove Ramsay onto his belly.

He slammed his knee down on the man’s back and reached for a cord that was hanging on the wall near his head. But as he bound Ramsay’s wrists together, Catrìona screeched like a demon and fell upon him, scratching and biting, shrieking incoherently. Lachann quickly stood and faced her, grabbing her hands and pushing her against the wall of the shop.

“Catrìona!” He shook her to quiet her, then he turned to Anna, who was coaxing her cat from the bag. “Are you all right, Anna?”

Her face was covered with tears, but she nodded and spoke softly to the cat.

“Good God,” Lachann said to Catrìona. “Are you responsible for this? What is wrong with you, woman?”

She tried to claw him. “You interfering bastard! Let me go!”

“Not on your life.”

A
nna had almost been too late, but she managed to revive Effie with some vigorous rubbing and no small amount of horror. Catrìona disgusted her, though it should not have surprised her that her stepsister would have had no qualms about harming an innocent creature.

She could almost excuse Mongo Ramsay, for he had never had a thought of his own and had always followed Catrìona’s orders. But she’d always hoped he knew right from wrong.

’Twas clear she’d been mistaken.

“Can I help, Lachann?” she asked. “What should I do?”

But Catrìona answered the question with a raw screech. “You should go straight to hell, Anna MacIver! Or drown on your way to that cursed island of yours like you were supposed to do years ago!”

Her face became a mask of pure hatred, more twisted than Anna had ever seen it. And Catrìona did not stop her abuse even after Lachann asked Anna for another piece of twine. She shouted her insults without taking a breath while Lachann wrapped her wrists together and tied her securely to the end of Mungo’s workbench.

When Catrìona and Mungo were both secured, Lachann crossed his arms over his chest and looked at them with distaste as well as disbelief. “Anna, go and find some of my men to help me here.”

Anna was reluctant to leave him alone with such fiends, but as she ran to the courtyard, some of the castle servants and Lachann’s men were already running toward Ramsay’s smithy shop. They’d heard Catrìona’s shrieks.

Cradling Effie to her chest, Anna watched as the men took Mungo to an empty building near his shop and locked him inside. Catrìona’s evil glances unnerved her nearly as much as the invectives she screamed while Mungo was taken away.

“Do’na look at her, Anna,” Flora said as she put her arm ’round Anna’s shoulders. “She is naught but a wicked shell of a lass.”

“Let’s take this one to that chapel she’s so fond of,” Lachann said to Malcolm, his kinsman.

Catrìona continued her tirade, denouncing Lachann and cursing Anna. Her screeches did not let up until they faded away in the distance.

“Come along, my dear,” Flora said, leading Anna to the keep. “We’ll dry our Effie and give her some milk to soothe her nerves.”

B
y the time Lachann returned from securing Catrìona in the little room at the back of the chapel, and Mungo Ramsay in a shed near the barracks, the keep was dark and quiet. Everyone had gone to bed. More than anything, Lachann wanted to find Anna, but he knew Flora had seen to her.

He did not know how Duncan fared.

He climbed the stairs to Duncan’s bedchamber and found him lying quietly on his side. Lachann could see that the back of his head was caked with dried blood.

“Lachann?”

“I’m sorry,” Lachann replied. “Did I wake you?”

“I’m not sure if I was dreaming, or just staring at the fire,” Duncan replied. “I’ve got a hellish headache.”

“What did he hit you with?”

“Damned if I know.” Duncan winced when he moved. “So, Macauley is dead.”

“Aye. Blew himself up.”

“I heard,” Duncan said. “All should be quiet now, eh? No more fires, no more sabotage attempts . . .”

“One can hope.” Now that Catrìona and Mungo were locked up, the only threat Lachann needed to worry about was Birk Ramsay. And Lachann wasn’t about to let
him
cause any trouble.

“I’m all right, Lachann. You needn’t worry about me. Go on and get some sleep.”

“Aye. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He looked in on MacDuffie before going downstairs and found Alex tending him. “How does he fare, Alex?”

“A little better, I think.” Alex whispered his reply. “He just fell asleep. Laird . . .”

“Aye?”

Alex led Lachann from the room. “What will ye do with the old man? Let him stay here?”

Lachann shook his head. “I haven’t thought that far ahead, Alex. I still have to figure out what to do with Catrìona and her lackey, Mungo Ramsay.”

The servant shuddered. “We can’na be rid of them soon enough to suit us, Laird. In case you wondered . . .”

“Have you seen Anna?”

“She’s gone to the wee cottage with Kyla. To keep her safe from Birk.”

Lachann left the keep and went out to the cottage, though he doubted Anna would be awake. The small croft was quiet, and he saw very little light from the cracks in the shutters, so he let himself inside quietly.

Anna’s friend and her bairn were asleep on the bed, and Anna slept soundly on a low pallet by the fire, with her cat curled at her feet. Lachann secured the door and lay down beside her, drawing her into his arms.

She made a sweet sound at the back of her throat and curled into him. Lachann did not want to think of all the cruelties Anna had to have suffered at the hands of her stepsister over the years.

And then trying to harm Anna’s cat . . . ’twas indefensible. The wee animal had done naught to Catrìona. But it had nearly met its death because Anna had shown a fondness for it.

Lachann was glad the cat had survived, and not just for Anna’s sake. ’Twas a gratifying failure on the part of Catrìona MacDuffie to inflict more harm on the stepsister she had wronged so grievously over the years.

It had been a long, drawn-out day, and at the end of it all, Lachann wanted only one thing. To ask Anna to stay.

But his question would wait until the morn.

Chapter 35

“I
had the strangest dream,” Anna said to Kyla when she awoke.

Kyla laughed. “You weren’t dreaming.”

“I . . .” Anna looked ’round the cottage. “You mean he was here?”

“Aye. You two were wrapped ’round each other so tight, if I didn’t know better, I might have thought you’d been sleeping that way for years.”

Knowing that Lachann had come to her and held her while she’d slept warmed and reassured her. She was anxious to find him before her Norse kin returned to the keep.

They gathered their things, but before they left for the keep, Kyla stopped her. “You’re not going to go away with your uncle, are you?”

Anna shook her head. “Not if . . . I mean, I hope—”

“You must know your hopes are well founded, Anna,” Ky interjected. “A man doesn’t spend the night on the floor, doing naught but holding a woman, unless . . .”

“Unless?”

“Unless she means more to him than one night in his bed. He cares for you,
min kjære venn
.” Kyla handed Douglas to Anna and started looking through the crates. “Are there more of your mother’s clothes in here?”

Anna pointed to the one where she’d found the gown she’d worn the day before, and Kyla opened it.

“Kyla, if we don’t leave, Birk will—”

“We cannot think about Birk now,” Kyla said. “We’ve a new laird, and things will be different.”

Anna hoped so, but she knew Birk, and his temper had been getting steadily worse. What if—

“This one.” Kyla drew out a brilliant scarlet gown with golden trim along the edges.

Kyla helped Anna dress, then they gathered their things and returned to the keep. Flora welcomed them into the kitchen and fussed over Anna’s bonny gown, delighted that Anna’s chance to leave Kilgorra had come. She wiped a tear from her eye. “I’ll miss ye, lass.”

“She’s not going,” Kyla said.

“What?” Flora pressed one hand to her breast. “ ’Tis what ye’ve always wanted. You and Kyla—away.”

Anna glanced uncertainly at Kyla and shook her head. “Everything has changed.” And her stomach felt as though ’twas turned upside down. After all these years, desperately wishing for a way to leave Kilgorra, the opportunity had arrived.

And yet she was going to risk everything and place her trust in one man. “Have you seen Lachann this morn?”

Flora shook her head. “No. I think he was up and gone early. So, ye’re sayin’ ye will’na leave Kilgorra and go with yer uncle?”

Anna shook her head. “I don’t think so.” She had been so very fearful of repeating her mother’s failures, or Kyla’s. There was no man on earth who could make her change her mind.

Except Lachann MacMillan.

“Well . . .” Flora said, “do ye think the Norseman would take Kyla instead?”

T
he
Glencoe Lass
had returned. Lachann and some of his men met with Rob and Stuart Cameron as soon as they came up to the keep.

“What news from Skye?” Lachann asked them then, though the question was practically moot now. Macauley was dead, and whatever reason he’d had for leaving Skye could not possibly matter now.

“Lachann, what we have to say is not—”

“Tell me now. What did Macauley do to her?”

Stuart looked him in the eye. “You know?”

“I suspect.”

Stuart nodded. “Her father believes he poisoned her, but he could prove naught.”

“Aye,” Rob added. “Macauley had fallen out of favor with the old laird and his brothers. They said they’d erred and should have taken you as Fiona’s . . .”

Rob stopped to clear his throat and Stuart continued. “After it became clear Macauley would never be named laird, Fiona sickened strangely. She started to have headaches. Confusion. Soon she was unable to eat—”

“Her hair started to come out,” Rob said. “And she could’na keep anything down. Or in.”

“Was there fever?”

“No, Lachann.”

“He’s been poisoning MacDuffie’s whiskey,” Lachann said.

“
Gesu,
” Rob muttered.

“The bloody bastard is dead now,” Kieran said. “He was blown to bits by his own scheme.”

The Cameron brothers appeared stunned, and Kieran said he would explain what had happened later.

“I have a new mission for the
Glencoe Lass,
” Lachann said. “I want you to take Catrìona MacDuffie to Glasgow.”

“Aye, Lachann. Today?”

“As soon as possible.”

He gave the Camerons the name of a good contact in the town, a man who would assist them in finding a house for Catrìona and setting up a system for her to draw an allowance Lachann intended to provide.

“Give her a bed on the
Glencoe Lass,
” he said, “but keep her locked up for the duration of the voyage. And be wary. She—along with the blacksmith—are exceedingly treacherous. Do not trust either one.”

“The blacksmith?” Stuart asked.

“Aye. I’m sending Mungo Ramsay, too. He can stay with Catrìona in Glasgow if he wishes. If not . . . Well, ’tis not my concern. He can find some gainful employment that does not include bullying children and drowning cats.”

“Beg your pardon, Lachann?”

Lachann shrugged. “Just be exceedingly careful with both of them. I’ll have some of the men bring them to you, and I want you to get underway as soon as you take on the supplies you need for the voyage.”

“Of course.” Rob and Stuart gave a respectful bow of their heads. “And . . . congratulations, Lachann. You gained the lairdship without a troublesome wife to ruin the distinction.”

Ah, but he did intend to have a wife, just not the one he’d planned on.

He returned to the keep, went to his bedchamber and dressed in his finest clothes, then met up with some of his men to greet Count Leirvik and his entourage when they arrived at the castle.

Anna was already there. She welcomed the Norwegian guests as graciously as would the lady of the keep. But Lachann took note of the tension in her neck and shoulders. Ah, how he wished he could ease it for her.

As Lachann’s men and the Norsemen gathered in the great hall for the breakfast Flora had prepared, Anna stood at her stepfather’s table, at Catrìona’s chair. She seemed hesitant, as though she believed she did not belong there.

Lachann pulled out the chair and indicated that she should sit.
Gesu,
but she was beautiful in her scarlet gown, and when he breathed deeply of her scent, he wanted nothing more than to take her up to his bedchamber and demand the answer from her that he craved.

But he had to give her the chance to make her choice. The Norsemen and Braemore men remained standing until Anna took her seat.

The servants brought the meal, and in heavily accented speech, Count Leirvik told tales of the mother Anna had barely known. He spoke of his homeland in Norway, and the exceptional home she would have when she traveled there to take her place as Sigrid’s daughter—and Lars Frederickson’s wife.

“Your travel plans are premature, Count,” Lachann said.

Anna looked up at Lachann then, and he thought of the risk he was about to take.

Aye, ’tis well worth it.

“I do not understand, Laird MacMillan,” Leirvik said.

Lachann placed his hand upon Anna’s and looked into her bonny eyes. “Anna. You said once that you wanted nothing more than to leave Kilgorra.” He swallowed thickly. “I would ask you to stay.”

Leirvik stood and spoke firmly. “I am afraid that is impossible. My niece is a princess. She belongs in Norway with her family—with her own people.”

“Uncle—”

“We’ve learned of your situation here, my dear Annbjørg, and Sigrid would have been proud of your . . . er, tenacity all these years,” Leirvik continued. “She would have been pleased by your beautiful nobility, which was never subdued by the conditions under which you were raised.”

“Please, Uncle,” Anna said, embarrassed by the compliments. “I only did what—”

“My dear . . . ,” Leirvik interjected. “We would have you sail with us upon the morrow. Come home to Norway, where you belong. Marry Lars Frederickson. Return to your family.”

Anna looked at her uncle, and when she turned to look at Lachann, he felt his heart pounding like a hammer in his chest.
Gesu,
but he loved this woman. He did not want to lose her.

A
nna’s breath felt tight in her chest. She could barely hear her uncle’s words, not when Lachann’s request resonated so deeply within her.

The room went silent when she looked into his eyes and spoke the words that had lodged in her heart on that very first day when he’d stepped onto the pier and rescued Kyla. “I will stay with you, Lachann MacMillan, wherever you go—be it Kilgorra or Braemore, or anywhere else. Because I love you as I never expected to love anyone.”

Lachann got up from his chair and pulled her into his arms, kissing her as though she was more precious than the lairdship of Kilgorra, more valuable to him than the farms and the distillery and army he was working so hard to establish.

“I love you, Anna MacIver,” he said between kisses. “Marry me.”

Anna’s heart swelled in her chest. “Aye. I will marry you.”

His men cheered and Lachann kissed her again, then turned them both to face her uncle. “Count Leirvik, with your permission, I would wed Anna on the morrow, and ask that you stay to witness our nuptials. Take happy tidings of your niece back to your home—”

“Laird MacMillan—”

“Norway is not my home,” Anna interjected. “It never was.” She placed her hand over Lachann’s heart. “I would stay, Uncle.”

Count Leirvik hesitated for only a moment, then gave a curt nod of his head. “After all your years of neglect and abuse here . . . it seems fitting that you should become mistress of Kilgorra.”

Lachann’s men came to kiss Anna’s hand and congratulate her, and Anna wondered if she would ever have a moment alone with Lachann.

It finally came when her Norse relations returned to their ship, with the promise to return to the keep later, for a betrothal celebration.

When all was quiet in the hall, Lachann took Anna in his arms, and she forgot about all the worries of the day when Lachann fitted his brawny length against hers. He was warm and hard, and the tender stroke of his strong hand on her back was incredibly arousing. As were his scent and the rasp of his unshaven jaw against her skin. She burrowed her face into the indentation at the base of his throat and felt a flood of sensation surging all through her body.

She could have wept with the sheer pleasure of it, the wonder of belonging. . . .

“Anna.”

His deep voice shuddered through her, and as she tipped her head back, he lowered his and captured her lips with his own.

Anna heard a low growl as he deepened their kiss, sliding his hand down and pressing her hips into his groin. She could not help but move against him, eliciting yet another low growl.

This time from her.

He broke their kiss, taking her hand and leading her up the stairs to his bedchamber. There, he pushed open the window and let the sound of the surf roll over them.

“The sweet sound of home,” he said. “But know this, my sweet Anna. There is naught that I need but you.”

Anna felt her eyes fill with tears. “I’ve never belonged anywhere . . .”

“Until now.”

“Lachann.”

He took her in his arms again and kissed her deeply, easing her mouth open for his tongue. Her muscles all seemed to melt as he shifted again, moving her to the bed, easing her onto it and sliding over her. One of his legs slipped between hers, and the exquisite tension she’d felt when he’d taken her to his bed returned.

She arched her back as his mouth nipped and tasted her. He pulled her lower lip into his mouth and sucked, and Anna slid her fingers into the hair at Lachann’s nape and held him tighter.

He slipped one hand to the ties at her shoulders and opened her gown, easing it down to give him access to her breast. He fondled it gently, bringing the tip to a hard, sensitive peak that sent an intense spear of sensation directly to Anna’s womb.

Her breath caught when he left her mouth and began to press nibbling kisses down her throat. Anna nearly came off the bed when he sucked her nipple deep into his mouth.

“Lachann . . .”

He did not stop but slid one hand down to her waist, then slid her gown up, and up . . .

“
Herregud,
” she whispered. Or mayhap the word remained unsaid.

He touched her at the crook of her legs, creating a quivering tautness that was enough to make her mad with need. Anna grasped his shoulders tightly while he fondled and teased, creating a maelstrom of sensation. She bucked against his hand, wanting more, needing—

“Lachann!”

“Aye, lass. Come for me.”

His intimate touch made her feel as though her body would ignite like the powder in the guns he’d brought to the isle. And suddenly, she did explode, and sparks of intense sensation shuddered through her blood and into her bones. Her muscles quivered and she pulled Lachann to her, desperate to be one with him.

She pressed her lips to his chest and he groaned, moving slightly, spreading her legs with his own. “Give me your hand.”