Chapter 4
Eilidh could tell that Ciaran was growing weary as he walked out to the courtyard, his back stiff and his shoulders unyielding.
She really hadn’t meant to take him on such a long excursion, nor had she intended to forget to mention their new arrival.
But he’d been so stubborn about mistrusting the old Laird Buchanan, and that had irritated her.
She’d wanted to show him how lovely Buchanan Keep was and how friendly all the people in it.
Except Arran had needed to be all protective and rude. Gosh, men were a trial.
And now things had gone very much not according to plan.
A mud-spattered carriage clattered to a halt in the center of the yard. No sooner had the big wheels stopped than the carriage door was thrown open with a great deal of force.
The figure that emerged was more like a hurricane than a mere woman. She had sharp eyes, a slightly hawkish nose, and wind-flushed cheeks. Her graying hair was pinned simply, and the flyaway pieces that fluttered in the breeze put even Eilidh’s perpetually unruly mane to shame.
“Bi crivvens,” Ciaran muttered under his breath. “Christ defend us.”
The woman might have been well into middle age, but that apparently hadn’t affected her hearing in the least, as she heard this little bit of blasphemy from across the expanse of yard. Her head whipped in Ciaran’s direction.
“Ciaran Gunn!” she cried, her voice echoing. She jumped down from the carriage with impressive nimbleness, given her age, and stalked directly toward the warrior. “Ye nasty numpty! Gallus mon! Riskin’ yer fool hide, as if ye had no sense at all!”
Eilidh laughed as the woman swore vociferously at Ciaran in old Scots, no matter that he towered a head taller than her. The woman raised her pointer right in his face.
“I ken ye were raised better than that, boyo. And we shall be having plenty of words regarding this latest bit of foolishness, never ye forget it!”
The muscles in Ciaran’s jaw flexed under his skin as he clearly fought a battle against his dark mood.
“Aunt Kirsty,” he said. “What are ye doing here?”
Kirsten Gunn, spinster sister to the previous Gunn Laird, raised her chin defiantly, proving that if she had never married, it was not because she had a lack of spirit.
“What the hell do ye think I’m doing here, laddie?” she demanded. “I’m here tae make certain that ye dinnae get yourself killed before ye manage to get back home, clear enough.”
Eilidh watched, phenomenally entertained, as Ciaran worked his jaw again.
“What I meant,” he clarified, “is how did ye ken I was here?”
Kirsty waved a hand, like this was a boring, insignificant detail.
“Graham Donaghey wrote to me, of course,” she said.
Ciaran’s head whipped around to look at Eilidh, who offered him a sympathetic wince.
She had meant to mention that Graham knew he was here, too.
Though really, he should have expected it.
But maybe he was just such a noble warrior that he never even considered the things that went on behind lines of battle in a war.
He was probably too focused on honor and defending the innocent to even think about sending missives and information.
Kirsty followed Ciaran’s gaze. Her face lit up with a smile as soon as she saw Eilidh.
“Ach, ye must be the wee Viking!” she exclaimed.
With those same confident strides, she crossed to Eilidh and pressed a smacking kiss on her forehead. It was a maternal kind of gesture—or it would have been if Eilidh’s mother moved with the bullying determination of a nanny goat, as did Kirsty Gunn.
“I… beg your pardon?” Eilidh stammered, surprised by this unexpected characterization.
But irrepressible Kirsty laughed. “Och, that’s what yer Da called ye,” she said, her smile growing fond.
“I would see dear Alasdair whenever the Gunns and the Donagheys traded, or whenever the clans gathered. He was a good man, but once ye got any amount of the drink in him, ye couldnae get him to shut his gob about his braw, strong son and all those bonny daughters.” She reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind Eilidh’s ear, which Eilidh found rather comforting.
“He always did say that his youngest looked more like a Viking goddess than a Highland lass, God rest his soul. That must be ye.”
Eilidh felt her eyes prickle faintly at the fond way that this woman could offer up a piece of her father when Eilidh would have assumed there was nothing new to learn about him. She would rather not humiliate herself by crying in front of a stranger, though, so she cocked a saucy brow.
“Aye, he is missed, but we will be sure to kill that mockit scanner Gordon once and for all—in my father’s honor. And then, all will be well again.”
The older woman laughed. “Ach, a lass who can swear in the old language! If ye are nay a girl after my own heart.”
Eilidh gave a teasing curtsy, which made Kirsty laugh again. Beneath her antics, though, she felt a real sense of camaraderie with this woman.
Maybe people would call Kirsty dramatic—ostentatious—unladylike. But people called Eilidh those things, too, when her fancies grabbed at her. So clearly they ought to flock together.
James and Arran had hung back during the introductions, giving Ciaran a chance to reunite with his kinswoman and allowing Eilidh, as the most proximate woman of noble descent, to welcome her to the keep. Now, however, they approached.
James bowed, though not so much so that he couldn’t keep a wary eye on the driver who had accompanied Kirsty.
“My lady,” he said politely. “I am James McGregor, Captain of the Guard here at Buchanan Keep. With me is Arran McPherson, lately wed to Davina Donaghey. On behalf of Laird Buchanan, permit me to welcome ye.”
Eilidh wanted to cross her eyes and stick out her tongue. Well, that was one way to greet a person, though she really thought hers was more interesting.
Evidently, Kirsty agreed. She gave James an up-and-down look that was laced with skepticism.
“Lighten up, lad,” she advised.
James wasn’t without a sense of humor—he couldn’t have survived being married to Vaila without one—but Eilidh wouldn’t have known it, not from the way this comment failed to make him so much as bat an eye.
“May we escort ye inside?” he asked.
“Och, when a braw young thing like ye is making the offer, how can I resist?”
James’ expression was impassive as he led Kirsty away, but Arran, following close behind after hoisting one of Kirsty’s trunks onto his shoulder, looked profoundly glad that he had not been asked to walk arm-in-arm with the brash older lady.
Eilidh turned to offer the same aid to Ciaran, who had to be past exhausted by this point, but when she offered him her arm as she had before, he lurched back a step as though she’d offered him a live snake rather than a shoulder to lean upon.
“What,” he snapped, glaring at her, “in the world is wrong with ye?”
Ciaran supposed that this was possibly somewhat harsh.
Still, the anger boiling inside him loosened his tongue, made him reckless with his words, and he found that not even the flash of hastily hidden hurt that moved across Eilidh’s elfin features could stop him from speaking further.
“Ye had no right to bring her here,” he snapped. “What in the hell possessed ye? What made ye think that ye had the right to get involved with my family’s affairs?”
Eilidh smiled at him then, which confused him for the brief moment it took him to understand that this wasn’t a real smile. This was like the way a wolf grinned at you before it went for your legs.
“Flattered as I am that ye think that I am the one in charge of such things,” she said in a viciously sweet tone, “but that was my brother. Laird Graham Donaghey. And as Laird, he made the decision to inform your kin that ye had turned up on our door. So, as I see it, ye ought to be thanking us.”
He scoffed.
Her smile widened as though she was preparing to swallow him alive. She might be sweet, this youngest Donaghey sister, and she might look like he could knock her over with a feather, but she was tougher than she seemed.
“Besides,” she went on. “The Gunns have always been allies to my family. Unless…” She blinked innocent eyes, the green mesmerizing. “Unless ye are trying to tell me that ye no longer wish it to be so.”
Beneath the thousand thoughts racing through his mind—the effort it took to keep his body upright, the struggle against giving anything away with his reactions, the work of wondering how in the hell he was going to manage his aunt—Ciaran was impressed.
He wouldn’t have pegged her for someone so skilled at probing for information.
“I want no part in a war,” he replied. It was as honest as he could be, given his circumstances.
She let out a sharp bark of laughter.
“Well, that’s too bad,” she said flatly, that smile vanished from her face. “None of us wanted a war, Ciaran, but it found us. It found ye…” She trailed off meaningly. “With those bandits ye encountered, ye ken.”
Internally, Ciaran swore. If Eilidh hadn’t believed his story about the bandits, then there was no chance that the hardened warriors of the Keep had believed it, either.
He clenched his jaw until he could feel the muscles moving, until he knew that his teeth would ache later from the effort. Eilidh watched him carefully, looking almost… disappointed.
“We saved your life,” she reminded him in that same level tone, the one that threw the absence of her usual cheer into stark relief. “The least ye can do is repay that debt. If ye dinnae stand with us against Gordon, then ye may as well be an enemy.” She tilted her head. “Sommat to consider.”
And then, without any further offer of aid, she turned on her heel and left him standing alone in the courtyard.
Ciaran swore under his breath as he watched her retreat. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair, growing even more irritable as his shoulder screamed with the mere effort of raising his arm above his head.
Christ, when had things gotten so bloody complicated?
He stood there for a long moment, his legs trembling beneath him. He had, despite his promise to the healer, overexerted himself.
Just as he gathered his resolve to make the long, likely painful walk back to his room, he felt a strange prickling across his scalp, the one he’d felt a thousand times before in battle. The one that had saved his life more than once.
With a carefully casual air, he looked over his shoulder in the direction of the feeling—but saw nary a soul, not even the regular clansfolk who were moving through the space on their daily business.
Ciaran was too well-versed in the language of danger to disregard the feeling, however.
Even if he didn’t see someone, that didn’t mean that they weren’t watching him.
Someone was here. Someone skilled enough to remain hidden as they spied upon him.
It seemed he didn’t have much time left for resting and recovery. Soon, he would be left with no choice but to act.