Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Munro MacLawry dismounted from his big gray gelding, Saturn. He didn’t need a view of the sky to know the weather was turning, because the hair on his arms was lifting. Even so, from the front drive of Glengask Manor the black, roiling clouds were clear to see all the way across the valley.
“Storm by sunset, do ye think?” the lean man standing beside him asked, his gaze on the same view.
“Before that. Are ye staying fer dinner then, Lachlan?”
Lord Gray nodded. “Might as well. Cannae have ye roaming the halls alone like a great weepy ghoul.”
“I’m nae weepy.”
“Ranulf and Winnie have been away from here fer better than seven weeks, and Arran fer four. Have ye even heard from them?”
“Aye, here and there.” Arran was the only one who wrote regularly, and even he’d been silent for better than a week. “Ye know more than I, dunnae? Isnae Winnie sending ye those fancy perfumed letters every day?”
Lachlan frowned, turning for the front door as grooms appeared to lead away the pair of mounts. “Ye know she stopped writing me.”
“I’d fergotten. Likely she’s found a handsome Sasannach lord to occupy her. Ranulf has—a pretty lass, from what I hear.”
“Ranulf would never permit Winnie to marry a Sasannach who’d take her oot of the Highlands.”
“A few weeks ago I’d have agreed with ye.
But then I also would’ve wagered ye a hundred quid that Glengask wouldnae lose his heart to an English lass.
They say being in England changes a soul.
” He didn’t know any such thing, but it did serve to explain his oldest brother’s actions.
And if it gave Lachlan pause, so much the better.
Because so far the viscount hadn’t shown any sign of viewing Winnie as anything other than the pigtail-wearing sister of his good friends.
But Ranulf seemed to want them together, so Munro meant to do what he could to help.
The door opened as they reached it, but rather than standing back to allow them entry, Cooper and his shock of red hair came out to meet them.
“Ye’ve a note, m’laird,” the butler said, holding it out.
“Came by special courier. The lad said it was urgent. I was aboot to send William oot to look fer ye.”
Munro took the missive. “We rode oot to see Duncan Lenox and his new bride.”
“And his sisters,” Lachlan added. “The oldest one, Sorcha, nearly fainted when Bear smiled at her.”
“She didnae. And she’s naught but sixteen. Now shut up so I can read this.”
The address was in Ranulf’s dark, spare handwriting. He broke Glengask’s wax seal and unfolded it. At the first few words, though, he stopped, his blood freezing. “Ran’s office, Lach. Now.”
Lachlan fell in behind him as he strode down the wide hallway with its portraits of ancient MacLawrys, clan chiefs and warriors and statesmen, all of them with thick black hair and steely eyes, all of them sworn to fight to the death to protect Glengask and her people. Campbell haters, all of them.
“What is it, Bear?” Lachlan asked, closing the door to shut them inside Ranulf’s spare, neat office. “Ye look green aboot the gills.”
“I feel greenish. Listen to this. ‘Bear, the Campbell truce is likely broken past repair. I—’”
“That didnae last long,” Lachlan commented. “But ye cannae be surprised.”
“It’s worse than that. ‘I need ye to gather riders and head south to the border. Arran’s on his way north in the company of Mary Campbell, Alkirk’s granddaughter.
Ye need to keep him from being slaughtered by the Campbells chasing after him, and ye need to keep him from marrying that woman AT ALL COSTS. ’ He capitalized that last bit.”
“Sweet Jasus,” Lachlan muttered, looking more than a little off color, himself. “A Campbell? Arran?”
It was the word “marrying” that caught Munro’s attention.
He could see Arran bedding the Campbell’s granddaughter to thumb his nose at old Alkirk and his kin.
But marriage? That didn’t make even a madman’s sense.
Moving around Lachlan, he pulled open the door again.
“Cooper! Fetch me William! And Andrew and Connor. And have horses saddled fer ’em. ”
“How many men are ye taking with ye, Bear?” Lachlan asked.
“Enough.”
“I’ll ride home and get my kit, then.”
Munro blocked his friend from the door. “Nae. Ye know the words on the coat of arms. ‘Always a MacLawry at Glengask.’ Ye’ll be staying here.”
Lach frowned. “I’m nae a MacLawry.”
“Yer grandmother was. And the clan knows it. I need ye here, especially if we’re stirring up trouble.”
After a moment the viscount nodded. “I’ll agree to it only because of what this could set in motion, Bear. Because ye ken if ye run across any Campbells, it’ll mean a fight.”
“Aye. That’s my hurry. If anyone’s to murder Arran, it’ll be Ranulf. Or me. Damned fool.”
Perhaps he wasn’t as razor-witted as Arran, but he knew well enough that if his brother had truly run off with Mary Campbell, they’d begun a disaster. He couldn’t see a way through it that didn’t include bloodshed. And more than likely the blood would be Arran’s.
“Damned fool,” he repeated.
* * *
Mary awoke from a dream in which her father became a great bear and slashed his claws through Arran’s chest as she and Arran slept together in a cozy bed in a cozy cottage up in the Highlands. She sat upright, startled, and banged the back of her head on something.
“Ouch,” Arran said mildly, rubbing his chin. “What woke ye, lass?”
They weren’t in a cozy cottage in the Highlands.
They were still in the badly sprung carriage fleeing north.
And evidently she’d fallen asleep on Arran’s shoulder, with his arms wrapped around her.
Still, though, the terror of that moment, the horror of the …
loss she’d felt, lingered. “It was just a dream,” she said aloud, though it felt like far more than that.
No one in her family was a witch or a warlock, however—as far as she knew.
No one could portend the future in dreams or tea leaves or tarot cards.
And she seriously doubted her father could become a bear.
An angry dog, perhaps, barking and howling at the moon, but if she had anyone as fierce as a bear in her family it would be her grandfather.
“Was I in this dream of yers?” he asked slyly, tucking a strand of her red-brown hair behind one ear. “Were we naked?”
“Yes, you were in my dream,” she returned, still trying to banish the lingering cobwebs, “and no, we weren’t naked. At least I don’t think we were. We were in a bed with blankets over us.”
“Together? Then I’m certain we were naked.”
“Arran.”
“What disturbed ye aboot it, then? It seems a fine dream to me.”
“It was, until my father found us, turned into a bear, and clawed you to death.”
“Well, then. That would be upsetting. Except that yer father’s nae a bear and there are nae bears in Scotland, anyway. Nae any longer.” He grinned. “Ye snore, ye know.”
With an indignant laugh and truly grateful for the distraction, she slapped him on the knee. “I do not!”
“Ye do,” he insisted. “It’s a wee, delicate sound, like a lamb bleating.”
“Well, you sound like an elephant trumpeting when you snore,” she countered, because it seemed plausible.
“I didnae snore, because I didnae sleep.”
Mary shifted into the far corner of the coach so she could take a look at Arran.
Really, truly see him. His lean expression remained easy and amused, his sunrise-blue eyes darker but sharp in the dimmer light inside the coach.
Beyond that, though, shadows swooped at the edges of his jaw and beneath his eyes, and she abruptly wondered when he’d last managed a good night’s sleep. Likely not since they’d left London.
“Sleep now,” she said, reaching out to run a finger along his jaw. “I’ll keep watch.”
He studied her face as intently as she’d been looking at his. “Do ye regret this, Mary Campbell? Do ye wish we’d nae met?”
Vulnerable. That was how he looked. And if she chose to, she could wound him badly.
“I’ve wondered about that,” she admitted.
“And I’m not so sure my circumstances would have altered all that much.
The moment the truce began, my father went looking for Roderick—at my grandfather’s behest, I assume.
And if the truce had lasted long enough, I would have married him.
If it hadn’t, well, Charles practically sleeps on our front porch.
Neither of them … light a spark in my heart.
” Not the way Arran did. “And I would have had no one to ride to my rescue.”
She sighed, trying to think through what she wanted to say before she spoke the words aloud.
“Before your family rode into London, my grandfather kept telling my parents to give me time. Eventually I would have had to choose someone of whom they approved, though, so I suppose it was all only an illusion of free choice. And I have a good idea now that my father would have pushed for Charles Calder, regardless of my opinion. After all, no one’s spent more time or effort to ingratiate himself with my parents than Charles has.
He’s lavished more attention on them, in fact, that he ever did on me. ”
“So ye reckon ye’d have ended up leg-shackled to him if ye’d never seen a MacLawry, and whether I’d ever kissed ye or nae.”
“I think I might well have. Without your presence, well, even though Roderick seems milder, I honestly wouldn’t call him much of an improvement.
And there would have been no one to ask what I wanted.
There certainly wouldn’t have been anyone to assist me when I said I didn’t wish to marry Charles because he’s cruel and a snake and I couldn’t …
tolerate him touching me the way you do.
” Nor could she imagine herself conversing with any other man the way she could talk to Arran.
“Then I have another reason to be glad I came to London,” he said quietly.