Chapter 5 #2
“Lia, that’s wonderful! Ye will learn so much, and ye will be respected by everyone.”
“I hope so. ’Tis a better life than one I’d have had in Inverness without ye there.”
Perhaps she’d been wrong about Lia and Hamish. “Are ye and Hamish no’ close? I thought ye had aught special with him.”
Lia frowned, opened her mouth to speak, then closed it without a word.
Fiona had to ask. “Is he going to stay as well?”
Tears formed in Lia’s eyes, and Fiona instantly regretted her question. “Lia, what happened?”
“Hamish left for Inverness this morning. He said he had to return the horse we used to its owner, but I dinna think he’s coming back.”
“Ach, lass, I’m so sorry.”
“So, ’tis good that I am now a Rose, and a healer’s apprentice, aye?”
Fiona nodded and gave her a brave smile, though her heart was breaking for the lass. “’Tis very good, Lia. Ye will prosper here.”
On the Ross side of the Moray Firth, since the cliff path was too narrow for the horses, Erik and his men rode up from the beach the long way around.
The next cove down the beach lay at the foot of a gentle hill that climbed until it overlooked the village by a few feet.
The ride gave him time to settle himself back into Ross, and into being the Ross laird, and to forget for a moment, that he’d had to leave Fiona behind.
But the view when they reached the overlook did not please him.
Little progress had been made while they’d been gone.
Annoyed he picked up the pace as they rode into the village, then stayed mounted while his men dismounted.
He signaled two of his men. “Take Kester to his cot, and send Cara to see to him.” The crossing had been rough and Kester, still suffering from too much drink, had lost his belly several times while crying out and clutching his jaw.
Erik bitterly regretted giving in to his fury on the way out of Rose.
He couldn’t be sure the man would ever be able to move his jaw without pain, but if he was lucky, it was only badly bruised and he would recover in a few days.
Cara, who did her untrained best to care for the ill and injured of the clan, would do what she could for him.
She was their only healer. Finding an actual wise woman was high on his list of clan’s problems to solve.
After the wedding, and before last night’s painful events, he would have been comfortable seeking such help from Rose. Now, that was no longer possible.
Erik’s arrival back at Ross was met with a variety of expressions on the faces of his clan.
Confused smiles greeted him from those he counted on to be glad to see him.
No doubt they wondered about his lack of a bride.
There were knowing smirks from others that, as they’d expected, he’d failed to bring home the promised Lady Ross, and frowns, all telling him that Fiona’s absence was noted and would be discussed with him by his advisors, and behind his back by everyone else.
And returning home with an injured man also did not look good.
The sooner he put rumors to bed, the better for him and for Fiona when she did arrive.
He’d leave the story of why they’d had to return home without her to the men who’d been there with him.
Better everyone hear it from them than for him to disparage a Ross over a drunken mistake, one he compounded with his own fist. He was no better than his man.
Worse, actually, because he didn’t have the excuse of inebriation.
He’d drunk sparingly at the celebration, determined to do his best for Fiona.
He’d failed even at that.
Erik waited for the crowd to quiet down.
Then he spoke, keeping his voice lower than he wanted to force them to listen and his tone calm as he told them, “Lady Ross does indeed exist. To spare her the difficult night crossing, we came without her. I will sail across the firth to Rose in the next few days to retrieve her and her belongings.”
“Ye lie,” a man shouted. One of Donas’ old partisans. “She wouldna have ye. I’d wager the Rose kicked ye out, laughing.”
“Say what ye like. In a few days, ye will eat yer words,” he told the man, adding steel to his tone.
“In the meantime, we have much to do to make this village presentable for yer new lady. Men no’ on guard duty will continue constructing the curtain wall.
I will see a great deal of progress on that before I leave for Rose or ken the reason why.
Lasses will clean up around each cot, tend yer gardens, and pen up the small animals in enclosures the men will build today.
Chickens, coneys, any small game animals ye’ve caught and kept alive willna run free in the village, or be kept in yer houses.
Horses belong in a stable, no’ in yer home.
” He turned to his tanist, Tormod, whom he’d left in charge while he was gone to Rose.
“See that a large enough area is roped off to contain them until we can build a stable, aye? Donas let too many things be overlooked and ignored. I am no’ he.
” He paused to let his orders sink in. He wanted Fiona to be impressed, or at least not dismayed, by what she found here.
The frowns that greeted his pronouncements didn’t give him much confidence that his orders would be followed.
“I will remain here to oversee Ross efforts.” Tormod backed Erik up. “Our lady willna live in a hovel among game birds and wild piglets. Though the laird may be gone again for a few days, his orders will be carried out.”
“Who’s gonna make me?” The Donas partisan hooted.
“Dinna cross me. Ye willna like the result,” Tormod said calmly. “Let’s get to work.”
“Council, meet with me in my cot in an hour,” Erik added, and dismounted, handing the reins to another of his men.
“Walk with me,” he ordered his tanist. Once they got away from the others, he told Tormod what the Rose had said about not receiving his missive.
“Who did ye send to Rose to deliver it?”
“Lyall.”
“Very well. Send him to me. Nay, ye come with him. Both of us will need to hear what he has to say.”
He needed the hour to get something to eat, clean up and have a few minutes to himself, but he needed to know about his letter. Tormod did, too. If there was a problem with the messenger, Tormod would want to deal with it.
He didn’t blame Tormod for the slow progress while he’d been gone.
Progress was slow even when he was here.
Erik needed his council to speak up and impress on the laggards that they were watching and would make sure the laird knew who was doing the job—and who wasn’t.
The temptation to berate them was strong, and he knew enough about his temper to suspect that was the wrong approach.
But what would work? He was too tired to think.
His first stop was to the cook to collect some food and drink and have a large pot of hot water for washing brought to him.
There was much to do to get his own home ready for Fiona to live there.
He’d taken over Donas’ and Silas’ larger cottage in anticipation of wedding with Fiona, and had tossed out all of their belongings.
Living there by himself had suited him, but he didn’t like the look of the place for her.
His things alone were too sparse. But perhaps when Rose sent her to him, they would gift her with furnishings and such, more than her own clothes.
Minutes later, Tormod and the messenger Lyall arrived. “Ye ken why I sent for ye?” Erik glanced from the man to Tormod, who nodded, and back again.
“Aye. I delivered it as ordered,” Lyall insisted. “And I was angry I wasna offered hospitality.”
That agreed with what Tormod had told Erik before he made the trip to Rose. The Rose should have been given the missive within minutes of the Ross messenger handing it to a Rose guard.
“Thank ye, Lyall.”
The man nodded, and both he and Tormod left.
When Erik’s three advisors arrived a few minutes later, he set aside the issue of the lost missive and started in on what he envisioned.
“For our own safety, we need to hurry the curtain wall construction. But also a hall, and a better home for the laird’s family,” he told them, hoping he was right and one day soon, he and Fiona would start one.
“There is much to do, and little time to do it. I depend on ye to help Tormod keep the work going while I’m across the firth. ”
“How long will ye be gone?” Acton, the eldest, asked.
“No more than three days. And this village is no’ fit for a new Lady.”
“’Twas good enough for Silas and for the Munro lasses, at least for a while. And one is still here,” Garrod objected. He was the one holdout on the council, still favoring Donas’ roughshod style of leadership. Erik despaired of ever getting him on his side.
“Stolen brides are one thing, and I willna argue with ye again about the practice. Ross will no longer depend on it.”
“Rumblings among some of Donas’ old partisans say that ye are nay better a leader than Donas was,” Garrod challenged. “Ye came back without a wife. Ye heard one man’s complaint, but others will also ask if she rejected ye.”
“Why would I go back to Rose if she had? Donas’ men hope to sow dissent.
Dinna let them.” Temper flaring, Erik laid out what he wanted for the clan and swore that anyone who disrespected Fiona when she arrived would deal with him.
“Make sure those loudmouths understand that,” he warned.
“I’ll no’ tolerate anything less than the honor a clan’s lady deserves. ”
“We understand, Laird,” Rob said. Erik’s addition to the council and youngest of the three, though older than Erik by a decade, he could be counted on to promote Erik’s plans.
Likely Acton would as well. Garrod was the only one Erik couldn’t trust, and he could do a lot of damage, especially to Fiona, once she arrived.
He fought to keep the regrets filling him off his face.
Was he getting the clan off on the wrong foot for her, sowing resentment before she even arrived?
Since the marriage had not been consummated, it could be annulled.
He worried that she would have changed her mind about joining him, worried that she’d hate this place and him and his people.
He needed her to soften his rough edges, and to give him sons.
As long as he didn’t make it impossible for her, he believed she could win over the clan—if they just gave her time… and she gave him grace.