Chapter 7
brìGHDE FOUGHT IAN.
The man had a grip of iron, but she wasn’t going to give him what he wanted.
He’d grossly overstepped.
Snarling, she bit down hard on his lower lip.
With a shout, he reeled back, releasing her. Blood streamed down his chin, anger glinting in his blue eyes. “Ye shouldn’t have done that, Brìghde,” he growled.
“Aye, she should have.”
A hard voice intruded then, making them both jerk their gazes south.
Brìghde staggered back a step, breath coming fast, the metallic taste of blood still on her lips.
Greig Maclean approached upon his roan courser, his strong-featured face creased into a scowl. He didn’t look away from Ian. Not even when the man moved away from her. “When a woman says no, ye should take her at her word.”
Ian’s lean frame stiffened, the fury dousing in his eyes. “MacLean,” he said roughly, “I—”
“Ye have been warned,” Greig cut him off, drawing his horse up before them, his gaze sweeping from Ian to Brìghde and then back again to the farmer. “Run,” Greig said softly. “And don’t stop until ye’re well clear of her.”
A muscle in Ian’s jaw flexed, defiance rippling over his face. However, in answer, Greig’s hand strayed to the hilt of his dirk. “Do I need to repeat myself?” His voice lowered dangerously.
“No,” Ian ground out, and then, cutting Brìghde a simmering look that promised this wasn’t the last of it, he moved on, breaking into a slow jog.
Brìghde watched him go, tension slowly unknotting in her belly. Her hands trembled, though she clenched them into fists at her sides.
She couldn’t believe Ian had just grabbed her—that he’d forced his kiss upon her.
Aye, he’d made a bit of a nuisance of himself, increasingly so of late, but she’d always thought he respected her.
Today’s behavior showed he didn’t.
She’d been on her way back from buying lengths of iron from a merchant in Craignure, walking alongside her pony, when Ian jogged up behind her. He’d been running an errand at the port village too and had spied her leaving.
They’d traveled together for a spell. However, halfway home, he’d seized his chance.
She wasn’t sure how things might have played out if the clan-chief’s son hadn’t approached.
Fire pulsed in her belly then.
One thing was for certain. If rape had been on Ian’s mind, he wouldn’t have found her an easy victim.
“Thank ye,” she said, turning her attention to Greig. He was watching her, his expression inscrutable. “Ye have good timing indeed.”
“Ye looked as if ye were handling him well enough,” he replied with a shrug. His tone was gruff rather than warm, as if uncertain what else to say to her. “But I thought it best to intervene, all the same.”
“Ye did well,” she answered. “Things were likely to have gotten ugly.”
He nodded, his lips pursing. His father did that too, when he was displeased. She’d seen the clan-chief make the same face when dealing with a thief recently.
“Come on,” he said gruffly. “I’ll make sure ye get back to Duart safely.”
They continued up the track, she leading Sradag, her family’s faithful garron, while he walked sedately alongside upon his horse. They traveled in silence for a while, the only sound the crunch of gravel beneath their feet and the occasional snort of his horse.
The quiet between them felt awkward rather than companionable, both of them seemingly unsure how to speak after what had just happened.
“No more thrown shoes?” she asked finally, glancing up at him. The question came out a touch stilted, but she forced herself to make conversation all the same.
“No,” he said. “Although I’ve been pushing him hard of late.” He patted Tàirneanach’s neck. “We’ve a long ride planned.”
Her gaze lingered on him. “Yer hair is damp. Have ye been swimming?”
A flicker of something crossed his face—almost a smile—although it disappeared as quickly as it appeared. “Aye. There’s a good stretch of water not far from here.” He paused. “I used to swim. Before.”
The word hung between them before he added, “Now I’m trying again.”
They walked a few more paces in silence. Brìghde glanced at him then away again, uncertain whether she ought to pry further.
“Why?” she asked at last.
He shot her a look. It wasn’t sharp, as she’d come to expect from him, but measuring. “Before he died …” He hesitated, jaw tightening. “My brother made a list.”
Brìghde’s grip tightened on the garron’s lead. “Of what?”
“Things he meant to do.” His mouth twisted. “Things he never got the chance to finish.”
“And ye mean to do them for him?”
He shrugged, but it lacked conviction. “Someone should.”
She studied him a moment longer. Unlike their last meeting earlier in the summer, there was no hostility in his face. Only weariness. “What sort of things?”
His gaze flicked away, toward the hills. “Climb Ben More. Swim the Sound.” A pause. “Foolish challenges, I suppose.”
“No,” she replied firmly. “Not foolish at all.”
He glanced back at her, surprised.
“They’re hard things,” she went on. “And worth doing.”
Something shifted in his expression then—his gaze was guarded but not closed.
She hesitated after that, chewing briefly on the inside of her cheek. “I climbed Ben More a few years ago … with my father.”
He stilled. “Did ye?”
She nodded. “Ye’ll need a good while to train … but if ye’re set on it … I could help ye … and show ye the way when ye’re ready.”
The words seemed to catch him off guard. “I don’t need—” he began, then stopped.
The refusal came instinctively. He was almost defensive.
She looked away, heat flushing over her. Hades. She’d just gone and offended the man again. “Ye’re right, ye don’t. Forget I said anything.”
Satan’s turds.
Greig’s heart kicked hard.
What was wrong with him today?
He hadn’t meant to tell the Forge Maiden any of it. Not about his decision to build up his fitness and strength—and certainly not about the list his brother had left behind.
He hadn’t told anyone, not even Davy or his parents, about it.
There was something about Brìghde Boyd that loosened his tongue, and that alarmed him.
Her spirited response to Ian’s unwanted advances earlier had impressed him. He liked that she had fire in her belly.
Even so, she was right—if he hadn’t been there, things might have gone ill for her. She’d bruised Ian’s pride, and he wasn’t the sort of man to forget it.
She’d caught Greig at a weak moment too.
He’d been in a pensive mood, emotions close to the surface.
However, he sorely regretted telling her about the list now. The woman had just offered to go hill walking with him, for pity’s sake.
And yet, despite himself, he found he didn’t entirely dislike the thought. That unsettled him.
An awkward silence followed before he spoke. “I don’t need a guide.”
The words emerged sharper than he intended.
She cut him an arch look that made it clear she disagreed with him.
He cleared his throat. “Surely, ye are too busy for that, anyway? Aren’t ye chained to the forge day and night?”
Her grey eyes glinted before she shrugged. “Even the Forge Maiden takes the Sabbath off. I always go hill walking on Sundays. I like the fresh air and peace … it reminds me that there is more to life than hammering steel.”
Another awkward pause followed.
Neither looked directly at the other for a moment. Greig found himself watching the road ahead while she fussed unnecessarily with the lead rope in her hands.
Eventually, Greig glanced her way. Out here in daylight, she looked different, younger.
The lass was possibly the same age as him, or maybe a year or two younger.
He noticed details about her face he hadn’t before, like the small mole above her top lip and the little gap between her two front teeth.
She wasn’t a beauty, yet there was something pleasing about her features.
Pleasing? What the devil is wrong with ye today?
“Forget I made the offer,” she said then, waving her left hand as if she wished she could pull her words back.
Suddenly, Greig felt like an arse.
He’d forgotten his manners more than once in this woman’s company. She didn’t deserve such treatment.
“All right, Boyd,” he replied tersely. “I shall take ye up on it.”
She shot him a surprised look, as if she’d been sure he would refuse.
“Good,” she murmured after a few moments, her lips stretching into a smile that revealed the gap between her two front teeth once more. “I shall meet ye outside the castle walls after the morning Mass this Sunday. We’ll walk the foothills of Beinn Talaidh.”
Breathing hard, his body slicked with sweat, Greig pulled Tàirneanach up.
The wind howled around them, storm clouds boiling in from the north, but he paid little attention to them.
Tàirneanach’s sides were heaving, the gelding blowing hard through his nostrils.
“Well done, lad,” Greig panted, leaning forward and stroking the horse’s sweat-slicked neck. “Ye did well. We made it.”
And they had. He’d completed a task on Alistair’s list.
To ride non-stop across Mull, from Duart to The Western Cliffs.
Horse and rider stood just yards from where black cliffs plunged into the churning sea.
The water stretched beyond, whitecaps foaming, surf pounding against rocks. Gulls shrieked and wheeled above.
And despite everything that had happened of late, every hardship and loss, Greig grinned.
Suddenly, it felt as if Alistair were with him right now, sitting behind him, enjoying this moment.
“That wasn’t so hard, brother,” he murmured. “Was it?”
Actually, it had been grueling.
He’d set off at first light from home. Rolling pasture gave way to rough moorland—heather, bracken, coarse grass—and treacherous peat bogs. They skirted the marshy areas, the ground sucking at Tàirneanach’s hooves.
Next had come narrow glens, steep-sided corries, and shadowed passes. At a certain point, he’d skirted Ben More. The ‘Great Mountain’ had loomed overhead, dark, massive, and wreathed in cloud.
Spying the peak had been a reminder of Alistair’s list—and the foolish promise he’d made to the Forge Maiden.
Hill walking? What was he thinking?
Their meeting was in two days; perhaps he should send word that he’d changed his mind.
Jaw clenched, he’d ridden on, leaving Ben More behind him. The western descent took him into harsher, wind-battered land. The wind was stronger here, salt sharp in the air. And now that he’d reached his destination, it felt like the edge of the world.
“We should have done this ride together years ago, Al.”
His mood sobered then, regret tightening his chest.
He hadn’t spent nearly enough time with his brother before his death. Greig had been too busy fulfilling his own ambitions. He had gone off to fight the English, leaving his brothers behind, without a backward glance.
And in truth, he’d barely spared either of them a thought while he’d been fighting for Andrew Murray. But when he’d returned to Duart, they’d been here, waiting, a constant in his life, or so he’d thought.
He’d taken Alistair for granted. And he was so sorry for that now.
It was too late, though, for some things at least.
To the west, the sun hung low in the sky now; the day was coming to an end.
He wouldn’t make it back to Duart until tomorrow, but fortunately, the crofting and fishing hamlet of Bunessan lay just south of here.
He’d find shelter there, as well as a hearty meal and a tankard of ale.
However, he didn’t ride on just yet. Instead, he savored this moment, the first challenge on Alistair’s list.
He admitted to himself that it was possibly one of the easiest, although a night of heavy drinking in Tobermory wasn’t exactly a hardship, especially since, these days, the Macleans and the Mackinnons had made peace. He wouldn’t risk a dirk between the shoulder blades, at least.
This challenge had been an exhilarating one.
He was almost sorry it had ended.
Casting his gaze west once more, he stared out across the churning sea, enjoying this moment.
One task done.
Four more to go.
Of course, Alistair had listed six things, yet his ghost would have to make do with Greig fulfilling five.
Even if he’d found Brìghde Boyd attractive, he wouldn’t have taken on that challenge.
The others were different—they didn’t involve anyone but him.
The Forge Maiden had no idea his brother had carried a torch for her; it would be cruel to drag her into this.
“Ye’ve earned yerself a nosebag of oats, lad,” he said, slapping Tàirneanach on the shoulder.
As if understanding him, the gelding snorted, tossing his head.
“Come on then,” he replied, grinning once more, before he turned his horse south.