Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
“Me Laird,” the village head said at last, voice thin, “the east field took poorly after the rain. The ditch by the burn filled with silt again, and the oats near the lower ridge…” He swallowed. “They havenae come as they should.”
Gordon waited for him to say more, and Tam paled. He would not look Gordon in the eye. That, more than the broken fence by the lower field or the thinness of the winter barley, set Gordon’s teeth hard together.
Old Tam stood before him with his cap twisting between both hands, his shoulders bent even though the man had been straight-backed enough when Gordon rode into the village.
The other men had drifted back toward their doors and carts, pretending to work while watching from beneath lowered brows.
Women gathered their children closer. A dog slunk behind a stack of split wood and did not bark.
They all watched to see what he would do next after he heard of the drought in the village, and he felt every glance like a stone in his chest.
The day was cold but fair. Sunlight lay pale over the village, touching the thatched roofs, the smoke rising from hearths, the narrow road rutted by carts and hooves.
Beyond the cottages, the fields rolled out toward the hills, some green, some bare, some still needing hands and seed and faith enough to believe harvest would come again.
He had come to inspect the land, not to frighten the villagers. Yet Tam’s mouth moved twice before any words came.
“I have men set to clear the ditch,” the old man rushed on. “I swear it. We lost two oxen in the last frost, but I’ve sent lads to help the ploughin’, and if the gods grant us better weather, we may yet—”
“Tam,” Gordon said, and when the man flinched, Gordon felt it in his own bones. He drew a slow breath through his nose and loosened his grip on the reins before the leather cracked. Beside him, his guard shifted in the saddle, but Gordon did not look at him. “I daenae ask for excuses.”
Tam’s face went white.
Gordon cursed himself inwardly. Even careful, his voice came too hard and low. Too much like his uncle’s.
The man who taught me that there was nay room for weakness in leadership.
Gordon swallowed hard as the pinch of that memory left him with an ache. He moved to walk around again, and the nearest children scattered behind their mother’s skirts. Gordon stopped with one boot in the mud.
Am I so fearsome, then?
He was a large man. He had always known that. Broad in the shoulder, grim in the face, and never trusting.
When his uncle’s rule ended with his death, Gordon had taken the lairdship because someone had to rule. Someone had to make the people feel safe again, and he had believed that he could.
I have tried me best, but somehow, they daenae seem to trust me still.
Tam, the village head, still trembled as Gordon stepped close to him.
Does he think I will strike him down? Blame him for what is wrong?
“Show me the ditch,” Gordon said.
Tam blinked. “Me Laird?”
Gordon nodded toward the field. “Show me.”
The old man hesitated only a heartbeat before turning. Gordon followed on foot, leaving the guard he rode with to hold the horse.
At the edge of the field, the trouble showed plain enough. The ditch had filled where stones had shifted loose from the upper bank. Water pooled thick and brown beside the young crop, drowning one side while leaving the ridge beyond too dry. A poor arrangement and costly if left.
Gordon crouched, heedless of the mud, and dug his fingers into the wet earth. He rubbed it between thumb and forefinger.
Tam stood rigid beside him.
“How many men can ye spare?” Gordon asked.
“Six, maybe seven if the miller’s lads come.”
“Not enough.” Gordon rose. “Send word to the keep. We will bring ten men on the morrow. Stone the upper side first then clear the silt. I will have two oxen sent from me own herd for the ploughin’.”
Tam stared at him, blinking wide-eyed.
Gordon’s brows drew together. “What?”
The old man’s mouth opened then shut. “Naught, Me Laird.”
“Speak.”
Tam twisted his cap so hard, Gordon feared the cloth would tear. “We thought… that is, folk said…” His gaze dropped. “We feared ye would take the loss from us.”
Gordon’s chest went tight at the accusation. He was not surprised they thought him cruel. For a moment, he did not answer.
The wind moved over the field, carrying the scent of wet soil, peat smoke, and sheep. A raven cried somewhere near the trees.
Gordon’s hand curled into a fist at his side, and his voice came out just as tight as his clenched fist at his side.
“I willnae bleed hungry me people because of the poor weather,” he said. Gordon turned before the old man could see too much on his face. “See the work begins before noon tomorrow.”
“Aye, Me Laird,” Tam said, and this time his voice shook for a different reason.
Gordon rode back toward the keep with the wind at his face and mud on his boots. The lands rose before him in rugged beauty, hills rough with heather, burnt waters flashing silver, the old road climbing toward the stone walls that had once belonged to his uncle.
It was his now.
Me burden. Or perhaps me penance.
Gordon arrived at the castle in a short time and handed the reins of his bridle to the first stable boy who approached him.
His man-at-arms strode out of the keep a moment later, his strides just as purposeful as the look on his face.
“Yer brother is here to see ye,” he said.
“I shall meet him in me study,” Gordon answered, his mind already set with the discussion he knew he was about to have with Rowan.
“Ye crossed a line when ye decided to choose a wife for me,” Gordon said to his brother as he marched into his study some minutes later and slammed the door closed behind him.
Rowan turned from the maps laid out on Gordon’s table, his face drawn in a tight expression that gave nothing away.
Gordon crossed the room, his wet boots leaving faint marks on the floor. “How could ye negotiate me a wife? Without me knowledge? And worse, the same woman who fled ye two years ago.”
Rowan watched him in silence as he crossed the distance between them and stopped.
“I did what I thought best for ye,” Rowan answered, looking Gordon in the eye. “We have had our differences, dearest brother, and I ken ye trust me a little more now than before, but it is time that ye trusted another too and thought of the future.”
The word future made Gordon scoff and turn away. “I daenae wish for a wife,” he continued as he strode away and reached for wine on the top shelf to the left of his study. “And how am I to face Sorcha after this?”
“Ye can face her,” Rowan said with a little humor on his lips. “It is her sister ye are to wed after all.”
“A lass who ran from ye,” Gordon pointed out again as he recalled her face. Two years ago, he had found her to bring her home, and if he was honest, he had not forgotten the terrified look on her face when he found her or when she walked into his study and found him in his undergarments.
He could not entirely forget it. Her pale face, the gasp that parted her lips as her gaze trailed down his chest, and worse, his own body responding fiercely with a rush of heat that pounded past every rational thought and made him harden in a traitorous way.
He had known to avoid her ever since, not wanting to ever feel that sizzle below his stomach again.
Gordon cursed under his breath and poured himself a drink. He poured too much but drank half of it in one swallow. Fire slid down his throat and joined the sensation in his chest. He welcomed the burn.
“Aye,” he said. “I returned her. But it doesnae mean I wish to wed her.”
Rowan rose at last. “Her brother Callan agreed. The alliance between our clans needs strengthenin’. They need assurance, and ye need—”
“Daenae tell me what I need,” Gordon interrupted, shaking his head as a bitter laugh left his lips.
Gordon turned toward the window overlooking the darkening lands. The glass reflected the room faintly: the fire behind him, Rowan’s broad figure, his own grim face. He looked, he thought, exactly like what the villagers feared.
A monster in a laird’s plaid.
“I have only just reclaimed these lands,” he said quietly.
“Only just begun provin’ to these people that I am nae our uncle.
Men still lower their voices when I pass…
They fear me still. Women pull their bairns close.
Even the village head, me own leader, Tam, shook as if I had come to strip the field from beneath his feet. ”
Rowan said nothing. Gordon rested his hand against the window frame. The wood was cold beneath his palm.
“They daenae trust me yet,” he said. “I have barely begun rebuildin’ what was broken. They need to believe again. To believe they have a future.”
Rowan stepped nearer, his voice soft. “A marriage would help that.”
Gordon’s mouth tightened because he did not believe Rowan’s reasoning, but Rowan continued anyway.
“A wife in the keep,” Rowan continued. “A household settled. A lady to stand beside ye. Folk takes comfort from such things.”
Gordon stared out at the yard below where torches were being lit one by one.
Comfort. What comfort can Ailis Sinclair take from me? What comfort can I give any woman?
“A marriage for appearances,” Gordon said.
Rowan’s voice dropped. “An heir would do that too.” The word struck the room like a bell. “It will give the folk hope. They will believe in the future of yer house.”
Gordon’s hand tightened on his cup.
He did not turn. “All in good time.”
“Gordon.”
“Nay.” He faced his brother then, and the look in Rowan’s eyes nearly made him bare his teeth.
Was it pity? Worry? Or mere brotherly concern? Gordon had no use for any of it.
“Daenae look at me as though I am a horse ye mean to tame.”
“I look at ye as me brother.”
“That has never stopped ye from meddlin’ in me affairs.”
Rowan’s jaw flexed. “I ken what ye think of yourself.”
“Do ye?”
“Aye, ye think because our uncle made ye hard, that is all ye can be. Ye think because men fear ye, nae woman could want ye. Ye think because ye have blood on yer hands, ye have nae right to build anythin’, but ye are wrong.
” Rowan walked to him and planted a hand on his shoulder. “This marriage will prove that.”
Gordon said nothing. He feared that if he spoke, the wrong truth would come out.
He looked away from his brother and swallowed hard to push the lump in his throat down.
In his mind, he recalled the one night Ailis walked into his study and the way she had looked at him.
He could not forget the flush on her cheeks.
Gordon knew he should not think of her, yet that image was clear in his head. He took another drink as he recalled asking her to leave that night.
I certainly terrified her.
He knew it from how she paled.
“I daenae need a wife,” he insisted, shoving aside the sensations welling up inside him.
Feelings were a weakness he could not afford. He had learned that early enough to know when to stop the foolishness from seeping into his heart. Weakness would make him an unfit laird, and he had fought too hard to get here.
“I care for the clan. That is all. All me efforts and affections are for me clan and me people.”
“But still, brother… ye deserve a life and happiness and…”
“I daenae wish for it,” he countered in a colder tone now, the note of finality loud enough to make Rowan sigh.
That is all I can be trusted with. And I daenae even deserve that.
Not after the years he spent fighting his brother and believing Rowan was the enemy because their uncle made him believe so.
Gordon set the cup down hard enough that whisky sloshed over his fingers. Rowan’s gaze flicked to the movement, and Gordon wiped his hand on a cloth and cursed inwardly.
He could still remember her scent from that first ride they shared when he brought her home.
She smelled like rain, crushed heather, and something sweet beneath it, like apple blossom warmed by skin.
Remembering made his insides stiffen. Gordon pinched himself to stop the train his thoughts had taken.
Rowan pressed his lips together at that.
“I willnae be able to give her anythin’ but bairns. She ought to nay expect more from a man like me.”
Because I am nay good for her or anyone.
“Promise me ye will nae ruin this alliance. The marriage is in four weeks. There is much to prepare.”
Gordon could not promise Rowan what he wanted.
He could not promise to court Ailis kindly, to welcome her, or to make room for her light in his dark keep.
He could not promise to take her as his wife and let himself imagine sons, daughters, laughter, soft hands, warm nights, and a woman who might one day look at him without fear.
Gordon could promise only one thing. He would not let her be trapped.
Four weeks.
Four weeks for her to see what he was.
A monstrous man that she must refuse.
He had four weeks to make certain she ended the alliance herself.
Better her hatred now than misery later.
Four weeks is more than enough time.