The Highlander's Promise Read online

  “I’ve not even st—”

  An explosion ripped through the air, then another, and another. The underside of a tree beyond the green went up in flames, and the blasts still did not stop, taking everyone on the green by surprise.

  Everyone, apparently, save Vaughn Hargrave.

  He turned and drew his blade across the back of Harrell’s knee in one swift motion, causing the man to scream and fall to the ground. There didn’t seem enough time for him to seize hold of Searrach by her hair, twisting his hand with a practiced motion so that her head swiveled back on her neck, but he did. She shrieked, and her hands went to her scalp, but she did not struggle as the Englishman dragged her over the green, flaming bits of detritus falling from the sky like giant, flaming snowflakes.

  Hargrave waved his knife. “I do not wish to kill her.”

  A Blair man ran down the length of a house toward Hargrave and seized Searrach’s arm. Hargrave swung around in a graceful, powerful arc and drove his blade into the underside of the man’s chin. He jerked it free just as quickly, releasing a shower of blood over the gasping, whimpering Searrach.

  In a blink, they disappeared between two houses.

  “Searrach!” Harrell cried, attempting to drag himself along the dirt, one hand grasping at his wounded leg. “My daughter! Someone help her! She canna go alone with him!”

  Lachlan ran in the direction in which Hargrave had gone, but his intention was not to save Searrach. He wanted Vaughn Hargrave dead. Dead for what he’d done to both towns, dead for what he was trying to do to Thomas Annesley and everyone Lachlan’s true father had ever known.

  But then there was Finley, staggering onto the green from the next alley, one sleeve of her otherwise light gown black with blood. Her hair was orange as the flames rising behind her, her face bloodless around wild eyes.

  “Lachlan,” she sobbed and stumbled toward him.

  He ran to her, catching her just before she fell forward. He saw the deep wound in her arm, looked over her head on his chest at the blackened holes all along the back of her gown, like spots of ermine.

  “Finley, did you—?”

  “He was going to do it again,” she said, looking up at him with wide eyes. “Town Blair, this time. I couldn’t let him.”

  Lachlan pulled her to him once more. “You saved us,” he murmured into her hair.

  “Lachlan, Murdoch is missing,” Finley said. “I think he’s—” She broke off, and her eyes grew even rounder as she looked past him, her pale lips parting.

  Lachlan turned and recognized the loping gait of the man striding deliberately across the green. He wore an old leather skullcap, a long, old-fashioned tunic, and boots that had been made with inexpert hands. In his fist he wielded a blade not much larger than an eating knife. He reached the center of the green and stopped, looking all around him.

  The explosions had ceased, leaving only the constant crackle of the flaming lower branches of the tree and the house beneath it. The only English soldiers left on the green were dead or dying. Blairs and Carsons alike stared at the strange old man, until Marcas walked out to meet him.

  “Geordie?” Marcas called hesitantly. “Geordie, is that you?”

  Harrell had been lying on the ground, sobbing into his arm, when he heard Marcas’s hailing. He raised his face, and his expression was that of one who beheld a specter.

  “Aye, Marcas,” Geordie said. “’Tis me.” Geordie’s gaze roved the green until he found Lachlan and Finley. He gave his swooping nod. “Edna’s son.”

  Lachlan nodded back. “Geordie.”

  Marcas raised an upturned palm, then dropped it in a helpless motion. “Where’ve ye been, Geordie?”

  And Lachlan was transported back to that day in the cache. Where’ve ye been, Tommy?

  “Yer dead,” Harrell blurted out.

  Geordie turned and looked down where Harrell lay. “Sure, and perhaps I’ve been ta hell. But I’m nae dead anymore, Harrell. Nae anymore, I’m nae.”

  Harrell turned onto his back, looking around frantically, as if for someone to agree with him. “Yer dead,” he said again, his voice raising to a higher register. “Why are ye here? Why are ye here and none have saved my daughter? Searrach? Searrach!”

  “Geordie,” Marcas said in a quiet voice. “Archibald died.”

  “Aye.” Geordie continued staring at Harrell, who was becoming increasingly agitated, scooting himself backward in the dirt with his uninjured leg, leaving a trail of blood. “I’m glad o’ that, Marcas.”

  “Nay,” Harrell said in a quavering voice, stopping short against the body of a fallen English guard. His hands groped beneath the corpse’s arm, pulling out a long, wooden object and swinging it around. It was a crossbow.

  “Harrell, nay!” Lachlan shouted, holding Finley away and then running across the green. He knew he’d never get there in time. “Geordie, get down!”

  Harrell struggled in fitting the foot of his unwounded leg in the stirrup, pulling back the crossbow, fumbling to set the arrow. But it was only a moment before he had pointed the weapon at the old man. “You should have stayed dead, Geordie-boy.”

  * * * *

  As soon as Lachlan pulled away from her, Finley sank to her knees in the soft, cool dirt of the green, the scene before her tilting, going blurry. It was too much to take in, and shock caused reality to twist: the cottages turned black, the outline of the treetops white. The cool night air became too sweltering to take in as breath.

  Lachlan sprinting across the green, pushing fragile old Geordie to the ground. And then it was only Lachlan standing there.

  The sound of the crossbow was as loud as cannon fire, and it deafened Finley, making the world silent, the arrow’s path graceful and slow.

  She remembered her wedding day. Her wedding day on this green…

  She would never be able to recall precisely from which direction Murdoch appeared. Some would later say that he ran in from the north, stepping in front of Lachlan at the last moment, and that could have been why Finley hadn’t seen him. And yet others would insist he had come from the west, from the path leading to the falls. No one could agree, and so it would remain a mystery, a legend in both towns from that day on, how Murdoch Carson appeared and stepped between the Blair and an arrow already fired from only twenty yards away.

  Finley was glad she could not hear the sound of the bolt striking the Carson chief in the chest; could not hear the cries of the Carsons as they sprinted across the green; could not hear Lachlan shouting Murdoch, Murdoch, although she could read his lips as he caught the man under his arms and Murdoch slid down, down…

  Finley slid down, too, and her eyelids fluttered closed, shuttering the horrifying scene from her already overtaxed mind.

  But hands were grasping her, pulling her back hatefully, shaking her without mercy.

  “Fin! Finley!”

  Her cheek was struck, and she cried out in indignation as she opened her eyes, her fingertips testing her jaw.

  “Did you just hit me, Kirsten Carson?”

  “Oh, thank the lord,” Kirsten gasped and pulled Finley into an embrace, and Dand Blair knelt on the other side of her.

  “Lachlan?” Finley asked of no one, of everyone, even as she struggled free of Kirsten’s hold to see for herself around the shapes of the legs blocking her view. “Lachlan!” she screamed.

  “Doona try to get up, Mistress,” Dand advised. “You’ll only find your seat again. He’s coming.”

  And Dand was right: There was Lachlan, pushing through the crowd, rushing to her side and gathering her into his arms once more.

  “Are you hurt?” she asked, running her left hand over his chest, up to his face, searching his eyes with hers.

  “Nay,” he said with a shake of his head.

  She didn’t want to ask—she already knew—but… “Murdoch?”

 
“Your arm needs tending. Kirsten, Dand, take her to Mother Bl—”

  “Nay,” Finley said. “I’m not leaving. Harrell—”

  “Oh my lord,” Kirsten breathed, and everyone’s attention was drawn to the edge of the green once more, where Harrell Blair still lay.

  Marcas pulled the crossbow from Harrell’s hands and flung it to the ground behind him, and now he stood over the blubbering, pleading, wide-eyed Harrell, who held up his palms before his face.

  “I wasna trying to shoot Lachlan, Marcas. I wasna,” he rushed.

  Marcas’s voice was icy, monotone. “The only reason you didna is because Murdoch Carson gave his life to protect my son.” He stared at him. “You would have killed my son. Instead, you killed the Carson chief. And for that—and so many other wrongs you have committed—you will pay. You will pay now.”

  “There has to be a council,” Harrell stammered. “The fines must be called. They will decide my fate. It’s the law, Marcas! It’s the law!”

  “I am the law,” Marcas said, and he brought his sword before him, tip pointing toward the earth, both hands wrapped around the hilt. He raised his clenched hands above his head.

  Harrell screamed. “Nay! Nay!”

  Lachlan pulled Finley’s face against his chest. An instant later, Harrell’s scream ended.

  When Finley looked again, Marcas was turning away from the body of Harrell Blair, his bloodied sword tip dragging the ground as he faced the crowd of shocked, grieving Carsons and Blairs gathered on the green.

  “It’s over,” he cried out hoarsely in the eerie silence, and flung his arm about. “Do ye hear? It’s all over, as of now. What I said earlier, that I am not Town Blair’s rightful chief; it is truer than I realized.” He walked to the center of the green, where Geordie Blair and Finley’s own father knelt at the side of Murdoch Carson’s dead body. Once there, Marcas laid down his sword carefully and then straightened, his hands going to the ties of the old shawl. As his fingers worked at the knot, Geordie Blair rose to his feet.

  “What’s he doing?” Lachlan murmured.

  But Finley knew in the instant before Marcas once more began to speak.

  “Geordie Blair, firstborn child and only son of Archibald Blair, this belongs to you, by the laws of our clan.” Marcas draped Archibald’s old shawl around the man’s neck.

  Beneath her hand, Finley felt Lachlan still. She looked up at him. “He’s Edna’s brother, Lachlan,” she said. “Don’t you see? It’s why he wept when he learned who you were. He’s your uncle. Your family.”

  Lachlan’s handsome face, sweat- and dirt-streaked, was drawn into a pained frown. He said nothing, only looked back to the center of the green, where Geordie Blair’s odd, bulging eyes were already watching him closely.

  “Me father never wanted aught to do with me,” he said. “Archibald. Was ashamed of me. I reckon he had reason. Never was clever.” He glanced down at the body of Murdoch Carson, whose face Rory had covered with the man’s shawl.

  He looked back up at Lachlan. “You saved my life, Edna’s son. My Edna’s son. Me own little sister. Reckon you didna ken who I was.”

  Lachlan shook his head slightly.

  “Edna’d be proud,” Geordie said with his bobbing nod. “Tommy, too, I reckon.” His gaze roamed around the green for a long, quiet moment, as if he wanted the people gathered there to have a good, long look at him. “They’d nae be proud of what’s gone on here, though. By neither o’ the clans. Marcas’s right: It ends now. It must. We canna put right everything that’s happened. But, sure, we can be right going on.” Geordie began walking toward where Lachlan and Finley held on to each other.

  Finley felt an expanding of her chest—pride perhaps—but then a chill rushed in as Lachlan again moved away from her.

  Geordie stood before Lachlan. “As the Blair,” Geordie announced loudly, and then his toothless mouth crooked in a self-conscious grin, “I call Lachlan Blair, me own nephew, chief of Town Blair.” Geordie removed Archibald’s shawl and draped it around Lachlan’s neck. He patted it in place over Lachlan’s wide shoulders almost tenderly.

  Lachlan stood with his head lowered for a long moment, and when he looked up, Finley could see the glistening in his eyes—the emotion, the triumph. He held out his hand, and Geordie clasped it.

  Lachlan had gotten what he wanted.

  He turned to look at her, and Finley thought her disappointment must have been clear on her face, for his brows knit together, breaking the moment for him.

  She didn’t care; her heart was breaking in the same moment.

  “Finley,” he said, turning to her and taking her hand, pulling her against his side to support her. He whispered into her hair, “Let’s get you to the chief’s house so that one of the mothers might tend your arm.”

  This time it was Finley who pulled away. She went to Kirsten, who slid her arm around her waist without hesitation, taking some of Finley’s burden, which was not entirely physical.

  “I release you, Lachlan Blair,” Finley said. She turned her head to locate Marcas and addressed Lachlan’s foster father. “I release him from our vows. We have not known each other. He is free.”

  “Finley,” Lachlan said, his face a mask of confusion. “I thought…I thought we cared for each other.”

  “We do,” she said. “Sure, we’re friends.”

  “We’re more than that.”

  She shook her head. “Nay. You’ve made your choice—the same one you told me at the very first you’d make. You’re only keeping your promise. And so I’m keeping mine.” She dropped her eyes and said to Kirsten, “Take me to my da, please. I want to go home.”

  “Wait,” Lachlan turned to call to her as she passed. “Stay with me. Here, at Town Blair. I want you to be my wife, here.” He reached out to touch her, but it was her injured arm and so Finley flinched away, although he hadn’t truly pained it.

  “This is not my home,” she said, and then turned away from him. “And you are not my husband anymore.”

  She lifted her chin as she made her way through the crowd, and gritted her teeth as, one by one, both Carson and Blair warriors honored her with a bow as she passed.

  Her father was waiting to take her into his arms. “My gel, my gel. I’m so proud.”

  “Take me home, Da,” she hiccoughed into his chest.

  And he did.

  Chapter 18

  Lachlan was the Blair.

  A month had passed since that terrible night of Lá Bealltainn, the night the ben had nearly run red again. The night Vaughn Hargrave had escaped, and Murdoch Carson had died. The night Geordie Blair, Archibald’s son, had come back from the dead.

  The night Finley had left him.

  He’d spent his days finding his way once more in a town that was at once familiar and foreign. Before Lucan Montague had ventured into the vale on his fine black horse, Lachlan would have stepped into the chief’s place with nary a blink. But now—so much more had happened than could be reconciled to the mere passing of time, and it was an awkward return for Lachlan in more ways than one. They buried the dead and moved on, though.

  Well, most everyone moved on. Kirsten Carson had returned to the place of her birth along with her friend, but Dand made the trip to Carson Town nearly every day now, openly wooing the blond Carson woman with both fine’s blessings. There would be a wedding after the autumn butchering. They thought it fitting to celebrate the salmon run with it, both towns together. A healing.

  Lachlan hoped he’d be healed by then, too. Healed in his relationship with Marcas, still strained and awkward, though neither one wished it that way. Healed of the pain of betrayal. He’d hoped it could return to the way it was before he’d left. But there was a shadow now between him and everyone else in the town. Not quite visible, nothing anyone could put name to, not ominous. But there.

  Dand never spoke to Lachlan of
Finley, although Lachlan had overheard bits of gossip that Carson Town had thrown her a fete, and had offered to send her to Edinburgh to make a match there. Just like Myra Carson…Myra Annesley. There was more than one murmur that several of Lachlan’s own townsmen had their eye on the spirited Carson lass who had saved Town Blair from a fiery fate.

  Finley Carson, who used to be his friend.

  Lachlan’s every waking moment was filled with thoughts of her wavy red locks, the delicate freckles on her nose. Her long legs that could nearly match his, stride for stride, in a foot race. The way she’d kiss him passionately, and then in the next moment laugh at him, fight with him, her sparkling blue eyes enchanting him with her fairy charm.

  Every word she’d said to him on the beach the night of Lá Bealltainn, when she’d begged him to stay at Carson Town, rang in his head like a haunting, tinkling song.

  He thought, too, of the friends he’d made at the town on the bay—the families who had accepted him and helped him, even knowing the truth of who he was, even with the past of his clan following him nearly to their ruin once more. Did they hate him now? Lachlan thought they had every right to.

  Lachlan sat at the table in his grandfather’s house after a short meeting of the fine. Everyone had left straightaway afterward; none had stayed for a drink like they used to in the old days. Harrell Blair was dead. Searrach was gone—probably dead as well. Lachlan had no intention of marrying again, perhaps ever. Who would have him, in truth, the Blair or nay? He poured himself another cup of the last of the Irish and sipped it in the light of the single, smoky lamp as it flickered over the brooch on the tabletop.

  Mother Blair had found it on the green and returned it to him without meeting his eyes. “I thought you might want this,” she’d said gruffly, and then snatched her shawl tighter over her chest and left him staring at the wedding brooch given to Ina by Andrew Carson. Given to Lachlan by Finley.

  Were any of the people of Town Blair happy he’d returned? Marcas and Dand said they were, but Lachlan thought perhaps Dand was the only one who claimed it with any truth. Marcas…Marcas was tired. Tired and bitter from his struggle with and against Lachlan, his troublesome foster son. Perhaps he was more than a bit humiliated, too; defeated by the role that was taken from him not once, but twice. Was Lachlan only a reminder of the dark clan secrets that had been aired before all the valley to their great shame? Were they happy to have Lachlan as chief?