Bold (The Handfasting) Read online

  And shiver she did, remembering his eyes when he looked at her. Thoughts of him were like a fierce undertow. A body could drown in it while scrambling for a shore that was safe and secure. Maggie released the spits handle, startled by her own thoughts. She had to get out of the room, away from the talk, talk, talk.

  “Are you fancying him then, Muireall?” Alec's wife, Caitlin, lured Maggie back with her question. “For you must know when a man is that large, he’s that large allllll over.” Maggie blushed. She doubt if all she felt was bunched cloth, which meant Caitlin's words were truth.

  “You’re not telling me anything I don’t know.” Muireall bragged, “My own Malcolm, God rest his soul, was no little tyke.”

  “No,” the others laughed together, “no he was no small man, and a shame it was he had to go so soon. He’s missed.”

  “The missing wouldn’t be so bad,” Muireall confided with a laugh, “if it could be shared with someone like the MacKay, now. And as he’s been widowed these three years, well . . .”

  “Och, Muireall,” Nigel’s wife, Leitis, humphed, “he’s not looking for a widow such as yourself.”

  “And why not?”

  Maggie snorted. There was no need to turn around to see the glances passed from one woman to another. They’d all be looking about, wondering who would do the telling. It was Leitis who finally admitted, “He’s not going to look for a lady willing to share the warmth in any bed. A man such as the MacKay will show more discretion.”

  You tell her, Leitis, Maggie thought sourly, only to feel guilty moments later when Muireall countered, “Say what you like but you can’t ken the loneliness of an evenin’ alone. You don’t know what it’s like to have your man taken in his prime, not even married a full year and no bairn to wake me in the night with cries. The loneliness, och, it’s a terrible thing.”

  “Oh, aye, Muireall,” Leitis admitted, “it is a sad thing, I’m sure, but you know it’s a worrying thing as well. You have to watch yourself. Too many see, too many tell. And what that means is there’s just too many.”

  The women burst into laughter, all but Muireall who looked about, her brow furrowed. “Too many what?” She asked.

  Laughter descended to snorts as Leitis quipped. “Too many men in your bed.”

  Both Sibeal and Caitlin offered, “That’s not being fair to cousin Muireall, now. She didn’t take on Puny Piers.”

  “He had Maggie’s eye, then, didn't he?” Leitis chided.

  “Well,” Muireall defended, “I’ve never warmed myself with Babbling Birk the bard.”

  “For the same reason.”

  “And now there’s Maggie’s Hamish the tailor,” Agnes tossed in, “Muireall hasn’t gone near him!”

  Once again the room erupted with laughter as women called out, “Who else would notice those scrawny buggers but our Maggie?”

  “There not fit for anyone.”

  “'Tis Maggie and her love for the runts of the litter.”

  “Stop it!” Maggie swirled about, anger as wild as her wind-tossed hair, “you know nothing about it. They are good men, each and every one of them. Just because they aren’t as big as a mountain and as thick in the head doesn’t mean there isn’t some goodness to them.”

  “Oh, aye, Maggie, I’m certain you have the right of it.” Caitlin eased.

  “Besides,” Maggie swallowed pride to loyally defend her men, “it was I who was not good enough for them.”

  “Don’t be daft.” Sibeal snipped.

  “Aye, it’s fact," back straight, chin up against the humiliation of reality Maggie admitted. "Not one of those men would have me now, would they?” The silence of the room told her what she already knew. It was the truth.

  “Ach, lassie,” Muireall sighed, “you should be praising God that you weren’t landed with those boys.” Maggie kicked the fire's coals.

  “Come on now Maggie girl,” Neili and Roz beckoned her, “Don’t be listening to them. We’ve need of your light hand with the pastry here.”

  Fine ones to talk, those two. The same age as Maggie and they'd been married for years and before that they'd been courted by a number of good, decent men. Warring men. They could have them.

  “Flattery now?” Maggie mumbled, but she went to help them as two men sidle in through the back doorway. Maggie snorted. If they wanted to be invisible, let them try, but with their size, their sex, and the fact that they were MacKay Clansmen, and therefore unfamiliar, they weren't likely to be overlooked in a roomful of women.

  “Are you so lazy you want me to help you?” She asked the two pastry workers.

  Neili and Roz took no notice of Maggie or her taunt. No one did. The only response to her words was the spit of the fat dripping into the fire. Unlike Maggie the others couldn't carry on once two strange men had walked into their spheres. Huge grins gleamed white against tanned faces, the only features discernible in the shadow where they stood.

  Predictable as ever, Muireall preened. Maggie grunted and chuckled to herself with a quick glance to see what the men made of her cousin. Only, they didn't look at Muireall, didn't seem to notice her at all. They had their sights fixed firmly on Maggie. She swallowed her chuckle, grabbed a dollop of dough. The feel of it a familiar distraction, she bent her head to the task, worked the lump of dough smooth, turning it round and round in her hand. The men may as well stand right behind her, breathing down her neck for the way it prickled.

  Fortunately, Muireall was not one to be ignored. She went into action, grabbed two mugs from the counter, splashed ale into them from the pitcher on the table. "Is there anything you'd be wanting?" she asked them, her voice husky with innuendo, as she moved about. "Drop of ale?" She lifted up the mugs. "Bannock cake, perhaps?" She swiped some off the cooling rack, and stood in front of the men mugs filled, a plate of steaming cakes on offer, before they could answer.

  Maggie tried to watch from the side, her eyes cast down. Muireall stayed with the men, one hand at her waist, the other holding the pitcher of ale braced on her hip, her head tilted flirtatiously. She was a site, for certain. Men rarely ignored Muireall, but though the three talked in low murmurs, the men never dropped their sights from Maggie. She was trapped in a web that made no sense. They were the Bold's men. They were there in his interest.

  Enemies, to her at least.

  Muireall left them against the far wall and sashayed back to the table. The women resumed their work. The men whispered to themselves, bannock cakes gone in a bite, ales sipped slowly. Stilted silence hung over the room, testament to their presence.

  Sibeal, who would not, could not, let a conversation drop broke the moment to lean over and pat Maggie's shoulder. Maggie jerked back in horror even though Sibeal managed to keep her voice lowered.

  “Maggie," Sibeal whispered, "it wasn’t that those boys were better than you. They just knew what we already know.”

  With a hard shake of her head Maggie tried to stop the conversation. "Leave it Sibeal, you don't understand." Propelled by the humiliation, Maggie worked the pastry flatter and flatter between her palms. People teased her, as if her choices were a joke, a bit of fun. No one understood the shame of it, of knowing what you want, who you want and knowing that they didn't want you in return.

  “Maggie, don't you see?" Sibeal continued. "You’re just too much for them."

  "Stop it." Maggie shot a quick glance to see if the strangers had heard.

  "She's right," Neili countered. "There's nothing to those men, not in body, not in mind. You're just too much woman for them.”

  “Oh, aye,” the others chorused in comforting whispers.

  “Too much spirit.” Caitlin chimed in a bit louder. Maggie shot her a silencing frown.

  Muireall, who loved to have an audience, ignored Maggie's distress. “Maggie lass," she boomed, "Take a look at yourself! Don't you know, you're just too much," she hefted her own bosom, "body.” The word exploded in the room, followed by a barrage of earthy squeals.

  Maggie glared. Her curves
were no more than God's way of balancing her height, keeping her in proper proportion. There was naught she could do about that.

  “Oh aye.” Leitis trilled, discretion forgotten. “Can you not hear the gossip ‘Puny Hamish the tailor dies with a smile on his face? Drowns in the full bodied womaness of Maggie MacBede.’”

  Hoots filled the air. Even the MacKay men, who tried so foolishly to blend with the wall, boomed their amusement. People would hear it across the loch. You’d think the kitchen was full of rough and rowdy men rather than a passel of women. And what did any of them know?

  “They were a disgrace measured next to you.” Leitis offered as she fought to catch her breath.

  Maggie pressed dough in her hands, thinner and thinner, her head bent to her task, anger building with each round of pastry.

  These women knew nothing. Look at Muireall, who angled for a brute of a warrior having already lost one husband to the fight. Didn't they see what they were asking for? Did they all wish to feel the loneliness that Muireall suffered?

  “You weren’t made to be the wife of a runt.”

  Harder and harder she turned the dough until it was a circle so fine you could see through it. She placed her latest effort on the pile of finished tart shells and tried to break the flow of humor. “You know,” she tilted her head, the shrill crack of her voice the only sign of irritation, “I think it was not exaggerating you were up to, Neili! I’m thinking you spoke the truth! I do have a fine hand with the dough.”

  “Oh do you?” Roz elbowed Neili.

  “Aye, I’m thinking that my pastry shells are the best.”

  “Well then, whatever you say, Mistress Margaret.” Neili winked at Roz. “And as you are the best,” Roz sidled away, “you should do them all!”

  “You wouldn’t.” Maggie hurled the pastry at the giggling girls.

  Like a spirit, appearing from nowhere, Fiona caught the dough in mid-air. The room stilled. Out of the corner of her eye, Maggie noted that the men stood straighter, their smiles wiped clean.

  Fiona sighed at Maggie. “Enough of chattering and playing, daughter. You need to be getting yourself ready.”

  “Ready for what?” Nosy Muireall asked.

  “For The MacKay, of course." Fiona answered. "He is to be our guest.”

  "What does that have to do with me?" Maggie snapped, not that she wanted to know. Not that she wanted any one to know. But she had opened her mouth and the worst came out. Quiet settled on the room. Maggie sighed.

  One of the MacKay's, so silent up until now, spoke. "Lady MacBede you speak as if you know what the Bold is here for?"

  Fiona shook her head. “Nay.

  The man accepted that as answer enough. This time Maggie's sigh was full of relief.

  Fiona turned to Simon, "Have some lads send more hot water up to my chamber. I’m going to see to the men’s baths." She faced Maggie again, "And you, young lass,” she took Maggie’s shoulders, looked her up and down with a shake of her head. "Look at the state of you. Your hair is naught but a tangled mass. You need to be seeing to yourself.”

  “But Ma.”

  “No buts daughter. I'm not knowing the why of it, but the MacKay is here to see you." She turned to the men, "Is that much not so?"

  Their stupid grins were back in place. "Aye, mistress, 'tis a fact."

  "Well then, child," Fiona flipped a strand of Maggie's hair from her shoulder, "you’d best make yourself worth seeing?”

  Nothing, absolutely nothing, moved within the room except Fiona. Oblivious to the reaction she’d created, she swept past the other women.

  The frozen state lasted for as long as one woman could hold her breath then all manner of chaos erupted.

  “The MacKay?”

  “Oh, aye, isn’t that a ripe one.”

  “Our Maggie?”

  “You don’t say? Well, it’s about time.”

  “And here she had us all thinking she was sweet on Hamish the tailor.”

  “Och, wouldn’t the MacKay be just the one for our Maggie?" Letice looked to the MacKay men who nodded their agreement. Slyly she added. "He’d not die in her womaness.”

  “He’d thrill to it.”

  “Rise to it is more the way of things.” One of the men blurted out.

  "Ohhhhh!" The stunned laughter swallowed Maggie as all the women gathered around, pushing her hair from her face, pinching her cheeks, taking as close a look as they did when she was a wee babe, barely born.

  No one had looked at her that closely in as long.

  It was better that way.

  She was none too happy with the attention now.

  CHAPTER 4 - A STORY PROMISED

  Talorc moaned with pleasure as he eased into one of two bathing tubs set before the fire. “Ah man, ‘tis weeks since I’ve bathed in anything other than a frigid stream or a frozen loch.”

  From the other tub, his host, Feargus MacBede, chuckled. “Keeps a man strong.”

  “Aye, it does.” Heat curled around Talorc as he settled deep, knees bent until they poked out from the surface. Better cold knees than a cold neck.

  He glanced around at the soft sound of a door opening, but couldn’t see beyond the bathing screen.

  “It’s my wife.” Feargus explained. “She’s a great hand when it comes to washing hair and backs, don’t you wife?” Fiona moved within the light of the fire. “Can near put you to sleep she can.”

  “Och, flattery, that’s what you’re doin’,” she teased as she ran her fingers through her husband’s thick head of white hair.

  Talorc watched, curious. His own father had always said, look to the mother to see what the daughter would become. Fiona was tall and regal, her movements smooth as a gliding falcon. There was a hint of mischief in her smile.

  Without warning she dunked her husband until his entire head was drenched.

  More than a hint of mischief!

  Feargus came up sputtering. “I hope you don’t treat our guest like that!” But his grumble was lost in a sparkling glance. The man had known it was coming.

  It was good still to be playing games when you had eight grown children . . . correction, there were only seven now. He knew that well.

  Talorc closed his eyes, his head against the rim of the tub. The couple’s companionable banter lulled as gently as the warm water within his bath.

  “MacKay?” Feargus butted into his thoughts. “The Gunns grow more vicious of late. Foul as they are, they are not the sort to come at us like they’ve been.”

  “Aye,” Talorc nodded. “There’s no understanding to it. They get angry with no ill treatment from us, burn our crofter’s homes, steal in a way that leaves a clan starving. Hunger we know how to live with.” He gripped the sides of the tub, “But now someone’s been thieving young lasses out from under their parents care.”

  Feargus grunted. “Aye. One of our crofter’s daughters has gone missing. Young Alicia. No sign of her for months now, and we searched.”

  “The same tale can be heard from the Raeys and the Bainses.”

  The older man bent his head. “Many a loss, these years past. Young females, good fighting men.”

  “The glory of the fight does not take away the sorrow of loss. It was a sad day when Ian fell to the sword.” Talorc reached for his soap as he searched for words not easily found. “These battle losses are mine to bear.” He admitted. “I call the men to fight. They trust me. But there have been too many problems, too many things gone wrong.”

  He looked to the older man. “Feargus, you fought with my father, you’ve raised strong men who don’t shy from the fight. Our families have been united for generations. There’s no other man in the highlands I would trust more than you.”

  “The MacBedes have always done their part.”

  “Aye, more than their part. You’ve offered good counsel. So I am telling what I’ve told no other. I think we have a traitor in the clan.”

  “Impossible!” Feargus barked. “It’s the Gunns, that black hearted Angus Gun
n. You know, I know, it’s him.”

  “Oh, aye, the Gunns play a part.” A traitor was unthinkable but not impossible. Clan loyalty was taught from the cradle, instilled in every highlander. Still it was possible.

  He tried to explain. “There are those thrown out of the clans, the outlaws.” Feargus grunted acknowledgement as Talorc continued. “Some still have family inside our care. Loyalties can be divided.”

  It cleared his mind to finally speak of this. “For the life of me, I can’t think of who would turn against us. There’s only one MacKay who has family with the outlaws and there was no love lost when he was banned.”

  Soap in hand he lathered his chest, his arms, drawn to the smell of it, pine and bay with a touch of spice. A fine odor for a man to wear.

  “Laird,” Feargus argued, “you have it wrong. We are not a people for turning on our own. And the Gunns have been there to fight when we go out. They’d not fight the renegade’s battles.”

  The room quieted but for the crackle of the fire, the soft splash of water as Fiona scrubbed her husband’s back.

  Feargus broke into the silence. “Your wife was a Gunn, rest her soul. I’ve heard they think you murdered her. Anger festers and grows. Do you think that’s what causing these problems?”

  “Aye, they claimed I murdered her,” Talorc agreed, “but that was grief speaking and too long ago to still be fighting over.”

  “She died in childbirth.” Fiona remembered. “That’s no uncommon thing.”

  The weary rustle of his breath shuddered through the room. “She was a wee thing, my Anabel.” A petite lass who tended towards floral soap for man and woman alike. With her gone, the soap of his keep smelled of lye and fat. A man needed a wife for such things.

  “If I failed to get her with child, the union would have been for naught. If I did get her with child, well then, what happened could happen. I lost Anabel to the birthing. It was that desperate, we were, that we didn’t want to lose the babe as well so I cut her open.”

  “That’s not so strange. We’ve done the same.” Fiona encouraged.