Yield to the Highlander

‘So, who brought that blush to your cheeks?’ her friend asked again.

Uncomfortable at how close to the truth Muireall was, Catriona laughed and took the bairn from his mother. Holding young Donald close and rubbing her cheek on the babe’s head, she fought the longing that bairns always caused within her. But Gowan had never promised her children, only a safe place to live and someone to care of her. No matter the longings, it was still a good offer and she did not regret accepting it. Not then, not now.

‘Has Hugh told you how relentless I can be when I want something?’ Muireall asked her. ‘“Like a dog on a juicy bone”, he likes to say.’ Her friend laughed as she took her bairn back into her arms, cradling his head and kissing him as she did. ‘So, who put that smile on your face?’

Catriona hesitated for a number of reasons. Then she whispered his name, thinking that to keep it secret was to give it power over her. ‘Aidan MacLerie.’

‘He is a brawny lad, is he not? He got his colouring from his father...and his size,’ she said, winking as she did.

Catriona felt her mouth drop open in reaction to Muireall’s candid assessment of Aidan’s...size!

‘I may have just had a bairn, but I’ll be dead before I stop noticing a handsome young man like him,’ Muireall admitted. One of the things she liked most about Muireall was her earthy, honest way of thinking and living. And she knew that Muireall loved her husband with all her heart and any noticing of brawny young men meant nothing in the face of that love. ‘I would worry about you if a man like Aidan MacLerie did not make you blush.’

‘Aye, Muireall, I noticed the lad,’ she admitted, smiling against her will at both the admission and the memory of that brawny, young man. Cat turned back to her task of sorting the clothing, hoping all the while that the topic was done.

‘Lad?’ Muireall laughed. ‘That lad became a man long ago!’

Cat laughed, then shrugged. ‘’Tis no matter to me.’

‘He will lead the MacLerie clan after his father. From what my brother says, young Aidan stands well in his father’s stead.’ Her brother Gair served as steward to the earl and would be in a position to assess the heir’s abilities, strengths and weaknesses.

Cat walked to the storage trunk next to the pallet and put the clothing away. Not having grown up here, she did not know much about the earl and his family. Not as much as Muireall did.

‘How many years does he have?’ she asked, curious about him now.

‘He has twenty-and-two years.’ So he was five years younger than she was. Munro’s age.

‘And not married yet?’ She avoided Muireall’s gaze now as she asked the question in what she hoped was a neutral tone. When her friend did not reply, it forced Cat to turn and look at her. Amusement sparkled in her eyes. Nay, more than that, merriment and troublemaking glimmered there.

‘I am curious,’ she admitted. ‘Nothing more than that.’

‘Ah, then you are alive! I had my doubts about you, Catriona.’

Muireall was a very special sort of woman—one who relished life and did not let a minute go by when she did not appreciate something or someone around her. Whether the sun shining after a storm, the smile of her child, the sound of her husband’s voice, she savoured it all. And that drew people to her like flies to honey...including Cat herself. Muireall had everything in her life that Catriona had ever wanted for herself and everything Cat had convinced herself that she could live without.

Mayhap she had isolated herself from everyone in trying so hard to be what Gowan needed and wanted? He’d never said exactly what he’d expected of her, not when he asked her to marry him and not any other time. She did what she thought a good wife, what a second wife who had no children to care for, should do. She cleaned, she mended, she cooked, she cleaned. She was attentive to him when he was at home. Was that not what she should be doing?

‘To answer your question, he should be married by now, but he has been resisting it. A young man doing what a young man does.’

‘Young women?’ she asked, slapping her hand over her mouth after saying something so...so bold.

From the way he flirted with her, his skills at doing what young men did were very, very good. And there were many women who would not object to sharing the bed of the earl’s son. But she was not one of them.

‘Aye, young women. Older women as well,’ Muireall explained. ‘They all seem to like him and he them. He seems to treat all of them with respect no matter how they begin or end.’ Her friend looked at her then. ‘Is that what you wanted to know?’

‘My thanks for easing my curiosity,’ she said, nodding to her friend. She had been curious. She’d heard the stories of his prowess with women and had never heard a bad word spoken about him. ‘Now, what else can I help you do? If you have any errands outside, this is a perfect day for them.’ Though Muireall glanced at her with a knowing eye, she retrieved a length of plaid from the pallet, clearly fighting the urge to tease Cat even more than she had.

‘I need water from the well,’ she said, holding wee Donald out to Cat. ‘But I need to walk a bit, so I’ll join ye.’

Taking him in her arms and holding him close, she watched Muireall wrap and tie the plaid to form a sling where the bairn could be carried close to her chest. Once Donald was secured snugly in the folds of fabric, Cat gathered up the buckets near the door and tugged it open. Stepping into the sun-warmed air, she waited for her friend and then they were off down the path to the centre of the village—and the well.

They greeted people as they passed, stopping several times for Muireall to show off the wee one to all who asked. Cat could not help herself—she kept peeking ahead and behind and alongside to see if the earl’s son waited there. With no sign of him, she let out a sigh of relief. She did not like questioning her response to him or suspecting she would enjoy more of his flirting attentions, so it was fine that he had gone.

The well in the centre of the village served not just the purpose of providing water, but also it was the main gathering place for any and all. News was shared. Gossip spread. Help was asked, offered or accepted by the well. On a fair and sunny day like this, a crowd gathered there.

Catriona carried the buckets and set them on the well. Muireall was welcomed by all the women, more one of them now that she’d given birth as most all of them had. The sharp sting of disappointment struck again as she watched the scene unfold. The concern about both mother and bairn, the soft caresses of his head, and shared stories and remedies for any affliction he might suffer—all just pointed out how much she was not part of this village family.

Though at first she’d welcomed Gowan’s travels in his duties for the earl, now she realised that it had isolated her from a more involved place within the village and clan community. Without her husband’s presence and with no other family there, she’d become even more the outsider than she was. Cat tossed the well’s bucket down and turned the handle to retrieve it, trying to ignore the way this need now filled her when it had not mattered only days or weeks before.

She called out to Muireall when she had the water she needed and began to walk back to the cottage, allowing her friend to enjoy some time with the others. Just as she reached the footpath, a group of men rode through the village. Warriors like her husband, they rode as though one with their horses, calling out to those they knew as they headed towards the keep up the hill.

Cat took one last look at them as they passed and then turned back to her own path. Without really knowing why, she glanced up one more time and found the last rider staring back at her.

Aidan MacLerie.

He did nothing to acknowledge her, but his dark, scowling expression frightened her. Had she insulted him then with her words? Would she or Gowan somehow bear the brunt of his displeasure? She did not know about him to even guess, but she offered up a prayer that she had not caused problems for herself or her husband in the few, playful exchanges with the earl’s son.

Time would tell.

Chapter Four

Aidan rode through the gates and past the keep, following the path to the practice yard where his friends waited for him. He’d not ridden out with the other men, but he returned with them after his encounter with Catriona. And returned unsettled by her comment. Before he could think on it and discover the reason, a friend called out to him.

‘Aidan!’

He turned to seek the source of the booming voice and saw Rurik’s son Dougal waving at him. Though younger by a few years, Dougal towered over Aidan and most everyone who lived in Lairig Dubh—except his father.

‘We were waiting for you,’ Dougal explained, waving for him to hurry his pace. ‘They want to challenge us.’

Aidan glanced at the others and knew he and Dougal could and would defeat them. Other than Young Dougal Ruriksson, as he was called here, he nodded at Caelan, Munro and Dougal MacLerie along with Angus MacCallum—a cousin through his mother—who all stood grinning like fools who itched for a fight. Knowing the skills and abilities of himself and Young Dougal and, even more importantly, knowing the weaknesses of the others, Aidan was convinced it was an even match, regardless of four against two.

He shrugged and nodded his acceptance and headed for the yard.

Dougal MacLerie, brother to Elizabeth and the friend closest to Aidan’s own age, walked alongside him as they entered the yard and picked their weapons from among the supply there. Younger boys ran around, trying to help them all, and news of the challenge spread through all the men training there. Soon a crowd encircled the large enclosure, coin and wagers changing hands as many watching offered their opinions about the match.

‘You have been spending more time in the village than is your custom, Aidan,’ Dougal said, lifting a sword and swinging it to get the best grip on it.

‘You know what that means,’ Caelan, Duncan’s son, added.

‘A woman,’ Angus offered. ‘Another bloody woman.’

They laughed for Angus’s unsuccessful attempts at seducing one of the women who worked in the keep’s kitchens were known to them all.

‘So who is it this time?’ Munro asked. ‘The widow who moved in with her brother, the smith? Surely not Old Ronald’s daughter?’

They all laughed at him as they took positions on the field, expecting him to reveal his newest interest. He always did. Just as Aidan opened his mouth to speak her name, the realisation sank in—Munro was Gowan’s son. Shite!

‘Who says there’s a woman involved at all?’ he asked, raising his sword and standing back to back with Young Dougal.