Highlanders forbidden la.., p.20
Highlander's Forbidden Lass (Lasses 0f Tweeddale Book 3), page 20
part #3 of Lasses 0f Tweeddale Series
“Dinna talk! Just rest, and I will get ye back to the castle and we will mend ye!” she promised him, trying to rise and hold him against her, but he stopped her.
“No, Maddie. ‘Tis my time to go. I love ye, so much, and your mother and sisters. Tell them.” He blinked slowly, working hard to focus on her eyes. “I only wanted peace for us all.” With that, he closed his eyes and the last of his breath left him.
Madeleine cried out then, loud and long, as her body was wracked with sobs. She held him tightly against her heart and rocked him back and forth, but Ian and Colin came to her urgently.
“Maddie, the building is burning. We have to go!” Ian pulled at her gently, and she looked up, realizing for the first time that the entire room was filling with smoke.
“I’m no’ leaving without my father and my uncle!” she shouted, and Ian could see that she meant it. He didn’t want to leave his father and brother in the building either. Together the three of them hurriedly pulled their loved ones from the burning abbey as it quickly became an inferno.
They loaded the bodies of their family onto the horses the men had ridden in on, and Colin tied the horses together in two trains; one with the Arthurs and the other with the Campbells. When the work was done, Maddie went to Bruce and dropped her forehead onto his neck. She was sweaty and dirty, covered in dirt, soot, and blood, and she had never hurt as much in her life as she did then.
Ian went to her and wrapped his arms around her. “This day is from hell,” he spoke quietly, but she pushed him away as wrath enveloped her.
“This day would no’ have happened if I had no’ been with ye in the dell! If I had no’ been thinking of only myself, if I had been obeying my father and staying at home, I would have seen them ride off, and I would have ken what was happening. I would have followed them, and I would have seen the ambush and stopped it! I could have saved his life if I had no’ been with ye today! Ye are as much to blame for this as your murderous clan! I chose to be with ye today. That was my mistake and it cost me everything, but I will no’ make the mistake of being with ye any longer. This is what happens when we try to be together, Ian. This is the cost. It’s too dear a price to pay. I will no’ lose more of my family or anything else to ye and your clan. I will have vengeance on your clan, and you and I, we are done! I dinna ever want to see ye again.” Maddie gritted her teeth and swung up onto her horse, riding away with the other horses, and her family’s bodies in tow.
Ian called out after her and began to follow her, but Colin stopped him. “No’ now, brother. No’ now. Let her be. She has a broken heart to tend to, and much grief in her, as dae we. Let us take our family and friends home.”
Ian watched her go until she was gone, and then he turned and looked at the blazing abbey. His throat was parched and dry, his body ached, and he felt as if the whole world had just ended.
Without another word, he and Colin mounted their horses and rode in silence back to Kilchurn Castle, taking their dead with them.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Madeleine and her family, as well as her clan, prepared her father, her uncle, her two cousins, and their lost clansmen for a funeral. All of them were devastated, but Lady Claire took the loss especially hard, weeping over her husband’s body until David was set with the others adrift on a boat on Loch Fyne. The boat and the precious cargo it carried were set aflame by fiery arrows shot from the bows of family and friends on the shore, honoring the Campbell’s Norse heritage.
They stood and watched the sailing pyre until it drifted out of sight, and then Claire went to her bedchamber and refused to see anyone. Madeleine spent the night with her sisters, all three of them sleeping in her bed, comforting each other through their tears with happier memories. She knew that she would be running the castle and the clan until her mother resurfaced.
Ian and Colin returned to Kilchurn Castle and were greeted with somber faces. He looked at his uncle Duncan, who came out of the castle followed by a group of his men, as well as his son Patrick. Duncan was wearing the mourning tartans of their clan. Ian walked to him and stopped before him, eyeing him curiously.
“Uncle… why did ye leave your brother and mine, as well as these men of our clan there in that abbey to burn?” Ian’s heart was broken, but he felt a chill all throughout him when he looked into Duncan’s eyes.
Black Duncan looked as calm and stoic as if it had been any other day. There was no sign about him that he might have just lost so many men who were dear to him. “They were dead. We burned the abbey to finish it.”
Ian nodded. He had suspected that it was an Arthur who had sent the flaming arrow to the roof of the old abbey. “I was just in time to get them all out, and bring them home for a proper burial.”
“We will go forward with the burial today.” Duncan called out, turning to speak out to the masses of people who had surrounded Ian and Colin, and their train of horses and dead. “When the burial is done, we will feast in the great hall! Come! All of ye! Let us prepare!”
Colin knit his brow and stood closer to Ian, speaking in a low voice. “Shouldn’t ye be saying that?”
Ian shook his head. “All I want to dae is care for my father and my brother.”
Colin only nodded. “Aye.”
The deceased Arthurs were buried in a chapel on a hill near the castle, overlooking the valley and Loch Awe. It was a peaceful, beautiful place. When it was done, the clan and the family came together in the great hall. Duncan took his brother’s seat at the head of the long table, seating Patrick to one side of him and Ian to the other. Ian said nothing about it. His heart and his mind were too shattered to care about where anyone was sitting.
When everyone was present, Duncan stood before them all. “I have lost my brother and his son on this day, and it has rent my heart to see them gone, but we are at the precipice of a war with those who took them. Clan Campbell has done this to us, and we canna let them go without paying the price! We must make our changes here and now, so that we are ready to take them on as soon as possible. The first change is that I am now the Laird of all the Arthurs. Ye are my family, and my clan, and I shall lead ye!”
Shock and surprise rippled through much of the crowd of faces before Duncan, but nearly half of them cheered, hoisting their fists in the air in support of Duncan. A few of the men cried out in protest of his claim.
“Nay! Ye are no’ the laird! Ian! Ian is our rightful laird! Ye canna lay claim to his seat!” shouted one man angrily, and others soon joined in, and in no time at all, the hall was chaotic with bitter and angry arguing, as clan members divided in support of either Duncan or Ian.
Ian stayed at the table and only reached for his goblet of wine, draining it and wishing that it was any other night of his life. Colin rushed to the table and gripped Ian’s shoulder. “Say something! Ian! The lairdship is yours! Dinna let him try to take it like this!”
Ian sighed and shook his head. “I dinna care. If he wants it, let him be the laird. I was never supposed to be laird anyway. My father was to hand it to my brother John, and tonight they are both laying in their graves up on the hill. If my uncle is so set on being the laird, then may heaven bless him to it. I will no’ go against him on it.”
Colin was horrified. “Your father and your brother would both want ye to take it! Ye are the rightful laird! There is no disputing that!”
Ian stood and shook his head. “No.”
Duncan, his piercing eyes taking in the dissention throughout the whole of the clan, called out to silence them, and everyone turned to listen to him. He drew in a great breath and his voice echoed off of the stone walls, filling every ear and reverberating through every person present.
“I see that ye are no’ all fully behind me. I offer this resolution! Some of ye think that young Ian ought to be laird.” He turned and faced his nephew then. “Ian, if ye wish to take your father’s seat and be laird of this clan, then come and fight me for it; fight to the death, and the winner may become the leader of this clan, and this family.” His black eyes glittered in his stony gaze.
Ian spoke just as powerfully as his uncle did. “I will no’ fight ye, uncle. I would win, and I have lost enough family for one day.”
Black Duncan glared at him. “Then ye surrender your claim to the seat and the title!” He challenged, but Ian looked completely impassive.
“I will no’ fight ye today uncle. I want peace within our clan, and peace with Clan Campbell. Peace does no’ start out on a battlefield, it starts in here, among all of us. Among my family and my clansmen. When we have peace among ourselves, then we can create a peace with other clans. There has been too much loss, no’ only today, but in the weeks and months that came before today. Far too much. The fighting must stop, and the killing. It is to keep the peace between us all that I leave now.” Ian turned then and walked from the room, and the bickering and arguing of his clansmen and family continued long after he’d gone.
Duncan kept his claim to the lairdship of the clan, demanding that all of his clansmen swear fealty to him, and to him alone, and in protest to him and his action, more than half of the clan walked out of the great hall and left him with his loyal followers. They feasted, and when it was done, Duncan went to Robert’s study, and sat in his brother’s chair, and looked through the papers and records that had been left behind.
Patrick entered the room a short while later, and stood before the desk, looking down at Duncan. “Father, this was a momentous day. It played out just as ye said that it would.”
“Aye.” Duncan nodded. “I had hoped that more of the clan would welcome me as laird, but they will come around soon enough.”
“How will ye win their loyalty?” Patrick asked, eyeing his father closely.
Duncan smiled and leaned back in the chair, resting his hand on the desk as he gazed up at his son. “With war. All of the Arthurs will unite under my hand when I declare a war against the Campbells. They will no’ stand to let their brethren fall at the hands of their rival. The battle will bring us together, all of them, under my rule, and together we will take from the Campbells all that has been taken from us. We will become one of the greatest clans in the whole of Scotland, just as we once were.”
Patrick pursed his lips a moment in deep thought, and then tilted his head slightly. “Dae ye recall what I mentioned to ye recently about Lady Claire Campbell. She is a widow now, as I pointed out before, and now is a good time to go to her and force her to marry ye. That would make ye laird of the Campbells, and ye could unite both clans under your hand. That would also save a lot of Arthur lives. No one would have to die in battle. It could all be settled with a forced marriage, and then the Campbells would be obligated to swear fealty to ye. Also, ye would have a wife again. Ye have no’ had a woman since my mother died when I was a boy. Are ye no’ interested in having a woman at your side? Especially one that could give ye so much power, wealth, and land, as well as the title of Laird of the Campbells?”
Duncan rolled his eyes. “I will no’ marry her. I dinna want a simpering woman beside me. I have no’ had another one because I dinna want another one. I take my pleasure among the women in the clan when I want it, but I have no need of a partner beside me. If I take clan Campbell by force, many of their numbers will be killed off, and the remaining survivors will be left to serve me in fear, and that is what keeps a leader powerful. Fear. If they fear me, they will no’ try to rise up against me. If they fear me, they will obey me. ‘Tis a lesson that ye would dae well to learn. Marriage will no’ make any Campbell wish to be loyal to me. No’ when we have all hated each other for so long. No. War is the way; ‘tis the only way.”
Patrick listened, and nodded. “I see, father. Thank ye for your wisdom. I wish ye a good night.”
Duncan turned away from him and Patrick walked from the room. He went to the feast where many of those men who supported his father were still eating and drinking into the night. He motioned to one of them, and the man followed him. Together they retired to a quiet room, where they had some privacy.
“What is it?” the man asked.
“Gavin, ye have always been a good and loyal clansmen, and a servant of our family, especially me.” Patrick locked his eyes on the man and spoke with determination. “Listen to me now. My father is on the brink of war with clan Campbell.”
“Aye, and I am no’ looking forward to the fighting, though I dae wish to spill some Campbell blood for what they have done to our clan!” Gavin grew serious.
Patrick held his hand up. “He wishes to rule over the Campbells.”
Surprise widened Gavin’s eyes. “Does he now?”
“Aye. He believes that if he defeats them in war, killing off many of them, that he will earn their fear, and they will follow him for that reason.” Patrick drew a little closer to the man before him. “But I see another way; one in which none of the Arthurs will die or even have to fight.”
Gavin was more than little interested. “I will dae whatever it ‘tis that ye need me to dae in order to make this happen,” he vowed.
* * *
Ian sat alone in his room, staring out into the dark night. He had lost everything that day; his father, his older brother, the woman he loved more than anything in the world, and his rightful claim to the lairdship over his clan.
Colin’s words stayed with him, echoing in his head. His best friend had been right. Laird Robert Arthur would certainly have wanted Ian to take his seat. John had been groomed for it since he was born, but Ian had been around to learn most of what he needed to know, until his father shipped him off as a young teen to France in order to keep him safe and ensure a living successor to his title and lands. Ian bitterly regretted all the years that he had been forced to live apart from his father and brother, and he wished with everything in him that he had returned to Scotland sooner.
He had come back for Madeleine, but if he had returned sooner, for his family instead of for love, he would have had more time with his brother and father. He would have learned more about the lairdship. He would know the clan, and he could have confidently stepped into the role of being the laird over them all, but as it was, he had only had a few short years of learning what his father did, and at that young age, he wasn’t very interested in it. He hadn’t taken much of it to heart the way that his brother had. He felt unprepared in every way to take over the lairdship. He thought of how his uncle had stayed at his father’s side all their lives, and how Duncan had served his father for all those years. Duncan knew everything that was going on with the clan and within the country. All of the clan knew Duncan, and he seemed to Ian to be much better suited to take up the role of the laird. And yet… there was a cold stone in the pit of Ian’s stomach. A chill that ran through him when he looked in his uncle’s dark eyes. There was something unnerving about the way that his uncle spoke and moved in such a methodical, unfeeling way. There was unease in Ian in having seen more than half of the entire Arthur clan walk out of the great hall in protest of Duncan being laird. He would have assumed that most of them would have wanted him to be laird, rather than a young man who had spent most of his life away from them all, unfamiliar with their lands and their ways.
He wrestled with his emotions of loss and guilt over not having been at his father’s side, knowing that his father might have made it if he had been there to defend him. Ian did not sleep that night, nor the next day, and when sleep finally did take him, it was the sleep of the dead, and he was gone from the world for a long while.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Days passed, and Lady Claire Campbell would not come out of her room. She stayed secluded, away from the world and even her family. Madeleine took up the yoke of work that her father had been doing, and everyone around her supported her in it.
She knew the things that needed to be done; how to care for her family and the castle, how to manage the clan and the lands. She knew it all because her father and her uncle Logan had taught her so very well. She was grateful for all the time that they had spent guiding and teaching her because it enabled her to carry on right from where they had left off, though she would have given anything to have them back again, doing it themselves.
While the work kept her time occupied, it could not distract her mind from what had happened with the Arthurs, or ease the pain of her tremendous loss. The images of that dark day played back in her mind in waking hours, and terrified her in her dreams when she tried to sleep. The sight of her uncle and her cousins laying dead on the floor of the abbey, and of her father trying to speak to her and dying in her arms, weighed so heavily upon her that nothing could permeate it, and there seemed to be no way out of the misery for her; no way but one.
A knock sounded on the door of the study where David used to work and where Madeleine had taken up his responsibilities. Madeleine looked up from the map she was studying and called out a welcome.
Fiona’s head popped around the edge of the door, and then she came in and closed it softly behind her. “Sister,” she said quietly, walking to the desk, “I’ve come to ask ye what we may dae about our mother. She hasn’a come out of her room since father… since father passed, and I dinna ken what to dae!”
