Julia London - Hard-Hearted Highlander

Even Balhaire, the seat of the Mackenzie clan for centuries, had not gone unscathed. They had kept apart from the Jacobites, the rebels who wanted to restore Charlie Stuart to the throne. The Mackenzies had let it be known to all Highlanders they wanted no part in the rebellion. Even so, after so many Highland clans had seen their men slaughtered on the moors of Culloden by English forces, half the Mackenzie clan had been chased away by fear and false accusations. Rabbie himself had been forced to flee, hiding away in Norway for a little more than two years like a bloody coward.

Aye, he’d been sympathetic to the rebel cause, but he’d not taken up arms. He held no love for the English, no matter that his mother was a foreigner, a Sassenach, and his brother’s wife an English viscountess. Rabbie had agreed with Seona’s family—that Scotland would be drowned under the weight of taxes and excises as long as George ruled them.

He’d agreed with it, but he’d not spoken publicly against the crown. They’d come looking for him all the same, had burned more than half the village about Balhaire before the flames could be doused, had seized their cattle and laid waste to their farms.

Aye, Rabbie longed for the days of his youth.

He also longed to know what had happened to Seona. Was she dead? Was it somehow possible she was still alive? He would never know.

A movement at the entrance of the cove caught his eye. The prow of a ship was emerging, bobbing up and down in the waves as the captain negotiated the granite wall and the rocky entrance to their hidden shelter.

That would be his brother, Aulay, just returned from England.

Rabbie looked down at the water once more, wishing for a gust of wind to make the decision for him. He watched a bit of seaweed ride out from the rocks and into the center of the cove, and then, with the next wave, disappear altogether.

He stepped back from the edge. He’d not jump today. Today, he would meet his intended bride.

* * *

RABBIE TRUDGED WEARILY up the high road of what had once been a bustling village surrounding the fortress of Balhaire. Many of the shop fronts were shuttered, and with the exception of a smithy and an inn that also served somewhat as a dry goods shop, there was hardly any commerce to be had.

He walked through the massive gates and into the bailey of the old castle fortress, Balhaire. No one but a few men were about. Even many of the dogs that had once roamed this bailey had left for places unknown. He carried on, into the old castle, past walls stripped of their historic armaments, save those they’d managed to hide away.

His boots echoed on the stone floor as he made his way to the study where he’d find the laird, his father, the head of what was left of Clan Mackenzie. He was inside, as Rabbie knew he’d be, his brow furrowed as he studied a ledger at his desk. He was still quite robust in spite of a bad leg. His hair had been turned to silver by the events of the last few years.

His father didn’t notice him at the open door. “Feasgar math, Athair. Ciamar a tha thu?” Rabbie said in greeting.

“Rabbie, lad, come in, then,” his father said, waving him in. “I am well, very well.” He removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. “We missed you at breakfast this morning.” He repositioned his spectacles and glanced at his youngest son. “Where might you have gone, then?”

Rabbie shrugged. “I walked.”

His father looked as if he wanted to say more, but did not. Rabbie was aware that his family worried about his state of mind. He worried about it, too. He’d tried to hide his restlessness from them, but it was no use—a man could not create a pleasant mien out of thin air, could he?

He walked to the sideboard and poured a dram of whisky, which he tossed back before holding up the container to his father with a questioning look. His father shook his head. His gaze fell to the container, apparently waiting for Rabbie to put it aside.

Rabbie didn’t put it aside—he poured more. “The ship has come,” he said. It wasn’t necessary to say which ship—they’d lost one of their fleet of two to England and now relied on the oldest ship. They’d been expecting Aulay for a day or two now.

“Good,” his father said. “I donna like my second son in England any more than I like my first there.”

He was referring to Cailean, who had married Lady Chatwick. They resided at the northern estate of Chatwick Hall, away from politics and trouble...except that a Scot was never far from trouble in England.

His father didn’t mention the bridal party. Rabbie drank a second dram of whisky, felt the warmth of it cut through the clawing in his throat. His drinking had been a source of contention between him and his mother of late, and for good reason. In addition to battling his dark thoughts, Rabbie was also drinking too much. He just couldn’t seem to help himself on either front.

He walked to the window and away from the temptation to drown his despair in whisky, and stared down at the empty bailey. “It’s decided then, is it?”

“What is?” his father asked.

His father knew very well what he meant, and a moment later he sighed, as if he was weary of discussing it. “I’ve said it before, lad, I’ll say it again. You must be the one to decide—I canna make the decision for you, aye?”

But hadn’t he made the decision for him? Hadn’t the decision been made the first time his father and mother approached him?

“Have you changed your mind, then?” his father asked.

Rabbie laughed with no small amount of derision. “Changed my mind? What, and leave Balhaire unprotected? Allow them to come in and dismantle it completely?” He shook his head. “No, Athair, I’ve no’ changed my mind. I’ll do as I must, I will.”

“It’s no’ ideal, no,” his father said.

A blatant understatement.

“Cailean has said she is bonny,” his father suggested. “That eases you a wee bit, aye?”

No, that pained Rabbie most of all. No one was as bonny to him as Seona MacBee had been, she with the dark red hair and deep brown eyes. A Diah, why hadn’t he married Seona before the war? If he had, she’d have fled to Norway with him. She’d be alive.

A sharp pain sliced behind his eyes and Rabbie squeezed them shut. “As if that matters to me now,” he muttered.

“Rabbie,” his father said. Rabbie could hear him coming to his feet, the labored drag of his bad leg and cane across the floor until he reached his son. He put his hand on Rabbie’s shoulder. “The lass is young. She’ll bend to your will, she will. She’ll become what you want of her.”

What Rabbie wanted of her was to become Seona, and that was impossible.

“See here,” his father said quietly. “Marry the lass. Put her in your marital bed and then take a mistress.”

Surprised, Rabbie turned to look at his father.

“Spend your time at Balhaire, or send her to England for long summers. You need no’ lock yourself away with her at Arrandale.” At Rabbie’s baffled look, Arran Mackenzie merely shrugged. “Desperate times demand desperate measures, do they no’? This is no’ what your mother and I want for you. Unfortunately, we’ve no other options. If there was an Englishman in want of a Highland wife—”

Rabbie instantly shook his head. It is one thing for him to marry into an English family, but he would never wish that on his free-spirited younger sister, Catriona. “No,” he said firmly. “It must be me, aye?”

“No’ if you donna want it.”

“I donna want it,” Rabbie said. “But I’ll no’ leave Balhaire without hope.”

His father smiled sadly, patted Rabbie’s shoulder and then, leaning heavily on his cane, started for the door. “Then we’ll seal the betrothal tonight.” He paused in his trek across the study and glanced back. “Unless you say the word, lad. You need only say it.”