Margaret Mallory - The Guardian

Sìleas paced up and down her bedchamber, clenching her hands until her nails pierced the skin. The boy she had known would never have been so unkind. The angry young man who had called her repulsive, however, was capable of such cruelty. All this time, she had made excuses for him. Even now, she was tempted—but failing to acknowledge her in some small way was simply unforgiveable.

Ian’s words from their wedding day rang in her ears. Have ye taken a good look at her, da? Ach! She gave the door a good kick—they wouldn’t hear it below over the yelling.

She tilted her head back. “Dear God, did ye have to make him more handsome than ever? Was that truly necessary?”

Ian had been a lovely boy, with kind, sky-blue eyes framed by thick, dark lashes—the sort all the mothers cooed over. But there was nothing left of the sweet lad in the man who strode into the house tonight. True enough, his eyes were as blue as ever and his hair the same shiny black of a selkie. But the man had a rough, dangerous air about him.

It was possible he’d been like this when he returned from fighting on the borders, and she had been too young to recognize it. But the moment he burst into the room tonight, she felt it, recognized it, knew it for the danger it was. And instead of making her wary, a ripple of excitement shivered through her, right down to the tips of her toes. She wanted to be next to him, to feel the power of his presence, to touch the vibrating energy that coursed through him.

She felt it, wanted it… and Ian ignored her.

She needed to be gone from this house. Nay, she would not be married to a man who did not want her. She jerked the cloth sack off the hook on the back of her door, threw it on the bed, and started tossing things into it.

Not all men found her disgusting. She knew several clansmen who would be pleased to have her for a wife—and not just for her lands.

As she looked around the room, deciding what to take with her, her gaze lingered on the quilt his mother had made her… the colored stones Niall had collected with her… the wooden box Ian’s father had carved for her.

She’d lived here for five years, but she’d been wrong to think of this as her home. No matter how much she loved Ian’s family, they were his blood, his family. Not hers.

Sìleas looked down at the gown in her hand and remembered how she and Ian’s mother had talked by the fire as they worked on it together. All her life, she had longed for a family, for a home where people laughed at the table and cared for each other. She had been happy here, despite the waiting.

Ian’s family had welcomed her from the start, and eventually accepted and loved her. His father had taken the longest to win over—but she had. Losing the family she had come to think of as her own would be hard. Very hard, indeed. But she was here as Ian’s wife. If she wasn’t that, she could not stay.

But where could she go?

Sìleas sank to the floor and leaned her head against the side of the bed. She had no family to take her in, no home to go to. Although she was heir to Knock Castle, her step-da, Murdoc MacKinnon, had it now. After he took it, she feared he would come for her too.

She could go to Gòrdan, of course, but she wasn’t ready to make that decision.

Despair weighed down on her as she looked at the moonless black sky outside her window. Traveling in the dark would be foolish—and she had no place to go. Besides, she couldn’t just abandon the family after all they had done for her. There were things she must see to before she could leave.

She was so tired she felt light-headed. The last weeks had been difficult—and tonight, worse. In the morning, she would make a plan for her future.

She pulled the half-filled bag off the bed and let it drop to the floor with a thump. As she crawled into bed, Sìleas tried to forget that this was meant to be her marriage bed.

Ian’s stomach tightened. “Mam, what is it? Has something happened to da?”

“Your father was wounded at Flodden.” His mother gave him a thin, tense smile. “But he’s much better now.”

She flinched at the sound of another crash and broken crockery falling to the floor. This time, it was followed by his father’s voice, bellowing, “Leave me be, damn ye!”

Ian sprinted through the doorway to the small room that used to serve as a servant’s bedchamber. He stopped in his tracks when he saw the man on the bed.

His father lay under a quilt, looking thinner than seemed possible. A bandage covered the top of his head and one eye. Below the bandage, a red gash ran down the side of his face to below his jaw. The part of his face that wasn’t covered by bandages was parchment white, rather than its usual ruddy color.

In all his memories, his father was a tall, powerfully built warrior who could swing a claymore with enough force to cut an enemy in half. He was a man who spent his time outdoors, in the mountains or on the sea. Finding him a bed-ridden invalid shook Ian to his foundations.

“Hello, da,” he said, forcing his voice to be steady.

“It took ye a damned long time to come home.” His father’s voice sounded raspy, as if he had to fight to draw breath to speak. His father’s gaze went past him to Alex, who had come in on his heels. “The same goes for you, Alex Bàn MacDonald. Have Duncan and Connor returned as well?”

“Aye,” Alex said. “They’ve gone to the west to have a look about.”

Ian’s mouth went dry. The quilt covering his father lay flat on the bed where his father’s left leg should have been.

Ian tore his gaze from the missing leg, guilt weighing on his chest like a stone. “You’re right, da. I should have come home sooner. I should have been here to fight with ye at Flodden.”

“Ye think ye could have saved my leg, is that it?” his father said, his face flushing with anger. Then, in a quieter voice, he said, “No, son, I would not have wished ye there. Ye would have been lost like the others, and the family needs ye now that I’m useless.”

Regardless of the outcome, Ian should have fought at his father’s side. His father’s words did not absolve him. Redemption was something a man had to earn.

“But if ye had been at the battle, I know ye would have let me die like a man,” his father said with a vicious look at Niall.

Ian glanced at Niall, realizing for the first time that his young brother must have fought at Flodden. A strong fifteen-year-old who was trained to fight would not be left home with the women and children.

The muscles in Niall’s jaw clenched, before he said, “Come, da, let me help ye sit up.”

When Niall tried to take his arm, his father shook him off. “I said, let me be!”

Something more than losing a leg had changed in his father. Payton MacDonald had been a warrior who sent terror into the hearts of his enemies, but he had also been a man who showed warmth and kindness to his family.

“Give Ian the chair and go,” his father barked without looking at Niall. “Alex, get out of the doorway and come in. I must tell the two of ye of our clan’s misfortunes, for the future of the MacDonalds of Sleat rests with ye.”

CHAPTER 5

“Do ye think we should be leaving so soon?” Alex asked, as they crossed the yard to the byre. “We only just arrived.”

“We need to find Connor and Duncan and make our plan,” Ian said.

His father’s grim news had kept Ian and Alex up talking far into the night. As they had feared, Hugh Dubh and his rough, clanless men had taken control of Dunscaith, the chieftain’s castle, as soon as the men returned from Flodden bearing the body of their dead chieftain. Hugh had proclaimed himself the new chieftain. And then, the new “chieftain” had stood by and done nothing while the MacKinnons attacked Knock Castle.