Reckless by Hannah Howell

1

Scotland 1375

“A toast to the bride who will one day unite the MacFarlanes and the MacCordys in her womb.”

The bride Ailis MacFarlane’s deep brown eyes narrowed as she surveyed the men at the head table in the great hall of Leargan. Her lips thinned by a growing fury, she needed to unclench her even white teeth before she could take a reluctant sip of wine from an ornate goblet. The knuckles of her long slim fingers were bone white, but she was unable to ease her grip upon the goblet as she set it back down on the tapestry-draped table. Beneath the heavy oak table she agitatedly tapped her small booted foot. Her rage craved some outlet. None of the men so jovially toasting each other and making plans were paying any mind to her or her increasing fury.

She wondered if they would pay her any heed if she stood and screamed out her fury. Probably not, she decided. They rarely noticed her or her moods. She sent a hard glare at Donald MacCordy.

The cause for the increasingly rowdy celebration was her betrothal to Donald MacCordy, the eldest son and heir of the laird of Craigandubh. The union would strengthen their alliance of arms. The two families would now stand shoulder to shoulder against their enemies. Of which there were an ever-growing number.

For years the MacFarlanes had had a tentative connection to the MacCordys, occasionally coming to one another’s aid. Now it would be a much stronger tie, one of a common heritage in the children to come. As yet unconceived despite Donald’s intensive efforts whenever he chanced to catch her alone, Ailis thought furiously.

For the past few days Ailis had struggled to avoid the man she was soon to marry. She was as determined to delay the fateful day when Donald MacCordy would make her a woman as the lecherous Donald was eager to precipitate it. His clammy hands were much too swift and cloying. His too full lips reminded her too much of the leeches the physicians so prized. As yet another toast was raised to the approaching nuptials, Ailis raised her goblet and briefly wished it held poison. She loved life far too dearly, however, even if it meant suffering bondage to Donald MacCordy.

At twenty she knew she was over ready to be married. Her uncle and guardian had no children of his own, and as she was the only surviving child of his only brother, she could inherit the small but prosperous holding of Leargan. There was only a slight chance that her uncle’s new wife, Una, who was young, lovely, and somewhat simple, could yet produce a child, and that slight chance faded more every day the poor woman suffered in Colin MacFarlane’s grasp. It was with a covetous eye on Leargan as much as enhancing the alliance that the MacCordys accepted her for a bride for their future laird.

Suddenly Ailis tensed. She realized that in all the talk of marriage, living arrangements, dowers, and the future of their clans, there had been no mention of her nephews and niece. Since her sister Mairi’s death two years ago, Ailis had cared for the three children conceived during a six-year liaison with a wild but unnamed man. Rath and Manus, the seven-year-old twins, and Sibeal, their five-year-old sister, were the only source of happiness in Ailis’s life. Ailis began to fear that she would not be allowed to keep the children with her. She decided it was time to find out for certain.

“Uncle? What about my sister’s bairns?” she demanded.

“The bairns have been considered,” Colin MacFarlane said in a cool, calm tone.

Ailis did not trust the smoothness of her uncle’s reply, a smoothness echoed in Donald’s smile. “I dinna expect any great cost to be expended upon them,” Ailis said. “I just want them to remain in my care as my sister wished and as I promised her they would.”

“We are all well aware of that promise, lass. Dinna worry on it.”

Her uncle then ignored her and returned to his drinking. Ailis silently cursed. A few minutes later she slipped away to go to her chambers. To stay and participate in the betrothal revelry would be like dancing at her own funeral. She was trapped and they all knew it, just as they all knew she would rather wed one of the devil’s own horsemen than Donald MacCordy.

“And now that I ponder it, Donald probably is one of the devil’s horsemen,” she grumbled as she paused in front of the door to the tiny, damp room that had been grudgingly allotted to her late sister’s children.

The poor quarters had been reluctantly offered by their uncle. Colin MacFarlane called the children the Bastard Trio. There were times when Ailis was hard-pressed not to do violence to the man, for his attitude hurt the children. They had suffered enough pain. Instead of being welcomed and comforted at Leargan, the children were crowded into a small, drafty room by a cold, unfeeling man. Ailis could do nothing. She could not even get the children into her more comfortable quarters. The few times she had tried, her uncle had had them forcibly removed, for, he claimed, her chambers were to be her bridal suite, and her groom would not appreciate it if it was cluttered up with bastards. Ailis had swallowed her fury, for she had finally realized that the bickering and confrontation were hurting the children more than if she simply let the matter be.

As she quietly entered the children’s room, Ailis looked at their faces, searching yet again for some clue as to who had fathered them. No one had been able to stop the besotted Mairi from meeting her lover, and after her father had died, no one had really tried. The twins had already been born, and Mairi had been considered unweddable. Ailis had only once stooped to following Mairi, but she had just managed to get lost. All attempts to get Mairi to tell her the man’s name had also failed despite their close relationship.

Although Ailis sorely missed her sister, she often thought that it was for the best that Mairi had died before their mother had, and before the onslaught of their uncle’s guardianship. The shame Mairi had brought to the family and the fury that stirred within her too-proud uncle would not have been tempered by a parent’s love. Colin MacFarlane would have made life a sheer misery for the lovesick, erring Mairi. Ailis doubted that she could have protected the sensitive Mairi from Colin’s venom any better than she had the children.

All three children were smiling at her and, although she smiled back, her attention was centered on the twins. She was sure they held the greatest clues to their father’s identity. They were handsome boys with rich blue eyes and gleaming black hair. The hair was like hers, like Mairi’s but the eyes and the lean faces were definitely from that unknown father. Little Sibeal had strawberry-blond hair. Yet another clue? The big brown eyes and small oval face were just like hers and Mairi’s. What bothered Ailis was that of all the men she could think of who held such features, none were friends to the MacFarlanes, and one clan, the MacDubhs, were the bitterest of enemies, for her uncle had stolen Leargan from them. Ailis hid a grimace as she thought yet again that it was bad enough her sister had carried on a liaison with a married man. She dared not let herself believe that it had been with one of their deadliest enemies as well. She forced the chilling thought aside and bent to kiss each of the three children.

“Are ye to be wed to Donald MacCordy, then?” asked Manus as Ailis tucked him in.

“Aye. There isna a thing I can do to alter that dire fate, laddie.”

“Are ye certain?”

“Very certain. I have thought on it long and hard, but there is naught for me to do.”

“I dinna like the man, Ailis,” Sibeal whispered. “I ken he doesna like us at all.”

Ailis tried not to place too much weight on the solemn little girl’s words. “No man can be at ease with another man’s bairns, sweeting. ‘Tis all that is.” Ailis could see that the children had as little confidence in her soothing words as she did.

A half hour later, when Ailis finally sought her own bed, she found sleep annoyingly elusive. Sibeal was right—Donald could not tolerate the children. In truth, Ailis was beginning to fear that Donald deeply hated them. He had been betrothed to Mairi when her illicit liaison had become common knowledge, but Ailis did not think that was the whole of it. She began to suspect that Donald knew who Mairi’s lover had been, knew and hated the children for it. Unfortunately, Ailis did not believe it would be easy to get that knowledge from him.

She tensed as a noise yanked her from her musings. It took only a second to recognize the sound as that of her door being stealthily opened. Ailis slipped her hand beneath her pillow to grasp her dagger, a weapon she was never without. When the shadowy figure finally reached her bed and bent over her, she struck, driving her dagger deep into the man’s flesh and just as swiftly yanking her blade free as she leapt to her feet. The ensuing bellow of pain brought several people bustling into her room with candles held high. As the light filled her chamber, Ailis was not surprised to see that her erstwhile ravisher was Donald. The man was on the floor clutching his badly slashed arm and making an inordinate amount of noise. She watched scornfully as his father, brother, and cousin rushed to help him.

“What the devil are ye about, ye daft lass?” bellowed Colin MacFarlane. “Ye have just skewered the man ye are supposed to wed.” He swung at her, but she was used to his quick, brutal hand and neatly avoided the blow, returning his fierce glare as she clung to the bedpost. “Ye could have killed him!”

“I treated him as I would any man who comes a-creeping to my bed in the dark of the night,” she snapped. “He has no right to be here.”

“He was only a wee bit eager, lass,” growled the Laird of Craigandubh. “There was no need to nearly hack his arm off.”

“Ye exaggerate. ‘Tis but a flesh wound, even though he bellows like a gelded bull. And if he meant no harm, he should have brought a light with him. Aye, and spoken out, instead of creeping about like a thief.”

Ailis was disgusted when the men tried to dispute the truth of her words. By the time all the shouting was over and she was again alone in her chambers, she was exhausted. She replaced her knife beneath her pillow, relieved that her infuriated uncle had carelessly forgotten to confiscate it. The dagger could still prove necessary to discourage Donald’s unwanted attentions. With a sigh and a curse for Donald MacCordy, she snuggled beneath her covers, refusing to let her troubles and worries rob her of sleep.

 

“Ye great fool,” snapped Duncan MacCordy, the bulky Laird of Craigandubh as, once in his chambers, he began to bandage his heir’s wound. “The lass could have killed ye. She was right to attack any man who crept up on her in the dark with nary a word. Do ye mean to spoil all our plans with your lust for the wench?”

“How was I to ken that the bitch slept with a dirk at hand?” Donald glared at his handsome cousin Malcolm, who laughed softly. “She will pay dearly for this come our wedding night. I will ride her hard and long just as I should have ridden her whore of a sister.”

“Ye, Mairi was a whore, but she gave us a cursed fine tool for blackmail and revenge,” said Duncan. “And soon wee Ailis will give it to us to do with as we please.” He rubbed his blunt hands together in anticipation.

William, the laird’s young, homely son, frowned and smoothed his hand over his receding chin. “Are ye sure that old Colin MacFarlane doesna ken who fathered the bairns?”

“Aye, I am very sure,” answered Duncan, and he shook his head, his lanky gray hair shifting clumsily with the movement. “And the old fool isna even interested. All he can see or think about is the shame of it, the mark upon the MacFarlane name. What we must hope for is that Barra MacDubh kens who the wee bastards really are.”

“He kens,” snarled Donald. “The cur kens well that he twice filled Mairi MacFarlane’s belly. His slut of a wife, Agnes, told me as much ere she died. For two long years I have ached to have my revenge on that whoreson. Soon, very soon, I will have it.”

Duncan scowled at his son. “The bairns are to be used to gain us the MacDubh land and naught else. Remember that, Donald. Ye arena to use them to soothe your poor wounded vanity. Ye had best keep in mind that the bairns are also of MacFarlane blood. Your wee bride is their aunt.”

“In her heart she is more than that,” remarked Malcolm, drawing all attention to himself. “ ‘Tis a very strong bond she has with those bairns, and ye, Donald, had best begin to see it clearly. If ye want as little woe as possible, ye had best tread warily in all your plans for those bairns.”

“The bitch will be my wife, and she will do as I tell her or she will sore regret it,” snarled Donald. “She willna fight me for long, I vow.”

Malcolm sighed but said no more. Yet again he wished he had the wherewithal to be free of his cousins or to be in the service of some other man. He had so little in common with his kin.

But he was bound to his rough, unperceptive relatives. Unlike the others, Malcolm could see the finely honed steel that straightened Ailis MacFarlane’s lovely backbone. He also saw that she had as much feeling for those babes in her care as if she had borne them herself. There was no doubt in his mind that if she thought those children were in any danger, she could be as lethal as any she-wolf guarding her cubs. It was plain, however, that Donald would take no advice in the matter. Malcolm suspected that that blindness would eventually cause them a great deal of trouble.

“Aye,” muttered Donald. “Ailis will learn, and I suspect that she will grieve little for those bastards when she discovers who their father is.”

“If Barra MacDubh really is their father, why has he made no claim upon them?” asked Malcolm.

“He doesna care to have his kin aware of who his lover was just as Mairi didna want any one to ken it,” answered Duncan.

“Let us pray that he remains reticent, for I ken that his brother, Alexander, isna a man to sit back and wait to deal,” drawled Malcolm, then sighed as he was virtually ignored.

 

Alexander fought valiantly to stem his swiftly rising temper. His younger brother, Barra, was oblivious to his efforts, however, and blithely continued to add to his fury. The evening meal was becoming an ordeal, and the quiet in the great hall told Alexander that the other men expected matters to grow worse. The pages and the occasional serving woman crept amongst the men with the tense air of people awaiting an attack.

Yet again Barra was drunk. While Barra’s shrewish wife had been alive, Alexander had been somewhat sympathetic, believing Barra had sought peace in the wine. Yet Agnes had been dead now for two years, and Barra had remained almost consistently drunk since the day of the woman’s death.

That in itself was a source of extreme annoyance to Alexander. He simply could not believe that grief for the woman prompted Barra’s wallow in ale, and all of the man’s shame should have faded by now. Even more unsettling was that this night was the anniversary of Agnes’s death, and Barra was clearly worse than most nights. He would have to be carried to bed. If Agnes had been a worthy wife, Alexander might have found some sympathy for his brother, but his opinion was that the only drink that should be taken in Agnes’s name was a loud toast to her absence. Agnes had been a vicious, unpleasant wench who had delighted in making every man, woman, and child within her reach utterly miserable.

A grimace twisted Alexander’s mouth as he silently admitted that even if Agnes had been a sainted angel, he would have been hard-pressed to feel any sympathy concerning her untimely death. Even the women whose bodies he used received little more from him than a few grunts and a coin or two. It was difficult to believe that he had once been so flattering and gallant. He marveled at his own naïveté. The women his family had been cursed with over the last dozen years had certainly cured him of his amiable innocence as thoroughly as they had decimated his clan’s fortunes. Barra was simply yet another good man who had been caught between a woman’s thighs and drained of all good sense and strength. If Agnes were still alive, Alexander was certain that he would kill her himself.

Unable to restrain himself any longer, Alexander leapt to his feet, wrenched the tankard from his brother’s hand, and hurled it toward the far end of Rathmor’s great hall. “Ye have had enough.” His tall, broad-shouldered frame taut with anger, Alexander glared at Barra.

Barra calmly took the tankard belonging to the man seated next to him, refilled it, and took a drink. “I can never have enough.”

Alexander raked his fingers through his thick golden hair, agitated by his inability to understand his own brother. “Curse ye,” he snarled. “How can ye wallow in drink for two long years because of that whoring bitch Agnes?”

“Agnes?” Barra blinked owlishly at his brother. “Ye think this is for Agnes?”

When Barra suddenly burst into laughter, Alexander’s blood ran cold. The laughter was not the free, contagious sort customary to Barra in earlier, happier times. There was a sharp note to it that made Alexander fear for Barra’s mind. That fear was enhanced by the wild look in Barra’s red-stained eyes, eyes of a less intense blue than his own. Drink had been known to destroy a man’s mind before, Alexander thought, and uttering a foul curse, he slapped Barra, knocking the slender man off the bench he sat on. As he watched Barra pick himself up off of the rush-strewn floor and resume his seat at the table, Alexander clenched and unclenched his hands, fighting the urge to slap his brother until Barra was both sober and sane. The fact that there was no sign of anger in his brother only added to Alexander’s fury.

“I am not mad, Alex,” Barra murmured. “However, I have often wished that I were. Madness might finally release me from my hell.”

“I had thought ye released when your bitch of a wife breathed her last. She made your life a living hell.”

“Oh, aye, that she did, and she saw to it that her death wouldna put an end to my purgatory. Ere Agnes, died, she took from me the only thing that made my life worth a farthing.” He laughed hoarsely. “Although I dinna doubt that ye would thank her for it.”

“I wouldna thank Agnes for a thing save, perhaps, for dying.”

“Aye, ye would thank her. Do ye have any idea why, when she was so near to death with that fever, she took herself out of Rathmor and thus caught the chill that killed her so quickly?”

“Nay.” Alexander began to feel uncomfortably tense.

“Well, no doubt this shall lift your dark spirits. Agnes went to a crofter’s hut on the far western side of our lands and murdered all that made me happy, all that could ever make me happy. She cut Mairi MacFarlane’s bonny throat.”

Alexander grabbed Barra by the shoulders, a dread suspicion growing in his mind and making his grip painful. “And why should ye care that Agnes killed a MacFarlane?”

“Why? Because Mairi MacFarlane and I had been lovers for six years.” Barra barely stopped himself from falling when Alexander thrust him away as if he had suddenly contracted the plague. “Mairi was but fifteen and I was nearly twenty, newly wed to dear, vicious Agnes—the lass ye thought would bring heirs to Rathmor. God’s blood, six months wed and I was already in purgatory.”

“So ye went and lay down with the niece of the man who murdered our father?” Alex hissed.

“Aye, lay with and loved her is just what I did.”

“Nay!”

“Aye! Mairi was the very breath I needed to live, the food that kept my soul from dying, as yours had. Agnes couldna abide it. I couldna speak to ye, for I kenned your hatred for the MacFarlanes.” Barra sighed, his expression and tone of voice becoming maudlin. “Agnes took my Mairi. Aye, and my wee bairns, my sons and my wee bonny lassie.”

All the color fled Alexander’s face as Barra’s final words seared through his mind. “Ye had bairns? Agnes killed your bairns?” He spat out the words through tightly gritted teeth.

“Nay.” Barra awkwardly shook his head. “Nay, she didna kill them, although what happened is much the same. I canna see them, canna even hear how they fare in health and spirit.”

Alexander gave Barra a rough shake. His temper was stretched thin. “Cease bawling like some lass and tell me about your bairns. Tell me everything!”

“I had twin sons. We named them Rath and Manus. They would be seven now.” Barra sniffed as he sought to still his tears and vainly struggled to put some order into his thoughts. “Then there was Sibeal. The lass must be five now. I brought her into this world myself, slapped the breath of life into her with my own hands. My own tiny lass with Mairi’s bonny eyes. All four are lost to me now. So now ye ken why I drink. Agnes not only cut my love dead that black day, but she made certain that I could never see my bairns again.” He shook his head and took a long drink. “Aye, ‘tis as if they, too, have died.” he whispered.

“Ye had bairns—sons, curse ye—and yet ye said naught to me?” The sting of hurt mixed with Alexander’s anger.

“Nay, I didna think ye would care to hear it,” Barra groused. “They are bastards with foul MacFarlane blood in their veins.”

“And MacDubh,” Alexander snapped, and several of the men at the head table growled their agreement.

“My Sibeal has hair just like mine,” Barra sighed. “The laddies have my eyes. In truth, they have the richer blue that ye were blessed with. God’s tears, ‘tis as if the very heart has been torn out of me.”

Alexander grit his teeth and fought against his anger. Maudlin drunks had always infuriated him, but now he had a new understanding of Barra. His own opinion of love and of Barra’s appalling choice of a lover did not matter. The man had lost his children, had spent two long, dark years with no sight or word of them. Alexander was all too aware of how such a loss tore at a man, but he swallowed his own still-raw pain, for he needed to be decisive. He knew that his own loss intensified his fierce need to retrieve Barra’s children. Any MacDubh children belonged at Rathmor. He leaned toward his brother.

“Just where do ye think your bairns are now, Barra?” he asked in a soft, smooth voice as he watched Barra from beneath partly lowered eyelids.

That deceptively gentle question roused Barra from his misery. He looked around the table, his eyes widening as he met looks of sympathy and accusation. As he slowly turned his gaze to Alexander, he swallowed nervously. The drunken haze he had been sheltered in cleared a little, and he knew what caused Alexander’s eyes to shine with rage.

“At Leargan,” he rasped, cringing slightly in anticipation of Alexander’s response.

“Aye, at Leargan—being raised by a man who murdered our father and stole Leargan from us. The heirs to what scraps of wealth we still clutch on to are in the hands of the one who has ever sought to take even that.” When Barra gave an incoherent cry and fled from the great hall, Alexander sighed, sank down into his heavy oaken chair, and rested his head in his callused hands.

“What do ye mean to do?” asked his burly cousin Angus. “Ye canna intend to leave the bairns in Colin MacFarlane’s blood-soaked hands, can ye?”

“Nay,” answered Alexander. “Nay, I willna allow that whoreson to have the raising of them. It sore grieves me that MacFarlane blood flows in their veins, but they are Barra’s for all that. They are MacDubhs. They will be brought here and raised as MacDubhs. Please to God that the poison which is MacFarlane hasna seeped into their hearts as yet. Say naught to Barra, for he is useless as a warrior now, but we ride for Leargan at first light.”