The Highlander’s Rescued Maiden by Anna Campbell

Chapter 3

Pity cramped Will’s gut, pity that he knew he couldn’t express. If he did, Fair Ellen was likely to shoot him. Already he could tell that she was a proud creature. He had enough pride of his own to understand hers.

So he kept his tone light as he responded. Nor did he straighten from his slouch against the dresser. “You speak about your lameness as if it places ye beyond redemption. It’s a misfortune, no’ a mortal sin.”

Her lips firmed. “In the world’s eyes, it does place me beyond redemption.”

“Then the world is full of idiots.”

“Including my father.”

He frowned as so many things that had puzzled him about the woman’s situation suddenly became clear. “Are ye saying your father exiled you to this island because you walk with a limp?”

“I’m saying he doesnae like damaged goods, in particular damaged goods thrust right under his nose.” She spoke in a flat tone to hide how the rejection smarted, but instead, it revealed how the wound continued to bleed. “I’m a disgrace to the great clan of Cameron.”

“Och, that’s mad. What did your mother have to say about it?”

“My mother died giving birth to me. My leg was injured when the doctors tore me from her womb.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That I limp?”

“That ye lost your mother so young.” He frowned. “Dinnae say they sent ye to this island as a baby?”

She shook her head, as to his relief, she set the gun aside on the bench. “No, my presence was tolerated on Inchgallen until I was fifteen, when my father remarried. My stepmother found my infirmity even more offensive than my father did, and she wanted me out of her sight. No’ to mention that I look like my mother, and she didn’t appreciate that at all. That’s when the Bortha solution arose.” Bitterness laced her words with acid.

Will couldn’t blame her. He came from a loving family. The idea of his parents spurning him or any of his half dozen brothers and sisters because of a physical imperfection was unthinkable.

Except more went on here than just coldhearted cruelty. “When your stepmother wed your father, did she have daughters?”

“Aye. Two.”

“Of marriageable age?”

“Twenty and twenty-one.”

“She was clearing away the competition.”

Ellen looked surprised. “But I limp.”

“Aye, ye do.” Will hated the way she’d accepted that her lameness made her unworthy. It was natural, he supposed, if she’d heard no other opinion while she grew up. “You’re also the loveliest woman I’ve ever seen.”

“Fair Ellen of the Isles.”

The corrosive irony in her response scored his heart. “I doubt many men would care about any unevenness in your gait when you’re so beautiful.”

She didn’t thank him for the compliment. He’d noticed that she seemed to hate her remarkable looks. “My father cared.”

Aye, that was the difficulty, wasn’t it? The first man with a duty to love and protect her had proven a hollow vessel. “Your father is a weak bastard.”

Ellen released a shocked laugh. “You dinnae mind your words, do ye?”

Will shrugged. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

The slump of her shoulders made him want to take her in his arms and offer comfort. When he’d first seen her, every masculine instinct had jumped to attention. But the attraction extended beyond a powerful male urge to possess a beautiful woman. He seemed to understand her heart in a way that he’d never experienced before.

It was mad to feel this affinity with a stranger. Yet somehow he did.

“No, you’re no’ wrong,” she said in a defeated monotone. “So when I was fifteen, I was bundled away onto this rock, never to return to Inchgallen.”

“And the legend of Fair Ellen of the Isles was born.”

As he’d expected, that name made her lush lips twist in disgust. “Fair Ellen, who has one leg shorter than the other.”

Will sent her a direct look. “You make too much of your infirmity. Ye seem to get around all right.” She’d taken the stairs at a fair clip, and she’d had no trouble pottering around the kitchen.

“I refuse to be at anyone’s mercy.” Then a bleak expression shadowed her features. “Although in reality, I cannae stop my father from confining me here. I cannae get off the island. I cannae prevent presumptuous gentlemen from turning up to see what all the fuss is about. I cannae even send you on your way.”

Will winced, as her weary rancor heightened his urge to comfort her. Comfort she’d no doubt reject as patronizing. “You’re no’ defenseless.”

She straightened away from the bench and shot him a contemptuous look. “No, that I am no’.”

It was a warning, he understood. He frowned as he considered her childhood. “Even if your father rejected you, there must have been people who cared about ye.”

“My nurse loved me, and I had an aunt who protected me from the worst of it if she could. She died when I was ten. But my father is a gey godly man, ye ken. He saw my affliction as a curse from the devil – or a judgment from the Almighty on my unfitness to be his daughter. Most of the clan took their lead from him and steered clear of me. Or worse.”

Will hid a flinch at the edge in her voice. “Did they hurt ye?”

“No’ physically, apart from a bit of hair-pulling and a few pinches. I was the laird’s daughter, nae matter how he despised me. But there were always spiteful whispers, just loud enough for me to hear. It was almost a relief when I first came to Bortha.”

Will’s heart clenched in sorrow and futile rage so strong that it tasted like rust on his tongue. This beautiful woman had been an outcast among the people who should have loved her most. How the insults and ostracism must have stung her proud spirit.

“The legend talks about suitors.” Fifteen was early for a lass to wed, but not unheard of. And Will couldn’t be the only man who had found her appealing, weak leg or no.

“Aye, a few men asked for my hand, although they became fewer once they realized I couldnae walk straight. But my father was convinced that if the Good Lord meant me to wed, he’d have made me whole. What a disaster if the disgrace of my infirmity infected the next generation, and word spread of bad blood in the Camerons.”

“But ye said that it was inept doctoring that injured your leg.”

“Who can be sure it wasnae divine providence? At times, when life became unendurable on Inchgallen, I lent some credence to my father’s idea of a curse. I suppose I was lucky nobody called me a witch.”

The word and the threat it implied turned Will’s blood to ice. He was a modern, educated man who lived by rational principles, but not everyone in Scotland was so enlightened. Only five years ago, some poor old woman in Dornoch had been burned alive for consorting with the Devil. “Ye were in danger.”

“Aye. Inchgallen is an old-fashioned place. Better Bortha than a fiery death.”

“Better a father who stood by his daughter and had the good sense to see that she was the victim of bad luck rather than supernatural forces.”

“Aye, well, while what you say might be true, that father is no’ Big Jock Cameron of Inchgallen.” The tired certainty in her voice made Will want to punch something. Preferably Big Jock Cameron’s no doubt self-satisfied face.

He’d never met the Laird of Inchgallen, but he’d known men like him. Superstitious. Bigoted. Convinced that they had a special right to the Creator’s attention. Minds sealed against anything that didn’t fit their view of the world.

Ellen turned away to stir the stew that bubbled on the fire. She used a couple of dishcloths to lift the pot and carry it across to the table.

Will’s hands closed at his sides as they itched to take the pot from her. He already knew enough to see that she’d interpret an offer of help as an expression of pity. Whereas this strong woman sparked his admiration. She had a stalwart, independent spirit.

By heaven, if she hadn’t, her childhood and these years of captivity since would have crushed the life out of her.

“Sit down and eat,” she said, dishing stew onto the fine porcelain plates he’d set out. “It’s my father’s venison. He doesnae stint, when it comes to luxuries.”

That was one way to quiet a guilty conscience. The Laird of Inchgallen must recognize that he’d done the wrong thing by his daughter, even if he didn’t want to admit it.

“I noticed the books and musical instruments upstairs.” Will sat at the table while Ellen carefully placed the pot on an iron trivet in front of the fire. The warm kitchen meant that his shirt was nearly dry, although he wished he had something clean to wear.

“Aye, my jail cell is furnished with every comfort.”

No wonder she felt resentful. Life had dealt her a very poor hand indeed.

He reached across to cut a couple of slices of bread. His mouth was watering. She’d served up a savory feast that smelled like heaven to a man who hadn’t had a hot meal through a hard, cold day. “How long have ye been here?”

She took some of the bread and buttered it as he began to eat. The food was delicious. Although he imagined that to Fair Ellen, it must taste like prisoners’ rations. “Ten years.”

So she was twenty-five, three years younger than he was. He wasn’t surprised. The moment he’d seen her, he’d recognized that this was no innocent child, but a mature woman. A mature woman who had spent a decade confined on this barren rock. The idea hardly bore thinking about. He hid renewed outrage at her father’s unconscionable treatment of her.

Will poured their wine and raised his glass to her. “Thank ye for taking pity on a storm-tossed traveler.”

Her eyes narrowed. “A gey canny one. I’m still no’ sure how ye managed to inveigle your way into a meal and an offer of a bed for the night.”

“What can I say? We Mackinnons get what we want, one way or another.”

When his careless answer left her looking troubled, he cursed his impulsive tongue. “You certainly managed to get more of my story out of me than I meant to share. How the deuce did ye do that?”

He sipped his wine. Its quality was no surprise. Another sop to her father’s conscience. “Cunning and determination?”

To his surprise, a brief laugh escaped her. “Effrontery and damn-your-hide impudence, more like.”

He smiled back, even as his wayward heart crashed hard against his ribs. Ellen Cameron was breathtaking when she was proud and cold and determined to protect herself from assault or curiosity. But that couldn’t compete with how winsome she became when she smiled.

Will struggled to clear his swimming head, as he swore on his life that he’d make sure she had plenty to smile about from now on. He wasn’t by nature a knight in shining armor like his cousin Dougal, all puffed up on old legends. But when he pledged himself to Fair Ellen now, no knight of old could have made a more sincere vow.

This was a decisive moment in an existence that had for the most part been plain sailing. But he wasn’t about to share his thoughts and lower the mood between them. Not now when he’d got her to laugh at last.

As he returned his attention to his dinner, he kept his tone easy. “That, too. It’s in the blood. My father kidnapped my mother, ye ken.”

Her eyes widened with alarm. “Dinnae forget I’m armed.”

Damn him, he grew too confident, although he noticed that she’d relaxed to a point where she needed to look around to see where she’d left the pistol. “How could I forget?”

Ellen stood and slid the gun into her pocket. “You’re here because of the weather.”

He was here because of much more. At least he was, now that he’d discovered the treasure concealed on this unpromising island. “I appreciate the hospitality.”

Her brief amusement had died, blast it to hell. He wanted her to smile at him again. He wanted that with an urgency that bewildered him.

“Once the storm passes, you’re on your way.”

Will set down his knife and fork and studied her. “Ye don’t want to come with me?”

As Ellen resumed her seat, her lips curved downward. “And exchange one prison for another?”

He spoke seriously. “Ye need to trust me.”

She pushed away her half-empty plate. “No, I don’t.”

“I give ye my word that I have your best interests at heart.”

This time, her laugh was grim. “I find that hard to believe. After all, you’re a man.”

Anyone would be cynical after what she’d been through. He couldn’t even blame her for doubting his honor, now that he’d told her that he wanted her.

With a sigh, he went back to eating his dinner and pretending that her gaze on him didn’t feel like a physical touch.

“Nae argument?” she asked after a bristling silence.

He took another sip of his wine. “Do ye want one?”

“So I cannae trust you?”

He shrugged. “You know I’m no’ going to jump on ye. If you didn’t know that, storm or nae storm, you’d pitch me out on my ear. As far as trusting me beyond the immediate moment, ye just need to get to know me better.”

“More effrontery.”

“If you like.” He set down his glass. “Would ye care to hear the tale of how my father wooed my mother?”

“He sounds as impudent as his son.”

“Och, he’s much worse.”

To his satisfaction, the corners of her lips deepened as she fought not to smile. “We’re stuck here for the moment. Ye may as well provide some entertainment in exchange for the inconvenience.”

“Sing for my supper?”

“Aye.”

***

Only as Will lay down on a guard’s bed in the room below the kitchen did he put a name to what had filled Fair Ellen’s eyes as he told her about Achnasheen and the doughty Mackinnon warriors who ruled it. It was longing. Longing for easy social contact with her equals. Longing for a glimpse of a world beyond the narrow confines of Bortha. Even more, longing for a friend.

Will could be that friend.

If she let him, he could be so much more.

As he folded his arms under his head and stared up at the heavy beams crossing the ceiling, he swore that she’d never be lonely again.

Wooing Fair Ellen wouldn’t be easy, but by all that was holy, William Drummond Mackinnon was the one man in creation equal to the challenge.