A Maid for the Grieving Highlander Read online

  “What…?” He caught himself just before he added ‘my dear’.

  “Would you mind if I took these damned shoes off?”

  He roared with laughter.

  “You can throw them into the loch for all I care!” he declared.

  She sat down on a rock and unbuckled her shoes. Then she hitched up her skirt and began to peel down her stockings. Eoin caught himself admiring the smooth gleam of her slim white calves in the dusk. Catriona balled the stockings and stuffed them into one of her shoes.

  “There.” She sighed, standing up and working her toes into the sand. “That is better.”

  They began to walk along the narrow strip of beach towards the darkening mass of Castle Tioram. They strolled with leisure; neither of them seemed to be in any hurry to end their encounter.

  “You know,” Catriona said carefully, “I meant what I said at our first meeting. Donald has not just lost his mother; he seems to have lost his father as well, you have become so distant towards him.”

  She glanced aside at him, fearing the same reaction that he had given to her observation at that first meeting, but he just hung his head and watched his boots kick up little plumes of dry sand.

  “You should play more with him,” Catriona continued. “It will strengthen your bond by giving you a place in the new story Donald is weaving for himself. We all need to make stories of our lives. It is those stories that carry us into the future. You want to be part of Donald’s future, don’t you?”

  “Of course, I do,” he grumbled out.

  “Donald has made a story-world for himself, coloring the features of the island with his own fantasy, and acting out those fantasies to see where his imagination might lead him. In his grief, his mother has become the princess he must defend from being abducted by marauding pirates. He acts out this story over and over again, in an attempt to stave off losing her altogether.”

  “But you have succeeded in giving her back to him, with that little story about her living in his heart.”

  She stopped and shook her head at him in astonished disbelief.

  “That was not a story; that was the truth. Isbeil still dwells in his heart, as she does in yours. Do you not understand? Go on! Deny the reality of it. Do you not feel the reality of Isbeil alive in your heart?”

  “I feel her only as an absence,” he replied, his voice cracking. “A painful absence.”

  “And do you want to be nothing more than an absence in wee Donald’s life?” she insisted. “A painful absence?”

  Eoin stopped walking and put his hand up to his face to cover his eyes. His shoulders shook. Catriona realized that he was weeping.

  Without thinking, she stepped towards him and took him in her arms. After a brief hesitation, as if he were trying to resist the onslaught of his tears and the transgression of accepting comfort from a social inferior, he buried his face in her shoulder and released his emotion. He clung to her, his hands clutching the fabric of her shawl, drawing her against him, as if she were the last hope of a drowning man, while she rubbed his broad shoulders through the satin of his fine coat.

  They stood like that for a long time, as the darkness fell, and a rising gale drove rain and spume from the surface of the loch against them on the rocky shore.

  Meanwhile, Deirdre watched from the high windows of the tower, her arms wrapped around her stomach, nursing a wrath that had her half-stooped in pain.

  Chapter Eleven

  The next morning, Catriona and Donald were playing by the old smokehouse, where the herring used to be kippered for the castle stores, but which by then stood empty and abandoned, still reeking of the peat smoke that had cured the fish. It sat in a shallow gully in the lee of the castle wall, a stone’s throw from a small sandy cove.

  Donald was engaged in combat with a party of pirates, who had beached their galley in the cove and were besieging the smokehouse, which, in Donald and Catriona’s world, had become Donald’s keep, an outpost of Argyll, Somerled’s Kingdom of the Isles. The pirates, of course, were Northmen, privateers of King Haakon of Norway, armed with spears and battle-axes, whom Donald was driving back into the sea with his little wooden sword.

  Suddenly, Eoin appeared. He was wearing a sleeveless leather jerkin over a snowy white sark and trews of the Clanranald check. He scrambled down into the gully from the small postern gate at the rear of the castle and presented himself to Donald and Catriona.

  “Good morning, Donald,” he declared. “Muideart, at your service.” He gave a curt bow.

  Catriona smiled.

  “Och, Muideart will not do,” she trilled. “You shall be Magnus Barefoot, King Haakon’s trusted lieutenant, who has led this raiding party on Castle Tioram to capture the Holy Grail, which Lord Somerled has entrusted to the care of Donald, captain of Castle Tioram.”

  Catriona slid a short rudely-fashioned wooden sword into the still bereft loop on his belt, then grinned and pointed at his shod feet.

  “You shall have to take your shoes off, Barefoot!”

  Donald, as if on cue, began to make darting feints at Barefoot with his sword.

  Eoin drew and parried with his own sword as he hopped around the sward, struggling to tug off his shoes and stockings.

  “Yield, Magnus Barefoot!” Donald commanded.

  “Never!” Eoin rejoined, casting his footwear onto the gully bank and setting to in earnest.

  The two danced around each other, thrusting and parrying, with shouts and catcalls. Donald’s features were set in a frown of grim determination, while Eoin’s face began to flush slightly with the effort and the excitement of the fray. Twice, Donald almost succeeded in slicing Eoin’s hamstrings with his wooden blade, but twice Eoin succeeded in deflecting the blow. At any time he wished, Eoin could have lopped Donald’s head from his shoulders, but instead, he played his part as the hapless invader.

  Donald inexorably drove Eoin back towards his beached galley. At one point, Eoin slipped and fell to his knee beneath the onslaught of Donald’s blows. But, leaning back, he managed to fend off the rain of downward cuts from Donald’s sword to his head and shoulders and struggle back to his feet.

  “Quit our land!” Donald demanded shrilly, as the surf began to wash over Eoin’s feet and ankles.

  “I shall!” Eoin cried. “But not before I seize my prize.”

  With that, he darted around Donald, and wrapping his arm around Catriona’s thighs, hoisted her over his shoulder.

  Catriona screamed, then fell to giggling, as Eoin swung her around, her legs kicking the air and her small fists pummeling his back.

  “Put me down, you beast! Help me, Donald, help me. The Northmen are carrying me away into slavery.”

  Donald’s eyes rounded in horror; his blood ran cold. Then his features contorted in fury; his nostrils flared, his face turned puce, and tears of rage sprung to his eyes. He emitted a shrill blood-curdling scream.

  “Dh' aindeoin co theireadh e!”

  The slogan of the Clanranald: ‘Gainsay me who dares!’

  Donald redoubled his attack, cutting and stabbing at Eoin’s legs with vicious ferocity. With his right arm clasped tightly around Catriona’s thighs, Eoin could only parry with his weaker left hand, and it proved an inadequate defense. Donald was like a child possessed. His lips curled back to reveal gritted teeth, each blow was delivered with a desperate sob, and his eyes rolled wildly with an unfocused madness.

  Eoin blanched at the frenzy of his son’s attack. He set Catriona down and shifted his toy sword to his right hand, while Catriona knelt and enveloped Donald in a smothering embrace.

  “There, there,” she crooned, clasping his face between her hands and kissing his hair. “It is only a game. Your father did not mean me any harm. We are all safe. Safe!”

  Donald gradually regained control of his emotion. He threw his head back, and tears of tortured anguish flowed down his burning cheeks from beneath his tightly shut eyelids.

  “Wheesht, wheesht…” Catriona continued, as Eoin loo
ked on aghast.

  Then Donald suddenly pushed Catriona aside, cast his wooden sword away, turned on his heel, and went scampering off, back up the shallow gully towards the castle.

  “What in God’s name…?” Eoin began in a hollow voice.

  Catriona shook her head and bit her lip.

  “You should not have laid hands on me,” was all she said.

  * * *

  “Is the wee man alright now?” Peigi asked with concern as Catriona entered the kitchen.

  With a deep sigh, Catriona sat herself down on the settle bench beside the fire.

  “Aye, he is sleeping now, the poor wee soul,” she reported. “He is exhausted.”

  Peigi turned the dough on the broad kitchen table, casting it down with a loud slap.

  “What on earth came over the laddie? He fairly flew at his father, ye say?”

  Catriona stared into the flames.

  “Aye, with his wee wooden sword. It’s just as well it wasn’t a real one, else the wee mite would have hacked his father to pieces.”

  Peigi worked the dough with her massive red fists, her bulbous breasts rolling ponderously beneath the fabric of her apron.

  “The laddie has been sairly troubled since he lost his mother…”

  “Maybe he thought he was about to lose his false mother too.” Deirdre sneered from the corner, where she was plucking from her apron the eggs she had lately collected and placing them into a large earthenware bowl.

  Catriona shot her a look of panic.

  Peigi paused her pummeling of the dough.

  “That is a wicked thing to say!” Peigi declared in a shocked voice.

  Deirdre’s expression fell into a smug, self-satisfied look as she continued carefully transferring the eggs from apron to bowl.

  “All I am saying is that maybe he thought he was about to lose his playmate to another, to a rival. There has been a lot of that recently, playmates being taken from below-stairs.”

  Peigi rested her knuckles on the table and glowered at Deirdre.

  “And what do ye mean by that?” she rumbled out.

  Deirdre threw a quick knowing smile at Catriona.

  “So… for instance…” she revealed, closing one eye and squinting up into a corner of the ceiling, taking her time, savoring to the last drop the nervous anticipation she was causing the two women. “What have ye been doing in the good rooms up the stair in the middle of the night, Peigi Campbell? I trust ye are not up to any hochmagandy with our Tamhas, though the very thought of that turns my stomach.”

  Peigi snorted and returned to kneading her dough, as if Deirdre’s insinuation was not worth the penny of a response.

  “And what about ye, sweet innocent Catriona from the clachan? Did ye let the master get a good feel of ye up yer skirts when he hoisted ye down by the smokehouse? And in front of his wee laddie. Have ye no shame? No wonder the laddie went mad! And who was that I spied, canoodling doon by the causeway yesterday? Ye had a’ but your hand doon his breeks, ye dirty wee whore.”

  “That’s enough, Deirdre MacLauchlan!” Peigi slammed her fist down on the table, causing the flour shaker to jump.

  “‘That’s enough, that’s enough…!’” Deirdre mimicked. “Is that what poor Tamhas shouts when ye’re giving him yer stinking hole? Yon hole must gawp as wide as Fingal’s Cave with the whole garrison o’ soldiers that have passed through it!”

  Peigi took two long strides across the kitchen flags and caught Deirdre an almighty clatter across the jaw with her open hand.

  The eggs flew, the bowl shattered on the flagstones, and Deirdre sprawled across the floor. Rising to a crouch, Deidre let out a hiss and flew at Peigi like the baudrons, with her fingers curled and her claws unsheathed. Peigi caught her another clatter, sending Deirdre sprawling again. Without a word, Peigi calmly returned to her bread-making, as if nothing had happened.

  A strong, deep voice rang from the doorway.

  “Deirdre, lass,” Tamhas intoned calmly, “away and collect yer things. I shall be returning ye to yer father at An Aird Mholach. Ye are of no use to us here.”

  He turned on his heel and went to fetch his horse from the stable.

  Weeping with bitterness, Deirdre skulked from the kitchen.

  Catriona sat on the settle, her face buried in her hands. Peigi covered her dough with a linen cloth to prove and, wiping her hands on her apron, went over and sat down beside her. She contemplated the fire for a few moments, then threw her thick arm around Catriona’s shoulders and drew her into her considerable breast.

  “Is it true, what she said?” she asked. “Has the maister taken ye to his bed?”

  “No, no!” Catriona protested with a shudder, as if the very idea repelled her. “Yesterday evening, on the beach, he became distressed at the thought of his wife and child, and… well, I comforted him. And he consoled me; I was feeling that homesick.”

  Peigi sighed.

  “Aye, well… Just watch yerself, that is all I am saying. The maister… well, he is in a vulnerable state and might easily fall for the charms of a bonny young lass like yerself. He may just be seeking comfort, but comfort can easily lead to other things. If he were to get ye with child, lass, ye would be cast out onto the road. There are no two ways about it. He is the laird, and you are the servant; even if he was so minded, for that reason alone, I doubt he could make an honest woman of ye. Forby, I’m sure the Clanranald shall have designs for him – another marriage that would bring advantage to the clan. He would never endure his son taking a servant lass, except as a plaything.”

  Catriona nodded into Peigi’s breast and remembered Sorcha. She would keep a protective hand on her maidenhood.

  Chapter Twelve

  That evening, Catriona returned to the little bay by the smokehouse to watch the sun set over the western end of the loch. When she arrived, she found Eoin sitting on a rock by the shore, tossing pebbles into the gently lapping waves.

  “Ah, good evening, Catriona,” he said, rising to his feet to greet her before she could make her escape.

  “Good evening, sir.” She curtsied.

  He looked out across the loch at the flame-red clouds on the horizon, where the loch met the sea, flanked by the towering silhouettes of the mountains.

  “It is a fine sight, is it not?” he said. “The beauty of it makes your heart soar.”

  “It does indeed, sir,” Catriona replied, looking awkwardly and self-consciously at her feet.

  “Donald is doing well,” Eoin observed after a pause. “You have fairly brought him out of himself. He seems devoted to you.”

  He smiled as he remembered the ferocity with which Donald had defended his princess that morning.

  “He is a brave wee lad,” Catriona said, raising her eyes with a scolding look. “He has suffered greatly with the loss of his mother and the poor wee mite has been left too long to endure that suffering by himself.”

  Eoin lowered his eyes, chastened.

  “I know,” he murmured. “I have been a poor father to him in his time of need. I have been selfish, thinking only of my own sorrow.” He looked up. “But I realize that now and I am ready to spend more time with the boy. You have helped me much too.”

  Catriona colored and looked away to the far distance, to the dark, rugged outline of the mountains. The clouds had thickened, she noticed, and were slowly creeping in from the west. Her countrywoman’s eye told her they would be bringing rain in from the ocean.

  “I have seen you down by the loch often in the evenings,” Eoin said.

  Catriona’s heart gave a start. Had he been watching her?

  “You seem very melancholy, gazing out over the waters,” he continued. “Are you really that homesick?”

  Catriona chose her words carefully.

  “I do miss the clachan, and my family of course,” she confessed with hesitancy. “I often think of what they will be doing and how my mither will be managing without her daughters.”

  “You have sisters?”

&nb
sp; “Aye, one. Sorcha, her name is. She is handfasted to our neighbor’s son, Ruairi Mor, Big Ruairi Murray.”

  Eoin reflected on this.

  “So, she shall be living in the Murray household. And, with you gone, that shall leave your mother alone with the work of the croft.”

  Catriona gave a long heavy sigh.

  “Aye, sir. And she is not getting any younger in years.”

  “Well,” Eoin said with decisiveness, “that is easily remedied. I shall call on the clan to send a dowerless daughter to live with your mother and father, to help them with the work. It shall be another mouth for them to feed, but she shall be earning her keep.”

  Catriona’s face lit up with a smile, and her whole body relaxed as if a great weight had been shifted from her shoulders.

  “Thank you, sir. That is a great relief.”

  It was Eoin’s turn to color. He looked away bashfully.

  “It is nothing compared to the relief you have brought to Donald – and to myself.”

  He looked at her with meaning. Their eyes met, and something intimate passed between them, something like a secret, a complicity, an understanding.

  Suddenly, large drops of rain plopped onto their heads and shoulders. Out of nowhere, a violent squall rushed over the surface of the loch and enveloped them in its fury. The rain came pelting down.

  Catriona quickly covered her head with her shawl and turned to run back up to the castle.

  Eoin stayed her with a hand on her arm.

  “We’ll be soaked before we reach the track,” he shouted through the roar of the gale. “Quick, let’s take shelter in here. It is just a squall; it will be pass in a few minutes.”

  He pulled open the door of the old smokehouse and, with a hand on her back, pushed Catriona inside. He hurried in after her and closed the door. They were immediately engulfed by the darkness of the windowless room.

  She could hear his breathing close to her ear and feel the warmth of his body emanating from him. She could not see but could sense his broad chest rising and falling only inches in front of her. Butterflies took flight in her tummy, and her own breath came in short, shallow gasps.