Highlander’s Unexpected Love: A Medieval Scottish Historical Highland Romance Book Page 3

  "Because we are their landlords and we have a duty of care towards them. We must not be too distant, Jamie. You are going to be their Laird someday. Your job will be easier if everybody likes you."

  "Pfft!" James said, "when I am Laird I will appoint a capable manager, and I will enjoy the fruits of their labor, not my own. They are paid handsomely enough, are they not?"

  Heather stared at him and shook her head. "You really should come with me and see how many of these people live, Jamie," she said grimly, "our horses live better."

  "What can we do about it?" James asked airily, "God appointed each of us to our station in life, and we must take what we are given."

  Heather was furious. "You would not say that if you had no idea where your next meal was coming from!" she cried angrily. "Do you not care? Do you have no heart at all? If you saw how some of your tenants live, I promise your eyes would be opened and you would not like what you saw! Shame on you, Jamie, I am ashamed to be your sister!"

  Then she flounced off down the stairs and stormed through the giant echoing entrance hall and out of the big front door, still seething with anger. She mounted Tommy and set off down the road at a gallop.

  When she got to the church at Invergar it was packed to capacity. Bridie had been very well-liked and it seemed that virtually everyone in the village had turned out for her funeral. Heather was welcomed by Minister McFarlane and his wife, who both smiled widely at her.

  "Tis an honor to have you here, milady," Mrs. McFarlane said warmly, "I didnae know ye knew oor Bridie."

  Heather's face was troubled as she looked at small, dark, kindly Sadie McFarlane. "I didn't really, Mrs. McFarlane," she said sadly, "but her husband was shoeing my horse when Bridie died. He missed her final moments, and because of that and she died alone. I feel very guilty."

  "Naw, lass," the minister said kindly. He was a tall, spare man with a severe expression but a heart of gold. "The good Lord has a plan for a' of us, and it was His plan that Bruce shouldnae be there. Let yer heart be at peace." Then he smiled at her and a world of love shone out of his eyes.

  He is such a good man, Heather thought.

  "I have something to share," Heather said and pulled out a little linen pouch from her pocket. She handed it over to Mrs. McFarlane, who looked inside.

  "Twelve guineas!" she cried, then put her hand over her mouth.

  "Shush!" Heather said urgently. "Spend it on whatever the villagers need. I want to get my brother, the future Laird, to come and see the poverty of some of the people. My family could do more to help."

  "You are a saint, milady." Sadie McFarlane was almost crying.

  "Indeed milady, my dear wife is right," John McFarlane said, smiling. "Thank ye kindly."

  "You exaggerate, minister, but thank you," Heather replied, then she walked into the church, feeling very conspicuous.

  The McFarlanes stood and watched as she went down the aisle and sat in a pew at the back. She did not want to attract too much attention. Sadie sighed.

  "I wish a' the gentry were like her, John," Sadie said.

  "Aye, 'tis a pity they are not," he replied sadly.

  The coffin was small for an adult and the pallbearers carried it on their shoulders easily before setting it down on a trestle table in front of the altar. Bruce was walking behind it slowly with his head bent. He was wearing his best jacket and his kilt in the Ferguson tartan. Heather looked back as he came in and accidentally caught his eye, but he looked past her as if he had not seen her at all.

  His black hair shone in the candlelight, but his silver-gray eyes were dull with sadness. He was a tall, strapping man, but he looked smaller and broken in spirit. He sat down in the very front pew and bent his head. The old blacksmith Robbie was sitting beside him and put an arm around his shoulder to comfort him.

  The minister kept the readings quite short and afterward said a few words about Bridie, about how much she loved her husband and how much she was looking forward to their child. Then he asked if anyone wanted to say anything about her. To Heather's amazement, around a dozen people put up their hands and each of them said in all sincerity what a kind and loving person she had been, always ready to help and listen. He stood up and faced the congregation. When they had finished the minister asked Bruce to speak.

  "My friends," he said, his strong voice resounding in the high vaulted space. "I am no' much o' a talker, so I will sing instead. This was Bridie's favorite song."

  He raised his head, squared his shoulders, and sang:

  "My luve is like a red, red rose

  That's newly sprung in June

  My luve is like a melody

  Sae sweetly played in tune

  As fair art thou my bonnie lass

  Sae deep in luve am I

  And I would luve thee still my dear

  Though all the seas gan dry

  Though all the seas gan dry my dear

  And the rocks melt wi' the sun

  I would luve thee still my dear

  Though the sands of time may run

  So, fare thee well my bonnie lass

  And fare thee well awhile

  And I would come to you again

  Though 't were ten thousand miles."

  Bruce had a fine strong baritone voice that reverberated around the church and caused many of the villagers to weep openly, Heather among them. The song was by a Scottish poet who had also died very young and its melody was haunting and bittersweet. Heather loved the song too and as it ended she saw that Bruce's cheeks were wet. He went up to the coffin and kissed it.

  "Farewell, my beautiful Bridie," he whispered, "I will never love another woman as I loved you."

  Heather turned and left before the funeral procession came up the aisle. She could not face seeing Bruce again. She mounted Tommy just as Bruce came out of the church, then rode away. The graveside was not the place for her, and she wanted no more skirmishes with him.

  It was a bright and relatively warm day. At any other time, Bruce would have felt happy and secure, working and looking forward to getting home to the person who meant most to him in the world. Now, there was nothing but an empty house, no longer a home since the heart had gone out of it.

  He could hardly bear to watch as the wooden coffin was lowered into the grave by the traditional eight cords. Bruce stood at the head of it as Bridie's closest relative, but his strong arms could barely hold the rope. When the time came for him to scatter his handful of earth on it, it was the hardest thing he had ever had to do. He could not stand and watch as the spadesful of dirt gradually buried his wife in the dark bed in which she would lie forever. As he turned away he could feel his heartbreak. His life was over.

  5

  James

  James watched Heather as she hurtled down the stairs, shaking his head. He was amazed at her reaction to his plans for the future. She was going to marry a very rich man and live in the lap of luxury, waited on hand and foot by an army of servants, yet she lectured him for not caring about the poor. His own opinion was that she was one of the biggest hypocrites ever born.

  At least he, James McVey, was honest about his opinions of the less fortunate of his fellow human beings. They worked for him. He employed them, and that was the natural order of things. He felt no guilt over it and the fact that Heather did was her own stupid fault.

  But she had disturbed his usually unflappable demeanor. He sighed. Women would always be a mystery to him, a fascinating one usually, but his own sister was just perverse and did not even have the advantage of being alluring to him.

  When he went out to play cards with his friends that night the conversation lingered at the back of his mind. Damn her! Sometimes he longed for a brother and the uncomplicated companionship of a fellow man. Women were very hard work.

  His best friend Duncan was no help at all. Duncan was small and plump and had such a roving eye that it was rumored that he would bed any woman, servant, washerwoman or 'lady of the night,' his delicate name for a prostitute. Now
, he looked at James with a sly sideways glance.

  "I saw your sister the other day," he said innocently, "fine figure of a woman. All dressed up she was, looked like a queen."

  James, dealing out a hand of cards, ignored him for a moment, then turned to face him, frowning. "Don't even think about it, Duncan," he said grimly, "not only is she engaged to that big eejit Jamieson, but she's barking bloody mad!"

  "How so?" Duncan asked, intrigued, "what has she done to rattle your cage?"

  James gave a heavy sigh.

  "She has developed this ridiculous notion that I should start playing ‘Laird Bountiful’ to every peasant on our estate and Invergar." He paused for a moment then thumped his fist on the table, making the cards jump. "I haven't got a hope in hell of landing a beautiful bride once she meets Heather. She will think lunacy runs in the family!"

  Duncan burst out laughing, making his chins wobble. "Jamie, I wish I had your problems," he said, shaking his head. "You are far richer than I am and far more handsome—well, who isn't?" Duncan was not blind to his own shortcomings. "You have a castle and enough land to make a small country. Your sister is beautiful and you are mad because she has a mind of her own. Get over yourself, man. Now let's play cards."

  James grinned. "You're right, Duncan," he said with a satisfied air, "we are men and we still run the world."

  When Bruce went home after the funeral, he was surprised to see smoke coming from the chimney of the little house behind the forge where he and Bridie had been so happy. He hurried inside and to his delight found his mother standing stirring a pot of stew over the fire. Delighted, he went forward to embrace her.

  "Ma!" he said, laughing for the first time in days. "I'm that glad tae see ye."

  Nora Colquhoun hugged her son tightly. "I'm glad tae be here, son, but I wish it wis at a happier time." She kissed him. "How are ye daein'?"

  Bruce leaned back to look at her. "I'm much better noo that ye're here, Ma." He sighed. "But I will no' lie tae ye. I miss her somethin' terrible."

  "I felt the same when yer faither died," she said sadly, "ye may think ye will never love again, but yer heart heals. When I met Tam, he was the answer tae my prayers."

  "How did ye hear?" Bruce frowned, puzzled. "I didnae expect ye."

  Nora lived in the village of Dunbairn with her second husband, but it was more than fifty miles away, an enormous distance by slow ox cart, which was their only means of transport.

  "Yer minister got a message tae me," she said sadly, "but I couldnae get here in time."

  Bruce smiled. "Dinnae worry, Ma," he answered, "I'm jist happy ye're here noo."

  They sat for a long time before the fire catching up on each other’s news. Bruce gazed at his mother and thought how happy she seemed. He was encouraged by the fact that she had found love again, but the thought of being with any other woman but Bridie was impossible to contemplate so soon after her death.

  Eventually, it was time to go to bed. In a cottage the size of Bruce's, there was no such thing as a spare bedroom, so Nora took his bed while he slept on a straw mattress on the floor. They embraced tenderly before retiring.

  "I'm that glad ye're here, Ma," he whispered, kissing her cheek.

  She tightened her hold on him. "Where else would I be, son?" She laughed softly. "Ye're my pride an' joy."

  Bruce's eyes filled with tears.

  "Cry, son," Nora said, "let it a' oot. Ye'll feel better. Goodnight, love."

  "Goodnight, Ma," he answered softly.

  Curiously, the fact that he was not lying in the bed he had shared with Bridie did make him feel better or perhaps it was because his mother was there. Whatever the reason, he fell asleep quickly, slept deeply, and awoke refreshed for the first time in a long while.

  Nora often thought about the day Bruce was born. He was not her natural son, but when she had gone into early labor with her daughter, who was stillborn, her heart was broken. She always thought of the next hour as a miracle, since the minister's wife suddenly rushed in with a newborn baby boy she had found crying piteously on the church steps.

  Nora grabbed him and put him to her breast and from that moment she had loved him. As he grew up his father, Peter, who was also a blacksmith, taught him the trade and by the age of fourteen, he was working iron and steel to meet the needs of the villagers. He made and repaired farm tools and vehicles, parts for mills, and even household implements. He shod horses and oxen as well.

  All his working life Bruce had loved working with horses and it had always been his ambition to own one, but a horse was an expensive beast to buy and provide for. He envied the toffs with their beautifully bred mares and stallions. Even some of the slightly wealthier farmers had heavy feather-footed plow horses with kind faces and gentle manners. What he would have given for one of those beautiful creatures!

  It hurt Nora's heart to see the sadness in his eyes every time one of them left after his skilled hands had ministered to them. She wished they had had more to give him. When Peter died Bruce was sixteen and he had to become the breadwinner of the family. He had worked hard to keep his mother fed, clothed, and housed for two years until she met her second husband and moved away to Dunbairn. Now, she was happily settled with a good man and two married step-daughters who adored her and life could not have been better, but now, after Bruce's tragedy, she could no longer rest easily. Her boy had been so deeply in love with his wife that Nora doubted he could function without her.

  Her second husband Tam was an educated man who could read and write and had taught Nora, but Bruce had left home by that time and had never become literate. He was not stupid, but he had never had the opportunities of other men.

  Still, being a blacksmith was an honorable trade, and he would always be able to provide for his family. He was still young, and there was plenty of time for him to find another wife, so she would try not to worry about him. No doubt, when he had got over the worst of his grief, there would be a queue of young lassies waiting for a tall, dark handsome man like him. She said a silent prayer for him, then went to sleep.

  6

  The School

  Heather had come to a decision. She had decided that it was not enough to feed the bellies of the villagers but to fill their heads with practical knowledge so that she could make them more employable in many fields of endeavor. To that end, she decided to start a school, not only for the village children but for any of their parents who wanted to attend in the evening. She decided to ask her mother since she was more biddable than her father, what she thought of the idea. Katrine McVey, a tall fiery-haired beauty like Heather, heard her out as she explained what she wanted to do.

  "What do you think?" Heather asked at last.

  Katrine smiled and leaned forward in her chair to clasp her daughter's hands. "I think it's an excellent idea," she said warmly, "not only will it benefit the community, but when you become a Laird's wife you will need to take an interest in the welfare of your tenants. I will help you in any way I can."

  "Thank you, Mother," she said fervently, "I am so grateful for your support."

  Katrine stood up and looked out of the window, where the rain was teeming down as it was most of the time. She was frowning.

  "Are you thinking about what Father will say?" Heather asked.

  "Pfft!" Katrine smiled. "I can handle him! No, I'm thinking about your hard-hearted brother. One day he will be the Laird and he has no clue as to the heavy responsibility that will fall on his shoulders. He thinks life is all about drinking, playing cards with his friends, and hunting."

  "Maybe I can try to get him involved in my project," Heather said excitedly, "but it will have to be done in such a way that it piques his interest—he is very easily bored. Let me think about it, Mother."

  When Katrine smiled she looked twenty years younger and she smiled now as she kissed Heather's forehead. "I think you should start by having a conference with Mrs. McFarlane." Katrine's eyes twinkled. "She helps you with your other project, does she not?" />
  Heather stared at her mother. "You know about my feeding scheme?" she asked, astonished.

  "I do." Katrine laughed. "I have spies everywhere, my special lass."

  Heather blew her mother a kiss and scampered out. She had never been so excited. Mrs. McFarlane gasped when she saw her, once more drenched to the bone. She let her in, pulled her cloak off then sat her down beside the fire to warm up.

  "Milady, you shouldnae be riding in this weather," she admonished her, "ye will catch a fever!"

  Heather laughed. "I am young, strong and in very good health, Mrs. McFarlane," she said, as she warmed her hands on a cup of tea laced with whiskey. "I think I can stand a bit of wet weather. Don't fuss."

  Sadie sat down and looked at her directly. "Can I be frank wi' ye, milady?"

  "Please do."

  Sadie took a deep breath. "I like fussing over ye," she admitted, "because ye care. Because ye are not one of them snooty folks that sit and look doon on the poor people here. And did ye knaw that your Ma comes down wi' claes for the wee ones as well?"

  "Thank you for the kind words, Mrs. Mc—"

  Sadie held up her hand. "Call me Sadie," she said firmly.

  "Thank you, Sadie," she answered, "I didn't know about my mother."

  Sadie nodded. "She is a very good lady, an' so are you," she said firmly, smiling. "Now, ye said that you had somethin' tae talk to me aboot. How can I help you?"

  "I feel a bit strange asking you," she began, "because I know what a lot of the villagers think of us—that we are safe in our big castle on the hill and don't care about ordinary folk. Well, I do. I want to make a real difference in people's lives here, and to that end, I would like to open a school. If people here could read, write, and count they could go into the cities and find work, the farmers could make sure they were not being cheated at the market—in so many ways it would help them. Now, I know that people have to labor, but perhaps the children could come for an hour a day at first? Would it work, do you think?"