Page 9 of Laird of Sighs (His Highland Heart #5)

CHAPTER 9

A nders watched Ailsa and her mother leave the herbal, grateful that one worry had been lifted from his shoulders. He would not be sent from the herbal to the dungeon.

As soon as Ailsa and her mother left the chamber, Maighread busied herself gathering together supplies of poultices and wrappings.

“Thank ye, Maighread, for taking care of me, and for anything ye did to convince yer Lady to continue extending me hospitality.”

“Ye did that yerself, lad. Ye have manners, ye do. The Lady noticed. I had my say, and Ailsa spoke up for ye as well. Ye have friends here.”

“Ye canna ken how much that means to me.” He gestured at the supplies she was putting in a bag. “Are ye going somewhere? Has there been a battle?”

“Nay, lad. Some strange men have been put in the dungeon. I’m off to see to any injuries they may have.”

She headed out before Anders could open his mouth to ask another question, leaving him alone to think. More strangers? Now he recalled Ailsa mentioning them while she berated him for leaving the herbal. At the time, he’d been smarting from his own thoughtlessness and her censure, and had missed the significance of her statement.

Could they be from the birlinn Murdo mentioned? Is that how he wound up on that beach, washed overboard and lost from the ship in the storm? Why couldn’t he remember? The name Tomas meant nothing to him. Should it? He began to pace, trying to stimulate some hint of answers. But nothing came. He needed to see those men. To speak to them. He might be part of their crew and they could tell him who he was.

That thought stopped him. Ailsa said Sinclair didn’t get along with its neighbors. If they were from nearby, they could be in danger in a Sinclair dungeon. Sinclair might see them as enemy spies, arriving under the cover of the storm to find out what they could about the Sinclair holdings and castle. They’d be hanged.

And if he was one of them, Lady Sinclair’s protection would not be enough to keep him from hanging right along with them.

But if Lady Sinclair was truly going to be an ally, she might have ideas of her own to help him. Ailsa trusted her. He trusted Ailsa. He had no choice but to give her mother a chance.

He should focus instead on finding other ways to stimulate his memory, such as his walk in the gardens earlier. The change in scenery seemed to have helped. Where else could he go? Who else could he talk to? Maighread had worked wonders for him. Thinking about Lady Sinclair’s questions, Anders struggled to imagine his family. A father, a mother, a brother, but no images came to him. Did he have a sister? More siblings than one of each? A best friend? Nothing.

But as he considered how much trouble he and the men in the dungeon might be in, faces started to come back to him. A man standing at the tiller, studying the sky. He closed his eyes and let the image expand until he saw men seated at the oars, fighting to turn their birlinn to a wee beach they’d spotted in a lightning flash.

Were they the men in the dungeon? If they were with him and they’d stayed in the area trying to find him, he needed to see them, to let them know he was alive, if not entirely well. To find a way to get them all out of here. But how? He was in no shape to free them.

He needed to talk to Ailsa, to enlist her help to find out who they were. If they were in danger here, she might be able to help in freeing those men or convincing her father to let them go. And to let him go with them.

But could he trust her? He’d had this concern ever since she told him about Sinclair’s lack of nearby allies. Would she stop seeing him as an injured guest, as a friend, as a man she was attracted to? He’d rather be a potential lover, and possibly something even more important. Could he leave her? He didn’t want to, but he might be forced to. She might hate him and betray him to her father.

Could he take that chance?

And could he ask Ailsa to risk helping more strangers? He couldn’t predict what her father would do to her.

Frustrated, he resumed stalking around the herbal, his thoughts running in circles as fruitlessly as his feet.

After supper, Ailsa’s father called her mother, Boden, and the guard captain Raghnall with her into the laird’s solar to hear why Sinclair had filled with strangers during his absence. Her father wasn’t happy, but after Raghnall mentioned the beached birlinn and nearly a dozen men combing the woods looking for shelter and trying to avoid the castle, Boden spoke up.

“I think they meant to spy on us.”

“’Tis likely,” the laird replied. “Why beach on Sinclair land if they didna mean to do that?”

“They claimed some of them needed some time on land after getting tossed about in the storm a few nights before we found them,” Raghnall explained. “They didna want to name their clan, but seemed most eager to leave rather than to pose a threat.”

“They looked worn,” Ailsa interjected. “I wanted them treated as guests despite their reluctance to name their clan, but Raghnall insisted the only safe place to put them was the dungeon, and Boden also insisted. So, I have seen them provided with a few comforts, such as warm bedding and the same meals as the rest of the clan.”

“A waste, if ye ask me,” Boden said. “They’re here to cause trouble.”

“They havena had any chance to do so,” Ailsa argued, “and if Raghnall’s men hadna found them, they might have been gone from our territory by now.”

“Might have,” Boden parroted and snorted.

“Ailsa’s instinct was a good one,” her mother said, speaking up for the first time. “If they are truly strangers and potential allies, we dinna want to make enemies of them, and if they are from a hostile clan, it harms none to show them kindness that may improve relations between our clans.”

Her father listened as her mother spoke, but didn’t react. “I’ll see them tomorrow,” he said and dismissed her and her brother.

Ailsa could see that her father was tired from the trip down from Kirkwall. Her mother, too. Likely they would share a dram and talk a wee before heading up to bed. She hoped they slept well so her father’s thinking would be clear on the morrow.

She could also see the walls closing in on Anders. Her father would speak to the men in the dungeon, and would likely conclude he was somehow connected to them. She harbored that suspicion herself, but since Anders couldn’t remember anything, she couldn’t confirm it. Nor would her father be able to. And if Anders wasn’t one of theirs, they wouldn’t know who his clan was. Ailsa suspected that he was someone important in his clan, even a clan chief’s son, given his manners, his intellect, and the quality of his boots. But if he belonged with the men in the dungeon, she knew she’d best keep that idea to herself. He wasn’t well enough to withstand a harsh interrogation such as Boden would want to deliver, and his lack of memory would frustrate her father, especially after what her mother had told her about the betrothal offer he came home with from Orkney. Da would resent the presence of another man, one who’d captured Ailsa’s interest, and perhaps her heart. Was Anders important enough in his own clan to compete with a son of the Norse king?

If only he could remember who he was.

As she moved toward the solar’s door, she fretted. Had her mother told her da about Anders yet? Had Raghnall? Surely Boden had. Hadn’t he? Ailsa worried that he suspected Anders was lying about not recalling who he was or where he came from. She’d been surprised Anders hadn’t come up in the conversation. Perhaps they had yet to tell her father. Or perhaps Mother kept Boden quiet.

She needed to speak to her mother again, in private.

Boden grabbed Ailsa’s arm as soon as they were outside the laird’s solar with the door shut behind them. She tensed, trying to hide the irritation her brother’s presumption caused, then pulled her arm free. She was headed for the great hall, up the stairs and to her own bed. She didn’t need to listen to him rant about dangers from their guests.

Boden glared at her and crossed his arms.

She glared back. “What?” She planted her fists on her hips, daring him to make a scene that would draw their parents out of the solar to intervene.

“Ye didna tell Da all ye ken, did ye? We’ve another stranger within our walls, one ye are hiding.”

Ailsa’s stomach dropped to her boots. “I’m doing nay such thing. Ye saw him,” she reminded him, waving a hand in the general direction of the herbal. “Maighread is caring for him.” She had to brazen it out, but it was a risky strategy. Boden wouldn’t protect Anders.

“A few of the lasses are whispering about the handsomest man they’ve ever seen walking about in the kitchen garden. Some are jealous that ye are keeping him to yerself. Your secret is out, and Da will soon ken about him. What do ye say to that, Sister?”

Damn, her brother must have been talking to some of the lasses who worked in the kitchen gardens. So, he was jealous, was he? At nearly eighteen, Boden had been eager for female attention for years. But his combative personality and short temper tended to make the lasses keep their distance from him—as much as they could, given that he was the heir. “Why would I tell ye anything? Ye’ll only run to Da.”

“I’m the heir. ’Tis my job to protect Sinclair.”

Ailsa looked around, waving her hand toward the great hall as she did so. “And a fine job ye are doing, Brother. Sinclair still stands, and to my certain knowledge, no one has died lately. Da is still laird and mother is still lady and chatelaine.”

“Ye have a lover hidden in the herbal. And he’s no’ one of us.”

Ailsa’s laugh came out sounding more like a shriek. She pressed her lips together and silenced it to keep from drawing their parents out of the solar, though she enjoyed how her derision infuriated Boden. But really, a lover? If only he knew how she wished for that, and how impossible it seemed. “A mysterious stranger is my lover? Ye’ve been in the whisky again, have ye?”

Boden stepped back from her, consternation flashing in his eyes for a moment before he went on the offensive again. “Suppose I go tell Da right now?”

“Suppose ye are wrong? How embarrassed will ye be?” Should she tell him that their mother knew all about Anders and had met him already? Nay, not yet. Let him keep digging until the hole was deep enough to swallow him and his obnoxious accusations.

“How embarrassed will Da be for yer Orkney betrothed to find ye are ruined?”

This time, Ailsa didn’t hold back her shriek of frustrated outrage. “Ye are a fool, Boden. Accusations like that will come back on ye.”

“I doubt it. I saw a man sleeping on a cot. I havena seen him on his feet.”

Ailsa snorted. But maybe he had a point. If she showed him Anders in the herbal with Maighread’s sharp eye on him, maybe he’d drop this nonsense. She couldn’t deny Anders being here. He’d made certain of that when he visited the kitchen and the gardens with Maesie. But she could prove they werena lovers and silence her brother. “Come with me.”

“To the herbal? Or have ye moved him to a chamber upstairs? Near yers?”

“Ye will see.” She led him to the herbal and opened the door. Anders sat across from Maighread, reading while she chopped herbs for some potion. “There is yer stranger, brother. A stranger only to ye. Maighread kens him well and has cared for him since he arrived injured, as ye saw already.”

“A problem, milady?” Maighread’s gaze shifted from Ailsa to Boden and back again.

“My brother insisted on meeting our guest. Boden, this is Anders. Anders, this is my brother, the Sinclair heir, Boden.”

Anders stood and offered his arm. Boden, shorter by a hand’s width, took it, looked up, and tightened his grip. Why was everything a contest to him? Anders appeared to match the pressure Boden exerted, but did not push past it, though he could have. “I understand ye like to hunt. Perhaps once yer father meets me, I’ll get a chance to join ye,” Anders said as he and Boden ceased their contest of strength.

Ailsa could have burst out laughing at how smoothly Anders showed Boden he was unimpressed.

“Dinna count on it,” Boden answered curtly, his color high and his jaw tense. “Maighread,” he said, acknowledging her presence before he turned to go. “Ailsa, a word.”

She and Maighread traded a glance. Ailsa shrugged and followed Boden out into the hall. “Are ye satisfied, Brother?”

“I’ll be satisfied when he’s in the dungeon or gone. A man like that has nay business moving freely about this keep.”

“A man like what?” Once again, Ailsa’s temper started to climb, tensing her muscles and making her clench her fists. “He hasna moved freely anywhere. He’s been injured and ill with fever, only lately has he recovered well enough to sit at a table, as ye saw.”

“He was seen in the garden, or have ye forgotten that?”

Ailsa quailed. She’d been so intent on defending Anders that she had.

"He’s a warrior, no’ a fisherman,” Boden continued. “Look at him—nay man that size is an innocent stranger.”

Her only hope to divert Boden was to go on the offensive. “Ye are jealous.”

“Dinna be ridiculous. I am the Sinclair heir.”

“Then dinna ye make ridiculous accusations, Boden. Da willna respect anything else ye tell him when he finds out how wrong ye are.”

“I’ll see about that,” Boden said. “I think I’ll go tell him now.”

“He and Mother are going to their rest. I suggest ye dinna,” she warned.

With a final smirk, he sauntered away, leaving her fuming in the hallway. Bringing him here was a mistake. She hadn’t hoped to forge a friendship, but at least some sympathy from her brother for Anders’ plight would have been nice. She should have known sympathy was beyond Boden’s ability. His delusions had only worsened when he got a look at Anders.

She waited a moment before following to make certain he wasn’t trying to sneak back to the solar. When she saw him climbing the stairs to his chamber, she heaved out a relieved breath. But the relief lasted only a moment.

Raghnall entered the great hall while she watched Boden disappear at the top of the stairs. She hurried over to him. “Have ye told Da about Anders?”

Raghnall frowned and shook his head. “Nay, lass. I assumed ye wouldha done so already.”

“Nay, no’ quite yet. The arrival of the men in the dungeon has distracted everyone. Da kens about them, and plans to speak to them tomorrow, but Anders never came up in the conversation.”

“What are ye asking me to do, lass?”

After sparring with her disagreeable brother, Ailsa’s eyes filled at Raghnall’s kindness. He had called for her instead of Boden when the strangers from the birlinn had been brought inside Sinclair’s gates. He trusted her.

She blinked back the wetness in her eyes. “Let me tell him. I promise I will do so tomorrow—early. I willna allow him to blame ye for Anders’ presence, or ye no’ telling him yet. Maighread backs me, as does Mother.”

“I’ll leave it in yer capable hands, lass.”

For the second time tonight, relief made her blow out a breath. “Thank ye.”

She had to tell their father about Anders or her brother would. He wouldn’t obey their mother.

Ailsa was still furious that Anders brought this about by refusing to stay in the herbal, though she also understood his frustration. But he’d created a problem for her and a jeopardy for himself. Boden would paint Anders’ presence in the worst possible light, and that would be hard to recover from. Her father couldn’t be charmed.