Page 164 of Taming the Highland Misfits

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Ailsa burst through the doors of the conference room where her father was sitting talking with some of his closest aides. They had obviously been speaking about something of great importance because as soon as Ailsa came in a heavy silence descended on the room. It was obvious that no one wanted her to hear their discussion.

Ailsa was out of breath and took a few moments to recover. The Laird made space for her in a chair beside him and gave her a glass of ale which she sipped while trying to regain her composure.

She looked up at her father. “Da, I know what went on—or some of it—the night of John Ormond’s murder,” she told him, “I will tell you all about it, but first, I need someone to go and fetch Kenneth Anderson before he gets away. He was involved. You must go and fetch him right now, Da. I am sure he is trying to escape.”

“Right!” Laird McBain stood up, his eyes blazing with rage. “I am tired of all this plotting and scheming. Wait here, Ailsa.”

He swept out of the door with all his men behind him, and Ailsa heard hurried footsteps in the corridor, as well as the sound of men’s harsh voices. After a short while, her father came back into the room and sat down beside her, then listened as Ailsa recounted the conversation she had just had with Kenneth. His expression became darker and angrier as he listened.

When she reached the part where Kenneth had told her he was going to spirit her away with him, her father slammed the flat of his hand against the table yet again. It was a violent gesture that Ailsa had been seeing all too frequently lately. It was all too clear that the feud between the two clans, and her father’s attempts to mend it, were taking their toll on him.

He sighed and ran his hands backward through his thick hair, then called for the guard outside his door.

“Go and get Kenneth Anderson, please,” he ordered. “He should have been arrested, and by now he should be in the dungeons. You need not be too gentle with him.” His voice was grim.

The man rushed out to do the Laird’s bidding. Seeing that Ailsa’s eyes were glittering with tears, the Laird drew her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her. Since his daughter’s engagement to John Ormond, he had been uneasy in a way that he had never experienced before.

He had thought he was doing his best for her in settling her with a good man and healing the rift with the Ormonds, effectively killing two birds with one stone, but now he was not so sure. He had always had his doubts but had dismissed them for various reasons, such as being fanciful, worrying too much, or having too little self-confidence.

Now he was beginning to think that his judgement had been wrong and that Ailsa had had a lucky escape. The Ormonds did not seem to be a very stable family; was it worthwhile trying to make peace with them? Could they not just call a truce? No one except John had died due to their territorial dispute for perhaps fifteen years. Was that not an acceptable state of affairs?

Then he realised that the loss of even one human life was not acceptable under any circumstances. Every death was one death too many. However, he and his family seemed to be trapped in this unenviable situation of neverending hostility, and there seemed to be nothing he could do about it. Everything he had tried so far had been useless.

Ailsa had always found immense comfort in the embrace of her father. Her mother’s love was tender and sweet, but her father’s was strong and dependable. She knew that whatever happened in her life she would always be able to rely on him. He would fight for her, or die for her, and he was endlessly affectionate. When she saw some other girls’ relationships with their fathers, who were often cold and distant, she realised how fortunate she was.

Some fathers treated their daughters with much less regard than they treated their sons, only fit to be married off for status or financial gain and the bearing of children, like horses who were sold at auctions for their bloodlines.

At that moment, the guard the Laird had spoken to before knocked on the door and was ushered in by the Laird.

“We have him, M’Laird,” he said. “He was just about tae escape.”

“Come,” the Laird said. “I want to see this piece of slime.” He took Ailsa’s hand and led her down to the dungeons, where Kenneth Anderson was standing with slumped shoulders and a downcast face. He looked nothing like the man she had been talking to half an hour before, and Ailsa felt sick at the thought of kissing him, even though it had been for a good cause.

He had obviously put up quite a fight in order to escape because there was a bruise on one of his cheekbones and a cut on his lip. When he saw Ailsa and her father, he took an instinctive step backward and looked at the ground.

The Laird ordered the cell door to be opened, then went up to him and gripped his chin to tilt Kenneth’s face up to look him in the eye.

“Kenneth Anderson, I believe?” he asked pointedly.

“Aye, M’Laird,” the man said meekly.

“Where were you going?” the Laird asked.

“I-I was goin’ tae see my family,” he stuttered. “I havenae seen them for a long time.”

The Laird bristled, then took a step forward so that he was only a yard away from the other man. Kenneth cowered and took a step back before the Laird poked a finger into his chest. “You were going to kidnap my daughter, so you are a danger tomyfamily.” His voice was a growl. “I will hold you until you face justice, and you will be treated fairly. However, I will be down to talk to you shortly, and if you lie to me things will go very badly for you. Do you understand?”

“Aye, M’Laird,” Anderson’s voice was so soft Ailsa could barely hear it. She watched as he was led away, and finally breathed a sigh of relief. It was only then that she remembered Katie, and had to send a maidservant to go and tell her a white lie about what had happened. Damn, Kenneth Anderson for making her miss time with her sweet little sister!

* * *

“Something is still not right,” Ailsa said grimly. “Kenneth Anderson does not have the intelligence to have done this alone; he must have had help.”

“I agree,” her father said, “but from whom?”

Father and daughter sat and thought for a moment. They both knew it was time for their midday meal, but neither could eat a morsel.