Page 12 of The Chieftain’s Feud (Chieftain #3)

Love didnae make life any easier, Jamie decided. God’s teeth, his father had abducted his mother frae under Buchan’s nose; however, it hadnae stopped Ruthven looking at Jamie, while Eve made her confession, as though he was something that had dropped off Faraday’s hoof.

Was it cowardly to breath a bit easier with Buchan and Hadron back in their seats four places away? The puzzle had too many knots in it to unravel at a few words, but mayhap it might loosen a tangle here and there. When Buchan spoke of Jamie’s mother, a shiver had crept up his spine at the thought that if Buchan had had his way, he might ne’er have been born.

Ne’er found Eve, ne’er found each other because neither of them would exist.

Jamie’s heart turned o’er in his chest, swelled at the reality of the bairn moving inside Eve’s belly. Every time he felt his son kick, he wanted to shout out, ‘Here is yer answer, the solution, the accord. It’s right here under yer noses, yet all ye continue to do is fight. This bairn Eve carries will be born despite all yer choler and spite and, in him, hopefully through him, one day we’ll discover the best of both clans.’

“What have ye to say Ruthven?” The McArthur turned to Jamie’s father, who sat on the other side of Morag Farquhar, Euan’s helpmate. Though she stood by him as a wife would, it was without taking the marriage vows he and Eve had taken that afternoon.

“Buchan speaks the truth. I cannae say other. I stole his betrothed, though without protest frae the lass involved. She became my wife, the mother of my children. One look and we loved, and even now I can remember that blinding flash that the minstrels sing of. If there is aught among ye who can say ye’ve ne’er felt it, then ye’ve ne’er kenned love.”

Jamie squeezed Eve’s hand, hoping his father’s confession would go some way to mending the wee barrier that still existed between them, wedding vows not withstanding. But Ruthven wasnae done, and he vented part of the anger that had kept the feud going all these years. “Unlike some, when I lost her, I couldnae look at another.”

Jamie’s young wife shifted closer. He could smell the scent of her hair as it billowed between her head and his cheek and sensed that she braced herself for the storm to come, but although Buchan’s expression became sullen, the squall didnae arrive.

“I needed an heir.” He paused to slant a glance at Hadron. “Aye, I ken what yer thinking. There was my brother Hadron. But I’m a Scots chieftain down to my bones, to my last breath. I wanted a son frae my loins. And years after, when Hadron brought a Saxon lass back after following Malcolm Canmore into Northumbria, it was just as Ruthven said. I looked at the lass and it felt like a blow to my heart. We fell in love.”

Beside him, Jamie was aware of Eve relaxing slightly and, turning her head slightly, she whispered, “Have ye noticed he is being almost placatory? This miracle must be the McArthur’s doing.”

It was Euan who spoke next. “If what ye say is true, why does the feud continue?” A question Jamie was eager to hear answered.

“Hadron couldn’t rid his mind of the offence, the slight to the Buchan name. It didn’t matter that Elaine gave me two braw sons and a daughter with the certainty that our line would continue…” Buchan’s pause charged the air, as if one of the lightning strikes that famously landed on Cragenlaw had formed inside the great hall as he stared at Hadron. “He kept reminding me of Ruthven’s treachery, and the year after Ruthven’s wife was killed, my Elaine died of a terrible sickness while I was away with the King. He let his hubris die for a while, and though he did what he could for Elaine, even went as far as riding out to fetch a potion frae an auld wise woman, Elaine’s sickness got worse, and she was dead and buried before I returned.”

Buchan’s eyes narrowed as he shifted slightly in his seat and slanted his gaze past the McArthur to stare at Ruthven. “Both of us were with the King that time.”

“Aye, I remember.”

As his father bent his head, Jamie would swear he caught a glint of tears in Ruthven’s eyes. He cleared his throat in the gruff way he had when something moved him—to Jamie’s memory a rare occasion.

“I too came home to find my wife had been killed. They said it appeared to be cateran, though none survived to tell the tale—my wife’s maid and the men protecting her, even my young brother—all dead without an opportunity to say farewell.”

Morag Farquhar, sitting next to his father, spoke up as if to spread the grief amongst the company. “All of us here have faced tragedy, and who is to say we have to remain in the past with our hurts instead of moving forward? Euan lost three wives because of a curse, and imagined insults led to a battle where families fought each other—fathers, sons and brothers. Rob lost his first love to flames lit by a cousin’s ambition, and Gavyn,” Morag glanced at the recently appointed chieftain of Dun Bhuird. “…Gavyn’s brother Doughall tried to kill him and left him scarred with nae memory of self.” Her eyelids drooped, hiding the bright blue eyes that Jamie had sometimes thought could see through him.

“But think on,” she murmured softly, yet pointedly to the Buchans. “Most of these terrible losses have been caused within a family, not by outsiders or so called enemies.”

Everyone seated around the board, looked frae one to another and the silence expanded, grew until it seemed to swallow up all the air in the great hall.

Under Jamie’s palm, the bairn, his son, began to kick wildly, as if fearful, as if wanting out of that warm place meant to keep him safe. Beside him, Eve’s face blanched, and the green of her kirtle seemed to reflect off her pale skin. He threw a baleful glance at his father and hers. “I’m taking Eve away frae this atmosphere. She almost froze to death yesterday and needs to rest both for her own sake and the bairn’s.”

Slipping his hand around her back and under arm, he helped her rise and would have lifted her except she looked up at him with her big green eyes he could never resist, and with a wee shake of her head that sent her curls clinging to his chainmail she whispered, “Nae, let me walk away on my own two feet, at least while everyone is watching.”

He did as she asked, guiding her to the wooden steps at the end of the platform that set the high-board above the folk in the hall. Everyone stood as they moved past, and he heard soft murmurs of approval frae the other wives. Her brother John touched her arm and the eldest, Callum said, “It’ll be all right, lass; ye’ll see.”

Her father removed the fist he held pressed close to his lips and said, “I’m sorry, Evie. Gang with yer man, and I’ll see to everything here. Time to make an end to this nonsense, lass. Bad enough that I lost yer mother. I cannae lose ye as well.” As he apologised, Jamie noticed that Buchan had the same colouring as Eve, if a particle more timeworn, with silver threading through his hair and beard.

They had reached the top of the steps when Hadron jumped into the hall and an instant later leapt back two steps and dragged Eve frae Jamie’s arms.

The small knife in Hadron’s hand was used for eating, but when he held it against her throat, Jamie and everyone there was aware it could still kill. The dread thought of blood staining the front of her bonnie green kirtle, her life flowing away, sent Jamie’s hand to the hilt of his sword. He had it out its scabbard as he leapt into the hall, and as he heard the thud of feet landing behind him kenned Rob was with him.

“Keep away lads,” Hadron threatened, unless ye want to be the death of her.” His tone was low but vicious, sharp like the knife he held, then rose as he sang out, sarcastic-like, “See where all yer talking has landed us, Buchan. If ye had left me to my own way of doing, I could have rid us of Ruthven years ago, the way I did his wife.” Jamie heard a clatter behind, stools knocked o’er and his father shouting. It was as naught to Hadron who kept on talking. “The man deserved it, for wasnae his the blame in the first place for stealing yer betrothed? I thought of you, brother, when I raped her.”

The blood rushed to Jamie’s head, his pulse drumming in his ears like a call to war. He danced forward, sword levelled at his prey, but Hadron shifted, placing Eve in the way of his target. Jamie was only one of many armed men crowding around Eve and her captor—all but the Buchans, whose swords had been confiscated and placed in the armoury, and he caught a glimpse of Buchan father and sons conferring.

Would they assist Hadron? He didnae think so, but his own time was too precious to waste speculating. The McArthur and the others would take care of them.

Hadron, intent on stirring Jamie up, tempting him to make a foolish move said, “Come by, lad, come by. See if ye can kill me before I slaughter this wee madam and let her bleed out the way they do to swine.” The smile on Hadron’s lips ne’er reached his eyes, which remained cold as steel but twice as lethal.

“There’s nae way out of this Hadron, ye’ll die here and ye ken it. Give up,” Jamie urged, but his opponent merely dragged Eve around like a sack of turnips.

“Aye, I began this moment certain of the outcome, but that’s not to say I cannae have a wee bit of amusement before I die. Hadron Buchan always gets his own back on yon folk who think he has nae merit. I paid Ruthven back in his own coin and likewise my brother.”

Jamie edged forward and Rob with him, Hadron’s eyes couldn’t be everywhere though they flicked back and forth, searching out any danger to him. Eve’s terror was writ large on her face. It was enough to make him charge, but to do so would kill her, so he held back his anger until the moment when he’d kill Hadron, for kill him he would.

The villain hadn’t finished taunting his brother, and though he was becoming breathless, he had enough air in his lungs to say, “Ye were away at the wars, Buchan, and Elaine was sick and lonely, yet she still rejected me … rejected my love the way she had when I first brought her home frae Northumbria. That potion I fetched to make her better was laced with monkshood. Gradually it made her incapable of telling me nae, or speech of any kind.”

John Buchan and his younger brother had circled around to come at their uncle frae the other end of the great hall. He was looking straight at them when he shouted, “That’s when I raped her. D’ye hear, I took both yer wives afore they died, took them from ye without either of ye suspecting it was I.”

There came a bloodcurdling howl frae Buchan’s place at the far end of the platform, followed by a flash of steel as a skean dhu hit Hadron close to his spine. He staggered, releasing his hold on Eve, and at last Jamie could make his move. He grabbed Eve inelegantly with one arm while thrusting his sword straight through Hadron’s heart.

What happened next was too horrible to describe, or for Eve to see, but Hadron had invited this when he talked of raping wives. When a man’s blood was up, he would commit acts that would repulse him while in his normal state of mind.

Whisking Eve up in his arms, Jamie carried his wife back to their chamber, intent on keeping her mind on other matters for the night and letting the men left behind attend to clearing the mess.