Page 22 of The Highlander’s Auctioned Bride

CHAPTER 22

“Just let me by, Harris, please,” Maisie begged as she stood at her doorway in the early hours of the morning.

When James had not returned, she had grown increasingly worried. Eventually, she’d managed to drag herself to the door of her room, assuming at such a late hour that Harris would have taken a rest or gone to sleep.

She had inched the door open a crack only to be met by a highly unimpressed stare and Harris standing before her with his legs spread apart, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Laird’s orders, miss.”

“But where is he?” she asked.

Harris came forward and took her elbow, helping her into the chair outside her door.

“Dinnae ye wish to ken where he is. Are ye nae worried?” she persisted.

Harris glanced up the corridor. “I have kent the laird for many years, m’lady. He’s difficult to kill”

She scoffed. “And if a man with a crossbow shot him in the head from a rooftop?”

“Then I pity the man,” Harris said candidly. “Crossbows are tricky beggars to fire straight.”

He looked pointedly at her leg, and she rubbed it absently. It was aching more now that she had put some weight on it, but she was still too frightened to sleep. James had gone out to look for the man.

Where dae ye even begin in a clan of this size? He could be anywhere. He might be gone for days!

“What are ye doin’ out of bed?” came a weary voice from the end of the corridor.

Harris spun round as Maisie rose abruptly to her feet, crying with pain as her leg spasmed and she collapsed back into her chair. James was at her side in seconds, there was blood on his shirt and sweat beading his forehead.

“Are ye hurt?” she asked, her fingers clutching involuntarily in his léine.

“I am all right, lass, ye should be restin’.”

“Och, ‘restin’’’ he says, when he has gone out to get himself killed.”

“That was the other man,” James said bleakly, and he and Harris exchanged an unreadable look. Maisie shivered; she hoped she would never know what it was to take another’s life.

“Who was he?” she asked.

“He didnae say. I tried to get it from him, but he came at me with a dirk. Didnae hesitate, but it’s a damned shame. Dinnae ken how we will ever find the blaggard now.” There was a vein pulsing in his forehead. “We have to find whoever did this and kill him,” he spat. “I willnae have ye threatened like this by anyone. Ye have done nothin’ wrong!”

“James, calm yerself. Ye have barely slept. Ye need to get some rest.”

“She’s right,” Harris said softly, his gaze understanding and solemn. “Ye should get some rest. I willnae leave the door unmanned for a moment, and ye can rest easy.”

James put a hand on Harris’s shoulder, squeezing it gratefully, and offered his arm to Maisie. She rose, limping on her bad leg, and he took her back into his room.

She could feel how tense he was, his muscular arm corded and strong beneath hers.

He lowered her gently down onto the bed, covering her with a loose blanket. Maisie felt his fingers curl into hers as he sat beside her, his face closed off and unhappy.

“I shouldnae have killed him. We dinnae ken any better who is after ye.”

“We will find them,” she said sincerely.

“We?” He looked back at her curiously. She felt her anger return as she thought he was suggesting she was incapable of helping—but then she looked at his eyes and she realized there was hope there.

He wanted her advice. He wanted her help, the idea that she would assist him seemed more like a comfort to him than an inconvenience.

She squeezed his fingers. “Of course.”

His shoulders relaxed as some of the weight of responsibility lifted from his shoulders.

“When did ye first take up the position of laird?” she asked.

There was a softness about his face in the firelight, something unguarded and vulnerable. She wanted to capture it to help her understand more about this giant of a man, who somehow, at that moment, looked so small.

“Eighteen,” he said but scoffed the words out as though they were a jest. “Me faither wasnae capable for a lot longer than that, though. I had to pick up the slack from the age of fifteen.”

“Ye could have chosen to continue as a lad, let yer faither make his mistakes.”

James glanced at her and sighed. “I could ne’er dae that to them. Ye have seen for yerself how good our people are. I love this clan down to me bones. It captured me soul and there it shall stay. Me faither was only ever interested in the women in his life in the end. He abandoned his duties, let villages burn, sent his accounts to rack and ruin, and for what? A pretty face.”

Is that how he sees me? Am I simply a distraction for him?

Maisie wanted to ask more, but the pain on James’s face gave her pause. She decided on a different approach.

“I would like to learn more of yer clan,” she said carefully. “We may nae be a conventional laird and lady, but I am here. Ye dinnae have to bear this all alone.”

He stared ahead of him for a long time, his thumb brushing across her palm over and over. Eventually, he leaned over her, his eyes closed, and kissed her on the forehead. As he moved back, she saw the hint of a tear at the corner of his eye and wondered whether, finally, she had reached the real part of him beneath the masks he wore.

“Sleep now, Maisie. Ye have had a long day. I want ye to heal and get rested.” His other hand was almost idly running up and down her good leg as he said it.

She chuckled. “And why is that?” she asked, trying to lighten the mood to break him from his spell.

“Ye once called me a monster,” he said, leaning over her, his hand brushing her waist. “Well, the beast is hungry and wishes to claim its prize when ye are well, and I’ll finally have ye. And I promise I will give ye some more lessons in pleasure, just like a promised ye.”

“Maybe I’ll teach ye some of me own,” she breathed.

“Aye, I have nae doubt.”

“Nae more gossipin’ servants,” she said, stifling a yawn, and he brushed a strand of hair from her face.

“Nae, lass, just ye and me.”

She felt her eyes grow heavy as sleep pulled at her eyelids. She closed them and smiled as he squeezed her hand before releasing it.

Just as she fell asleep, she thought she heard him mutter something in a soft whisper.

“I’ll fight for ye until me last breath.”

She frowned as sleep took her—perhaps it had been part of her dream. The James MacLennan she knew would never say such a thing to Maisie Brown.

James watched Maisie sleep, too alert to lie down himself. He went to sit at the desk, staring at the chess pieces as he contemplated what had taken place that night. He began to play a game against himself again, trying to quiet his mind.

Maisie had mentioned that she enjoyed playing against herself and he had hated the idea that she had no companions to play a simple chess game with.

But as his fingers moved over the pieces, he discovered his own joy in it, and that the game was not an act of loneliness but an act of challenging oneself. Chess was a game of strategy—just like life, where one must move the right pieces to create the right outcome.

He found the process surprisingly focusing when he had a single thought in his head that he was trying to puzzle out.

Black was winning, and he smiled, glancing at Maisie’s soft expression as she lay there in sleep. Perhaps she was playing him in her dreams.

He continued to place the pieces on the board, one after the other. As he took the white rook, he began to put names on each piece on the white side.

That focused him even more as he began to take them one by one systematically. Nathaniel Skelling, the oldest member of the council, had been most opposed to the match with Maisie from the start. James took him with a pawn. He was too old to be involved with such things and did not have the wit.

I suppose I could kill them all, that would definitely weed him out.

Bram Wallace. Bram had been a loyal servant to his father, and to him. Encouraging him when he was younger and advising too. He had certainly been opposed to the match, but almost all of the council had had their doubts. Once Maisie was in place Bram had seemed cordial toward her.

He took the bishop that represented Bram and placed it beside the others.

His palms were clammy and cold as he looked at the two final pieces on the board. The king and the queen.

He leaned back in his chair as his suspicions solidified. It was a horrible moment of realization.

“Marcus and Lillian,” he muttered, devastated to find that there was nothing he could think of that would absolve Marcus in his mind. He had been openly against Maisie from the start and had been throwing Lillian into James’s path all his life.

He thought back to when he had announced Maisie’s name at the contest and the overwhelming rage that had flashed across Marcus’s face. He had quickly schooled his features and begun applauding with the rest, but James had not missed it.

He could not believe Lillian was involved, but Marcus might well be. If he were mad enough to be embittered towards James because he chose Maisie over Lillian, there would be no stopping him. There might even be some insane logic in his mind that with Maisie out of the way, James might suddenly recognize that Lilian should have been his bride all along.

I shall weed ye out if ye are guilty, Marcus. Mark me words.

At that thought a plan began to form in his mind, and he knew what he must do. He raised his hand at the queen and removed her from the board, leaving just the king standing.

He placed his finger on the piece, toppling it over.

“Checkmate.”