Page 5 of To Love a Scottish Lord (Highland Lords #4)

M ary returned to the gate to find Micah unloading the wagon. Hester labored beside him, the couple working in silent tandem.

They’d met at dawn and spent only a few moments together throughout the day, but Mary found the other woman pleasant and helpful.

Hester was a tall woman, her frame nothing more than jutting bones draped by sagging skin.

Her complexion was bronzed, her face etched and lined like the ruts of the road they’d traveled to Castle Gloom.

Hands that picked up a cask of ale were knurled and scarred.

Her hair was laced with strands of silver.

Only her eyes were young, bright blue, clear and accepting; they measured others with interest and intelligence.

Micah was as old, but the years had treated him with more grace. His hair was a thick brown, his blue eyes were deep-set in his face, and wrinkles stretched outward from his mouth to meet those around his eyes, resulting in a merry expression. He looked as if he’d been caught too long in a smile.

Brendan came out of the tower and began to help them unload the wagon in silence. They each carried their individual burdens up the eighteen shallow steps to the gate.

Going to the back of the wagon, Mary withdrew a small cask and tucked it beneath her arm, resting it against her hip.

“I’ll carry that,” Brendan said a few minutes later.

“Nonsense,” she said. “There are other, heavier items that you can carry. Allow me to help where I can.”

He grinned at her, the expression making her wonder if his brother had ever been so affable.

“Are we going to be allowed to stay after all?”

He nodded once.

“Without being fired upon, I trust?”

“You mustn’t mind Hamish, Mary. He seems a lot fiercer than he truly is.”

Turning, she smiled at Brendan, genuinely amused. “He doesn’t frighten me.”

She would’ve been wiser to be frightened, wouldn’t she, instead of having this strange feeling that she’d embarked upon an adventure. How foolish of her.

At the top of the steps, she added the cask to the small pile of crates stacked in the middle of the grassy area.

“I found a larder in the castle area,” she said. “And a kitchen.”

“It’s not in ruins?” Brendan lowered the crate he carried, glancing toward the main building.

“Not at all.”

She led the way, the three of them following.

“It’s a wonder,” Hester said, tilting her head back to study the arches of the kitchen ceiling. “But it’s a good thing we brought dishes and pots and pans with us.”

Hester was a pleasant woman but didn’t speak often. When she did, however, her words gave Mary the impression that she’d listened intently to the opinions of others before forming her own.

“Have you known them long?” Mary asked as she and Brendan went to retrieve more crates from the wagon.

“Only about a week. But they come well recommended by my brother and his wife. As you did.”

She smiled, remembering Alisdair and Iseabal MacRae well.

She recalled her husband Gordon’s descriptions of their home, Gilmuir.

A place that seemed romantic and dramatic, somewhere she’d longed to see.

Now it seemed she’d gotten her wish in a way, since she was in her own isolated fortress in the Highlands.

The extent of Brendan’s foresightedness was evident during the next hour when Mary helped Hester unpack some of the crates and barrels.

He’d purchased candles, spoons, pots, pans, and large mixing bowls, everything that might be needed to set up housekeeping.

He evidently expected Hamish to reside at Castle Gloom for a long time.

Hester inspected the kitchen fire, peering into the chimney and pronouncing it free of birds’ nests or debris.

“I cannot help but wonder where your brother has been cooking his meals, sir,” she said to Brendan when he and Micah delivered a heavy cask of ale to the larder.

“If I know Hamish, he has a brazier and wok. He learned the Oriental way of cooking years ago and sometimes subscribes to it.”

Hester looked interested, but rather than ask him any questions, turned her attention to the lack of firewood. A moment later, both men were dispatched to the line of woods to fell a tree.

“It’s strange how large the place is,” Hester said, planting her hands on her hips and looking about her. “It looks like a ruin from the road. Even more curious is that there’s no sign of life.”

“I wonder why they left,” Mary said.

Or why a man like Hamish MacRae would take up residence here.

After their meal was prepared and eaten, and darkness had fallen over Castle Gloom, they began to make preparations for sleep.

Since the tower was deemed to be the most hospitable place at Castle Gloom, Micah and Brendan began to move a few cots they’d found up to those rooms. Micah and Hester surprised her, though, by choosing to sleep in the main part of the castle.

“There’s a corner of the Great Hall we can make cozy-like,” Hester said, and she slanted a glance toward her husband that Mary envied. In that look was fondness, and the hint of a promise.

“Hamish occupies the top floor,” Brendan said as they left the kitchen. “Which do you want, Mary? The first or the second?”

“The first,” she said quickly. The fewer stairs she had to mount, the better.

He nodded.

“Does he never leave the tower?” Mary asked, looking across the courtyard. He’d remained there all evening, never once emerging. Brendan had carried a dinner tray to him, returning without comment.

“He doesn’t like the company of strangers,” Brendan said.

“Has he always been that way?” He shrugged. Brendan could be very irritating occasionally. Sometimes he divulged too much information and sometimes not enough.

“You should tell me what I need to know if you want me to help him.”

She glanced upward to where the lone window was open, seeing the flicker of a candle. Did he watch them from his aerie?

“Do you know anything about India?” Brendan asked.

She shook her head. “Only where it is, and that, I confess, is only an idea.”

“The British East India Company has been making inroads there for the past thirty years. That’s not to say that they’ve been welcomed at every turn.

” His expression grew somber. “There are those who would be just as pleased if the British turned tail and left their country. Among them are the Atavasi, the native people of India. They’ve been rebelling against the British incursion for the past five years.

They captured Hamish’s ship, killing his crew. Hamish was their prisoner for a year.”

“A year?” she asked faintly.

They were at the tower now, and Brendan hesitated outside the narrow doorway. “A few months ago, he and two other men—Englishmen captured by the Atavasi—managed to overpower their guards and make their way overland. He was the only one to finish the journey.”

Brendan put his hand on the door but didn’t make a move to open it.

“We’d given up any hope of him being alive after the rebellion was put down.

” Brendan looked directly at her, but she couldn’t see his expression in the darkness.

“I didn’t recognize him at first. His eyes were the same color, and his features were the same.

There’s a scar on his knee from where he’d fallen from a tree as a boy, and a mark on the base of his thumb from a MacRae blood oath.

But everything else was different. He didn’t talk the same, and he doesn’t act the same. ”

“Perhaps he blames himself for the loss of his crew. But that doesn’t explain why he’s a hermit.”

Opening the door, he stood aside for her to precede him. Once inside the tower, he looked heavenward as if he were restrained in his comments by the man who was the subject of them.

She waited as he lit a candle, grateful for the light to study his face. Brendan’s gaze on her was intent, but she would not have expected his next words under any circumstances.

“He was tortured.”

She stared at him. “Tortured?” Her voice was low, but the stone walls sent the word back to her jeeringly. She shivered, feeling a coldness creep through her as she looked up at the winding stairs.

“He needs you, Angel,” Brendan said.

“You promised,” she said, shaking her head at him, “not to call me that name.”

“Was it a promise? I thought I said I would try. My wits must be slipping.”

It was truly difficult to remain angry at him. He had such an engaging grin. Nor could she help but admire him. Take this mission, for example. He’d been determined to obtain medical care for his brother, however much Hamish refused it. Such brotherly devotion was to be commended.

But despite his lively smile and cheerful hazel eyes and the goodness of his character, Brendan wasn’t the MacRae who interested her.

He was tortured.

She glanced up the stairs again and shivered.