Patrick reached Colmonell early the next day.
He rode toward the line of trees that separated the sparse woods from the western edge of the Fergussons’ large farmstead.
What if they no longer grew butterbur? His mother hadn’t needed it in years. No, it had to be here. Was his memory correct and this was the area where the plant had previously grown? He knew what butterbur looked like. Large white leaves, sometimes three feet in diameter, heart-shaped with scalloped edges topping tall fleshy stalks. They shouldn’t be too difficult to find.
His thoughts brought him back, as they had all morning, to last night and Charlie’s kiss. Patrick hadn’t wanted to let her go. Her lips, so soft and sweetly yielding drove him daft. He wanted her. He wanted to bring her home or stay here with her—he didn’t care which.
But the cold dawn brought with it misgivings. Did he want to promise her things he wasn’t sure he could give her? Did he want to change his life so drastically? Did he want a wife? Being a husband was the highest of duties, and, as he’d learned throughout his life from his kin, the hardest.
But hell, he was ready for a hard fight. He hadn’t had one in so damn long.
But did she want something else? Someone else?
Did she still love whichever of his cousins had given her her sling? Who had it been? And what kind of fool was he to have let her go? Patrick could ride to Tarrick Hall and find out. But he’d promised Charlie he’d make haste after Elsie awoke this morn with labored breathing. He also didn’t know how he’d tell his uncles, whom he hadn’t seen in a decade—that he was falling for the daughter of their enemy. The same lass one of their sons had fallen for. Hell, he could barely admit it to himself. And what if his cousin who had taught her how to use a sling still loved Charlie and was staying away to quell the feud?
Was it heroic or cowardly? Would Patrick have to fight him?
“Why would I?” he asked himself, moving over a worn path toward clusters of tall stemmed plants where he believed the butterbur to be.
What else would Patrick do about permanently losing her? Had he truly ever pondered a life of needing her—and not being able to have her because she belonged to his cousin? He pondered it now. It wouldn’t be pleasant, that was for damn sure. How could he put a halt to the effects her smile, her spirit had over him?
Patrick spotted the leaves and breathed a sigh of relief. He wasted no time gathering what he needed and packing it up. He was surprised none of his uncles were out patrolling the farmland—and even more surprised that he hadn’t been struck in the head with a stone from someone’s sling.
How were his uncles? What had happened between them and the Cunninghams that caused Duff to hate them? He’d make it a point to discover why when he returned to Pinwherry. And then he’d come back and visit his kin.
Gaining his mount, he looked toward Tarrick Hall. It hadn’t been finished when last he’d visited and MacGregors and Grants had been everywhere. Now, the Hall, complete with lattice windows of lead and animal horn, stood like a strong fortress nestled within the flower-carpeted hills.
It was quiet.
Too quiet.
The hair on the back of Patrick’s nape stood erect. He wasn’t alone. He looked around and held his hands up in surrender.
“Who are ye, and what are ye doin’ on my land?” a man called out, appearing from a tight stand of trees a stone’s throw away.
It was his uncle Tamas—and a stone’s throw was all he would need to fell Patrick to his arse. His face and red hair hadn’t changed. Nor had the sling in his hand. Said to be one of the most fearless, defiant, hellion sons ever to be fathered, Tamas had been fostered in Camlochlin in an attempt by Patrick’s mother to instill some manners into him.
Patrick had gone on his first cattle raid in Sleat when he was a lad of seven, thanks to Tamas taking him along. His uncle had fought his way out of many confrontations. Patrick had been there to witness many of them.
“’Tis I, Uncle, Patrick MacGregor, son of yer sister, Isobel, and her husband, Tristan. Put away yer sling, I beg ye.”
“Patrick? Wee Patrick?” His uncle hurried toward him and stopped when he reached him to give him a good looking over with eyes as blue as the heavens. “Hell, ’tis ye, lad. Ye’re no’ so wee anymore.”
“It has been long, Uncle,” Patrick said as he dismounted.
“Too long,” Tamas agreed and leaned in to offer his nephew a quick embrace and a pound on the shoulder. “What brings ye here now? Is that butterbur ye’re takin’? Is it fer Isobel? Is m’ sister ill?”
“Nae, nae,” Patrick was quick to assure him with a hand to his uncle’s shoulder. “M’ mother is in good health. This is fer…a friend.”
“Nothin’ serious I hope.”
“Nae, I—”
“Good, then come greet yer uncles.” Tamas flung his arm around him. “Cam just returned from visitin’ yer uncle Alex in Ballantrae. Neither him nor John would fergive me if I let ye get away withoot greetin’ them. Ye’re Isobel’s son. They will want to see ye, lad.”
He wanted to see them too, but he wouldn’t stay long. He wasn’t one to make promises, but he’d made them to Charlie.
Was that a good enough reason though to refuse time to his kin and bring shame to his father?
Faced with the cumbersome task of doing the right thing, he fully appreciated the strength it took his father to live according to his ideals. He also recognized that no man alive meant more to him than Tristan MacGregor. He’d brought up his children well. Luke and Mailie were proof of it. Violet, the youngest, had a cheek toward rebellion, like him. Patrick would talk to her when he returned home. Resistance was pointless. The teachings, led by example by their father, their kin, were planted deep in their hearts and sooner or later the heart takes over.
It wasn’t that he’d never wanted to emulate his father. He did, but he was afraid he’d fail.
“Of course, Uncle. I wish to meet yer bairns as well.”
Tamas gave him a hefty chop to the shoulder to show his satisfaction then shouted across the fields. “Aidan! Go fetch yer uncles!”
Aidan was too young to be the one who’d given Charlie the sling. At ten and three, he was a scrawny-boned, pumpkin-haired lad without a hair on his face longer than fuzz.
Patrick watched the lad run off to do his father’s bidding and followed Tamas to the house. He wanted to get to know this part of his family and realized, after having met the Cunninghams, that there was much he didn’t know.
The next two lads to leave the large Hall were older than Patrick by a few years. He smiled and greeted his uncle Cameron’s sons Tam and Shaw. He remembered playing with them as children but nothing after that.
Shaw, the younger of the two, looked him over, his eyes lingering on Patrick’s hair, the same copper color as his. “Have we met?” he finally asked.
How the hell was Patrick to know that? He’d met more people than he could ever count. Before he could venture an answer, a man exiting the house next called out.
“Is it true?”
Patrick turned to smile at him. He was taller than Tamas and a few years older. His hair had darkened over the years to a dark golden brown but his eyes, as they took in the color of Patrick’s hair, were as wide and perceptive as Patrick had remembered.
“’Tis good to see ye again, Uncle John.”
“Aye,” his uncle drew him in for a hefty embrace, “ye’re Bel’s son. How is my sister?” he said, stepping apart but keeping his hands on Patrick’s shoulders. “Has she given yer faither any more bairns?”
“Violet remains the last,” Patrick told him. “I understand from yer letters to m’ mother that ye have five daughters.”
They spoke of their families while they entered the house. Patrick met three more of his cousins, Donella, Eithne, and Izzy, two of John’s daughters and one of Cameron’s.
They sat him at the head table and served him food and good whisky. Soon, his aunts, Annie and Eleanor, joined them, the latter receiving a kiss from her husband, John, before she sat.
“Cameron should be along any moment now,” Annie informed them. “He’s not returned yet from seeing to Roddy Fergusson’s new roof. You know how he likes to keep himself occupied.”
Patrick looked around the table at his uncles, who for a moment let silence reign. These were men his mother had raised and taken care of after the MacGregors had killed their father and made them orphans. She adored them and spoke of them often.
“What is Uncle Patrick doin’ these days?” Patrick asked of his namesake. He’d like to bring home news to his mother. He missed her. He missed them all. Thanks to Charlie. “And how are Lachlan and Alex?”
“Patrick still lives at our family homestead,” John told him, perking to attention again. “He is a husband and a father to eight bairns.”
“Eight!” Patrick laughed and raised his cup. “To makin’ bairns then.”
He didn’t know why Charlie popped into his mind at that moment, or why the idea of having eight bairns with her wasn’t an altogether unpleasant one.
“Lachlan lives in Girvan,” Tamas said. “We see him from time to time. In fact, he’s due to arrive here in a sennight or so.”
Patrick made a mental note to return to see him.
“Alex still resides in Bran—”
They all heard the entrance door open and the footsteps that followed. A man entered the hall, but Patrick didn’t recognize him right away. He was tall and able-bodied dressed in breeches and a coat. His auburn hair was streaked with gray, his green eyes dull and shadowed by the weight of his life.
“Cam.” John stood to his feet and urged Patrick up next to him. “’Tis Patrick MacGregor, Bel’s son.”
It was his uncle Cameron. Patrick could scarcely believe how much he had aged. Did he carry the burdens of all the villagers on his shoulders? Patrick had seen what the same weight had cost Rob, the MacGregor clan chief. He didn’t want to see Charlie bear the same burden.
“Patrick,” Cameron greeted with a warm smile, joining them. “What brings you here. How is your mother?”
“She’s well,” he assured him, then explained that he’d come to gather butterbur for a friend and met up with Tamas.
They drank together and shared stories about Patrick’s mother. His uncles loved their only sister dearly and they enjoyed hearing about her life with Tristan. An hour passed quickly and Patrick thought about leaving.
But there was a cousin he remembered whom he hadn’t yet met, a lad a year or two younger than him.
He turned to Cameron sitting beside him. “Will yer son Kendrick be joinin’ us?”
The hall grew quiet. His uncles’ daughters excused themselves from the table and left. Their wives followed shortly thereafter, dragging Aidan with them.
What the hell had he said? Had some tragedy befallen Cameron’s youngest son? Patrick closed his eyes and prayed that he hadn’t just brought up a man’s dead son.
“We lost Kendrick five years ago.” Cameron’s raspy voice chilled the air.
Nae.
“Fergive me,” Patrick said quietly. “I didna know. Ye never wrote to m’ mother aboot it.”
“There was no reason to bring her such terrible news,” Cameron explained, his tone shallow and empty. This was what haunted his gaze. “Let her go on thinking her nephew lives.”
“I will say nothin’ if that’s—”
Five years ago? Did Charlie’s mother die five years ago? Allan Cunningham said his wife died of a fever. Did the two have anything to do with each other?
“If ye can speak of it,” Patrick said with dreaded hesitation, “what happened to him?”
“The Cunninghams,” Tamas answered, setting Patrick’s heart to ruin. “They killed him.”
Patrick wanted to leap from his seat. He wanted to know the full tale, and at the same time, he wanted to flee the house and never hear the rest. The Cunninghams? Which Cunninghams? Why? Why would they kill Kendrick? He was naught but a boy five years ago! Was it Duff? Did Charlie know?
“Why?” he blurted. “Who took him from ye?”
“Allan Cunningham’s sons,” Cameron told him, downing the remainder of his whisky and looking into his empty cup with misty eyes. “By order of their father. They took him away and disposed of his body. We know not where.”
Nae. Patrick shook his head. He couldn’t be hearing this right. Duff? Duff was his cousin! Kendrick’s cousin! They had to be mistaken. But…he thought raking his fingers through his hair…Charlie knew. She knew what her brothers had done to the lad who’d taught her to use the sling. The cousin she loved. Kendrick was the reason for Charlie’s scorn toward her brothers.
Hell. He felt ill. This was too big. Too unforgivable for the feud to ever end.
“There were witnesses who saw Kendrick being led away by Cunningham’s sons,” John revealed as if he could read Patrick’s hidden thoughts.
Witnesses. There was no doubt then. Duff had done the unthinkable and killed a man’s bairn. He should never have told him that he knew his father. He would never tell Will that they’d met.
“Why did ye no’ kill Allan Cunningham? His sons? Whoever was responsible?” he asked them while his blood boiled in his veins.
“I wanted to,” Tamas answered, his knuckles white as he gripped his cup. “The man who ordered Kendrick’s death still lives.”
“They should die as Kendrick died,” Tam, Cameron’s eldest son bit out. “Alone, in an unmarked grave.”
Patrick closed his eyes and prayed it didn’t get any worse than it already was.
“There are lasses involved,” Shaw reminded them. “Even if there is no intention, they could be hurt or killed. None of it will return our brother to us.”
“Nay, it won’t,” Shaw’s brother agreed. “But ’twill bring some—”
Cameron held up his palm and set his angry gaze on his son. “I’ll have no more talk of this. It’s been settled for years now. We’ve done enough. I’ve made orphans of children once. I will not do it again.”
Patrick knew what his uncle was speaking about. Traces of guilt that had consumed Cameron as a lad still laced his voice. He’d been but a child when he shot his arrow into the night and killed the then Duke of Argyll, Robert Campbell, the Devil MacGregor’s beloved brother-in-law, and brought the wrath of the Highland Chief down on his entire clan. Archie Fergusson had taken the blame for killing Lord Campbell and had suffered the consequence for it.
Cameron’s father was killed before his eyes because of what he had done.
It would be a difficult thing for any lad to live with and the somber glaze in his uncle’s eyes had always been deep.
Lifting his cup to his mouth, something occurred to Patrick and he paused before the rim touched his lips. Did his uncle say they’d done enough?
What had they done? Why did Duff hate them and want them all dead?
“What did ye do?” he asked in so quiet a voice, he was asked to repeat it. “What did ye do to the Cunninghams?”
Cameron’s eyes were wide pools of deep regret. He lowered them to his cup and expelled a heavy sigh. “I killed Margaret Cunningham.”