Chapter One

 

 

 

December, 1322

Eilean Donan Castle, Scottish Highlands

 

For the thousandth time in three days, Fillan MacVale ripped his gaze from Adelaide MacDonnell.

This time, however, he could not credit the force of his will to put an end to his staring. Nay, it was the blast of frosty air from the Mackenzie keep’s opening doors that jerked his attention from the bonny lass.

Beside him, Laird Reid Mackenzie shot to his feet and hastily made his way around the long wooden table laden with the Yuletide feast.

“Little Bird!” Reid bounded from the raised dais and wove through the other trestle tables and benches filling the castle’s great hall. As the clanspeople at the tables cast their eyes to the keep’s double doors, a cheer went up.

A very pregnant young woman filled the doorway, followed by a russet-haired man with a protective arm looped around her back. The woman’s gray eyes—Mackenzie eyes—locked on Reid, and a wide grin split her face.

“Brother,” she said warmly, embracing Reid.

“We were beginning to get worried, Little Bird,” Reid said, setting his wee sister back and assessing her with his sweeping gray gaze.

“Apologies,” the man beside the Laird’s sister said. He cast a pointed look at the woman’s rounded belly. “Our going was a bit…slower than even we anticipated.”

Fillan blinked in surprise. The man spoke with an English accent.

The woman rolled her eyes. “My overprotective husband insisted that we only ride an hour at a time, and no more than four hours in a day,” she said to Reid. “We wouldnae have missed the first two days of yer Yule festivities if he wasnae so bull-headed.”

“Good man,” Reid said, turning to the Englishman and extending his hand. “I appreciate yer care with my sister, Beaumore.”

The two shared a hearty forearm clasp before Reid turned to those gathered in the hall. “Let us welcome Mairin Mackenzie Beaumore back to Eilean Donan.”

Another cheer went up for the Laird’s sister.

“And let us also welcome her husband, Niall Beaumore. He may be English, but any man who can capture my wee sister’s heart must have the strength and honor of a Highlander.”

That was met with laughter and another cheer, along with several raised mugs of ale to toast the impending arrival of their bairn.

“Come, get warm and make yerselves comfortable,” Reid said, guiding them toward the dais.

On the other side of Reid’s empty chair, Corinne Mackenzie, the Laird’s wife, struggled to rise as their newly arrived guests approached.

Fillan shot from his seat to assist her. He winced as his weight came down on his bad foot, but he forewent his cane in favor of leaving his hands free to assist Corinne, who was even rounder with child than Mairin.

“Sweeting, ye neednae—” Reid began, but Corinne was already pulling herself up with the help of Fillan’s extended arm.

“I cannot very well greet my beloved sister-in-law from my chair,” Corinne retorted.

Letting go of Fillan, she wrapped Mairin in her arms, but the two women’s bellies prevented them from being able to properly hug. They both looked down, then broke into laughter at their predicament.

“From your voice, I gather that you are a former countrywoman of mine, Lady Mackenzie,” Niall said, giving her a gallant bow.

“Aye, indeed. But please, call me Corinne,” she replied warmly. “We are family now.”

In response, Niall smiled and tilted his head in acquiescence.

“I want ye to meet Laird Fillan MacVale, Little Bird,” Reid murmured to Mairin.

Mairin’s gray eyes widened. “Yer—”

“Aye,” Fillan cut in. He took a hobbling step forward and bowed formally. “Reid’s half-brother.”

Even three years after first learning of his and Reid’s shared blood, saying the words aloud made Fillan’s heart jerk against his ribs—in part out of gratitude for the knowledge that he was no longer alone in this world. But not entirely. The shame still lingered. Even in death, Fillan’s father cast a long shadow.

When Fillan straightened, he found Mairin’s flinty eyes searching him. She took in the MacVale plaid around his hips and his misshapen clubfoot before returning her gaze to his face.

“Ye share Reid’s dark coloring,” she said cautiously. “And his eyes, though yers are brown.”

Fillan gave a single, stiff jerk of his head. “Aye.”

While he and Reid had both gotten their nigh-black hair from their shared father, Serlon MacVale, Reid had received the same gray eyes as Mairin and their other brother, Logan, from their mother, Brinda.

That was because Serlon had raped Brinda just before she’d wed Mairin and Logan’s father, Laird Murdoch Mackenzie. Brinda had borne Reid, who clearly took after neither flame-haired Murdoch nor sable Brinda. Murdoch had accepted Reid as his own, though, and passed the Mackenzie Lairdship to him as his eldest son.

Serlon, on the other hand, had turned his attention to ravaging more women, including Fillan’s long-dead mother. Reid and the others were too polite to speak of it out loud, but from the heavy silence that fell, they were all thinking of the grim history that bound Reid and Fillan together.

“Fillan has been hard at work as the Laird of the MacVales,” Corinne said, clearly trying to alleviate some of the awkwardness hanging over them all. “Otherwise you might have been able to meet him earlier, Mairin.”

“Aye,” Reid added, giving Fillan a nod. “He is building a new legacy for his people.”

Tentatively, Mairin reached out and took Fillan’s hand. “I am glad to meet ye, then,” she said. “After all, ye are my brother’s brother. That makes us family—of a sort, anyway.”

Fillan dipped his head over her hand, the knots in his chest easing slightly. “Thank ye,” he murmured. “It would be an honor to call ye family.”

As Serlon’s spawn, Fillan knew he didn’t deserve to be welcomed by the Mackenzies. Yet Reid had been willing to give him a chance three years past to prove that he wasn’t like their father—cruel, manipulative, and greedy. It moved him that Mairin, who wasn’t bound by any blood connection with him, would do the same.

“Let me introduce our other honored guest,” Reid said to Mairin and Niall, turning to the far end of the table. “Laird Arthur MacDonnell.”

Though he’d remained seated through the earlier introductions, the gray-haired Laird now rose and tipped into a bow toward Mairin and Niall. “Pleased to meet ye,” he said gruffly as Mairin curtsied and Niall bowed. “And this is my daughter, Adelaide.”

Despite his best intentions, Fillan’s gaze snapped to Adelaide once more. His eyes would not let go as she rose from her chair and dropped into a low curtsy, her honey-brown head ducked shyly.

“She was supposed to marry the Laird here after my elder daughter passed on,” Laird MacDonnell continued, gesturing toward Reid. “But instead he found himself a bonny Englishwoman, and I am back to searching for a suitable match for her.”

“Father,” Adelaide hissed, casting him a desperate sideways glance as she lifted herself slowly out of her curtsy.

Fillan’s fists clenched at his sides. There was no malice in the Laird’s blunt words—only thoughtlessness.

MacDonnell had been furious upon learning that Reid had married Corinne three years past despite an informal understanding between the two Lairds. Reid was supposed to have married Adelaide, the younger sister of Reid’s first wife. But eventually matters had been smoothed between them. MacDonnell had warmed to Corinne, and the alliance between the Mackenzies and MacDonnells had remained intact.

Still, the Laird spoke without care for the hurt and embarrassment he caused Adelaide—which was obvious from the crimson burn in her cheeks.

Mairin’s brows rose at MacDonnell’s brusque comment, and Niall cleared his throat.

“Come and sit by me, Mairin,” Corinne said. “You must be tired from your travels.”

Reid sobered. “Aye, and I wouldnae mind hearing what news ye ken of the Bruce.”

As everyone took their seats, Fillan just caught Corinne’s whispered aside to Mairin.

“Don’t mind Laird MacDonnell. He may be rather rough-edged, but his presence here is important to Reid. He hopes to help the MacDonnells and the MacVales improve their relationship.”

It was a noble effort on Reid’s part, but Fillan feared it was in vain. While the Mackenzies has entered an alliance with the MacVales almost immediately after Fillan had taken the Lairdship from Serlon, MacDonnell had been far more wary.

He had every right to be, of course. Serlon had spent decades raiding and destroying MacDonnell lands along their border. Neither Fillan’s vow to refute his father’s ways nor the clan’s effort as a whole to right their past wrongs had been enough to convince Laird MacDonnell that things were truly different now.

Apparently this shared Yuletide celebration was meant to bring them together, but as of yet, MacDonnell had barely said two words to Fillan. And for his part, Fillan had been so bloody distracted by Adelaide’s shy beauty that it felt as though his wits had been baked into the Yule pudding.

“What news from the Bruce?” Reid prompted again once they were all settled.

Mairin plucked a mincemeat pie from the bounty spread on the table and took a bite.

“Things have been quiet since the Bruce’s victory over King Edward at Old Byland Bridge in October,” she commented once she’d swallowed. “It seems Edward has completely abandoned the Borderlands for fear of being embarrassed in defeat yet again.”

“Which means the Border lords will have to take matters into their own hands,” Reid surmised.

“Indeed,” Niall said grimly. “In fact, there are rumors that Edward’s new favorite, Andrew Harclay, may already be planning to do just that. He is said to be arranging a meeting with the Bruce himself to negotiate a peace.”

“Hold there,” MacDonnell said from the other end of the table. His bushy brows were lowered and he wore a frown of confusion behind his graying beard. “Wasnae Harclay just made Earl of Carlisle by Edward himself no’ long ago? And now the English Earl is in talks with the Scottish King?”

“Harclay’s lands are vulnerable so close to the border,” Mairin clarified. “Especially now that Edward has ceded the north to us. He has little choice besides going directly to the Bruce for a treaty to protect himself—even though it is treasonous.”

“And ye say a meeting between the two is imminent?” Reid asked.

“If the rumors are to be believed, it will happen in a matter of a sennight or two,” Niall replied.

“Truth be told, brother, I’d far rather be at the Bruce’s side with a sword in my hand in case matters take a turn than sitting on my arse feasting with ye in honor of Yule,” Mairin said, casting a sly grin at Reid as she took another bite of pie.

Niall lifted a russet eyebrow at his very pregnant wife. “I think you know I would have a few objections to that, love.”

Several at the high table chuckled at that, but despite the lightened mood, sadness settled like a heavy cloud in Fillan’s chest.

Though the Bruce’s Bodyguard Corps still operated in relative secret, Fillan knew of its existence thanks to Reid. The team of elite warriors had been assembled to protect those most vulnerable to attack in Scotland’s war with England, and to serve the Bruce’s cause for freedom more broadly. Both Niall and Mairin were members, and the Bruce had called Reid an honorary member for his work on a mission that had eventually led to his marriage to Corinne.

The Corps represented the sort of principled effort that had inspired Fillan to lead the MacVales toward a new way of life, a better future.

And it was exactly the sort of organization which he would never be a part of. His clubfoot prevented him from ever becoming a truly great warrior. Aye, he could do a bit of training with the men, but even mere walking required a cane. He was proud of his role in bringing the MacVales back in line with the Bruce’s cause, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he came short as their Laird. As a man.

Serlon’s voice still echoed in his head. Ye are worthless. A weakling and a cripple. No heir of mine will shame me as ye do.

His father had valued brute strength above all else—which Fillan had been sorely lacking as a lad with a misshapen foot. Freed of Serlon’s cruelty these last three years, Fillan had put his wits and determination to use as Laird, along with the sinewy strength he’d built in his body, but his father’s words still lingered in the dark corners of his mind.

His gaze slid to Adelaide once more. She was everything he was not—innocent, beautiful, graceful, sweet.

And she was not for him.

MacDonnell wanted to match her with a Laird, aye, but not the Laird of a clan which he considered more enemy than friend. In MacDonnell’s view, the MacVales were still to be watched carefully with a wary eye for any sign of slipping back into their old ways.

But it was more than that. Fillan would never saddle such a woman, who radiated the warmth and light of the sun itself, with the shadows that followed him. He wouldn’t be a burden on anyone ever again.

It seemed he was fated to remain close enough to see what he didn’t deserve to have. He would simply have to endure this Yuletide with whatever scraps of dignity he could salvage.