A night spent sitting on a bench by the fire did not predict a very fresh day, Drostan thought as he saddled his horse before sunrise. Neither did the frustrated desire which had coursed through him from the moment his wife opened this blasted front door. To tangle with her in his sleep proved to be fatal. A fatal weakness he seemed unable to get rid of, damn it!

This rekindling of his body with hers compared to inebriation with the finest whisky. The coarse scent of soap on her silky skin merely heightened his already sharpened senses. His hunger for her escalated tenfold instead of dousing. She was leaner, but her breasts became more voluptuous and her hips more enticingly rounded with childbirth.

His bairn. His family. His woman!

Her response to him so much more...heated. She might deny it if she wanted, but there was no contradicting its intensity. Keener, sultrier. More urgent. As if these years apart had affected her, too. Because it did him. More than he cared to admit. To find her here bared the depth of it.

During her absence, he had tried to dampen the void her disappearance caused in him. The manor’s daily chores transformed in his refuge. A way to forget. A way not to seek answers. Or to seek her. The moment he had first set eyes on her, she spoiled him for other women. The possibility of sharing his body with anyone but her disgusted him. No solace for him, no. Just loneliness and unsolved questions.

Her rejection implied he must stay away. To accomplish it would mean torture of the most refined cruelty. If only he stopped wanting her. If only he brought himself to eliminate the memories. Their time together engraved itself in his brain, though, minute by torturous minute.

One thing he should not ignore. Drostan would have to decide what he would do about Ewan, his heir. The bairn must come to the McKendricks. He needed training on the duties he should carry out when he inherited. He required protection and guidance. Impossible to obtain those in a crumbling cottage with precarious conditions. On this, he would not compromise.

“Papa.” The Laird turned to a yawning Ewan.

“Good morning, son.” He suspected Freya would not allow the boy out this early. He would usher him inside before he left.

“Are you leaving?” The rising sun illuminated his tousled hair and the cool breeze dishevelled it even more.

“I need to, mo bhalach, my boy.” He fastened the saddle buckle. “I would like to stay longer with you, but I have duties waiting for me.” The wee one must recognise his father cared for him.

“I want to go with you.” At this, Drostan straightened and stared at an identical pair of eyes.

“Your mama would not allow it.” He explained.

“Bring her, too.” He rubbed his eyes.

“I cannot.” Air exhaled forcefully through his nostrils. If things were as easy as a child imagined them.

“I do not want to be without mama.” The sadness in his cherubic face tore him in two. “But I would like to see your cottage.”

“I live in a manor.” What his bairn asked was to have both his parents together, his behaviour clear on that.

The younger stance lit up. “Really?”

“Yes. And rather bigger than a cottage.” The boy neared and Drostan crouched to his level.

“Oh.” His tiny brow creased. “Can I come and see it?”

“Maybe.” Of course, Freya would object to it. But he was the boy’s father, was he not? In a marriage, the children belonged to the father after all.

What if he granted it, Drostan contemplated? He might take the boy to meet his family and ride with him back here in a day or two. The temptation loomed too great. If he took his son, she would follow, no doubt. Not a very noble way to lure her back, he understood. But they would find a middle ground in this foggy situation. And if she did not come, he would bring Ewan to her. She would certainly be worried sick, and he had no intension of distressing her.

“I will bring you here in less than a week. Agreed?”

Ewan beamed and nodded. “Agreed.”

Without stopping to consider the morals of it, Drostan rushed inside, found a scrap of paper with a pencil, and scribbled a note to Freya. He grabbed Ewan’s worn coat and dressed him in his humble rags. The McKendrick lifted the boy on the saddle before mounting behind him and setting off on the dusty road.

 

Hours later, Freya awoke from a restless sleep to the sun leaking through the creases on the wooden window. Her body jerked up as she looked around. Birds song broke the morning stillness as she tossed the covers and hurried to dress. Ewan would be about soon, and she must prepare his breakfast. Luckily, she bought eggs and a little bacon the last time she walked to the village.

In quick movements, she put on her second-hand dress and left the chamber. To enter an eerily silent front room. Little light came from under the closed door. Hazel eyes darted to the cot. Empty. Rushing there, she touched the blankets. Cold. He had gone for long.

Worried, she scrambled to the unbarred entrance and threw it open. No horse. And no hope the worst had not happened. But she checked around anyway. Ewan liked climbing trees and exploring the river bank. Nothing.

Her hand rubbed her brow as she paced towards the front room. Light poured in. It fell on paper and pencil on the table.

Ewan asked to come with me. I will bring him back in a day or two. D.

Blood curdled in her veins as her sight darkened perilously. She covered her face with unsteady hands on the verge of collapsing in a heap of terror on the floor. Trying to swallow on gritty throat, she forced herself to inhale deep, and avoid losing consciousness. Her feet scrambled to the basin where she splashed freezing water on her face. It did not get better.

The extension of what had just transpired hit her like a down-hill rolling rock.

Four years straining to keep her son in anonymity razed with a one-line note. Just like that, father and son launched themselves into deadly danger. The urge to scream, to cry, to hit something stormed in her like a hurricane.

Since Ewan was born, she had made him wear hoods to conceal his face. She had walked through back roads to avoid meeting familiar people. Had trekked to the most distant markets and villages outside McKendrick lands. And had dressed in a way to blend in with the crowds.

Ewan counted too few friends because she allowed him limited contact with children his age. Freya met no friends because small villages tended to make the wrong news run too fast to the wrong ears. The Lady McKendrick had not seen her parents since Beltane more than four years ago, and had not heard of them either.

She gave up the husband she loved more than everything. Deprived Ewan of a father. Deprived herself of social interaction. Deprived her son of the comforts he was due. Lived in the shadows, hiding, looking over her shoulders, dodging unnecessary risks.

And the tears? Buckets-full of those. For her. For her son. For her fears. For their losses.

But mostly, she had lived in fear. Fear that any tiny slip would burst a clan war that would threaten Drostan’s life. A war that would attract English attention and jeopardise everything the McKendricks held dear. Their clan. Their traditions. Values. Traditions which they kept with preciousness.  Those which inspired admiration and respect in the Highlands.

All rendered useless by a one-line note. Crumbled. Gone to waste. Turned to dust.

Impatiently, she dragged her hands over her tear-streaked face, and steeled herself. Despair would take her nowhere.

How on Earth would she put this to right?

First, she must go fetch Ewan. Nonetheless, walking to the McKendrick in broad daylight would be a foolish thing to do. It would have to be after nightfall. The long distance would take hours to cover. It mattered not. The most important was to return Ewan to safety and keep his domineering father at arm’s length. And safe, too.

Meanwhile, there were chores she must do in the cottage. Repairs, cleaning, tending to the vegetable garden on the back. Followed by a dip in the frigid river to keep alert. Intense activity would hold sanity and her hands too busy to fret.

 

Freya lamented she did not have a black cloak. It would help her mingle in the dark. What she did have was a very worn and mended one which had been green once—when Drostan gifted it to her. Faded and old, it still shielded her from the crisp autumn air.

Her feet gained the road to the McKendrick at the exact moment it started to rain. Darn it. It had not rained all these days. But now it poured the skies open. It did not signify, it should be a small price to pay for what she must do.

One hand pulled the hood to better conceal her face; though it would be difficult to identify her in the faint lantern she carried. Her old boots sloshed on the puddles, causing her feet to freeze. She shut her mind to the discomfort and forged ahead.

A little less than a year into her marriage, two of her third cousins had caught her unawares collecting flowers by the loch not far from the manor. Ross, a not so popular McPherson chieftain, and his younger brother James were manoeuvring to snatch power in the clan after her father passed.

Her father, Irvine, was the youngest brother on the lineage of their clan’s Lairds. Like his much older brother, Stuart, Fiona’s father, he issued no male heirs. The unwritten rule dictated that in the lack of male heirs, an election should ensue. The clan must appoint names. Also, candidates could step forward for the election. These candidates might be any kin with a drop of McPherson blood.

Therein lay the problem. Should Freya produce a male offspring, he would become a strong name for succession as a direct descendant of the McPherson laird, albeit through a female. Because Irvine could appoint him as the successor. As the male heir, Ewan held the chance to unite both clans and shift the power balance in the Highlands. Ross and James did not like the idea. Hence, they wanted to prevent her from having any children. They threatened to “eliminate” any male heirs she may have. To stand on the safe side, they instructed her to leave, or would kill Drostan if she did not. Naturally, she was not to spill a word of this to The McKendrick, or…

Ross, followed by James, had incurred in every dishonesty possible. Nobody could prove it, but rumours abounded.

After her kin spoke to her, Freya spent weeks torn with doubts. If she did what her instincts guided her to do, and talk to Drostan, she would put his life in danger. And she preferred a trip to hell than cause this. Even more serious, it might deflagrate a clan war. Informed of the threat, The McKendrick would not hesitate to do everything in his power to safeguard his family.

If she told him nothing, she would be complying with her kin’s criminal designs. With the dreadful consequence of it inadvertently helping them achieve their aims—thereby putting her clan in the worst hands possible.

Her father and her old uncle before him had steered the McPherson into peace and prosperity. Stuart’s daughter married The McDougal, Taran, in a valuable alliance. Their son, Sam would inherit after The McDougal. Of course the union did not go so well since Fiona did not carry out the marriage as she should have before her tragic death in Aberdeen. But an heir they produced anyhow.

With Stuart’s passing, Irvine continued his brother’s work with impressive improvements. The marriage agreed between Wallace, Drostan’s and her father consolidated the clan’s position in the Highlands.

Not that she had been any disagreeable with her destiny. She had hoped for it, in fact. To have fallen girlishly in love with her future husband at sixteen, at twenty-one, she burned for him. Her friends regarded her as the most fortunate bride in the world because Drostan gave all the signs he corresponded. Freya thought herself lucky, too. And thus it was that she felt so elated in her wedding day, she could hardly hold it in herself. The whole of the McKendricks and the McPhersons witnessed her happiness. Which gave her kin leverage for blackmail.

After deciding that Drostan’s life was much more important than any clan skirmish, she left as if it had been the last day of her life. And it had. She died inside the night she stepped into the late summer air with unknown destination and a shattered heart.

Two hours into her sloshing in the mud proved to be extremely arduous. The rain stopped by then which made it slightly better though her clothes got thoroughly soaked. Autumn wind blew into the threadbare fabric chilling her skin. Nonetheless, her blood ran so troubled she did not feel it.

The swishing of trees in the pitch dark made for an eerie journey. With no moon and an overcast sky, danger loomed. A noise deep in the woods startled her, and she ran to hide behind a huge rock on the road side, hoping it was not a wolf in search of its meal. Or a bear. Even if it would be better an animal than a threatening human being. The night went still anew before she regained the road.

 

Hungry, exhausted, cold and in squirming emotions, Freya approached the McKendrick’s front porch as early morning light fell on her face. Her heart flipped with the splintering memories that struck her. This had been her home—her happy home—for the best part of a year.

As her hand drummed the door-knocker repeatedly, she waited until the butler unlocked it. And his crinkled eyes widened on her. “My Lady McKendrick.”

It had been a long time she did not hear the title uttered to her, one more gash bleeding from another life. “Good morning, Baxter.” A freezing hand pulled the hood away from her ashen face. “I need to see Ewan.”

The old man’s brows creased at her bedraggled state and made way for her. “I am afraid there has been an accident, my lady.”

Her head snapped to the man, brows creased. “An accident?” A dainty hand rubbed her dusty forehead. “Ewan…” Wide hazel eyes swam in anxiety and her heart boomed with tragic possibilities.

“Ewan in fine.” Drostan’s grave voice came from behind her. Then to the butler. “Baxter, have a warm bath prepared in my chambers and a tray of breakfast taken up, please.”

“Yes, my laird.” And hurried away.

“Where is he?” She asked. Only now did she notice a cut on her husband’s temple together with a weariness hovering over his taut frame.

“In the nursery, sleeping. The nanny is with him.” He even hired a nanny for her son in this short time. His concern did not escape her though he took the boy without her permission.

 

Drostan inspected his wife from her auburn hair plastered to her head, her soaked peasant’s dress, the faded cloak—with which he had gifted her—to the cracked muddy boots. Guilt coursed through him for forcing her to walk for hours to reach the manor. He had not expected her to travel at night and the fact ate at him with persistent worry.

Anguish still smothered her beautiful face. But before explaining, he must get her warmed up or she would catch her death. “Come.” He motioned her to the stairs. “First you will refresh, then we will talk.”

She hesitated, staring at him as if she wanted to refuse it. Several seconds elapsed when she finally nodded and followed him.

In the chambers that had been theirs, and in which he slept alone now, the maids poured steamy water in a tub. He watched her come in, eyes wandering around an unchanged decoration. “I will leave you in the maids’ care. Your dresses are where you left them.”

Hazel attention flew to him in surprise. Their eyes held for long moments as her voice came strained. “Thank you.”

With a short bow, he turned and closed the door behind him. Despite the circumstances, Drostan regarded her presence here as a small victory. Right in his bedchamber where she belonged. And he would make sure she stayed in it, preferably in his company. Especially in his company. The knowledge she was alive made him intent on tying his family together anew. With his son, and the brothers and sisters he would be sure to follow.

He had feared he would die a childless, bitter man counting a lost wife and decades of loneliness. Without proof that he had become a widower, there had been no chance of marrying again. Not for long years. Seven, according to the law. Fingal, his middle brother, would inherit after him. What angered him most was the idea of living a life with no family to call his own. His mother had passed away almost ten years ago, but she had given his father three robust sons and an insubordinate daughter. The thought drew a crooked smile from his sensual lips. Aileen found her match in The McDougal. This opportunity for him to put his life to rights had just presented itself. He would grab it with his both hands.

 

Freya’s eyes slapped open in startled alertness. She lay in crisp bedsheets and a fine wool coverlet on a bed that rivalled with fluffy clouds. Her former bed, warm, cosy. Dripping in nightly recollections.

Their wedding night had been here. Even celebrating during the whole day had not tired them. They had barely entered the chamber as their hands grabbed each other with a blazing passion worth of setting fire to the entire manor. After months of dissatisfying, too short encounters, the newlyweds had been alone at last. But those encounters showed her what to expect. More, what to lust after. Him. She had been rippled with an impatience that had made Drostan laugh, and then groan when they joined with unrelenting urgency. Goodness gracious! She could still feel him filling her inexperienced body, the pain forgotten, the pleasure heightened. The explosion shattering. Only on their almost immediate second time did they make it through foreplay.

Her frame jerked up to a late afternoon sun. Darn it! She did not plan to sleep this long. Even less going down memory lane. Checking her length, she saw the refined, frilly chemise she dressed. Her hand ran on the fabric reacquainting with the luxury. And imagining Drostan’s large hands sneaking under it along her eager skin.

Darn it again!

The fantasy got her jumping from the bed and rushing to select something to put on and go find her toddler. Mother and son must leave this place post haste.

A respectful rasp on the door brought a maid in as she curtsied. “The Laird requires you in the drawing room, my lady.”

Her son would have to wait. In front of the cheval mirror, she made sure her simplest and most demure dress was in place before heading down.

“Well, at least one McPherson lass has made it back home.” Fingal greeted her sarcastically.

Naturally, Freya did not miss the allusion to her cousin Fiona and how she did not resist the lure of the city and forgot all about her husband and son.

“It is good to see you, too, Fingal.” No need to raise to the bait and create friction with her brother-in-law. Her reasons would speak for themselves, had she the chance to reveal them.

He scoffed a side-smirk and his cinnamon eyes twinkled.

“Father.” She addressed Wallace. “Lachlan.” Her youngest brother-in-law. Both nodded at her.

Drostan sat casually on an armchair wrapped in his tartan, staring at her from up his hawkish nose. In this position, his tanned knees showed between his white hoses and the green, black and white plaid.

“You had an accident?” She demanded, forcing her eyes from his masculine frame to his attentive glare.

“I fell from the horse.” His low voice without inflection.

The rush of adrenalin, and fear flooded her veins and she blanched. “Fell.” She repeated numbly.

“I managed to hold Ewan firmly, and he fell on me unharmed.” The contribution did nothing to calm her.

“H-how did this happen?” The McKendricks were famous for their fine horseflesh and their skilled horsemanship.

“Ewan and I stopped at an inn for me to feed him breakfast.”

A public place where anyone might have identified them. Queasiness soured her stomach.

“We left, and a few miles ahead, Threuna reared and took me by surprise.” His strong hand raked his wavy hair.

“A villager found him passed out on the road, Ewan by his side trying to awaken his father.” Wallace intervened.

At this, Freya’s hand fumbled behind her to find an armchair, on which she sat slowly as her legs threatened to turn to jelly. Eyes bulged, the free hand on her mouth in sheer terror. “Are you hurt?” She asked her husband.

“He came by only this morning.” Lachlan spoke for the first time. “Father sent for Aileen. You missed her by minutes.”

“I spent the whole day looking for Threuna.” Fingal used to be quite fond of the McKendrick’s horseflesh. He had named the horse ‘Valiant’ in Gaelic. “Found him not far from here.” He volunteered with a strange look on his face.

The conversation got interrupted by a running Ewan barging through the door. “Mama!” He jumped on her lap while the nanny stood by the entrance.

“Here you are, my love.” She hugged the little boy tight, heart squeezing at the danger he went through.

“We had a big adventure!” Ewan started excited and chatted on telling it as if there had been nothing serious about the whole event.

The McKendrick men watched mother and son closely. Drostan did not disguise his pride.

“I brought papa home and met aunt Aileen.” He boasted.

“What a brave hero you are!” She praised him, kissing his forehead, and forcing herself to produce a faint smile.

As Ewan finished his story, she took the opportunity to look at him, bathed, fed, well-slept and in very fine clothes. Drostan wasted no time in providing for his heir.

“Papa said we can live here with him, if I want.” He taunted innocently.

Her eyes involuntarily flew to her husband who pierced her with his old-whisky irises and caused her skin to go crimson.

No answer came from her as she would promise nothing she knew she could not keep. She hugged the toddler again, her mind distancing to that worrisome place it inhabited the last few years.

Not long passed before Baxter came to announce dinner. Drostan took Ewan to the nanny for her to help him with dinner in the nursery as the others headed to the dining room.

Freya just stood up when she heard the knob click shut. Her gaze lifted to see Fingal leaning on the massive wood, arms crossed, an accusing expression on his face.

“I wonder if you know why our stable help found a thorn under Threuna’s saddle.”

Colour bled from her face and nausea threatened to humiliate her in front of her brother-in-law. She had not been wrong unfortunately. Drostan and Ewan in a public place arose the McPherson. Worse, they were watching her and her husband.

Swallowing whatever wanted to come up the wrong way, she replied, “You think I put it there.”

He did not move though his stance sharpened. “Did you?”

“I stayed away for more than four years and did nothing to re-approach any of you. What do you think?” Composure came back to her and her stance took him head on.

“But then Drostan found you by chance, I understand.” He pushed from the door and neared her, piercing attention unfailing.

“An unfortunate coincidence I would say.” Her feet kept her ground. She got nothing to fear, having done nothing wrong.

“Why would you want him dead?”

The blatant accusation caused fury. She understood they did not have the whole picture, but to point fingers at her without proof pushed it a bit too far. “I do not!”

This emphatic negative must have given Fingal pause. “I will believe you for now.” The cutting tone suggested just the opposite. “Should I find out otherwise, you will have a lot to answer for.”

They stood there for long moments in a battle of wills. Finally, she nodded and joined the others for dinner.

The McKendrick siblings had always been protective of one another, and Freya did not blame Fingal for worrying about his brother. Well he should. She wished she could tap in such cohesion to fend off the threat which had hung over her head for so many years; if she was sure it would not turn out to be a foolish step.