Seduced by a Highlander (31 page)

“What’s in the bags?” Tristan asked, walking toward them. John was already unpacking one, and looked up to wave Patrick and Cam over when his brothers stepped out of the manor house.

“Dried meats, grains, bolts of fabric, spices, books.” Isobel smiled, happier than Tristan had ever seen her. “Things the merchants in Dumfries are all eager to purchase.”

“Books?” Tristan stepped into the enclosure, smiled at John, then ran his hand over the thick pelt of one of the Kyloes. His father bred cattle like this at Camlochlin.

“Aye.” John dug inside one of the sacks. “We sell almost everything, even the cattle, to buy seeds, farming equipment, pots fer Isobel, whatever we need.” He found what he was looking for and handed it to Tristan. “We sell the books, too, since none of us can read. Mayhap ye can read them to us before Patrick brings them to the market.”

Tristan looked down at the leather-bound book in his hand and blinked at its title.
Historia Regum Britanniae,
or
History of the Kings of Britain,
by Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Monmouth’s works contained some of the first stories written about King Arthur. He glanced up again at the cattle, his heart racing in his chest. Impossible. “Ye say these gifts have been left since yer father died?” He didn’t wait for Isobel to answer when she entered the enclosure with Patrick, but cut another sack loose and began to rifle through it.

“Aye, they kept us alive and fed fer the first year after the crops failed.” It was Isobel who spoke. Patrick remained silent, still staring at the book under Tristan’s arm.

“What are ye looking fer?” he finally asked, while Tristan discarded an assortment of roots, two woolen earasaids hand-dyed in different shades of green and brown, a bundle of spun flax shirts, and three pewter lavers. Nothing that could not have come from any Highland home.

“Bel,” John called out, holding up a small brooch that glimmered in the sun. “Have a look at this. I think it is silver!”

Isobel went to him and reached for the delicate clip, but Tristan seized it from John’s fingers first. He stared at it, not believing the evidence of his own eyes.

“Ye have seen it before, then?” Patrick asked quietly.

Tristan nodded. “ ’Tis my aunt Maggie’s.” He looked up, setting his eyes on the cattle, the bags of goods all meant to help support the children his father had made into orphans. He couldn’t help but smile. Never in his wildest imaginings would he have suspected his father of giving aid to the bairns of his most hated enemy. Could he have been wrong about Callum MacGregor all these years? This was not the work of a prideful warrior. This was mercy. This was compassion.

“What are ye saying?” Isobel asked faintly, drawing a step nearer to him. “That all this is from the MacGregors?”

“Aye,” he told her, proud to be one for the first time.

“No.” She shook her head at him and pulled away when he reached his hand out to her face. “I do not believe it.”

“Dinna’ be angry,” he said gently, moving closer. “I know ’tis hard fer ye to accept these things from my kin. But it bodes well.”

“Fer who?” she asked, looking up at him.

“Fer us.” He swept forward, taking her hands in his and bringing them between both their chests. “Dinna’ ye see, Isobel? These things prove that my kin are fergivin’. My faither and his sister spent long years in a Campbell dungeon to pay fer their faither’s crimes. I feared his heart would be ferever turned against ye, but he knows yer faither’s bairns are innocent.”

Tears filled her eyes and broke his heart.

“Dinna’ weep, fair Iseult, I will dash yer fears to pieces. I will change the things that sadden ye to things that give yer heart joy. I told ye,” he said, hooking his mouth into a gallant grin, “ ’tis what I do best.”

Satisfied with the soft smile he pulled from her, he turned to Patrick. “Let me bring the goods to Dumfries fer trade. I know their value and can get ye a fairer price.” He released Isobel’s hands and raised his to her brother when Patrick looked about to refuse. “Yer hands will be missed here, and the heaviest labor would fall to Cam. If I go, ye’ll no’ have to worry aboot the crops.”

“Aye,” Patrick said, tossing a knowing glance at Isobel. “I can worry about my sister with ye instead.”

Tristan discarded his concern with a wave of his hand. “Cam can come with us, then,” he said, not bothering to
deny that he meant to bring Isobel with him. “We will no’ stay a day longer than necessary. I give ye my word nae harm will come to either of them.”

Patrick mulled it over for a few moments, then crooked his finger at Tristan, beckoning him to follow him a short distance away. Tristan followed, and when they were out of earshot of the others, Patrick turned to him. “Cameron has informed me that ye have given yer heart to my sister.”

“I have,” Tristan admitted quietly, feeling a bit like a heel before him. “Fergive me fer no’ payin’ the respect ye’re due and comin’ to ye first.”

“It is quite all right.” Patrick let him off easily with a pat on the back and his first smile of the day. “I was not surprised to hear it. In truth, I am more astonished that she does not know how deeply ye care fer her.”

“I was no’ aware of it myself until recently.”

“Hell”—Patrick cocked a dubious brow—“even I was aware of it.”

“And ye didna’ toss me oot on my arse?”

“Ye are a good man, Tristan. Ye are fair and honest and merciful. In truth, I liked ye from the first day we met and ye did not betray Tamas to Isobel.” They smiled together, remembering the lad’s sling slipping secretively into his belt.

“But what of yer family?” Patrick sobered. “Sending us supplies is one thing. Giving yer heart to Archibald Fergusson’s daughter is another.”

“I dinna’ know the answer to that. It is a road I will travel when I come to it. But this I do know. I want to protect her and make her happy. I want my kin to be yer kin, bound by our marriage never to cause ye harm again but to come to yer aid if ye ever need them.”

“I would be grateful fer that.” Patrick smiled again, and Tristan thought how much he would like his brother Rob, for their passion to look after their own was the same. “Are ye asking me fer her hand then, Tristan MacGregor?”

“I am.”

“Ye have it with my blessing.” Patrick looked over his shoulder at his sister. “She loves it here. She will not want to leave.”

Turning to sweep his eyes over the small manor house in the center of nowhere, Tristan nodded. “I love it as well. We will visit here often.”

“Verra well, then.” Patrick took him by the shoulders and patted them. “Go to Dumfries, get me the fairest price on the goods, and keep my sister and brother safe.”

“Ye have my word.”

T
he royal burgh of Dumfries, Isobel told Tristan as they crossed the bridge over the River Nith, was well known for its bloody history. The English had plundered and occupied the town on more than seven different occasions. When political wars turned religious, one of the burgh’s grand castles surrendered to the Presbyterian Covenanters after a thirteen-day siege that left the place in ruins to this very day, and Dumfries a haven for enemies of a Catholic king.

Tristan shook his head, turning his eyes to the road and away from Isobel. And they said the Scottish were barbaric.

“It is a fortunate thing that ye did not wear yer plaid here, Tristan,” Cam called out from the back of the cart. “It trumpets that ye are Catholic.”

“Blendin’ in is better than fightin’ a man simply because ye believe a different way,” Tristan replied over his shoulder. As he turned back to the road, Isobel’s smile caught his eye.

“Did yer uncle teach ye that?”

“Nae, lass,” he said, helpless to do anything but smile back at her, despite the pain of his words. “I learned that lesson on my own.”

Her smile faded and then returned softer, understanding all that he did not say. “Later, ye will tell me the tale?”

“Aye,” he promised, wanting to tell her all; truths he’d kept hidden from everyone, even himself. “Later, when we are alone.”

He couldn’t wait. He wanted to kiss the blush off her freckled nose, feel her body in his arms surrendering her prejudices and her passions to him while he tasted the honey of her mouth and then every other inch of her. He had to find a priest—and fast, if he intended to do the honorable thing.

“What convinced ye no’ to wed Andrew Kennedy?”

She glanced at him through the corner of her eye as he slowed the cart to a halt in front of the first inn they came upon. “Who says I am not going to wed him?”

He laughed at her teasing smile. “I do,” he said, just missing her fingers as she slipped from his grasp and onto the ground.

“And who are ye that I should call off my wedding?”

Vaulting from the cart, he skirted the horse and stepped up behind her. “I’m the man who’s tryin’ his damnedest to be good enough fer ye.”

She turned to him as he reached up to catch the first sack Cam tossed him. He looked at her over the bundle before he hauled it to the side. “The man who wants to give ye a better life than the one ye have now.”

“I have a good life,” she was quick to tell him.

“Ye work too damn hard. I’ve watched ye balin’ hay and plowin’ soil until ye can barely breathe.”

She lifted her hands to the next sack, prepared to catch it. “The work needs to be done.”

“The only work ye should be doin’,” he caught the bag before it reached her, “is tending to yer babes and yer husband.”

She actually laughed straight at him. Tristan didn’t know whether to be offended or delighted.

“Beneath all that flair and finesse,” she said, her green eyes twinkling beneath the sun, “yer ways of thinking are really quite antiquated—and irritating.”

He stared at her, mute. Antiquated? Irritating? Him? He nearly careened to the ground when Cam flung another sack over the side and hit him in the shoulder.

Isobel retrieved the fallen bundle and tossed it into the pile with the rest. “Women are capable of doing more than just tending to babes and husbands. If my family is going to starve if the harvest fails, I will do whatever it takes to see that it does not. I will not stay in bed, lazy and useless but to my husband at night.”

He nodded at her, smiling. How could he dispute her words when he found them so refreshing, so honest, so… Isobel? Mayhap his ways of thinking when it came to a wife were indeed antiquated. He knew enough women in Camlochlin who could wield a sword as well as any man. Isobel possessed the strength of those women he’d always loved and admired: his mother and sister, Lady Claire, his Aunt Maggie. They would approve of Isobel once they came to know her.

“I stand corrected.” He gave her a slight bow and came back with a dimple flashing. He caught another load from the cart and swung it to her. “Now let us discuss what is irritatin’ aboot me, aye?”

She looked a little stunned that he’d knocked the wind
out of her, and that he found her expression so vastly amusing. “What have I done now?” He chanced a grin when her eyes smoldered. “I have trust in yer strength.”

“And I have trust in yers.” She laughed, this time with genuine humor, as she hurled the bag back at him.

“Last one,” Cam called out from the cart. When he hefted the bag in his arms, a muffled voice shouted at him from inside.

“That is my nose ye are squeezing!”

Cam dropped the bag and stared at it, eyes wide. Tristan leaped back up, hauled the sack to him, and tore it open. When Tamas’s head popped out, Isobel let out a string of oaths that made the lad cringe in his spot.

“What the hell do ye think ye are doing, Tamas Fergusson?”

“I wanted to come along and—”

“Did ye tell Patrick?” she shouted up at him. “Ye did not tell him, did ye! He is going to be sick with worry! Oh, ye little—”

“Isobel.” Tristan stopped her, giving her a subdued look. “He’s here now. We’ll trade the wares and return home as quickly as we can. Tonight, he will sleep on the floor beside yer bed.” He helped Tamas out of the sack and gave him a soft clip on the back of the head.

After exchanging glares with the lad, Tristan paid two of the inn’s stable hands handsomely to carry the bags inside, and then to their rooms.