Authors: Lee Brazil
Johnnie grunted and dropped to
the hard ground, leaning against the same twisted tree. Darkness had fallen,
and a thin sliver of moon provided the only illumination as they stared at MacFarland's
farm, where a dim yellow glow lit one lone cheerless window.
The thin stretch of trees where
they lurked didn't provide much shelter, but the MacFarlands didn't seem to be
providing much security for this farm on the edge of their holding either. The
night was cool, but Ian and Johnnie hadn't considered risking a fire. Their thick
wool tartans blocked the cold of the night from seeping into their flesh.
Unfamiliar sounds abounded in the
MacFarland lands. Strange animal noises, odd muted shrieks, and moments of
piercing stillness alternated with the bleating of sheep in the fields. Eerie
breezes that were colder than the night air stirred the leaves and vanished as
quickly as they came.
Ian shivered as a cold gust of
air fluttered his tartan. His flesh prickled with awareness and he senses were
on high alert. He'd endured the sensation of being watched since they'd left
their horses at the Boden bothy where Brodick had stitched his injury years
before. He kept his gaze squarely on the farmstead, on the door that Brodick
would use when he left his kinsman's dwelling. The only time he'd glanced away,
a strange light had flickered in the shadows. Will-o-the-wisp? Fairy lights?
Old Clootie on the search for lost souls? It was clear that something
otherworldly lingered here, testified to by the wolves that howled in the absence
of normal woodland sounds.
It was an eerie enough
coincidence that the man he'd come to spirit away was attending a birthing.
Both he and Andrew had felt that Agnes's pregnancy was a suitable excuse for
the kidnapping of her brother, but neither had felt a birth required a doctor
in reality. Hadn't women been birthing children without doctors since the dawn
of earth?
"He's still there. The bairn
hasn't come yet. He'll stay as long as it takes." Johnnie interrupted Ian's
reverie. That's the kind of man Brodick had grown to be, softhearted, Andrew
called him. Ian didn't care. He admired Brodick's dedication to medicine,
though he didn't at all understand the need to cure that didn't recognize clan
lines.
Ian accepted an oatcake his
younger brother pulled from his sporran. "We'll wait." He'd waited
five years, a few hours wouldn't matter.
"Why is this particular
doctor so important?" Johnnie stared in disgust at the oatcake before
biting into it glumly.
Because he's mine
, whispered his heart. His head spewed the agreed upon
story that Andrew had crafted. "He's Agnes's brother. She wants him at the
birthing next month."
"The MacFarlands won't take
this easy. They'll come after him," Johnnie mumbled through a mouth full
of dried oatcake.
Ian crumbled his cake, unable to
bring himself to eat the thing. He was growing soft as well. Spending months
each year in Aberdeen, dining in fine pubs and restaurants had spoiled his
appreciation for simple country fare. "They didn't come after Agnes."
"She's a bonny lass, but
just a girl. This 'un is an educated man, a healer. They'll want him
back."
"They might, but they won't
know he's gone until it's too late." He pulled his gaze from the door to
meet his brother's eyes, careful not to look at that tiny yellow light where
none should be. Fey
…
the MacFarlands were
rumored to be descended of ancient races, possibly even sidhe. Lying in
Brodick's arms in his tiny Aberdeen rooms near the college, it was easy enough
to believe he'd been bewitched or ensorcelled. The passion between them raged
bright as ever five years into their liaison, and that alone amazed a man who'd
sought his pleasures without commitment for three decades, but somehow,
Brodick's tales of new worlds and ancient lands had sparked a fascination in
his breast. They would travel. "Aye," he murmured. And perhaps in
their travels they would find a land where their love wouldn’t be a sin.
Johnnie straightened slowly.
"Bedamned. It's another of Andrew's plots!"
Ian nodded shortly. "Aye.
We've labored over the particulars these past three years."
"I wondered why I was here.
He's a frail sort, from the looks of him. Ye wouldna have had any trouble
taking him on yer own."
"He's not so frail as he
seems, Johnnie boy. But yer right. Yer here ta tell the world how we
died."
Johnnie blinked in the darkness,
mouth dropping open in an "o" of surprise. "Died?"
"Died." More screams
rent the night, these distinctly human and emanating from the farm below. Ian
straightened, turning his gaze back to the lonely little house. "Agnes has
birthed three babes all on her own. Why would she demand her brother's presence
for the fourth?"
"I…Are ye sure Andrew knows
about this? Ye aren't sending me empty-handed back into the lion's den are
ye?"
Ian snorted. "Do ye think
I'm able to plan such a thing? Andrew is the brains in this clan; I'm the
brawn. It's all his doing. All ye need to worry about is taking this"—he
drew a burned pair of tartans, one Kerr red and one MacFarland green, out of
his satchel—"back home. Andrew will moan loudly about the death of his brother,
and damn the MacFarlands again."
"And what happens to ye,
Ian? And the doctor? Do we never see ye again?"
"We go to Aberdeen, where
Brodick has his post at the hospital, where everyone already thinks he's going
when he leaves here anyway. By the time the MacFarlands realize their doctor is
missing, he and I will be on ship to New York in the colonies."
A frown furrowed Johnnie's brow
as he worked it out. "Won't they think him dead?"
"Not if ye take the tartans
back to Andrew immediately. It'll take a little longer for word to get back to
MacFarland."
"They aren't stupid, Ian.
They'll see our tracks. Won't they be suspicious?"
Ian shrugged. "They might. But
by then, it will be too late. They won't go to the new world after him, and
they can't blame the Kerr family without proof. If ye and Andrew stick by the
story that we went to kidnap him for Agnes's birthing, and the fire struck on
the way back, they havena choice but to let it go."
Slowly nodding, Johnnie
continued, "I just have one more question."
Exasperated, Ian scowled at his
brother. "Awful damned nosy, aren't ye?" Even in the dark, he could
see Johnnie's flush.
"Why?" Johnnie
demanded, bullheadedly determined to get all his answers, it seemed.
Ian shrugged. "He's
mine." Speaking the words aloud to someone other than Brodick felt good.
Johnnie grunted. "I thought
ye'd given that up."
Sighing, Ian slouched lower
against the tree and pulled the plaid closer about his shoulders. "Can ye
give up visiting Old Maggie's place and lying with the fair lasses,
Johnnie?"
"'Tisn't the same, Ian. What
ye do…‘tis a sin."
"Fornication is a sin too,
Johnnie. But if it makes ye feel any better, I've given up sinning with anyone
but the doctor."
Johnnie sat in silence. Ian
risked a glance at his brother. "Do ye hate me then, for the sin?"
"I canna believe that Andrew
approves."
Chuckling mirthlessly, Ian
fingered the thin sharp blade of his dirk. "He does, though. I’m nearly
certain he thinks the MacFarlands have laid a spell or a curse upon us. It is
the same for him and Agnes as it is with me and Brodick. One look into those
blue eyes and I was lost." He regretted the loss of Johnnie's esteem, but
he could no more choose his clan over Brodick than he could choose celibacy.
"If my laird gives his
blessing, then I canna hold back my own." Uncertainty still laced
Johnnie's voice, but there was no condemnation in his hearty shoulder clasp.
"What now?"
"Now, we wait for this
stubborn bairn to be born, and my love to get his arse out here."
"I'll get to meet him,
then?"
"I'd planned to knock ye
senseless and leave the burned plaids at the bothy, set it afire for ye to
find, but if ye can pretend ta be suitably grieved over my demise, I'll
introduce ye and ye can walk on to the bothy with us before I strike ye."
He stifled his laugh at Johnnie's
wince. "Do ye hae to strike me? Canna I just make an untimely call of
nature?"
He Could Admit That
"Are ye so sure then that
yer man will take kindly to being abducted?"
Ian grunted. The damned noises in
this eerie place would surely cover any sound they made. "'Tisn't
abduction if he comes willingly."
"Will he?" It seemed
almost as though Johnnie wanted to assault Brodick.
Casting a doubtful glance at his
younger brother, Ian nodded. "Aye. He's prepared. When the bairn has
arrived, he'll come out that door, mount up and head for the path. Did ye think
we could overtake a man on horseback without his consent?"
"I thought ye had a
plan."
"This is it."
The dim light increased
fractionally as the door of the homestead swung open. A slight figure stepped
out into the farmyard. It was just a shadow, no features could be
distinguished, but Ian knew by the sudden singing of his blood and rapid patter
of his heart that the man leaving the farm was Brodick. "Soon…" he whispered,
rubbing his palm over the thin scar on his chest again.
"Ian!" Johnnie
whispered urgently. "He's goin' the other way!"
Of course he would. His clansmen
would expect him to return to the village where he had a small cottage and
tended the clan's ills when he wasn't in Aberdeen. "He'll ride out of
sight and circle around ta meet us."
He will
, he promised his
rapidly tripping heart. A cold sweat broke out on his brow. A lingering doubt
about their plan sent a chill down his spine. He stiffened his back and pressed
his lips tight together. Brodick would be at the bothy when they arrived.
"Let's go."
"Go? If all we were going to
do is sit here in the cold and entertain the spirits, why did we not just await
the man at the bothy?"
Because I wanted to be close
to him
…
because I still canna believe
that it's finally going to be real?
"So I could knock ye on yer head
and leave ye in the woods where the MacFarlands wouldna find ye," he snarled.
"An' I still might!"
Pulling the plaid closer about
himself, he pushed upright and turned his back on the farm, heading back to the
bothy where Brodick would come.
***
Johnnie muttered under his breath
the whole way back, about the cold, about the plan, about the weird noises, and
about the strange otherworldly aura of the MacFarland farm. Ian stalked
steadily forward, his heart beating more solidly, less panicked with each step
closer to the bothy. Brodick would be there. No way had the man changed his
mind in the months since they'd last met in Aberdeen. Not after he'd proven
himself a solid and faithful lover over the years.
The quiet familiar nicker of
horses reached his ears before the bothy appeared in the darkness. His skin
prickled in familiar arousal. He stopped walking, eyes searching the darkness.
Brodick was near, he could feel it. His mouth stretched in a grin so huge he
thought his lip would split. Johnnie crashed into his back. "God's blood,
Johnnie! Are ye this observant on the battlefield?" Ian staggered forward
as a man appeared from the darkness and caught him as he stumbled.
"I've got ye." His
lover's voice was a sweet husky whisper in the sudden stillness.
Warmth spread in a weakening wave,
and tension left his body. "Aye, Brodick, that ye do."
"Who's this, then?"
Brodick ducked his head toward Johnnie, who had finally fallen into blessed
silence.
"'Tis my brother Johnnie. He
wanted to meet ye before we left." Ian glanced back over his shoulder to
see that Johnnie had fallen back a few steps and was studying Brodick with
intensity.
"Ye were supposed to knock
him out."
"I'd rather ye didna."
Johnnie found his voice again. "So ye are the MacFarland who's bewitched
my brother?"
Brodick's low chuckle started a
fire in Ian's belly, stirring lust and emotion alike. "Tend the horses,
Johnnie. I’m still considering the benefits ta knocking ye out."
Johnnie grunted, but he obeyed,
and Ian was alone with his lover again. At last. "I started a fire
inside."
Ian didn't answer, just nudged
Brodick in the direction of the tiny hut. Brodick stepped backward, as sure
footed in the dark as any cat, or demon, or even old Clootie himself.
In seconds they were inside the
rough shelter, and Ian had Brodick exactly where he wanted him, in his arms and
pressed tight to his body. Thank God the man had set aside the English trouser
he wore in Aberdeen and wore his family plaid with the linen shirt. "Ye
are a bonny lad, Brodick," he muttered against damp lips as he loosened
the wool garment with a flick of his wrist. The plaid fell in a puddle of
greens and blues and reds to the ground, but Brodick grasped his wrist,
stilling him as he reached for the fine cock that he'd dreamed of.