Read Highland Surrender Online
Authors: Dawn Halliday
Highland Surrender (11 page)
“Good.” His voice was tight, but he held still for her as she applied the stinging medicine, neither flinching away nor complaining, as most patients were wont to do with a wound of this magnitude—more proof of the strength of his will.
Even so, as evidenced by his paleness and the tightness of his features, it was plain that he was hurting. In an attempt to divert his attention from the pain, she asked, “Are you happy to be home?”
There was a long pause before he spoke. “Yes. Though I wish I could have arrived in grander fashion.”
“Why?”
“How does it look for a leader to return home flat on his back after having been shot?”
“Brave, perhaps?”
He scoffed. “Or weak. I wanted there to be fanfare. A celebration. I wanted to show the people that Elizabeth and I were home. That we were here to stay, that we were ready to lead.”
“You speak as though you were already married.”
“I could have been,” he said, “but I thought it would be better to marry here. If she marries me at Camdonn Castle, it will give her a greater sense of belonging, and the people a stronger sense that she belonged.”
Ceana tilted her head, gently rubbing the inflamed area around the edges of the wound. “That is a wise justification. I think you are right.”
“I am not well loved,” Cam said quietly.
Ceana almost choked.
Not well loved
was an understatement of grand proportions. “Why do you think that is?”
Not well loved
was an understatement of grand proportions. “Why do you think that is?”
“I have been home seldom, and when I have been here, I have been distracted by personal dilemmas unrelated to my leadership.” He firmed his lips. “But that will change now.”
“Will it?”
“Yes. There is nothing more important to me than the earldom. Than my tenants. I spent years stupidly ignoring both, but no longer. My intention is to spend the remainder of my days on Scottish soil, working to improve the lives of the people who occupy my lands. I wish to return this estate to its former glory.”
Ceana paused in her ministrations to stare at him. She’d known a number of Scottish nobles in her time, and the vast majority of them were more concerned about their relations with the powerful English rather than the welfare of their own people. “Truly?”
“Yes.”
Ceana believed in his sincerity and she admired his aim, but she also pitied him. The tide had long ago turned against him, and to coax it to shift again would be nearly as difficult as reining the moon and forcing it to change direction.
A tentative knock interrupted her thoughts, and she met Cam’s eyes. He took a fortifying breath and turned his head toward the door. “Come in.”
The door opened to reveal the most elegant young woman Ceana had ever seen, a slightly built, delicate creature with cascading blond curls, dressed in skirts of rose pink festooned by yards upon yards of exquisite lace. She reeked of foreignness.
It could be none other than Cam’s English bride. Lady Elizabeth.
CHAPTER FIVE
L
ady Elizabeth glided to the opposite side of the bed from Ceana, concern lending a pink tint to her creamy complexion. Cam smiled up at her and spoke in English. “I am so glad you escaped unscathed, Elizabeth.”
ady Elizabeth glided to the opposite side of the bed from Ceana, concern lending a pink tint to her creamy complexion. Cam smiled up at her and spoke in English. “I am so glad you escaped unscathed, Elizabeth.”
He slid his eyes toward Ceana, as if wondering whether she understood. Of course she did. Her return smile communicated that fact. She tried to keep the bitterness from it, but she feared her expression resembled a snarl. His assumption that she was ignorant of the English language was insulting, especially after their conversation about her studies.
Furthermore, this English girl, a youthful lady with such a sweet voice, delicate figure, and rich, beautiful garments, made her feel dirty and coarse in comparison. Ceana thought she’d long ago overcome such ridiculous notions, but there they were, rearing their ugly heads.
Lady Elizabeth was—outwardly, in any case—far superior to herself. Why had Cam wasted his time kissing Ceana when he had such perfection at his fingertips?
She was jealous. How utterly pitiful. She couldn’t remember experiencing that despicable emotion since . . .
No
. Hastily, she pushed the memory away.
. Hastily, she pushed the memory away.
“Oh, my lord,” Elizabeth murmured in a lilting voice. She clasped her hands in front of her. “I was so very,
very
frightened for you.”
very
frightened for you.”
She fluttered her fingers in a dismissive wave at Ceana, and Ceana stared at her in challenge, rooting herself in her position on the edge of the bed. She was no servant, and she refused to be sent away like one.
Elizabeth’s eyebrows drew into a frown above cornflower blue eyes as her cool stare landed on Ceana. “You may go,” she said. “I shall ring if his lordship requires anything else.”
Ceana crossed her arms over her chest and proved her fluency in the lady’s language with her response. “Oh, I’ll not be leaving. Not yet.” She cut a glance at Cam. “Not till I’ve finished with ‘his lordship.’ ”
“Elizabeth, this is Ceana MacNab,” Cam said. “She’s the woman who found me. She is a healer from a renowned family—her grandmother has kept about every person in the Glen alive at one time or another. Now she is gone, and Ceana has come to take her place. Ceana, meet my betrothed, Lady Elizabeth Grant.”
Elizabeth pressed slender fingers to her bosom. “Oh! I am so sorry, Mrs. MacNab. I thought you were a—”
“Maid?” Ceana shrugged. “Aye, well, that’s understandable, I suppose. And that’d be ‘Miss’ MacNab. I’ve no husband, nor do I ever intend to have one.”
Elizabeth’s blond eyebrows arched. “Oh? Why is that?”
“MacNab women never marry,” Cam supplied, his lips twisting as he met Ceana’s eyes.
Ceana tore her gaze from the earl. “Aye, it’s true. We never do. My mother never married, nor did my grandmother before her, nor my great-grandmother, who was—”
Elizabeth released a little gasp. “You are illegitimate?”
Ceana smirked. “Aye, it’s true. Bastard daughters, all of us.”
“Oh, my.” Wide-eyed with interest, Elizabeth studied Ceana, and Ceana smiled. The green-eyed monster slithered away, and Ceana locked it deep inside her as she gazed at the younger woman. Something told her there was more to this lady than met the eye.
Cam’s cleared throat drew the women’s attention back to him.
Elizabeth sighed and reached toward him. “Does it hurt very much, my lord?”
“Not so much,” he soothed, covering her hand with his. “Thanks to Ceana.”
Elizabeth cut her a glance. “How fortuitous you were the one to find him.”
“Indeed,” Ceana said. “If I didn’t, I warrant he’d be stone-cold dead by now.”
Elizabeth’s slender throat moved as she swallowed. “Oh.”
Cam frowned at Ceana. “You’re frightening her.”
Ceana fought the compulsion to laugh as yet another knock sounded at the door, this one louder.
“Come in,” Cam called.
An older, heavyset man entered the room. If Elizabeth’s foreignness was apparent, Ceana could smell the English on this one. He possessed a red complexion and a round face with a bulbous nose. He wore a stylish wig and a patch above his lip. His cheeks were rouged—quite unnecessarily, given his skin’s natural flush—and his lips painted into a perfect moue.
“Ah!” he bellowed. He came to a halt beside Elizabeth, towering over her petite frame. “Good gracious, Camdonn. It is so very fine to see you in the flesh after the drama of yesterday’s events. Elizabeth and I were so worried when you did not return last night. Thank goodness that . . . Oh, dear, I forgot his name”—he waved a big, blunt-fingered hand effeminately—“that burly Scottish man . . .”
“Alan MacDonald,” Elizabeth reminded him gently.
“Ah, yes, thank you, Lizzy, dear. Thank goodness the MacDonald chap came to tell us you had been found and would return forthwith!”
“Thank you for your concern, Your Grace, but I have fared very well indeed,” Cam said, all gentlemanly politeness. “I am relieved neither you nor Lady Elizabeth was hurt by those villains. I only regret they caused you such distress so near to my home.”
“Do you have any idea who they were?” asked the Englishman.
Cam shook his head somberly. “None at all. But I’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“I am certain you will.”
Ceana sighed. Cam’s shoulder was oozing. It required her attention, and she’d delayed long enough. It was time to take advantage of her healer’s prerogative.
Clapping her hands, she rose from her perch at the edge of the bed. “Well, then, enough blathering. Out with you both.”
Elizabeth nodded, but the Englishman scowled at her. “What did you say?”
“I said you must leave. I must continue to clean the earl’s wound and apply medicinals, and you’ve wasted enough of my time.”
The man’s mouth dropped open and his astonished gaze moved to Cam, who raised his good hand in a placating gesture. “I fear my doctor has a tendency to be officious.”
The man’s brows shot halfway up his tall forehead. “Doctor?”
“Your Grace, this is Ceana MacNab.” Cam continued on with his description of her healing prowess and pedigree, as he had with Elizabeth, but Ceana just stared haughtily at the man, drumming her foot on the floor planks and reveling in the tapping sound it made.
The man looked down his nose at her. “Come, Elizabeth.” He glanced at Cam. “We will see you soon, Camdonn. Again, we are so thankful to see you well. If you need anything . . . anything at all . . . please feel free to call on me or one of my men.”
“Of course. Thank you.”
The man pressed his hand on the small of Elizabeth’s back and nudged her out.
“The likes of him must be stopped if we want King James to prevail.”
Rob set his currycomb on a bench and turned to face Bram MacGregor. Bram was a brawny man with shoulder-length thick black curls and a bushy beard. He had come from Edinburgh to work the earl’s land ten years ago. He hadn’t lived in the Glen for generations, like Rob’s family and most of the other residents, and that made him an outsider. It also meant his views were worldlier and more insurgent than the majority of the earl’s tenants. Nevertheless, due in part to his warriorlike demeanor and in part to his engaging manner, the people of the Glen listened to him.
He and Rob had formed an alliance of sorts. Though his family hailed from these parts, Rob had spent most of his life in the busy port town of Glasgow. Life on the docks had given Rob a wider worldview, and he and Bram MacGregor understood each other in a way no one else in the Glen could.
“You should guard your tongue,” Rob said quietly. “Do not speak out so openly against the earl. Remember you are his tenant, and the reprisals will be severe should he hear you’re rabble-rousing.”
Bram’s lip curled. “Nay, Rob. I needn’t rouse any rabble. They all hate him. Ye’re one of the few who hasn’t openly slandered him. Even his personal guard, Angus MacLean, has turned against him, when last year he trailed after him like a puppy.”
Angus MacLean—no near relation to Rob, thank God—possessed the intelligence of a gnat. Calling him a puppy was far too generous. Rob took a measured breath. “I haven’t enough evidence of the man’s character to make a judgment. And neither have you.”
“Och.” Bram spat on the dirt. “Come. He’s a Whig and a Presbyterian. He bows to the Hanoverian bastard. Hell, he supports a government that forbids us to bear arms.”
“He has a right to his politics. He’s well aware that there be Jacobites on his lands, and he doesn’t deny us our right to remain.” Nor had he upheld the newly passed Disarming Act.
“Aye, because he’s afraid to face us.”
“You cannot believe that.”
“I’m certain of it. We could overcome him with no effort at all, and he knows it, so he pretends to be at peace.”
Rob wasn’t so sure. The earl had never been popular among the people of the Glen. He’d been absent for the past half a year, but he’d been in residence the year before that. Granted he’d been distracted by Alan MacDonald’s wife during the majority of that time, but Rob had observed the man more closely than most. And though the earl might never completely agree with the Jacobite cause, Rob sensed he preferred peace and tolerance over strife and war.
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