Chapter Three

Torr Cinnteag

The Highlands

1302

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She feared that the unusually frigid autumn was only a portent of a brutal winter to come.

Ailsa tipped her face skyward, closing her eyes as fine, cold flakes settled against her cheeks. The first snow of the season was gentle, each flake kissing her skin with a delicate peck before melting away. For a moment, the quiet world around her felt as still as a held breath. She opened her eyes slowly, watching the flurries fall around her, hoping the snowfall remained as soft and picturesque all day.

The Sinclairs of Torr Cinnteag could not withstand a harsh winter.

The rolling hills surrounding the keep had long since shed summer’s warmth and were now bare and windswept, with patches of frost clinging stubbornly to the earth every day. The landscape had prematurely faded to dull grays and browns, a sorry prelude to a possibly mean winter. In a year that should have allowed them peace and comfort, with the uneasy truce struck between the English and Scots, it seemed the land and nature itself had decided to defy them. Cold rains had ruined much of their harvest, and what little they’d managed to salvage wouldn’t last through any long, miserable winter season.

Already, they were rationing what little grain they had, and men, women, and children grew thinner with each passing day. If this snow hardened into a winter as merciless as the seers and signs predicted, Ailsa wondered how many of them would still be here come spring.

Not intending to court useless worry, Ailsa pulled her cloak more snugly against her neck and turned, her gaze surveying the landscape surrounding Torr Cinnteag, while she waited for her maid, Anwen, to catch up.

As it often did, her gaze settle first on the Sinclair keep, which stood breathtakingly atop a rugged promontory overlooking the wild beauty of Cuil Bay at Loch Linnhe below. Thick walls worn by wind and rain appeared a steely gray under the overcast sky, their rough stone blending into the surrounding cliffs that cascaded down toward the water. Despite the forbidding look of the keep from afar, there was a natural beauty to the rugged landscape, where the stony outcrop met the expanse of the loch. Ailsa never tired of the view.

Beyond the keep, pockets of Sinclair farmland dotted the hillsides sectioned off by simple stone barriers. The fields lay empty, harvested months ago and quiet now, waiting for renewed life in spring. The bay itself, though often turbulent in winter, today lay almost still beneath the light snowfall. Small boats were moored along the shoreline and might see more frequent use as fishing became more necessary.

Beyond the keep to the south lay an ancient pine forest, its branches dusted with early snow, forming a natural windbreak for Torr Cinnteag.

Anwen Lamont climbed up the rise in the path toward Ailsa, toward the northern village.

Though she looked much younger, Anwen was more than twice Ailsa’s age, and had been first her nurse and later her maid, but always her confidante and friend, though truthfully a very bossy one. She was broad-shouldered and sturdy, built in a way that suggested an unyielding hardiness—which was not the case at all—yet her appearance was softened by an effortless smile and a lively, expressive face. Her cheeks were perpetually rosy, contrasting beautifully with her otherwise flawless skin. She was tall, nearly of a height with Tavis Sinclair, Ailsa’s brother and laird of Torr Cinnteag, and sported a gap between her front teeth that was ever on display as Anwen was rarely without the appearance of a smile. In quiet contemplation or even in moments of angst or fear, Anwen appeared to be grinning. “Tis simply how my face is fashioned,” she’s said once to a young Ailsa when questioned about her constant, peculiar expression.

Anwen breathed heavily now, puffs of white air dancing and dissipating in front of her face.

“I dinna ken what the hurry is,” she groused, blowing a wisp of her brown hair off her forehead. She stopped at Ailsa’s side, possibly pleased for the reprieve and glanced down at the northern village, where dozens of sleepy cottages sat silently under the gentle fall of snow. “He’ll get nae better nae worse ere we get there, sure enough,” she said, referring to Mallaig, the aged and frail farmer to whom they were bringing bread and mutton stew. “Does my bones nae guid, though, I’ll tell ye that, as much as ye have me out of doors with...this,” she said, holding out her hand to catch a few flakes of snow.

“But look, Anwen,” Ailsa, said, directing her gaze behind her. “Is it nae striking, the way the clouds seem to hover right over the keep? And how through the snow ye can still see the blue of the loch?”

Anwen turned but was unimpressed. And though it appeared that she smiled, she said, “Could’ve seen as much from half the windows in the keep. Mayhap in a chamber with a fire.”

Ailsa grinned, even as she knew Anwen was more than half serious. “And we’ll get there. We’ve the altar cloths to finish, which is certainly best done near a fire.”

“God bless ye, lass. Aye, near a fire.”

They walked on, tucking their chins into their chests as the snow continued to fall. Mallaig’s cottage was the first they came upon, being closest to the keep and more run-down than any other, owing to Mallaig’s infirmity—which, by Anwen’s way of thinking had gone on long enough; “Be dead already, he should be,” she’d said not long ago, “if he’s nae going to bother living.”

While Ailsa didn’t exactly subscribe to Anwen’s callous view, she did agree with her maid on another complaint she had against the old man: Mallaig sometimes took advantage of his ailment, which was not quite specific enough to be named so that it was generally accounted as aging frailness.

At the worn-down cottage, its exterior walls cracked and peeling, Anwen took the lead, giving a brisk knock before pushing the door open without waiting for an answer.

The cottage door creaked loudly, revealing Mallaig hunched in his usual chair, near enough to the hearth that his wiry, white hair almost blended with the haze of smoke curling from the fire. Deep lines creased his face, giving him a permanently displeased look, though his blue eyes shone bright with pleasure at the company. A moth-eaten plaid was draped over his frail frame, hiding almost everything but his long, knobby fingers, which held the plaid together at his narrow chest.

As they stepped inside, Ailsa held up the small basket she’d brought, lined with cloth to keep the warmth in, revealing a loaf of fresh bread and a crock of mutton stew. “Guid day, Mallaig. We’ve brought ye a bit of bread and—”

“Mutton again?” Mallaig interrupted, disappointment evident in his tone as he leaned forward in his chair, eyeing the basket’s contents skeptically as Ailsa bent and laid it at his feet. “What I really need is a joint of venison. Easier on the teeth, aye?”

Ailsa opened her mouth to reply, but Anwen cut in. “Aye, ye’d need a fine stag, then, wouldn’t ye? But we’ve got bread and stew, just the thing to warm ye,” she said. “Bread’s fresh-baked, and soft enough for a bairn, so I ken it’ll do ye fine.”

Mallaig sighed theatrically, then looked purposefully at Ailsa, his expression as doleful as it was hopeful. “If only ye’d a drop of ale, or at least some mulled wine for the chill,” he suggested.

Ailsa smiled politely at him. “Maybe next time, Mallaig, when—”

“Nae next time,” Anwen cut her off, crossing her arms over her ample chest. “Warm enough, ye are. Sitting closer to that fire than ye do your bed, and ye ken the ale’s for healthy men that work to keep the clan fed.” She nodded sharply to underscore her remark. “Try the stew first,” she said to Mallaig as Ailsa put the crock in his hands. “We’ll see if it doesna set ye straight.”

Mallaig gave another small sigh and gingerly took the stew, spooning a bit with a skeptical look.

“Warmer still ye’ll be when we return,” Anwen predicted. “We’ll bring yer peat and stoke yer fire and fine as mulled wine ye’ll be—though ye’ll still have none of that.”

With food in hand, Mallaig now paid scant attention to the women so that Anwen tugged at Ailsa’s arm and inclined her head toward the door.

“My own fire awaits me,” she reminded Ailsa. “Let’s get his peat and get back to the keep.”

Ailsa nodded and leaving Mallaig to his stew, lifted the empty basket, following Anwen to the door. They started toward the peat stacks on the far side of the village, where they were kept near the edge of the bog for easy access. The snow had settled into a steady, fine mist, the flakes now dusting their cloaks as they made their way down the narrow, winding path outside the village.

Anwen chirped the entire time, as she did almost daily, about Mallaig. “A man scarcely past fifty—nae much older than me—needing two women to fetch his food and fuel. Have ye ever heard such a thing?” she muttered, clearly annoyed. “No pride left at all, that one. If I were to sit idle as he does, I’d shame myself to the bone.”

Accustomed to Anwen’s tirades, Ailsa nodded and murmured sounds of assent before attempting to defend the man. “Perhaps he truly is as frail, as incapacitated as he seems,” she offered, though even she had her doubts about Mallaig’s supposed malady.

“Frailty, is it?” Anwen scoffed, stomping a bit heavier with her agitation. “More like laziness. I’ve got a mind that he’d move quick enough if we did bring ale or wine, and dinna set it in his hand but just out of reach.” She shook her head, her cheeks ruddy with the cold and her usual lively expression hardening into one of indignation. “He’d rise out of the chair then, ye mark my words.”

As they reached the peat stacks, Anwen dug in with practiced hands, loading thick, dense clods into the basket Ailsa held, each heavy enough to burn long and steady. “There’s enough to see him through the night and more. And if the old goat complains, I’ll be bringing him barn cats next time, nae peat, though they’d probably bring him more warmth than he deserves.”

Ailsa hid another smile, trying to keep her voice neutral. “I’ve said, Anwen, many times, have I nae, that you dinna need to accompany me to Mallaig’s cottage? I ken the chore annoys ye.”

Anwen laughed outright. “And leave ye to be taken advantage of? Nae. He’d have ye spoon-feeding him and supplying him with the bluidy wine and next ye ken, ye’d be ploughing his runrig and keeping house with him. Och, and yer brother should set him straight. Hear it from the laird and aye, Mallaig’d be singing a different tune...”

On and on she went, grousing now about Ailsa’s brother, Tavis, who in Anwen’s mind, contributed also to Mallaig’s laziness by not putting his foot down.

“I dinna get it,” Anwen went on. “Hard as stone is the laird, suspicious by nature of everyone and everything, and yet he’s nae better than ye, coddling Mallaig as ye do.”

As Ailsa and Anwen made their way back toward Mallaig’s cottage, the familiar path wound quietly through the snowy landscape, edged by the sparse trees of the Little Forest, a stand of pines and bare, knotted oaks flanking the trail. The snow fell thicker here, muting sound and casting a haze across the view ahead. Ailsa pulled her cloak tightly against the chill, only half listening as Anwen droned on.

A slow flash of movement caught Ailsa’s attention, lifting her gaze from the ground.

There, where the trees met the path, a figure materialized out of the soft white haze of snow. At first, she thought it must be one of the Sinclair soldiers, but as he stepped onto the lane, Ailsa’s breath caught in her throat, realizing this was a person unknown to her. She’d lived her entire life at Torr Cinnteag, had never stepped foot off Sinclair land, and she knew every person of the demesne. But not this man.

This man was taller than any man she’d ever known, her own brother included, was broad-shouldered, his clothes dark against the snow, and he moved with a heaviness, a deliberate stride that spoke of either exhaustion or wariness. He was no Sinclair—that much was clear by the unfamiliar cut of his garments and the odd footwear worn. His face was shadowed but there was something about his movement, his very singular presence against the wintery backdrop, that seized her attention so profoundly.

Snow swirled around him, and the sudden cawing of a crow split the silence, the bird's dark shape swooping low near the man. The man’s face came into focus as he pushed back the hood of his unusual cloak, revealing a strong jaw, square and unshaven. Dark and tousled hair clung to his forehead, the front of it dampened by the snow, giving him an untamed aura, heightening a rawness in his appearance that was neither refined nor delicate, but arresting all the same. His gaze seemed to settle with some decisiveness on Ailsa, the blue of his eyes glaring against the muted winter landscape. Though his features were unfamiliar, the weariness and the depth in his gaze struck her as curiously intimate, as if she were not just seeing this stranger for the first time.

No sword hung at his hip. He carried no weapon, not so far as Ailsa could see, carried nothing at all though his hands were fisted with what seemed like urgency at his side.

Anwen, belatedly realizing the man’s presence, drew up beside her, clutching Ailsa’s arm with a gasp. “Who... who do ye think that is?” she whispered, her usual bluster softened to a murmur.

Ailsa didn’t answer, her gaze locked with the stranger’s. She felt her heartbeat quicken with an inexplicable thrill while at the same time a very reasonable apprehension gripped her. This man looked as though he’d walked through hell itself, his expression harsh and yet desperate, and in stark contrast with the softness of fresh snow collecting on his broad shoulders.

She couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. Even as she grasped the danger of his presence and the vulnerability of their position, removed yet from the core of the village and quite a distance from the keep and the house guards, Ailsa’s lips parted in wonder, and she didn’t move. Couldn’t move.

“Why does he stare so at ye?” Anwen asked. “Do ye ken him?”

Ailsa shook her head, unblinking, but did not answer Anwen. She had no answer, or rather couldn’t think, not with his gaze devouring her so. She was aware only of him, and of the powerful pull that kept her frozen in place.

The blue of his eyes was startling, his gaze unyielding, as though he were trying to reconcile what he saw with what he’d known—or expected. She knew nothing of this man, nothing but the way he looked at her, oddly as if she were both his salvation and his undoing. The weight of it left her breathless, and her hand unconsciously rose to her collar, her fingers grazing the soft fur lining of her cloak.

“To the right,” Anwen said urgently, nudging Ailsa in that direction. “We’ll cut through the barley fields. Straight to the keep. Sound the alarm. Jesu , but he’s ?bout to slay ye with that gaze.”

And then the man spoke.

Anwen stiffened and yipped a squeak of fright.

“Hello,” called the man, holding up his hands in a non-threatening manner.

“Mother Mary save us,” breathed Anwen, her grip tightening on Ailsa’s arm. “What manner of speech is that?” She nearly spat, her voice hushed but sharp, each word laced with accusation.

A foreigner, Ailsa concluded with less hostility than Anwen. Neither his deep voice nor the unfamiliar word or language startled her. Though unusual in cadence and tone, the low pitch of his voice did not jar her but rather rolled through her, as would a warm current through icy water.

“Guid day, sir,” Ailsa said, finally finding her own voice. Recalling her role as the laird’s sister, she straightened her shoulders and called out, “Ye’ve come onto Sinclair land, sir. State yer purpose or turn yerself around.”

“Christ, you’re real,” was the man’s curious response in what was decidedly an English tongue. “Thank God. I’m...” He paused and shrugged his wide shoulders, lifting his hand helplessly.

“On yer way, is what ye are,” Anwen insisted. “Off with ye, ere the guards come.”

Ailsa shook her head. “Nae, he needs our help,” she said quietly to her maid, quite sure of her guess.

“Needs to make hisself scarce,” Anwen argued, “before yer brother finds him at Torr Cinnteag.”

The man sighed, holding up his hands in a non-threatening manner as he heard Anwen’s statement. “I’m not a threat to anyone. I just need some...direction.” He grimaced, as if in pain or just now coming to some realization. “Maybe a hospital.”

“We can offer ye victuals and point ye south,” Ailsa offered in a firm voice, “but nae more than that.”

“Lass,” Anwen hissed a warning, yanking again at Ailsa’s cloak. “The laird’ll have yer—”

Anwen stopped speaking and both women gasped now as the man, large and seemingly invincible, slumped to the ground. He’d only just nodded his acceptance of Ailsa’s offer when he bared his teeth, as if fighting back the inevitable, before his blue eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped like a heavy rock, his legs buckling. He pitched forward onto his chest, his cheek smacking against the cold ground.

Ailsa didn’t think but ran to him, ignoring Anwen’s high-pitched warning to stay away. She slid to her knees at his side and tried to turn him over, needing every ounce of strength to do so.

“ Jesu , he’s as big as a horse,” she grumbled, finally managing to shift his dead weight so that he was on his back.

With that done, she sat back, hesitant now to touch him, wondering if the stranger had just expired right before their eyes.

“Is he dead?” Anwen wondered the same thing, hovering over Ailsa’s shoulder.

“I...” she began, lifting her hand to touch him, pulling it back twice before she finally committed to making contact with him. She laid her hand against the soft fabric of his cloak. Beneath her fingers, beneath the smooth, cold material, his chest was rock hard. Staring at his unmoving face, Ailsa pressed down, waiting to feel the beat of his heart.

Beyond the swift beating of her own heart, it took her a moment to recognize signs of life in his. An unexpected burst of relief escaped her, breathed as a sigh, when she felt the slow but regular thud against her palm.

“He lives,” she said excitedly. But what to do for him?

She glanced over her shoulder. “Anwen, return to the keep and fetch a cart and a few men to lift him,” she instructed, lightly slapping at Anwen’s hand when the maid’s eyes widened with shock. “Dinna be like that. We canna leave him here. He is alive now but willna be for long if we simply abandon him.” She thought it prudent to advise, “Dinna say a word about him being English. He’ll be nae threat, nae in his condition. Anwen, promise me.”

“But lass, we canna—”

“We can and we will,” Ailsa demanded. “Simple human decency will see him made well. Let Tavis decide then what’s to be done with him, when he learns he’s English.”

“Playing with fire, ye are,” Anwen cautioned.

“And it will be my difficulty to manage with Tavis, but nae now. Go! Hurry, Anwen. Say only that we found him like this.”

“I willna be—”

“Ye will,” Ailsa ground out between her teeth, knowing precious moments were being wasted. “Now, Anwen. Go!”

?Twas rare that she employed so strict a tone with her maid, but it was occasionally needed to remind Anwen that Ailsa expected to be obeyed.

Ailsa watched Anwen only for a moment as she stomped away before turning her attention back to the unconscious man. She stared at him for quite a while as he slept, serenely unconscious of all the curiosity and concern in the watchful face bent over his.

She thought he might be possessed of bronzed skin but that it was pale now, disposed to his illness or his current frailty, which she determined distractedly was more authentic than Mallaig’s.

Believing herself useless at that moment, for doing nothing for his comfort, Ailsa picked up his closer hand, where it had fallen onto the snow-covered ground. His hand was large, nearly twice the size of her own, but so cold. She began to chafe his flesh between her warmer palms, first one hand and then reaching across his broad body to collect the other, warming it in the same fashion.

Though she shivered with the cold herself, she next removed her cloak and bundled it into a pillow shape, sliding it under his head to distance him from the cold earth.

Exposure to the elements, she prayed, was all that ailed him, and not anything far more serious. There was no visible wound or injury to the man, not that she could see.

Again and again, her gaze strayed to his face, ignoring the unusual garb and boots he wore.

Her brother and laird of the Sinclairs, Tavis, was deemed by many a tittering female to be a handsome man. Will Tulloch, whom Ailsa had been smitten with for quite some time when he’d visited from Clan MacGillewie a few years back, had a face worthy of a woman’s appreciation. Even Swanny, Torr Cinnteag’s robust farrier, had drawn admiring gazes before he’d chosen the smith’s daughter, Clara, to wed.

This man, though, put each of those men to shame with his beauty, Ailsa judged. How extraordinary he was—unconsciousness aside—with so noble a face. She wasn’t sure how he managed to appear so vital and virile in his present lifeless state, but she found she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Still, though, questions abounded about him, who he was, where he’d come from, how he managed to find himself on the very remote Sinclair land.

While she maintained a hold on his left hand, he stirred, causing her to pause her efforts to warm him.

Though his eyes remained closed, his lips moved and soft sounds emerged.

Ailsa bent over him, turning her ear toward his face.

“Don’t let me die,” he murmured weakly. “I need to get home.”

His weakness was evidently great but the desperation in his feeble words was palpable.

“Shh,” she soothed, reaching out a hand, laying her palm against his pale forehead. “All will be well.”

“Rosie,” he murmured.