The Highlander's Promise (Highland Brides, #6)

by Lynsay Sands

Aulay snorted, knowing it wouldn’t have taken all that much picking to get Alick to talk. The lad gossiped like an old woman.

“Do no’ look at me that way,” the MacDonnell said dryly and then pointed out, “She is your sister and was full-grown when I met her. I did no’ make her this way. I just love her the way she is.”

Aulay paused and turned on him with a scowl. Leave it to Rory to be his conscience. His younger brother had been doing that for the last five weeks when it came to his interactions with Jetta and he was growing heartily sick of it. Besides, that was before he’d learned the four horsewomen of the Apocalypse were about to descend on him. Well, three, he supposed. One of them was already here.

“Oh aye, Aulay was a lighthearted and charming devil ere the wound he took to the face,” Acair Buchanan assured Jetta. “Went all solemn and quiet afterward though. I blame that whor—lass,” he corrected himself quickly and rushed on, “that lass he was betrothed to. Tossed him over like bad ale once he was scarred, she did.”

While he’d obeyed Rory’s orders and spoken precious little about their life together, he had told her stories about his childhood and life before her, telling her about his brothers and even about how two of them had met their mates, Edith and Murine.

“And that friend o’ theirs, Lady Jo Sinclair is with them too,” Mavis added with glee. “And oh look! Dougall, Niels, Greer, and the Sinclair are all with them as well.”

Tis the Buchanan blood. It runs strong. All male Buchanans look similar.” “And does Saidh too?” she asked curiously, glancing back over his shoulder toward the door below. “Nay, thank the good Lord,” he said dryly. “Buchanan features do no’ sit well on a female’s face as our poor sister Maighread proved. I love her dearly, but a more unattractive woman I’ve never seen.

“Oh,” Edith murmured, a soft smile curving her lips as she turned to the others and said, “She called him her sweet Aulay.”

“Aye.” One of the blondes sighed. “Is that not wonderful?”

“Did it bother me ere the accident?” she asked anxiously. “Was I unkind or cruel to him about the scar before I lost my memory? Because if I was . . .” “If ye were?” Saidh prompted when she fell silent. “Then I was a fool,” she said sadly. “My husband is the kindest, most considerate man alive, and the scar does not take away from that. He is handsome. The scar merely adds a rakish air to his good looks. If I was too blind or foolish to see that ere hitting my head, then I was a stupid, shallow child.” Much to Jetta’s confusion, Saidh suddenly beamed and tugged her into a firm hug, saying, “Welcome, sister,” as she did.

“I will be glad to see my husband again. I missed him almost the moment he left. But I hope you are not thinking that being there will help spark some memories in me.” Saidh tilted her head and eyed her curiously. “Ye do no’ think it will?” Jetta shook her head. “If seeing and being with the man I obviously love dearly did not spark memories, I do not see how a building could.”

“Ye love him?” “How could I not? He is wonderful,” Jetta said with a wide smile, happy to talk about her husband.

“Aulay is truly wonderful in all ways. I find it hard to believe I was so lucky as to have him to husband.” “But ye do,” Saidh announced firmly. “And I’m going to see it stays that way.”

The words didn’t even make sense to her. Why would Saidh need to see it stayed that way? Was there some question that it wouldn’t?

The women seized on the suggestion like it was a bit of water in the desert, all of them talking and moving at once.

“Mayhap we’ll get lucky and Jetta will turn out to have three or four sisters in need o’ rescuing,” Rory said dryly and when Aulay glanced to him in question, he shrugged and pointed out, “Saidh has run out o’ friends in need o’ rescuing, yet we still have three brothers in need o’ brides.”

And we ha’e four brothers in need o’ brides, no’ three,” Aulay corrected him. “I was considering you already attached thanks to Jetta’s arrival,” Rory said with amusement. “So was I,” Aulay said dryly. “Ye’re leaving yerself out.”

“If Jetta arrives and—in front of witnesses here—greets ye by calling ye husband and ye call her wife, or even if ye do no’ call her wife, but do no’ deny being her husband, ye’ll be handfasted, brother. As good as married in the eyes o’ the law.”

His gaze caught on the woman briefly, something about her reminding him of Jetta. He couldn’t say what. Her face was smudged with dirt and he couldn’t see her hair—it was secured on her head and covered with a kerchief—and she certainly didn’t walk like Jetta. This woman’s stride was confident and quick, while Jetta tended to walk slowly and cautiously if she walked at all.

Methinks someone’s going to try to kill the maid, or she’s Jetta’s sister.

Actually, the idea of a willing woman was so attractive he probably would have made do with nearly any woman who agreed, but Jetta . . . Well, with her it wouldn’t be making do at all.

“Yer ale, m’laird,” she said and set the drink down in front of him. “Thank ye,” he murmured, and then stiffened as he noted the way her lip curled with disgust as her gaze slid over his scar before she turned away. Mouth tightening, he swiveled back to the table and picked up his ale. That reaction was something he hadn’t had to suffer in a month.

Even before that he’d seen it less and less as time had passed since the injury. Mostly because if Mavis saw a maid react at all to his scars, she either got rid of them or reassigned them to somewhere they wouldn’t have contact with him.

The action had meant the maids in the castle had changed quite frequently at first. They still changed often enough that he didn’t always recognize the women in the Great Hall. For instance, while the one who had sneered at him seemed vaguely familiar, Aulay didn’t at ...

Perhaps Jetta was better at hiding her disgust. Or perhaps the repeated blows she’d taken had damaged her brain.

The problem was he didn’t want Jetta to marry him for that reason. He wanted her to want to be his wife, not to see him as the lesser of two evils. But he was finding it harder to believe that might be possible after the maid’s response to seeing his face. The last two weeks with Jetta, he’d managed to forget how monstrous most people found him. The maid had reminded him nicely.

Finding out who she was might mean losing her. But was it not better to find out and get it over

and done with sooner rather than later? The longer he was around her, the more it would hurt to lose her.

Rory frowned. “I do no’ ken why ye just do no’ let her handfast with ye and keep her. Then we could openly look for her family and her name. And I do no’ think she’d mind.

Aulay raised his eyebrows. “Ye’re no’ going to protest me sleeping in the master chamber with her, or warn me no’ to take her innocence?” “I do no’ have to,” Rory said looking slightly irritated. “If ye’re unwilling to trick her into handfasting with ye, then ye’re no’ likely to try to force her into marriage by taking her innocence. She is probably safer with you than any man here.”

With that image filling his mind, any attempt at sensible thinking was pretty much useless at that point. Aulay tried though.

But while the women all headed off to the doors to their rooms, no doubt to settle in and unpack, the men all went as one to the chamber Katie, Geordie and Rory were presently in. They were checking on Geordie and the lass, he realized.

Why don’t you ask them to look into the mast issue?

Shrugging, Dougall admitted, “I found meself with the same issue at Carmichael. I knew none o’ the men there, so at first did no’ ken whom I could trust when it came to delicate situations.” “As I found it was fer me at Drummond, at first,” Niels put in solemnly. “It’ll take a while to suss out who can be trusted, but ye will.”

“Or the boys and I could take turns above stairs in Conran’s stead, and ye could send out him and Alick,” the Sinclair said mildly. “With the four o’ us doing it, ’twould mean shorter shifts.”

She likes her, by the by. She’ll be doing all she can to make yer marriage a real one.” “If ye expect me to be upset by that news, ye’re bound to be disappointed, for I wish Saidh good luck with the endeavor,” Aulay admitted. “There is no luck needed. Jetta loves ye.”

Aulay stared at her for a moment, his mind slow to accept what she said, and then sure he must have misheard, he asked, “She told ye that she loved me?” “Aye,” she said softly, a smile curving her lips.

“She loves ye, Aulay. She thinks ye’re wonderful. She thinks ye’re kind and smart and sweet, and ye’re kisses and touch leave her wanting. She loves ye, Aul. She says she does, and there’s no doubt in me heart at all that she was no’ telling the truth. Jetta loves ye.”

While Aulay stared at his sister, trying to accept what she said, the men at the table, his uncle, brothers, brother-in-law and friend, broke out in whoops and congratulations, all of them sta...

“Trust is part o’ love, brother,” she pointed out solemnly. “Ye need to tell her the truth about yer no’ being married ere she finds out from another source. Else ye risk her finding out on her own, and mayhap fleeing or some such thing.”

“Ye’d flee?” he asked with dismay. “Well, aye. If I found out on me own I would,” she assured him. “Because it would no’ just mean that you lied to me, but that everyone I knew, the only people I knew, had all been lying to me.”

“Well, mayhap he could tell her without telling her,” Edith suggested tentatively and then turned to Aulay and said, “Mayhap ye can tell her ye love her, and that there are some things Rory wished ye no’ to tell her, but ye’re concerned she may learn before he allows ye to tell her, and that should that happen, she should remember that ye love her.”

He had just opened his mouth to tell her to wait and he would carry her down, when she reached the top of the steps and a dark figure suddenly came from the side and shoved her.

“I do no’ suppose ye saw anyone or heard anything while on yer way there, or back?” “Nay. Well, I spotted Jetta digging through the gowns in one of the chests in the hall when I slipped from the passage entrance there next to the garderobe, but she did no’ see me.”

Was it Jetta or someone else?

Aulay considered that as he peered at Katie, and once again it struck him that she could easily be mistaken for Jetta.

For such smart men, they can be amazingly thick some time. I thought Murine was bad.

“Aye. But from a distance and on horseback, the two could easily have been mistaken fer you and Jetta,” he pointed out solemnly.

Thank you, Rory! At least someone is using their brain.

The ancestor who had built the castle and its tunnels had been no fool. He knew secrets got out and it was best to be able to lock off the entrances should anyone discover that particular secret.

He sighed and shrugged. “I would rather see her alive than hold on to me pride and see her dead.”

“Everyone in Scotland kens a Buchanan when they see him.” “There ye ha’e it,” Aulay said quietly. “It could verra well be Jetta’s family behind the attacks.

Jetta bit her lip to hide her amusement and then heard Aulay mutter in response to Dougall, “Aye, ye can say that. Ye’d already bedded Murine when she was given that horrible instruction. But Jetta is still untried and like to stay that way forever after that display.” No one else heard the words. Jetta barely caught them herself, and yet, for a moment, the entire room went silent around her.

She then frowned as she wondered if she was still an aunt if her marriage had not yet been consummated. Were she and Aulay even legally married without the consummation?

“Jetta. Ye’re awake,” Aulay said with relief, settling on the side of the bed and taking her hand. “Sorcha,” she said tightly. Avoiding meeting his gaze, she tugged her hand free of his and repeated. “Safe from what?” “The man yer family was sending ye to marry and whoever pushed ye down the stairs,” Aulay said quietly.