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

by Lynsay Sands

She met his gaze then, her eyes wide. “I am to marry someone else and you allowed me to think we were husband and wife? You let me betray my own betrothed?”

While she knew her name was Sorcha, she’d become used to being called Jetta. Besides, she had no idea who Sorcha was and wouldn’t until she regained her memories. Now, she felt like Jetta Buchanan. But she wasn’t Jetta Buchanan, she thought unhappily.

I am Sorcha and that my mother named me that because she knew from the moment I came squalling into the world that I would be a bright light in her life. She told me that just ere dying in my arms,” she admitted, the grief he’d seen earlier washing over her face again.

She was most upset that we were no’ telling ye the truth, and took both Aulay and me to task for it. She e’en tried to convince us to tell ye everything.” “I did,” Saidh assured her. “Unfortunately, men are stupid. At least me brothers are. They would no’ listen to me.”

“I wanted to tell ye from the first, but did no’ wish to risk yer healing. However, what with someone pushing ye down the stairs and whatnot we began to worry this may ha’e something to do with yer family or who they were trying to make ye marry and it did seem ye’d be safer if ye were married, and ye had to ken ye were no’ married before I could ask ye to marry me.”

He understood ladies expected sweet words and romantic gestures, but he was not that kind of man. However, if his own sister, who was—in his estimation—as far from a romantic as could be found . . . well, if she thought his answer lacking, that was bad. Scratching the back of his head, he peered back at Jetta and noted her dejected pose. She was peering at her hands where they lay on her chest, and she looked disappointed. Wounded even, he thought. “Tell the lass how ye feel about her, ye dolt,” Uncle Acair hissed.

“I do no’ ken if what I feel is love. But I think o’ ye all the time, even when ye’re no’ with me. And these days since ye’ve woken have been the happiest o’ me life.”

When her smile widened, he added, “And not only that. I see ye everywhere, lass.

I want ye fer me wife, lass. I want to wake every day to yer smiling face, I want to ha’e beautiful bairns with ye that we can raise together to be fine, strong men and women, and I want to live to be an old man and die in yer arms, for ’tis as close to heaven as I’ve ever been.”

Someone snuffled behind him, and Aulay glanced around, scowling when he saw that the women were all weeping like bairns. Christ, even Alick was weeping like a girl, but not Saidh. Her eyes were glassy, but she was manfully keeping her tears from dropping. He could always count on Saidh.

“But I do no’ want ye to marry me only fer the safety it offers. I’ll keep ye safe, married or no’. But I’d rather ye only marry me if ye have soft feelings fer me too, and want to spend yer life with me the way I do you.”

You are all I could wish for in a husband, Aulay. In truth, you are probably more than I ever dared hope for. I would consider myself lucky to be your wife, bear your bairns and die an old woman in your arms. I see a happy future with you.”

Ye presented yerselves as a couple to society, or at least to us.” He shrugged. “Ye’re handfasted, which is as good as married here in Scotland. The courts would say that legally, ye are wed.”

So, Aulay was her husband after all, and these people who had treated her like family, were her family. But she’d feel better if they had a proper marriage, blessed by a priest.

She was frowning at his words, until the last two sank in. “Me love.” It was the first time he’d used an endearment when addressing her, and it made her heart melt.

“I think two or three years of misery as your scar healed was a good exchange for avoiding a lifetime of misery with Lady Adaira Stuart.”

“Husband, you have six brothers and a sister who all love you and have rushed here to be of aid if they can. Just their having survived to this stage in life is lucky. Your family has lost only one of nine children. Do you not know how rare that is? Most families lose thrice that number ere their children are out of britches. But your family lost only the one and you have six brothers and one sister who are not only still healthy and well, but who love and care about you and are here when you need them,” she said, and felt her eyes tear up as she said it,

“And then you were lucky with the wound you took.” “Aye, the scar kept me from marrying Adaira,” he acknowledged. “I agree with ye there.”

“I am not talking about that part now,” she said solemnly. “Do you realize, had your attacker been standing even an inch or two nearer, you would not have survived the blow? Or, he could have been using a mace rather than a sword, or something else, which surely would have killed you. The very fact that you are alive is another instance of luck being on your side.”

“And what is it but luck that you were blessed with such good looks that the injury barely detracts from them?

Closing her eyes, Jetta bit her lip briefly. She did not want him to have any doubt that she was marrying him for him, and not because she thought him a safe haven.

“The gowns are all crushed,” Edith pointed out as Jetta, Murine and Jo joined them. “It looks like something heavy was lying on them.” “Aye,” Saidh murmured and bent to pick up something poking out from under some of the material.

Straightening, she held up a finely crafted knife with an ebony handle that had ornate carvings on it.

According to Saidh, Mavis was more like family than staff. She’d been their nursemaid when young, and tended to fuss over and reprimand them all still as if they were children. Jetta got the feeling that they all liked it, and suspected the woman’s mothering them helped ease the loss of their own mother. Everyone needed mothering every once in a while.

Concern filled Mavis’s face, but she stood firm. “Well, guards stay in the hall, no’ the bedchamber. Now off with ye. They both need a bath, and Aulay needs clothes ere he receives company.”

“We’ve seen him naked before, Mavis,” Niels pointed out with exasperation. “And we’re no’ leaving Aulay and Jetta alone. Someone just tried to kill them. We need to protect them.”

Mavis had grabbed a plaid and brought it over. The moment Aulay was upright, she wrapped it around his waist and quickly pinned it at his hip, muttering, “Reminds me o’ when I used to change yer nappies.”

“What the devil ha’e ye done to yer shirt? Why is it all caught up behind yer head? Who taught ye to dress yerself?” “You did,” Aulay said with amusement.

Jetta raised her arm to sniff it and then grimaced. She smelled like smoked pork, a food her father loved above all others.

“I know the doors were open when we fell asleep after . . . er . . .” Her face was positively on fire now. Unable to verbalize what they’d been doing, she skipped to, “Yet they were closed when I woke up to see the stables were on fire. That bothered me, so I looked back on the way to the keep and saw that not only were they shut, but pieces of wood had been jammed against them to keep them closed.”

Mealtime in a great hall was always a noisy affair with lots of movement. There were people constantly coming and going, and everyone was shouting along the tables to others. With the high table so far from the doors, the people at it were often the last to learn what was happening if someone ran in from the bailey with news.

Jetta watched with silent amusement as Mavis hustled the others out of the room. The woman was as firm with them as if they were still children in her charge and they responded as such. Even Greer, Cam,

Edith and Murine obediently left the room under her chivvying, and they had not been in her charge as children. But then, Jetta realized, she reacted the same way to the woman. Her motherly nature and take-charge attitude just made you instinctively want to please her and obey.

“I’ll no’ harangue ye, Aulay, fer doing it in the stable, o’ all places,” Mavis went on. “For if ’twas good enough fer Mary to birth Jesus, then I suppose ’tis good enough fer what ye got up to. But, Lord love us, lad, could ye no’ ha’e at least taken a linen with ye so we’d ha’e something to show on the morrow?” she asked with exasperation.

“Our mother was wonderful, but with nine children and a castle to tend, she was always busy. Mavis stepped in and made sure we had what we needed and that none o’ us felt left out when Mother was busy with the others.” “She was like a second mother to you all,” Jetta said as he pulled her arms free of the undone gown. “Aye, and when Mother died, she took over and still mothers us to this day,” he said, letting her dress and the shift she wore under it drop to the floor.

Jetta walked silently, sneaking glances at their guards. She’d forgotten all about Aulay’s intention to arrange guards for her. But then this was her first time dealing with them. She wasn’t sure she liked it. It made her self-conscious to have all these men around, and then they started down the stairs and she saw the Great Hall floor full of sleeping people.

“In me dream, I showed her the passage in me room and this room, told her how to open, close and lock them. I showed her the entrance to the stairs, and told her how to open the one at the bottom of the stairs that led into the tunnels as well, but just told her about the ones

in the other rooms because people were sleeping in them.” Smiling wryly, he added, “It all seemed real at the time, but me head was fuzzy, everything kept movin’ on me, and Jetta had all her hair.”

I don’t think this was a dream.

Jetta couldn’t hide her surprise at those words. He was willing to help her with her hair? Truly, he was a rare find.

He had barely left his bedchamber since carrying Jetta up there. He’d slipped out a time or two, but only to talk to Cullen to find out if there was anything amiss.

Never once during that time had Aulay asked how Katie was doing, and it had been a conscious decision on his part. He’d wanted just to spend time with Jetta for a day or two and enjoy the fact that she was now his by law before rejoining the real world and addressing the waiting issues of murder attempts and whatnot.

That vacation from real life was over now, though, and he was neck-deep in theories and worries about the attacker who was plaguing them. If he weren’t laird, Aulay would march right back upstairs now, climb into bed with Jetta and forget all of this by losing himself in her body.

After the first run of discussion about the ballock dagger, Aulay had sent Alick and Conran out again to travel to the various ports along the coast and ask around about the ship. This time, though, they would be looking for information on one that had lost its mast, rather than one that had sunk. The hope was that they would learn who might have been traveling on it, if not the name of the woman who had been strapped to it.

Although Aulay wasn’t sure what he would do with it once he had it. Tell Jetta her full name, that of the ship she was on, and where she was sailing to in hopes it would bring on the rest of her memories and shed some light on who might be behind the attacks? Or ride out to confront her family and this man they wanted her to marry to tell them she was a Buchanan now and would be protected, in hopes that would bring an end to the attacks?

A sigh from Niels drew his gaze, and Aulay frowned. His brother was being unusually quiet. As a rule the man had an opinion on everything, yet hadn’t offered a single comment since his round of apologies. It was enough to worry him. That worry only deepened when he noted the way he was holding his head in his hands. Edith, he noticed, was watching her husband with deep concern too, which he understood completely.

Aulay had never known Niels to suffer such a bad hangover.

The words were like razor-sharp blades shredding his soul. To think Jetta, his Jetta, the woman he loved and whom he’d thought loved him felt that way . . . It was Adaira all over again. Only worse this time. Because he hadn’t loved Adaira. He’d thought he had, but the pain he’d experienced when she rejected him was nothing compared to the agony ripping him apart now. Aulay just didn’t understand it.

Perhaps she’d shown her revulsion then when he couldn’t see it, and had managed to hide it afterward. If so, what else had she hidden? Did she really not remember anything? Or had that been a lie too?

For a moment, all Aulay could do was stare as his mind tried to make sense of this morning’s events . . . and then it occurred to him that Jetta was wearing a different gown. It was the same gown he’d helped her don in this room and at the loch this morning, but not the gown she’d been wearing in Niels’s room, he realized. That one had been silver. Jetta also didn’t quite fill out her dress as well as the other Jetta had filled out the silver dress. That Jetta’s clothes had fit snugly, this one’s did not.

Not only had she not been wearing it in Niels and Edith’s room, he realized suddenly as a picture of Niels tangling his hands in her hair to pull her away from him rose up in his mind. That Jetta had had long black hair . . . everywhere. There had been no bald spot from where they’d shaved her head. In fact, it was her long hair at the back that Niels had caught at to pull her away from him. It hadn’t been Jetta, Aulay realized with relief, and then frowned. If the woman hadn’t been Jetta, then who was she?

Finally!