CHAPTER TWO
Glenachulish, Glen Coe Highlands
Seamus MacDonald stormedthrough the hall of his keep toward the main doors, the rich baritone of his voice echoing off the ancient stone.
“Reade, Maddock! Grab your claymores and attend me. We are riding to your uncle’s near Kinlochleven!”
Reade’s wide, muscle-hardened body popped past the wooden door. “What are ye bellowing about, old man?” Seamus’s eldest son teased.
Seamus pursed his lips, his irritation at Reade’s imprudent words showing, though it was tempered by the pride he held for his son, and joy at an attempt for lightheartedness. Reade resembled him more than his other children and was the portrait of a Highland warrior — well-formed and well skilled, with thick legs that commanded a horse with ease and arms as solid as tree trunks from his practice with his sword.A lotof practice. Sometimes ‘twas difficult to get the grown lad to complete his chores! His rich brown hair flowed in wild waves to his shoulders, like a rampaging burn coursing over the rocks in high spring.
Reade’s eyes, though, hammered a spike of pain in his heart. Those brilliant green eyes, like the most precious of emeralds, used to dance in a light-hearted way. Since the death of Reade’s close cousin, Seamus’s nephew Camden, who was killed during a raid by the cursed Campbells, the easy-going light in Reade’s eyes had diminished.
And Seamus despised the Campbells and their allies for that loss of light as much as he hated them for slaughtering his beloved nephew, his brother’s eldest son, and leaving his body to rot on the moors.
Camden’s death had become a battle cry for the MacDonalds of Glenachulish, and one that Seamus’s father and his father’s cousin, the powerful Laird of Glengarry of the MacDonalds, didn’t take lightly.
Of all Seamus’s own children, Reade suffered the most with Camden’s murder. The two lads had been raised together as close as brothers, and Reade took Camden’s death to heart. Though the lad had been put to rest months ago, dark shadows still haunted Reade’s beautiful eyes, even amid his teasing words. This sorrow had tainted his behavior as it had his eyes — Reade had been rash and cocky as a lad, but now he was outright reckless. He needed something to tame him, something to live for since Camden’s death.
“Is your brother about?” Seamus asked. “Something has happened and Kinlochleven has asked for our help.”
Reade glanced over his shoulder. “Maddock is in the barn. I’ll have him saddle our horses.”
Seamus gave his son a curt nod and slung his claymore sheath over his shoulder, so it settled across his back. Then he laid a hand on Reade’s arm before he could turn to leave.
“First, I must speak with ye. Join me in my study.”
Reade’s brow furrowed at his father, but he grabbed his own claymore and followed his father to the study.
Seamus had kept the reason for their journey vague intentionally. If everything was as he believed in Kinlochleven — his own sister’s husband, Ranulf had been light on detail when he delivered the message, but Seamus read between the lines with ease — followed by the knowledge of the life-changing demand he was about to make of his son. One that he’d bristle against, complain about, and reject outright.
But his reaction didn’t matter. Reade would do as Seamus asked. For the good of the clan. For the good of Scotland. He was a good Highland son that way.
“Father, ye canna beserious. I have a life, with privilege, praise the Lord, and my birthright. I may have a wife of my choosing. Ye canna shackle me to a woman who may well be aligned with the Campbells. The very men who killed Camden!” Reade slammed down the chair in his father’s study, where the resounding clang echoed off the bare stone walls.
Camden MacDonald, his cousin who had been like a brother to him. They had shared everything, from meals to bedding to mischief to women. And if his father mourned the death of Camden, Reade wasdevastated.
There had been times when he’d felt closer to Camden than to his own brother Maddock, who was but a year younger. Similar in coloring, he and Camden were oft taken for brothers by those who passed through the village at Glenachulish, merchants and artisans and wrights.
Those thoughts brought a striking pain to Reade’s chest, as raw as if Camden had only passed a moment ago, and he grimaced at his father’s nonchalance in his command. Had his father taken to snuff? To drink? Had the devil himself entered his body? What made the man say such a thing so suddenly?
A muscle in his father’s jaw flexed, barely visible under the gray-brown scruff of his father’s beard. That twitch meant only one thing – his father wasn’t joking. Reade stilled and his own jaw set.
“First, ye ken that marriages are oft arranged to benefit kin and clan.” His father began his lecture. “’Tis is no different now. Much has transpired this past year, Reade, not the least of which is the oath of alliance that Orange has commanded,” Seamus MacDonald said as he settled into the familiar creaking chair, leaning forward to accommodate the claymore at his back. He wrapped his hands around the arms of the chair where the exquisite wood had worn down to a smooth sheen over time. “The Jacobite Highland clans were given leave until the end of this year to sign, with a flimsy threat of reprisal if we don’t. King James plans an invasion, and we yet await news of that.”
Reade sat down hard in the abused chair, his sword by his feet and his face screwed up at his father. “Then why –”
“There’s more. A possible letter disavowing and potentially challenging Orange’s claim as King. The problem is, we dinna know where the letter went or who has it. Until then, we need to do what we can to keep Breadalbane, the Campbells, and Orange in check.”
Reade leaned back in the chair, the folds of his muted red plaid falling between his thick thighs.
“Ye think this lass has the letter? The one ye desire I wed. That her husband got his hands on it?”
“Her dead husband,” Seamus corrected. “Nay. I dinna believe she knows of the letter’s existence, much less has it in her possession. Blair Gordon, nee Hamilton, was practically sold off to the Gordon’s as a way to make an alliance with the Hamiltons, to force their hand in signing the oath of allegiance and pay off a gambling debt, of all things. However, ‘tis rumored her dead husband had his grimy paws on the letter and was holding it for extortion. Even then, ‘twasn’t a success, since the Campbells obviously came to believe Mungo Gordon a traitor and sought to get the letter by more deadly means.”
“Obviously,” Reade repeated. The air in the room was thick and heavy. Spring had been slow coming, but even in the cooler air, a heat pressed down on him like a thick tartan blanket, and an irritating trickle of sweat rolled down his back. Reade shifted in his seat and ground his teeth, waiting.
His father leaned his elbows onto his neat desk – his father had always been a rather neat man – and rested his forehead in his hands. “Reade, the Highlands are in an uproar. We dinna know if the widow is a spy, as her husband might have been. In truth, we dinna know if she’s for the Campbells or no’, if she knows of the letter or where ‘tis. What we do know, Son, is the Campbells are hard men who care little for those under their charge. The lass needs the protection of the MacDonalds more than anything. If she does no’ have the letter, the Campbells will kill her just for spite.”
