“Erik, I dinna wish to be a problem. I agreed to this marriage to help ye and this clan, as well as for the alliance with Rose. If I canna win over the Ross men with my experience running a household or a keep, and my willingness to listen to their ideas and use them to try to make life better here, what good am I to ye? Do ye think I should just smile and simper and charm them into submission?”
“Ye are no’ the problem. They are. And nay, charm willna work. They will interpret it as…aught else and move on ye. Then I will have to kill them.”
Fiona reared back. “Ye jest poorly.”
“I dinna jest. Ye are lady of this clan. Any man who attacks ye deserves the punishment I mete out to him. Not only for ye, but for ye as the clan’s lady. Ye must be untouchable—save by me—and respected for the position ye hold and the burdens ye carry for the people of this clan.”
“I understand that, Erik, I do. We dinna rule. We serve. Mostly. But death is a permanent solution.”
“And sometimes justified. And nay, I dinna take it lightly. Even in battle, defending my life and those of my men, I never have and never will. ’Tis something that canna be taken back or fixed. It pleases me that ye recognize its import, and the weight of it on the clan’s leaders. On us. But ye dinna yet see how important ye are as this clan’s lady. And ye dinna yet ken thesepeople as well as I do. I ken when a man’s interest is serious, and when ’tis meant as a compliment, nay more.”
She spread her hands in exasperation. “And ye think I dinna? Erik, most any lass can tell the difference.”
Erik lowered his head and got a stubborn look on his face as he peered up at her. “But no’ all lasses, and no’ with all men. I willna risk ye.”
She took a moment to digest what he’d said. He made sense, and he wanted to protect her. Why would she argue with that? “I accept what ye say, but I will also say this,” she added, holding up a hand when he made to reply. “Ye are no’ privy to all there is to ken about me, either. I can defend myself, at least to some extent. I am no’ helpless. Ye are intent on protecting me against all dangers. Ye dinna need to do that. I take yer caution and will keep it in mind. I’ll leave the big dangers to ye and deal with the rest myself. And I will tell ye when I think a man is straying past compliments and working himself up to do more.”
“Ye do ken sometimes that happens in a moment, and ye willna have time to inform me.”
She couldn’t help it. She smirked. “Then I’ll scream.”
Fiona soon hadreason to be glad of the conversation she’d had with Erik. As early as the next day, the man who’d stared her down at the first supper after she arrived was at her door. If this man wanted to threaten or harm her, he could not have picked a better time. Both Erik and Tormod were out of the village at the moment with most of the other men, felling trees and unearthing rocks to be used in the curtain wall that was Erik’s obsession.
She didn’t know how this interview would go, but Erik had put her on her guard. “Osgar, be welcome,” Fiona greeted him.
“I was told to come to ye. What do ye need?”
No “milady” or “Lady Ross” or even just “Fiona.” He was off to a bad start. She gestured him to a seat at their small table and took one closer to the door she left open, across from him, both in case she needed an avenue of escape, and to put the barrier of the table between them. Erik’s warnings were sounding loudly in her head. She didn’t know this man, but she did know the signs of male arrogance, and they weren’t encouraging.
“Ye are here to help me understand what Ross needs, and how I can help the clan. I want everyone to have their say. To be heard.”
Her guest snorted. “So if I tell ye that Ross needs the wealth of the French crown and all the land from here to the English border, ye will make a plan to achieve all that?”
Fiona held onto her temper. Sarcasm was a way of hiding. What did this man want to keep hidden? Perhaps in his case, Erik was wrong and she should try charm. She didn’t rise to his bait. “Nay, my aspirations are far less grand. I really do wish to ken what ye think we are lacking. What would make life better for Ross?” She opened her hands in a show of willingness to listen, then laid them on the table top.
Osgar’s gaze followed the movement and stayed on her hands a beat too long. She drew them back to her lap and waited, her pulse racing but her expression calm. She kept an eating blade in her skirt pocket and grasped it now, below the tabletop and out of his view. Would she need to use it?
Instead of lunging forward, as she half expected, he leaned back and crossed his arms, his posture lazy, even pompous. “So ye come here, a stranger to this clan, to this part of the country, no less, and think ye will solve all our problems? What have ye accomplished? Why was yer former clan so eager to berid of ye that they married ye off within a day?” He nodded. “Aye, everyone kens that tale. What sort of arrogance makes ye so certain ye will have the answers to clan warfare? And to incursions by the islanders or the royalists, with Ross caught in the middle and men like me forced to fight and die for other men’s greed or vanity?” He leaned forward. “What makes ye think ye belong here? Ye dinna.” He snorted his disgust. “Ye want to ken what we need? A strong leader like Donas Ross was. No’ a man intent on alliances. Ross needs one who will make us the biggest and strongest clan in the Highlands. We shouldna live like this.” He waved a hand to indicate the meagerness of the cot. “We should take over a castle, toss out our enemies and make it a stronghold Ross can be proud of. No’ build a puny curtain wall and a few more cots. A village is no’ defensible. Villages are made to burn.”
His words gave Fiona chills, but he wasn’t wrong. “I fled Inverness when the bridge over the River Ness was burned. ’Tis a miracle the wind kept the flames away from the town. So I ken what ye mean. But ye ken Erik is doing what he can with what we have. Are ye a stonemason? Do ye ken any?”
The man’s insolent stare gave her his answer.
“There ye have it. We can build a wooden palisade. Stone walls will be built. For now, we do what we can with what we ken. Do ye have any other suggestions? Or needs?”
Osgar laughed. “Every man has needs. Are ye offering to satisfy those as well?”
Now Fiona did frown, regretting her choice of words. “Ye ken I am no’. And unless ye wish to face my husband, ye will keep such ideas to yerself.”
A shadow fell across the table. Fiona looked around to see Erik filling the doorway. “Osgar, I suggest ye leave. Now. I’ll deal with ye later.”
The man’s bravado fled the moment he saw Erik blocking his escape. He paled at his laird’s words, stood and moved carefully around where Fiona sat. “Of course, Laird Ross.”
Fiona thought she must be seeing things. He appeared to be trembling. With fear of the man he disparaged as too weak to lead the clan?
Erik stepped aside and allowed him to leave, then came in and closed the door behind him. “What did I tell ye about meeting alone with any of the men?”
“He arrived, ye and Tormod were gone, as were the other men. I left the door open and didna let him get between me and it. What else was I to do? And now that I think about it, why was that man no’ helping ye like all the others?”
