Page 50 of A Highland Rogue to Ruin

Tormund’s mouth quirked up, that smile he’d long forgotten how to create until a lass had challenged him to chess, tempting him again. “Every foot. We won.”

They turned to each other, that wariness still lurking in their narrowed glances filled with years of mistrust, yet finally clasped wrists, tossed down their tools, and raised their joined fists.

The horn blared. An uproar of cheering deafened.

He nodded once to James as the seneschal smiled approvingly, and James returned the nod. The MacDonald ladies broke free, dashed onto the field as the other pairings of warriors groaned and tossed down their tools.

James, pouring sweat so that his dark blond hair was plastered to his neck, grabbed his wife under the arms to lift her off her feet as Tormund’s face broke into a grin, setting Brighde in his sights, running to him like his woman welcoming her man home from battle. Her hem lifted, slippers flying off like they had on the beach, he hooked her around the waist and spun her as she crashed into him, skirts and plait swinging like a tapestry on the wind.

“Ye did it, Torm!” she exclaimed with pride, grasping his cheeks as she slipped back down to the ground. “For yer people!”

“And for ye, angel.” His palm came to rest at the back of her head as their lips collided—

They both yanked back at what they’d nearly done. They’d nearly kissed. For all to see. Christ’s bones.

A hush fell over the crowd. He could feel James’s presence beside him like an ominous roll of thunder as his wife grasped his arm, whispering, “Jamie, nay…” Could feel hatred palpitating off Ghost like a bull pawing the ground along the margins of the field. Felt that fatherly energy coming from Niall. He ground his molars, jaw muscles bulging, knowing that the Devil MacDonald’s sister in his arms looked like the worst sort of betrayal to his men, just as her clinging jubilantly to him looked the same to James.

He cleared his throat, stepped back. Snatched up his pitchfork and began forking the cut grains onto the wagon rolled out on their field, so the contents could be loaded, weighed, then divided. He’d forged a temporary truce with a man responsible for so much of his people’s strife, worked well with him. A man set to walk into his ambush in just three more days’ time… He could no longer ignore the growing battle in the pit of his belly that a storm was coming that he didn’t know how to stop. Or might not be able to.

He set his jaw and thrust the pitchfork harder.

Chapter Fifteen

Day Five – Lughnasadh Harvest Festival.

“Will ye dance, Lady Brighde?” Alasdair MacNicol said, son of the Laird MacNicol, who stood opposite her brother as they imbibed in the tavern tent.

In sooth, James didn’t drink, but stood like a curtain wall, arms folded, his tankard untouched as he stared down MacNicol.

All last night, Brighde had lain awake, fidgeting with nerves at James’s silence toward her, yet feeling an ounce of relief that he finally knew—if not the extent of what she’d done with Tormund—that at least the intention was there. She’d hated sneaking around behind his back.

Except now he was gone. He hadn’t once tried to find her today, and already, midday wore on to afternoon.

All morn, as Seamus Grant, Aileana’s brother, arrived late with his retinue and their clans had visited, Brighde had looked in every direction for the elusive Tormund to no avail. All day, as Aileana and Brighde passed about Seamus’s infant daughter while gossiping with Seamus’s wife, and Aileana’s sister, Peigi, had shared the gossip from Urquhart Castle, Tormund was nowhere to be found. Had he not returned yet?

What was in Inverness besides St. Bartholomew’s boc-hord? Had he left to attend to whatever this secretive agreement was for which he tithed the Blackfriars? When she’d asked if she could accompany him to Inverness, his answer of nay had been abrupt. As if he didn’t want her there.

Now, as her folk congregated, the MacNicols trying further to strengthen a wool trade, she looked around the faces. He was not here. He’d turned away from her yesterday as he’d furiously forked the barley cuts and had never looked back, jaw pumping furiously. She’d seen his hands balled in fists as he’d left her standing there. She’d seen the withering glare her brother sent him. Seen Aileana’s sympathetic expression.

Sakes, she was clinging, but the cracks in their bond were beginning to show. There was an end to this sennight coming much too fast, and desperate to hold on, she forced a smile. He’d pulled away yesterday. Just as he’d done the morning before as he snuck out of her tent. And the day before that when she’d challenged him to keep the coin after the race. Every time their bond tightened an increment more, he seemed to balk.

She passed Seamus’s babe back to her mother. Searched with no luck for her dark-eyed demon again. Men drank or draped a wench across their chest. What if she saw Tormund here, doing the same, celebrating his victory, now that their barley cuts were divided and safely stored at each of their campsites?

Her throat constricted at the thought. She sipped her watered wine.

While she didn’t see Tormund, it still didn’t quell the possibility that he was celebrating elsewhere. With someone else. Even many of the married men were allowing the wenches to do so. Perhaps he had a leman in Inverness, and that’s why he didn’t want her going. And just the thought of him with another lass sent an illness twisting in her belly.

But why had he seemed so angry? She’d watched two men she cared for come together. Watched them put aside bygones and succeed. Surely they could see what a force they’d been, couldn’t they?

She eyed Alasdair’s hand. Eyed James, still an immoveable rock with his arms folded and stance wide across the barrel from Laird MacNicol.

No man had ever dared to ask her to dance. Her brother had frightened away every eligible suitor from the farthest reaches of Scotland, and even some from abroad. And as Alasdair held out his hand to her and she began to slip hers into his, she felt a moment’s pause.

She looked to the woods. What woods had Tormund meant, when he’d asked her to meet him? Over there, behind the gaming tables? The woods behind their camp from where he’d had the audacity to slip into her tent uninvited? Would there be another sign from him? Or had whatever silenced him after the corn cutting dashed it all? Between Aileana spotting them together, and her brother clearly saying something to Tormund to ward him off, had he cut his ties?

Why waste my time? Best save my strength for battles I can win.

“My lady?” Alasdair prompted, his hand still outstretched.