Highland Thief Read online

  Isobel dropped her eyes, her lips clamped together to hold in the protest that had risen in her breast. It filled her throat until she couldn’t breathe around it.

  Gah, I’m an addlepated woman! Kerr MacAlister is not the man for me.

  “Doona worry yourself,” she said, trying to lighten her voice. “If your cousin e’er works up the courage to ask me, I’ll make it verra clear to him that I havenae any intention of marrying him. But for now, there is none other who has caught my eye, and it saves me having to turn down suitors who only want me for this.” She circled her finger around her face. “They think they’re getting the Beauty of the Highlands, when in actual fact they’re getting…” She had to think about how to describe herself. Her real self.

  Deirdre raised a brow. “The Devil of the Highlands?”

  A puff of laughter blew out. “Aye, maybe. I was going to say the Best Plotter or Trap-Setter of the Highlands, but Devil sounds better.”

  “Is that what you do? Set traps for people who deserve it? I haven’t been here long, but that’s what I’ve heard the castle-folk say.”

  “I suppose so, but it’s not always an elaborate trap. As long as I let them know in some way that their behavior has been noted and found wanting.”

  Deirdre looked doubtful. “So…a public shaming of sorts?”

  “Perhaps.” She leaned toward Deirdre. “Doona you see? It balances the scales. Restores power to the person who has been maltreated and maintains the equilibrium of the clan. If ’tis a serious crime like theft or murder, I leave that to Gavin. But in this case,” she indicated the parchment spread over the desk in front of her, “the offender was Gavin. He treated you terribly and has to pay for it.”

  Deirdre’s eyes grew round as she looked—upside down—at the plan Isobel had devised.

  “But…I’ve forgiven him. What if he gets hurt?”

  “The only thing that will be hurt is his dignity. And maybe his shoes. And believe me, he’ll feel better afterward. And you will too. I am declaring, on behalf of the clan, that I saw what he did to you and I’ve condemned it. You’ll both thank me for it later.”

  Deirdre shook her head. “Isobel MacKinnon, you’ve lost your mind.”

  “Nay, I havenae. It facilitates healing within the clan. You’ll see.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Gavin reuniting me with Ewan and marrying me facilitates healing. Every time he tells me he loves me facilitates healing.” She rose and turned the parchment around so she could look at it more closely, then stabbed her finger on the pit. “Manure does not facilitate healing!”

  Isobel shrugged. “I think it does. Besides, I’ve already declared that Gavin is on my list. The clan is waiting.”

  “Let them wait!”

  “Nay.”

  She could almost see Deirdre’s brilliant, mathematical mind analyzing and discarding the different options. “Well, then…I’m going to tell him.”

  Isobel had to bite her lip to hide her amusement. “Nay, you won’t. You’re an angel, and I’ve asked you not to.”

  “You did not.”

  “Deirdre, please doona tell Gavin about my plans—in any way. Even if he tries to trick you.”

  “If he’s tricking me, I willna know that he’s tricking me, will I?”

  “Aye, you will. You’re a smart woman.”

  She glared at Isobel. “Well, what about Kerr?”

  “What about him?”

  “Have you set up a trap for him?”

  “Nay.”

  “Why not? If anyone deserves your ire, it’s him. He deliberately provokes you.”

  Isobel’s lips tightened, and she turned the parchment back to face her. “I’ve tried. Numerous times. He always sees through it. ’Tis verra annoying—much like him. Kerr MacAlister enjoys being on my bad side.”

  “When was the last time you tried?”

  “Over a year ago.”

  “Over a year ago!”

  Isobel looked up at the stone ceiling and around the room. “Is there an echo in here?”

  Deirdre huffed and turned the parchment back toward her. She leaned on the desk, eyes intent on the plan. “You obviously haven’t tried hard enough. It seems to me you should punish Kerr before you punish Gavin. How will the clan feel if you let Kerr get away with being annoying? You must redress things, Isobel.”

  “Now who’s lost their mind? The clan doesn’t care about Kerr. That was for me. Kerr’s punishment now is in me not punishing him.”

  Deirdre scoffed. “You just need a good enough distraction. How are you planning to distract Gavin?”

  “I’m not. The man’s been walking around with his head in the clouds since he met you. He’ll not notice anything amiss until it’s too late.” Deirdre blushed prettily and smiled. Isobel rolled her eyes. “For the love of God, that’s not a good thing.”

  Her sister-in-law grumbled and then sat back down in her chair. “All you need to do is make Kerr think you’re planning to pull the wool over Gavin’s eyes, when the trap is actually for him.”

  Isobel stilled and her heart began to race. A budding excitement heated her skin. “I could ask for his help.”

  “Is that something you would normally do?”

  “Nay.”

  “Then doona do that this time either. Doona do anything out of the ordinary, or he’ll suspect you’re up to something.”

  “But how will I get him out there?”

  “Out where?”

  “To the forest where I’ve set the trap.”

  “He’ll look for you. He always does.”

  Isobel sat back in her chair, tapping her fingers on the desk as her mind sorted through the possibilities. It might work! She could distract Kerr with a second trap. Maybe a bag of prickles in the tree or a bucket of honey. Meanwhile, she would draw him toward the pit.

  She whooped excitedly. “Deirdre, you’re a genius!” She picked up a quill and began jotting down the ideas that tumbled through her head.

  “Does that mean Gavin’s off the hook?” Deirdre asked.

  “For now. I canna believe I ne’er thought of this before. Kerr will be looking up at the tree instead of down toward the pit. It’s sure to work!”

  She jumped up and was organizing her various parchments when a high-pitched screech filled the air.

  “Mama!” Ewan yelled as he ran into the solar. He stopped and eyed Deirdre almost accusingly. “I was looking for you. You weren’t in your bedchamber.”

  Deirdre opened her arms, and the lad crawled onto her lap. He was an exact replica of Gavin, with his blond hair and blue-green eyes.

  And Isobel’s eyes too. Aye, the MacKinnon line still had the bearing and coloring of their Norse ancestors. Maybe Deirdre would change all that with their next bairn.

  “She was conspiring with me in here, Ewan,” Isobel said, stepping around the desk to scoop up her nephew. “We were planning to bring down a monster. Can you imagine? Your mother, a monster-slayer!”

  His eyes widened, looking like two brightly colored fairy ponds. “A monster! Can I come? I’ll need my bow and Horsey.” He referred to his pony, of course, and squirmed down. “Doona leave yet. I’ll be right back.”

  Isobel laughed as he ran from the room as quickly as he came in. “Well, that’s your day planned,” she said to Deirdre.

  “Aye, thank you for that.”

  “You can send him with me if you like—to my open pit of horse manure. I’m sure he’ll be much help. Although I canna guarantee he willna fall in.”

  “Sounds like a wonderful adventure,” Deirdre said dryly. “Maybe next time.”

  Isobel gave her friend a quick hug before gathering up her papers and then hurrying from the room. She crossed to the circular stairwell on the other side of the passageway and headed down. Near the bottom, the stairs opened up to the great
hall where servers and kitchen staff hurriedly cleared dirty trenchers and platters of food from long tables in the middle of the room. Soon they would be neatly stacked, along with the benches, against the wall in the opposite corner—until the next meal.

  A second stairwell was located at the opposite end of the cavernous room. In between, a fire burned in a grand hearth that heated the hall and the rest of the castle.

  Candles burned along the walls and in two large, circular chandeliers that hung from the ceiling on chains. Light also streamed in from outside through a ring of murder holes high up along the exterior wall. The small windows were accessed by an interior balcony used by archers to defend the castle in times of need.

  “Master Carmichael!” she called as she stepped off the last stair and hurried toward a breakfast table set up for the laird’s family in front of a smaller hearth. A flowered wall-hanging hung above the mantel and several chairs with embroidered seats and foot stools had been pushed back against the wall to make room for the table.

  Fresh rushes crunched underfoot as she weaved her way around the busy castle-folk. At the table, she spooned oats into a bowl and poured milk over top, not even sitting down to eat. She had too much to do to ready her trap in time for Kerr’s arrival—and to prepare for the men coming.

  “My lady,” Master Carmichael said from behind her, and she jumped.

  How did he always manage to sneak up on her? “Is everything ready for my brother and the other lairds?”

  “Aye. We’ve been preparing for days.”

  Isobel was a head taller than him, and still he managed to look down his nose at her—or at least give the impression of it. He must have practiced that look just for her. She couldn’t imagine he would ever use it on her brother.

  Judgmental ablach.

  What was he upset about now? That she hadn’t waited for the others to eat? Or that she was eating while standing, scooping the oats into her mouth? Something she’d seen the men do hundreds of times.

  Well, she’d give him something else to be upset about.

  “If there’s naught else to do, then please tell the stable hands I need more manure.”

  Master Carmichael turned an astonishing shade of purple.

  Two

  Laird Kerr MacAlister squeezed his stallion’s reins and bit his tongue to stop himself from yelling at the men on horses and on foot around him to pick up the pace. A pack of bloody turtles!

  ’Twas a possibility he might grind his teeth to nothing by the time he and his foster family arrived at Gavin’s castle later on this afternoon. War was a long and bloody business, and he’d been chafing to return to Isobel ever since the battles at Clan MacIntyre and Clan MacColl had ended.

  Fortunately, they’d overcome Castle MacIntyre without too much trouble because so many MacIntyre warriors had been killed during the botched attack against Gavin’s clan earlier in the year. And when Kerr and his allies—six strong lairds and fifteen hundred men—arrived at the MacColl castle, the clan pleaded mercy before the first arrow had loosed. The only death had been the execution of Laird Boyd MacColl—Deirdre’s brother—and not because he was their enemy, but because he was the worst kind of degenerate who preyed on defenseless girls.

  He’d been hanged by his brother-in-law, who was now laird, before they’d even arrived. His clan did not mourn his passing.

  Kerr’s only consolation was that Gavin was anxious to get back to Deirdre, and he didn’t hide his frustration one bit. Nay, his foster brother had groused about their slow progress almost the entire time, which, of course, had made his other foster brothers, Darach, Lachlan, and Callum—all lairds of their own clans—go even slower. Or maybe it only seemed that way because Kerr itched to race back to Isobel’s side.

  Winter would be upon them soon, and unless something changed, he would be back with Clan MacAlister in his castle while Isobel stayed at hers. It would be five months before he would see her again. Five months of her possibly meeting someone else and maybe even falling in love.

  It was a risk he took every time he left her alone, but he knew Isobel wasn’t ready for him yet—or maybe he wasn’t ready for her.

  A year and a half ago he would have laughed at that idea, but after seeing the way his brothers had had to grow and change to be the men their wives deserved, he’d begun to doubt himself.

  What could he offer Isobel MacKinnon—the Beauty of the Highlands, the bright star at the center of her clan, the most captivating woman he’d ever known—that she didn’t have already?

  Surely she could find a better man than him—a better family to marry into. His father had been a monster. His uncles had been monsters. And their blood pumped through his veins.

  Abuse of all kinds had been an everyday occurrence within Kerr’s clan. His own mother had been denied happiness, liberty, and eventually her life by her husband.

  She’d been murdered as payback for Kerr daring to thrive in his foster father’s home. No one had stopped Madadh MacAlister from gutting his wife, or even condemned him for it. No one had been strong enough or brave enough.

  Except a son who’d come home to find his mother dead on the floor of the great hall and left for the dogs to chew.

  He’d been barely seventeen when he killed his father, and several of his uncles and cousins too—a feat everyone had thought impossible.

  Kerr had been the one expected to die that day.

  Then had come the job of digging out the rest of the rot in his clan.

  Maybe it would be best if Isobel did fall for someone else.

  He reined in his black beast of a stallion, Diabhla, and stopped abruptly beside a grove of Scots pine. The early morning sun cast long shadows on the ground as men continued to march by.

  Nay, losing Isobel wasn’t an option. He knew, as surely as his foster brothers had known with their wives, that she was meant to be his. But what kind of a family would he be asking her to join?

  He rubbed his hand over his jaw, digging his fingers into his skin.

  “Are you well, lad?” a voice asked beside him.

  He looked up to see Gregor MacLeod sitting astride his horse, staring at him with concern. Lines etched his cheeks and around his eyes, and slashes of gray marked his ginger-colored hair and beard. Even so, he still looked as strong as an ox and as clear-eyed as any of Kerr’s foster brothers.

  This was his real father. A man who had taken him into his home and under his wing at ten years old, even though Kerr’s devil of a sire had tried to murder him and everyone he held dear.

  Gregor had trained Kerr to kill his father before the lad had even known a woman. Not to end a rival, but because he knew Madadh MacAlister would one day turn on his son.

  And he had.

  “Aye. I’m as well as can be expected, having to travel with a bunch of nattering old fools,” Kerr said.

  “Usually you’re right there in the thick of it, nattering back at us—the loudest one of all. Doona think you can pull the wool over my eyes.”

  Kerr shrugged and then rubbed his hand over his jaw again. He scratched down hard in his frustration, and Gregor frowned.

  Shite. Nothing got past the old badger.

  “You wouldnae be thinking about Isobel, would you?” Gregor asked.

  He sighed. “Maybe.”

  “And are you thinking about how you should have married her by now? That winter will be upon us soon and you’ve let one more year slip by?”

  He clenched his jaw and stared hard at the top of Diabhla’s head. Was it wrong to want to punch his beloved foster father in the face? “’Tis possible I may be thinking that, aye.”

  “Well, doona. She’s not ready. And neither are you.”

  He jerked his head up to meet Gregor’s gaze. “What do you mean by that?” he asked. Never mind he’d been thinking it himself.

  “The two of you like you
r wee dance. The back and forth, the annoyances and retaliations. The verbal sparring. You’re both still trying to win. Marriage isna about that—although that interaction with your spouse can be rousing. Kellie and I argued regularly, and we often ended up in our bedchamber afterward.”

  Gregor grinned at Kerr, but it was tinged with an underlying sadness that was always there when he talked about his wife.

  Kellie MacLeod. The woman who had inspired Gregor to be a better man and bring peace to the Highlands—and who had died in childbirth before she could see all the good her husband had done.

  Gregor had never stopped loving her.

  “What are you two reprobates gossiping about?” Laird Darach MacKenzie asked as he steered his horse to the side and joined them. His men marched on behind him. He’d been the first to fall for his wife, Caitlin, and they were expecting their first child soon. Kerr couldn’t wait to see Darach besieged by daughters—all as lovely and prone to trouble as Caitlin. She had turned Darach’s ordered world upside down last year, and now he wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Kerr sighed and rolled his eyes. “Nothing!” he said.

  “Isobel!” Gregor said at the same time.

  “What about Isobel?” Darach asked. “Are you finally going to quit dancing around and decide to marry her?”

  “I havenae been dancing,” Kerr protested. “But when I do dance, you’ll know it. I’m dazzling.”

  Laird Lachlan MacKay, possibly Kerr’s most annoying foster brother, appeared from behind a tree on his brute of a stallion. “Aye, you do dazzle when you dance. Watching you is like staring into the noonday sun on the hottest summer day. It burns your eyes, and you have to look away. But still you canna get the blinding image out of your mind.”

  “What are you doing, lurking back there like a giant rat?” Kerr asked, as Darach and Gregor chuckled. Lachlan had fallen for his wife, Amber, next, and watching him spin in circles trying to pin her down had been payback for all the pranks he’d pulled on his foster brothers over the years.