Beloved Highlander

Gregor looked over the banister to where Meg now stood on the lower landing.

“Was it you who brought Airdy, morvoren?”

“I’m afraid so,” she said, with a breathless laugh, her eyes brilliant at the sight of him. She wondered she could speak at all. She was trembling with happiness and relief.

“Och, well, he came in useful.”

She gazed up at him, wondering when it was that she had last seen anything so wonderful. His clothes might be grubby, and he might be pale and tired, with the beginnings of a fine beard, but he wa

s her beloved husband. Her beloved Highlander.

“Oh, Gregor…”

“Wait there, Meg. I’ll come down to you.”

And he did, taking the stairs two and three at a time, straight into her arms. He promptly picked her up, and whirled her around until she laughed and cried, and then he simply held her.

“You should not have come, Meg,” he scolded her softly, tenderly. “You should not have left the safety of our home.”

“Home isn’t home without you in it,” she snapped, and then wished she could cut out her sharp tongue. How could she speak so to him, at such a time as this?

But Gregor gazed down into her eyes and smiled his delight and his agreement. “No,” he said. “It isna.”

“I thought you were locked up,” she whispered, tears spilling down her cheeks, as she remembered that mournful, lonely call in the forest. “I thought you were in prison. I could not leave you like that, Gregor. I had to come and save you.”

“You have saved me,” he said, kissing away the tears. “And I love you for it, Meg. I love you.”

Meg pressed her face against his chest, breathing him in. He loved her. Gregor loved her. Could her heart get any more full?

“Next time you go to fight a duke,” she said, struggling for equilibrium, “then I am coming with you, Gregor Grant.”

He smiled, his handsome mouth curling at the edges. “Och, Meg,” he murmured, “I wouldna have it any other way.”

“It was truly a bedlam,” Malcolm Bain told his son Angus, the day after he returned home. “Airdy Campbell found his wife locked in one of the salons. It seems that when Lorenzo realized he had kidnapped the wrong lassie he was furious, but he was too stubborn to let her go. Probably embarrassed, too. But with all the servants gone, he was lonely, and he began to treat her as a guest rather than a prisoner. He and Barbara spent many an evening together, sipping the duke’s wine and sharing their troubles.”

Angus chuckled, glancing up at his father shyly. “And what of Airdy? What of him?”

“Well, Airdy saved Barbara, in a manner of speaking, so she flung herself at him and climbed atop his horse, and they rode back down the stairs together. We dinna see them again. I dinna know if Airdy’s still taking up his post at the pass. I suppose the pair of them will be happy enough, until the next big argument, eh?”

“And the Duke of Abercauldy was truly insane, was he?”

“Aye, something had happened to him. When he came out of his faint, Lorenzo told us that the duke truly had loved his wife, Isabella. It had been like a madness with him, as if he wanted to own her body and soul. There had been other women in the past who did not like the duke so well, and when he was weary of them he…” Malcolm Bain cleared his throat, “Well, that is not for yer ears, Angus. He was an evil man. I can tell ye, though, that Isabella must have been crazy herself, to stay with him. They were two of a kind, the Duke of Abercauldy and his wife. Lorenzo told us that they liked nothing better than to tie each other up and…” He cleared his throat again. “Well, anyway, they spent their time trying to best each other, until Isabella fell…jumped…was pushed to her death. Who knows the truth?”

“I dinna suppose the duke will tell us?”

“No, Angus, he canna say. If he pushed her, then she has had her revenge on him, because without her he is a shell of a man. He thought with Lady Meg he could relive his life with Isabella, make it turn out differently, but when Lorenzo told him that she’d wed another, he realized at last that it could never be, and he sank into his madness. Lorenzo tried to pretend he was all right. He was afraid that if the servants found out, they would tell the world that the duke was mad. Lorenzo couldn’t have that—he would lose his own position, his own power. It was all he lived for. So he played pretend. And now the duke is put away in a bedlam of his own. Poor Lorenzo.”

“Poor Lorenzo!” Angus cried indignantly. “He locked ye up in the dungeon, Father!”

The word Father stilled Malcolm Bain for a heartbeat. Shocking and yet wonderful, the name hung in the air between them. Realizing what he had said, Angus went red faced, making Malcolm aware that it would be a long journey before they could truly be comfortable with each other and their relationship. But it would be a journey that was very worthwhile, every moment of it.

“Aye, he did lock me up,” Malcolm went on evenly. “He dinna want us finding out about the duke. And I think, too, he wanted his wee bit of revenge upon the laird, for locking him up.”

“So now what will happen to him?”

“I dinna know, Angus. The laird said mabbe he would send him to prison, but I dinna think Gregor Grant would do that to any man, not even Lorenzo. Mabbe he’ll go home, to whatever place he comes from. Not Italy, I know that for sure!” he muttered to himself.

“Aye, let him go home.” Angus nodded his head, preferring that ending. “And what of the laird and the lady,” he added, with another bashful glance.