Part One
I was sixteen years old the first time I saw the laird, and even that first sight of him awakened something in me. He’d emerged on horseback from a thicket near my father’s cottage, returned with his men from a skirmish on the border. And though the laird was dirty from battle, slumped in his saddle and bleeding from a cut above his eyebrow, John Macrae had about him an undeniable aura of power.
Even without the sword at his kilted hip, the power of his muscular legs pressing into the sides of his horse, and the strength of his hands on the reins, he was the sort of man to be obeyed. So when he called to me to fetch water for his warriors and their horses, I lifted my skirts to my knees so that I could run to obey him, my long legs through the grasses of our highland croft, scattering bleating sheep.
“What is it?” my father asked, looking up from raking hay. He scowled when he saw our clan chieftain and his men dismounting.
Though we owed the Macrae our fealty and service, my father didn’t like our chieftain. Whenever the tacksmen came to collect our rents, Papa would mutter darkly, “I’d have paid his brother gladly, but not him, with all his Donald Clan blood.”
Macrae’s had been feuding with the Donalds for longer than I could remember; my father lost most of an ear in one of those battles. As a young man he’d been willing to fight for the old laird, but he resented the new one because John Macrae was the youngest son, born of a second marriage, and his mother was said to have kin amongst our enemies.
Nevertheless, he was our chieftain, and we were tenants on his land; we survived at his pleasure, so I hurried to fetch the water he wanted. I tore a strip of cloth from my coverlet, too, to clean the blood. And when I slipped back out of the cottage into the blinding afternoon light, daring to come close to the great big beast of a man, long enough to bandage his wound, he caught my wrist as if I meant to do him harm.
My breath caught in my chest while my heart pounded against my rib cage. Meanwhile, he stared into my eyes, which must have turned to violet glass in my surprise. “What’s your name, lass?”
For a moment, so mesmerized was I by his touch, I couldn’t answer. “Heather,” I finally whispered.
“Heather,” he repeated, as if he liked my name. “Purple, like your eyes. Never seen eyes that shade before. Is that why you have the name?”
“No, I think my parents chose it for a honey made with heather…”
He smiled. “My favorite. I have it on my bread.”
“T’was my mother’s favorite, too.” I said, swallowing a bit over the pain of having lost her. She’d died giving birth, and the baby along with her, leaving me to care for all my little siblings in her stead. I missed her, but my father missed her more. In fact, I think he lost his wits the day they put her in the ground. “Your cut, my laird…it’s bleeding badly.”
“It’s only a scratch,” the laird said, letting go of my wrist so that I could tend him. And I felt somehow more adrift in the world when his skin pulled from mine. “But it’s blinding me with the blood.”
I dabbed at the cut, washing it with water, wrapping the bandage around his head in the hopes it would stem the bleeding. “This might help until you return to the castle.”
“Good lass,” the chieftain said, rubbing his hands clean upon his plaid kilt. “A bonnie lass too. Your father is lucky to have such a daughter.”
“Her and a bunch of bairns to feed,” my father replied, a bit testy as our chieftain’s hungry men helped themselves to the raspberries we grew along the line of the fence.
The laird snorted. “Aye, well, she’s almost grown now. She’ll be married soon and you’ll have one less mouth to feed.”
Then he was gone.
That’s what I remember of our first meeting. And I believed, for years after, that the Macrea was commanding but gentle, and kind.
First impressions, of course, can be deceiving…
~~~
Two years later…
“Hang him,” the laird said, directing his men to drag my father to the nearest tree while all my little siblings shrieked with terror. Papa had been caught by the holding back rents owed, a tiny cache of coins found hidden beneath a haystack.
And not for the first time.
My father’s face went pale as the kilted warriors bound his hands with rope, and my nearest sister Arabella screamed, “Papa!” We all tried to rush to him, to huddle with him and protect him from our chieftain’s wrath, but the laird’s men kept us back.
There was no question but that our chieftain had the right to take justice upon my father, who had twice tried to cheat him. But I couldn’t think he meant to condemn us all to starvation, as he most certainly would if my Papa was hanged.
And so I didn’t rush to my father, but rather to the laird himself, dropping to the dirt by his feet, “Please! I beg of you, sir. Spare him, though he’s wronged you.”
“I spared him once,” the laird said coolly, as a noose was fashioned over the tree. My god, he’s going to do it, I thought. He was going to kill my father here, in front of all his children—who were, in some sense, after raising them for years now, my own.
Tears bit at the corners of my eyes, and I clutched desperately to his bare knees. “Please, laird, for the love of god!”
But these were the sounds
of a girl begging for mercy without reason. And men who are leaders need reasons. “By what right does a crofter’s daughter touch her laird without leave?” Then, without warning, he snapped. “You have no right even to look me in the eye unless granted permission to do so. Lower you head, you impertinent lass, or I’ll slap you to the ground.”
I reared back on my knees, my hands twisting in my apron. Shocked, shaking, hating him. I couldn’t recognize this man or reconcile him with the one I’d first met. And clearly he didn’t know me. Didn’t remember me. Some lairds cared very much for their people—more for their clan than for themselves. But I felt as if I was nothing and no one to him. We were only his tenants. He wouldn’t care, even if he did remember me. He was as uncaring as my father had always accused him of being, but I couldn’t stop a hanging if I responded in a fit of temper.
My voice quavered as I swallowed down my terror and rage. “I beg your pardon. And I beg your mercy. Mercy!”
Since I couldn’t look at him without his say so, I don’t know what his expression was, but his voice softened. “I’m sorry lass, but wrongs must be met with punishment. Your father’s guilt is without question.”
It was. I couldn’t argue it. But neither could I let him die. “I know he’s guilty. That’s why I plead not for justice but mercy. If it be in this humble girl’s power to offer you anything in exchange for your mercy, I would give it gladly.”
“What could you offer me?” the laird asked, stooping down and tilting my chin, his thumb brushing over my cheek, as if he felt some remorse. “You may look at me now…” I glanced up, terrified. Unable to form words. “Answer me. What can a crofter’s daughter have to offer her laird?”
His warriors laughed at that, an uneasy, lewd laugh that did nothing to cut through the tension of the moment. But my father knew why they laughed, and barked, “Girl! Leave the laird be. I go happily to my death if it means keeping you from his clutches.”