An Auctioned Bride (Highland Heartbeats #4)
Aileen Adams
1
Hugh McInnis sat atop his horse amidst the foliage of the forest, watching. The scent of earth and pine wafted over him, a gentle breeze stirring pine boughs and rustling leaves of black alder, mountain ash, rowen, and birch.
Down in the meadow, he spied a massive and ancient wych-elm tree, its massive trunk and root system surrounded by a thick overgrowth of broom and gorse. Twigs danced, and leaves trembled.
He closed his eyes for a moment and lifted his face to the late afternoon sky, inhaling deeply, relishing the scent of earth and forest. With the passing of each gentle gust, all grew still, the forest falling silent around him until the breeze brought it to life again.
He lowered his face and opened his eyes, a slight smile playing around the corners of his lips as he continued to watch.
He remained on the rise for several minutes, studying the terrain.
A creek ran down the rise nearby, edged by closely grown trees as it meandered to the north, then curved lazily around a small rise before disappearing off to the east. To the north and west, forested hills rose, blocking his view of the gently undulating land that would eventually fall toward the sea.
The air felt warm and humid.
And he remembered.
As dusk fell over the land, he would see brief flashes of heat lightning off to the east. The setting sun would bathe the area in a soft orange-red glow.
This far north, four long days of travel from Duncan manor, the landscape was rougher, more jagged, filled with hardscrabble granite, from small granite pebbles and stones just beneath the surface of the dirt to giant, monolithic spires that rose like fingers, their jagged edges softened by growth of moss and lichen over their hard surface.
Just below, in a shallow dip of land, he spotted the remnants of the thatched roof partly caved in. He lifted an eyebrow, surprised that it was still standing after all these years. He hadn't been back in fifteen years.
He grunted softly.
In their youth, he and his twin brother, Derek had run away from their home on the outskirts of the Duncan lands, away from a brutish father, thinking they might eventually join the army of Scottish soldiers fighting against the Norsemen.
First though, they would have an adventure.
He and Derek had loved their mother, but their father was a different story. Hugh and Derek had run away from home when they were fourteen. They'd headed northeast, toward the seacoast of northern Scotland. They'd found this small meadow more than a day's ride toward their ultimate destination and decided to stay for a while.
It'd taken more than a week to construct the hut, where they wintered before deciding to head back south, back home, finding the harsh climate unfavorable, unable to even plant a tiny crop.
Upon their return, they'd learned of their father's passing. Their mother had moved closer to the Duncan manor, in the village not far from the manor house, for a greater sense of protection from marauding enemy clans.
Hugh remembered the day that he and his brother had ventured to the manor after reuniting with their mother. They had come to give their fealty to the laird.
It hadn't taken long before Phillip Duncan, the laird's son, and his younger brother Jake, challenged them. He and Derek, hardened by months of living a hardscrabble life in the wilderness, were more than a match for Phillip and his brother. The brief bout of fisticuffs had ended in a draw.
After, two of them sporting bloody noses, Jake sporting a black eye, and Derek a split and swollen lid, the four had become fast friends.
Until now, Hugh had remained with the Duncans. Derek had not.
Nearly two years after their father's death and their return to the Duncan lands, Hugh and his twin had a falling out.
Hugh had never told anyone what had prompted his brother to leave. Nor had either of the Duncan brothers asked. He knew that if and when he told the story, they would listen, but they would not pry into his private business any more than he did theirs.
After his brother had left, Hugh had little time to miss his him. He'd undergone rigorous training by Duncan clansmen and fought by their side against warring clans over the years.
The summer he had turned twenty-five, he and his good friend, Maccay Douglas, had been put in charge of the defense of the Duncan lands and stronghold.
Phillip took over as clan leader upon his father's death, and Jake had gone off to war, fighting against the bloody Norsemen.
Nearly two years ago, Jake had returned home, near death from a terrible sword wound in his thigh. It was then that Phillip had ventured south with Hugh and Maccay, seeking a healer from the lowlands who had the reputation of being supremely gifted with her poultices and herbal remedies.
They had kidnapped Sarah MacDonald and brought her, kicking and scratching, the entire way back to the highlands. Despite her anger, her compassion for the wounded and suffering won out. She healed Jake, no thanks to Ceana, their local healer, who had actually attempted to poison Jake for refusing to marry her.
After that fiasco had been settled, and with little prompting, Phillip had returned south to retrieve Sarah's younger sister Heather, from the clutches of their often drunk and abusive stepfather.
Jake, two years younger than Phillip, had fallen in love with that little hellion. Then, just recently, and quite unbelievably, Maccay, his best friend, happy-go-lucky Maccay, had saved a girl with no memory from certain death in the forest and ended up marrying her!