Waiting for her to come to her senses and agree to marry him was out of the question. By the time she got around to making up her mind, they could have at least two children.
The world around them intruded, forcing both of them back to the present. Ramsey shouted Brodick's name, and with a long, regretful sigh, Brodick stepped back.
"Go and collect your things. It's time for us to leave." He turned and started back toward the fields.
She ran after him. "Thank you for understanding."
"Understanding what?"
"That I cannot marry you."
As he continued on his way, his hardy laugh echoed back to her.
By the time Gillian returned to the Maitland home, Helen, the housekeeper, had her things packed, and as Gillian was thanking her for her help, she remembered a promise she'd made. Fortunately, Helen was able to help and showed her a shortcut to her destination out the back door.
Ten minutes passed and then ten more, and Brodick, impatient by nature, was growing more irritated by the second as he waited for Gillian in the courtyard.
Ramsey and Winslow waited by his side, and every couple of seconds one or the other would glance toward the doors.
"What in thunder's keeping her?" Brodick muttered.
"Maybe she's waiting for Iain and Judith. Here they come now. Gillian surely wants to say good-bye to them."
Ramsey was the first to see Gillian walking toward the courtyard from the opposite side of the hill.
"Here she comes."
"She didn't forget," Winslow said, smiling.
His wife, Isabelle, was walking with Gillian, and Winslow's two boys trailed behind. His younger son, Andrew, soon to be five years old, ran forward and took hold of Gillian's hand. Winslow watched her as she smiled at his son and spoke to him. Whatever she said amused Andrew, for he burst into laughter. Isabelle was trying hard not to laugh.
"What didn't she forget?" Brodick asked his brother.
"I told her Isabelle was upset with me because I hadn't introduced her. She didn't forget."
Winslow suddenly figured out why his family was so amused with Gillian. "I don't think Isabelle understands a word she's saying. Your woman's Gaelic needs improvement."
Brodick nodded. "She has a quick mind. She'll learn."
"Are you going to keep her?"
"Yes."
"Does she know it?"
"Not yet."
Ramsey overheard the conversation and laughed heartily. "I assume you've considered all the problems, Brodick."
"I have."
"It won't be an easy life for her living with—" Ramsey began. Brodick finished his sentence for him. "Living with the Buchanan clan. I know, and I worry about her adjustment."
Ramsey grinned. "That's not what I was going to say. It won't be easy for her living with you. Rumor has it, you're a difficult man to be around."
Brodick didn't take offense. "Gillian's aware of my flaws."
"And she'll still have you?" Winslow asked.
"As a matter of fact, she has refused to marry me."
Knowing Brodick as well as they did, both Ramsey and Winslow began to laugh again.
"So when's the wedding?" Ramsey asked.
Chapter Eighteen
Love wasn't supposed to happen this suddenly.
Gillian spent most of the ride to Ramsey's holding thinking about Brodick and wondering how in heaven's name he had managed to capture her heart so completely in so little time. The man had all but robbed her of her senses. She was well aware of his flaws, most of them anyway, but she still loved him all the same, and how was such a thing possible? Love was supposed to be nourished. It was a slow realization that occurred after months and months of courting, and sometimes that awareness took years. Love certainly didn't strike like lightning.
Maybe it was lust, and if it was, then how was she ever going to be able to tell that atrocious sin in the confessional without dying of mortification? Was it lust? Brodick was a handsome devil, and she would have had to be dead not to notice. Yet Ramsey and Iain were also handsome, and her heart didn't race when either of them was near. Brodick had a mesmerizing effect on her, though. All he had to do was glance her way and she became quite breathless.
He wasn't paying her the slightest bit of attention now. He and Ramsey rode well ahead of their soldiers and Gillian, and Brodick never once looked back to see how she was doing. She spent a good deal of time staring at his broad shoulders while she tried to figure out how she could regain her senses.
She didn't want to think about her reason for going to Ramsey's home, yet reality kept intruding, no matter how she tried to block her worries. What if her sister wasn't there? What if she had married and moved away from the MacPhersons? Worse, what if Christen didn't remember her? Her sister hadn't had Liese to help her keep the memories alive the way Gillian had, and what if Christen had forgotten everything that had happened?
So caught up in her thoughts, Gillian didn't notice that Brodick and Ramsey had stopped. Dylan reached over and grabbed Gillian's reins, forcing her mount to halt. She and the soldiers waited a good distance behind the lairds, and just as she was about to ask the commander why they weren't continuing on, she saw a horse and rider galloping up the hill from the west. Making a wide sweep around them, the stranger rode on ahead to join Brodick and Ramsey.
Gillian patiently waited to find out what was going on as she watched what appeared to be an argument between the stranger and Brodick. It couldn't have been much of a disagreement, though. Even though Brodick was scowling and the stranger was repeatedly shaking his head in obvious disapproval, Ramsey, Gillian noticed, was smiling.
"Dylan, who is that man shaking his head at your laird?" Gillian asked.
"Father Laggan. He serves the Sinclairs, the Maitlands, and many others."
"Does he serve the Buchanans as well?"
"When there's no getting out of it, he does."
"I don't understand. Doesn't he like the Buchanans?"
Dylan chuckled. "No one likes us, milady. We're proud of that fact. Most of the clans leave us alone, as do the clergy, including Father Laggan."
"Why don't they like you?"
"They fear us," the Buchanan commander explained cheerfully. "Father Laggan believes we're savages."
"Where would you get such an idea?"
"From Father Laggan. It's what he calls us."
"I'm certain he doesn't really believe any such thing. You aren't savages. You're just a bit… intense… that's all. The priest seems to be holding his own with Brodick now. Do you see how he's shaking his head?"
"Brodick will still win," Dylan predicted. "He always does."
As though he knew they were discussing him, Brodick suddenly turned in his saddle and looked at her while the priest continued to argue with him. Obviously upset, Laggan was now waving his hands in agitation.
Then Brodick winked at her. She didn't know what to make of his behavior. It wasn't like Brodick to be flirtatious in front of others, and the silly little gesture warmed her heart.
"Do you know what they're discussing?" she asked Dylan.
"I do," he answered.
Father Laggan then twisted in his saddle to look at her. He had shocking white hair and deeply tanned and leathered skin. His lips were pinched together, indicating his displeasure, and for that reason she neither smiled nor waved to him. She simply inclined her head in silent greeting.
As soon as the priest turned back to Brodick, Gillian demanded, "Tell me what they're arguing about."
"You."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I do believe you're the topic of their discussion, milady."
"Surely not," she said. "The priest doesn't even know me."
"Iain sent him to Brodick, and I do believe that now Laggan is acting as your guardian. He wants to make sure you aren't being forced to do anything you don't want to do."
"But I want to go to Ramsey's," she countered. "Iain must have explained my situation to Father."
Dylan sincerely hoped she wouldn't ask him to elaborate on the priest's motives. In his opinion, the less she knew, the better.
Brodick motioned for her to come forward as the priest, still frowning, nudged his horse to the side to give her room. Ramsey flanked Gillian on one side and Brodick on the other. Gillian smiled at the priest as Ramsey made the introductions, but that smile vanished in a heartbeat when she realized where she was. She had thought Brodick had stopped at the edge of a gentle slope, but now that she was only a few feet away from the edge, she could see the sheer drop below her. So forcefully did she pull on the reins, the horse reared, but Brodick's quick action saved her from being thrown.
He had to pry the reins away from her hands. "Gillian, what's come over you?"
She made herself look at him and only him. "I don't like looking down at such depths," she whispered. "It makes me lightheaded."
Seeing the panic in her eyes, Brodick quickly forced both mounts to back up several feet. Ramsey did the same.
"Better now?"
She exhaled as she relaxed. "Yes, much better, thank you," she whispered before turning to Father Laggan.
"Ramsey, I'll need your help with this," Brodick said quietly.
"I'll do what I can," his friend promised just as softly.
Curious, Gillian looked at Brodick. "Would you also like my help?"
He grinned. "Your help is a definite requirement."
"Then tell me, please, what it is you need assistance with, and I shall be happy to help in any way that I can."
He glanced at Ramsey, who quickly said, "The priest is waiting to speak to you. Do you want him to think you're ill-mannered?"
The possibility that she might have inadvertently insulted a man of God made her blush. "No, of course not," she said hastily. "Good day to you, Father. I'm happy to meet you."
"Good day," he replied with a hint of civility that was gone in the blink of an eye when he continued. "Now, I have a few important questions to ask you to satisfy the Church."
"You wish to satisfy the Church?" she asked, jarred by his sudden abrupt manner and his strange announcement. Surely she hadn't heard correctly.
"I do," he answered emphatically. After pausing to give Brodick what could only be interpreted as an extremely hostile glare, the priest added, "We will not move forward until I know for a certainty that you have not been coerced."
"Father, it's extremely important that I go to—"
Before she could finish her explanation, Ramsey forcefully interrupted. "Didn't Gillian have to climb into a gorge to get Alec Maitland? Iain told me his son was trapped on a ledge."
"She's right in front of you, Ramsey. Ask her," Brodick suggested.
She wasn't paying any attention to the two lairds now. "Father, why would you need to ask—"
"Did you, Gillian?"
Once again Ramsey had interrupted her, and had she not known better, she would have thought that he'd done it on purpose, but that was ridiculous, of course. Unlike Brodick, Ramsey wouldn't deliberately be impertinent. If anything, he was diplomatic to a fault.
"Did I what?" she asked somewhat absentmindedly as she continued to study the priest. Why in heaven's name did she have to satisfy the Church before she could continue on to Ramsey's holding?
Repeating his question, Ramsey demanded that she look at him when she answered. Because he was so insistent, she begged the priest's indulgence before turning her back on him.
"Yes, Ramsey, I did climb into the gorge to get Alec."
Before he could ask her another question, she gave the priest her undivided attention once again. "Father, are you telling me that I cannot go any further until I satisfy the Church? Did I hear you correctly?"
"Yes, milady, that's exactly what I said. No one's going to budge from this very spot until I'm completely satisfied. I mean what I say, Laird," he added with another piercing glare at Brodick.
"You will be satisfied," Brodick assured him.
"I don't understand…" she began.
"I will make certain you do understand," the priest said. "The Buchanans are experts in trickery and deception. They will do whatever it takes to get what they want, and since your parents and your confessor are not here to protect you, I feel it's my duty to speak as your guardian and your priest. Now do you understand?"
She didn't understand at all. She started to shake her head and thought to ask Father why he felt she needed someone to look out for her. Didn't he realize that Brodick was there to help?
"Father, I asked Brodick—"
The priest was so startled, he didn't let her finish. "You asked him? Then you weren't coerced?"
Gillian was beginning to think that Father Laggan might be a bit addled in the head. Once again she patiently tried to explain. "If anyone has done any coercing, it is I. Brodick would have gone back home if I hadn't asked him to—"
Brodick cut her off. "She has her own mind, Father. I have neither forced nor manipulated her. Isn't that so, Gillian?"
"Yes, it is so," she agreed. "But Father, I'm still not understanding why you feel it necessary to play my champion. Can you not see that I am in good hands?"
Father Laggan looked as though he wanted to weep for her. "Dear Lady, you cannot possibly know what you're getting into," he cried out, stunned by her calm acquiescence. "Answer me this, he demanded. "Have you ever been to the Buchanan holding?"
"No, I haven't…"
The priest threw up his hands in despair. "There you have it," he said triumphantly and in a near shout.
"What I have seen of the Highlands is very beautiful," she said. "And I imagine that Brodick's land is just as lovely."
"But you've never met any of the savages who call themselves Buchanans, now have you, lass?" the priest asked in a shrill voice.
It was more than apparent that Father Laggan was highly upset, and hoping to soothe him, she responded, "No, I haven't met many of his followers, but I'm sure they're very pleasant people and not savages."
"Dear God above, she thinks they're pleasant. Did you hear her, Ramsey? Did you?"