Authors: Patricia; Grasso
The Campbells seemed to approve of her. Still, most hadn’t caught a look at the back of her left hand, and there was no way to predict what their reaction would be once her devil’s flower became common knowledge.
Rob sighed and surveyed her surroundings. Drooping clouds hung sadly overhead in a low overcast, but the air felt unusually warm for late February, more like rain than snow. Several nuthatches, finches, and sparrows chattered noisily on the barren branches of the garden’s trees. Rob knew the hungry birds had several weeks of waiting before the plant life beneath the earth awakened. Yet, all of nature seemed poised, awaiting the coming of spring.
Rob set Smooches down. Invigorated by the crisp air, the pup scampered about wildly. Rob started to walk down the narrow stone path that led through the garden.
“Be ye friend or be ye enemy?” a voice demanded.
Rob stopped short and turned in a complete circle, but saw no one. She did, however, hear what sounded suspiciously like giggling children.
“Be ye friend or be ye enemy?” the voice called again, louder this time.
Rob swallowed the bubble of laughter she felt rising in her throat. “Show yerself,” she ordered. “And then I’ll tell ye.”
“Speak first,” the voice insisted.
“I’m yer MacArthur kinswoman from Loch Awe,” Rob answered. “A damsel-eatin’ dragon is chasin’ me, and I’ve come in search of a hero to save me.”
A dark-haired, dark-eyed boy about seven years old materialized from behind the evergreen hedgerow. Beside him appeared another boy, perhaps a year or two younger. With his chestnut brown hair and gray eyes, the younger of the two seemed vaguely familiar.
The older boy puffed his chest out and said, “Damsel, yer heroes are here.”
Rob bit her bottom lip to keep from laughing. The lad appeared so solemn that she knew her amusement would insult him.
“Be that the monster?” the younger boy asked, pointing a finger at Smooches.
Rob did chuckle then and shook her head. “No, ’tis my dog.”
Smooches made a mad dash for the boys. Wagging his tail, he leaped at their legs and barked his shrill puppy yelp.
“’Tis small for a dog,” the older boy remarked.
“He’s English.”
“Ah.” The boy nodded in understanding as if being an English dog explained the pup’s miniature size.
Rob crossed the short distance between them and curtsied, saying, “I’m Rob MacArthur and have come with my husband to live at Inverary.”
“Ye’ve a boy’s name,” the older boy said.
“I’m a girl,” she replied. “My da named me in honor of his special hero, Robert the Bruce.”
The boy nodded, but Rob surmised from his blank expression that he’d never heard of that great Scotsman. “And ye are?” she asked.
“I’m Duncan, which means warrior,” the older boy told her. “This is my brother, Gavin. His name means hawk.”
Rob wondered briefly what Kendra’s sons were doing in the duke’s private garden, but then recalled that her father-in-law was partial to them. “I’m verra pleased to meet ye,” she said.
“How old are ye?” Duncan asked.
“Eighteen.”
“Yer old!” Gavin exclaimed,
“Why, thank ye.” Rob gestured to the pup. “This is Smooches, named because if ye lean verra close to him, he’ll give ye plenty of kisses.”
Instantly, both boys leaned close to the pup. True to his name. Smooches delighted in licking their faces and making them laugh with childish glee.
Duncan picked a twig up, threw it across the garden, and ordered, “Fetch, Smooches.”
The pup wagged his tail and sat down.
“I’m afraid Smooches hasna learned to fetch yet,” Rob explained.
“I’ll teach him,” Gavin offered.
“We’ll teach him,” Duncan corrected his brother.
“Perhaps ’twould be wise to begin with somethin’ simple like ‘sit’ or ‘give paw,’” Rob suggested.
“Sit,” Gavin ordered the pup.
“He’s already sittin’,” Duncan told his brother.
“Stand,” Gavin corrected himself.
Rob burst out laughing. The six-year-old cast her a flirtatious smile, obviously pleased that he’d entertained her.
“Do ye play here often?” Rob asked, sitting down on a nearby stone bench. She loved children and hoped she’d see them again.
Duncan nodded. “Every day at this hour.”
“Weather permittin’, I’ll meet ye here tomorrow,” Rob said. “Ye can train Smooches a little bit each day. Would ye like that?”
Surprisingly, the boys did not answer. They were looking at something behind her.
“Da!” Duncan shrieked and ran past her.
“Da!” Gavin echoed and followed his brother.
With a smile of greeting upon her face, Rob stood and turned to meet their father. The sight of him hit her with the impact of an avalanche, crushing whatever hopes for happiness she’d harbored in her heart. Shock weakened her legs as if she’d been struck with the broad end of a claymore, forcing her to plop down on the bench again.
Duke Magnus stood near the garden door. Beside him, Gordon crouched on one bended knee as he clutched his sons.
“How are my warrior and my hawk?” Gordon asked the boys.
“I missed ye,” Duncan said.
“Me too,” Gavin echoed.
“We’ve just saved that damsel from the dragon that was chasin’ her,” Duncan told his father.
Gordon shifted his gaze to Rob and told them, “I once slew the monster that was livin’ beneath her bed.”
“Ye did?” they chimed together.
Gordon smiled and nodded.
“She said we could train her dog and play together every day,” Gavin told his father. The boy lowered his voice and whispered, “She’s verra bonny.”
“Aye, she’s bonny,” Gordon agreed, and smiled in her direction.
Meeting his gaze, Rob felt her blood heat to a boiling rage, and a tempest of anger swept through her. Duncan and Gavin were her husband’s bastards, Kendra’s sons sired after he’d married her. While she’d been dreaming of him rescuing her from the taunts of the MacArthur clan’s children, Gordon had been nesting between Kendra’s thighs.
Rob considered Duncan and Gavin innocent of their father’s sins. She knew that many men sired children out of wedlock. Their existence didn’t bother her. What hurt beyond forgiveness was his lack of regard for her as evidenced by his failure to tell her about his sons.
Everyone in the hall that morning knew that Kendra had borne Gordon his two sons.
Except his wife.
Chapter 10
“God’s balls, lass. Dinna just stand there lookin’ like yer aboot to swoon,” Gordon said, standing in front of her. “Say somethin’, will ye?”
Having just suffered one of the worst shocks of her eighteen years, Rob knew she must be as pale as death itself. She looked up at her husband, and then gazed past him to the duke and the two young boys who stood near the door. All of them wore worried expressions, which meant she appeared as horrible as she felt.
Rob met her father-in-law’s gaze and gave him a pointed stare. Oddly enough, Duke Magnus understood what she needed because he cast her an encouraging smile and inclined his head in her direction. Taking his grandsons in hand, he disappeared inside the building.
“Well, lass?”
Rob looked up at Gordon again. A surge of rage shot through her. Her husband was about to feel the sting of her anger, but not her pain. Never her pain. She’d always considered her pain a private matter to be kept locked away and never shared with anyone. Her MacArthur pride refused to allow anyone the sight of her vulnerable, aching heart.
Slowly and deliberately, Rob rose from her perch on the bench. She stepped closer to her husband and said in a deceptively quiet voice, “Tell me, my lord. How would ye feel if I’d been the one with children I’d neglected to mention?”
“Dinna be ridiculous,” Gordon scoffed at the notion.
“How dare ye call me ridiculous,” Rob said, her voice an angry whisper, her hands clenching into fists at her sides. “At least I possessed the integrity to tell ye aboot Henry. Ye should have told me aboot yer sons, Gordy.” Her whisper grew into a shout, and her chest heaved with breathless rage as though she’d climbed a mountain. “I had the right to know aboot them before I stepped into that hall and faced the woman who bore them. Great Bruce’s ghost, I’ll never trust ye again.”
Gordon snapped his eyebrows together. “Are ye finished?”
“Not quite,” she replied in a clipped voice. “Yer an immoral, arrogant son of a bitch.”
Without warning, Rob swung with her right arm and slapped his left cheek so hard the force of it snapped his face to the right. Scooping Smooches into her arms, she marched down the stone path and disappeared inside the house.
Rob went directly to her chamber. Shaking with fury, she set Smooches down on the bed and then sat in the chair in front of the hearth.
Tears welled up in her eyes, but she forced them back. How humiliating to meet her husband’s mistress, the mother of his sons, and be unaware of it. Those watching Campbells in the hall that morning must have had a hearty laugh at her expense, and by now the tale would have spread to anyone unfortunate enough to have missed it.
And just how did Fergus figure into this? Didn’t the man care that his wife had borne the laird’s heir two children?
Rob sighed raggedly and struggled against the flood of tears threatening to spill, doggedly refusing to weep for Gordon. She’d lived through worse than this humiliation and never shed a tear. The proud MacArthurs never wept for trivialities like a miserable, friendless childhood or a husband’s betrayal.
A startling thought suddenly slammed into her consciousness. She’d struck her husband. Never in her entire life had she done anyone violence. Why, in the holy name of God, had she started with him? Praise be to a merciful God, there’d been no witnesses. Gordon would be furious and bent on exacting some kind of retribution. What form would that take, and, more importantly, how would she deflect it?
Hours passed while she pondered her fateful near-future. Just before supper the door swung open. Startled, Rob glanced over her shoulder, certain that her husband had come to punish her for daring to raise her hand to him.
“Good evenin’, Lady Rob,” Gabby called.
“Is it evenin’ already?” Rob asked, every nerve in her body relaxing at the welcome sight of her tiring woman.
“Have ye been sittin’ there the whole day and never noticed the hours passin’?” Gabby asked, crossing the chamber to stand before her. “Ye dinna look well. Is yer hand painin’ ye?”
Rob met the girl’s worried gaze and answered, “No, ’tis my heart.”
“Spill it, lady,” Gabby ordered, heedless of the proper protocol between a tiring woman and her mistress. “What’s yer problem?”
Rob hesitated for a fraction of a moment, but then admitted, “My husband and I are in discord.”
“Is that all?” Gabby chuckled, surprising her. “Would ye like me to help ye change yer gown before supper?” she asked. “’Tis one of my duties, ye know.”
Rob shook her head. “I’d rather ye tell me aboot Gordon and Kendra.”
“What’s to tell?”
“She bore him two sons.”
“Oh, that.” Gabby gestured with her hand as if the matter were of no consequence. “’Twas an affair ended long ago. Besides, Gordy futtered dozens of Inverary’s maids.”
“Why, thank ye, Gabby,” Rob said dryly. “Yer makin’ me feel ever so much better.”
“A man will always take what’s offered,” the girl told her. “Granny Biddy said so.”
“What aboot Fergus?” Rob asked.
“Kendra married Fergus aboot three years ago when she realized havin’ the laird’s grandsons wasna gainin’ her anythin’,” Gabby said. “The laird ordered the boys moved into the main house last year so they could be educated and raised as befittin’ a duke’s grandsons. Tutors them himself, he does. Every week or two, Duncan and Gavin spend a day and a night with Fergus and Kendra. Ye are na harborin’ a grudge against the lads, are ye?”
“No, but Gordon should have told me they existed,” Rob replied.
“He never told ye?” Gabby shook her head in disbelief. “’Tis just like a man to ignore the unpleasant truth until it leaps up and bites his arse. Granny Biddy says dinna ever let yer man get the upper hand with ye because —”
“I believe I got the upper hand with my husband,” Rob interrupted, smiling in spite other heartache.
“What d’ye mean?”
“I slapped him.”
Gabby’s lips formed a perfect O of surprise, and then she grinned. “Good for ye, my lady. I’m likin’ ye better and better with each passin’ moment.”
Had she found a friend in Gabby? Rob wondered, returning the girl’s smile. If so, it would be the second friend she’d ever had. Not bad, considering she’d never expected to have even one.
“Let me dress ye up pretty for supper,” Gabby suggested.
“I canna go down there,” Rob said, refusing. “Everyone except me knew aboot Duncan and Gavin bein’ Gordy’s sons. ’Twould be too embarrassin’ to face them.”