When she returned to the front room without the infant, the
mother began a wail in a dialect Alyson did not need language skills to understand.
She met the older woman’s gaze with a sorrow that ate right through her heart.
The woman nodded in understanding and proceeded to reassure the young mother in
an incomprehensible accent.
Alyson turned to give Meg orders for warm clothing and blankets.
The front door slammed open and Rory fell into the hall with a burst of wind
and rain. The high keening wails drew him to the front room once he had the
door closed. The rage and weariness on his face deepened at the scene before
him.
“What the devil is this about?” he roared. He threw his
soaked cloak over a massive carved mahogany chair with utter disregard for its
antiquity. Meg instantly blocked Alyson as if to protect her from his fury.
Alyson could see her husband’s frustration color his already
chapped and reddened jaw but she did not fear his fury.
He was a man of practicality, a man who used logic and
action to attain his goals. She realized he had buried emotion with his brother
and father and had no notion how to deal with it. She waited while he struggled
to regain control. He had married her, a woman who communicated in emotions he
could not comprehend.
The look of anguish on his face was as raw and painful as
she felt. But he could not express it. Turning from her, he spoke sharply in Gaelic
to the two women by the fire.
As if knowing Alyson could not understand what they said,
the older woman glanced at her with compassion and spoke to her as well as
Rory, using her halting English.
“The child was forced on her by one of Drummond’s men. When
she grew too big to work, they threw her out of the house. I took her in, but
the bairn was born sickly, and she had no milk for it. The roof leaked and the
mold got in the oats. I had nothing to give them. When we heard the Maclean had
returned, I told her he would help, he would remember Gregor. So we came here.”
This last came on a note of defiance, as if daring them to
have forgotten the man Gregor or to think that she begged. Alyson understood at
once and glanced to Rory, praying that he knew of whom she spoke. She should
not have doubted.
“Gregor! How could I forget the man who gave me my first
claymore and showed me how to use it? He had a lass that was only knee-high
when last I saw her. And this is Mary, then?”
Perhaps compassion could not be heard in the tone of his
voice, but it was in his words, and Alyson sighed with relief. Rory would make
things right. If she gave it thought, she would realize that this Mary was much
the same age as herself, and had fate decreed differently, Rory might never
have left the Highlands but stayed in his family home and married this daughter
of his old friend. She could not allow her thoughts to follow those lines, but
concentrated on what must be done now.
The conversation had gone on without her, but Alyson understood
enough to realize Rory offered the women a home and positions in the household
and looked now to her for assistance. With a nod of her head, Alyson sent Meg
on the errands she had ordered earlier. Then she turned to the sobbing woman.
“I know you would wish to live near where your little boy
will be buried. You have a home here, as he will. When you are strong again, we
can talk of what you can do. I don’t suppose either of you knows aught of
weaving?”
Rory looked surprised at this change of topic, but the older
woman looked relieved. “If you have looms, my lady, I know the trade, and Mary
is very quick.”
Alyson smiled absently and nodded. “Good. There are no sheep
now, but there will be. It is too costly to rely on others for what we can
provide ourselves.” Without changing the tone of her voice, she greeted the
maid who entered with warm blankets. “Meg, can you find Mary and her friend a
bed and some hot porridge? They will be staying.”
Seeing the newcomers led off, Alyson began to drift off
after them, but Rory blocked her passage. She gazed up at him without surprise.
“What is this talk of a child to be buried?” His voice was
gruff, but his hands resting on her shoulders were gentle.
“Her baby died. They are tending it now in the kitchen.”
He could still see the streaks of tears on her face, but she
had concealed her feelings behind that damned vague look she wore to protect
herself. Rory realized she was protecting herself against him as well, and the
raw ache throbbed painfully.
Rory knew what he should do. He should take her in his arms
and kiss the tears from her cheeks and hold her until she let go of the pain
and cried out her fears for their own child. But he also knew that to do that
would release this painful need of his own, and he had forfeited the right to
do that.
There was only one other offer he could make, the only
certain way he knew to protect Alyson and the child from the cruelty of this
world as he knew it. Sadly he brushed a strand of silky ebony from her face.
“Dougall will be arriving soon with the
Witch.
He can
take you back to London by sea. You and the child will be warm and safe, and
there will be physicians aplenty if they are needed. Our child will be fine,
lass, you will see.”
Alyson shook her head. “No, Maclean, you will not rid
yourself of me that easily. All my life I’ve lived in a cocoon, sheltered from
the world. I cannot complain, because I never knew any other way to live. I was
not necessary to anyone, anywhere, then. But I know differently now, and I
cannot go on hiding from the way things are. Did you think I could go forever
watching people starve and babies die and do nothing? If you do not mean to use
my inheritance to help, then someone must. Good night, Rory.”
She walked out and up the stairs to the bed they no longer
shared, leaving Rory staring after her with a longing so deep that he knew he
would never recover.
The beautiful child he had carried away and shown the world
had become a woman at last, but a woman who no longer needed him.
He, on the other hand, was back where he had started,
admiring a lovely object he could never have, fearful that his jaded touch
would destroy her.
“He’s not evil. The devil is evil. Drummond is just
greedy, like most English lords.”
“He’s a devil! You have not seen him as I have! A cross
should be driven through his black heart, and he should be burned at the stake!”
“Perhaps Lady Maclean could put a curse on him,” a third
voice snickered.
With a sigh at the overheard conversation, Alyson entered
the kitchen. The senseless argument instantly quieted as the servants returned
to preparing dinner. Alyson glanced toward Mary, surprised to find the girl
already out of her sickbed. She was wearing one of the serviceable woolen gowns
Alyson had ordered made for the staff, but at the time it had not occurred to
her to order materials for shoes. She made a mental note of that lack as she
observed the bundle wrapped about Mary’s feet to warm them on the cold stone
floors.
The girl didn’t look her way, but Alyson knew she had been
the one driving the argument. After a bath and a few days’ rest, she could be
seen as attractive in a harsh-boned manner. She was still much too thin, and
the spots of pink on her cheeks warned that fever lingered, but she was diligently
kneading a large bowl of dough without any sign of weakness.
Alyson did not know who had made the comment about the
curse. Her gaze lingered on a young girl scrubbing a pot near the fire, and the
child blushed, but spying on the servants had not been her intention.
“We will need extra for dinner tonight, enough for another
twenty men, I would say. Can we do it?”
Unlike her grandfather’s trained English staff, these people
were inclined to question orders and offer opinions without being asked. All in
all, Alyson found it much simpler to consider their opinions before imposing
her own.
“Twenty men?” The cook and established ruler of the kitchen
looked to her in surprise. A stocky, hearty woman in her forties, but with dark
hair already graying, she had worked in these kitchens before Alyson was born.
She remembered Alyson’s mother and grandmother and was less likely than the
others to argue when Alyson caught her by surprise like this. “Has there been a
messenger, then?”
That was one of the problems with living in such isolation.
Nothing went on without everyone knowing it. They knew there had been no
messenger.
“Rory is expecting his ship to arrive. If it is not today,
then we will have to preserve what we can for the morrow. I am certain there
are mouths enough to eat what we cannot save.”
That was an unarguable statement, and, satisfied, the cook
agreed they could provide the meal. Even though she had given them what she
considered adequate explanation, Alyson could hear a voice pipe up as soon as
she left the room.
“She has the gift, I tell you. The laird’s been expecting
that ship for days. I heard him say so. And did you see the way she looked
right at me? She knew!”
“Mackle-mouth, anyone would know your whining! Get that pot
scrubbed and start on the potatoes.”
Alyson took a deep breath and sailed down the hall. She had
told Rory she no longer wanted the cotton batting that had protected her all
her life, but there were times when she wondered if she hadn’t been just a
little hasty in her declaration of independence.
Climbing to the second floor to see what progress had been
made in refurbishing their private apartments, Alyson was surprised to discover
Rory still at his desk. When he had appropriated this room for his study, she
had ordered draperies for it. A fire was kept burning to keep his books and
papers dry and to maintain a reasonable temperature whenever he chose to use
the room. Alyson didn’t know if he noticed the improvements, much less
appreciated them. She raised her eyebrows when he rose and performed a courtly
bow before speaking directly to her thoughts.
“I had not realized the difference a little wool and a fire
can make until I tried to work downstairs in the hall. I have spent too much
time in the West Indies these last years to be comfortable in the cold for long,
I fear.”
Rory didn’t advance on Alyson, but drank in her heavenly
scent of heather as she drifted into his room. He had few opportunities to be
alone with her anymore, a circumstance he had devised for his own protection.
Just her presence sent his head swimming, and his gaze hungrily devoured her
translucent face. Her dark-fringed, mirrored eyes held him captivated. With her
lovely figure bundled in high-necked woolens and shawls, he could not readily
see the signs of the child growing within her.
He longed for just the touch of her hand to ease his day, a
small kiss to make the sun shine again, but he dared not. He had forced his way
into her life, shattered her trust, and now reaped the consequences. She shied
from his touch, his look, his very presence. He hid his disappointment as she
walked past him to contemplate the newly hung draperies.
“This place was built by men of war with no thought other
than to protect themselves. I wonder that they felt such a life worth
protecting.” Alyson pushed aside the heavy gold fabric to gaze down upon the
harbor below. “Men died down there, fighting over this land. Are material
things worth dying over?”
Rory knew what she asked, but not why. It had nothing to do
with the men who died down there and much to do with his fight with his cousin,
but he had no way of knowing how much she knew or guessed.
“Life is worth nothing if it cannot be lived as a free man.
Those who lose their land often lose their freedom. It is not the land so much
as the idea that men fight for.”
Dropping that argument, Alyson turned and gazed at the stack
of bills piled on Rory’s desk. “What keeps you here today?”
Rory gave a ragged sigh and shoved a loosened strand of hair
behind his ear. He lifted the stack of invoices for her to examine. “There was
no need to have these sent to Mr. Farnley, Alyson. He only returns them to me
for approval. I did not imagine the improvements around here appeared by magic.”
He had wrestled with these accounts and his conscience all
the morning. Had he come to Scotland alone, he could have lived on bread and
water, with no need for servants and draperies and fires in all the rooms. His
income could be diverted almost entirely to feeding and clothing his clansmen
and the tenants of what had once been his estates. He did not look on it as
charity, but as a means of gaining their support when it came time to drive
Drummond out of his holdings. But Alyson had changed that simple plan into
something much more complex and, likewise, expensive.
He had to admit he enjoyed the warmth of the fires, the
comfort of clean, unmended linen, the nicety of food waiting on the table for
him, but the cost of such would eat into the capital needed to buy back his
estate. Alyson meant for him to use her wealth for these things she ordered,
but that meant he could not even provide for himself or his wife. That thought
angered him.
“If you do not wish to be troubled with my extravagances,
you need only tell Mr. Farnley to pay whatever I send to him. Surely I cannot
have spent everything we own.”
“At this rate, you could not spend everything if you live to
be a thousand. That is not my concern.” Rory set the bills back on the desk
when Alyson gave him only a blank stare. He felt like an ogre, and he shoved
his hands into the deep pockets of his coat. She flitted like a butterfly from
place to place, everywhere at once, never lighting anywhere. She appeared on
the verge of flight right now. Her unexpected reply staggered him.
“Your concern is only for your conceited pride,” Alyson
answered. “When will you learn there are more important things in this world
than pride and money?”