The mattress ropes groaned as he eased himself against the pillows. Anora took the bladder and leaned down, coaxing the babe to take what she so badly needed.
Minutes ticked by. Minutes filled with worry, hope, and howling frustration as the baby refused the bladder.
Anora straightened her back as if it were sore, then hurried around the mattress to crawl across the bed. In a moment their attempts began anew. Ramsay cradled, Anora coaxed, until finally, after what seemed a grinding eternity, the baby began to suckle.
Ramsay remained absolutely still, holding his breath as he listened to the babe slurp and swallow. His heart leapt, and lifting his gaze, he found himself staring point blank into Anora’s eyes. They shone in the candlelight like liquid sapphire. Were there tears in her eyes, he wondered—but in an instant her lashes swept downward, hiding her thoughts. Against his chest, though, where her arm rested, he felt her tremble with emotion.
The babe lost her grip on the bladder’s nipple, recovered it, and suckled again, until finally, sated and limp, she fell back asleep. Anora eased the nipple from between her parted lips and straightened. Against his hip, Ramsay felt her thigh shift away, and with that simple movement his heart twisted with regret.
“She sleeps,” he said, trying to fill the void. Anora nodded wordlessly as he lifted the small bundle carefully to his shoulder. His chest ached dully with the pressure, but somehow it felt right. Rising carefully to his feet, he closed his eyes for a moment and let the soft weight of the babe ease his soul. Aye, he had failed in the past, but mayhap with this babe he might put his guilt to rest. Bending slowly, he placed the wee child inside the cradle, then wrapped the blanket more snugly around her. She wriggled momentarily and her hand, perfectly formed and impossibly small, curled softly around his finger.
Ramsay’s throat tightened with emotion. New life, innocent life, and damned if he wouldn’t protect it. The thoughts clogged in his throat, and he swallowed.
“She is well?” Anora whispered beside him.
“Aye.” The single word cracked oddly, and he cleared his throat. “She is well.”
“And you?” Her voice was velvet soft.
“What?” he asked, making certain his tone was deep with masculine composure.
“Are you well?” she asked.
He turned toward her with a scowl. She didn’t move away, didn’t avert her eyes, so he lifted one hand to his chest and rubbed with absent annoyance. “Aye. I am healing fine.”
Atop an iron clasped trunk, the single candle sputtered, tossing fickle shadows about the room.
“I was not speaking of your wounds.”
But his wounds were a relatively innocuous topic, while other subjects—
“I wish to know why,” she said, and caused his hand to pause its fretful motion on his chest.
“Why what?”
Her eyes were as steady and bright as twin sapphires, glowing with candlelight and unspoken thoughts. “There were three score of men in the hall,” she said. “None stepped forward but you. Why?”
He shrugged, trying to look casual, but fearing with a terrible fear that even that simple motion told the tale of his sins. “As I said, I am the bairn’s f—”
“Please!” The word was sharp. “I would rather not hear that lie just now.”
“At Dun Ard,” he said, “there be many babes about. ‘Twill be no great difficulty to take her there and give her into the care of a nursemaid.”
Her expression didn’t change a whit. “So you say that you claimed her because it was the simple thing to do.”
Her explanation, though obviously foolish, was far better than the truth.
“That though you are wounded in a distant land,” she continued, “it will be no hardship to travel alone to your home and there give her to another.”
He scowled and glanced toward the cradle. Even with the blanket wrapped tightly about the bairn, he could see her tiny face, her minuscule mouth, slightly parted, her perfect fingers, placed just so at the blanket’s edge. ” ‘Tis not … natural for a man to raise a babe. She will need a mother, of course. I am certain I shall find a woman who yearns for a child.”
“So you will give her up.”
From the cradle he heard a tiny sigh, and knew that despite his determination to cease being foolish, he’d be dead and damned before he’d let another have her. She was too tiny, too innocent, too fragile—a wee bundle of life that needed him and was not afraid to admit it.
“You will give her up?” Anora asked again.
“Of course.”
“You lie,” she said, and in that moment he saw her eyes fill with tears. “You will raise her as your own.”
“Nay, I—”
“You will keep her,” Anora whispered. “You shall fawn over her and adore her, and make her believe that the sun cannot rise without her consent. Already you adore her. I see it in your eyes.”
He cleared his throat and loosened his fists. “I fear you are shortsighted, lass.”
“Nay.” Her voice was infinitely soft. “This once I see clearly, MacGowan. You cherish the child. I but wonder why.”
Looking into her eyes, he saw the hopelessness of arguing. “Cannot a man wish for a child?” He paced toward the window. “Must he always be embattled and wounded and …” He swung his arm in a hopeless gesture to include the world at large. “Cannot he hope to right the wrongs he has—” He realized with belated panic what he had been about to say.
Anora’s shadow flickered, slim and willowy against the far wall. “What wrong have you done, MacGowan?” she murmured.
“I would begin a list, lass,” he said, “if I were not so in need of sleep.”
“So there are many?”
“Beyond count.”
“More than one that involves a child?”
He pivoted toward her without realizing he had moved. “What do you know of the child?”
She held his gaze, unblinking. “What child?”
Ramsay squeezed his eyes closed and blocked away a thousand grinding memories. “I claimed this babe because there was none other to do so. ‘Tis the only reason.”
“You lie, MacGowan. You think you have done some horrid wrong. And I wonder, what terrible things do you imagine you have—”
“I do not imagine them.” The words came out of their own accord, though he knew better than to loose them.
“What are they, then?” she whispered.
Ramsay tightened his jaw, holding his swirling emotions at bay. “A child is dead because of me.”
“Whose child?”
“Me own. I was the sire!” he growled. “But I was not …” His throat ached. “I was not its father.”
“How—”
“I had not wed the mother,” he said, his voice hollow and empty.
“Lorna,” she guessed, then, very softly. “You loved her?”
“I …” He thought he had. Nay, he had been certain he had. She’d made him wild with burning emotions, and when she gave herself to him he could think of nothing else. “I planned to wed her, but circumstances …” He paused, reliving the past with aching accuracy. “There was trouble with a neighboring clan and I returned home. ‘Twas there that I received her missive.”
She watched him with solemn, unblinking eyes.
“It said that she carried me child. That she was sick with loneliness and would surely perish if I did not return to marry her.” He paced across the room, watching the shadows swell and die away before him.
“She died?”
“Nay. It seems that a grand title is a wondrous healer.”
Anora shook her head in bemusement.
“It took some time to receive the missive, but when I did, I returned posthaste to Edinburgh. ‘Twas then that I learned she had wed a fat marquis with a fatter purse.”
“And the babe?”
Beyond the window, the night was blacker than hell. “The wealthy marquis did not wish to raise another man’s child. Lorna wished for a wealthy marquis.” He loosened his fists. “She was not one to do without what she wanted.”
“She … killed the babe afore it was birthed?”
“Nay.” He turned slowly toward her. “I killed the babe. ‘Twas I who created it and I who failed to protect it.”
Anora shook her head. ” ‘Tis not your fault that she would—” she began, but Ramsay stopped her.
“Who shall I blame, then? The lass who thought she would have to go into travail unwed? The lass who would bear the brunt of people’s scorn while I took her innocence and walked away unblamed? Aye.” He nodded once. ” ‘Twas me own fault.”
“So ‘twas against her will that you took her, MacGowan?”
“I—” Nay. She had come to him, seeming so sweet, so soft and innocent, with whispered words that made his young blood run hot and wild in his veins. “It matters little if she wanted me or nay. Only that I failed in the end.”
“Even if she created a child to lure you into wedlock.”
There it was. That terrible possibility back again to haunt him, but he did not want it. “Is it so hard to believe that she lay with me merely because she desired me, Notmary?”
She stood very still, her hands clasped before her. “Things are not always as they seem, MacGowan. You would not be the first man to be fooled by a bonny face and a tearful word. You can take my word on that.”
The possibilities stared at him like grinning gargoyles, demanding that he look them square in the face. “In truth,” he murmured, ” ‘tis bad enough to know I failed without knowing that I am also a fool.”
“You are no fool,” she whispered. “You are only tenderhearted.”
“I am many things, but I am not tenderhearted. I am jaded and hardened and—”
“Is that why you’ve told no one of Lorna’s horrid deeds? Is that why you’ve left her in peace with her fat marquis? Is that why she could be certain you would do just that?”
He deepened his scowl.
“Is that why you accompanied me here? Is that why you claimed the babe?”
“I claimed the bairn to assuage me own guilt, and you damn well know it.”
She took a single step toward him. “So I should be adding selfish to your lists of undesirable attributes, should I?”
“I
am
selfish,” he said.
“Are you?” she asked, and closed the small distance between them.
“Aye.” It was difficult to speak with her so close, for raw memories made him long for solace, made him ache to pull her against him, to lose himself in her softness. “Aye,” he said again, “for even now, with all that is behind me …” ‘Twas the devil’s own task to face his weaknesses. “I long to bury me sins in your purity.”
He waited for her to turn and run, but she didn’t.
“I am not pure,” she whispered. “I lost that long ago.
“Nay. You have not lost it, lass. You shall always be pure, for ‘tis in your very soul, and none can take that from you.”
For a moment all was still, then her palm was a soft atonement against his cheek, and her voice was as gentle as a psalm.
“How can you be so kind, MacGowan?”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “I am not kind, lass. No matter what other lies you choose to believe, do not trust that one.”
“Ahh, I remember,” she whispered. “You are selfish.”
God, yes—for even now he ached to hold her, to kiss her, to claim her for his own, when ‘twas that very act that had caused such pain before.
“And you are not cunning,” she murmured and slipped her fingers ever so gently across his lips.
He swallowed hard and tightened his hands into fists.
“Nor are you powerful,” she said, and slid her fingers across the bunched muscles of his shoulder. “Nor peaceable.” Her hand skimmed the bandages that covered his chest. From the cradle, the baby sighed. “Nor loving,” she whispered. “And yet …” She drew closer, and he ceased to breath, to think, to function. All he could do was wait, to watch her move nearer. “I still want you,” she whispered, and pressed her lips to his.
“Lass.” Ramsay’s voice was low and raspy, shivering up her spine as he pushed himself away. “You have forgotten one attribute: I am damnably weak.”
“Are you?”
“Aye.”
Her heart was pounding like a rounding hammer in her chest. ” ‘Tis good, then. A fine match. You are weak and I am a coward.”
“You are many things, lass. But a coward—”
“I am afraid of men.”
“You have challenged the Munro.”
“I have challenged every man, for I cannot wed. I cannot allow them to touch me, to see what I truly am. But when I am near you, I find I long to …” She stopped, frozen by fears so old they had etched themselves into her very soul. “Mayhap this one night we could help each other.”
“I cannot help you.”
“Because you are weak?”
“Aye.”
“And you would … hurt me?”
For a moment she thought he would lie, would say that yes, he would harm her, but his expression twisted into one of deepest regret.
“Do you not see the problem? Yonder lies a babe, unwanted and uncherished—”
“You cherish her,” she whispered.
He shoved splayed fingers through his hair with frustrated impatience. ” ‘Tis not the point and you well know it, lass. I dare not bring another unwanted life into being.”
“Is there no means of …” She swallowed, chilled with fear, yet hot with an indefinable longing. “Of coupling without creating a child?”
“Anora …” It was the first time he’d spoken her Christian name, and the sound traveled through her like mulled wine.
“I need your help,” she whispered, and wondered, quite suddenly, if perhaps he needed, just as much, to be needed. “I cannot rule Evermyst alone forever. That I see, now. I must take a husband. But how can I, when I am afraid to …” She stepped cautiously forward, feeling as if the earth might crumble beneath her very feet. “To do this,” she said, and raising her face, kissed him again.
Feelings as hot as sunlight rushed through her. For a moment she feared he would draw back, but he did not. Instead, he tilted his head ever so slightly and returned her kiss with slow, aching tenderness. It was she who drew back, trembling, though not for fear. Nay, ‘twas because the feelings were so strong, so intense, that she felt she would surely burn to ash if she did not stop.
“You have come to your senses and decided against such foolishness?” His voice was deeper than the shadows beyond the window.
Her own was the smallest of whispers. “Aye. I have come to my senses.”