Wee William's Woman, Book Three of the Clan MacDougall Series (37 page)

But these scars? They bothered him, tugged at his soul. He knew from experience that the scars had been made by a rope tied too tightly or from struggling to be free of it. He knew without a doubt who the sorry excuse for a human being was that had bound the rope. Horace.

Wee William’s heart bled with regret, anger, fury and sorrow. Suddenly he felt guilty that he hadn’t been there for Nora. Had he not gone on the journey with Rowan last fall, he would have gone to retrieve Aishlinn’s treasures before winter had set in. He would have rescued Nora sooner and thereby cut in half all the hell she had gone through.

He had been lost in his own thoughts, thoughts of retribution should he ever learn the fate of Horace Crawford, and had not noticed that his wife had awakened.

Nora gasped, pulled her arm away from her husband. Certain she was that William would never see her unclothed, for her first husband never had, she had hoped William would never see the scars on her wrists or the ones on her legs.

She pulled away, rolled over and buried her head in her pillow. Shame, humiliation, and embarrassment engulfed her heart.
 
She did not want to have to explain to him how she came to be scarred. Tears burned her eyes so she closed them tightly, hoping to keep them away.

“Nora,” Wee William whispered as he rolled to his side and propped himself up on one elbow.

Her voice was stuck in her throat, along with her heart. She did not want to speak about this with him.

“Nora,” he repeated softly. He rested a hand on her hip. “Please, do no turn away.” It tore at his heart to have her turn away from him.

“Please, do no’ be ashamed of yer scars, lass. I’ve a few of me own, ye ken.”

Nora shook her head slightly. “But yours were earned on the battlefield,” she choked out.
Not by heavy hands. Not as a punishment.

“I think ye earned yers in battle as well, wife.” He ran his hand along her hip, attempting to offer what comfort he could.

“Ha!” Nora disagreed. “I’m no warrior, William. I did not earn these fighting on the fields of battle like you.”

A soft smile formed on his lips. “Aye, but ye did.”

Nora’s brows drew together in complete confusion. “You are daft,” she told him.

Ever so gently, he encouraged her to roll over to face him. His heart broke when he saw the tears streaming down her face, her eyes closed to him as if she were afraid to look at him.

“Were ye no’ fightin’ fer yer own freedom lass? Were ye no’ fightin’ fer the freedom of John and Elise?”

She opened her eyes and looked confused.

Wee William smiled warmly and brushed away the tears with his thumb.

“I wager ye a kiss that I can prove to ye that ye are as fierce as any Highland warrior,” he told her.

“You have lost your mind! I am not fierce. I’m not a warrior. I’m just an addle headed woman who could not keep her family safe.” Nora shook her head in disbelief.

“Nay!” he said gruffly. “Ye
are
fierce! Ye did everythin’ ye could to get John and Elise away from Firth, did ye no’?”

“But I failed every time,” she told him with another shake of her head.

“Nay,” he said firmly. “Not
every
time.”

Nora pondered his words for a moment. “But I had your help the last time. I could not have gotten them away if it weren’t for you, and Daniel and David.”

“Tell me this,” Wee William said, trying another approach. “Had we no’ appeared that night, would ye still be trying to get them away from Firth? Would ye no’ still be tryin’ to get away from Horace?”

“Aye,” she answered softly. “I would. I promised them that I would someday get them away or I’d die trying.”

The warm smile returned to Wee William’s face. “Ye see?” he said. He tapped the end of her nose with the tip of his finger. “That promise ye made is all the proof ye need that ye are a fierce woman, a warrior in her own right. Now, ye owe me a kiss.”

Nora’s brows knitted together again. “A promise? How does a promise prove such a thing?”

He ignored her question. “How did ye come to have the scars?”

Nora felt her cheeks warm with embarrassment again.

“Do no’ be afraid to tell me, lass,” Wee William said. “Remember, I be yer husband and I pledged many things to ye last night. One bein’ that I’d never judge ye harsh.”

Nora took a steadying breath, fighting back the tears and uneasy stomach that came with remembering how she had earned the scars on her wrists.

“I had run away again,” she began. “I had waited until Horace and his brothers had left. He had told me they’d be gone for a day or two. Said they were heading to Chesterfield, which is a half day’s ride to the south of us.”

She thought back to how difficult it had been to hide her joy at the news. “Horace had beaten me so severely just two months prior for running away. It had taken weeks to completely heal from it. I foolishly believed that I had convinced him that I’d never run away again.”

Wee William felt the anger build as Nora spoke.

“So when he said that he and his brothers would be gone, it was all I could do to not scream with joy. I believed that I could make my way to Firth, steal John and Elise away, and be miles from home before he and his brothers returned. I was stupid to believe him.” She wiped away a tear and took another breath.

“I waited for nearly two hours before I grabbed my things and left. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest as I made my way down the road. I was running you see, and I did not hear him coming up behind me. I was so happy to be gone that I was not paying any attention to what was going on around me. Horace had been waiting. Somehow, he knew I’d leave again.”

Nora cleared her throat and tried in vain to keep her hands from trembling. She could not look at William while she told him what had happened next.

“He fell upon me so quickly that I did not have time to respond. He knocked the air from my lungs. All the while he was screaming at me, calling me a whore, an ungrateful whore. Before I realized what had happened, he had tied a rope around my wrists. He tied the other end to the saddle of his horse and began dragging me back home. Only, he didn’t take me directly home. He dragged me through the village first. I tried to walk, to hold my head high, but that only angered him further. He took me to the center of the village, declared me a whore, an adulteress, all manner of awful things. Then he turned around and headed back to the cottage. He was going so fast that I couldn’t keep up and he ended up dragging me on my belly and back the three miles back to the cottage.”

Wee William’s heart felt as though it had been torn in two. By rights, being drug behind a horse in such a manner should have killed her. He remained quiet, listening to his beautiful wife, all the while sending his thanks to God that she had lived.

“I was bloody from head to toe when we got back to the cottage. My wrists burned and bled, the skin torn off them. He left me laying in the yard for a time. I was not able to move for every thing hurt so badly. It was worse than the beating I had received before. Worse than all the beatings. It was all I could do to breathe!

“Then he came for me, just before dark. He took me into the cottage and made me go down into the cellar and took the ladder away. He left me there for four days. If it weren’t for Nigel sneaking me water and cloths to clean my wounds with, everything would have festered. Had it not been for Nigel tossing scraps of food to me, dropping a flagon of water to drink, I would have died.”

She still could not look her husband full on. It hurt too much to remember and even more to speak aloud what had happened. But something had changed, deep within her, she realized after several long moments.

She no longer blamed herself. It wasn’t her fault that Horace had done all the things he had done. She realized that it would not have mattered in the least if she had been able to do all the things Horace had wanted her to do. He would have found fault in her, fault enough to justify his cruel and severe treatment of her. Horace had been as flawed an individual as had ever walked the earth.

“I am so very glad he is dead, William. I am so very glad you did come to the cottage that night. I am glad that Rowan killed him and his brothers. I hope the three of them rot in hell for all eternity.”

Wee William could not move, could not speak. How could he tell her now that he knew not if Horace lived or died?

Nora finally looked up at her husband only to see that he was staring off at something else, something far away that only he could see. “I owe you my life, William, and so much more. You gave me a second chance at life, you see. You gave me the freedom I had prayed for. You gave me my life back and I shall be forever in your debt.”

He turned his gaze toward her then, a most curious expression on his face. ’Twas a look that asked a thousand questions at once, the most important being
did she love him only because he had given her this second chance at a good life?

Nora managed to smile at him. “Do not worry, William. That isn’t the only reason that I love you! Aye, I’ll be forever grateful to you, for taking me away from England, from all those horrible memories. It is
you
, the man that you
are
, that I love. It is your strong sense of honor, your wicked sense of humor, and the way you care about those who are less fortunate that makes me love you. It is the way you laugh, the way you care for me, for John and Elise, that makes me love you.” A sigh escaped her, along with a few more tears.

“I dare say I don’t think there is anything about you that I do not love or admire, William.”

He smiled at her and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. He did not doubt the sincerity of her words or her love. She loved him for who he was as much as for what he had done.

Contentment. For the first time that he could ever recall, Wee William of Dunshire knew what that sentiment that had eluded him all these years truly felt like. ’Twas a most wondrous feeling and one he meant to hold on to.

Seventeen

T
hey had remained hidden away from the rest of the world for the next three days, enjoying the happily state of being wedded. While Nora seemed to have recovered nicely from their first evening together as husband and wife, Wee William was walking with a slight limp.

The injury was well and blissfully earned the day before when he and Nora had decided to bless the kitchen table. The table, apparently, was not so inclined and gave out at the most inopportune moment. Thankfully, his wife was uninjured in the melee, for she had been happily perched atop his lap. Had she been under him, it would have most certainly been her death when the table came crashing down. A large bruise and a small gash in the right cheek of his buttocks was his reward for hearing Nora cry out his name in blissful rapture. His bottom would heal. She was worth it.

On the afternoon of the third day, a small group of people approached Wee William and Nora’s home. Angus, Isobel, Aishlinn, Duncan, Rowan, Black Richard, and Daniel and David had returned the children. Elise came rushing up to Wee William, squealing with delight, as he was gathering wood for the fire.

“Sir William!” The little girl squealed as she raced to him. “We’re home!”

As delighted as he was to see the children and half his clan, he would have liked to have had another few years alone with his wife. He pushed the thought away as quickly as it had arrived, for the smile on Elise’s face warmed his heart.
 

Elise studied his face closely, her little eyes widening with surprise. “Sir William! What happened to your eye?”

He stumbled over his own tongue. There was no way to explain it to the child, so he did the next best thing. He lied.

“Och! This? A faerie came in to our home the other night and wanted to have yer room fer her own! I had to fight her off, lass! I saved yer room and warned that no more faeries were welcome here!”

Elise giggled at his story and squeezed him around his neck. “Thank you sir William,” she said before turning quite serious. “I wouldn’t want to share my room with a faerie!”

John took his time approaching as he inspected the home with a careful eye. Wee William was pleased to see the look of approval that flashed across John’s face.

Nora came bounding out of the house with a look of sheer elation. She pulled Elise from Wee William’s arms and spun her around, plastering kisses on the little girl’s cheeks. Elise giggled as she wrapped her arms around Nora’s neck. “Did you miss us, Nora?” she asked.

“Yes, yes we did!” Nora exclaimed with a bright smile.

John kept his distance for a moment but Nora would not allow him to stay out of her sisterly grasp for long. She put Elise down and wrapped her arms around her young brother. “John!” she said cheerfully. “I’ve missed you!”

“I’m too old now for you to be hugging on me Nora!” he said, rolling his eyes.

Nora pushed him away but maintained a grip on his shoulders. He was a few inches shorter than she was so, she bent to look him in the eye. “I do not care how old you are or get. I’m your sister and I will hug you whenever I please!” She winked at him, ran her hands through his hair and turned to the large group of people who had approached.