When a Laird Loves a Lady (Highlander Vows: Entangled Hearts Book 1) (35 page)

By the time Marion and Iain reached the great hall
for supper that night, the news of her saving Alanna and her baby had reached
every corner of the castle, in large part due to Rory Mac telling the tale to
everyone he saw as he went out to spread word of his son.

Just as they sat down at the dais
to eat, Robbie, one of the clan’s fiercest warriors, rushed into the hall and
directly to the dais. His wife also had been in labor for far too long, and he
begged Marion to attend the birth. Marion quickly agreed, and off they set once
again.

When they returned to their
bedchamber later that night, after Marion had successfully helped deliver
another bairn into the world, Iain held her in his arms as they lay in bed.

“What if,” she said in a small
voice, “I cannot have another child? Seeing the new bairns today made me see
that even though I fear losing a babe, I’m more afraid I’ll never have one. And
then we won’t have a family, and you’ll be disappointed, and—”

He kissed her to silence her. When
he pulled away, he looked into her eyes. “We are already a family,
a
ghràidh
.
Dunnae fash yerself. We will simply enjoy the process of trying to make a
bairn, and if it happens, so be it. If nae, we have each other.”

Before more could be said on the
subject, a knock came at the door. “Iain,” Lachlan called. “A note just arrived
for ye from King Edward.”

Iain took in his wife’s wide eyes.
“Dunnae worry,” he whispered and kissed her forehead before he went to the door
and opened it. He took the scroll from Lachlan, broke the seal, and read.

“What does it say?” Lachlan asked.

Iain suddenly felt Marion pressed
at his back. He turned and drew her to his side and then spoke. “King Edward
wishes for me to return to England presently to set the official terms of
David’s release.”

“Why do ye look troubled?” Lachlan
asked. “It’s a good thing, aye?”

Iain gripped Marion tighter before
he answered. “Aye, the release, when it actually happens, will be good. But he
also says he’s received word that de Lacy and Froste are gathering troops
against him, and he feels more certain than ever that he’ll need me, er, us”—he
locked gazes with Lachlan—“to fight with him.”

Marion stiffened in his arms. “So
you are going to war?”

“Nae yet,” he soothed. “King Edward
is cunning, however. He has now promised, in writing, to set the terms to make
me believe he will keep his vow. Thus, when called for help, I will aid him.”

Marion pressed her hand against his
heart. “So you will go to save David.”

“Aye. I must.”

“I know,” she replied her voice
stoic, even as her lips trembled. “I wish to go with you.”

“Nay. I’m sorry, but the journey is
long and yer health is still too fragile.”

“But—”

“Nay, Marion. I will nae risk yer
life just for the comfort of having ye with me, however much I yearn for it.”

Two days later, Iain called for Marion, Bridgette,
Angus, Archibald, Rory Mac, and his brothers—except Cameron, who had gone to
take Elspeth to her banishment—to come to the great hall. When he had
everyone’s attention, he spoke. “I dunnae want Marion to leave the castle
unaccompanied.”

“That’s insensible!” Marion
blurted, showing the temper she claimed not to have.

When he gave her a long look for
breaching their agreement that she’d not challenge his wishes in public, she
colored. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Before he could tell her he forgave her, a
serving girl from the kitchen entered the room.

“Laird, I’m sorry to disturb.”

Iain flicked his gaze to her.
“Aye?”

“Torcadal MacLeod is outside and he
brings a request from a neighboring clan he was passing through. They wish for
my lady”—the girl inclined her head toward Marion—“to come to help in a birth.
They heard she has some skills.”

When Marion started to rise, Iain
caught her hand but rose to stand beside her. He looked at the assembled group.
He knew what he was about to say would garner protest from Marion, but it had
to be said. “I dunnae want Marion going to any neighboring clans to aid anyone
while I’m gone.”

“Iain!” Marion gasped.

He glanced at his wife and held her
gaze. “Understood?” he asked the group in general, never taking his eyes from
Marion. Her gaze had grown stormy, which was not a surprise.

A chorus of agreement met his
question. He nodded and faced the serving girl. “Tell Torcadal that Marion
kinnae come.”

“But, Iain,” Marion protested.

He took her hand and squeezed. “I
must depart, and I kinnae have ye gone. The worry…”

Her gaze turned soft. “I understand,”
she whispered.

Once the serving girl left, Iain
quickly finished his instructions to the group and then dismissed them. When he
and Marion were alone, she spoke before he could.

“I’m sorry. I do forget my tongue
sometimes in my anger.”

He grinned. “Aye, I ken. I’m
surprised ye dunnae still try to pay for all yer sins.”

She gave him a dark look. “That’s
because Bridgette finally told me that Scots don’t practice that, and then
Father Murdock laughed at me when I told him you all should.”

“Dunnae fash,
a ghràidh
.
Father Murdock laughs at everyone but me. The man is a drunkard.”

“But he’s your priest.”

“Aye. And drunk as a sow is the way
the men like him, as he is likely to turn his eye from sin that way.”

Marion slapped Iain on the arm.
“You tease me.”

“Aye.” He kissed her on the
forehead, the nose, and then the lips. “I do.”

Marion set her hands on her hips.
“You cannot truly mean to leave everyone with the orders that I cannot leave
MacLeod land if someone from another clan is in desperate need of my services.”

Iain nodded. “I mean it. Other
clans have healers and midwives of their own. They have gotten by without ye
for a verra long time and they can do so until I return. I will have ye safe,
Marion. But dunnae fash too much, I should return within a month.”

“I wish I could go with you.”

“Ye ken why ye kinnae,” he replied.

She nodded. “But it doesn’t make
the parting any less difficult.”

“For me, either,
a
ghràidh
.
That’s why I got ye a gift so ye’d think of me while I’m away.”

Marion grinned. “I don’t need
anything to do that. You are here.” She touched her temple. “And here.” She brushed
her fingers to her heart.

He grasped her roughly to him and
kissed her again, but this time the kiss was one meant to last her the month.
He swept his tongue inside her sweetness and filled her breath with his own.
When he withdrew, her bemused look made him smile. “And ye are here, as well.”
He placed her hand on his heart.

She laid her head against his
chest, and for a long moment he savored the soft feel of her skin and the
heathery smell that surrounded her. Everything about her—from the way her mouth
tilted upward when she smiled to the way she cocked her head when listening to
him—was burned into his memory. He forced himself to draw away and then he
retrieved her gift from the dais, where he had put it.

When he handed her the cloak he’d
had made for her, her eyes lit up. She grinned as she ran her hand over the
blue-and-green material. “I love it,” she whispered.

He trailed his hand down the slope
of her cheek. “It will keep ye warm when I kinnae.” He helped her set the cloak
on her shoulders and then led her outside to the seagate stairs where his
brothers were waiting to bid him farewell. He said his farewells, and then he
and Marion walked hand and hand down the stairs to the birlinn. Iain kissed
Marion once more, and then he and Neil, who was accompanying him, boarded the
readied birlinn.

As they sailed away, he kept his
gaze fixed on Marion, until Neil cleared his throat and then nudged Iain. “What?”
Iain growled, his mood already sour at having to leave Marion.

Neil chuckled. “She’ll be here when
we return, ye ken.”

“I ken,” he grumbled. “But it does
nae make departing any easier.”

“Ye’ve been felled by the lass.”

“Aye,” Iain agreed. “That I have,
and I’m glad of it. Having a lass fell ye is the best way to crumble.”

Marion threw herself into helping in the kitchen and
tending to ailing clansmen and women even more than she had before, but though
she was constantly busy, Iain was always on her mind. She marked the days he
was gone, and when a month came and went and he did not return, she thought she
would go mad.

One day, when she was sitting in
the solar, a servant appeared and handed her a note. “My lady, this just came
for you.”

Hope filled her that it was
perchance from Iain, and she had to force herself not to snatch the paper out
of the woman’s hands.

She quickly read the note, which
was a plea from one of the MacLeod families who lived on the outer edge of
MacLeod land for Marion to tend their gravely ill newborn babe. She didn’t
think twice, especially since the family was on MacLeod land. She’d rather risk
her life than allow someone to lose a child. She knew all too well the pain of
such a loss.

She sheathed the dagger she’d been
cleaning, then rushed out of the solar and to the stables to ask Angus to
accompany her. But when she arrived he was not there.

“Where is Angus?” she asked a
groom.

“Gone hunting with Lachlan and Rory
Mac, my lady. They’ll be back late tonight. Angus said the meat stock was
running low.”

Marion nodded and nibbled on her
lip. That left Graham to find and ask. She didn’t think Iain would like the
idea of her going alone with Archibald on such a journey, even though he had
come to like Bridgette’s cousin more as time had past. Her husband, she thought
with a grin, was jealous, and she actually no longer minded it one bit. He was
jealous because he loved her.

Marion left the stables and found
Graham in the courtyard with Bridgette. “Graham,” she said, racing over to him,
“will you accompany me to the Beacons’ cottage?”

“Now?” He did not look at all happy
about her request. “I just coaxed Bridgette into shooting bows and arrows. I’ll
go with ye in a bit.”

“It must be now,” Marion demanded.
“Their babe is dying.”

“I’ll fetch horses for the two of
us,” he quickly agreed, putting his bow and arrow on his back and picking up
his sword.

“I’ll come,” Bridgette added.
“Please fetch me a horse as well.”

Graham grinned and departed.
Bridgette looked at Marion. “I’d like to learn more of the healing arts. Do ye
mind, Marion?”

Marion shook her head then studied
Bridgette. “Are you coming for the knowledge or for Graham?”

Bridgette pressed her lips
together. “The knowledge, Marion. I dunnae think of Graham that way. He is
sweet, but I dunnae have a spark for him. My heart belongs to Lachlan.”

“What of Lachlan’s heart?” Marion
could not help but ask.

Bridgette sighed. “I kinnae tell if
he likes me or nae. He seems to avoid me, but then I do catch him looking at
me.”

Before more could be said, Graham
returned with the horses and they readied to depart.

“Where are ye three going?”
Archibald called as he exited the castle.

“To the Beacons’ cottage for Marion
to tend to their ill bairn,” Graham explained.

Marion half expected Archibald to
offer to come, but his brows drew together in an oddly agonized expression. “I
hope the bairn will be well. I’m sure in yer hands, Marion, it will.”

“Thank you,” she replied, catching
the quizzical look that Bridgette and Graham were exchanging, but they simply bid
Archibald farewell and departed.

Bridgette looked from Graham to
Marion as the three of them rode away from the castle. “That was strange.”

“Yes,” Marion agreed. “I pity him.
I think he does not feel he belongs anywhere.”

“He makes himself feel that way,”
Graham replied in an unyielding voice that reminded Marion of Iain, causing an
ache of missing him to throb in her heart. Marion settled into her saddle and
listened to Bridgette and Graham tell stories of childhood exploits in the
highlands while she thought about Iain.

By the time they arrived at the Beacons’ cottage, a
swirling mist filled the air, which she knew by now was not uncommon for the
Isle of Skye. Marion, with Bridgette behind her, knocked on the door, and the
husband, Lormac, showed them in, and then he stepped outside so the women would
have privacy.

Glynnis, the ill bairn’s mother,
sat in a chair looking utterly distraught as she held her swaddled child.
Marion approached her and kneeled, taking a quick peek at the sweet baby boy’s face.

“I’m Marion MacLeod,” she offered,
though she knew Glynnis likely supposed this already. “This is Bridgette. What
seems to be the matter?”

“He will nae take my milk anymore,”
the woman cried. “And when he was taking my milk, he kept spitting it up. There
is something the matter with me! I’m killing my bairn!” Tears coursed down the
woman’s face, and Marion gently wiped them away.

“Shh,” she cooed. “I think your
babe is one that cannot stomach human milk. I’ve seen it before.”

The woman gasped. “Ye have?”

“Yes. Do you have any animals?”

Glynnis nodded. “Three goats. One
is just born.”

Marion bit her lip. She’d only ever
seen cow’s milk used to feed a babe, but with the choice of leaving the babe to
die or trying goat’s milk, she would choose goat’s milk. She nodded, hurried
outside, and told Lormac to fetch some of the goat’s milk.

When she went back into the
cottage, she looked to Glynnis. “I need some linen.”

“On the table,” she said in a
clearly skeptical voice.

Marion got the linen and ran back
to the door, her excitement at possibly saving the bairn growing. It did not
take long for Lormac to return. He handed her a bowl of milk and was about to
step outside when she motioned him back. “You should watch, too, in case it
works.”

She dipped the linen into the milk
and let it soak. Once it was dripping, she handed it to Glynnis. “Put it up to
your bairn’s mouth.”

The woman frowned at her.

“Go on,” Bridgette encouraged.

With obvious hesitation, Glynnis
placed the cloth at the babe’s mouth, and the babe immediately began to suckle.

“He’s drinking!” Glynnis said,
stunned, as her husband grinned and kneeled beside her.

For a long while, they all stood
around the babe and watched him drink and then waited tensely to see if he’d be
sick. When a period had passed and he let out a large belch after Glynnis put
him over her shoulder, they all began to laugh.

“Thank ye,” Glynnis cried, standing
to hug Marion.

“You’re very welcome,” Marion
replied, as the door to the cottage opened and Graham poked his head in.

“It’s getting late,” he said. “We
must return before dark.”

Marion and Bridgette nodded, and
after providing the Beacons with some further instruction and a vow from Marion
to send them a cow for the bairn, they departed.

The sun was starting to set as they
rode, and surrounded by trees as they were in the woods, deep shadows rose up
around them. Marion didn’t feel nervous, though, with Graham beside them and
her dagger sheathed at her side. Besides that, they were on MacLeod land. She
happily listened as Bridgette and Graham chatted. But when Graham suddenly
stopped talking mid-sentence and his hand went to his sword, the hairs on the
back of Marion’s neck prickled.

“What is it?” she whispered,
glancing around them and seeing nothing but trees and descending darkness.

“I thought I saw— Get down!” Graham
yelled as he jerked his stallion in front of them. Marion barely had time to
register the command before an arrow flew out of the woods and hit Graham
directly in the chest. He slumped over immediately, and Marion heard her scream
mingle with Bridgette’s. Both women dove off their horses and scrambled to help
Graham, who was gallantly trying to push himself up and grasp his sword, but it
was futile.

Knights started pouring out of the
forest dressed in the all-too-familiar surcoats of Froste and her father. Shock
rushed the blood to her head and left her momentarily dizzy.

She forced a deep breath to calm
herself when beside her, Bridgette screeched. “Traitor!”

For one brief moment, Marion
thought Bridgette was talking to her, but then she caught sight of Archibald
coming out of the woods beside Froste. Marion’s jaw dropped open as her hand
went to her dagger. What was Archibald doing with Froste? Was he a traitor, as
Bridgette clearly thought?

Marion raised her dagger at the
same time Graham finally managed to bring his sword up and Bridgette lifted her
bow.

Froste nudged his horse toward
them, and Archibald did the same with his. Marion’s heart thumped in her ears
as she stared at the two men, Froste offering a cruel smile and Archibald
staring almost through them.

Froste motioned to Graham. “Sheath
your weapon, boy. You have no hope of winning against so many knights, and if
you insist on fighting us, I’ll kill the redheaded wench in front of you before
I kill you, too. But if you throw down your sword, I vow to let the highland
lass live and kill you quickly.”

Marion saw Archibald flinch, but
she cut her gaze away from him and toward Bridgette.

“Dunnae do it, Graham.” Bridgette’s
voice was pleading and fearful.

Graham, pale faced and with blood
rapidly staining his plaid, held his sword steady. “How do I ken ye’ll keep yer
word?”

“You don’t,” Froste said with glee.
“But I can vow to you that this woman”—he motioned to Bridgette—“will pleasure
all my men here while you’re made to watch, and then I shall personally carve
her up before killing you if you make me waste time fighting you.”

Bridgette gasped, and bile rose in
Marion’s throat.

“I’d rather die than watch Graham
submit to ye,” Bridgette yelled and pulled back her bow.

“No!” Graham shouted, and Marion,
thinking to save Bridgette and Graham and knowing they were far too
outnumbered, grasped Bridgette’s bow from her hands.

Bridgette turned to Marion with
stunned eyes. “Are ye a traitor, too, then?”

“Of course not!” Marion said. “I’m
trying to save your life. Look around you. You’ll perchance fell one man, but
what of the other twenty?”

“Ah, Marion, my sweet, I would have
said it was impossible, but you are more beautiful than I remembered, and your
time away has made you wise, as well.” Froste’s dark gaze penetrated her,
making her skin crawl. “I look forward to enjoying your body.”

Marion spit at his horse’s hooves.
“Never.”

“We shall see,” he replied before
turning his attention to Graham. “Well?”

Graham shook his head. “I dunnae
trust ye.”

Froste raised his hand, motioned
toward Bridgette, and barked, “Take her!”

“Graham!” Archibald thundered. “Bridgette
will be safe. I swear it. I’ve come to an agreement with Froste. She will go to
England to marry one of his men.”

Marion could hardly believe her
ears. Why would Archibald do this? Why was he betraying them to Froste?

Bridgette was grabbed by one of the
knights then, but she turned toward him and punched him in the nose. The man
retaliated with a backhand that sent Bridgette to her knees by Graham’s horse.

Graham’s eyes blazed with hatred,
which he turned on Archibald. “Why do ye betray yer own kind?”

“Because my own kind betrayed me.
Alex’s father killed my own, and what did they do for me? Keep it secret. Lie
to me for years. Leave me to feel shamed by my father. Have me do their bidding
and never feel as if I truly belonged. Well, I’ll belong when I’m laird. Alex
sent me out when MacLeod was at our hold to make sure none of Froste’s men were
still around, and fortunately for me, one was. I simply sent him back to
England with a proposition for Froste.” Archibald gazed at the sky for a
moment. “And the day Iain left for England I received word that it had been
accepted. It was fate, aye, because that very day, I sent Froste’s messenger
back to tell him to come for Marion, and I’d deliver her to him. The only thing
I must still do is kill Iain, which will nae be hard.”