A Highlander's Home (26 page)

             
“Will you stay with me tonight?” she asked, her voice shaking.

             
He stood, taking her hands in his with a little more force than he intended.  “No,” he replied, “because ye’re staying with me.”

             
And he led her to his rooms and straight to his bed.

             
Raine walked through the keep, wandering with no particular place to go, just watching the excitement as the people prepared for St. Andrews day.  It was a holiday feast similar to Thanksgiving from what she gathered.  The Pilgrims wouldn’t land in America until 1620, so there would be no celebration of Thanksgiving here. 

             
But the cold wind whistled outside, stirring up the leaves in little whirlwinds and carrying them off while the inhabitants of the house were warm with roaring fires and so much to do in preparation of the feast.

             
“Good morn, m’lady,” came a greeting from a servant girl as she carried a basket that was larger than herself towards the kitchen.

             
“Oh, good morning,” she returned, smiling.

             
She should probably go in the kitchen and help, or find Lady MacGregor and offer her assistance, but she didn’t feel like concentrating on any task in particular.  Her mind was wandering
,
and she was having trouble focusing.

             
Her hand went instinctively to her belly and cupped it.  Is that contented, dazed feeling due to the pregnancy?  She wondered what it would feel like when the baby started kicking.

             
She stopped in midstride, thinking.  Hmmm.  The baby. 
Babies. 
Before now, she hadn’t really thought about it being another person, just a
hindrance
in her plan to get home.  Looking down at her stomach, there was really nothing to see.  Her skirts still fit, if slightly tighter around her breasts, and she had no bump to speak of that would give away her condition.

             
“What are you staring at, my dear?” Lady MacGregor looked down at the ground in front of Raine and frowned.  “I don’t see anything.”

             
Raine dropped her hands from her belly, and stuttered, “Oh, nothing.  I thought I saw a stain on my dress.”

             
She hurriedly brushed the front of her skirts.  “I guess I was wrong,” she said with a short laugh.

             
Lady MacGregor watched her for a moment and said, “Are you feeling alright? 
You have a strange look upon your face.”

             
Raine laughed again.  “Yes,” she assured her, “I’m fine.  Just glad to be outside.”

             
“But, dear, you’re inside the keep.”

             
Recovering quickly, she responded, “Oh, I meant outside of my rooms.  That kind of outside.”  She smiled for good measure.

             
Patting her on the shoulder, she said, “I am glad too.  I had missed you while you were locked away up there.  But now you’re feeling better, I can see, and you can help with the preparations.  It will be so much fun!”

             
Raine groaned inwardly.  She didn’t really want to do anything but mull around and watch the activity instead of taking charge of it.  But she was Lady of the keep and couldn’t shirk her duties forever.

             
“That will be lovely,” she answered.  “I can’t wait.”

             
They walked towards the kitchen, weaving around the servants scurrying about.  Lady
MacGregor
sighed.  “We shall enjoy this time to our utmost ability.  It will be difficult when you are all gone.  Perhaps I shall return to my own house.”

             
“Where is everyone going?”

             
Lady MacGregor gave a sad laugh and replied, “Well, my dear, you’re going ‘home’ as you put it. 
And my sons will go off to war.  They will take the men with them, and all that will remain are the women and children and old ones.” 

             
She motioned for Raine to sit in the chair by the fireplace and begin grinding some strange shaped roots into a fine powder.  Raine fiddled with it, not really doing anything though.

             
She asked anxiously, “War?  Who’s going to war?  Why?  When?”

             
Lady MacGregor was fiddling with pots and spoons and shooing the servants from this task to that task effortlessly, not noticing Raine’s trepidation.

             
“Since the
Queen
refuses to settle things between Leith and his uncle, then Leith must do it himself.  He will take all of his soldiers and go fight.”  She was still for a moment, the continued in a soft voice, “I can only pray that my sons will return home, safely to me.”

             
She wiped her eye and sniffed.  “Och, I hate these onions!”

             
Raine stood, hands on belly.  “He can’t go to war!”

             
Lady MacGregor cocked her head to the side. 
“
He has to.  We have no choice. 
There is no other solution.”

             
“No, there has to be some way out of this.”

             
“This is the way of things here.  There is no more negotiating, no more waiting.  Our people will be dead by spring
if something is not done to stop my brother-in-law from invading our lands again.  He will do much worse than Alisdair ever could
.”

             
The Lady turned her back to Raine and stirred the strange but wonderfully smelling contents of a huge black pot that resembled something out of a witch’s kitchen in a haunted house.  “But do not concern yourself with this matter. You will not be here anyway.”

             
“That’s not fair!” Raine hiccupped, the tears coming from nowhere and streamed
down
her face.

             
Just then Leith and Robbie shoved their way through the kitchen door.  Robbie went straight for the black kettle, flinching when his mother whacked his hand with her large wooden spoon and told him to wash up.

             
Raine’s gaze flew to Leith.  He was so large, he dwarfed the room.  His hair was dark and gleaming in the firelight, softly brushing his shoulders.  His eyes, those wonderfully blue eyes, looked at her quizzically.  And those lips with that crooked little grin that made people think he had a secret.  This was the father of her child
– children -
and he was going to war.  He might not come back.

             
She ran and flung herself against him, wrapping her legs around his waist,
not caring that her thighs were bared or that the servants had stopped to stare and gasp at such improper behavior.

             
“Don’t go.  You can’t go!  You can’t.  You need to stay here.  I can’t bear it if you were killed.”  She buried her face in his shoulder and sobbed.

             
Leith shot his mother a look, but she shrugged and turned back to the fire.  “She was going to find out sooner or later.”

             
“SSShhhh, now.  Everything will be fine,” he soothed.  He carried her like a child, one hand under her bottom and the other rubbing her back.

             
She hiccupped and blathered, “No
,
it won’t.  You’re leaving and you’re going to get killed.  Then what?  What will I – er, the people do?  They need you.  Your place is here.  Not off at war!”

             
He smiled sadly at her and wiped her cheeks with the back of his hand.  “This is the way of things here.  It is my responsibility to protect my land, my people.  My uncle will not reason.  As we speak, he is readying for battle against me.  He is fortifying his walls and stocking his cellars.  There is no other choice.
And
I have the
Queen
’s permission
for this battle
.”

             
She jumped up and stomped her foot, imitating a spoiled child.  “No!  I said no!  I don’t want you going to war!”

             
He loomed over her but she did not waver.  He tried to reason with her. 
Quietly, he reminded her,
“Ye will be leaving in just a few more weeks to return to your home.  Ye will not be here to see us off to war.  Ye will not have to bear it.”

             
Standing in the middle of kitchen, tears and mucus mixing, her vision blurred, she saw his reasoning.  This was his time and way of life.  Not hers.  He was waiting until she was gone before he marched on his uncle so she would not have to be witness to the outcome should it be for the worse.  He was thinking of her.  Her heart swelled in her chest so much that it took her breath away.  How much trouble had she been to him and yet he put her welfare before his own.

             
She said through gritted teeth, “I do not want you to go.”

             
He replied softly, “I have to.”

             
Robbie and Lady MacGregor stood to the side, watching them, neither saying a word.  Neither offering her help or standing in her way.

             
An idea struck her.  “If I stayed, would you still go?  To war?”

             
His eyes narrowed and he tilted his head.  “Do not do that, lass.  Whether ye were here or five hundred years from here, I would still go.”

             
Tears came as if the floodgates had opened.  She tried to think of something to say, to persuade him, to reason with him, but nothing entered her thoughts except the vision of him lying dead on a battlefield.

             
She turned and ran sobbing to her room.  He did not follow for a long time.

             
“Mother, did ye really have to tell her? Now?”

             
“She was going to learn of it sooner or later, and better it be sooner than later,” came her swift retort.

             
Turning, she waved the large wooden spoon in his direction.  “Are ye daft, boy?”  Her accent always became thicker when she was angry.  “That lass is in love wi’ ye!  Bloody hell!  Can ye not see it?”

             
Leith looked at her, his mouth open.  She reached over and snapped it shut with her spoon.  “Close ye’re gap, ye’ll catch a fly.”

             
Frowning, he turned and took a step towards Robbie who put his palms towards him.  “I’m not involved in this.  Talk to ye’re mother.” 

             
“In love with me?” he asked
incredulously
.

             
She rolled her eyes heavenward.  “Ye are daft, just like ye’re father, bless his soul.  Yes!  Can ye not see it?  Her face lights up when she see ye.  She never stops smiling!  She peeks out of the nearest window and watches ye practice with the men when ye’re not wearing yer shirt.  She fairly drools
after the evening meal in anticipation of sharing yer bed.  And ye never noticed any of this, ha’ ye?”

             
Leith was at a loss.  Everything she said was true, he had noticed these things, but thought nothing of them.  He took it to mean that she enjoyed sharing his bed as much as he enjoyed
having her in it
.  He was the one who watched her from afar and smiled whenever she was near.  He would peek through
doorways
and watch her laugh with her ladies or tousle the hair of a passing child.  His men teased him that his foul mood was because he had not yet kissed his wife that day.

             
If she was in love with him, did that mean that he was in love with her as well? 

             
“No, I don’t believe ye, Mother.  Ye’re mistaken at best.  She enjoys my company, and yes,” he blushed at admitting to his mother, “my bed
,
too.  But this is not love.  Love is when ye cannot bear to be apart, even for one moment.  It should feel like ye have a knife plunged straight through ye’re heart at the thought of being without that person for the rest of ye’re life.  That’s what ye told me about Father and ye.  She’s leaving, and I’m the one who’s helping her.”

             
He shook his head.  “No, this can’t be love.”

             
“Then why is she crying, my genius son?” his mother demanded.

             
He shrugged.  “She is female.  Women do strange things for no reason.”

             
“Aye, I can vouch for that one,” Robbie agreed.

             
Lady MacGregor threw up her hands, slammed the wooden spoon on the table, and walked out of the kitchen leaving her sons scratching their heads in bewilderment.