Marriage By Arrangement (23 page)

“Fairy?”

“Or perhaps she was a milkmaid. The night of the masquerade…and then again…” He glanced around the chamber as if he’d lost something. “…tonight…or last night.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure just when.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I seem to lose track of time. Everything goes black.”

“Tell me about the fairy.”

“She was the most beautiful nymph…I think she was a nymph. Bloody Billy wanted to snatch her, but…” Her husband’s straight, masculine brows wrinkled, and his face contorted into an incredibly sad look of confusion.

Her body chilled, leaving shivers travelling her spine. Dear God, did he not know the difference between reality and fantasy? “But?”

“She disappeared. I don’t understand.” He sighed. “Sometimes I get confused.” He turned his liquid brown eyes away and rubbed the bridge of his straight nose. “Did I dream the fairy?”

She began her circular stroking of his bare chest, but he failed to relax. Muscles at the back of her own neck had grown rigid.

“Do you sometimes find yourself somewhere and you didn’t know how you got there?” His furrowed brow and mahogany eyes begged her to say yes. “And you don’t even know why you are there,” he whispered.

She pulled his head to her breast and stroked his wavy hair. “No, dear.” She massaged his stiff shoulders. “That’s part of your illness. Sometimes you wander into places where you shouldn’t.” She lifted his face and bent to kiss his lips. “And you do things you shouldn’t. That’s why a guard must accompany you wherever you go. To keep you safe.”

“Guard?” He pulled away, his spine rigid, his brow deeply furrowed. “Did I do something dreadful to that guard?”

“You knocked him down. You mustn’t, you know. He stays with you to keep you safe.”

His jaw firmed. “But I won’t have a guard. I won’t allow it.”

Well, Rafe was out of action for a time. She’d have to commandeer the robust Scot who’d taken control tonight. “Think of the man as more of a companion than a guard.”

“You shall have to buy him a title, then. I won’t be seen with a commoner dogging my heels. People will suspect.”

“Yes, my love. You know about such things, and I will procure the money. We shall buy him a title. And a title for Rafe, and another for Hennings.” She smiled brilliantly. “You shall have three, true companions…and no watchdogs.”

Avondale slid down against the pillow and turned to his side. “I’m very tired.”

She nestled her cheek into his arm and began to massage his back, her heart aching.

Why had God allowed this fine man to be so wounded? What was she to do with him? He hurt others to protect them from imagined threats. He was dangerous.

She bit her lip. Still, she needed to know more. She must push him for answers yet again. “Avondale, why do you avoid me during the day?”

He groaned. “Oh, my very own sweet. I am ashamed to face you in daylight. You are so innocent. You do no evil. And I am such a coward.” He half-turned to her, muscles rippled where they stretched down his backbone. “You are so graceful and so perfect. I’m not fit to be your husband. I…I thought you could most certainly see the coward’s stripe down my back. I couldn’t let you near me in daylight.”

Pity wound around her lightened heart. “Oh, Avondale. All this time I thought you were ashamed of me.”

“No, my princess.” His lips thinned and turned down at the corners. “Once again the craven coward shows his true character.”

“Avondale, I do love you so. Together we’ll find a way to make the Duke of Cumberland stop bleeding you dry. And I’m quite certain he will not abduct anyone from the castle. I think you a fine, courageous man who stood strong for your principles. You did not want the Highlanders killed, yet you had no power to stop their murder. What you did was right and good.”

For the first time her husband’s face lost all trace of tension. He sat up, folded her into his arms, and his lips nuzzled her hair as he spoke. “I’m not so certain I did the right thing.”

“You did. And you will again. Don’t allow the past that cannot be changed to haunt you.” She lifted her chin. “But you must not snub me again. Ever.”

He nodded.

Yet from the resumed tightness of his expression she realized he’d not yet gained victory over his demons.

Were there more?

25

The next morning Fiona sat across from Cailin at breakfast. “Will ye come to the broch with me?” Fiona’s lake-blue eyes pleaded. The lass was already dressed in a sensible, yellow woolen day gown. “I’ve been waiting for you ever so long.”

Cailin laid her spoon beside her oatmeal. Had she been alone she would have returned to Avondale, who still slept. A rosy mist still floated around her and had since she’d opened her eyes and stared into his sleeping face. His thick brown hair feathered around his face and stood on end at the crown.

She’d pulled in an uneven breath and had difficulty keeping her fingers from tracing his lovely, straight nose and caressing his dark, stubbled cheek. Rumpled and sleeping, his masculine features stole her breath away. How often she’d dreamed of waking with her husband by her side. He lay on his side facing her and sunlight bathed the ridges of his bare torso with gold, outlining the muscles’ strong definition. The lump on his forehead had grown larger and darker purple.

He’d looked so peaceful that she’d quickly dressed and come downstairs to eat. Their heart-to-heart talk last night had rewarded him with needed sleep and her with a ravenous appetite.

Perhaps the baby had a growth spurt. She caressed her rounded tummy and decided the bulge had grown.

“Please, Cailin.”

She’d hoped to return to her husband before he woke, but she dearly wanted to visit the sweet bairns and how they fared within the old ruin.

And Avondale, no doubt, would continue to sleep. Sleep would help restore his health. Though her heart called out to him, she must let him rest.

While half her mind wrestled through what she’d learned from him, the rest of her yearned to see the bairns.

Though the sun was not yet far above the horizon, she could not deny Fiona’s wide blue pleading gaze. So, she opted for her second choice. “Yes. Let’s go see to the bairns.”

She drank the last of her juice and slipped the final bite of coddled egg onto its finger of buttered toast. The flutter in her tummy acknowledged the baby’s thanks.

They rose from the long, formal table, with its snowy cloth and sparkling silver, left the dining room with a nod to the servers waiting behind the chairs, and tossed shawls over their shoulders as they traipsed towards the back castle door.

Cailin pushed open the heavy, outer door and led the way, her boots tapping on the cobblestones. They passed through the portcullis and walked down the faint, still dewy path that led to the broch.

She pulled in a deep breath of the bright, clear morning air, sweet with new mown grass. Butterflies flitted from broken grass stems to the small, pink English roses that lined the way. Already bees buzzed from flower to flower.

“Did ye know some call our Highland bairns, Children of the Mist?”

Cailin picked a rose and held the sweet fragrance to her nose. “Oh, why is that? I thought Children of the Mist referred to the fairies.” Perhaps her husband wasn’t so off in his thinking as he appeared? Oh, dear God, she prayed not. One day she would explain to Fiona why Avondale had wanted to save her, but not today.

“Aye, and so they do. The wee people. But some folk…” The way Fiona gazed at her alerted her to the possibility that some folk might be Fiona’s polite way of saying Lowlanders. “… call our bairns such names.”

“Because they are elusive?” A swirl of cool air made her clasp her shawl closer.

“Aye…I mean yes. Elusive.” Fiona’s sweet smile looked so like Brody’s wider grin. “And fair. Ye notice baby Fiona’s fine white hair and pale complexion?” Fiona pulled open the curtain door that just a few hours before Lord Avondale had tried to drag her through. “Yes, mostly we are born with that pale hair, and then our tresses darken as we grow.”

“Yours are not so very dark yet.” She tried to keep pace with Fiona, but the lass continually spoke over her shoulder as she scurried ahead through the meadow.

“Mine will remain blonde until I become a grandmother.” Fiona strode faster. “Did ye ken our folk donna…do not like the wee people? Did ye ken that our men wear talismans in their bonnets to ward off the wee people?”

Cailin stopped to catch her breath. The steep climb to the broch seemed more arduous than usual. She fanned her face. “Your brawny Highlanders don’t really believe in fairies, do they?”

“Aye…yes. Believe and fear. The old ones are full of mischiefs.”

Cailin pulled in more even breaths. She’d heard King George planned to turn all the superstitious Catholic clansmen into God-fearing Protestants. But she’d seen no trace of superstition in Brody. But then he was not a Catholic, either. “Do you believe in the wee old folk?”

But Fiona had started to run.

“What is your hurry?” Puffing, and lifting her skirts over the dewy meadow, Cailin picked her way through the no longer manicured grass.

The closer she got to the broch, the less well kept was the glen, now overgrown with large purple thistles. Already Fiona had disappeared through the tumbled-down stone walls that circled the broch’s keep.

Cailin craned her neck. The crumbling, circular stone tower loomed three-stories straight up. She shivered. Beneath the bright sun, the collapsing boulders reflected deep shadows around her. Had she been so inclined, she might have believed in the wee folks herself.

Fiona peeked back around the stone she’d just disappeared behind. “How old do ye think this place is?”

“I think about fifteen hundred or more years.”

“Whatever was it used for?”

Cailin made her way through large stones that had fallen from the curtain around the tower. “No one really knows. Perhaps an ancient type of castle built by the Picts.”

They stood close to the small door that even Fiona would have to duck to enter.

“I’ve never seen one in this part of Scotland before.”

“It’s rare. Most were built close to the seacoast. But we own this one and it’s in remarkably good condition. Parts of the roof are missing, and you can see gaping holes where chunks of the sides have fallen in.”

A sharp wind blew through Cailin’s shawl and chilled her arms. She pulled it tighter and hooded the warm tartan around her head. “It seems colder here than out in the glen. Shall we go inside?”

She knocked three times in quick succession, hesitated, and then knocked twice more. Almost immediately, Mikey opened the low, steel-banded wooden door. His work-hardened hand held the door wide.

Fiona ducked and entered.

“Some brochs have entrance passageways. I’m glad ours doesn’t. A low tunnel would have made it more difficult to carry the wounded inside.” She clasped her shawl tighter and checked the sturdy, wooden door to make certain it was tightly closed behind them.

Mikey held a lighted torch. He ducked his head. “Lady Cailin. Lady Fiona. It’s glad I am to see ye.” His broad smile somehow highlighted the freckles on his square face. “I’d thought ye’d still be abed.”

“Not so, faithful Mikey.” Cailin smiled and trudged further inside the room.

“Lady Fiona, the lad, Grady, has been champing at the bit to see ye. Donna’ tell the lad I said so.”

Cailin stared. Of course that was why Fiona had been in such a rush. How much better life would fare for her sister-in-law if Fiona did not fall in love with a fugitive.

She must think on how to keep Fiona and Grady apart. Cailin sighed. If Grady were captured, and the soldiers discovered Fiona’s attachment to him, the lass would be in grave danger.

Cailin untied the ribbons to her bonnet. She must speedily pair Fiona with several of the eligible young earls who had been so attracted to the girl at the masquerade and steer the lass away from fugitives.

Cailin rubbed her chin and glanced around the interior of the broch. The dank unused odor that usually filled the tower had disappeared. Above her, feet rustled through the straw spread across the old stones to ward off the chill the tower held even in summer.

Mikey’s torch lit the lower round room from curved wall to curved wall. The big room looked empty save for torches in their wall niches and an unrailed stone stairway climbing up to all three floors. There were no windows, thus the need for torches day and night.

To the untrained eye the place looked deserted. She shivered at the eerie whistling of the wind through the breaches in the tower.

“I’ve housed the precious bairns on the second floor and the wounded men on the third.”

“Thank you, Mikey. Papa will certainly raise your wages. You’ve done abundantly more than your share helping.”

“Aye, Milady. ‘Tis my kinsmen I help, as well.” He grinned, showing a gap where he missed a tooth. “But an increase in pay will suit me verra well.”

“Who is there, Mikey?” Elspeth, Mikey’s tall, muscular wife stood at the top of the stairs. Where Mikey was red and ruddy, she was darker. With her brown hair feathered around her face, she looked like a large brown owl, big eyes shining wide in her face and her dark dress disappearing into shadows.

“The Ladies, Cailin and Fiona, be down here, Ellie. Come to see the bairns, I suspect.”

“Good morning, Elspeth. Are the bairns still settling in well?” Cailin followed Fiona more slowly as the lass fairly flew up the winding staircase.

“Aye, Milady. They’re roosted in like a nestling of bluebirds.”

Cailin turned sideways, her back to the cold stone wall, gathered her long skirts in one hand, and side-stepped up the narrow staircase. The lack of banister always made her leery and peeking down into the shadowy entry hall where torches cast strange shadows didn’t make navigating the stairs any easier. When she reached the top, she squeezed her servant’s rough hand. “Thank you so much for your labor. You and Mikey are a God-send.”

“Nay, Milady. ‘Tis ye be a God-send to us. We canna bear to see our Scots, howbeit they are Highlanders, mistreated so. We’ll hide these men and these precious bairns with our lives. Ye can trust us.”