My Highland Lover (29 page)

She’s gotta be wrong,
Trulie silently prayed.
You know she’s right,
a nagging inner voice insisted.

Gray cleared his throat as he lightly settled both hands on Trulie’s shoulders. “A child? Are ye sure?” he asked Granny.

“Positive,” Granny affirmed. “Your bloodline is now blended with ours. That also explains why I no longer saw you in the vision. We cannot portend the future for our own.”

“I drank all those freakin’ seeds,” Trulie repeated. Why wasn’t anyone listening to her? “I can’t be pregnant. I have been careful—very careful.”

Granny whirled and shook a bent finger just inches from Trulie’s nose. “What did I tell you was the only way to guarantee you never got pregnant?”

“Don’t have sex,” Trulie mumbled.

“You got it,” Granny agreed. “Congratulations,” she added with a wink.

Gray turned Trulie in his arms and cradled her to his chest. “A child. We are already blessed with our first bairn.” He brushed a tender kiss across her forehead, then touched his nose to hers. “Now a firm wedding date must be set. All yer stalling must cease.”

“I have not been stalling.” Trulie clenched her teeth against a wave of nausea. Her stomach rolled again as if now that the news was out, it had free rein to churn at will. She pushed Gray away, glared at Granny, and turned toward the archway leading into the kitchen. “We will firm up our plans later. Right now we have an assassin to catch.”

Gray struggled to put the excitement of Granny’s revelation to the back of his mind.
A child.
He wanted to roar it to the world. Trulie carried his child.

“Gray!” The irritation in Trulie’s tone broke through his reverie.

“Aye?” He stepped forward and pulled Trulie behind him.

“What are you doing?” Trulie thumped him on the back, then elbowed her way back around him.

“Ye need to keep yourself behind me. Ye have no idea if the woman will fight or flee when she realizes she has been found out.” Gray hooked Trulie’s elbow and firmly pulled her back behind him.

“I am going to kill you myself if you don’t stop this nonsense.” Trulie nudged him hard with her hip and wormed her way back in front of him. “You watch and make sure Granny’s safe. I can protect myself.”

“You might as well let her be,” Granny said, chuckling, as she patted Gray’s arm from the other side. “Life will be a lot easier if you figure out early on which battles are worth fighting.”

Gray noted the tense determination in the set of Trulie’s jaw.
Ah, but such battles make life worth living.

“I shall wait with Colum in the gardens,” Tamhas announced. “I still fail t’see the need for a small army to face a single female.”

“I shall come too, Master Tamhas.” Coira gave Trulie an excited hug as she squeezed past her in the hallway. “I canna wait to help ye care for the new bairn.”

“Now that we’ve reduced our ranks, shall we get this party started?” Trulie looped her arm through Granny’s, lifted her chin, and marched them both into the kitchen.

Gray hurried to catch up with the women. The distinct clicking of toenails against stone told Gray that Karma followed close on their heels. The great dog huffed a low-throated growl with each step as though keeping time with their pace.

A heavyset woman with graying hair pulled back in a disheveled bun ambled forward and met them. She wiped her muscular hands across the flour-covered apron lashed around her waist. “So many in m’kitchen and lore, the MacKenna himself. Can I be a helpin’ ye, m’chief? Is anythin’ wrong?”

Ignoring Trulie’s warning growl, Gray pushed around Trulie and Granny, effectively placing himself between the two women and the worried-looking Cook. Trulie could growl all she wanted. He would no’ have his woman placed in front of him as though she were a shield. Gray cast a stern glance back over one shoulder before he smiled down at Cook. “We have a wedding feast to plan. Lady Trulie and I have set a date. We wed at the end of summer. What better time to celebrate a joining than during the time of plenty?”

A sharp intake of breath sounded behind him. Gray forced himself not to chuckle. There would be hell to pay with Trulie later, and he looked forward to the battle.

Cook’s eyes bulged and her jaw went slack. “Tha’s less than three months’ time.” She threw both hands in the air and looked toward the ceiling as though searching for divine guidance. “Lore a’mighty, just three short cycles o’the moon t’prepare for a great feasting. For the entire clan? Three months’ time?” Cook’s tone bordered on hysteria as she pressed both hands against her pudgy jowls. Her gaze darted about the kitchen in rapid glances that lit here and there among every shelf in the kitchen.

Poor woman. Gray supposed three months was barely enough time for Cook to plan a proper fortnight of feasting for the entire clan and even more visitors. But what better excuse for them all to be in the kitchen? “Aye. Barely three months. Of course, ye have my complete approval to take on more servants if need be.” Gray paused and glanced around the kitchen as though counting heads. “How many do ye have right now? Are there any new servants that might no’ be properly trained for such preparations?”

Cook looked at Gray as though he had lost his mind. Perspiration dotted her brow as it knotted into a frown. “New servants?” she repeated as she tapped a pudgy finger against her double chin. Her eyes widened with recollection as she turned and wagged a finger toward an open doorway leading to the separate room where all the herbs and spices were prepared and dried. “There is Dullas.” Cook’s voice took on a strained, uncomfortable tone. She leaned forward as her voice lowered. “She’s an odd one, that one is.”

Aye. No doubt.
Gray looked across the room with interest. After all, the strange woman intended to commit murder and then return to her home unscathed. Gray nodded toward the door Cook had indicated. “I would see this Dullas.”

“Aye, m’chief.” Cook bobbed her head as she turned and waddled a few steps across the massive kitchen. “Dullas!” she bellowed, loud enough to shake the massive smoke-stained beams stretched across the ceiling.

The door slowly creaked open and a good-sized woman shuffled forward. Her worn overdress strained across rounded shoulders, while an apron stained with patches of green hung loose about her neck. She kept her head bent and the brim of the white cap tied about her head flopped well over her face. Her hands fluttered in front of her waist as though she carried on an animated conversation with someone only she could see. “Aye, Cook?” she mumbled, loud enough to be heard above the clatter of pots and pans.

“Dullas, come forward. The MacKenna would ha’ a look at ye.” Cook hurried the reluctant woman with a quick wave of her meaty hand. “Come now. Make haste. There’s much t’be done and no time t’be wasted.”

The wide, limp brim of Dullas’s cap bobbed up and down with the woman’s odd jerking movements as she trundled forward.

Aye.
Gray studied her closer. The woman moved as though already condemned to the gallows. His gaze lit upon the braided chain of hair barely visible just inside her collar. It looked to be the braided chain Trulie had described from Granny’s vision.

Dullas didn’t lift her face as she halted a few feet in front of Gray. She twisted one of her apron ties so tight around her short, stubby fingers they puffed red and looked about to burst.

Gray didn’t say a word. Sometimes the best way to get a person to admit guilt was by giving them enough rope to tie their own noose. Gray folded his arms across his chest and walked a slow circle around the still-murmuring woman.

“Stand up straight, Dullas,” Cook hissed with a clap of her hands. “I beg yer forgiveness, m’chief. I had no doings in the choice of this one for the kitchen, and she’s been with us a verra short time.”

“In truth?” Gray circled even closer around the eerily animated maid. It didn’t escape him that each time he leaned in to see her face, Dullas shied the other way. The bits of her whispered conversation he did catch reminded him of Tamhas’s ramblings as he read aloud from one of his journals. Snatches of phrases referring to exact amounts of measure, weight, and color. What the hell was the woman saying? “Ye ha’ run these kitchens for many a year, Cook. Who would dare usurp yer authority and force a servant on ye?”

Cook’s already-flushed cheeks reddened to an even deeper shade. “Yer stepmother,” she said with disgust, while making a hurried sign of the cross over her chest. “During her last…visit…she bade us take her.”

So Aileas herself had sent Dullas to his kitchens? That revelation confirmed what Gray already suspected. Disturbed Beala had not acted alone out of some twisted attempt to win Fearghal and Aileas’s favor. Aileas had used Beala as a pawn in her game to win complete power. And it appeared one of her other game pieces continued playing well after her mistress had gone.

An impatient huff and a cleared throat prodded Gray forward. Trulie’s patience was wearing thin. Time to end the game.

“What sort of charm do ye wear about yer neck?” Gray ignored Cook’s sharp intake of breath as he yanked back Dullas’ cap and revealed her sullen face.
Lore ha’ mercy.
Gray forced himself not to recoil. Dullas was the mirror image of Aileas, except the poor woman had an angry puckered scar running down the side of her face, then zigzagging down across her throat.

Dullas kept her gaze trained on the floor, her lips moved rapidly with barely whispered conversation. She bowed over her gesturing hands, ducking her chin to her chest like a turtle retreating into its shell. “No charm, great one. Bit o’ keepsake from sister. Would ne’er mean t’displease ye. Will burn it if I must.” When Dullas spoke louder, her voice rasped and broke like the croaking of a bullfrog.

A keepsake indeed. Gray turned to Cook. “Did it no’ occur to ye to question why the sister to the old chieftain’s widow would be told to work in the kitchens?”

Cook avoided looking Gray in the eye as she spoke. “The Lady Aileas said ’twas better for her sister to work in the kitchens than be sent back to be set upon by their father and his men.”

Gray’s sense of honor wanted to believe that reason, but his good sense knew better. Aileas had ne’er given a damn about anyone but herself. He had no doubt she would use her sister to clear the path to ultimate power.

“I would see the keepsake yer sister left ye.” Gray held out his hand and waited. It was Dullas’s move. If the maid could see through the evil Aileas had planted in her mind and choose the right path, she could remain a servant in MacKenna keep for as long as she wished. But if she could no’ break free of Aileas’s grip, her tenure in the kitchen was over.

Dullas stared at Gray’s open hand as though she just realized her chieftain stood before her. Her thin brows arched higher as her hands gestured faster. “Ye must be careful, great one. The measure must be true or will cause ye great harm.” Her thick hands opened and closed with an excited frenzy. “Aileas telled me of the weak heart in yer great chest. Ye best allow me t’mix the herb lest it cause ye harm.” Dullas tugged at the drawstring bag about her neck and nodded to herself. “I telled Aileas I would speak t’the chief. I telled Aileas I would make ye whole.” Dullas sadly shook her head. “Aileas ne’er believe a thing I say about me lovely plants.”

From the way Dullas squinted up at him, Gray wondered if the poor woman could see at all. A mixture of pity and anger rushed through him. He hoped Aileas was currently toasting in the hottest part of hell. He couldna fathom how Dullas could possibly undertake something as complicated or wicked as poisoning. He frowned over at Cook. “What tasks have ye this woman doing?”

Cook made a face as though she understood exactly what Gray was wondering. “Dullas knows every herb there is, m’chieftain. She knows their every use. None here have e’er found an herb or plant in existence that Dullas canna identify and nurture into growing. I swear I ne’er seen anything like it. The woman can barely figure out how to tie her apron, but put her in an herb garden and ye’ll find none better.”

That wasn’t exactly what he wished to hear. Gray turned back to Dullas. “Are ye loyal to yer chief, or are ye bound to the wishes of yer sister and yer father?” Dullas’s future depended on the answer she gave and what Trulie discovered when she studied Dullas’s intentions.

As if she already knew Gray’s plan, Trulie eased up beside Gray and looped her arm through his. He smoothed his hand over hers and pressed Trulie’s arm against his side. Her touch steadied him, soothed him, and assured him he was on the right path.

“Dullas.” Gray waited until the woman finally turned her head toward him. “I would ken where yer loyalties lie. MacKenna keep can be yer home or ye can be sent back to yer father.”

Dullas frowned and tilted her shaking head to one side like a dog listening to its master. The tip of her tongue darted across her lower lip as her gaze shifted to Trulie’s face. Without a word, she fumbled about her neck until her stubby fingers closed around the hair necklace. She yanked it off over her head in a series of awkward, jerking movements. “Here,” she croaked as she held out the stained drawstring bag to Trulie. “Take care and measure well or ye will do the chieftain harm.” Then she pointed a shaking finger at Trulie’s stomach. “I ken the herbals ye need to help the bairn grow strong and healthy. If Herself will tarry just a bit, Dullas will gather the best leaves for a fine tea.”

Dullas turned to Gray and shook her head as she ran a shaking finger along the scar across her face. “Father hurt Dullas.” Her gravelly voice trembled as two big tears squeezed out and rolled down her face. “Beg ye, Master. Beg yer leave t’stay here and serve ye.”

Gray closed his hand around the bag Trulie held and nodded his approval. A glance down at Trulie’s face told him without a doubt that Dullas had passed the scan of her intentions. Dullas had ne’er been a true threat.

“What did she say?” Cook waddled closer, straining to see Dullas’s face as the shaking woman shied away.

“She fears I will send her away because Aileas was her sister,” Gray lied.

Dullas ducked back into her cap and pulled the brim well over her face.

Cook’s mouth pressed into a frowning line. “Shall I have her packed up and sent back to her father?”

“No,” Trulie chimed in at the same time as Gray.

Gray patted Trulie’s hand as he repeated, “No. Dullas is welcome to stay in the MacKenna kitchens as long as she likes. This is now her home.”

“Ye best be thankin’ yer chieftain,” Cook urged her with a jerking nod in Gray’s direction.

Dullas’s limp bonnet flopped as her head bobbed up and down. “Verra grateful, m’fine chief. I thank ye kindly,” she croaked out strong and loud as she turned and shuffled back to her room filled with racks of drying herbs.