Rowan's Lady (16 page)

“Cry it all out, lass,” he whispered into her hair.

The shock of his statement made her cry all the
more. Carlich had been the only man who had ever allowed her to cry. Her father
would not allow for histrionics and Garrick certainly would not have put up
with tears.

But here, sitting in the mud, was a strong, braw
man, a man she barely knew, telling her it was all right to cry was too much.
That old familiar feeling, the one of longing for things that could never be
began to creep in. Wrapping its long tendrils around her heart, it squeezed and
burned, leaving an indelible impression where she did not want it.

While the tears flowed, she heard muffled voices
coming from above but paid them no mind. She wanted to stay there, in the mud,
with her face hidden in his chest so that Rowan would not have the chance to
look into her eyes. If she looked into those big brown eyes again, she’d be
forever lost and eternally damned.

 When he felt her tears begin to subside, Rowan
gave her back a gentle pat. “Better, now?” he asked thoughtfully.

Arline nodded into his chest, afraid to move or
look up for fear he’d be able to somehow read her mind or heart.

“Good,” he said as he gently rubbed his hand up
and down her back. He looked up at the wall of earth she had tumbled down
earlier and doubted she would be able to make her way back up it.

Their camp sat in a nice, flat clearing and he
could not remember seeing any drop offs or embankments near it. Mayhap this bit
of land would wind its way around to a spot where she would be better able to
climb up.

“Do ye think ye can walk a spell, lass?”

Arline took a deep breath, wiped her wet cheeks
with the backs of her hands and nodded again. Her voice had seen fit to leave
her, undoubtedly from the embarrassment of having fallen into a heap of
hysterical crying.

Very gently he lifted her off his lap and set her
bottom on the ground in front of him. He pushed himself to his feet and scanned
their surroundings.

Frederick called down to them. “Should we throw
down a rope?”

“Nay,” Rowan called back to him. As much as Arline
tried to argue otherwise, he knew her ribs were seriously injured. He did not
want to risk damaging them further by tying a rope around her and hoisting her
up. “We shall walk a spell and try to find a spot where the land evens out,” he
yelled up to Frederick.

Turning his attention back to Arline, he held out
his hand. She refused to look up at him. He knelt down and put a hand on her
shoulder. “’Tis all right, lass,” he whispered.

Arline was playing with the edges of her torn
bodice. “I apologize, me laird, fer actin’ like a fool.”

Rowan chuckled as he took her chin between his
fingers and lifted it. Damn, but she had beautiful green eyes. They still
glistened from the tears she had shed. Even red from crying they were quite
beautiful.

His smile, warm and thoughtful, brought a tickling
sensation to her stomach. He was making her look at him, full on, and she
realized that she had no desire to stop.

“Do no’ worrit overmuch, lass. I’ll no’ tell
anyone if ye promise no’ to tell that I panicked, thinkin’ ye’d been stabbed,
and ripped yer dress.”

She burned red again, looked down at her torn,
tattered, and filthy dress and realized she must look like hell. “Damn,” she
muttered under her breath.

He laughed fully then, with his broad shoulders
shaking and his head thrown back. Briefly her ire was raised when she believed
he was laughing at her distress. But when he looked at her, with those full,
chiseled lips upturned and that twinkle in his eye, she knew there wasn’t a
cruel bone in his gloriously beautiful body.
Damn.

She wanted very much to have a reason to be angry
with him. Wanted desperately to find something about the man to dislike,
something that would make the fluttering, nearly giddy sensation in her belly
cease.

She could find nothing.

He was perfection personified.

Damn him.

Growling silently, she thrust up her hand and took
his. His skin felt warm, nearly hot against her own. Her skin turned to
gooseflesh when he lifted her to her feet and she stumbled into his chest.
Marble. He was a living, breathing statue of Adonis, carved from marble.

Damn him.

He righted her, winked, took her hand and wrapped
her arm around his waist while draping his long arm around her shoulders. “I
think we can find a place that might no’ be so difficult fer either of us to
climb. Are ye sure ye can walk a ways?”

Walk? I’ll be lucky if me legs do no’ turn to
jelly with ye touchin’ me like this.

Arline wondered if she would ever find the use of
her voice again, felt all the more foolish for nodding her head like a piece of
driftwood bobbing in the water. Why did he have to smile
and
wink?
Together, side by side, they began the walk back toward the camp.

So when she could find no real faults with him she
decided to look at herself. Aye, it was much easier to find faults within
herself than with another. Mentally, she began to tick off all the reasons why
she could never have the heart of a man like Rowan Graham.

Arline knew she was by no means a homely woman.
But neither was she the beauty she felt a man like Rowan would want. She had
lost what few curves she had months ago when Garrick had decided to cut her
meal rations. She was nothing but skin and bones with very tiny breasts and
skin so very pale from lack of exposure to the sun. That’s what living as a
prisoner did for her. It turned her into a walking skeleton.

She could read and write and figure sums. She
could sew a good stitch, paint and draw, but those were the limits of her
talents. A man like Rowan needed a woman far more worldly and intelligent.

She chanced a glance up at him as they walked
along the flat ground. His long brown hair was windswept, giving him even a
more virile and dangerous appearance. Arline was tall, taller than most women,
but standing next to Rowan she felt small, tiny, diminutive. Nay, he didn’t
need her, he needed a tall, buxom, smart, beautiful, witty woman.

Besides, once she was out of danger, she was going
to make her way to Inverness, to her sisters. She did not need a man, didn’t
even want one. At least, not one like her previous husbands.

Soon they made their way to a spot where the
ravine sloped upwardly. It was painful to make the climb but not nearly as
painful as it would have been to try to pull her way up a straight wall. She
was glad that Rowan was there letting her lean most of her weight against him
as they made their way up the hill.

The population of the clearing had increased
two-fold, filled with men from the clans Graham, McDunnah and McKee. Rowan
quietly explained that they were here to see them safely to his lands.

“We should arrive on Graham lands by the noonin
meal on the morrow,” he told her as they walked toward the groups of men.

“And when shall we make it to yer keep?”

“The day after.”

Two more days of riding. Two more days without a
bath, sleeping on the cold hard ground, or worse yet, atop a horse as it
bounded along the land. Arline stifled a frustrated sigh, lifted her chin and
tried to pretend that it did not matter.

Rowan wrapped an arm around her shoulder and gave
it a slight hug. “I promise ye lass, when we get to my keep, ye can take as
many baths as ye want, ye’ll sleep in a big, soft, warm bed, and ye’ll have
something more to eat than cheese and dried meat.

Arline smiled up at him. “It sounds like heaven.”

“Castle
Áit na Síochána is
heaven on earth
lass.”

From the smile and the twinkling in his eyes,
Arline did not doubt him in the least.

Rowan listened intently as his daughter rattled on
about her time at Blackthorn Keep. The more he learned, the angrier he became
with Garrick Blackthorn. Although he was glad they had finally made it safely
to Graham lands, a large part of him still wished to return to the Blackthorn
keep and burn it to the ground.

The more Lily talked, the more intrigued he became
with Lady Arline. Lily seemed to know a great deal about the woman.

“I want sisters, da,” she told him as she took
another bite of her apple.

Rowan nearly choked on his bread when she said it.
“Lady Arline has two sisters. Morralyn and Geraldine. They live in Inverness.
But we’re no’ supposed to tell anyone that,” Lily took another bite of her
apple.

Rowan raised an eyebrow. “Why is that?”

Lily smacked her lips together, chewed and swallowed.
“Because her da is no’ nice like ye. That is why she married the mean man,
because her da made her.”

Rowan was glad his daughter held him in such high
regard. Arranged marriages were nothing new. He reckoned that many a young
woman thought her parents
mean
when arranging their futures for them. He
couldn’t say he blamed them.

Although his marriage to Kate had been arranged
they had fallen in love very quickly. Kate was beautiful and smart and
everything he could ever want in a woman. Rowan knew that most arranged
marriages did not end up as happy and full of love as his had.

“Her sisters are bastards,” Lily informed him
bluntly.

“Lily Graham!” Rowan chastised her. He was more
stunned than angry with her. “Where did ye hear such a thing? Is that what Lady
Arline called them?”

Lily looked up at him, her eyes instantly filling
with tears. “Nay, but isna that what ye call people who be born when their
mummy and da are no’ married?”

Rowan took a slow breath in. He hadn’t imagined
having such a sensitive conversation with his daughter, at least not until she
was much older. “Some do, but we do no’ because its insulting. We do no’ use
such language. Ye wouldna want to hurt anyone’s feelings, would ye?”

Lily shook her head and looked sincerely
regretful. “Nay,” she told him. “I be sorry, da.”

Rowan patted her little head and gave her a hunk
of cheese. “Do no fash yerself. But remember, in the future, no’ to say such
things.”

“Am I in trouble?” she asked, looking forlorn and
worried.

Rowan chuckled. “Nay, yer no’.”

That seemed to lift her spirits. She took a bite
of cheese. Rowan could sense she was mulling something over in her mind. Lily
verified it with her next question.

“So, can I have sisters? Lady Arline has two
sisters and she loves them verra much. That is why she married the mean man, so
her da wouldna hurt them.”

Rowan’s brow furrowed. “Hurt them?”

“Aye. If Lady Arline didna marry the mean man, her
da was going to cast her sisters out of their house and let them starve in the
streets.”

Rowan wondered how much of Lily’s story was true
and how much was the excited workings of a four-year-old child’s mind. There
was a possibility that there was some truth to what she said but he would wait
to make a judgment on Arline’s father until after he had heard the truth from
Arline.

“Lady Arline didna want her sisters to starve or
be hurt. She hid them, in Inverness so her da canna find them. He’s no’ nice
like ye.”

She finished her cheese but not her story or her
questions. “Ye wouldna do that, would ye da? Throw my sisters out if they were
born on the wrong side of the blanket?”

Rowan nearly choked again. “Where on earth did ye
hear
that
?” he asked, hoping she hadn’t heard it from him.

“Mrs. McGregor!” Lily said. “That is what she says
about bastards. And ye told me I couldna say that word, bastards, anymore.”

It was all he could do not to laugh and cry at the
same time. He took a moment to calm his nerves, making a mental to have a talk
with their cook, Mrs. McGregor, just as soon as they returned home. “Lily, I do
no’ want ye to use that expression again.”

She looked glum and confused. “So what
should
I
say?”

Rowan let out a frustrated sigh. “Ye shouldn’t say
anythin’ about someone’s--” he searched for the appropriate words, words that a
four-year-old could understand. “Ye shouldna say anythin’ about whether a
person’s parents were married or no’, fer it does no’ matter.”

Lily thought long and hard. “Because ye must judge
a man by his character.”

Rowan smiled proudly at his daughter. She was
smart, wise beyond her four years. “Aye, ye have the right of it.”

“So can I have sisters?”

He sighed. This child was going to be the death of
him. He would love to give her sisters -- legitimate sisters. But that would
require marrying again. Rowan doubted he would ever be able to give his heart
to another woman, doubted he could ever love another woman as he had loved
Kate.

Guilt crept in. Was he being a selfish man by not
giving Lily a mother and brothers and sisters? There were so many things he
wanted to give his daughter, chief among them a family. He also wished for his
daughter to grow up in a time of peace and prosperity, a time where children
were not kidnapped or worrying over when their next meals might come.

The Black Death had nearly destroyed his clan.
Left with only a handful of loyal men and women, Rowan was doing his best to
rebuild his clan, his home and his life. Though they did not struggle like many
other clans they were by no means out of trouble.

Many of the crofters’ huts scattered across his
lands remained empty, their original inhabitants now dead. Without anyone to
tend to them, the little houses were slowly decaying and falling apart. And
without enough people to tend the lands, their harvests were, to say the least,
reduced.

Still, they had plenty of meat to get them through
the roughest of times. Gradually over the past year, they had increased their
numbers by inviting those less fortunate to come live among the clan Graham. A
rag-tag bunch if ever he saw one, but, still, they were loyal people, glad to have
a home and way to make a living. They had come from all parts of Scotland, many
with just the clothes on their backs and empty bellies. There was not a clan
left untouched by the Black Death and several were wiped out completely.