Rowan's Lady (34 page)

He could feel her hands tremble inside his and he
found himself unable to let them go. He felt something then, something warm and
loving though it was hidden under a current of fear. She cared for him, he
could feel it in her touch and see it in her eyes.

“Och! Ye stubborn Scot! Just let me see to the
wounds. Ye do no’ want them to get infected!” she tried to free her hands from
his grasp. He held on tighter.

That would solve all me problems, he thought. I
could let the wounds fester and die from it. Would be far more desirable to die
from that than from me aching heart.

She was looking into his eyes, her forehead
creasing and he could tell that she was about to argue with him.

“I’ll have Thomas tend to them. He’s our healer on
the battlefields. I promise ye needn’t worry over a few scratches.”

The look she gave him said she did not believe him
and for some reason, it made him smile. “Lily, run and get Thomas. Have him
meet me in me bedchamber.”

He raised a brow as if to say
now do ye believe
me?
“I’ll help ye to clean up this mess,” he told her as he finally let go
of her hands.

“Ye will do no such thing!” she said sternly. “Ye
go to yer room now. I’ll take care of the mess.”

He had the sense that she wanted to say more, something
along the lines that he was a stubborn fool. His smile grew as he reached out
and touched the tip of her nose. “Yer a good woman, Lady Arline. A verra good
woman.”

And with that, he left her to seek out the
solitude his room offered.

Arline followed him with her eyes as he made his way
down the corridor. Her breath did not return until he rounded the corner and
was out of her sight.

Unfortunately for Rowan, his wounds were nothing
more than a few deep scratches. He could not hope for a raging infection that
would end his sorry life thereby negating the need for him to make a decision.

Selina and Lily brought a tray of food to his room
after Thomas had declared he was fine and that it would take more than a stone
floor and a pitcher of ale to do the man in.

Rowan stayed to his room the rest of the day,
pacing back and forth as he mulled over what to do about Lady Arline. He sent
word to Arline and the rest of the clan that he would not be joining them for
the evening meal under the guise of the knock he took to his skull. ’Twas a
full out lie. His head had stopped pounding hours ago. It was his heart that
ached.

He wanted her to be his wife. He wanted to remain
chief of his clan. How could he have both?

After the evening meal, Selina returned with Lily
so that she could bid him good night. He remained in his seat by the fire and
tried to at least appear as though he had a headache.

He found it quite odd that Selina had brought her
instead of Lady Arline. He found he would not have to inquire as to the
location of Lady Arline, for Lily offered her information up with all the
innocence of a four-year-old girl.

“Lady Arline has a headache too, da.” Lily told
him as she climbed onto his lap.

His heart immediately filled with worry. Had he
somehow injured her during their tumble earlier? Had the tray that lodged
between them injured her somehow?

He looked up to Selina for some kind of
confirmation or expansion.

Selina smiled warmly at him. “She’ll be fine,
Rowan. She thinks she’s been cooped up in this keep for far too many days. If
the weather is nice on the morrow, we’ll take the children outside to play.”

He found little reassurance in Selina’s words. He
tamped down the urge to see Arline with his own eyes. Mayhap the less he saw of
her the quicker he’d be able to make up his mind.

Many hours later, he awoke to the sound of Lily
crying. His heart lurched at the sight of his babe standing in the open doorway
to his room, tears streaming down her little cheeks.

He reached her in but a few fast steps and picked
her up. Holding her to his chest, he whispered softly. “Wheesht, babe. Da is
here.”

Between sobs, Lily explained her plight. “Lady
Arline did not come to sleep with me tonight,” she hiccuped and lifted her head
to look at him. “I had a bad dream again,” she said. Her little eyes and nose
were red. Her tears left salty trails down her cheeks.

“Wheesht, little one,” he whispered as he bounced
her up and down gently.

“Lady Arline has the bad dreams too, da,” Lily
said as she thrust her thumb between her lips.

Rowan’s heart skipped beating for a moment and he
felt very much an intolerable oaf. Not once had he thought to ask Arline how
she
was faring. His only concern over the last weeks had been for his daughter.

He had thoughtlessly assumed that since Lily did
not come to him in the middle of the night, that she was recovering nicely from
her ordeal. She rarely talked with him about what happened at Blackthorn keep.
He had assumed that meant that her time there was not as bad as he had
originally imagined.

Realizing he had made a terrible error in
assessing the harm done to both Lily and Arline, tears stung his eyes. How
could he have been so ignorant? So unaware?

“Tell me, sweeting, what was yer bad dream?”

Lily hiccuped as she removed her thumb from her
mouth. “The bad men came and took Lady Arline and me. They took us back to
their keep. The mean man spanked me again, with the strap and he spanked Lady
Arline too.”

Rowan knew, from what Caelen had told him that
first day, that Garrick Blackthorn had taken a strap to Lily, so there was some
truth to her dream. She was forced to relieve those awful moments and he felt
there was naught he could do except hold her.

“I’ll no let the bad men get ye again, Lily. I
promise.” He’d die before he would ever allow Garrick Blackthorn, or anyone
else for that matter, bring any harm to his daughter.

“Ye won’t let him take Lady Arline either?” Lily
asked as she slipped her thumb back into her little mouth.

“Nay,” Rowan whispered softly. “I’ll no’ let any
harm come to Lady Arline. I do so promise.”

Lily sighed and gave a little nod of her head as
if to say she believed him. Slipped her free hand up his neck and grabbed a
length of his brown hair and began twisting it around her finger.

He returned to the chair by the fireplace and sat
in the quiet of the night, his insides roiling with anger and guilt.

“Lily,” he spoke in a low, soft voice. “Do ye
think, on the morrow, we could spend some time together? Just the two of us?”

“What about Lady Arline?” she asked sleepily. “She
gets lonely and afraid too.”

Rowan tilted his head a bit so that he could get a
better look at his daughter. “She does?”

Lily nodded her head. “That is why she sleeps with
me everra night. She has bad dreams sometimes too. She is afraid the bad man
will come fer her too.”

Knowing Garrick Blackthorn haunted the dreams of
his daughter and the woman he had fallen in love with made him furious. It felt
like a snake had coiled around his heart and stomach and each time Blackthorn’s
name was mentioned, the snake drew tighter.

“Da,” Lily said as she twirled his hair around her
finger. “Please don’t make Lady Arline leave. I love her.”

Her request puzzled him. “Why would I make Lady
Arline leave?”

“If her da finds out that she be here, he’ll make
her go back to Ireland. She doesna ever want to leave us. But she does miss her
sisters.”

Rowan took a deep breath and thought long and hard
before answering his daughter. “I promise I’ll no’ let
anyone
take Lady
Arline,” he said as he kissed the top of Lily’s head.

I’ll kill any man who tries to take her away from
us.

Rowan had waited until Lily had fallen back to
sleep before he placed her in his bed and tucked her in under his furs. Knowing
he’d not be able to sleep until he saw that Arline was well, he lit a candle
and left his room to seek out hers.

Her room was not far from his, just around the
corner and down a few doors. Since their return from Blackthorn keep, Rowan had
set guards to patrol the floors throughout the night. He met one of them now as
he padded down the hallway.

“Domnal,” Rowan spoke quietly. “I take it all is
well?”

Domnal gave him a curious look. “Aye, all is well,
Rowan,” the young man answered as he cast a look over his shoulder in the
direction of Lady Arline’s room.

Rowan chuckled, realizing the young man assumed
Rowan was lurking in the halls in the middle of the night, presumably to meet
with Lady Arline for a tryst.

“’Tis no’ what ye think, Domnal. Lily had a bad
dream and asked that I check on Lady Arline to make certain she is well.”

Domnal smiled and nodded his head as if clarity
had dawned. “She usually sleeps in Lily’s room, Rowan. But this night, she kept
to her own.”

Was everyone in this castle aware of where Arline
slept each night but him? The thought aggravated his already guilty conscience.

“I’ve no’ heard a thing from her room, this night,
Rowan,” Domnal offered. “Is Lily well?”

Rowan ran a hand across his face. “Aye, fer now
she is. But I promised I would check on Lady Arline fer her. She’ll no’ sleep
until she kens she is well.”

He knew it was a bald-faced lie, but Domnal didn’t
need to know the particulars. “And if Lily doesna sleep, then I’ll get none
either.”

“Go see fer yerself,” Domnal said before leaving
his chief to continue his patrol.

Rowan padded softly and stood outside Arline’s
door for several moments. He could hear his heart beating rapidly as he took a
deep breath and slowly opened the door.

The light of the candle cast a sliver of yellow
light into her room. There was Arline, fast asleep in her bed. Wavy auburn locks
were tucked behind one ear and fell wildly over one pillow. She held another
pillow against her chest and resembled a child holding onto a favorite doll
whilst she slept.

He stood in the doorway and watched the gentle
rise and fall of her shoulders as she slept. Her face showed no sign of worry
or distressful sleep, in fact, she looked quite content. He breathed a sigh of
relief and sent a silent prayer upward that she would be able to sleep the
remainder of the night in peace.

For a moment, he was tempted to go to her, climb
into her bed and whisper the same promise to her as he made to Lily. He’d not
let anything bad ever happen to her. Even if he could not marry her, he would
always protect her.

Gently he closed the door and went back to his
daughter before he made a complete fool of himself.

Lily woke Rowan not long after sunrise. He helped
her with her morning ablutions before tending to his own. He helped her into a
little blue dress, did his best to comb out the tangled locks without making
her scream in protest, and felt more like his old self than he had in weeks.

He realized as he slipped on his black trews and a
white tunic that he really did not care to resemble his old self ever again.
His old self was a lonely man who spoiled his daughter far too much out of love
and the never ending guilt he possessed over the fact that her mum had died.

Lily had no fond memories or recollections of her
mother. There was nothing for Lily to hold on to, nothing that kept her from
moving forward with her life. She had no past to do battle with. There had been
times when he wished that he could live in the same state of blissful oblivion,
where memories did not haunt him by day or by night.

This morn however, he was not overwhelmed with
guilt for moving forward with his life. Instead, guilt plagued him for far
different reasons.

At sometime in the dark of the night, as he had
lain in his bed listening to the sweet sound of his daughter slumbering
peacefully beside him, he had made a decision.

He could not ask for Lady Arline’s hand.

There were a thousand reasons why he wanted to
marry Arline. But only one that would keep him from doing that. Lily’s
birthright.

Rowan did not have the courage nor did he feel he
possessed the right to take Lily’s future away from her so that he might have
one with Arline. Truthfully, he didn’t give a damn about his position as chief.
He’d gladly relinquish it without regret. But he could not take away from Lily
that which was rightfully hers.

Arline would have made such a wonderful mother to
Lily. He wanted to give her that. But to give her a mother meant to give up her
birthright, her future. Just as he could not remain chief and have Arline as
his wife, Lily could not hold onto her birthright and have Arline has her mother.

The whole situation seemed inherently unfair. In a
perfect world -- one that currently did not exist, at least not for him -- he
could have Arline as his wife and life partner and Lily could have the mother
she wanted and needed.

He would do whatever he could to see that Arline
remained among his clan. For now, as Lily’s governess and mayhap, later, she
could find a man who could marry her without reserve and help her have a
wonderful life.

He did not enjoy the thought of Arline making a
life with another man. It made his heart ache to think of her with another man.
Yet, he knew he could not keep from her that which she deserved. No matter
which way he looked at it, someone would have to sacrifice for his happiness.
He could not do that.

Rowan took Lily’s hand in his and led her from his
room. Lily was hungry and looking forward to breaking her fast. Rowan found he
had no appetite.

They had not walked far when Arline called out for
them. She met the two of them in the hallway. She was shocked to see Rowan up
at such an early hour and with his daughter. After quietly inquiring as to the
wellness of the other, together they escorted Lily below stairs.

It felt
right
to Rowan, this simple act of
himself and Arline taking his daughter to gather with his people for the
morning meal. They were meant to do this, to be together, as a family. But at
what cost?