Chapter 15

“We will be wed on the morrow. The McArthur has summoned the priest. Ye might notice some difference in the ceremony as Rome has nae hand in our religion in the north—not yet anyway. The Celtic rituals are all we need.” Rob felt Melinda’s glance like a knife cutting a scar on his soul, but he refused to submit to her temper tantrums; they were of nae importance, not compared to his sons.

She had ice in her eyes and it coated her voice, “I will never lie abed with ye again, wed or not.” They were standing outside the chamber where his sons were housed, and she showed him her shoulder and walked back inside. He followed.

“And ye think that will hurt me? I wonder why? The world about us is in turmoil, King Malcolm’s true heirs are at William Rufus’ court, and Donald Bane is on the rampage, firing up the north to stand behind him while he charges into Edinburgh to claim the crown.” He sighed, not for Melinda’s contrariness but from a deep knowledge of what lay ahead. The truth was that nae one needed Rowena to predict the future. “The whole of Scotland will be in turmoil, and one day ye might thank me for bringing ye to Cragenlaw, for there’s naught more certain than knowing any conflict will flow over the border.”

Shocked, she turned swiftly asking, “Wolfsdale?”

“It’s inevitable. Wolfsdale is nae distance frae—” His sons caught his attention, and as much as he had held Melinda in his heart for almost two years, this new love, this instant fascination he had for Harry and Ralf was stronger. “Harry can walk?”

“What, ye thought that I carried him around all the while? Have ye felt the weight of him? Oh, of course ye have, for ye have hardly let their feet touch the ground since ye abducted them.” The ice maiden had returned. Cauld as it was in the north, the true winter had yet to begin, except for the air around Melinda.

He shrugged. “Cruel as ye think I am, I wouldn’t ask them to walk when they could ride, which was how they travelled most of the way.”

Rob stared at the lads, Harry was tottering across the chamber to hand Ralf the tattered remains of some auld plaything. “What of Ralf, nae sign of him walking?”

She echoed his shrug. “He’s too lazy and not likely to be as light on his feet as Harry. He has always been a heavy lump.”

One corner of her mouth lifted and he found himself wanting to kiss the smirk off her face. “Nae doubt he’ll walk when he sees something he really wants.”

The smirk hadn’t gone. He licked his lips as the temptation lingered, but he was stronger than that urge and turned on his heel to leave, not stopping until he reached the doorway when he remembered why he had come to see her. “Yer to come down to the Hall for the evening repast; its to be a celebration and yer expected to bring both bairns, so Becky can give ye a hand.”

Nhaimeth leaned back in his carved chair in his usual seat at the high board. Over the years, Morag had done much to improve the quality of life at Cragenlaw. The walls were nae longer bare, and underfoot the Hall floor was covered with flagstones in place of a scattering of reeds and herbs.

Rowena sat below. He had watched surprise light her green eyes when she recognised his as a place of honour. Her place was one he had envied long ago, when all he had been was Astrid’s Fool, meant to caper around the floor and entertain, meant to put up with the bruises picked-clean bones produced when they were thrown at him by fighting men who hadn’t even bothered to look down their noses at the Fool. Nae, his place was nae higher than a dog’s. Astrid had been too bemused by the McArthur to notice, and a wee Fool had been a bit of nonsense Euan had put up with because of his wife. Nhaimeth had taken the humiliation, for he had loved Astrid; she had been the only one to acknowledge him as her half-brother, and life at Dun Bhuird with her gone wouldn’t have been worth living.

Yet he believed he loved Morag more, loved her as one might the woman who had given birth to him, and her arrival at Cragenlaw had saved him. In Morag he had found a mother and in Rob a brother. As for the McArthur, he was always fair, and Nhaimeth couldn’t ask for more than that.

His seat at the high board wasnae in recognition of that, though. A wee dwarf might never be able to hold his rightful place at Dun Bhuird as Chieftain of the Comlyn clan, but this was one of the ways Euan McArthur acknowledged his status. Gavyn Farquhar, who married Nhaimeth’s half-sister Kathryn at the late King Malcolm’s command, treated him as he did Rob—as family. Aye, his life had changed beyond all recognition. The one thing he had never expected or looked for was to fall in love.

It wasnae a question of size; some lasses were short without being dwarfs. He’d never fallen in love with any of them, nor had it entered his mind. He’d never met one so forthright as Rowena; she spoke her mind and didnae hide behind being female.

If he had nae notion what lay ahead, at least he was sure it would be interesting.

Euan and Morag were about to take their places when Rob arrived with Melinda slightly behind him, each carrying one of the wee lads—a fact which brought the question back to his mind about Rowena. Were his feelings akin to the ones Rob felt for Melinda? Ach, he had heard her yelling how she hated Rob when he went tae release her frae the wagon—heard more that that: she had called him a bastard. Yet he believed Rob had thought he loved the lass when he arranged her abduction frae Wolfsdale. How did he feel now?

Everyone at Cragenlaw knew there would be a wedding on the morrow.

He was Rob’s longest and closest friend and they spoke to each other of matters they would never tell another soul, but there was a limit. What Rob kept safe in his heart wasnae for sharing, and Nhaimeth didnae blame him for it. Even the best of friendships had limits.

For instance he’d be hard pressed to confess the feelings he had for Rowena—emotions, so foreign he couldn’t explain them to himself.

Harry clung to Melinda’s neck, shielding her creased kirtle frae sight. Once again she was annoyed with Rob. Aye, she had made him a promise, but after two years had gone by, she hadn’t expected him to hold her to it. They were to be wed next day—binding her to him forever—and she was supposed to stand mildly by and take her vows before God and the priest wearing naught but a kirtle she had donned to ride to the woodcutters house.

She didnae expect silks, after all, winter would soon be upon them—but surely a clean kirtle wasn’t too much to ask. Melinda gathered up her courage, ready to sit at the high board with Rob’s family. After a little while his mother would surely lose some of the ire she bore her over Wolfsdale, then Melinda could Mayhap reveal her plight. Becky had laid her hands on almost every baby gown for the lads, but her own needs had been forgotten.

Rob crouched down ahead of her and placed Ralf’s feet on the flagstones. She had never seen Rob in full traditional dress before. The kilted plaid in the same pattern as his father’s revealed the strength and shape of his legs as he straightened to let their son find his balance by leaning against Rob’s bare knee. A handsome knee it was to be sure, and she had a notion the formal dress was worn to suit the occasion. Everyone but her wore their finery.

She let her mind drift back to the warm worsted kirtles and silken shifts folded inside the large wooden armoire her father had long ago acquired for her mother from France. Melinda still used it, but her mother’s clothes had been court wear while hers had always been more suitable for a lass who spent her days on horseback—until she’d had bairns to confine her to the manor.

She was searching for a memory—any—of her mother, but she’d been too small to keep those flares of emotion and longing alive forever, and she couldn’t recover them now while Rob’s father was speaking. Rob had an uncanny resemblance to his father but, on the man she was being forced to wed, all the rough edges appeared to have been ground off. “Melinda, ye can sit next to Morag with the bairns and their maid on yer left, by Nhaimeth.”

Still intent on arranging their placings, the McArthur leaned across the board to grin down at Ralf, jesting, “Unless the young lad at yer feet would care to sit by his grandfather. God’s teeth, he’s yer image, Rob.”

Ralf smiled. That occurrence in itself was unusual, for her younger was a solemn child—another fault for Rob to burden her with. She bit her lip, but only for a moment, for what happened next made her mouth hang open—to see her younger son toddle forward upon shaky legs toward the McArthur who, uncaring of chargers and goblets in his way, leapt over the board and swept Ralf up into his arms. “So,” he murmured, his voice filled with a rough emotion she was surprised such a big, tough Scot could feel, “ye wanted to come to yer grandfather.”

Melinda didn’t know whether it was seeing Ralf held high in his grandfather’s arms or simply the man himself, but Harry took to kicking his legs against her belly, stretching out his little arms and voicing a loud protest that left no one in ignorance that he wanted to join his twin. Had she ever felt more bereft than at her Harry’s defection? In all honesty, she had—on the day Rob’s ransom was paid—the day he left her behind for his home in Scotland.

He’d never come for her, though she had hoped, wished, to no avail. She had heard them speaking on the way to Cragenlaw, and it had become plain he had turned in Wolfsdale’s direction only after the battle was lost. Had they won, would she have still been a prize?

She glanced down at her untidy kirtle, stained by the continual production of saliva that came with a teething child, and wondered whether they would stare strangely if she began to weep. She felt worn, tired and discomfited. The vision of youth she had presented when they first met had fled. No wonder Rob had made no protest when she gave him her ultimatum. The man was more likely to have flinched if she had flung herself in his arms, as she was once wont to do.

And so she took her place at the high board like a beggar at the feast, and the longer the meal lasted and the more Rob, the McArthur and his mother played and capered with her sons, the higher her temper rose until heat licked her cheeks—no doubt the colour making it appear as though she had too strong a liking for the wine in her goblet that, in truth, she had barely touched.

Rob hoisted two drowsy lads into his arms and prepared to carry both up the winding stair to the chamber set aside for them and Becky. Melinda would share it for tonight. If it so happen she believed her protests meant his chamber wouldn’t become hers, then she had best think again. It was one thing to assure him that he was everything she loathed; he refused to let her shame him afore his mother and father as if he were something brought into the house frae the stables on the sole of her shoe.

He was somewhat surprised after he put the lads in Becky’s capable hands to hear Melinda beckon him to step with her into the corridor. “Ye wanted me for something?”

“Be assured that it’s not yer help in particular I’m after.” Her teeth pressed flat against her teeth and after a moment she continued. “Mayhap yer mother can be persuaded to assist me.”

Rob stared at her blankly, trying to imagine what problem was plaguing her now. “What can she do for ye that I can’t? Ye have a bonnie chamber for the bairns, have had a guid meal, and there’s fire in the hearth to keep ye warm, what else is there?”

With a toss of her head he was becoming used to, she marched out into the corridor. “I’d rather speak to ye out here.” Rob immediately substituted the word speak for harangue. “Ye have shamed me enough this night without having me shame myself again in front of Becky.”

The thought of Melinda shaming herself sent his mind veering off on the kind of tangent a husband whose wife had banned him frae her bed shouldnae take. “Ach, so in yer eyes I have shamed ye have I? And how would that be?”

“Have ye taken a look good look at me?” She dragged he fingertips down the front of her kirtle drawing his eye to the fullness of her breasts and the round curve of her hip. He remembered her wearing another one in that colour and it had always suited her, though the kirtle she had on did look rather the worse for wear. “Put wedding me on the morrow out of yer mind, for though ye catered for all our sons’ needs, I’m left with naught to wear but what I stand up in.”

For once he was speechless. When Becky had rushed across the training ground in his direction, her arms and hands had been laden, and it seemed ridiculous now that all her bundles had been just for the lads. He thought on the saddlebags where he carried his own needs and laughed out loud—a mistake, as he learned frae her expression. “Nae lass, I feel for yer predicament. I simply wasn’t aware how much baggage two little lads had.”

“Don’t worry, yer a man. I know Harry and Ralf as heirs will always come first. As it was with my father, so it will be with theirs.”

“Nae—nae, put that out yer mind, they wouldn’t be here without ye.”

“Or their father...” Her voice drifted away to a sigh and brought her shoulder down until the neck of her stained kirtle sagged above breasts much fuller than he remembered as she asked. “Ye never wondered that they weren’t yer own?”

“Am I blind? Dinnae be daft, lass, a look was all it took. I sat Ralf up afore me on Gun-eagal and it was looking at myself in miniature, except for yer eyes. Aye, he has them.” He looked down at her tragic face and the emotion tied him in knots—so tied up he had to snap the thread pulling him back into the pool of hope she had dashed in his face when he first went to her in the wagon. He’d always been a fast learner.

Even as he made up his mind, she looked up at him with her hopes shining in her eyes. Rob stepped back a pace. “Put all yer worries out of yer head. I’ll talk to Morag and she’ll make sure ye have everything to yer hand that will make a bonnie bride.”

“Ye call yer mother, Morag, how strange.”

“There is a reason for that. One day I might tell it to ye, but for now off ye go to bed and search for the kind of sleep that will soothe yer troubled soul.”

That said, he turned away to protect himself frae the foolish urge that lay so close to the surface. Once it had bound up his heart, now it wanted to leap frae his lips, and he dare not let out everything that had haunted him for two long years.