Scottish Highlands, Autumn 1502

SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS, AUTUMN 1502

" I thought this day would never come," Fenella MacNabb confided to Gavan as she smoothed the skirt of the dress she would soon be married in.

"And I never doubted that it would," he told her. She lifted a hand and he adjusted the polished steel tray that served as a mirror to show her more of her reflection. "Ye mean too much to the clan for this wedding no' to take place," he added.

"That means more to me than ye ken, especially coming from ye," she told him, looking at him rather than her blurry image. She appreciated the sentiment, and that it came from Gavan. "I'm glad to have ye as a brother," she added, hand over her heart. "And that we were able to settle our differences these long months past." Then she nodded for him to put the tray aside.

"I am, too. Ye have been so good for Keenan. Ye have cared for Máirín and for her father for more than a year. 'Tis time to tie the knot."

"He needed someone." She paused as Gavan crossed his arms and gave her a stern look, brows lowered. "Verra well, he needed me. And I am honored to be the one he chose." She gave him a knowing smile. "Marsali has been good for ye, too."

A knock at the door announced Marsali's arrival, her favorite deerhound Corrie on her heels. "Ye sent for me? Ah, Fenella, look at ye! Ye look wonderful! I love the embroidery ye added to the neckline of your kirtle. Ah, look! Are those bluebells? Corrie, sit down over there. Fenella doesna need yer hair on her dress."

"They are," Fenella answered, grateful for Marsali's thoughtfulness and Corrie's obedience. "The bluebells represent ye, of course. I chose a flower or plant for each member of the family. I'm glad ye like it."

"I dinna like it. I love it. And so will Lady MacNabb. Ye ken how sentimental she is about family."

"Fenella was just telling me how glad she is to have me as a brother," Gavan told Marsali with a grin.

"Me, too," Marsali replied. "That he has ye for a sister, I mean, as well as a friend."

Fenella grinned with them. Marsali knew their history. She'd had her nose rubbed in it when she first arrived at MacNabb with him. But she'd learned that Fenella was Gavan's past, and that Marsali was the only future he wanted. She wasn't jealous of the friendship they'd managed to retain through it all.

"Keenan is pacing in the bailey," Marsali warned. "But he canna stop smiling."

Fenella laughed, grateful for Marsali's attempt to keep her mood light.

Gavan and Marsali had married months before, not long after he'd encountered her near her home in the moonlight in a ring of standing stones. She'd woven a love spell with a chain of bluebells that at first seemed not to work, but the spell and her deerhound Corrie seemed to conspire to bring them together—with some help from both their fathers.

Fenella, in the years Gavan had been away from the clan, had fallen for Keenan and his motherless daughter, Máirín. Caring for the babe led to caring for its father, and eventually brought Keenan out of the cloud of grief over his wife's sudden death that threatened to choke the life from him as well.

Now they were to be married. Fenella fought to contain her excitement and appear serene as they headed outdoors to the kirk steps, where by now Keenan would be waiting.

He greeted her with a chaste kiss on her cheek and took her hand. "Ye are always beautiful, my love," he told her, "but especially today."

"I am proud to become yer wife," she said softly. "I love ye and ye ken I love Máirín, too."

He nodded. "Perhaps more than ye love me."

Fenella didn't know what to say to that. His tone sounded serious, but he might be jesting, something he did so rarely, she might fail to recognize it. He saved her from a reply by turning her to face the priest. It was finally happening! She was marrying the man who had stolen her heart. She would be mother in truth to Máirín, the bairn she had raised from the day she was born from her dying mother's womb.

She glanced aside. Keenan appeared calm, which was usual for him now that the worst of the fog of grief had finally left him. He was not given to displays of emotion. But he turned his head to her and smiled, lifting her heart. From any other man, that would seem faint praise, but from him, she knew he meant to tell her how overjoyed he was to be standing here with her.

The day could not be more perfect for their union to be solemnized, and for the clan to accept her as their future Lady. All her hopes and dreams, all her ambitions as a woman, a wife, and someone the clan looked up to, depended on this one, simple act. Marrying this man, caring for his daughter, and someday, she hoped, giving him a male heir to carry forward the MacNabb name, were everything to her.

While the priest spoke the words that would make her Keenan's wife and he, her husband, her awareness stayed on the man at her side. The back of his hand brushed hers, silently lending her a portion of his strength.

When the priest finished speaking, he turned to Keenan's father for the length of MacNabb plaid to bind their hands together in the first part of the ceremony.

The old laird's face reddened, and he gasped. He reached out to the priest as if handing him the cloth, then dropped to his knees and clutched his chest.

"Da!" Keenan's cry broke the frozen stillness that gripped everyone as the laird fell. Gasps and cries of concern filled the air as Keenan knelt to lift his father to his feet. But the old laird's eyes widened, then closed, and he collapsed into Keenan's arms. Fenella reached out to aid him, but Keenan's brothers gathered around him and helped him lay their father down on the step above where they were standing. The healer rushed forward and shooed the men out of her way. In moments, she stood and shook her head, her gaze downcast.

"The laird is dead," she said quietly to his sons.

Fenella clenched her hands over her heart. This could not be happening.

"Do something!" Keenan demanded.

Fenella's heart broke for the desperation in his voice. First his wife died suddenly at a time that should have been filled with joy, and now his father had done the same.

The healer shook her head again. "He's gone, Laird MacNabb."

Keenan stepped back, wide-eyed shock on his face as he registered her use of the title that, all his life, had belonged to his father.

The priest began last rites there on the steps. Keenan found his voice enough to tell his brothers to carry the old laird into the kirk for his last rites. They obeyed, walking slowly up the center aisle, their mother following them and her husband's body, her steps painfully slow, her head bowed, but her back straight and stiff until she took the seat in the first pew that the priest directed her to. Lacking a coffin, his sons laid him in front of the altar on the cold stone floor.

Keenan watched from outside, breathing deeply. He had disappeared into the numbness tightening his jaw and shoulders. Fenella had seen him do this before when he tried his hardest to gather himself. He needed that calm control now more than ever.

Of course, he hadn't expected to hear the title addressed to him. Not today. Fenella reached for him, putting a comforting hand on his arm.

But he shrugged her off. "Stay here."

Dismayed by his rejection, Fenella obeyed.

The priest's sonorous voice echoed in the nearly empty kirk. The clan gathered for a wedding now clustered on the steps to observe the priest's ritual. She'd been moments away from becoming Keenan's wife, and now she was relegated to remaining outside while the family went in. Her heart had broken for the laird's family, but it broke yet again for her dashed hopes and dreams while Keenan turned away from her and walked slowly up the center aisle past benches on either side. He joined his brothers in standing over their father's body until the priest finished.

As one, his brothers turned to Keenan and knelt. One-by-one, they swore fealty to the new laird MacNabb. Gavan went first. He was paler than she'd ever seen him, and his jaw clenched again and again as he spoke the ritual words. Anyone who didn't know him might think he objected to the oath he gave, but she knew better. Keenan's brothers idolized him and expected him to be a worthy successor to their da. Gregor went next, and Donal last. Pale and shaking, Donal knelt on one knee beside his father's still warm body and kept glancing at it as he spoke. He'd returned to MacNabb from his new home at Clan Lathan to celebrate his eldest brother's wedding. Their sister Groa remained there, wed to a Lathan and unable to travel due to her first pregnancy. Their two youngest brothers were fostered away and had not been summoned to attend today. Fenella had been sad Groa would miss her wedding. Now, she could only be relieved that her friend would not have to endure witnessing this tragedy unfold.

Keenan stood, silent and stoic while he accepted his brothers' oaths, then clasped each one on the shoulder and thanked them for their faith in him.

Fenella sank onto a bench at the back of the kirk. Watching Keenan set the tone for the clan in the midst of such tragedy, the pieces of her heart shattered yet again for him.

Oath-taking done, he folded his mother in his arms and held her, letting her tears soak his leine until she pulled out of his grasp and dropped to her knees by her husband.

She took his hand. "My laird," she said. "My love," she added, more softly. "How cruel the way ye chose to leave us." She kissed his hand, then stood with Keenan's help and turned to regard him and the priest. "We came for a wedding. Ye must complete that. My son needs a strong woman at his side, especially now."

Fenella stood, expecting the priest to invite her to stand by her betrothed or to move Keenan to her rather than marry them over his father's body. But Keenan hesitated, and she held her breath.

Would Keenan still want her? His father had allowed their marriage within MacNabb since his heir had wed once before, to Aimil, to cement an alliance with McKinnon. Would Keenan's sudden duty as laird convince him that alliances were more important than their feelings for each other, especially if alliances had not been made or refreshed with powerful neighbors in a long time?

"Nay, Mother," Keenan said, holding up a hand when the priest opened his mouth to agree to proceed. He squared his shoulders. "Our allies must be advised. We will bury our laird first. The wedding will wait for a more auspicious day." He turned his head and looked toward Fenella, his gaze remote, as if he didn't really see her.

She had her answer. Keenan might always associate the idea of their wedding with his father's death. If so, the future she'd dreamed of and aspired to was doomed. That auspicious day might never come, not for her. Everyone knew alerting the clan's allies would bring a flood of condolences—and offers to renew alliances through marriage.

She felt eyes boring into her back and glanced around. The people outside the kirk clogged the doorway, the crowd ebbing and flowing as each person shifted for a view of the people inside, including her. Were their eyes filled with pity? Or satisfaction? She dared not look at them for long or they would focus on her instead of their new laird. He was important to the clan. She was not.

Silently, she cursed the old laird for his timing. Yet in her heart, she knew he would not have chosen this manner of death, nor this time.

Two days later, after the sun rose above the nearby hills, they laid the old laird in the ground. The clan gathered for the ceremony and to observe the ritual. The priest officiated. The widow and the new MacNabb laird and his brothers threw the first earth on the casket. Fenella hung back as the rest of the clan stepped forward to do the same, no longer feeling a part of the family. She'd come so close. Moments only from being, at least, hand fasted, and minutes from being married in the kirk and acclaimed by the clan.

Keenan had not spoken to her since his father collapsed.

It wasn't fair. She held his daughter, even now, little more regarded than a wet nurse, the recipient of sorrowful, sympathetic glances from some of the women, and snide, haughty smirks from others.

It didn't take long after the burial for word of the change of leadership at MacNabb to bring messengers with offers of alliance and of marriage to eligible daughters. The first arrived two days later, but after a week, they still arrived. Each time she heard hoofbeats approaching MacNabb's gates, Fenella's heart clenched. Keenan would be closeted for hours with each messenger, and then with his advisors. She dreaded the news to come, but she fully expected she'd soon hear that he'd chosen a mate from among those being offered.

She still cared for Máirín. How could she not? She was the only mother the lass had ever known. Máirín seemed most to enjoy being outside, Fenella strolling the glen and the trees near the keep's walls with the bairn in her arms. Máirín would laugh as leaf shadows slipped over Fenella's face, and reach for the tears that slid down her cheeks when, away from other people, she gave in to her misery.

Returning to the keep after a walk outside, Fenella took Máirín back to the nursery.

"Have ye heard?" Kyla asked as Fenella turned away. She seemed bursting to tell her something.

Fenella looked over her shoulder. "Heard what?"

"The Cameron offered a fabulous dowry for the laird to marry his youngest daughter. MacNabb will be wealthy! 'Tis said the lass is only nine years old, so 'twould be years before the laird could get an heir on her, but 'twould be worth the wait. His mother could remain chatelaine and train up the lass until she bled."

Fenella's stomach lurched. She managed to say, "I hadna heard," before she fled the nursery for her own chamber. There, she was sick again and again until there was nothing left in her belly save sour tears. Her fears were coming true. Keenan would never be hers. And she couldn't bear to see him wed to anyone else, to watch their love bloom and their bairns born.

She would have to leave MacNabb. But where? The only alternative she could think of was that perhaps Marsali's Murray clan would welcome her.

Fenella dreaded that night's supper, expecting to hear that Keenan was going to accept the Cameron offer. But she couldn't tolerate being ignored any longer, so when she happened upon him in the hallway, she stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Can ye nay look at me, Keenan? I'm the woman ye claimed to love and were going to marry. Is it more than ye can manage to speak to me? To tell me what ye are planning? For yer daughter's sake at least?"

He squeezed his eyes shut, giving her hope that he'd realize how badly he'd hurt her, and give her something to cling to. But he only shook his head, removed her hand from his arm with his free hand, and went on his way.

Shocked, Fenella stood, barely breathing. She hadn't expected he would continue to ignore her if she confronted him. Worse, the warmth of his hand on hers had sent hot shivers up her arm, reminding her how she loved his touch. He paused a dozen steps away and for a heart-rending moment, she believed he would turn back to her, but he continued on.

He made no announcement during the meal.

She picked at her food, and left as soon as others began to leave the hall. After their encounter, Keenan's disregard for her during the meal had been the last arrow her heart could absorb.

She sought out Marsali. "I need yer help," she told her when they adjourned to Fenella's chamber. "Ye must have seen that Keenan refuses to notice me, even when I care for his daughter. And ye must have heard the rumors of great wealth being offered MacNabb in dowries."

"I'm so sorry, Fenella," Marsali told her. "What can I do?"

"Tell me how to get to Murray. And that yer da—and yer clan—would welcome me. I canna remain here and watch Keenan wed another. I canna! But I dinna ken where to go. Or how to leave Máirín behind. But I must."

She fought back tears, but lost the battle when Marsali put an arm around her shoulders.

"'Tis really that bad?"

"'Tis worse," Fenella replied, choking back a sob and breathing hard to get control of herself. She was stronger than this. "I'm sorry," she said once she could speak.

"Ye have naught to be sorry for. Ye have been good for both of them. And ye were about to be married. None of this is yer fault. I dinna ken what Keenan is thinking. What he's doing." Marsali released her and stepped back, determination in her eyes. "But I will ask Gavan what is going on. Perhaps ye are wrong, and Keenan is simply dealing with suddenly becoming laird. When he gains his stride, he will return to ye."

"Nay, I dinna think he will. He refuses to see me. Not even in passing. He hasna spoken a word to me since that day on the kirk steps. He willna meet my gaze."

"Well," Marsali huffed, irritation evident, "we will fix that."

"Nay, please. If he must wed another for the good of the clan, how can I stand in the way? But in that case, I must leave MacNabb."

Marsali planted her fists on her hips. "Ye must stand up for yerself. Confront him. If he repudiates ye, then ye will ken ye must leave."

Fenella shook her head. "I tried once. He wouldna speak to me. I dinna ken if I can try again. I couldna bear to hear the words from his lips."

"If ye are truly to leave him behind, ye must. It will do ye nay good to go to Murray and continue to pine for Keenan."

Marsali was right. Fenella knew it. But she didn't know if she had the strength to do what she suggested, or if her heart would survive another attempt.

"Ye must try again. What if he realizes how poorly he's treated ye, and is sorry for it? What if he still wants to wed with ye," Marsali insisted, "but has simply been swept up in the day-to-day tasks he must now take responsibility for?"

What if he still loved her? Fenella shook her head. He'd closed his eyes rather than look at her. Since their aborted wedding, she'd become invisible to him—literally. "Ye didna see him in the hall when I tried to make him speak to me. To see me. 'Tis over, Marsali."

"I will write a letter to my da," Marsali promised, "that ye can take with ye, should the need arise. Gavan can escort ye. Murray will welcome ye." She held up a hand. "But if ye wish to stay—for yer sake or for wee Máirín's, talk to Keenan first, so if ye must, ye can leave with a clear mind and heart. Ye must give him a chance. Give both of ye a chance."

She was right. Fenella had to fight if she wanted the future she'd almost had in her grasp. She would find the strength to get through to him. Or leave him and MacNabb. "Very well."

Fenella's resolve lasted long enough to get her to the laird's solar. But it was empty. Not knowing where Keenan might be, she went next to the nursery. Both Kyla and the infant were gone as well. Perhaps the nurse had taken Máirín to Keenan's chamber for a visit with her father. The thought warmed Fenella but hurt as well. Why would he not have her bring his daughter to him? It was one more indication that he was through with her.

Fenella hoped Marsali finished the letter to her father soon.

Hours later, she heard raised voices coming from the laird's solar as Keenan met with his advisors. Rather than worrying her, knowing his time was taken up by the responsibilities of his new position gave her a little comfort, but not enough to drive the thought of going to Murray from her mind.

What did worry her was that no one she asked had seen Kyla or Keenan's daughter. Fenella searched the keep, then headed outside. Where could the nurse have taken her?

When Fenella failed to find them in the usual places the nurse might go, Fenella's concern grew. She headed out of the keep's gates into the glen. Kyla knew Fenella took the bairn outside at times. Surely the nurse would not have gone far from the keep with the laird's daughter. But Fenella met no one.

She returned to the keep and entered the great hall just as the council was leaving the laird's solar. She didn't want to face Keenan, but he needed to know his daughter was missing.

He was standing behind his desk when she entered, and his brothers were standing with him. What had happened during the council meeting that they remained behind?

Gavan noticed her first. "Fenella. Is something amiss?"

Keenan frowned at her, nearly stealing her resolve and making it harder for her to speak.

"I canna find Máirín or her nurse. I've been all through the keep and along the edge of the woods." The words hurt her, but she knew they would hurt Keenan more.

"Missing? How can a nurse and a bairn go missing?" Keenan's brother Gregor gave her a suspicious frown. "Is this some plan of yers to keep the bairn for yerself?"

The blood drained from Fenella's face as Keenan's expression turned fierce. "How could ye ask such a thing?" she stammered. "I just spent the morning looking for her." And she'd told Marsali she didn't know how she could leave the wee lass. What would Keenan think if he heard that?

"Dinna fash," Gavan told her. "We'll have some men retrace yer steps. They have to be somewhere in the keep." His assurance soothed her, but Keenan's accusatory silence hurt.

Instead of responding, she nodded to Gavan, and left the men to set up the search. Keenan's silence stung. He hadn't defended her. He hadn't spoken out to accuse her of anything either, but that was cold comfort. She had to forget him and concentrate. Where would Kyla have taken Máirín? It didn't make sense for them to disappear. What if one of them was ill or hurt?

With that thought, she went back to the healer, but she still hadn't seen them. Frustrated, Fenella returned to her chamber. Where could they be?

Hours later, Gavan fetched her. "The laird has summoned ye," he told her.

The laird, not Keenan. That didn't sound good at all. She nodded and went with him to the laird's solar.

Keenan didn't waste any time. "The nurse is back in the keep. She says she was in the village and didna have Máirín with her. She accuses ye." His jaw flexed. "I once told ye that ye loved Máirín more than me. Is that why ye took her? To keep her, and to hurt me?"

"What?" Shock stole the strength from Fenella's legs and she sank into a chair. "Nay! I'm the one who told ye she was missing."

"According to the nurse, ye decided when we were to wed that ye no longer wanted to raise another woman's child. That yers would be the MacNabb heirs."

"Ye are daft. What difference would our wedding have made except to make her truly mine? Besides, yer first son will be the MacNabb heir, nay Máirín."

"Is it daft?" Keenan's stare was hard and penetrating. "Where have ye taken her, Fenella?"

Tears pricked the back of her eyes, but she refused to shed them. She glanced at Gavan, hoping to find some sympathy there, but he'd schooled his expression into one of granite. Had Marsali already told him she was thinking of fleeing to Murray?

Gregor scowled at her. "Or where have ye buried her?"

Keenan blanched.

Fenella couldn't hold back a cry at that accusation. The image of Máirín's wee body wrapped in a shroud and laid in a shallow grave undid her. Tears flowed and would not stop, no matter how she wiped them away. "Nay, please dinna let her be dead."

Gavan's hand gripped her shoulder at that.

Keenan remained behind his desk, his gaze sick and stormy.

Gregor had moved by the door, as if to prevent her from running through it. He, too, wore a mask of stone.

"Gregor, ye go too far," Gavan objected. "Fenella raised the alarm. Why would she do that if she'd harmed Keenan's daughter?"

Finally! Gavan's forceful tone told her he believed her. She was thankful that someone did.

Keenan broke the tense silence. "I dinna want to think the woman I almost married capable of such an act, but I have been told ye are thinking of leaving MacNabb for Murray. With my daughter?"

His attempt to sound reasonable after Gregor's awful attack told her he knew. Likely Marsali told Gavan, and perhaps he had tried to convince Keenan he was about to lose Fenella forever. And that was the reason Keenan now believed she could steal his daughter. No wonder he blamed her.

"Ye said Kyla claimed she was in the village, aye? But ye didna find her when ye went there?"

Keenan frowned and glanced over her shoulder at Gregor. From the sudden increase in tension in the room, she knew he hadn't tried very hard.

"I went to her mother's croft," Gregor said. "She denied seeing Kyla since the day before. The men with me spoke to two women on the way. The village men are out in the fields."

As if the village men would pay attention to Kyla's comings and goings. If she'd gone there openly, the women should have seen her, even spoken to her. But if she'd snuck out of the keep before sunrise…

Hope filled Fenella's chest, expanding it and giving her room to breathe, and to think. Something she'd overheard the wet nurse say a few days ago worried at the back of her mind. The memory wouldn't come clear. "Someone is visiting," she muttered, and suddenly she knew. "Someone who used to live here, who married away. Who is childless," she said, raising the volume of her voice with each fragment of a memory she recalled. "I think Kyla took yer daughter to her friend. If we're lucky, she hasna yet left the village to return to her home."

"Where is the friend staying?"

Gavan asked the question, not Keenan, but a glimmer of hope flickered in Keenan's gaze. She prayed she was right. He would not be able to bear having the hope she offered for his daughter dashed.

"I dinna ken," Fenella admitted. "Ye must ask Kyla."

"Gavan, find the nurse. I'll organize the search of the village this time," Keenan said with a frown at Gregor, surprising Fenella at his sudden, commanding tone. He, too, saw that Gregor believed she was guilty and hadn't done a thorough search.

Gavan signaled to Gregor and they both left without another word.

Fenella missed the heat of Gavan's hand on her shoulder. Even more, she missed Keenan's touch. His trust. His love for her. Had she been fooled all along by a man who simply chose her as the most likely mother for his bairns?

"Fenella, if this is true, ye have my deepest apologies. But if ye have lied, it will not go well for ye. Stay here. Dinna try to move from this solar until I return. Someone will be outside the door."

Stymied, sick to her stomach, and weak with fear at being made a prisoner, Fenella could do nothing but obey.

Less than two hours later, the men returned from the village, Keenan entering the solar with Máirín in his arms, asleep on his shoulder, his relief evident in the way he clasped her to his chest. Gavan entered behind him with the nurse's arm firmly in his grip, lips pursed as though fighting to keep from berating her. Another guard brought a strange woman in behind them, and scowling Gregor brought up the rear. Both women wore fearful expressions, and tear tracks marred their faces.

Fenella leaned forward, intending to stand and take Keenan's daughter from his arms so he could deal with the women, but Gavan caught her eye and shook his head, so she sat back.

"Who conceived of this plot against my daughter and me?" Keenan demanded once all were present.

"She did," the wet nurse spat, glaring at Fenella.

Fury replaced the fear and shock that had kept Fenella passive since Keenan left her in the solar. "I did nay such thing!"

"Did ye or nay? Ye conveniently revealed the plan and implicated the others when ye were accused," Gregor groused.

How could she defend herself against that? She couldn't. "I didna." Even to her ears, her refusal sounded weak.

Gavan spoke up, his gaze on the bairn in Keenan's arms. "Fenella saved yer daughter. She doesna deserve this."

The second woman broke her silence. "She," she said, indicating Kyla, "told me there was a motherless child in the keep. I lost mine a few months ago and wished for another. But she didna tell me she was going to take the laird's daughter! Ye are such a fool," she added with venom, turning to glare at the wet nurse.

Fenella dropped her head into her hands as relief made her too weak to hold it up.

"And this woman, " Gavan said, indicating Fenella, "had naught to do with this plot?"

Fenella lifted her head to stare at the stranger.

"Nay, I dinna ken her."

Keenan's gaze rested for a moment on Fenella, giving her the sense he was making sure she was alright. She tried to hold his gaze, to give herself a moment of feeling he still cared for her.

But his gaze shifted to the wet nurse and hardened. "What have ye to say for yerself?"

Kyla shook her head and refused to speak.

"Verra well." Keenan clenched his free hand, and frowned at the wet nurse. "I could have ye hanged—" He paused when both women gasped. "But my daughter is unharmed. Therefore, I will show ye more mercy than ye showed me. I banish ye."

"My son!" Kyla cried.

"He may go with ye. Gather yer belongings and leave with yer friend. Immediately. Perhaps she'll take ye in. I dinna care. Neither of ye are welcome at MacNabb. Ye will do nay more harm here." He shifted his gaze to Gavan. "Remove them."

Once all the others were gone, Keenan came from behind the desk and took a seat next to Fenella, his daughter still sleeping on his shoulder. "Lass, I am so dreadfully sorry."

She had not seen him look so defeated since his wife's funeral. For a moment, she wanted to react with sympathy, but found she couldn't summon any. "As ye should be," she told him, a touch of her confidence returning.

"Aye, as I should be. I was crazed with fear for Máirín."

"And so ye didna care whom ye harmed in the meantime. And since ye became laird? Since our wedding day fell to ruin? Ye havena cared about me at all."

"I have, lass. But I couldna get away from my duties to tell ye. To show ye."

He reached for her, but she leaned back, denying his touch. "It would have taken only a moment. A glance. A smile. Yet ye gave me nothing, even when I confronted ye. And to accuse me of stealing, or worse, killing yer daughter? How do ye expect me to get over that?"

He straightened, anger sparking for a moment under his creased brow. "That was Gregor's idea, nay mine." Then he dropped his shoulders, and his expression softened toward her. "I couldna believe such a thing of ye, but I could believe ye loved her enough to want her with ye, especially when I treated ye so badly ye thought ye must leave the clan."

"The nurse told me ye had received an offer of a dowry large enough to make MacNabb wealthy. I couldna stay and see ye married to another."

Keenan sighed and dropped his gaze to his hands. "I'm so sorry."

"So 'twas true? If only ye had talked to me, none of this might have happened."

The silence stretched between them, setting her teeth on edge.

"Fenella, I dinna ken who I am anymore. I didna expect to take on this role for years. Certainly not in the midst of wedding the woman I love. The woman I owe so much to."

"What love? Ye just admitted ye were only going to marry me to settle a debt to me. If ye loved me, ye would have never treated me the way ye have since…"

"Nay, 'tisna what I meant." He shifted his daughter on his shoulder. She squirmed, then fell asleep again.

"I'll admit I was seduced by the idea of the offers of marriage and the choice of dowries MacNabb would have gained. But every time I thought of ye, I couldna choose another. I froze. Responsibilities my da seemed to handle easily overwhelmed me. Even my mother added to the burdens, nagging me to fix things da never took care of."

He looked away and Fenella thought he had finished with his excuses, none of which she could accept.

But then he continued. "Every time I tried to come to ye, someone intercepted me. Waylaid me and kept me from ye. Or I envisioned how hard it would be to have this conversation with ye." He fixed his gaze on hers. "'Tis why I couldna speak to ye in the hall that eve. I couldna admit that I hid behind my responsibilities rather than confess to ye that ye might be one more burden than I could handle. I had no time to myself to think."

Fenella looked away. "Ye thought of me as a burden rather than the one person ye most needed by yer side to ease yer burdens," she said softly, as though to herself, as if he was not with her while she digested his rejection. "If only ye had done as yer mother requested of the priest even as she stood over her husband's body. As yer wife, I could have helped ye." Fenella clenched her fists in her lap. "Is this any easier now that ye accused me of far worse than expecting to be yer wife?"

"Ye ken it isna. I do love ye."

He reached for her again, but she shook her head, stopping him.

His free hand dropped to the arm holding his daughter to his shoulder, as though he crossed his arms protectively over his chest. Because of the bairn he held? Or because he was trying to show her remorse?

"Dinna lie to me," she demanded, raising a palm to him. "On top of everything else, dinna do that. All I ever wanted was to help her, and to help ye," Fenella told him, nodding to the sleeping bairn. "I love ye. I was about to marry ye. Yet when ye needed me most, ye shut me out. Ye wouldna look at me. So dinna say ye love me. Ye dinna love me at all."

His eyes squeezed shut, and suddenly she was back in that dark hallway, when he closed his eyes and walked away, leaving her bereft.

"I do love ye." Then he met her gaze. "I dinna ken how to make ye see—and I'm more sorry than I can ever say—that I can ever make up to ye—that I forgot it for a while."

"Forgot? Forgot!" Outrage pushed Fenella to her feet and loomed over him. "What am I to do if ye ever forget again? What am I to do after this day? I canna compete with the offers ye were given. I am nay worth ye giving up a dowry that will enrich MacNabb." She stepped back before she woke Máirín. "And I dinna ken how my heart can heal after what ye said to me today," she added, more softly. "How ye have treated me since our wed—" She choked, unable to say the word.

He pressed his lips together, but his eyes beseeched her. "I pray ye will forget today and that day. And all the days in between. I want to go back to the way we were, standing on the kirk steps, before da…"

"Changed everything, I ken it." She took another step away from him. "I dinna ken how."

Suddenly his demeanor changed. He straightened and sat forward. "I do. Fenella, love, if ye ever trusted me, trust me now." Máirín shifted on his shoulder and he patted her back to settle her, then turned his attention back to Fenella.

"Give me time to show ye how much I love ye. Take all the time ye need to learn to trust me again. A month, a year, I will wait for ye. Talk to my family. They can tell ye things I couldna before now, things ye dinna want to hear from me, but perhaps ye will accept from them. Please…will ye give me that chance?"

"Are ye daft?" Fear filled Fenella, but resolve replaced it when he slumped and his gaze dropped to the floor at his feet. Her reaction grieved him, that was clear. But what did he expect? How could he think she would trust him again after today?

Yet, she wanted to. Looking at him holding his daughter, the wee lass she also loved, even if it was the most foolish thing she ever did, her wounded heart was willing to try.

She thought back over the time they'd had together since Máirín was born. How she'd helped him move through his grief, how she'd rejoiced to see him smile—even laugh—after months of acting as though he had died with his wife. How he'd warmed to her. Courted her. Appreciated everything she'd done for Máirín—and for him. That man, that Keenan was still in him somewhere. She hoped the time since he became laird was an aberration, or a reflection of the grieving he'd done for his wife that he'd now had to do again for his father, all while picking up his burdens.

"I need ye to steady me," he said, softly, as though hearing her thoughts. As though he wasn't sure he wanted anyone—even her—to hear him admit to weakness. "Without ye these past weeks, I've flailed. I've stumbled. I havena been the laird I need to be."

"That much is clear." It was an uncharitable thing to say, but her injuries were still fresh, and she needed him to know how deeply his actions had hurt her.

"I dinna ken if I can do this without ye, Fenella. I dinna want to find out. I do love ye. I want ye to remember that. To think back to before the day we were to wed. My feelings for ye never wavered, despite how I acted."

Máirín chose that moment to start to fuss. Keenan tried to soothe her, but in moments, she was wailing in his ear.

"Give her to me," Fenella told him, reaching for the bairn. "Send for yer family. Yer mother, brothers, and Marsali. I want them to hear what ye have said to me. If they believe ye, I will ken that I can as well."

"I'll do anything ye wish," he told her on a deep breath.

She cuddled his daughter, who stopped crying and watched her with wide, guileless eyes. Fenella's chest swelled with love for this wee lass. How could she abandon her? But how could she trust her father?

When the rest of the family arrived, Keenan announced, "Fenella requested ye all hear what I have said to her, so that ye may judge whether she can trust me or nay." He stood tall and confessed it all, every fear, every misstep, every slight he'd inflicted on her, including many things Fenella had not been aware of. Gasps greeted his words. But as he finished, so did smiles.

Fenella regretted putting him through this, but the expressions on his family's faces told her the truth Keenan wanted her to see and hear. He was sincere. His mother summed it up. "Ach, Keenan, ye nearly threw away the woman ye love, and the mother to yer daughter. I'm glad to see ye coming to yer senses. If ye didna, Gregor would have to marry her, for I will have her for a daughter, nay matter if 'tis despite ye."

That got a laugh from everyone except Fenella and Gregor, whose face turned ashen. As much as Fenella appreciated his mother's sentiment, Gregor had been her harshest accuser. She couldn't look at him, much less think to marry him. His dismay at his mother's jest served him right, but she dreaded that comment being repeated and the jests it would inspire about her running out of brothers to almost wed.

"Dinna fash, brother," Keenan told him. "She's mine, and I willna give her up. If she'll have me."

When he stopped talking and turned to her, she took a breath and went to his side. She believed him.

He put an arm around her waist, and careful not to dislodge her hold on his daughter, leaned in and whispered, "So ye will take the time I offered ye?"

She shook her head. "Nay." At his crestfallen look, she added, "I dinna need it."

He straightened, hope in his eyes. "Then marry me now. I will call the priest to marry us here. With any witnesses ye care to name. Trust me, Fenella. Marry me, love me, and be the mother to our bairns."

Warmth filled her, and relief eased the ache in her chest. "I will."

Keenan kissed her then, and her heart soared. His kiss was sweet, gentle, yet full of promise. It was the kiss of the Keenan she had fallen in love with and had hoped was still inside him. Despite all the hurt, the fear, and the anger that had fallen between them, she believed they loved each other enough to make a good life together, no matter what else came their way.

She wouldn't even object to Gregor remaining for the ceremony. She suspected that despite having escorted the wet nurse away from MacNabb, he would need to see his brother wed her to fully believe in her innocence.

Keenan called for a lad to fetch the priest, then turned to his family. "We await only the priest to be wed. To right the wrongs I have done to Fenella and to prove my love for her. To regain the trust she freely gave that I abused."

"Ye certainly did," Gavan muttered, making Keenan wince.

The priest entered then and Keenan explained again why they were gathered. Gavan stood by his brother, pulled a length of the MacNabb plaid from his shoulder and handed it to the priest for the hand fasting.

"We want more than that first step," Keenan demanded. "We will be wed, but here rather than at the kirk."

"I understand," the priest said, cognizant of the pain of the old laird's recent death there. His agreement gave Fenella a much needed sense of anticipation. Her heart fluttered in her chest, butterfly wings tickling the insides of her ribs and belly.

Before the priest could start, Marsali pulled a rolled parchment from her sleeve, and with her gaze on Fenella, unrolled it, tore it in half, and tossed it on the fire.

"What are ye doing?" Keenan demanded, his sharp tone making Máirín rouse and cry out. Fenella soothed her and she dropped off to sleep again.

"Fenella can tell ye later," Marsali said softly, her gaze on the bairn. "Yer mother is right. Ye being boneheaded nearly cost ye everything worth having in this life. 'Tis glad I am to see ye have come to yer senses."

Fenella smiled at her friend, grateful that she'd been willing to help, and glad her help was no longer needed.

Keenan gave Fenella a quizzical look which she waved off. If he thought for a moment, he'd realize Marsali had destroyed a letter to her father. If not, she'd tell him later.

At Keenan's urging, Fenella handed Máirín to Marsali. Once Fenella was unburdened, he nodded to the priest to begin.

The priest performed the hand fasting according to the old ways, then an abbreviated ceremony of marriage. As he finished, a lad arrived with the register of marriage from the kirk for them to sign.

The priest handed Keenan the quill, and Fenella held her breath as he bent to sign his name. The sense of rightness that had filled her all those days ago on the kirk's steps came back into her. It was over. Despite what had come between them since that day, nothing ever would again.

Keenan took Fenella in his arms and kissed her soundly.

"'Tis done, wife," he told her.

"Lady MacNabb," his mother added and handed her the ring of chatelaine's keys. "Ye have chosen well, laird."

"About time," Marsali muttered, eliciting a laugh from everyone, including wee Máirín.

Their approval gave Fenella the confidence to face Keenan's family with a smile. She belonged with them now, as she had long wished to do. MacNabb would thrive, and so would their marriage and the family they would make together.