Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

T wo days later, Stellan was wondering if he would ever get a chance to be alone with Mariota again. She was angry with him, and he didn't blame her. He was angry with himself. He'd made her want him— someone she couldn't have. If the pain she felt was anything like the pain he carried in his heart— and lower —she might never speak to him again.

He was no better off. Though his men stood watch over her, he'd passed up the chance to go hunting, instead hanging around the keep hoping to run into her, or at least to see her from a distance like a lovesick lad. Disgusted with himself, he'd retreated to the stable to care for his horse. He straightened from checking its hooves and put a hand on its mane. Looking at the animal, he saw a way out. He really should leave. Send for Anders, meet him in the woods and swap places. Put an end to this torture and do his best to forget what Mariota meant to him.

He couldn't. He owed Mariota more than to disappear suddenly. She would know the real Anders had arrived. Leaving was a cowardly move. He wasn't a coward, and she deserved better. So did his twin. So did he. He just didn't know yet how to clean up the mess he'd made.

He patted the horse's neck and left the stall. He was crossing the bailey when the laird's hunting party came back.

The rusty stench of blood filled the air. The laird, injured and insensible, rode double with one of his men, held upright by an arm around his chest. Blood drenched his clothes and the man supporting him. Another man leapt from his horse and ran past Stellan into the keep, shouting for the healer as several others pulled their laird down and carried him toward the keep's now open door.

Stellan went to the man who'd supported the laird on his horse. "What happened?"

"The boar got him, but he got the boar, too."

Only then did Stellan notice a boar, dripping red from several wounds, draped over the back of another horse. Once the laird was injured, they hadn't had time to field dress it.

"Damned bad luck it twitched when he bent over what he thought was the dead beast and got a tusk in his side for his troubles," the man added.

"Is yer healer good?"

"Aye. Good enough? We'll see."

"Where was Alber?" Stellan knew he'd gone with the hunters, but worry that he might come back and cause trouble was another reason Stellan had stayed in the keep.

The man eyed him, then tilted his head toward the other horses abandoned in the bailey by the men carrying their laird to the healer. "With one of the men. He didna do this."

Where was Alber now? Stellan looked around the bailey and spotted him entering the stable, leading two of the hunting party's horses inside.

Where was Mariota? In her chamber? She must be told. She might need to be with her da to get his orders when he awoke. If he did.

Stellan charged inside and up the stairs to her chamber. The door was closed, and probably locked since he'd seen his men down in the great hall. They would have seen the MacKay brought in and heard what was going on. He pounded on her door, then knocked even louder when he got no answer.

"Coming." He heard her voice softly through the thick wood. "Who is it?"

"Ste…Anders," he said. He needed to be more careful. If he'd said Stellan, and someone overheard, he'd have a lot of explaining to do.

He was still frowning when Mariota opened the door and looked up at him, a question in her moss-colored gaze.

"Is something wrong?"

"They just brought in yer da, injured by the boar he killed. He's been taken to the healer."

Her eyes widened and she gasped, turned and ran for her boots. "Help me," she pleaded, jamming a foot into one. Stellan set aside his relief that she would accept his help, knelt and got her other boot on and laced, then pulled her to her feet. She was shaking and breathing too fast.

"Calm yerself, lass. 'Tis likely the healer is still working on him. He'll need ye to be steady enough to listen if he has anything to tell ye or any orders for ye. And ye need to be calm for yer people."

She nodded and headed out the door, leaving Stellan to close it behind them. He followed her rapid footsteps to the herbal and paused in the doorway, not certain whether he should go in. The men who'd carried in their laird had gone. The healer was alone with her patient. She finished stitching up the laird's side as Mariota approached and blanched. Stellan moved behind her and led her to a seat.

"I'll be done in a wee," the healer said while slathering a foul-smelling poultice on the wound. "Yer da is made of strong stuff. The tusk didna penetrate too deep, so despite all the blood ye see, he should be fine in a fortnight, I'd say. He'll need rest and someone to handle his responsibilities for a few days. That would be ye, lass, aye?"

Mariota nodded. "Has he said anything?"

The healer shook her head. "Nay, ye can see he lost a lot of blood. I got a draught in him for the pain so he should sleep a while yet. While I clean up, sit with him in case he does wake. Ye, too, lad," she said to Stellan. "He may wake thinking the boar is still moving, and try to avoid it. Ye need to keep him still until he realizes where he is."

"I will," Stellan promised, his gaze on Mariota. Tears glimmered in her eyes. After all her father had done to, and not done for her, she still cared about him. Perhaps even loved him. It hurt to see someone you cared about injured and suffering. Even if you didn't like them much. Mariota had little reason to like her father, but he was still her father, so Stellan sympathized with what she was going through.

The healer left to see to herself, leaving the two of them to sit vigil over the MacKay laird. Mariota alternated between sitting by her father and pacing around the chamber, walking off her anxiety. Each time she passed near Stellan, he wanted to reach for her hand, to offer what comfort he could, but she avoided his touch and kept going. As time passed, a few from the hunting party looked in for a moment, but let them be when they found nothing had changed.

"Cook has the boar," one reported. "I'd wager the MacKay will enjoy eating that bastard more than most."

Mariota, again sitting by her father, choked out a laugh. "Aye, nay doubt he will."

The man gave her a grin, nodded to Stellan and to his sleeping laird, and left them.

"Boar broth is very good for a wounded man," Stellan said, trying to reassure her. "Or so the Sutherland healer often says. Though perhaps she means it much as yer man just said, as a way to get revenge on the beast."

"Which would make the meat even better when he's ready for it," Mariota agreed, giving Stellan a sad smile. "'Twill be a day or two, I'd guess, before he'll want that."

"Mayhap, but the healer said the wound wasna bad."

The MacKay twitched.

Stellan stood and went to stand by him in case he did as the healer feared and thrashed about.

"Canna tell them," MacKay muttered.

Mariota stood, eyebrows creased under a frown. "Canna tell what?"

"Promised her."

"Promised who, Da? Promised what?"

He mumbled some more, then subsided.

Stellan traded a frown with Mariota. "What did that mean?"

"I dinna ken."

"The lad is called Alber," MacKay suddenly said. "After his da."

Mariota paled and her eyes went wide as she studied her father, then looked again at Stellan. "I dinna like this."

He didn't either. It wasn't much of a leap to think that the MacKay had promised a woman to raise her son. Who was the father, and why was he important enough to the laird to take in a lad who was not his? Stellan could see another possibility, that he had a child with his friend's wife. That would explain why Mariota hadn't been told, and why he had let Alber run wild as he had. Did Alber know?

Nay, that didn't feel right. "We shouldna jump to conclusions, lass." Though he had, and he knew she had, too.

"Da has much to answer for if this means what I fear it does."

"I dinna think it does. There's a simpler explanation."

She clenched her jaw and shook her head. "Ye are right. That doesna make sense. He's no' been pleased to have a daughter as his heir. Alber is older than I by at least two years. Why would Da no' claim him? He could have been named heir already."

"Because he isna yer brother," Stellan told her, sure of the feeling in his gut. MacKay would have acknowledged a son, and he called Alber someone else's son. "There's something else going on."

"But what?" Mariota's frustration was evident in her tone and her clenched fists. "What could Da have promised to a woman about Alber?"

"None of those things may be connected, lass," Stellan told her. "He's injured and dreaming, talking in his sleep. They may be as random as?—"

"As a lass fleeing her home running into the only honorable group of hunters in the Highlands?"

After the lies he'd told her, she could still say that? Her words warmed his heart and he smiled. "I'm glad ye think so."

"So we wait. And when he does wake up, it will be time for him to tell his heir the truth."

Stellan's chest twinged. The MacKay wasn't the only one keeping secrets, and though Mariota now knew his, Stellan dreaded her father's reaction when he found out.

Mariota knew one thing for certain. While her da was recovering from his injury, she had to act in his stead as laird. "I dinna want to leave him in case he says something else, but I need to get a look at his desk, at what he's been working on, so I can carry the load for him until he's better," she told Stellan.

"I think that can wait a wee," he told her, taking her hand and urging her to a seat. "At least until the healer returns, ye should stay with him. I'll stay, too, if ye wish."

She smiled at him and nodded. "Of course I do. While we wait, perhaps ye will tell me more about what Sutherland shares with his heir so I have a better sense of what to look for."

"Yer da hasna trained ye as he should have to take over when he's gone. I'm happy to help as much as I can."

"He seems to think he'll live forever," Mariota said. She looked over at his sleeping form and frowned. "That, or he's been training someone else while letting me— and the clan —believe I am his heir."

"Do ye have any reason to think he has done that?"

She pressed her lips together, then shook her head. "Nay, no' really. Just a sense that I will never be laird. He has hinted that he is considering others. I overheard him talking to one of his council about naming a tanist , someone who could step in for me. I suppose he thinks I'd be a figurehead, nay more."

"Ye have a sense? Do ye believe in such feelings?"

"Do ye?"

"I dinna ken. All I ken is that my twin and I know things about each other that others dinna sense or feel the way we do. 'Twas stronger when we were lads, and one reason Da fostered us apart. We think he wanted us to lose the ability. We almost did. 'Tis different than kenning the future, but 'tis…"

"Strange and wonderful? I envy ye being so close to yer twin. I—I never got that chance."

"What do ye mean?"

Should she tell him? Explain why her da treated her with such disdain? It might not explain all, but it might help him understand, and perhaps she'd feel better by sharing the pain of the tragedy that changed so many lives.

"I had a twin brother," she admitted and glanced at Stellan to see his reaction.

He looked surprised, but gestured for her to continue.

"He was eldest by some minutes, I was told. No matter who was eldest, he would have been the heir, and all my father's concerns about no' having a lad to follow him would never have happened. But I was the more adventurous twin, even at a very young age. I'd always been fascinated by birds. Their colors, their songs, their flights, the way their wings caught the sunlight, the sound of their bairns in the nest. 'Tis why I was able to climb to a hawk nest and secure eggs for the mews. Why I have Valkyrie. Over the years, I grew strong from running and climbing trees to reach the height of a hawk's nest." She shrugged. "We were seven when I climbed up a tree and my brother, who'd been teased by some older lads and called a bairn, decided to follow me."

Stellan pressed his lips together, then asked, "He fell?"

"Aye. I've been told most of this. I dinna remember it clearly. His head hit a rock. I remember screaming at all the blood, not knowing what else to do. My twin was dead as soon as he hit the ground." She hugged her arms around her middle. "I could see below me, people running and my da scooping his son up and running back to the keep with his body, crying out the entire way. After seeing my twin fall, I was terrified to climb out of the tree. But I think once I stopped screaming and started crying silently, everyone forgot I was there. I had to be brave and get myself down. I knew what had happened was bad, but that was all I could comprehend at that age."

"I'm sorry, lass. I canna imagine losing my twin. How that must have felt."

"Dinna be. Mother did her best to protect me, but she was as devastated as Da was. And a year later, she was dead of the next bairn she tried to give him— another son." She took a breath. "I… I canna recall what she looked like. Only that I've been told I resemble her more than my da. So did my twin."

"So ye remind him?—"

"Of her, aye. And of what he lost. Of how unsuitable I am to take my twin's place. I think 'tis why he does little to protect me from Alber. I'm certain he blames me for what happened."

"'Twas nay yer fault. Ye were a wean, like yer brother."

"And now I'm grown, and he isna. And my da is older and needs an heir who can be the MacKay in truth. I've done everything I could to be the son he wanted, but naught I do is ever good enough. I'll never be good enough as laird, either. He's made certain of that."

"Age doesna always bring wisdom, lass, or forgiveness. But there's still time." Stellan frowned at her sleeping father.

"Nay enough, I think. And I often think this isna the life I want. Nay the life I should have. There are men in the clan who would make much better lairds, men who can fight if the trouble between Domnhall and Mar continues. They will see me as weak and MacKay as ripe for the taking, along with Ross. If only Da would make that decision and free me from MacKay to marry elsewhere. But he's stubborn, and he's got it in his head my only value is to marry for an alliance with another clan. To bring a strong husband here to be the laird in deed if no' in name."

"Would ye be happy with that? To be a figurehead?"

"It would depend on the man, would it no'?"

Stellan shook his head. "No matter the man, I dinna believe ye would."

The healer returned, and since her da had remained deeply asleep and silent, Mariota opted to leave him in her care and go to his solar. Stellan asked Mariota to stay with her long enough for him to check in with his men and assign two to escort her and to stay with her while she worked. She was grateful for his care, but worried how he'd think of her now that he knew she'd killed her twin. Nay, he wouldn't think that way. It had been a tragic accident. Despite how her father continued to punish her for it, she hoped Stellan would not.

Every time Stellan learned more about Mariota's history, his heart broke for her a little more. He knew better than to fall for the fallacy that she needed rescuing. She was doing her best to rescue herself, while still hopeful that she could bring her father around to treating her as a father ought. As a laird ought.

But if she wanted him to, Stellan would be proud to help her in any way he could. He would, though that fact surprised him. He wanted to help her succeed, even though he didn't want her to remain at MacKay. The irony was not lost on him.

Given the lack of training she'd gotten from her father, he suspected that helping her make sense of whatever was on his desk in the solar would be of the greatest immediate use of his skills.

He rounded up Camus and Gregor and sent them to escort her to the solar and to stand guard outside the door. Then he headed up to his chamber to get the one thing he suspected he would need while pouring over someone else's cramped handwriting and columns of numbers— his spectacles. It annoyed him that he sometimes needed them, when Anders never did. Thankfully, both of them had excellent distance vision. But Anders had not spent as many hours as he had with their father going over Sutherland's ledgers. And Mariota had never seen either one of them reading anything, so she would not have suspected Anders for using them. Not that it mattered any more.

He carried the folded-up spectacles concealed in one hand. He didn't want anyone to know the Sutherland heir used them. It was a weakness that vexed him, but at the same time, it was one he shared with his father who was one of the most powerful lairds in Scotland, and in his day, one of the most feared on the battlefield. Stellan was glad the wee bits of glass helped keep things clear for both of them.

He nodded to his men in passing and entered the MacKay's solar. Mariota wore a frown of concentration— or was that confusion? She didn't notice him come in.

"Mariota," he said softly, hoping not to startle her.

She looked up and her expression smoothed into one of relief. "Ach, ye're here," she said and leaned back. "Ye said ye worked with yer da on Sutherland's ledgers. Do ye think ye could help me make sense of Da's?"

"If it will help ye, I'd be pleased to try."

She stood and carried the one she'd been bent over to the table in the middle of the chamber. "I ken a wee about planting schedules and such, but this doesna make sense to me."

She gestured for him to take a seat.

One glance at the page told Stellan his spectacles would be needed. He unfolded them, wiped them clean on his sleeve and put them on the bridge of his nose.

"What on earth…?"

"They're called spectacles. They help me read small handwriting and numbers."

"How?"

"They make things look larger and sharper."

"Does Anders use them, too?"

"Nay. I need them because I've spent more years reading and helping Da with his ledgers."

"Of course," she commented and studied his face. "Will they fall off?"

"Aye. Sometimes. When I look down, I hold them in place."

"That must get tiring."

"'Tis tolerable."

She grinned. "Somehow, they make ye seem— I canna believe I'm going to say this —but they make ye seem even more attractive. Wiser. As if ye keep secrets ye willna share."

Stellan fought not to react. His very presence was a secret he couldn't share with most, though she now knew. Instead of replying, he gave her an Anders grin and bent to study the ledger page puzzling her.

Two hours later, they'd made sense of most of the notations in it. "Dear God, Da has been sending raiders into MacLeod," Mariota exclaimed near the end. "And does this indicate one into Sutherland?" She pointed to several marks. "The count of cattle and sheep increased suddenly after each of these."

"I found nay evidence of recent raids on our crofts. Why MacLeod?"

"I dinna ken, but that must stop or we'll have more trouble on our border. Whether the incursion into Sutherland was real or only rumored, I appreciate yer da's forbearance. I wonder if Da does."

Stellan approved of her intentions. That revelation was only one among several that no other clan should be privy to, but Mariota had needed help and Stellan reminded himself that he could keep secrets, especially those that didn't affect Sutherland. Still, her father would be furious if he ever found out she'd shown him this ledger. "Ye willna tell yer da I saw this. He willna like it."

"Nay, I canna. He'd be furious. We've altered naught, and now I understand his thinking, I can take care of most clan business until he's better. I ken enough now to ask him to explain the rest— like those raids."

"Good, lass." He folded his spectacles.

"I couldna have done it without ye. Thank ye, Stellan. I… I'm sorry I got so angry earlier. I?—"

He pressed his lips together and nodded, regret tearing at the edges of his satisfaction for helping her. "Ye had reason, lass. I regret what Anders and I did. What I did. The lies. For the trouble it will cause. But never for the chance to be with ye." That mattered to him. He was more and more certain that he wanted it to matter to her just as much.

To distract himself he asked, "Do ye want to go check on yer da?"

"The healer wouldha sent someone if anything changed." She closed the ledger and pushed it away, lifted her arms and stretched.

The movement lifted her breasts and tightened the fabric across them, making Stellan's mouth water. He was glad she'd leaned her head back and closed her eyes, or she would have seen him staring at her. And seen the hunger in his gaze. When she dropped her arms and opened her eyes, he looked away. He'd told her an encounter like they'd had in the storeroom could not happen again. But his gaze would have made a lie of that, and the way she tempted him, if she touched him again in response, might have made stopping himself impossible.

He stood and stepped away. "I'll see ye at supper?"

A frown flitted across her features, faster than a falcon could dive on its prey, then she nodded. "Aye, supper."

He left her before anything else could happen between them.