Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Your wife is in a bad way,” Meg said flatly, but with sympathy in her eyes. “She may be dying, I cannot tell.”
Dougal, who once more sat with Lachlan in the great hall, choked on the mouthful of whisky he had just taken and looked at his sister, stricken. He leaped to his feet without intention.
“Eh? But her injuries did not seem so great. Her shoulder—” Isobel had cried out when he lifted her down from his horse, in the courtyard.
“’Tis not her shoulder,” Meg interrupted him. “There is somewhat amiss inside. She bleeds profusely.”
Dougal felt the color drain from his face. “What did that bastard do to her? She swore to me he did not rape her.”
Meg shrugged. “Were I to venture a guess, I would say she is miscarrying—at a very early stage. I just thought you should know.”
“My child?” Dougal swayed on his feet. “She carried my child? She never said.”
“Likely she did not know,” Meg told him tersely. “She seems baffled, now, as to what is amiss, but cries out with the pain.”
Dougal stood like a man struck and stared at his sister. His child, the heir he so desperately needed to secure his lands. And Isobel...
“I thought you might wish to see her,” Meg said dryly, “before it is too late.”
Lachlan surged to his feet and clasped Dougal’s shoulder. “Go, man!”
All the way up the worn, stone stairs, Dougal’s thoughts hollered. Men lost their wives in childbed, he knew—it was a fact of life. Yet this could be laid directly at MacNab’s door, another thing the bastard had taken from him, and bitterness burned in his chest.
“Women lose bairns,” he said, “and do not die of it.”
Meg glanced back at him. “She bleeds too heavily. If she dies, ’tis that will take her.”
Dougal’s throat closed. “There must be somewhat you can do—women’s medicine?”
“I am no physician.”
“Send for one! I will send Lachy.”
“Is there a physician in the district? I cannot bring one to mind.”
“In Stirling—”
“Aye, send Lachy if you will, but I doubt ’twill be quick enough.”
They reached the top of the stairs. Dougal seized his sister’s elbow and gazed into her eyes. “Somewhat else, then. Magic. There must be spells, you will know them. Save her, Meg, and you will never want for anything so long as I live.”
One of her brows quirked. “A bargain? Now, brother, you speak my language—’tis how I live, that. But I do not know if I have the ability.”
“They call you ‘witch,’ do they not?”
Meg tossed her head in scorn. “Ignorant folk use meaningless words. There is a power, Brother, but I do not possess it. It must be sued from one far more elevated than I.”
Dougal studied her hard. “The devil?”
Meg laughed. “And what sympathy might he have for the plight of women? He is but a construct of the priests, a boogie man meant to frighten. I deal with a far older power, the one that makes the doe to run before the hunter, and puts the trees in leaf.”
“Can it save Isobel?”
“It can.”
“Will it?”
“Well, now, that would depend very much on your reasons.”
“She is too young to die so.” Too full of life, and passion.
“You have to need her to live,” Meg told him mercilessly. “And, for the right cause—not because you want a child out of her, or because you do not want MacNab to win in this. You must care for her, herself.”
Dougal nodded. Leave it to Meg to demand the one thing he could not give—his heart, that blackened, damaged stone incapable of what Isobel required.
He pushed past Meg and through the door of his wife’s chamber. The smell of blood assailed his nostrils, raw and intense. He knew then a battle took place in this chamber, as grave as on any killing ground.
A woman from the kitchens sat beside the bed. She rose when she saw him and stepped away, but Dougal barely noticed her. His eyes were all for Isobel.
She lay sprawled like a man in death, her face devoid of color and her eyes narrowed in pain. Dougal had seen warriors who wore that same look as they gazed beyond this world to the next, whence they traveled. Fear—real fear—seized him, and he knew Meg had not brought him a whit too soon.
“Isobel.” He went forward and perched on the edge of the bed, reaching for her hand. She turned those distant eyes on him, and he wondered what she saw in his face—rage? Grief? Terror?
“Husband.” Her lips moved feverishly, and the words came in gasps, “I do not know what ails me. I climbed down from MacNab’s prison—I fell part of the way.”
“Did you fall hard?” He wanted desperately to touch her but feared causing more hurt. He reached out and brushed the tangled hair from her brow. Could such a fall bring about a miscarriage?
“Very hard.” Pain gripped her, and she writhed in agony. When the wave passed, her eyes sought his again. “The chamber in which I was held—my prison—was that of another before me—your love.”
“My love?”
“Aisla, she whom you love. The only woman ever you will.” The words hung between them, indisputable. Dougal wanted desperately to refute them but could not. He looked round, but both Meg and the serving woman had gone; he and Isobel were alone.
Gently, for him, he said, “Do not try to talk if it causes you pain.”
“I must speak now, or perhaps not at all. Do you know what is the matter with me?”
“Has Meg not said?”
Wildly, Isobel shook her head.
“She thinks you miscarry.” His voice sounded harsher than he would have liked. But her eyes flew to his, and clung.
“A child? But I was not carrying—”
“Are you sure? Meg says ’twas very early.” Seeing the look that came to her face—one of stunned grief—he gripped her fingers hard. Another wave of pain seized her, and she rode it out in obvious agony.
Then she asked, “Am I dying? Tell me the truth.”
“The truth? I do not know.” Before seeing her, he would have said she could survive. Women did. But now his heart stuttered with fear.
“I must tell you—not much time.” Her fingers twisted in his, bit into his hand with painful intensity and her eyes—wide, now, and eerily blue in her white face—captured him. “If I do not tell you this now, I may never have the chance.”
Dread blossomed in Dougal’s chest, spread upward, and closed his throat. He knew what she would say as if the words were already spoken.
She drew a ragged breath. “I love you, Dougal MacRae—devil or not, I do not care—and I am helpless to deny! I did not ask to love you, do not understand the feeling, but my heart, poor gift that it may be, is yours.”
“’Tis not a poor gift.” Dougal barely recognized his own voice.
He reached out to smooth the skin of her brow, thinking of the many ways he had touched her these weeks past. But a declaration of passion was not what she wanted, and lust was not love.
He would give much to return the words to her, but even now he could not lie.
“I am honored,” he told her, feeling humble. “I do not warrant such feeling, nor deserve—”
She smiled ruefully. “You do not welcome such feeling,” she corrected. “Yet I cannot help but tell you. I hope you understand.”
“Isobel, my heart is a damaged, blackened thing. ’Twould make no worthy return for you.”
She whispered, her strength failing, “You love only her, will always love only her. Will that truly never change? Can you give me no hope?”
Terror gripped Dougal’s heart: she was dying right here beneath his hands, in a welter of blood.
“Isobel—Wife—you must hang on. You must fight! There will be other bairns—”
“Can you want my child, even though you do not want me?”
That he could answer, and truthfully. “With all my heart! There is naught I can imagine better than an heir with your courage, strength and fire. And, Wife, I never said I did not want you. Of that you may be certain!”
Another spasm gripped her. They endured it together. He found himself wishing he could pray, and seeking words that, to her, would make a difference.
“Listen to me, Isobel,” he told her when the pain eased again. “I know fine ’tis a poor offer, since I cannot give you my heart, but I vow to you, everything else I am is yours. Hang on for me—fight—and we will build a life, a future together. A good life.”
He had never before made such a promise, not to anyone, and it frightened him that he should do so now, but he gave it completely. His crippled heart aside, he was willing to live with her—and for her—all his days.
“Will you fight, Isobel, for me?”
She nodded.
Behind him he heard the door open as Meg reentered the room. He bent and kissed his wife’s brow, then rose and released her fingers. Her eyes drifted closed.
When he joined Meg at the door, she gave him a searching look.
“What can you do for her?” he demanded. “Her strength fades! You said I must need her to live—” He gazed into his sister’s black eyes. “Well, I do. I will give whatever you ask, if you save her. Is it enough?”
Meg nodded, and Dougal went limp with relief. Did he believe in his sister’s purported powers more than he believed in God? Yet Meg insisted the powers upon which she called were not her own, nor of the devil. He did not know, yet he clung to a slim shard of faith.
“Leave us,” Meg said. “Wait below and think on the debt you incur—not to me but to the woman who lies there. If she lives, it will need be paid in care, loyalty, and fidelity.”
He left the room and stumbled blindly back down the stairs, where he found Lachlan waiting for him. One glance and Lachlan looked away.
“As grave as that, is it?” he asked awkwardly.
Dougal reached for his cup, which proved empty. He splashed whisky into it and drank deep.
“I would send to Stirling for a physician, but Meg insists there is no time. I have left Isobel in her hands.”
“I will ride to Stirling, if you like,” Lachlan offered.
Dougal considered it. “At the rate she loses blood, I do not doubt Meg is right. But, aye, go! I would appreciate it.”
Lachlan got at once to his feet. “I will go as swiftly as I may.”
Dougal reached out and grasped Lachy’s arm. “Thank you.”
“She will survive it, man.”
“If she lasts the next few hours, ’twill be due to Meg’s magic. I will then be in debt to my sister—a frightening enough thought.”
“It is, that.” Lachlan could not but agree.
He went out, leaving Dougal to brood at the fire alone, the victim of his thoughts, dark and fierce.
He thought of what Isobel had said about Aisla, and the room from which she had escaped.
The blood pounded in his ears. He had already lost the child Isobel carried.
If he lost his wife as well, MacNab would have a heavy price to pay.
“And you will pay it,” he said aloud to the shadowed room. “That I do vow!”