Chapter Sixteen
“Here. These are for you.” Mungan thrust a clump of flowers at Moira.
Moira warily took the half-crushed, half-withered daisies.
It was late in the year, and she wondered how he had found them.
Considering the poor state of the little bouquet, she suspected he had sent one of his men out searching for them.
She inwardly sighed. She had only just finished eating her morning meal and was planning to go to see Adair.
Mungan’s crude attempt at courting her was not something she wished to deal with now.
“Thank ye. They are verra pretty. Now, if ye would excuse me, I should like to find Adair.”
“He is being cared for.” Mungan grabbed her by the arm, tugging her outside his keep. “My men brought back one of Iver’s hirelings, so Tavig is verra busy talking to the fellow.”
“Shouldnae ye be with him? After all, if ye are to help Tavig fight Iver ye will need to ken all ye are able to about Iver, his men, and Drumdearg.”
“Tavig will tell me what is important. I thought I would show ye my holdings while my cousin is too busy to interfere. The lad hangs o’er ye like a dark cloud. Here is the armorer’s shed,” he told her.
By the time Mungan finished showing her every part of his keep, every outbuilding and every person living inside the walls, Moira was completely out of breath.
She slumped against the alms table in the front hall where food and drink were set out for beggars and monks.
Mungan was wealthy, tall, dark, and handsome in a rough-featured way.
It would be flattering to be wooed by such a man, except that he wooed her lands, not her.
Because of that, Moira was highly annoyed over being dragged around the man’s holding like some puppy.
“So, lass, ye can see that I have a lot to offer you.”
“Aye, that ye do, Sir Mungan. Ye have a verra fine holding. Why, ye seem to be doing as fine as some of those grand English lairds.” She almost smiled as he puffed out his already impressively large chest.
“I dinnae feel I make too grand a boast when I tell ye ’tis finer and richer than Tavig’s Drumdearg.”
“That is quite possibly true. Howbeit, I have ne’er seen Drumdearg. There may be something there that pleases me more.” She forced herself to stand up. “I thank ye for showing me about. Now, if ye would please excuse me, I believe I shall stagger to my bed and have a wee rest.”
Mungan rubbed his big hand over his square chin. “Ye are tired? I thought ye stronger than that since ye survived that journey with my cousin.”
Moira paused on the stairs to look at him. “Ah, weel, we walked.”
Inwardly shaking her head, she made her way toward the east tower.
She would have a brief lie-down to restore her strength, then find Adair.
Moira realized that she missed the child.
He had been taken from her so quickly she was left with the feeling that she had somehow lost him.
She also could not stop wondering about the care he was being given.
Moira stepped into the room allotted to her and Tavig, saw Una pacing back and forth, and groaned. She tossed her bedraggled bouquet on the clothes chest. Barely glancing at her glaring cousin, Moira walked to her bed and flung herself onto it, face up.
“Ye have been out walking with Mungan, havenae ye?” Una demanded, standing by the side of the bed and placing her fists on her shapely hips.
“My state of total exhaustion gave me away, did it?”
“I saw ye from my chamber window. I saw him escorting ye about the courtyard.”
“Ye mean ye saw him dragging me from pillar to post, most of it done at a near-run on my part.”
Una gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Ye just have to learn how to keep up with him and how to slow him down. He is a big mon and takes monly strides.”
“That mon’s monly strides could keep pace with a galloping horse.”
“I ken how ye were flirting with him and admiring this fine keep.”
“Una, I was too busy trying to stay on my feet for I am certain that if I had stumbled, he wouldnae have noticed. He would have just kept on dragging me along. As for admiring his keep, I fear I saw little of it. ’Twas mostly a blur as I sped by.”
“He gave ye flowers,” she snapped, grabbing up the wilting bouquet and shaking it at Moira.
“If ye admire them so much, ye can have them.”
After scowling at the battered daisies for a moment, Una tossed them aside. “Did ye drop them and step on them?”
“Nay, they looked like that when he gave them to me. Sir Mungan doesnae have a skilled hand for wooing. Although, considering he is wooing a lump of stone on the other side of his loch, he isnae doing too badly.”
“I dinnae understand what ye are babbling about.” Una pushed Moira’s leg aside and sat down on the bed. “I am here to tell ye that I want Mungan.” She glared at Moira. “He and I are already lovers.”
“Nay!” Moira placed her hand on her chest “Una, I am shocked.”
“Oh, do cease your nonsense. So, ye have clearly guessed what is between Mungan and me. Why put yourself between us?”
“I fear ye dinnae see exactly what is standing between ye and Mungan Coll. ’Tisnae me. ’Tis that thrice-cursed tower house.”
“Ah, but I have a solution to that problem. If ye give me the tower house, then Mungan will seek to marry me and leave ye alone. Is that not simple?”
Moira raised herself up on her forearms to stare at Una in disbelief.
“Una, listen verra carefully. I have lived under your father’s fist for ten long years.
More than anyone else, ye must understand what that life was like.
I endured it because I thought I had no choice, that I was dependent upon his charity.
Now I discover I do have a choice. Worse, I discovered that I have always had it, but your father concealed it from me.
Do ye have any idea how angry that makes me?
” She could tell by the wide-eyed look on Una’s face that it was going to be difficult to make Una understand even part of what she was feeling.
“Weel, I suppose ye have a right to be angry. But what does all that have to do with the tower house?”
“’Tis mine. I may ne’er get back the coin that was left to me and which your father stole, but he cannae slip that pile of stone into his purse and slink away. That lump of rock is my freedom. I cannae and I willnae just hand it o’er to ye so that ye can get Mungan Coll to wed you.”
“Oh.” Una jumped up. “Ye are so selfish. All this talk about freedom is just nonsense. Ye want my mon.”
Moira sagged back down onto the bed. “I dinnae want your mon. In truth, I cannae understand why ye would want him if ye must bribe him with that tower house to get him to marry you. Where is your pride?”
“I could ask ye the same thing. Ye have been whoring your way across Scotland with a murderer.”
“Tavig didnae murder anyone,” Moira snapped, but Una was already striding out the door. She winced as her cousin slammed the door after her. “Give me the tower house, she says. As if it were some child’s toy she covets.”
Everything Tavig had tried to warn her about was coming true.
Mungan had only made his first try at wooing her, but she was sure the man would keep after her.
Now Una was angry and jealous. That, too, would only get worse, increasing with every attempt Mungan made at wooing her.
Una and she were not friends, and Moira was not sure they would ever be, but she certainly did not want them to be enemies, either.
She did feel a bond of sorts with Una since they had both suffered beneath Sir Bearnard’s cruel guardianship.
The more she thought about the uncomfortable position she found herself in, the more she realized that Tavig was right.
There was one quick, simple, but sure way to put an end to all the nonsense.
She had scolded Una for her willingness to bribe a man to wed her yet she was considering marrying a man so that she did not have to put up with any more of Mungan’s or Una’s foolishness.
She had only had a brief taste of that foolishness, but that had proven more than enough.
As she sat up, rested enough to find Adair despite Una’s visit, Moira could almost believe Tavig’s talk of their being destined.
It certainly seemed as if some unseen hand were pushing them along.
No matter how hard she tried to cling to her decision not to marry Tavig for his own safety, things kept happening that forced her to remain close to Tavig.
Now it seemed as if fate had set her down in the midst of a multitude of reasons why marrying Tavig suddenly appeared to be the safest and the wisest thing to do.
Moira left her room in search of Adair. There was still time to consider more carefully what few choices she had and pick the one that offered the most complete solution to her problems. As she entered the nursery one of the maids had directed her to, she spotted Adair right away.
Moira laughed, moving quickly to pick him up as he smiled and crawled toward her.
She nuzzled his thick black curls and realized that, despite her best intentions, Adair would be one strong reason why she might make the risky choice of marriage to Tavig MacAlpin.
Tavig scowled at Mungan, who sprawled in his large ornately carved chair, sipping ale and surveying the others gathered in the great hall as if all were right in the world.
Grabbing the jug off the table, Tavig filled his tankard with the hearty ale and took several long drinks in a vain attempt to cool his rising temper.
He wanted to make plans to go after Iver and he wanted to convince Mungan to give up his plan to marry Moira.
The day was almost at an end, and he had accomplished very little.
“Curse ye, Mungan,” he finally snapped. “Are we to play the idle courtiers until Iver sends an army to your walls?”
Mungan looked at Tavig, in feigned surprise. “Ye are a wee bit short of temper today, Tavig, m’boy.”