Chapter 20
Ilsabeth frowned as the three brothers herded into the barn.
The best ponies were out in the little corral, but they had only glanced over them and then insisted upon looking in the little barn.
Even Old Gregor had insisted. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of horse droppings and hay.
Her stomach curled in revulsion and Ilsabeth decided her child did not like that scent.
“I think I had best go outside,” she said. “I am feeling a wee bit unweel.”
“Why?” Kenneth sniffed. “Old Gregor keeps a verra clean barn.”
She was about to tell him that no matter how clean a barn, once a horse or pony was put inside the smells began when someone slipped a linen sheet over her.
Two strong arms were wrapped around her and she was carried off.
For one brief moment she was terrified but then, as the outside air cleared her nose of the smell of the barn, she smelled a very familiar scent.
Why was Simon spiriting her away? Because she had refused to speak to him. Ilsabeth sighed as she thought of the lovely romantic setting she had planned for their meal together. She hoped he had remembered to bring food and wine to wherever he was taking her.
It was not long before being wrapped in a linen sheet and carried over a broad shoulder was not comfortable and Ilsabeth complained.
The sheet muffled her words and all she got was a mumbled apology in what Simon must have thought was a disguised voice and a pat on the backside.
After the first pat, there was a moment’s hesitation, and then another pat that was much more like a caress.
There was obviously one particular thing Simon was missing, she thought, and had to admit that she was missing it, too.
Even her awkward position could not dispel the warmth that slight caress sent through her body.
When he ran his hand up and down her leg, she decided a true kidnap victim would protest so she screeched a little.
Simon obviously was not thinking clearly if he thought all kidnap victims were so complacent.
Then she had a wicked thought and turned her head to the side in the hope that she would be somewhat more understandable when she spoke.
“Ye had best put me down and run for your life,” she said. “Ye willnae get away with this. This place is swarming with my kinsmen and kinswomen and they will hunt ye down like a mad dog when they discover what ye have done.”
He mumbled something that sounded like assurances that she would come to no harm. Then he began to caress her leg again as if he could not help himself.
“I am warning ye... Oh. Oh. My. Do that again,” she said as she heard a door open. “Oh, that feels so verra fine.”
She screeched when she was suddenly dropped on a bed. Ilsabeth tore the sheet off her head to find Simon staring down at her, his hands fisted on his hips and a look of pure jealous anger on his face. She could not help it, she started to laugh.
Simon looked down at the giggling woman he had carried all the way from Old Gregor’s and shook his head, a reluctant smile pulling at his lips.
She had not been fooled for long. And all that ooh and aahing had certainly caused him a moment of alarm.
One did not like to think that one’s woman would ooh and ahh at just any touch. And the wretch had known that, too.
“That was a mean trick ye just played,” he said.
“Me? I wasnae the one who ran off with ye wrapped in a sheet. And, I need to speak to your brothers about the sin of lying.” She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, recognizing one of the many little cottages her family kept for guests, a necessity when one had a family as large as hers.
“Weel, this was fun, but I need to go and get a pony.”
“My brothers are buying the ponies. One for Marion, one for Reid, and one for Elen.”
“Because they ken exactly what they are looking for.”
“Aye, one of the people they lived with raised them.”
“Lies, lies and more lies.”
“I was desperate,” he said, and hurried to securely latch the door when he saw her eyeing it consideringly. “I need ye to speak to me. I would stay here until ye do but I have to return to Lochancorrie soon. The harvest and all, ye ken.” He went back to stand at the side of the bed.
“Simon, I will say that I have acted badly.” She held up her hand when he began to protest. “I have. I cannae say whether I was trying to punish ye or just sulking, but it was unkind and many other wee sins I am sure my mother could enumerate, to just keep ignoring ye.”
“Then why did ye do it?”
“Ye hurt me when ye pushed me away so coldly, so abruptly and completely that day in the dungeons. It also hurt more because I was free, and all we had done to prove who the real traitors were was at an end. I wished to share that success with ye and, aye, even the sad part of it since it was your own blood involved. And then it seemed like ye and I were at an end as weel and it made me feel as if I was naught but another innocent ye work hard to protect.”
He sat down and pulled her into his arms, ignoring the faint hint of tension in her lithe body.
“Nay, ye were never just a puzzle to me, something to solve, toss aside, and go on to the next. Never. I had to make the cut quick and sharp for I was weak. I wanted to stay there and hold ye and let ye comfort me o’er the idiocy of my mad brother. ”
“But why did ye have to go at all, Simon?” She tried to catch him by the hand when he stood up and began to pace.
“This isnae easy to explain,” he said. “I was a craven coward.
I had just watched my eldest brother, my laird, lose his last grip on his sanity.
The things he said were still sitting in my head proving his insanity nay matter how I looked at things.
It was terrifying to watch that last thread snap and hear him talk of all the killing he had done and why, and who are we to judge.
I was reeling with it. It was as if he had somehow tainted me with it.
“All I could think of was how ye deserved better than to become tied to a mon who could turn into what Henry did at the end.”
“But, Simon...”
“Nay, I ken now that I am nay like Henry. Ne’er was; ne’er will be.
But it took a while for me to see that. Those bouts of rage I suffered didnae help me see clearly, either, for I was certain they were a sign of something wrong.
And they were, but nay what I thought. They were a sign of years of built up anger o’er all the bad things Henry had done to good people. ”
“Simon, I told ye that ye werenae like him,” she said. “I told ye that. Why couldnae ye believe me?”
“Because ye were my lover,” he answered as he sat down beside her. “My lover and my confidante and I dared not accept your opinion. I think ye would tell me the truth, but it was always possible ye would lie or soften the truth to spare my feelings.”
“Oh. That makes sense in some ways. But why did ye stay away for two months, Simon? Two months without sight or word. Did ye ne’er think I might do my best to forget ye?”
“That was what I told myself I wanted ye to do–forget me. I wanted ye to find happiness with a mon who didnae have madness and a traitor in his family.”
He lightly kissed her frowning mouth, fighting against the urge to ravish that beautiful mouth until neither of them could breathe right.
“And I would think of that and then I would hate the mon ye found who didnae have a problem with such things as madmen, treason, illegitimate children, and three brothers now living with him.”
“Simon, if ye hadnae thrust me away so coldly, if ye had told me that ye needed to think, that ye were worried about the insanity, I would have waited.”
“Would have waited?” He frowned. “Are ye telling me that ye didnae wait for me?”
“Bad choice of words. I would have waited for ye because ye asked, instead of waiting for ye and doing naught but hoping ye would come back, that mayhap I mistook what had happened, and then hating myself for that weakness.”
“Ah, Ilsabeth, I was unkind. Nay. E’en worse, I was so lost in what troubled me I ne’er gave a thought to what it was all doing to ye.
” He pulled her into his arms. “I was a confused idiot. I kenned that madness doesnae have to be in the blood, have seen that with my own eyes, but then I would fear that what ailed Henry was one of the ones that can be in the blood.”
He gently pushed her down onto the bed. “I wanted to do what was right for ye and yet I didnae want ye to leave me. I feared the insanity yet kenned that I couldnae have it. I think I drove my brothers to distraction with my own confusion.”
“And when did ye ken that they werenae worried about the madness?”
He kissed the side of her neck and then grinned. “That did take a wee while to sink in to my mind. I needed some time and distance from all Henry was and had done. I think I was shamed by him as weel,” he admitted softly. “Shamed that such a creature shared a family tie with me.”
“That is verra understandable. Despite what he was and all the cruelties he had inflicted upon his own family, ‘tis always difficult to, weel, disown the one doing them.” She slowly began to unlace his shirt.
“And all the while I was sorting through my wee troubles ye were thinking I had tossed ye aside just because I was done with ye?” The ways she blushed was all the answer he needed.
“I cannae apologize enough for that. I hurt ye and I kenned I had when I walked away that day. I have ne’er been able to shake the look on your face from my mind.
Each time I saw it I wanted to come and beg your forgiveness.
” He unlaced her bodice and kissed the soft swell of one breast. “I also kept hearing Elen’s bellow, hearing the pain beneath the fury. I hurt her, too.”