Chapter Fourteen #2
“’Tis strange,” he mused, thoughtful, “seeing you mingling with my family and clan and acquaintances. Still I wonder if I’ve dreamed you, yet here you are.
’Tis true, I’ve never felt so possessive of anything in my life.
” He stopped himself, and he appeared both upset by the thought and by his own reaction.
“You have no need for worrying, warrior. I’ll be thinking only of you.
And besides, I’m very good at going unnoticed.
” I thought of all my years at the Ogilvie keep, of being scorned and avoided for my unusualness, of spending days barely being acknowledged aside from the waited-for completion of my unending tasks.
“No longer, lass. You were the talk of the gathering last night, and now, after I swept you away in a dramatic abduction, only to not return for the night...you’ve no chance of going unnoticed today.”
“Well, then, I’ll do my best to keep them guessing.”
“And now I must go, before my brothers arrive to drag me from my chambers. Wait some time before you make your appearance downstairs. And I will see you later. I’ll come find you in the gardens.”
I helped Wilkie put on his tunic, taking any opportunity to touch him and savor the feel and the nearness of him. He strapped on his belt and fitted his sword and knife into place.
He kissed me once, and it was a kiss both savage and tender, full of all the depth of our new status: lovers, joined as one.
Then he left me, and I waited for a time, as he’d asked.
I tidied up his chambers, straightening the furs of his bed.
From my many years of cleaning the Ogilvie manor, I knew the unwritten code of chambermaids: a smoothly made bed was a sign that a room had been attended to.
The sheets, I feared, would be noticed, the bloodstain revealing all that had taken place.
But I had none to replace them with. If I made the bed and cleaned his chambers, then no one would be the wiser, and I could ask Wilkie to replace them tonight. I could clean them myself tomorrow.
When I felt enough time had passed, I opened the door to find Fergus waiting.
I greeted him, and he nodded once, then followed me as I made my way to the activity of the great hall, where all of the female guests were breaking their fast. I tried my best to be inconspicuous, but all eyes turned to me, and the busy conversation paused, the sudden silence deafening.
One pair of eyes bored into me with unrestrained hostility.
And Maisie Morrison’s sisters, on either side of her, comforted her and whispered to her.
Ailie jumped up and laced her arm through mine, leading me to an empty chair between hers and Christie’s.
It appeared they had saved it for me, and the realization touched me greatly.
“Roses,” said Ailie, “come, join us. You must eat, and ’tis a perfect day for a stroll through the gardens.”
“I fear I overslept this morning,” I murmured, feeling the need to apologize, and wildly self-conscious under the table’s collective interest.
The sisters ignored my comment, as though my excuse was entirely unnecessary.
“Hopefully it will be less eventful than our last stroll,” added Christie, and I couldn’t quite tell if there was a note of dry wit to her comment, or merely the pure candor I was now used to.
It occurred to me then that, for the first time, Christie’s voice had taken on a fractionally more worldly edge.
I looked at her, assessing the difference.
Her lips looked sensuously puffy and pneumatic, and her eyes were bright.
She’d been kissed well, I guessed, and perhaps for the first time.
Tosh Munro? I thought it likely. Full moon, indeed.
I took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, and she responded by smiling.
She was assessing me with the same gauging inquisitiveness, as though detecting a difference.
But before she could speak of it—and I was almost glad at the interruption—Maisie Morrison’s pointed voice broke through the stilted tension that my presence had introduced.
“We know so little of your visitor, Ailie. You must introduce us properly and tell us more about her. ’Tis not every day we meet such an exotic-looking acquaintance. ”
“You met Roses last night, did you not, Maisie?”
“Aye, but you didn’t mention where she hails from. Or why she’s here.”
Clementine, whose bitterness may have stemmed from her appalling luck with men, I couldn’t help but reflect and sympathize with, said, “She hardly looks like a Highlander, with hair that color. Tell us your story, Roses.”
I began to spin the story I had been instructed to give. “I hail from the Macduff clan,” I said, adding, in an attempt to change the subject, “I do so look forward to a stroll through the gardens. I’ve never seen such plenty in all my life.”
“Nay,” agreed Clementine dismissively. “Macduffs are hardly known for their agriculture.” Neither were Morrisons, if I remembered correctly.
But Maisie had no intention of letting the subject lie. “And for what reason do you visit the Mackenzies, Roses? And where are your escorts?”
I wished I made a more convincing liar. I did my best to sound true. “I was escorted here by several Macduff warriors, who left me in the good care of the Mackenzie clan. I was assigned as an apprentice to Effie, the Mackenzie healer, to learn from her expertise.”
“Why, we’ve visited the Macduff keep,” said Maisie, “several months ago, for a gathering. It was the celebration of Hamish and Una Macduff’s second child. A boy.”
I was pleased to hear good news of Una.
Maisie continued, “In fact we had need of a healer during our visit, did we not? It was you, Stella. You came down with an illness, and needed treatment and several days of bed rest. Do you remember seeing Roses? I surely don’t.”
Stella looked uncomfortable with her sister’s interrogation.
Her eyes were an unusual light amber color that matched the golden highlights of her dark hair, which hung in long strands that curled at the very tips.
She was noticeably more fine-boned than her sisters, and her skin was as smooth and pale as milk.
Her beauty disconcerted me, as I thought of Laird Mackenzie’s mission to marry Wilkie to one of these sisters.
Stella, I thought, would be a much more palatable choice than Maisie for any man, to be sure, with her gentle nature and her unquestionable loveliness.
“I may recall seeing her, Maisie,” Stella said, somewhat impatiently. “I was ill. I wasn’t taking much notice of anything at all.”
“Well, I was. And I don’t recall seeing a blonde healer, not once. What about you, Clementine? Do you remember seeing Roses among the healers?”
“Nay, I’m sure I would have remembered Roses.”
There was a bottomless pause. I tried to think of a lie, an excuse, a fantastically convincing tale that might explain away my nothingness.
But I couldn’t summon a single one. Ailie and Christie, too, looked blanched and strained with a similar affliction.
I decided it mattered not what these uppity heiresses thought, Maisie and Clementine in particular.
They had everything to offer yet very little appeal, and I could understand why men had so far skirted them, even with a lairdship and vast wealth in the offering.
I hoped more than ever before that Wilkie would not be forced to marry Maisie; she seemed a poor match for him.
Grasping, I said the first thing that came to mind. “I was a kitchen servant for a time, before I was reassigned to the healing quarters.”
The Morrison women looked stunned and mutely agog.
Wilkie knew of my low status; he loved me anyway, and that was all that mattered to me. Could others, too, possibly find value in me for who I was, rather than only condemning me for what I was?
“A kitchen servant?” Maisie finally managed, her voice croaked from incredulity.
“Aye,” I confirmed, already regretting my impulse to be honest with her.
Maisie’s voice was shrill when she continued, her face flushed with outrage. “A kitchen servant and a whore? And this is what he prefers?” She seemed to be asking her question to no one in particular.
I may have been foolish, with so very much still to lose, but I couldn’t help myself. That same stubborn streak in me that had refused Laird Ogilvie reared its ugly head now. I attempted to silence myself, and earnestly, but my reply simply tumbled out.
“If I’m a whore, then surely you could be labeled the same,” I stated softly, although softness, I admit, was possibly pointless; I may as well have shouted it.
And if I thought it had been silent before my pronouncement, it was nothing to the total speechlessness of the hall now.
I thought I detected an echo of my comment reverberating throughout the space, but I may have imagined it.
What I didn’t imagine though, was a grin on the face of Fergus, who stood diligently at his post by the door.
I’m not sure why, but I took heart from this.
“How dare you!” Maisie shrieked, rising to her feet, red-faced. Her sisters immediately gathered around her and attempted to comfort her, shooting me with daggered glares.
My defiance shrunk into itself then, and I regretted the scene I’d willfully created in Ailie’s and Christie’s civilized presence.
I felt ashamed, only because I didn’t want to disappoint them, after all the kindheartedness they’d shown me.
And what would Wilkie think? Would he be disappointed that I had shown such disrespect and revealed my lowly status after he’d been seen with me so publicly?
And after he’d asked me to keep them guessing?
Ailie seemed anything but disappointed. Mildly shocked, aye. But unfailingly in control. “Maisie, please. You must admit you were the first to call the insults. I’m sure none of it’s of any consequence. Let’s finish our tea, then we’ll take to the fresh air. I think we’ll all benefit.”