Chapter Eleven
OVER THE NEXT WEEK, Kade kept to his grueling schedule of hunting, working, leading and planning.
By the end of the second week he was able to recruit as many as forty-seven men, whom he organized into ten separate hunting parties.
Meat was distributed, the choicest cuts going to the men who made the best kills.
At least half of each beast was used for drying and salting, to sustain our clan during the winter months.
The butcher was a man of importance and would be newly recognized as such.
The head gardeners had been relieved of their duties and replaced by younger, keener understudies, led by the Mackenzie gardeners who had come to train them.
The Morrison clan, according to Kade, was ridiculously uneducated in the ways of agriculture; our methods were archaic, our equipment lacking.
Late at night, Kade would record the days’ events in detail into one of many leather-bound books he had brought with him in his travel trunks.
He sent correspondence to both his brothers every third day, letters that were dispatched by messenger—with generous bribes for quick delivery.
I wasn’t invited to see his writings—aside from the letter I had read while he slept—but I was occasionally given brief informational snippets when I asked him about a particular detail of his work.
Progress, he said, was slow. A growing number of clansmen were warming to his methods, aye, but the majority preferred the lax, hedonistic traditions instilled in the men by my father and encouraged by Aleck.
Kade returned late to our chambers, usually in a state of exhaustion, dirty and with his weapons stained with blood from one or more duels he had either been challenged to or instigated—these, he would not discuss.
He took a swim in the loch behind the manor each day, either in the early morning or late at night; it was a ritual that had been instilled in him by his father, he said, before his memories even began.
He seemed pleased that the back entrance easily accessible from our new chambers led directly to the loch’s edge, and even commented that our loch had cool, clear water and a small beach that was unusually sandy.
The comment stuck with me since it was the only one I could recall that was even remotely positive about Glenlochie.
He spoke of his beloved Kinloch often, and any comparison between the two keeps—and the two clans—was always heavily in favor of all things Mackenzie.
During the days, while Kade was busy hunting, swimming, dueling and training, I began to tackle managing the refurbishments of the manor.
The staff, true to their word, carried out all instructions I gave them, with only the occasional grumble.
Kade’s very first order of business each morning was to reward any staff member I happened to praise.
He asked me to write down the names each day of those who excelled.
He gave these workers meat, most of all, but also promised newly cured furs to those who were able to sustain their newfound work ethic.
After a week of this routine, the kitchen workers were all but falling over themselves when I made my appearance each morning, awaiting my instructions and dutifully launching into their tasks.
And so, with much work to be done, my husband and I did not revisit the brief, private moments we had so far shared.
For this, I felt both a mild sense of relief and a somewhat more pronounced disappointment.
With all the stress of his situation, he had, at times, returned to the hardened warrior I had first seen him as.
But now I knew better. Instead of recoiling from him in fear, I was drawn to him.
I thought often of the dizzyingly pleasurable effects of his hands...
and his mouth. I remembered his astonishing responses to my touch, the scalding intimacy.
But Kade was resolute about keeping his vow to me, seeing his oath as the foundation of trust he was determined to uphold.
He knew of my past, that I had been forced into complying with the commands of men under threat and abuse.
I will secure your trust if it kills me, he’d said to me. I am nothing like them.
That the vow was difficult for him was obvious and it occurred to me that he kept this somewhat cold distance between us to ensure his own restraint.
I didn’t know if he was avoiding me intentionally or if he was merely immersing himself in the work that needed doing.
Either way, we did not see much of each other for days on end.
Secretly, I counted the hours until our month-long sentence would come to an end.
Nine more days.
I hadn’t even been aware of his late arrival in the night and his early predawn departure this morning.
I knew he had been here, though, since the fire was lit.
It was a detail he never overlooked. Fire, he said, was life.
It was warmth, security, fuel, safety. And he would not have his wife getting cold.
So it was that I dressed by the pleasantly blazing flame, readying myself for my day. I heard a knock at the door, recognizing it instantly, since the knock was immediately followed by several more impatient knocks.
My sisters.
I hadn’t seen them in more than a week, since Kade had moved us into our new wing and appointed me to oversee the staff.
My sisters didn’t often venture far from their quarters, and I knew they had been busy preparing for Clementine’s journey to the convent.
My lingering resentment over Maisie’s betrayal, too, had kept me away.
I had chosen to believe my husband’s assurances.
I steeled myself now, however, as she entered my chambers followed closely by Clementine, Lottie and Bonnie.
“Stella!” exclaimed Bonnie. “I have the most outstanding news. You won’t believe it when you hear it.”
“However did you convince Father to allow you to use Mother’s private rooms?
” interrupted Maisie. Her eyes were bright with the conflict between us.
We both knew of her own treachery and all the sorrowful reasons behind it.
Once I might have let the matter go, preferring to keep the peace at all costs to myself.
But I had grown too attached to my husband to forgive her so easily now.
Bonnie came to me, studying my face as though she hadn’t seen me for some time. “Stella. You look different. You look...more at ease. You look good.”
At first I was unsure of her meaning. But then, I think I knew what she meant. I felt more at ease. I was no longer plagued by a feeling of uselessness and worthlessness. I was no longer afraid.
“I remember this room so clearly,” commented Clementine wistfully as she walked around the chambers, stopping to gaze out the diamond-shaped window.
“I remember sitting right here, where you’re sitting, Stella.
With her.” Clementine was the only one of us who had distinct memories of our mother.
The rest of us had been too young to remember anything beyond a ghostly, undefined image.
“Are you packed for the nunnery?” I asked her.
Bonnie answered for her. “Clementine will stay a little longer. Your husband has deemed it too dangerous to be transporting her at the moment. He thinks she should wait until Campbell’s intentions are better understood.”
I was glad of this news. I watched my older sister’s face, reading there a relief, and always a compounding sadness that was now a pronounced part of her character.
I smiled at her, and she managed to smile back.
“I’m relieved, sister,” I said. “I never thought you’d be particularly well suited to a nunnery. ”
Bonnie’s hand brushed a strand of my hair behind one shoulder as she abruptly changed the subject.
“Stella, Caleb’s back. Jamie told me. Now that you’re married, he’s no longer considered a threat to the alliance.
Jamie said Campbell’s men have been sighted prowling around the Highlands—in our near vicinity.
’Tis making everyone uneasy. And all Morrisons have been ordered to return to Glenlochie to bolster the forces, in case we have need of them. He arrived last night.”
It was a lot of information to absorb.
Caleb.
With some shock, I realized I hadn’t thought of Caleb in some time.
Had I thought of him since we’d returned to Glenlochie after my wedding to Kade?
I couldn’t remember. Taking a moment to measure the time since I’d last seen him, I realized it had been six or seven weeks since his banishment.
Now the memory of him, still sweet, was dulled somehow.
Instead of gripping my heart as it had done in the days following his exile, the recollection of him brought only a mild twinge of affection, mingled now with a lurch of tumultuousness.
“Isn’t it wonderful news, Stella?” Maisie said. “Now you can get what you truly want.” Her pink-cheeked face beamed with the pronouncement.
Very nearly losing my temper right then and there, I summoned all my powers of control.
I knew my sister very well. And I could read the earnestness in her eyes.
She thought, in her heart of hearts, that I wanted nothing to do with Kade Mackenzie.
That detail, in itself, was not enough to allow me to forgive her for offering herself to him.
I knew how desperately in love with Wilkie she had been, and still was.
It was a love that would never, ever be realized.
He was not only married but madly in love with his royal wife.
It might have been only natural that Kade would be the next best thing.
A substitute, aye, but still Wilkie’s flesh and blood.
Easily accessible. As close to Wilkie as she would ever come, now that he was sworn to another.