Chapter 13
13
Breakfast was always a merry meal in the kitchen of Leithmuir Castle, but today it was especially so, since Alison declared that she had become engaged to the son of the blacksmith in the village. Everyone congratulated her, and Alyth was happy for her, but deep inside she was jealous of the shining joy she saw in her friend’s face. If only she had been the one celebrating!
These women had come to mean so much to her; they were attentive, kind, and had a wonderful sense of humour that made them able to laugh at each other and themselves without rancour. They had welcomed her into their fellowship without question; she worked with them, and therefore she was one of them.
In a way, this also made Alyth sad because she knew that at some point she would have to leave them, and she had no wish to. After Lachlan’s confession, and Maisie’s explanation of what had gone on between the Carricks and the MacAdams she could quite happily stay there forever.
She had come to the conclusion that Lachlan was not her enemy; he was a very damaged man who wanted nothing but a quiet life, to look after his daughter and to be at peace. The fact that a kind of peace had been negotiated between the two families showed that neither wanted to carry on a war that no one could win.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Mairi, the cook. “Who wants tae take the Laird’s breakfast tae his study?” she asked, indicating a tray loaded with food and a pitcher of ale.
She looked around, but nearly everyone was busy with some other task; when the cook caught her eye and called out to her, she groaned inwardly. She was not prepared to be confronted by Lachlan so early in the morning, but submitted, as she had no other choice.
Alyth trudged along the corridor to the room, then stood outside for a moment in order to take a deep breath to prepare herself before knocking. When she heard Lachlan’s deep voice summoning her inside, she opened the door and entered.
Lachlan looked up to thank her, then his eyes widened in surprise. Alyth put the tray on a small side table, then asked, “Is there anything else you need, M’Laird?”
Only you, he thought. He only just stopped himself from saying it aloud as he gazed at her. Even in a maid’s drab uniform, she was beautiful, and he wanted nothing more at that moment than to take her in his arms and make passionate love to her as he had before.
Without thinking, Lachlan looked over at the couch in front of the fire where they had come together for the first time. The first time? Would it be the only time, he wondered? God, he hoped not.
He looked up at Alyth, to find her gazing back at him, and for a frozen moment, they stood staring at each other. The atmosphere in the room was thick with palpable tension as teal blue eyes gazed into dark grey ones, before Lachlan regained his senses and tore his gaze away from hers.
“No, Jeannie,” he replied. “There is nothing more that I need, thank you.”
Alyth made a brief curtsey and almost sprinted out of the room, leaving Lachlan sitting staring at the door, wondering just how he was going to deal with his feelings, for he could not go on like this.
And as she strode back down to the kitchen, Alyth was wondering exactly the same thing because now she knew for certain that she cared for Lachlan Carrick. It was not just the fact that he made her body thrill with desire, or that she loved the way he was firm with his men yet infinitely gentle with his daughter.
No, she cared for him because he touched her at some level deep inside that no other man ever had or, she suspected, never would again. The feeling was indescribably wonderful and terrifying all at once, for she was helpless to act on it.
But was she? The more she thought about it, the less possible it seemed that the Carricks were to blame for their feud. They had been the ones who suggested the truce, after all, and neither side had gained anything from the fighting; in fact, they had both suffered the heaviest loss of all and were still suffering the consequences.
Alyth shuddered as she thought about the attack by the Robertsons that she and Davina had endured, and the predatory gaze of Laird Robertson himself. No one revolted her as much as he did.
Perhaps she was not so helpless after all, Alyth thought. She and Lachlan could talk together, perhaps work out some plan whereby the two families could make the current truce that existed between them into a permanent cessation of hostilities. After all, she and Lachlan had already made a good start!
Alyth laughed at the thought; could two people who had engaged in such passionate lovemaking possibly be enemies?
Yet, there was one other problem. Would Lachlan forgive the lies she had told him? Would he resent her deeply for forsaking Davina when she left? These were questions which she had asked herself time and time again, but for which she had no answer.
She had almost reached the kitchen when she saw Davina running towards her, smiling happily. “Jeannie!” she called.
Her speech, while still only confined to one or two words at a time, was progressing amazingly well, and Alyth felt proud to have been the one to coax her out of her shell of silence.
“Davina!” she replied. “Are you not supposed to be busy with your counting lessons?”
Davina shook her head and took Alyth’s hand.
“I am working!” she protested, but the little girl took no notice.
She led Alyth to their favourite spot, a bench underneath a sweet chestnut tree, now bare and skeletal in the middle of winter. It was bitterly cold and Alyth shivered, but Davina did not seem to have noticed it at all.
Davina looked at Alyth for a long moment before reaching into the pocket of her dress, keeping her eyes on Alyth’s face as she did so. She took Alyth’s hand and put something small and shining into it, and when she looked at it, Alyth gasped in astonishment.
There, lying in her palm, was the pendant she had been searching for all this time! A wave of gratitude and relief swept over her; gratitude for the return of this, her most precious treasure, and relief that she no longer needed to spend all her time in this dangerous place searching for it.
Alyth opened the pendant and saw her beautiful mother, who was holding a chubby, happy-looking baby of perhaps six months old, whom she knew to be herself. They were looking at each other adoringly, and the love between them was palpable, even though the image was no more than a tiny reproduction.
Alyth’s eyes filled with tears; this was the person she had lost in the most brutal way, and now, even though she only had an image of her, she felt some tiny measure of healing.
Davina tugged at her sleeve to attract Alyth’s attention, pointed to the baby’s face, then at Alyth. Her teal blue eyes, so like her father’s, were wide with curiosity as she asked in a trembling voice, “You?”
Alyth nodded; her throat was too choked with emotion for her to speak, and the tears which had been pooling in her eyes began to pour down her cheeks. Davina must have heard her whispering above her bed, desperately asking for the girl’s help to find the only thing she had left of her dead mother.
“You, MacAdams,” Davina stated, and Alyth suddenly saw a measure of sadness creep into her gaze.
Alyth felt wretched. “Yes, I am,” she confessed. “But my only reason for coming here was to find this, Davina.” She held up the pendant. “Because I lost my mother, just as you lost yours, and now I have found this tiny piece of her which was also taken from me. It will never bring her back, of course, but at least I can look at her now whenever I want to.
I feel so fortunate to have met you and helped you speak again. Thank you for letting me do that, and thank you for giving me back my pendant. You have no idea how much it means to me. I hope that we are friends now. Do you think so, too?”
Davina studied Alyth for a moment, then her face broke into a wide smile. “Yes,” she replied, and Alyth realised that this was the first time she had actually had a proper conversation with the little girl, albeit an extremely hesitant and stilted one. Some part of her felt extremely triumphant, since this was something no one else had been able to do.
Would Davina go back to being her old, silent self when Alyth was gone, she wondered? Would she ever forgive this nasty woman who had deserted her just when she was finally finding her way back to normality?
Her mother had left her, albeit through no fault of her own, and now Alyth would be leaving her too, but this time quite deliberately with no thought for her welfare. Would Davina ever be able to trust anyone again?
Yet Alyth had a responsibility to her own family. Her father would no doubt have come to the conclusion that she was dead by now because he knew his daughter well; she would not have deserted him so callously. Therein lay the only bright spot in her current predicament; the thought of seeing her father’s face when he saw her alive and well.
And Lachlan? She need not wonder about his reaction; he would be incandescent with rage, mostly for Davina’s sake. Yet would he miss the woman he called Jeannie? Would he miss the body he had once enjoyed and perhaps hoped to enjoy again? For her part, Alyth knew that she would miss his, even though they had only had one encounter.
She dragged her mind away from that subject to focus on Davina again. “Please don’t tell your father who I am,” she begged. “Or he will be very angry with me. Davina, I am going to have to leave you soon, but I am so, so glad to have met you, lovely girl.”
At this, Davina’s face dropped, and her eyes became full of sadness. “Stay, Jeannie,” she pleaded woefully.
She put up a hand to caress Alyth’s cheek, and Alyth turned her face and kissed Davina’s palm.
“Oh, my dear girl,” she murmured. “You have no idea how much I wish I could, but you see, I have a father too, and he has no idea where I am. He is very sad, and misses me, so I have to go back to him. Also, your father will be furious that I lied to him, and I would rather not upset him. Please, please keep this a secret between the two of us. I will be back to see you as soon as I can.”
This was not a promise Alyth was sure she would be able to keep, but she had to make it in order to fulfil her aim of leaving the castle.
“Will you keep my secret?” she asked again. “You could keep the necklace I gave you to remember me by.”
Davina nodded, then put her arms around Alyth, but when she moved away eventually Alyth could see that she was weeping, and felt wretched. They clung together for a few moments longer, then Alyth rose to her feet and kissed the top of Davina’s head before hurrying back to the kitchen.
Somehow, Alyth managed to get through the rest of the day. She forced herself to laugh with the others during their midday meal and even told a few jokes, mostly aimed at herself. She felt infinitely sad that this would be her last day with these people whom she had come to know and like.
Their concern for her after the incident with the Robertsons had been like a healing balm, but what had always surprised her the most was their lack of jealousy over Davina’s preference for her. Her nurse had been pushed firmly into second place, but she seemed quite content with that.
The evening meal with her friends seemed particularly poignant that evening when Alyth realised that there would never be any more of these happy evenings filled with teasing, laughter and scandalous gossip. She tried to find comfort in the thought that she would have many happy memories to look back on, but she was saddened to think that the feeling would not be mutual.
Presently, Flora, who was sitting next to her, waved a hand in front of her eyes to regain her attention, and Alyth laughed as she realised she had been daydreaming.
“Sorry, Flora, I was miles away,” she said, shaking her head. She summoned up a yawn, then rubbed her eyes.
“So tell me—” Flora gave her a frown of mock severity. “What were ye dreamin’ about? Nothin’ ye couldnae tell your friends?”
She raised her eyebrows and put on a suspicious glare. Alyth punched her playfully on the shoulder.
“I was wondering what we were going to have for dinner tomorrow,” she replied innocently.
“Aye—an’ I’m the King’s mother!” Heather burst out laughing, and soon started a gale of mirth.
When the laughter was over, and they all went back to eating, Alyth reflected on how much she was going to miss this. Alyth wanted to hug every one of them and say goodbye, but she could not. She knew that if she told any of the women what she was about to do, their loyalty to Lachlan was such that they would immediately inform him.
They all trooped upstairs to bed at the end of their meal, and it was not too long before silence descended on the servants’ quarters. Alyth waited a while to make any move to pack her belongings. She wanted to be absolutely sure that there was no possibility of any of her friends waking up, since there was absolutely no way of talking her way out of her situation.
Alyth donned her breeches and the warmest clothing she had, then packed the rest of her meagre belongings into a jute sack that had contained wheat. Lastly, she put the pendant around her neck, fastened it, then tucked it under the neck of her tunic where it would stay safely hidden.
Alyth took a look around her cramped quarters; she was sad to leave the little room. It was as unlike her bedroom at her home in Cairnloch Castle as it was possible to be, but she would always associate it with good times. She sighed, picked up a candle to light her way downstairs, then made her way outside through the kitchen. There, she helped herself to some leftovers from supper and a few other pieces of food, as well as a flagon of ale.
The big room was still warm from the heat of the ovens, and Alyth inhaled the mixed aroma of roasting meat, baking bread, honey, and all the other assorted foodstuffs that had been prepared there over the years. She knew that the memory of that delicious smell would never leave her.
She tiptoed out, closing the door as quietly behind her as she possibly could, then crept across the courtyard to the stables. She had made a deal with one of the stable hands, bribing him to tell the Laird that she had drugged him and stolen a horse.
Alyth had chosen one of the horses that Lachlan had taken from the Robertsons with which to make her escape, after all, she could hardly be punished for stealing something that was already stolen! The horse was a stately black mare with a white blaze on her face, and the stable hand had assured Alyth that her temperament was quite calm and biddable.
Having retrieved the saddle and bridle from the tack room, Alyth saddled the mare and tightened the girth before raising one leg to mount the horse. However, her foot had just touched the stirrup when she felt the pressure of a heavy hand landing on her shoulder.
Startled, she looked around, and saw the last person she wanted to see.