Chapter Twelve
Cullen watched Lowri from across the table as she wolfed down the tasty supper Esther had laid before them all – rabbit stew, freshly baked bannocks and roast parsnips and carrots.
His bride gulped down her food like a stray dog, as if it might be taken from her at any minute.
How cruelly his father must have starved her when she was in his clutches.
Lowri had drunk a good deal of the strong ale, too, along with everyone else.
No doubt, she was sinking into its yeasty depths to escape him and their marriage bed, and the tension in the room.
There had been little conversation so far, beyond talk of crops and quarrels with neighbours.
It seemed Seamus had not stopped drinking since their talk earlier in the day. He was slurring his words.
Maeve was quiet. The lass usually rattled on incessantly, but Seamus had clearly told Maeve all about Cullen’s hasty marriage, for she shot Lowri smug looks from across the table, sizing her up. Cullen knew Maeve’s character. She would rejoice that someone was worse off than she.
‘Do you like the dress I gave Lowri?’ said Maeve to Cullen.
Lowri paused mid-chew. The dress was faded grey with a bit of lace around the bodice. It matched the dark shadows under her eyes and was no doubt one of Maeve’s least-wanted cast-offs, but it gave the lass a soft womanliness, and the pink in her cheeks brightened it.
‘Aye. She looks very well in it,’ he replied.
‘I agree,’ continued Maeve. ‘Your wife is a little too coarse to be called beautiful, but she may lay claim to being bonnie, and a certain kind of man would like her dark and savage looks, I suppose.’
Cullen bit down hard on his temper, but Lowri just ignored Maeve and carried on eating. Not getting the reaction she sought, Maeve turned to her husband. ‘Do you think Cullen’s wife is bonnie, Seamus?’
‘Aye. She is,’ he growled. ‘And if she’s savage, then she will suit Cullen well. Do you know, Lowri, that your husband is a bastard just like your brother? It seems the world is full of them.’ He glared at Maeve.
‘I’ve no interest in that,’ said Lowri, continuing to eat, but her blush deepened.
‘Why not, lass, when it means you and my cousin have something in common? And let me tell you, Griffin was not best pleased with Cullen when he came into this world. He wasn’t what was expected.’
‘Easy, Seamus,’ growled Cullen.
‘Cullen was passed around various houses when he was a young lad, after his mother died. Griffin wanted him gone, you see. I think he has always been a little frightened of his son, and with good reason, eh, Cullen?’
Cullen clenched his fists and glared at Seamus, who reddened and fell silent. Anger came off him in waves until the air grew thick with it.
Maeve did not seem to notice. ‘I do declare, your wife has quite the appetite,’ she said to Cullen with a grin.
‘We’ll have to ask Cullen about that,’ said Seamus. ‘But let us hope Lowri’s appetites are not as bad as yours, Maeve.’
Her grin faded at his implication. ‘What do you mean?’ she said.
‘You know full well what I mean,’ replied Seamus, glancing at her rounded belly.
Lowri banged down her spoon, making them all start. ‘Stop bullying her.’
‘I’ll do as I please in my own house, lass, and you’d best curb your tongue when you are sat at my table eating my food,’ growled Seamus.
Lowri shoved her plate across the table at him. ‘Take your damned food back then.’
Seamus sneered. ‘A spirited lass, you have there, Cullen. But you need to muzzle her before I deal with her.’
‘If you tried that, I’d have to knock you on your arse, now, wouldn’t I?’ said Cullen.
Seamus locked eyes with him. ‘As you like. But take my advice and curb her ways. If my wife spoke to me like that, I would take a hand to her.’
‘And do you take a hand to her?’ spat Lowri.
‘Now and then, but not in the way she wants,’ he said with a smirk at Maeve.
‘Oh, aye, he took my brother’s land and coin for the sake of the bastard in my belly easy enough, but he’ll not take me,’ cried Maeve.
‘Be quiet, woman.’
Lowri’s rebellion seemed to have emboldened Maeve, and she turned on Seamus. ‘My bairn is like a weed in a flowerbed that you want to tear out. I see you watching, waiting for my bairn to come. You will be on me then. I’ve no doubt.’
‘As is my right as a husband.’
‘And that is my lot as a wife. You will come to know this, Lowri. We are only useful for breeding, you see, not loving, not holding or wanting. And Seamus doesn’t need me anyway, for he has his whores he goes to.’
‘Aye, just as I have one at home waiting for me every night,’ said Seamus.
Cullen stood with a scrape of his chair. ‘That’s enough, Seamus. You are in your cups. Leave the lass alone.’
Seamus waved a hand. ‘Sit, cousin. Calm yourself. This is how Maeve and I get on together. And she is a whore, and was one long before some ingrate put that bairn in her belly. Aye, Maeve Glendenning had quite the reputation about the West March, which I knew nothing of when I agreed to wed her to spare her shame. But I’ve learnt it all since. So how am I to trust her now?’
‘How is your wife to trust you when you slander her before others? Come on, Seamus. Only a weak man bullies a woman,’ said Cullen.
‘Aye, he is but half a man,’ snapped Lowri.
Seamus banged the table hard with his palm, and Maeve squealed.
‘Half a man is it?’ he bellowed. ‘And what of you, Lowri Strachan? I want to hear about Cullen’s bride. He told me you live wild, like a man, running around the Marches as you please.’
Lowri shot him a glance. ‘Aye, I do live as I please. I have lived like a man, and I make no excuse for it. From when I was a bairn, I had to shift for myself. No one else was going to do it for me.’
‘Leave it, Lowri, you do not owe Seamus an explanation,’ said Cullen. Lowri showed her mettle by standing up to his cousin, but she did not know the man’s temper.
Seamus leant back in his chair. ‘I would like to hear what this hoyden has to say, cousin.’
‘And I will tell you,’ she said. Lowri wanted to shame Cullen, to let the world know what an unworthy bride he had.
Had he not shamed her before this dolt of a cousin, dragging her along to these awful people?
‘He needs to know that I am as unworthy and miserable a bride as she is,’ she said, pointing at Maeve.
‘Here is the truth. My father was like you, a bully, who beat me from my first breath until his last.’
‘Not well enough, for you are an insolent little bitch.’
‘I am a bitch. When he died, I danced on my father’s grave.
I hated him so much. But we were impoverished by his death, and every scrap of food I got, I had to fight for.
Gossip was spread about my mother, so she was judged, as you judge your wife, cruelly, unfairly.
That is why they labelled my brother a bastard.
I might be one too, for all I know, not that I care, for a bairn has no sway in how it comes into this world.
My mother died when I was coming into womanhood, and my brother looked out for me.
He is a good man, kind and true and brave, ten times the man you will ever be. ’
‘He was deficient in his duty if he let you run wild and shame yourself,’ sneered Seamus.
‘Oh, no. He sent me to a convent to mend my ways, but I ran away, time and again. I would not be told what to do, you see. I stole cattle and sheep and sold them to fill his pockets so that he could become Laird Strachan. Look at him now, much better off than you Macaulays. I rode around with rough lads, and I never let any of them near me, because I was not that much of a fool. And if anyone got in my way, I pushed them aside. If voicing my opinions to arrogant men like you is insolent, then aye, I am insolent, and proud of it.’
‘Shut your mouth, or I will shut it for you,’ hissed Seamus, standing up.
Lowri would not be silent. ‘And as for marrying a Macaulay. I was forced into it.’
‘Aye, because you were stealing from us.’
‘As you have often stolen from us. What’s the difference?’
Seamus swayed on his feet and said, ‘My uncle should have hung you from the nearest tree for your thievery.’
Cullen’s simmering temper finally boiled over. He launched himself at Seamus and took hold of his shirt in his fist. ‘Enough. Insult my wife again, and I will beat you to a pulp.’
Lowri realised that she had gone too far, and now Cullen had a towering rage on him. ‘Leave it, Cullen,’ she cried.
Seamus glanced at her, then smirked at Cullen. ‘Griffin should have stretched her neck and thrown her on the midden. I don’t know how you can bear to put your cock in her filthy Strachan body.’
With a howl of rage, Cullen hurled Seamus over the table to land with a thud at Maeve’s feet. Drunk he may be, but Seamus’ blood was up, and he didn’t seem to feel it. He leapt at Cullen, and they ended up rolling on the floor, throwing punches.
‘What are we to do?’ shouted Lowri.
‘I don’t know. They do this all the time,’ cried Maeve.
Lowri grabbed a jug of ale and tipped it over the two men. With much spluttering and coughing, they both got to their feet.
Seamus wiped ale and hair out of his eyes. ‘This is not done,’ he growled at Cullen.
‘It is. We are leaving in the morning.’
‘You can leave now. Take your whore and go bed down with her in the stables.’
‘Are you going to make me?’ snarled Cullen.
Seamus glowered at Lowri. ‘This bitch is nought but trouble. I don’t want either of you here come dawn.’
He stormed out, with Maeve trying to placate him.
He threw her hands off and rushed out of the front door, leaving them all standing in shocked silence.
Maeve came back and sniffed as she began to pick up broken crockery off the floor.
Lowri went to help her. They both kept wary eyes on Cullen, who just stood, chest heaving and fists clenched.
A short while later, hooves sounded in the yard, fading away.
‘Maeve, where has Seamus gone?’ said Cullen.