Chapter Seventeen
Lowri stared up at the rare bright sky, trying to find joy in it.
Since coming to Ireland, it had rained relentlessly, the ground a constant quagmire of mud, sucking at her boots and skirts.
But now that spring was peaking its head out, Ireland was a green and budding delight swathed in sunshine.
If only she were not a prisoner, or as good as.
She skipped across the stepping stones spanning the brook to Connie and Gormal’s cottage, which was a ramshackle place with rotting thatch, small and rough.
Three weeks ago, they were strangers, but the couple were simple, friendly people, and because they held Cullen in high esteem, they had welcomed her.
They were poor as dirt, sliding into middle age, and poverty had withered them beyond their years.
They scraped a living by farming a small plot of land with a few crops and livestock.
The cow lowed a greeting as Lowri approached, and the door was open, but she announced herself with a tap.
‘Is that you, lass? Come on in. I’ve just baked a loaf and kneading another. There’s butter.’
Lowri was pathetically grateful for Connie’s smile of greeting. She desperately needed companionship and had warmed to the woman, who had a kind and motherly way about her. ‘I brought tea,’ she said.
‘Ah, that is kindly of you. Such a luxury.’
‘Tis Cullen’s gift, not mine. God knows where he gets it.’
‘Best not to ask, but it is nice of you to bring it. Put the kettle to the fire, and we’ll take a cup.’
They talked for a while about the weather turning and other inconsequential things.
Their friendship was new and hesitant, on Lowri’s part.
Cullen had told Lowri that all he had said to Connie was that they had married under his father’s orders to strengthen the clan, and that was that.
She was not sure whether to trust in his telling of it, for Connie would look at her with pity and puzzlement now and again.
Connie was giving her one of those looks now. Then Gormal came in, stooping as he walked in his usual way, his back all but broken from the hard labour of squeezing a crop from his fields. He took a slice of warm bread oozing with yellow butter, grunted a smile at Lowri and walked back out.
‘Your man does not say much,’ said Lowri, grabbing a slice for herself.
‘No, and it’s a good thing. I like a man who knows when to shut up. As far as I’m concerned, a man’s mouth has better uses than talking, as no sense comes out of it. Cullen is like that, keeps his feelings to himself. And I’m sure he uses his mouth for better things.’
‘Well, it certainly is not used for talking. He is barely here, and when he is, we mostly sit in silence.’
‘That’s just his way. He doesn’t rattle on like some folk. You will get used to it.’ Connie scanned her face. ‘There’s dark rings beneath those eyes. Has Cullen been keeping you up nights?’
Lowri squirmed. ‘No. But I have a pain in my belly, and that usually means my courses are about to come.’
‘I’ve some dried yarrow to soothe the pains. We’ll pop it in the tea.’ Connie bustled about trying to find the herb. ‘That man should take better care of you,’ she muttered.
‘He is not here to take care of me. He has sloped off again and will not tell me where, for Cullen likes his secrets.’
‘As do all men, and it’s best you don’t know all of Cullen’s secrets.’
‘The smuggling, you mean. I know about that. Connie, I think he has a woman somewhere, while I am left here alone to do all the chores. He climbs into our bed, reeking of ale and tobacco. I should banish him from it.’
Connie raised her eyebrows. ‘Have it your own way. But the nights will be long and lonely with just the howling wind for company, and there’s not much else to do around Kildara besides enjoying your man and making bairns.’
The very thought of making bairns with Cullen made Lowri shudder inside, yet sent a strange warmth spreading through her belly.
Once she had given Cullen permission to take her, he could not keep his hands off her.
The bed head creaked every night, and every night Lowri would stare at the beams in the ceiling, taking her mind far away as Cullen did his work with a sombre face, gently but hurriedly.
A few times, he had thrown up her skirts in the stable or the fields and lay with her.
While he was never nasty or hurt her, Lowri often felt he both wanted her and hated her.
Cullen had a dirty way of speaking when his blood was up, which shocked and aroused her.
Yet he took her in an almost chaste way, never fully undressing her nor touching her beyond the essentials to get the chore done.
He did not kiss her, and he seemed to prefer darkness.
And sometimes, the worst times, she felt pleasure from his touch, building to a peak.
She had to bite her lip hard enough to draw blood to stop from crying out.
Of course, she never told him any of that, and she could barely admit the truth to herself- that she had developed a taste for lovemaking, even if it was with hateful Cullen Macaulay.
Connie’s voice intruded. ‘Lowri, lass. You were far away then. I asked if it pains you that you cannot catch a bairn.’
‘Forgive me.’ Lowri looked down at her bread, trying to avoid Connie’s eye. ‘It’s true, I dearly want a bairn, but it is…well…it is not always easy between us. And Cullen is gone a lot, and when he is here, I’m not sure that I want to lie with him when he is so indifferent to me.’
‘He’s no better nor worse than most men, and I have told you, I’ll not hear a word against Cullen. He has a little of the villain in him, but his word is good to those he cares about.’
‘He does not care about me.’
Connie gave her a hard look. ‘Well, I cannot speak for his heart, but he is loyal to his friends, is what I mean.’
Homesickness made Lowri blurt out, ‘Marriage is not easy. I am not used to serving a man, and I rail against it. And I am sharing the bed of a stranger. I don’t know much about Cullen at all.’
‘Most brides do not know their husbands much before the wedding night. Some marry for safety, or money or protection. Some marry on their father’s order, their brother’s.
Women get very little choice in life. You should thank God you got a man who does not beat you and force himself on you every night. ’
‘But surely, we can hope for more than that?’
‘Lowri, you are no soft lass to be bullied by a man. I can tell just by looking at you. Stick up for yourself. And if your husband is a stranger, then get to know him before you judge him. And don’t forget, Cullen knows nothing of you, save that you are bonnie and hard to please, nor will he, unless you open your heart, lass. ’
‘Hard to please? What has he said?’
‘Nothing.’
Connie was fiercely loyal to Cullen, so Lowri did not press her. ‘Forgive me. I am in an ill temper with the world.’
‘Ah, I’m sorry to hear that, lass. ‘Tis disappointing when blood comes instead of a bairn. There’s some say your womb has to quicken to catch a bairn. If you’re not enjoying your husband, that might be the cause, either that, or you are barren, like me.’
‘Forgive me, Connie. I did not mean…’
‘Ah, do not fash. I have grown used to it, and Gormal might not look much, but I still enjoy trying with him,’ she said with a smile.
Lowri’s bad mood deepened. She’d been hurtful to kind-hearted Connie, and if she was actually barren, how could she ever free her friends?
Connie’s expression softened from exasperation to concern. ‘Will you take some advice, lass? Go to the faerie stone on the coastal path, down at Midge Beach. ‘Tis a lump of stone with carvings in it - old pagan symbols. Say a prayer on a full moon, and your womb will quicken, or so folks say.’
Lowri’s guts twisted in pain, and after a while, she said, ‘I am not good company today, Connie. I think I will take a walk and find that stone.’
Once she had taken her leave, Lowri followed the path along the hedgerows and across the fields to the sea.
She found the stone, which had a little hollow carved into it.
Someone had left flowers there. Was it an offering to the gods of fertility, a pagan rite carried out by some desperate woman?
The flowers had long since dried, and when Lowri tried to pick them up, they turned to dust under her fingertips and blew away in the wind.
Homesickness overwhelmed her as she looked across the bright water towards Scotland.
It was all hopeless, this arrangement with Cullen, doomed to crash on the rocks of their mutual distrust. Yet she had to own that his home was beautiful, the black cliffs stark against the blue of the ocean.
And everything was bursting with new life.
In the distance were seals, hauled up on sandbanks, their pups vivid against the dark rocks in their white coats.
Lowri sat amid swathes of wildflowers, watching lapwings fluttering by as they gathered insects for their chicks.
Time passed her by as she sat, frozen, while the sea breeze plucked at her hair.
Her mind wandered back to Scotland and the life she had sacrificed for the sake of pride - a life of freedom she had never fully appreciated.
Lowri glanced along the path and scrambled to her feet.
A man was walking towards her, an ominous black silhouette against the sky.
He quickened his pace when she took to her feet.
He was big, dark, and he was too close for her to outrun him.
Lowri cursed her lack of vigilance and put her hand in her pocket, sliding her fingers around the grip of the little pistol Cullen had given her.
‘What providence!’ the man declared, sweeping into a low bow with a flourish. ‘I decided to take a walk on this rare day and then, to stumble across such beauty. Might a humble soul beg your name?’
There was nothing humble about him.
‘No, he may not,’ she replied.