Chapter Fifteen
With Ailsa curled up next to him, Rory could want for nothing more. Everything about this moment, about this woman, was right. As for the rest, his family be damned—by her side was where he needed to be.
‘Are your feet cold?’ he asked, aware that she kept sliding one foot down his leg and then back up again. Every time, the movement slightly dislodged her from his hold so he curled her tighter into him.
A muted laugh. ‘I was wondering if our feet could touch like this. You’ve a considerable size to you if you hadn’t noticed.’
He’d wondered when his size would bother her. It hadn’t taken long. Shifting, he tried to give her room so she could extricate herself. In response, Ailsa dug her nails into his arm and curled closer.
‘You don’t like it that you’re taller than most?’ she asked.
He couldn’t get much past his observational wife. ‘It is something I have been both pleased and ungrateful for my entire life.’
‘Like the colour of my hair.’
He twirled a lock between his fingers. ‘Never disparage your hair.’
‘So stop leaning against walls to make yourself look smaller.’
It was his turn to laugh. ‘That’s not why I do that.’
‘Then why?’
‘It’s because none of the furniture at home fitted me.’
She gave a slight hum before answering. ‘Hamish’s furniture fits you.’
‘Hamish’s furniture? Maybe I should have measurements done for Lochmore’s castle.’
‘I never thought of that,’ she said. ‘Where we would live.’
Rory loosened his hold enough to look at her. ‘After everything, did you think we would live here?’
‘I suppose with Hamish here, you wouldn’t want to stay.’
‘It’s not Hamish. Your Chief will soon die, but your father is well and has many years left. It is right that he rules and takes proper control of his clan.’
‘With fewer Lochmores to poison,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if Hannah knows enough.’
Her clan would be without a healer. That was something he had not thought of, but it was the right decision to return to Lochmore land. ‘You can travel back and forth, it is not very far. Your family is here and they will want to see you.’
Ailsa pressed her palms to his chest to look down at him. What she could see of him in the darkness, he didn’t know. Yet she looked at him for so long, he almost wanted to joke like Paiden, but her expression was serious.
‘While you remain on Lochmore land?’ she finally said.
There was no satisfactory answer to that. It would cause more problems for her clan if he remained on McCrieff land. His own personal reasons why he didn’t want to return to Lochmore were inconsequential.
At his silence, Ailsa laid down again. ‘You seem...reluctant to return home. What was it about the box, Rory?’
Blunt tongue and too observant despite the darkness. ‘We can think more on where we live. And do not worry about the box, the contents are yours.’
‘That is for the better, I already have plans to carve out the stones and melt the silver so that I could share it with my sisters.’ She patted him. ‘Your mother won’t care, would she? Maybe we should go to Lochmore Castle to ask her.’
‘Ailsa,’ he growled.
There was frustration, teasing and a warning in that sound that he could not suppress. He could tell, immediately, Ailsa took all those emotions as truth. ‘Am I the reason you do not want to return home?’
He didn’t want to return to Lochmore Castle because he didn’t believe he belonged there, not her. Never her, yet his family had not given him the brooches. They did not acknowledge his marriage. They did not acknowledge her. ‘Lochmore clan will adore you despite your past as a McCrieff.’
‘My past,’ she scoffed.
So much separated their families. So much might separate their future. It was a great weight that had been placed on their shoulders. ‘Will the past...will a story always separate our clans despite what we do?’
She sighed and he felt her warm breath against his chest. ‘Despite how many babies we have, it seems one McCrieff babe may always haunt our lands.’
‘McCrieff babe?’
‘The baby from the Great Feud.’
Surely she couldn’t believe the baby born seventy years ago was a McCrieff.
Rory shifted to get a better view of her, but Ailsa held firm to him and all he could see in the dark were the tendrils of her hair against his chest and her hand, gently roughened from years of tending gardens, laid flat against his stomach.
Though he dearly wanted to see her expression, he didn’t dare dislodge himself from her hold.
‘We are talking of the Great Feud?’ He kept his voice light.
‘Unless you know another one?’
This couldn’t be. Ailsa was so straightforward. Direct. She didn’t lie ever and she didn’t tolerate any falsehoods either. So for her to believe the baby to be a McCrieff and not a Lochmore was something she thought was the truth.
‘You believe the baby to be McCrieff’s versus Lochmore’s? Tell me.’
She glanced up at him, her eyes reflecting amusement and confusion. ‘That’s how the story was told to me. I believe it to be true.’
It never dawned on him that the story could be different. But why? It was na?ve to think otherwise. ‘I want to hear it as you were told.’
‘You don’t sound as if you do.’
‘You’ve surprised me is all. Again.’
She patted his chest and settled her head down. ‘Well, then. The McCrieff Chief loved her. Wanted to marry her. I think she was scared and went back to her clan and married Lochmore’s Chief.’
Rory placed his hand on hers. ‘So the baby—?’
‘Was certainly McCrieff’s. Why else would he have flown to Lochmore land and challenged him when they both died?’
‘McCrieff challenged Lochmore because he was spurned. Because of his pride. Because the woman he cast aside found happiness and he couldn’t tolerate it.’
Ailsa propped herself up to look at him. ‘That woman broke his heart. He let her go because he loved her, but that babe was his. He knew it as sure as anything.’
‘Never.’
‘Thus, the McCrieff–Lochmore Great Feud continues between us. Except...’ Ailsa started. ‘We could end it. Between us.’
Rory couldn’t see how it was possible. ‘Once Hamish dies, Frederick will rule.’
‘Yes, but as much as I don’t want to talk of it, once his rule is done, Frederick will have free rein. I think he was waiting for you. I think that’s why he invited you here.’
‘He invited me?’ Rory asked. ‘He almost started a war by ignoring a king’s decree and a chief’s missive.’
‘Possibly,’ she said. ‘But you have to admit, it was rather clever.’
‘Your father certainly saved face by marrying you to me to justify the giving of such precious lands,’ Rory said.
‘Do you mean that?’
Old beliefs didn’t just disappear. Especially not when motivations such as greed, power, control were at stake. ‘It all comes back to the land that the King granted to Lochmores.’
‘Do you want war?’
‘Never, but we can’t stop bloodshed even with Lochmores controlling the land. Why is the land important for you?’
‘Watercress. Mint. Thyme. The water’s important. McCrieff healers have been planting there for centuries.’
‘So not land, but herbs for healing. That’s not an argument I’m going to make before the Lochmore council or my father.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’ll be labelled a fool.’
She raised her hand as if to slap him and he grabbed it. ‘Won’t do much damage without your shears.’
‘It’ll still sting.’
Chuckling, he studied their hands. Like this, their differences were acute, but still she curled her hand until it held his. He welcomed that warmth, but not for the first time Ailsa’s brow was furrowed, her thoughts elsewhere. ‘What is it?’
‘Will we still be able to use the land?’ she asked.
‘There is no denying the King’s decree. Ultimately, my father is Chief.
He will listen to opinions, but in the end he will decide.
I’m married to you, however, and, despite rumour, he is a fair man.
But I don’t have a say in the matter for your water basil, dear wife.
Despite our marriage, we are still Lochmores and McCrieffs. ’
‘Hmmm,’ Ailsa said.
Rory waited for her to continue. He knew her well enough to know she had more on her mind. He didn’t have long to wait.
‘Rory, do you ever...do you ever wonder if you were named because of the Great Feud?’
Strange conversation. ‘I know I was... You looked shocked.’
‘I am. I didn’t think the Lochmores would ever use that name. Why would you be named after McCrieff’s baby who died?’
If she said she could heal the dead, he could not be more shocked.
Keeping their hands linked, he sat in the bed, leaning against the back frame.
‘It’s McCrieffs who believe the baby was a McCrieff’s.
For Lochmores, that baby had no name. It died along with its mother.
Thereby, I was named after the nephew who attempted to stop the fighting. ’
Ailsa adjusted herself around him, but she, too, kept their hands linked. ‘More differences. Tell me the story as you know it.’
‘It’s a tragedy, Ailsa. I’d rather not talk of tragedies right now.’
‘A tragedy?’
‘The Lochmore lass rejected the McCrieff Chief, and married Lochmore’s.
In childbirth, she and the Lochmore baby died.
When the McCrieff heard of her death, he stormed our castle.
He did it out of pride for being spurned.
At sword point he threatened our Chief. Thinking he could protect him, Lochmore’s nephew, Rory, interceded and died by the McCrieff’s hand.
McCrieffs yanked their Chief away. As for my clan, the Lochmores were already mourning and now there was another death. ’
‘The story from our side was the mother was pregnant with McCrieffs’ babe and died in childbirth, but not before she named her son Rory.’
‘More differences between Lochmores and McCrieffs,’ he said.
‘It appears so.’
Ailsa gripped his hand. ‘It is tragic the nephew’s death escalated the strained relations even though McCrieff killing him was an accident.’
‘Not if you look at the fact McCrieffs’ Chief shouldn’t have been there at all. If he hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have killed the Lochmore nephew named Rory.’
Ailsa wasn’t silent at his words, instead she did that low humming sound she made when she was deep in thought.
He gave that to her. There was much to think about. From Paiden’s recovery and Hamish not waking. His family’s brooches, his obvious disappointment, her comforting him after everything. Him unable to express what she was beginning to mean to him.
To this... More revelations.
‘Rory, do Lochmores have written records?’ she asked.
It had never occurred to him to search records before because the Great Feud was so well known. ‘We have them, but... Was that what you were doing in that room, searching records about the feud?’
A hesitation before she answered. ‘Mostly I was there to search for remedies.’
She was a good wife and far more intelligent than him. Brave, too. To set herself in amid all the conflict to try to heal the present and the past.
His family might not acknowledge his marriage or his wife, but he refused to let this continue. She was a healer. If she could be so brave, so could he. ‘Ailsa, I want you to meet my family.’