Chapter 20
Magnus suppressed a yawn.
Mortimer and one of the more senior members of the council were debating a minor land dispute between two families.
They had already dissected Magnus’s choice of bride, congratulated him on the wedding, and expressed their satisfaction that Lord Burton had left the castle, but inexplicably, they were still talking.
Magnus longed for a whittling knife and a branch to carve. It might distract him from his desire to flip the table on its end and tell them all to leave.
Perhaps a swim would shake the feeling of melancholy that had settled in his chest.
He had a new wife, whom he had deliberately agreed to keep at arm’s length to ensure she was happy, yet now he was desperate to see her.
They had only been apart for less than an hour, and he already wished to know her opinion on the council meeting and bemoan the constant prattling of the men around the table.
As if his mind had conjured her against his will, the somber murmuring of the men in the room was interrupted as the doors opened and Leah stepped into the hall.
Once again, she seemed surprised that Magnus was in a meeting. However, he was gratified to see that her presence had the desired effect.
Slowly, the men began to clear away their papers, and Mortimer gave her another warm smile that Magnus wanted to wipe off his face. He felt even angrier when she returned it, fixing his gaze on Mortimer.
Objectively, Mortimer was a handsome man, his blonde hair swept back from his face, clean-shaven and tall enough. Magnus frowned at him, and Mortimer paused tucking away his papers as he caught him staring and raised his eyebrows at him.
“Is everything alright, M’Laird?” he asked. “Perhaps ye have another matter of business ye needed to discuss?”
“Nay!” Magnus replied hurriedly, standing up and ushering them all out of the room. “I shall speak to me bride.”
Leah looked over at him, her hand coming up to push her unruly hair from her face. “I am sorry,” she mumbled, looking over at the men as they filed out. “I didn’t mean to interrupt the meeting.”
Magnus waved a hand at her. “It is a blessin’,” he said solemnly as the last of the men filed out and they were finally alone.
“I have been meetin’ with your housekeeper,” she admitted, brandishing another piece of paper before her. He wondered if she ever spoke to anyone without taking notes. “She has been most helpful but has explained to me that you tend not to entertain much.”
Magnus grunted and gave her a meaningful look. “And that’s the way things shall stay.”
“You can’t expect me never to see my friends. Katie must visit, as must Daphne, Oscar, and Evander. They should be able to come and see us.”
“Us? That can be reserved for yer castle, lass. This one doesnae receive visitors.”
Leah’s brow furrowed at his words, and she lowered the paper in her hand to her side, looking disappointed.
Magnus went over to the fireplace and poked at the logs, suddenly feeling annoyed and tired.
It was not entirely down to his own choosing that the castle received no visitors, after all.
After Elizabeth’s death, they had come under attack from Gibson’s men, and Magnus had been embroiled in years of war.
He had started to believe that war and the heat of battle was all he was good for. He certainly hadn’t had any time to make friends.
He had no close acquaintances outside of the castle walls, and, until now, he had been quite content with that.
His gaze flicked to Leah, who was watching him with a frown. She would not be his friend either; she would be his estranged wife. After a few weeks had passed, he would likely see her in the distance, walking in her castle, befriending the otters and the deer, having quite forgotten about him.
“What is wrong?” Leah asked, approaching him carefully as he stabbed at a log, showering the grate with sparking embers.
“Nothin’, lass. Leave me be,” he muttered.
“I have spoken to the cook about some dishes that don’t contain meat,” Leah continued, ignoring his sour mood and looking quite pleased with herself. “She was happy to be asked to do something a little different.”
He scoffed. “I’m sure she is. Wait until the guards arenae eatin’ their usual rations. Ye’ll have a mutiny on yer hands.”
“Not if it is delicious. I won’t,” Leah said confidently. “Has she been your cook for long?”
“Aye. Since I returned from battle.”
“She seems very good.”
“She is.”
“What battle were you fighting?” she asked, producing a quill and inkpot from nowhere and sitting down at the table, looking up at him expectantly.
Magnus almost laughed. He had never had anyone look at him like that, waiting for him to tell them tales of his exploits. In fact, he rarely spoke of the battles he had fought at all. He much preferred to drive them from his mind altogether and forget about them.
Her gaze never faltered, and for reasons he couldn’t quite explain, he felt a swell of pride.
Suddenly, the thought of sitting by the fire in this quiet room, talking to his wife about his life, seemed like the best use of his time that he could imagine.
He felt the same melancholy settle over him again as he watched her tuck that beautiful hair behind her ear and write something at the top of the page. She was so eager, so unlike him, that he was almost sorry she would be gone within a few weeks.
He dismissed the thought. It was safer for all concerned if she were gone from his side. He never wanted to see her come to harm.
“So, what was the battle called?” she asked.
“Ye dinnae call battles anythin’,” he said, shaking his head. “Nae unless ye are writin’ a history book and there is a King amongst the soldiers. It was a fight. We won.”
She frowned at him. “And is that how you got your scar?”
Magnus leaned back in his chair, uncomfortable with the reference to his deformity. He tried his best, since it happened, not to look in a mirror. He did not like the thought that Leah had to stare at his haggard face every day.
“Nay,” he said softly. “That was as Gibson said. We fought after Elizabeth’s death.”
He had never spoken of that dark time to anyone. For a long while, they sat in silence, Leah waiting patiently for him to speak as he stared at the leaping flames in the hearth, feeling a strange sense of calm envelop him in her presence.
As he sat quietly, with her soft gaze upon him, he found his tongue loosening for the first time, the words tumbling forth unbidden, as though her very presence allowed him to finally unburden himself.
“It was night,” he began softly, his hand coming to the rest on the handle of his dirk as he recalled that day. “She hadnae been dead more than a few hours, but I kenned he was comin’. Nothin’ to prevent it after the shock of such a tragedy.”
He glanced at Leah, seeing the little crease between her eyebrows. In a perverse way, he liked that she did not enjoy him speaking of Elizabeth. It was a strange thing to find pleasure in, but it gave him hope that their marriage was not as clinical as it seemed.
“Go on,” she urged quietly.
“It was a coward’s trick. I dinnae think he intended it to be, but Gibson was lookin’ for me in the castle. He’d come unannounced, sneakin’ in to take me by surprise.”
He sighed. “I was maudlin, drinkin’, nae in a fit state to fight when he found me.
We brawled at first—he was almost mad with grief, and I couldnae bear to harm him.
” He shook his head. “I have told ye I didnae love Elizabeth, but I was grievin’.
I never wanted anythin’ bad to happen to her, whatever Gibson may have said. ”
He rubbed a hand over his face, trying his best to will away the sadness that hit him squarely in the chest.
“He came at me with a knife. I dinnae think he meant to kill me—perhaps he did. He was angrier than I’ve ever seen him.
He slashed at me face and would have sunk his knife into me neck, but Kenneth found us.
Must have heard the fight from his rooms, came in, dragged Gibson off me, and almost got himself killed in the process. ”
Magnus sighed. “Gibson was broken. I’ve never seen a faither like that.
” He glanced at Leah. “He was devastated. It was the only reason I spared his life. The blade had nicked the corner of me eye. It was bleedin’ badly, and Betty knew, as soon as I came to her, that I would lose it. There was nothing she could do.”
His fingers came up absently, brushing against the eyepatch, hating the way he looked now because of the choices he had made in his life. For a long time, he had told himself he deserved it, but these days he was not so sure of that.
“That was five years ago,” he continued.
“We had the odd disagreement over the followin’ few years, but eventually, he lost interest or got tired of it.
Who kens? He hasnae troubled me since. But he must have heard of our weddin’ and traveled all night to stop it.
He’ll never forgive me for what happened to her. ”
“But he has no proof that it was you. In fact, he must know now that it wasn’t you.”
Magnus shook his head. “He may be less inclined to blame me now that he kens Elizabeth was with child, but he still blames me. I should have protected her, that’s what a husband’s duty is, but she was alone and defenseless.”
When he finally looked across at her, he was astonished to see that she had scrawled pages of notes. More words than he could possibly have said. In fact, Magnus could not remember having talked for so long with anyone in years.
He looked up at her and found her sharp features scrunched up in concentration. Black ink covered her thumb and forefinger as she wrote feverishly across the page.
“It cannae be that much work, lass,” he said, squinting at the neat loops of her handwriting. “I havenae barely said a thing.”
He peered at the paper but had no hope of reading it upside down.
“I am not just writing about the fight,” she replied, distracted.
“Well, what then?” he asked, perturbed by the amount she was writing.
She looked up at him, her gaze respectful and solemn. “I am writing about your grief and his. You cannot be the greatest laird in the Highlands if you do not feel anything. So I will write a little about Elizabeth if you will allow me to. I think she was a good influence on you.”
Magnus stared at her, at a loss for what to say. “Ye didnae ken her,” he pointed out as a lump formed in his throat.
“I do not need to have known her—I can hear your regard for her in your voice.” Leah raised a hand as he was about to protest. “It is a good thing, Magnus. I confess I did not like the thought of her memory when I first arrived, and I like it even less as your wife, but she was a person who you cared for, and that should not be erased from history.” She stood up, giving him a smile.
“I think I have enough to work with. I must say, a non-fiction story has been a lovely break from mermaids and dragons.”
“Ye said that was in the stories ye gave to yer faither, for Timothy,” he said. “Have you written him many stories?”
“Oh, dozens. He has a very active imagination and loves anything with a monster in it. I’ve been writing him stories since I was little. My father used to confiscate my inkpot to punish me—he realized it was the easiest way to get me to behave.”
The words were said lightly, but as she spoke, her eyes dimmed.
Magnus rose, muttering a curse. “He kens how to make the world do as he pleases.”
“Mmm,” Leah murmured. “He is a man, after all.”
Magnus could not help laughing at that. “Aye. Ye have told me before.”
Leah grinned up at him, her whole face lighting up in that way of hers, and Magnus smiled back.
“Come, lass,” he said decisively. “I have somethin’ I wish to show ye.”