Chapter 22
The week after, all Ceana felt was that happiness. As she slowly recovered and gained back her strength, a part of her couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome. The children checking in on her continuously and Muriel making certain she rested properly helped tremendously.
One week later, she turned a square of boiled linen until the repaired edge lay flat, then folded it into the healer’s bundle beside Muriel’s elbow.
The bruises on her arms had faded to yellow at the edges.
A layer of new skin covered the scrape across her palm, and a dull ache remained in her wrist whenever she twisted it.
She flexed her hand before lifting another cloth from the basket.
Muriel glanced at the movement as she stripped dried yarrow leaves from their stems. “That is the last bundle ye fold today.”
Ceana sighed. “Ye said that three bundles ago.”
“And ye have ignored me three times.” Muriel swept the leaves into a shallow wooden bowl. “I am beginnin’ to understand how Oscar feels.”
Within the week, Muriel had made the surgery her own, and Ceana was all the happier for it. She inspected the washed linen for thinning while Muriel replenished the herbs spent after the battle.
“Oscar gives orders as if God appointed him to improve the rest of us,” Ceana said. “Ye give orders because ye have seen what happens when people ignore them. There is a difference.”
“The distinction isnae quite as clear as ye think, Ceana.” Muriel tied the neck of a linen pouch. “Did yer sister ignore advice as readily as ye do?”
Ceana smiled. “Daphne listened with great care. She simply did whatever she pleased afterward.”
“Then ye must miss her.”
The cloth under her hand needed no further inspection. She folded it once. “Every day. Her letter helped. She is safe, and she is thrivin’.”
Muriel waited, her fingers resting on the cord around the pouch.
“She never asked me to take her place at the festival,” Ceana continued. “I decided that. I thought me own future held little worth beside what our faither would lose if she ran.”
Muriel tightened the cord around the pouch. “Ye thought yer family would be safe if ye took her place.”
“Aye.”
“Daphne disagreed?”
“Oh well, she couldnae if she tried.” Ceana set the linen atop the finished bundle. “But I ken she wouldnae have let me do that if she was here.”
Muriel’s mouth curved as she returned to the yarrow. “She sounds like a Tulloch.”
“She sounds like our maither when she is angry. I havenae told her that, though.”
They worked for several minutes. Dry stems cracked beneath Muriel’s fingers, while sunlight streaming through the narrow window showed every loose thread in the linen.
Muriel nudged a new pile toward Ceana, then caught it back before Ceana could reach for it. “Ye have told me how Daphne fares. In fact, ye have told me almost everythin’. Ye ken what I have yet to hear from ye?”
Ceana smirked. “What?”
Muriel cocked her head. “Anythin’ about ye. Ye have avoided tellin’ me how ye are farin’ with me braither.”
“I am sittin’ in yer surgery, doin’ work ye told me to leave alone. That should answer ye.”
“All it answers is the state of yer stubbornness. I asked about yer marriage.”
Ceana’s neck grew warm beneath her collar. Muriel watched her with such patience that Ceana knew she could wait all afternoon.
“Marriage is… better than I expected,” she admitted.
Muriel nodded. “Wow, such passion. I am certain Oscar will be overcome.”
Ceana flicked a loose thread at her. Muriel caught it against her apron.
“I like wakin’ beside him,” she said. “The children come in before we have risen and speak to us as if they have always seen us together. He listens to Tommy’s long explanations, and Paisley asks his opinion after she has made her decision.
” She ran her thumb along a fold in the linen.
“At night, I listen to his breathin’. I didnae ken how much I would depend on that sound. ”
Muriel studied her face. “So he is happy, then.”
“He is… restrained.”
“Oh well, that has always been his identity. Oscar has been restrained since birth. Ye could tell me that he frowned at the midwife, and I would believe ye.”
Ceana laughed, then pressed a hand to her side until the lingering tenderness beneath her ribs subsided. “I like to think his present restraint is more troublesome.”
Muriel’s eyebrows rose. “Ah.”
“Daenae look so pleased. Ye daenae have to share a bed with him.”
“Oh well, I have only been here a week, and I can tell he is much calmer with ye around.” Muriel picked up another yarrow stem. “He may become insufferably proud when ye give him another bairn though, so if I were ye, I wouldnae look forward to that.”
Ceana’s hand stilled on the cloth. “Oscar doesnae intend to have more children.”
The stem broke between Muriel’s fingers. “What?” She blinked. “He told ye that?”
Ceana nodded. “Aye. Before we wed, and again on our weddin’ night. He has kept to it since.”
Muriel looked toward the door, as though her brother might be standing beyond it with an explanation. “So what in God’s name do the two of ye do in the same bed every night?”
Ceana held her solemn expression for as long as she could. “We sleep. And suffer.”
Muriel laughed first, and Ceana joined her, lowering her forehead to her forearm when her ribs began to ache. Once she could breathe comfortably, she raised her head and found Muriel wiping moisture from beneath one eye.
“I suppose he is much more restrained than when he was young,” Ceana added. “After the bath the other day, all he did was lie beside me.”
Muriel covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking.
“I am his wife,” Ceana continued. “I want him, and he wants me. Every night he holds himself away until sleep takes him. Then he reaches for me. By mornin’, his restraint has returned.”
Muriel lowered her hand. “When we were children, I used to climb the orchard wall after he forbade it. Once, he saw me at the top and went so quiet that I climbed down simply to make him speak. He didnae scold me until both me feet touched the ground.”
Ceana pictured Oscar beside her in the dark, his body tense and his answers reduced to a few rough words. “Fear makes him quiet.”
“It always has.”
At that moment, a loud bang sounded in the passage. Ceana pushed back from the table, while Muriel reached for the small knife beside the herbs. The bang came again, like wood striking stone.
Muriel raised one finger and crossed to the door. Ceana followed, and a gust of wind moved through the narrow passage when Muriel opened the door. When they saw no one, Muriel slowly lowered the knife. Ceana held the shutter while Muriel fitted its hook into an unbroken eye.
“What was that?” Ceana asked.
“Probably the wind,” Muriel responded, brushing rust from her fingertips. “I suppose the rainy season is drawin’ near.”
Soon enough, they were back in the surgery, and Ceana reclaimed her seat among the linen bundles.
“I spent years expectin’ an empty bed for the rest of me life,” she said.
“I could picture it without fear.” Muriel took the chair across from her as she pressed her nearly healed palm to the linen.
“Marriage taught me to listen for Oscar. I wake up when he turns away from me. If he chose another chamber, I would lie awake listenin’ for footsteps that never came. ”
Muriel reached across the table and covered Ceana’s hand with her own. “Then tell him. He may think stayin’ away is another way to keep ye safe.”
“Oh, he kens,” Ceana responded, looking up at the ceiling.
“Maybe he doesnae,” Muriel whispered. “Men can be incredibly clueless.”
“Trust me,” Ceana sighed, looking back at her. “He kens.”
Oscar heard the maids before he turned into the upper passage.
“The fine linen would make sweet cradle cloths,” one said. “If Her Ladyship gives the Laird another bairn, Mairi will have us sewin’ until the end of the season.”
“I would sew gladly. The nursery has been quiet for too long.”
They came around the corner carrying a basket between them and stopped at the sight of him. Their hopeful smiles vanished as both curtsied so quickly that the folded linen slid sideways.
“Me Laird,” they murmured.
Oscar let them pass, and soon enough, their whispers resumed near the stairs.
Suddenly, a small, broken breath came from the window recess behind him. He turned and found part of his daughter’s gown caught in one of the closet doors.
“Paisley?”
The closet door shifted, and she came out with her chin raised and one sleeve pressed beneath her red-rimmed eyes.
“Is everythin’ all right?”
“Aye, I caught dust in me eyes.”
Oscar looked toward the shuttered window. “Aye.”
Her mouth tightened, and she turned her face toward the glass.
He sat at the far end of the window seat, and she remained standing until her jaw trembled. She plopped down beside him, keeping a handsbreadth between them.
He waited.
She picked at a loose thread on her cuff. “I ken I am twelve.”
“Aye.”
“I ken how bairns are made, and me courses have begun. I am too old to cry because two maids mentioned a cradle.”
He kept his eyes on her small fingers. They pulled the thread until it cut into the pad of her thumb.
“Did their talk frighten ye?” he asked.
Paisley released the thread. “When ye and Ceana have bairns of yer own, will ye forget Tommy and me?”
“Never.”
She shook her head at the speed of his answer, and a tear slipped down the cheek she had wiped dry. “I am old enough to ken that ye must say that.”
Oscar reached for her, and she threw her arms around him with a force that knocked the breath from his lungs. He hadn’t noticed how quickly time had passed. She had now grown too tall to fit beneath his chin as she once had.
“Ye will always have me, love,” he murmured into her hair. “Nay child could take yer place or Tommy’s.”
Her fingers twisted into the back of his tunic. “The women ye nearly married wanted sons. They spoke as if Tommy and I were a burden their children would have to endure.”
“Ceana chose Tommy before she kent his name. She helped him with Ness when they first met, remember? Ye are hers because she loves ye, nae because she has to love ye.”
“She may love her own bairn differently.” Paisley swallowed. “Women say that a maither does. Ceana may nae ken until she has one. Then Tommy and I could become the children she cared for while she waited for hers.”
Oscar wiped the tear from her cheek with his thumb. “There will be nay other bairn. I daenae intend to have one.”
Paisley studied him with Ceana’s stubborn directness, learned over weeks spent at her side. “Can ye promise what Ceana’s body will do?”
His hand went still against her face.
“Even if she kept lovin’ us—” She broke off, her grip tightening on his tunic. “She could…”
Oscar waited while she pressed her lips together. Her next breath shook against his chest.
“Ma died givin’ birth to Tommy,” she whispered. “If Ceana has a bairn, she could die too. We could lose another maither.”
Her words dredged up memories he would rather have remain buried forever. He could feel Tommy’s little body in his arms again, wrapped too loosely because his hands would not obey him. A pool of blood spread across the sheets on the bed as the healer covered his wife’s face.
His grip on Paisley tightened until she shifted against him. He loosened it at once and cupped her head in his palm.
“Nay one is leavin’, do ye understand?” he said, his voice gentle. “Nay one is dyin’.”
Paisley gripped his tunic while he brushed tangled hair away from her damp cheek.
“Nay one is dyin’.”
Her shoulders continued to shake for several breaths. Oscar stayed beside her until she calmed, his cheek resting on the crown of her head. When her hands finally relaxed against his back, he kissed her hair.
“Will ye sit here a little longer?” she asked.
“As long as ye need.”
When she straightened, she made him promise that Tommy would hear nothing of her tears. Oscar walked her to her room eventually and watched her step inside.
Later, he found Mairi near the lower hall, directing a servant who carried a stack of mended blankets. He waited until the man was out of earshot.
“Me Laird, is there anythin’ I can—”
“There will be nay more talk of future bairns where the children may hear it,” he said, cutting her off.
Mairi glanced toward the stairs. “Has someone upset them?”
“I just want that talk to stop.”
Her gaze returned to him. “Aye, me Laird.”
Oscar crossed the hall toward the garden passage.
Through the open arch, he saw Ceana sitting on the low wall in the afternoon sun.
A handful of small white flowers lay in her lap, while Tommy held up another for her inspection.
Ness had planted her front hooves against the stones and was stretching her neck toward the blossoms.
Ceana caught the goat’s nose in her palm and pushed her back. Tommy laughed, and she joined him, her face tilted toward the boy.
Oscar stopped beneath the arch. He knew the warmth of Ceana’s body under the covers and the quiet sound she made when she settled against his chest. Each night beside her required him to refuse what they both wanted. One lapse in that restraint could put a child inside her.
Paisley’s teary face returned to him. So did Tommy’s fragile little body and the blood all over the birthing bed.
Paisley had called Ceana their mother, and Tommy already reached for her whenever he was frightened. Another pregnancy could leave them both beside a bloodied bed.
Another pregnancy could break him.
He took a breath, then stepped into the garden and went to speak with his wife.