Chapter 9
The silk skirts of Kenna’s new frock whispered around her as she went to stand in the courtyard.
The pale, pale blue did nothing to flatter her.
She looked rather wan in it, frankly, but the dress would please her husband.
She looked serene, but there was a stillness to her face that he knew to be a lie.
This was the mask again.
Arran held his post as she folded her hands together and held her head high.
She gazed toward the front gates of the Keep, waiting.
A scout had been sent ahead to announce that Callahan and Ashbourne were returning imminently.
As soon as the news had arrived, Kenna had sighed, abandoned her breakfast mid-bite, and gone up to her bedchamber to dress in this impractical puff of a gown.
Arran clenched his hands into fists as he watched her suppress a shiver. It was bloody freezing this morning, and she wasn’t dressed for it. He longingly imagined snatching her around the waist, dragging her inside, and wrapping her in his plaid until the wind-bitten cold vanished from her cheeks.
In the fantasy, it was the Lennox plaid she wore, which told him how very impossible his desires truly were.
He hadn’t spoken to Kenna since they kissed. She had not called for him either, and he didn’t force the issue. But he had not stopped thinking about it, not even when he slept.
There was no use torturing himself over things he could never have.
And yet.
And yet.
Just when Arran was vowing to himself that, if Kenna’s lips started to actually go blue, he was dragging her inside and calling it protection, the returning convoy rumbled into view, a small coterie of riders surrounding Ashbourne’s ostentatious carriage.
Only someone watching as closely as Arran was would have seen the way Kenna pressed her lips together tightly before pasting on a bland, welcoming smile.
Ashbourne was the first to step from the carriage. When he saw his wife, half frozen and trying to hide it, his lips curled into a minute sneer.
“Welcome back, my lord,” she said, curtseying.
Arran clenched his fists tighter, his fingers aching with the effort.
“Makenna,” Ashbourne observed curtly.
Callahan was the one to show concern for the lady before him.
“My dear, you look positively frigid,” he said. “Should we retire inside for a cup of hot tea?”
It was a considerate gesture, but Arran could immediately see that it had not landed right. Ashbourne’s eyes narrowed possessively on his wife. Apparently nobody was permitted to offer Kenna comfort.
“I think not, Callahan,” Ashbourne said imperiously, not even looking at his host. “I have been separated from my little wife for too long. It is time that we get… reacquainted.”
Nobody could be so oblivious as to miss the suggestive leer that Ashbourne gave Kenna.
Arran felt his stomach roil with nausea as he watched Kenna blanch, the red of her cheeks and nose even more obvious with the paling of her face.
Arran wanted to believe in a world in which someone would intervene—in which Laird Callahan would insist on tea, perhaps—but none came.
As Ashbourne’s wife, Kenna was entirely under his control.
Arran trembled with the effort it took to hold himself back.
Kenna was made of sterner stuff than he was, for she gave no outward sign of dismay. She curved her lips into another polite smile.
“Of course, my lord,” she said demurely. She didn’t look around as she followed her husband into the Keep. Her steps didn’t stutter. Her head remained high.
When she went inside, disappearing behind closed doors, a shuddering breath rattled out of Arran. He wiped a hand over his face, and when he looked back up, he saw both Laird Callahan and Declan regarding him.
“Come join me in my study,” the Laird commanded the two men. “We have much to discuss.”
Arran and Declan exchanged a look as they followed the Laird; they had not often been summoned to a private audience with the head of the clan.
But Arran knew he hadn’t been assigned to guard Kenna by accident, and Declan was the Laird’s closest relative, even if Callahan didn’t spend much time training Declan as a potential successor.
The Laird was up to something. The most Arran could do was wait and see what that was.
“So,” Callahan observed when they had settled into his study, the pot of tea that he’d mentioned in their hands. Arran felt the warmth of the liquid through the stone of his mug and wished he could give it to Kenna. He had been chilled, even dressed in his plaid. She needed this more than he did.
But instead, she was trapped with Ashbourne even now, suffering in ways that Arran dared not contemplate.
“I see that you did well in guarding Lady Makenna in our absence, Arran,” Callahan said, stealing Arran’s attention away from wretched musings. “I take it you understand the lady somewhat better now than when we last spoke?”
Declan arched an extremely curious eyebrow, and Arran knew that he would have to answer for this later. For now, though, he focused on the Laird.
“I do,” he confirmed. “And I…” He hesitated. “Should I speak plain, my laird?”
Callahan inclined his head in approval.
Arran wasn’t going to let that opportunity go to waste.
“Ashbourne is a brute,” he said flatly. “He despises all Scotsmen, and his wife is no different. Ke— Lady Makenna is a pawn to him, not an ally. If she ever echoes his blustering, it is only because she has no other recourse.”
Declan looked impressed. Callahan didn’t even look surprised at this bluntness.
“Nay,” he said, “I didnae think Makenna had disavowed her origins as much as we have been led to believe. But that’s verra good, Arran. Her disloyalty may yet prove to be to our advantage.”
Arran wanted to bristle at this. They should be helping Kenna, not making her situation even more dangerous and complicated.
But Callahan didn’t see Arran’s expression.
He was too busy tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair and looking out the window, as if envisioning the whole of Highland politics in the vista.
“Ashbourne is part of our alliance… but he cares for English interests first,” Callahan went on.
“Any leverage we have against him will help bring the Alliance back to its purpose: furthering Scottish aims. I dinnae ken if Makenna can provide anything useful against her husband, but another ally will never hurt.”
Arran felt quite strongly that it could actually hurt Kenna if her husband ever found out, but he forced the words back down as they tried to climb up his throat.
“MacDara and MacAllan remain skeptical of the Englishman,” Callahan observed, the look in his eye still distant. “They are on my side for now. But MacBrae is coming. He does not listen to my counsel.”
Arran supposed a laird never rid himself of the habit of being in charge.
“Ye are all meant to be equal players in the Alliance,” he observed quietly.
He expected Callahan to relent, to agree, but the man laughed quietly.
“Aye,” he said. “Meant to be. But there are figureheads, and then there are real players, Arran. It would behoove ye to learn to tell the difference.”
This was likely sensible advice if Arran ever hoped to actually solve the mystery behind the plot that had killed his family, if he ever hoped to get his lands and his clan back. But he didn’t like it… especially not when he knew that Callahan didn’t consider Kenna as one of these real players.
Arran nodded at the Laird, then felt wretched about it until Callahan finally dismissed the two guards.
“What’s going on with ye?” Declan asked when they were heading back toward the training yard, seeking to join the smaller group that trained in the afternoons. “Ye seem… distracted. Was guarding the wee English lassie really so bad?”
“She’s nae English.” Arran snapped the response without a thought to the harshness of his tone. When Declan looked surprised, Arran forced himself to rein in his temper. “She’s nae as she seems when her husband is around.”
“Verra well,” Declan said, nodding. “I see.”
He probably did. He most likely saw far more than Arran would have preferred. Declan really could be observant at the most irritating times.
“What about ye?” Arran asked, seeking a distraction. “How was the trip? Your uncle didnae work ye too hard, did he?”
Arran hadn’t really expected the distraction to work, so he was pleasantly surprised when Declan’s intent look faded, replaced by a grin.
“We stopped at MacDara,” he said. “On the way back.”
“Aye,” Arran said. He’d been to MacDara. It was nice enough, but it didn’t inspire the kind of starry-eyed cheer currently on Declan’s face. This could only be about one thing.
“And there’s this lass there…”
Arran grinned. And there it was.
Declan must have realized how dreamy he sounded, because he abruptly cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.
“She’s bonny,” he said, his voice sounding a bit more normal. “I… would like to see her again.”
There was a wistful note in Declan’s voice, as if he didn’t really believe that he would get what he wanted or as if he didn’t think he had any right to ask for it. Arran had never known happy-go-lucky Declan to look so twisted up over a woman.
“Ye should,” Arran said. “MacDara is nae too far from here. Find time to see her again. These things matter.”
Declan’s smile had never looked brighter.
“Aye, ye think?”
“Aye, I think.” Arran clapped his friend on the back.
The world was full of ugliness. There were villains around every turn.
But Declan was not one of them. And Arran could think of nobody better to find himself a life of happiness and peace.
Arran had to want it for Declan, because he did not dare to want it for himself, not when such a possibility seemed so very, very far away.
Kenna sat in her bath long after the water had grown tepid. It wasn’t as much for getting clean at this point as it was for comfort.
Or perhaps she just needed the time to recover. Being in the water felt like it soothed her spirits, even if it wasn’t doing much to soothe her body.
Anna was trying her best, though, pressing herbal compresses to each of the blooming bruises along Kenna’s torso and shoulders.
“He was… very hard on you this time, my lady,” Anna observed in a frightened whisper, afraid that Ashbourne would overhear. Kenna knew that she held the maid’s loyalty, but loyalty did not pay the school fees for Anna’s younger brother—Ashbourne’s money did that.
Kenna felt very distant from the experience, no matter how recent it had been. She had learned to step away from her body when her husband lay with her. If she just didn’t think about it, during or after, she could convince herself that she didn’t mind it so much.
“He wants an heir,” she said dully. “Apparently MacDara’s wife is increasing, and it reminded him that I have failed to produce a son for him. He was… displeased with me.”
And when Ashbourne got displeased, he got rough.
A dismayed sound was the only response that Anna gave, which Kenna supposed was fair enough. What else was there? The maid pressed another soothing bundle of herbs, begged from the kitchen staff, onto Kenna’s skin. Apparently the cook here knew her poultices.
When the water grew cold enough that Kenna couldn’t suppress a shiver, however, her maid ushered her out of the water.
“The last thing you need is to catch a cold,” Anna said fretfully. “Come, my lady, please. Sit by the fire and I’ll fetch something warm to drink.”
Kenna, halfway through letting her maid wrap her in linen to dry off, startled, reminded of something important.
“Oh, yes, please,” she said, trying to sound casual. There were some secrets that she did not entrust to anyone, not even her loyal maid. “Can you please fetch my special tea from my things? The one that is meant to help a babe take root?”
“Of course, my lady.”
Anna knew this routine well. Kenna had been taking this tea for years. If Anna suspected that the brew was really designed to prevent conception, rather than encourage it as Kenna always claimed, then the maid had never let on.
She rifled through Kenna’s belongings, frowning as she went.
“I can’t seem to find it, my lady,” she said. “I could have sworn that I packed it…”
Kenna tried to keep her expression calm even as panic surged through her veins. She could not fall pregnant. She couldn’t.
“Keep looking, please,” Kenna said, making her voice as even as she could manage. “The tea is a great help.”
Even knowing what she knew about the way Ashbourne treated his lady, Anna didn’t bat an eye.
Mayhap the maid thought that Kenna truly hoped to conceive so that her husband would forsake her bed for as long as it took for the child to grow inside her.
While that thought had occurred to Kenna more than once, it was not nearly enough to encourage her to risk putting a child into Ashbourne’s hands.
“I will keep looking, my lady,” Anna promised, though she didn’t sound all that hopeful.
Usually, Kenna’s maid was able to put her hands on a possession within seconds; she was extremely well-organized and had a keen memory.
If she couldn’t find it quickly, that probably meant that it wasn’t there.
Unfortunately, it was all too easy to imagine a small sachet of herbs going missing at some point in the long journey north.
Ashbourne was not a man who suffered discomfort easily, so they had stopped at nearly a dozen inns while they’d trundled their way to the Highlands.
Kenna would have sat in front of the fire in naught but a length of cloth for eternity, if that was what it took for Anna to search every inch of her room for the herbs, but it was not to be.
A clatter of hoofbeats and the creak of carriage wheels came from outside Kenna’s window.
Anna went to look for the source of the commotion, then tucked back to her mistress, cheeks pink.
“I fear we don’t have much time to waste, my lady,” she said apologetically, clearly dismayed that she had failed in her packing duties somewhere during the journey.
“Your father has arrived.”