Chapter 10
“A
h, Makenna, finally, there you are.”
There was a practiced warmth to the way that Laird Bruce MacBrae greeted his eldest daughter, a theatrical flourish in the way he stood from his place in the Great Hall and extended an arm to her.
But Arran had seen the flash in Kenna’s eyes when she said she didn’t trust her father and had witnessed her pain when she said that the man saw her as nothing but a tool.
So, Arran was watching.
And he saw that the smile did not extend to MacBrae’s eyes.
Neither did Kenna’s, as she approached the man, placed her hand in his, and curtsied like a proper Englishwoman. She bowed her head in a show of bashful pleasure as her father pressed an affectionate kiss to the back of her knuckles, her free hand clenched at her side.
God, how blind he had been to think Kenna a willing participant in her husband’s schemes—or her father’s for that matter.
Had her whole life really been like this?
Where she had to put on a performance of being loved, even while the people who were meant to love her and protect her treated her so callously?
He clenched his jaw so hard that his teeth hurt.
“Father,” she said. “It is pleasant to see you. How are my sisters? Did they not come with you?”
At the table, Ashbourne rolled his eyes openly.
“I told you, Makenna,” he snapped. “We are doing important business. We cannot adjust our plans simply because of your whims. Now sit down so that the men can talk, for goodness’ sake.”
Arran had to focus on keeping his breaths even when MacBrae did nothing to defend his daughter from this brute.
As dinner commenced, Arran kept trying to catch Kenna’s eye, but she refused to look in his direction. Her hair looked darker than usual, and he realized after a moment that this was because it was still damp. She must have dried it hastily when her father arrived.
Another surge of nausea shot through him when he remembered that the thing she would have been trying to wash off was Ashbourne’s unwanted touch. Arran could hear the pound of his own blood in his ears, the conversation of the men scarcely audible above the din of his own rage.
“I was very disheartened by the visit with MacDara and MacAllan,” Ashbourne said to Callahan and MacBrae, his tone that of a disapproving father. Both lairds looked as though they resented the condescending tone, but both remained silent.
Callahan, Arran assumed, did so out of a sense of diplomacy, but MacBrae must have done so because, if he had sold his daughter to get Ashbourne’s weapons, he wasn’t about to ruin that trade over a few insensitive comments.
My father never would have stood for this, Arran thought irritably.
“They are cautious,” Callahan said with smooth diplomacy. “‘Tis hard to fault a man for wanting time to think on a major change in his alliances.”
Ashbourne did not seem to find it hard to fault at all.
“I can’t imagine what they would need to think about.
There can be no downside to allying with England, the most powerful nation on earth,” he said dismissively, displaying a lack of knowledge of Scotland’s history that, in any other circumstances, would be frankly impressive.
“I will not be held back because of some ignorant fools that lack vision!”
Arran suspected that Ashbourne considered ignorant fools to extend to the entirety of the country and, from the way that Callahan’s mouth twisted, he thought the Laird agreed. But MacBrae was either oblivious to or uncaring of the insult.
He laughed easily. “Vision requires courage. Some men have it. Other men… require caution.”
Ashbourne and MacBrae exchanged a commiserative look, as if they alone could possibly understand the burden of being surrounded by cowards. Arran enjoyed a brief fantasy of punching them both until neither had enough teeth to manage one of those smarmy smiles.
“We must think ahead, not look back,” Ashbourne urged.
MacBrae nodded as though this were the most brilliant, novel thing he’d ever heard.
“Take a look at my clan, after all,” he said, smugness oozing off him like slime off a slug.
“That explosion could have been a disaster for my clan. But under my sage and resolute leadership, MacBrae Clan is stronger and more powerful than ever before. Sadly, others did not choose to follow my example, and they suffered for it.”
He pulled an expression of unconvincing sympathy.
Arran’s muscles tensed beneath him, his body urging him to respond even as his mind cautioned that he could not.
Still, he felt his hands practically tremble with rage as this man implied that Clan Lennox had suffered because of his father’s lack of leadership.
The reason the MacBraes hadn’t suffered as badly was the sheer, blind luck of having been elsewhere when the denotation had occurred.
Aye, MacBrae had had his successes—out of luck and on the head of his daughter, whom he’d made the sacrificial lamb.
Ashbourne laughed indulgently. It was plain as day that he didn’t think MacBrae the clever force behind his clan’s success, but Arran wasn’t certain that the lord ever thought anyone but himself capable of skill or intelligence.
“Of course, Laird MacBrae,” he said grandly. “And what would you suggest to other clans who wish to see success as you have seen?”
MacBrae laughed. It was a coarse, grating sound.
“Well, MacAllan has a daughter who is near to marriageable age,” he said. “Dinnae ye have any friends with deep pockets that would fancy a young bride?”
As Ashbourne chortled at this, Kenna dropped her fork with a loud clatter as it hit the table.
Instantly, both her father’s and her husband’s laughter cut off. They looked at her as though she disgusted them.
Again, Arran was half out of his seat before he stopped himself. He wanted to intervene—wanted it desperately. But it would only make things worse for Kenna.
“Tell me, Makenna.” Laird MacBrae’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. “Was there something that ye wished to contribute?”
Even from the far end of the table, Arran could see the way Kenna’s finger shook as she picked up the fork.
“No, Father,” Kenna said, her voice scarcely more than a whisper.
Apparently that was all that MacBrae required. He turned away from his daughter, dismissing her as though he’d already forgotten she was there.
“You’ll have to forgive Makenna, Lord Ashbourne,” he said smoothly. “Her mother obviously did poorly teaching her any proper manners. Frankly, it’s a mercy that my first wife died young; at least now, my other daughters have some hope of being brought up properly.”
Kenna’s head was bowed, and it remained down as her father openly celebrated her mother’s death.
“I suppose the fault is partially mine,” Ashbourne replied, not sounding as though he truly meant it.
“I haven’t instilled the proper respect in her these past years, it seems.” He gave MacBrae a look of thinly veiled hostility as he added, “Serves me right, I suppose. I would never buy a horse before inspecting it myself first. Can’t say what came over me that I did so for a wife. ”
Next to Arran, Declan sucked in a breath. Now even he looked as though he wanted to intervene.
Arran knocked his foot against Declan’s under the table.
Nae now, he mouthed when his friend looked his way.
Down the long table, Kenna said nothing. Arran wondered how many nights had been like this, how often she’d had to sit and pretend she heard nothing amiss while her husband insulted her in the most grievous manner.
Ashbourne was always going on and on about how the Scots were uncivilized, but who among them was truly without manners? If Arran weighed it in the balance, he credited honoring one’s wife far more heavily than having a crisp, upper-class accent.
“May the good Lord above spare us from willful women,” MacBrae said, as though this whole thing was a joke. “But since he has not, in his infinite wisdom, seen fit to do so, I suppose all we menfolk can do is try to manage the stubborn ones. Makenna?”
Her head jerked up at the sound of her name. Her green eyes looked dull, Arran noted, like the Kenna he’d come to know wasn’t truly behind them.
“Yes, Father?” she asked dully.
“Come,” MacBrae said, standing. “I wish to speak with ye privately.”
He swept from the room without waiting for her response. Part of Arran wished desperately that she would refuse to follow, but that was as pointless as all the other rebellions he’d wanted to enact that night.
Kenna didn’t glance his way as she swept past him, but when her sleeve brushed against the side of his chair, a slip of paper fell from it. Casually, Arran put his foot atop the paper so that nobody else could see it.
Arran forced himself to go back to his food. And it was only when he was absolutely certain that nobody was looking, he dropped his napkin on the floor, then bent to pick it up—and the scrap of paper with it.
When he unfolded it in his lap, all he saw was a neat list of herbs, followed by a simple message.
Pennyroyal
Wild carrot
Tansy
Rue
Juniper
Mugwort
I need them, as quick as possible. Tell no one.
Please.
Arran crumpled the list in his hand, squeezing it as small as it could go.
At the first chance he got, he slipped from the room to begin his search.
“I am highly disappointed in ye, Makenna.”
These were the first private words that her father had spoken to her in more than three years. Frankly, Kenna wasn’t surprised. Even when they had lived in the same Keep, her father had requested her presence only rarely and only when she’d erred in some way.
She knew her lines well.
“I’m sorry, Father,” she said, feeling uncertain if she ought to use her polished English accent to show how she’d sought to appease her husband, or if MacBrae would think that she was trying to put on airs.
She hated that this kind of thinking had become second nature to her.
Her father was less likely to physically strike her than Ashbourne, but he knew how to hurt with words all too well.
“Three years and ye have no son. No children at all, in fact, though I cannae speak verra highly of daughters, not when mine has proven herself unable to accomplish one simple thing,” he scoffed
This was absolutely the wrong time for Kenna to face this particular conversation.
She knew that it didn’t quite work like that, but without her tea, she was acutely aware of her belly, of the place where a babe might grow inside her if she didn’t take care.
The mere thought made her shudder with revulsion.
She hadn’t dared to look back to see if Arran had gotten her note, but she had to believe that he had. She needed that tea.
“A wife’s duty is simple, and yet ye cannae seem to manage this one thing,” her father railed, pacing back and forth in front of her. “Ashbourne grows impatient.”
Ah. Kenna had not yet taken the time to wonder why her father cared about another man’s heirs, but there it was. If Ashbourne was dissatisfied, he would not keep providing her father with coin and weapons.
“I know, Father,” Kenna murmured. Anything to get this over with as quickly as possible so that she could go find Arran.
He snorted, the sound harsh. “Ye know,” he mocked. “Ye are sorry. Your words mean naught, Makenna. Are ye nae doing your part?”
Kenna couldn’t imagine what this meant. She laid there and she did not stop Ashbourne, even when she felt her hatred grow so big that she could scarcely stand it.
Well. She supposed she could stop drinking a tea that made her as good as barren. But her father didn’t know about that.
“I try, Father,” she ventured.
This time, her act of submissive politeness didn’t work. Quick as a viper, her father’s hand shot out and caught her around the wrist. Kenna winced as he pressed against bruises that had not quite healed.
He squeezed tighter and tighter until Kenna looked up to meet his gaze. His eyes were green, like hers. It surprised her sometimes to see that there was any resemblance between them.
How could there be, when she felt so distant from him?
“Ye seem to think that ye have all the answers, Makenna,” he said, his voice low. His face was close enough to hers that his hot breath fanned her cheek. “But let me tell ye this: if ye dinnae secure your position, ye willnae be permitted to keep it.”
Kenna knew before he continued that this was not a positive thing, no matter how much she might have wanted to be rid of the role of Ashbourne’s wife.
Her father’s sneer was malicious.
“If ye dinnae produce an heir, I will choose one of your sisters to take your place.”
MacBrae smiled broadly as shocked, horrified tears filled Kenna’s eyes. It was a small victory, but she held them back. She refused to let those tears fall.