Chapter 19
Faith looked up from her work and watched as Drust trudged up the stairs to the tower. Then she watched him come back down again. His jaw was still set and his shoulders stiff, but he seemed marginally calmer.
“Where is she? Where’s Willa?”
Faith frowned at him. She had half a mind to tell him what an idiot he was being, but decided it likely wouldn’t help matters any.
Men didn’t know that they were being idiots, even if someone pointed it out to them.
They had to figure it out for themselves, usually through the consequences of said idiocy.
Still… she loved Drust like a brother. And he had been willing to give up everything for Bren…
and for her. Drust Mac Coinnach was a good man.
“She went out for a walk.”
“Alone? Where did she go?”
Faith shrugged, turning her attention back to the little shirt she was attempting to knit.
Maggie was trying to teach her, but already she’d had to unravel it twice.
“I don’t know. She said she wanted some fresh air.
” She looked back up and narrowed her eyes accusingly.
“And she was more than a bit upset. I sat with her while she cried. A lot.”
Drust groaned as if in pain and dragged a hand through his hair, pacing a few steps before running for the door. “I really dinna need this…” he mumbled.
Faith sighed and set down her knitting. Drust and Willa would work things out. Drust was just a little confused… a little lost. She smiled. It was time to meet Bren for a private dinner for two.
Faith had intended to walk in the gardens until her head cleared, but after a while she realized that just wasn’t going to happen.
Nor did she feel like she could go back to the confines of the keep.
When she noticed a narrow path winding through the woods, she followed it, still lost in her thoughts.
A small cottage came into view through the trees, and just as she drew close enough to see the door, it flew open.
An older man with white hair stood there, a strange grin on his face. Shocked, Willa could only gape at him.
“Ah, lass! Ye must be the latest Mac Coinnach bride. I’m sorry I wasna here to greet ye when ye arrived, but I was away on some verra important business. I’m Dirc. I’m certain ye must have heard of me.”
She had. So this was Dirc… the sorcerer who was both beloved and reviled by all. She walked closer, a tentative smile on her face.
“Yes, I have heard of you. It’s good to finally meet you, sir.”
“Och, just Dirc to you lass.” He moved out of the doorway and began to walk around her in a circle, looking her up and down all the while. “So he kens?”
“What?”
“About the child.”
“Who?”
“Drust, lass. Does he ken about the child?”
Why was she so confused all of the sudden? “Oh.” She couldn’t help but heave a frustrated sigh. “Yes, he does.”
“And he wasna happy.”
“No.” Though a small part of her had held out hope that he would be happy…
“And he’s upset ye, made ye cry.”
“Y... Yes…” This man was strange… very strange, but somehow, she wasn’t afraid of him. Besides, everyone in the keep spoke of him with affection. She turned her head to watch him as he continued to circle her where she stood.
“And ye have it in yer mind to perhaps teach him a lesson… about what is important and what is no’.”
“No, I…” Teach him a lesson? To be honest, it had crossed her mind.
She had trusted Drust with her heart, and he had hurt her.
Whether he meant to or not. And he made her feel guilty for carrying his own child.
A child that she already loved with all her heart.
A child that deserved a father who loved him as well.
She had thought to maybe leave for a while, visit James and Maura…
make him worry… but had quickly discarded the idea.
She would not risk the safety of her baby that way. “Perhaps… but I…”
“Ye thought to leave for a time… make him fret and worry until he realized what he had and would do anything to have it back again?”
Willa’s eyes flew open in surprise, then narrowed in suspicion. “How did you know that?”
“Smart lass. ‘Tis exactly what the lad needs to get out of his own head. He’ll be stuck in there otherwise, reliving the past over and over. Daft he is. Already had to lose ye once to figure out he wanted ye in the first place. Now his own child… Och… my work is never done with those three lads. Not since the minute Bren Mac Coinnach was born have I had any peace. And the youngest… oh I’m in for a time of it with that one!
Wild as the wind, he is. He’s going to get himself into more trouble next month than… well, anyway… on to making Drust fret.”
Next month? Willa shook her head and blinked, thinking she must have missed something.
“Now, there are two ways to go about this… ye could actually leave, or ye could pretend to leave, but I wouldna recommend that. No matter what kind of magic we use, Drust will still ken ye’re here. Because ye’re his mate and all.”
Willa was beginning to have some major misgivings about this whole idea. “Oh, I don’t’ think I should…”
Dirc held up his hand. “Trust me lass, I do this all the time. Come now, before he finds ye. He’s looking already, ye ken.”
“A…all right. But… Faith… will you tell her I’m, uh… not really missing? I don’t want her to worry.”
“Aye, of course, lass. I’m no’ daft.” He took her by the arm. “Now, ye just relax and let me handle everything. When I’m through that man will be thanking the stars just to have ye back, as he should be.”
The door burst open and slammed against the wall. Bren looked up from the accounts on his desk he had been reviewing, to see Drust looking disheveled and half-crazed. He raised an eyebrow in question.
“I canna find her”, Drust said, his voice almost desperate. “I’ve looked everywhere.”
“Did ye look in the gardens?”
“Aye!”
“The stables?”
“Aye, Bren I’ve looked everywhere! She’s gone.” He put his palms to his forehead, thrust his fingers through his hair in agitation. “Ah God! She’s gone!”
Drust began pacing, panting as if he’d just run through the entire castle, which perhaps he had. He looked so wretched that Bren almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
“Well brother, she canna have gone far. Especially no’ in her condition. She fainted dead away only this morning. Are ye certain she’s no’ in the tower?”
Drust turned to glare at him. “Aye! I looked in the tower, three times. What if she was taken? What if…”
Bren shook his head firmly. “No. No one would be able to get past our gates without our notice. Unless… she wouldna have gone outside the gates alone, would she?”
Drust looked at his brother with such anguish on his face that Bren actually felt it like a stab to the chest. This was possibly the most emotion he’d ever seen Drust express, and it made Bren uncomfortable to see him in such pain. But still… Drust needed to fix the mess he had made of things.
“I dinna ken. I… I was so angry about… about the bairn.”
Bren crossed his arms and regarded him calmly.
“Ye were angry at yer wife for giving ye a child? A child that ye put inside her?”
Drust sank heavily into a chair and scrubbed his hands over his face.
“No. I was afraid. God, she left me! I’ve frightened away my own wife. And I canna blame her. God! I was such an arse! She more than likely hates me now.”
“Aye, ye were, but she’s still yer wife and yer mate and she belongs here with ye, arse or no’.
Ye have a wife and child now… and they are yers to protect and care for above all else.
Above even yer brothers. That is the way of it.
” Bren stood and closed the ledger on his desk.
“Now stop feeling sorry for yerself and go find her. You head to the north; I’ll gather some men and search the other directions. ”
“Thank ye Bren…”
“Go!” Bren told him. “No, wait!”
From half way across the room, Drust turned to look at him over his shoulder.
“What?”
“When ye find her, ye shouldna worry that ye’ll hurt the babe when ye’re tupping her like a mad man.”
“What?”
“I already asked Maggie, for my own reasons, of course. I thought ye should ken, too.”
Drust only gave him a look that said: Why the hell are you talking about tupping when my wife is missing, and turned back toward the door.
After Drust left the room, running at full speed for the stables, Faith slipped in from a side door.
“It went well?”
“Aye, he’s gone to search for her. Dirc will see that he finds her in a few days, just long enough to have it firmly in his mind how much he’d love to be a father, if only he could find his wife, and if only she will forgive him.”
Faith grinned. “Dirc knew just what to do. Scare some sense into him. Drust never would have come around so fast otherwise. Or at all. Mac Coinnach men are notoriously stubborn.”
Bren grabbed his wife and pulled her onto his lap with a contented sigh. “Aye, I will admit Dirc often kens what is best, as long as I am no’ on the receiving end of his manipulations. And I am no’ stubborn.”
She punched him playfully in the arm. “Yes you are. And wasn’t it Dirc’s manipulations that brought us together?”
“Oh aye, I suppose I can make one exception, then.” He leaned in to capture her lips in a kiss.
Willa looked around as her horse plodded slowly through the trees. This forest was lovely, cool and peaceful with giant, moss-covered oaks, but she was too nervous to truly appreciate her surroundings.
“Dirc?”
“Aye, lass?”
“Do you really think it’s possible… that Drust will change his mind about the baby? What if he never does… I don’t think I can…”
“Och, lass… he will. Ye must remember that he saw his own mother die a tragic death when he was naught but a young and impressionable child. He’s had all the years since to convince himself that he must never risk another he loves that way, because he couldna stand to see it happen again.
He had resolved to live a solitary life of service, and within a few short weeks he finds himself a husband and a father, the two things he has always dreaded more than death…
err…” He glanced to Willa with an apologetic smile.
“That didna sound quite right… I mean, no offence, lass. Anyway, it will take some time, and perhaps a bit of a shock to the system, to… er… make him see things differently.”
“Hence my temporary disappearance?”
“Aye. Exactly.”
“What if he doesn’t come for me?”
Dirc turned partway around in his saddle to look back at her, heedless of the plaid slipping off his shoulder. “I told ye lass, he’ll come for ye. He canna no’ come for ye. That’s why my plan, as always, is so perfect.”
Willa heaved a sigh. Her life had never been simple. Why did she think things would be any different now?
“A simple life does not offer the greatest rewards, lass”, Dirc commented.
“Ah! Stop doing that!” That had to be the tenth time today he had replied to a thought she was certain she hadn’t spoken out loud. It had gone from being creepy to just plain irritating. “Where are you taking me? To my brother?” It would be nice to see James and Maura… she missed them already.
“No”, came the curt reply.
“Where then?”
“No’ much further.”
“If we go too far, Drust will never be able to find me.”
Dirc snorted. “Of course he will, he’ll be able to sense yer fear. From leagues away. The two of ye are connected now.”
“My fear?” She was growing alarmed now... “My fear of what?”
“Och lass, ye ask too many questions. If I tell ye that, ye’ll ken no’ to be afraid and my plan willna work. Hush now.”