Chapter Twenty #2
‘Of course he was! You took the strongest position and defended the clan’s honour as he should have done.’ She patted his leg and smiled at him. Sometimes he forgot that she had been his biggest supporter after their mother died.
* * *
By the time he left her chambers, Symon’s anger was stoked again over the demeaning way he was being treated when he should be laird and chief.
And if someone needed to make that clear, not only to Rob and his cronies, but also to the high-and-mighty MacLeries, well then, who better than him to do it?
* * *
Lilidh left Rob’s chambers, following Ranald down the stairs.
His bulk filled the stone stairway and, at least, she knew if she stumbled, he would block her fall.
Her leg seemed stronger over the last day or so and the time it took to reach the bottom was much less than the last time.
She paused once there and looked around, hoping and dreading that she would catch a glimpse of her cousins Duncan and Rurik.
They walked through the empty hall and down the corridor to the chamber where Isla stayed.
Opening the door for her, Ranald stepped aside so she could enter and then closed the door behind her.
Isla slept—once more or still she knew not—and Lilidh sat down at her side.
Only a short time had passed when the door opened next.
Expecting Siusan with some chore or to see to Isla, her mother entered.
‘Rob let you back in? I am surprised!’ she said, rising to greet her mother.
‘As am I,’ her mother replied, laughing. Then she turned her attentions to the woman on the bed. ‘Does she sleep constantly?’
‘No, Mother. She wakes and sleeps throughout the day.’
‘A better sign than sleeping all the time, I think.’ Her mother turned and sat on the other stool facing the bed and Lilidh. ‘So, now that we have some privacy, can you tell me what happened?’
‘Did Duncan send you on this mission, then? You must bring back information he can use?’ she asked, only half in jest.
‘I will tell him what you say I can, but nothing you do not wish to share.’
Why did she feel like crying now? She had never cried when attacked or brought here.
Only the news of her maid Isla’s death and the others killed when she was taken brought her to tears.
And when she thought she’d lost Rob. Even as a girl, she did not surrender to tears often.
But now? One look at her mother’s soft expression of concern and she was lost.
One moment she was thinking about how strong she needed to be and the next one found her wrapped in her mother’s comforting embrace, crying out a list of emotions she could not name.
‘Easy now, sweetling,’ her mother whispered, rocking her to and fro as she held her tightly. ‘Worry not, let it out,’ she said. And Lilidh did.
It was a short while before she could stop the tears. Then, a few more minutes before she could speak.
‘Just tell me the daft man did not force you,’ her mother said, under her breath with more than a hint of hostility in her voice. Her mother did not suffer fools well or easy.
‘Oh, no,’ Lilidh said, sitting up and wiping her face. ‘Never.’
Her mother gave her the strangest look then, as though suddenly realising something or recognising something she’d not seen or known before. ‘You still love him?’
‘Iain?’ she replied, misunderstanding apurpose. ‘I did care for him.’ She looked away then, not daring to meet her mother’s astute gaze.
‘He broke your heart and yet you still carry soft feelings for him.’ Her mother knew.
‘I did not know it until now.’
‘Was it wise to go to his bed? I know you are a widow, Lilidh, and some might look the other way at a widow seeking some happiness, but this will only complicate matters.’
‘I needed to know, Mother,’ she admitted in a whisper. ‘That must sound scandalous, but ’tis the truth.’
‘And he has not offered for you?’ Her mother watched her intently now.
‘Father would never accept him. You know that. Not after what he did before and now this.’
‘Your father can be quite hard-headed,’ she began. Lilidh laughed over her choice of words.
‘Rob said the same thing about himself. I am content that I had this chance to see how it could be between us.’
‘Content?’ her mother asked, smoothing her hair from her face. ‘Content?’
Thinking about their time together these last several nights, Lilidh knew she was content with her decision. ‘Yes, Mother. Content. Rob is trying to do his best for his clan in this, so there can be nothing more for us than what we have shared.’
‘He asked for gold, you know. He demanded gold for your return.’
She shrugged. ‘They are not a wealthy clan. We are. It would seem a fair exchange. An honourable way out for both sides, especially since this was not Rob’s idea.
’ As soon as the words left her mouth, she wished she’d not revealed that bit.
It would reveal how Rob’s position here was precarious and give her cousin more power in the stalemate.
If her mother realised the significance of it, she did not show it.
Her mother stood then and paced around the room a few times. Never a good sign, Lilidh waited as her mother gathered the nerve to say what she had to say.
‘I would think you would want him skinned alive for what he did to you, Lilidh. Why are you not screaming for his head? Demanding his death? Asking that your father destroy this keep and him?’
Lilidh pondered her mother’s words. For a long time after Rob had disavowed her, she had thought of nothing but one or two hundred different ways in which he could die—and all of them terrible.
But now? After he’d protected her from harm, shared his own fears with her, and after they’d made enough memories to last the rest of her life without him, she understood the duty they each had to carry out.
‘Because I have learned about duty, Mother. As has Rob.’ Lilidh stood then and faced her mother. ‘Whatever happened between us those years ago, it is over between us. Why bring death and destruction to people who had nothing to do with anything in the past?’
A flicker of something passed over her mother’s face just then. Something that resembled guilt. Which reminded Lilidh of a question of her own. ‘Why did you write to Rob when I was about to marry Iain?’
‘He told you? I would have thought he would keep it a secret since he had not the decency to respond.’
‘Mother, he never received your letter. His father did and kept it from him,’ she explained. ‘But why did you send it? Father made his feelings about Rob and the Mathesons quite clear.’
Her mother shook her head and shrugged. ‘’Twas a mistaken notion, that is all.’
She would have asked more about that, but they were interrupted when Siusan arrived.
They spent most of the afternoon there, speaking to Isla when she would rouse, helping her wash and eat, and chatting quietly when she slept.
Siusan and her mother renewed their acquaintance, for apparently Siusan’s cousin yet lived in Lairig Dubh and owed some debt to her mother that neither woman would identify, but both accepted.
* * *
A few hours passed before a guard came to escort Lilidh back to Rob’s chambers.
If her mother had an opinion, which from the fire in her eyes, she did, she never spoke about it.
After a farewell hug, her mother followed another guard out.
They were walking towards the stairway when Symon approached with his sister.
If Lilidh backed a step away, she could not help it—she expected the worst. Ranald motioned for her to come along and she did, but she had a bad feeling about this.
Symon greeted her mother with a respectful bow and then stood at her side as Tyra engaged her in a conversation over some matter.
As Lilidh left, Rob, Duncan and the others entered the hall to return to their encampment outside the walls.
Before they climbed up the three flights of steps, something happened and the sounds of a scuffle or fight, yelling and cursing echoed up through the stairway.
Though she wanted to go back, Ranald took her by the arms and guided her, with force but not harm, the rest of the way.
If he hastened her entrance into the bedchamber, it was without malice, and after warning the guard on duty to be alert, Ranald ran back down the stairs.
She called out after she heard the bar drop, but the guard, someone she had not seen before, did not answer her.
Minutes passed like hours as she waited for some explanation and to learn if her mother was safe.
Symon had done something, possibly something dangerous, most likely something stupid, which would cause more problems for Rob.
She could not figure out if Symon wanted to destroy only Rob or the whole Matheson clan.
She stood by the window, staring out as the fires began to light up the forest outside the walls.
Staying back in the shadows, she wondered if this was her last night with Rob.
Walking to ease the tightness in her leg, she thought about how she felt about leaving him now.
Maybe the talk about him with her mother had forced her to consider it more intensely than the scandalous, superficial reason she’d given her mother.
Regardless, she knew she would hurt deeply after she left him than she had when he left her. Though she’d like to think that this time for them had been only about pleasures of the flesh, her heart knew it had been more. And knew it could be more between them.
Yet he would not admit it or explain the whole of how the chasm had opened between them and their fathers.
Oh, Rob knew more than he was saying and he was leaving something unspoken, but she did not know how to pry it from him.
She almost had the feeling he was protecting her somehow, or thought he was.
Well, she thought as she pushed away all the questions and thought about the coming night, she would take the hours she had left with him. And she would treasure every last moment.