Chapter Nineteen #3
“Nor does anyone here. Ye are to stay here then?”
“Oh, aye.” Nigel laughed. “My adventure in France was enough to cure me of any urge to seek another. From the moment I woke up in that French hell, all I have thought about is getting back to Glencullaich. My only regret now that I am finally back here is that I was too late to say fareweel to David.” He gave her a sad smile when she briefly clasped his hand to offer comfort.
“Ye chose the perfect resting place for him, Annys. He would often sit up there, enjoying the view and thinking of ways to better life for us all.”
“I ken it. I was thinking to bury our dead from the battle beside him.”
“Excellent idea. They, too, belong up there, overseeing the land they fought so hard for. Who died?”
Annys told him who had been lost. She discovered it eased some of her concern about whether this man she did not know all that well would be a good laird.
He was saddened by each one she named, knowing more about a few of them than he did the others, and revealing a true grief over their loss.
That he would recall anyone after so long a time away told her that he cared for the people as much as David had.
Nigel pushed away from the table. “Give me one hour,” he said. “I wish to think and walk about. Then,”—he looked at Harcourt and then at Annys—“I believe we should meet in the ledger room and have a talk.”
And there went what little appetite she had, Annys thought.
She watched Nigel leave with his man Andrew and another who quickly left his seat at a signal from Nigel.
Annys looked across the table at Harcourt who was frowning after the man.
He did not look very concerned though and she told herself she would not be either. She also knew she was lying to herself.
“What do ye think, Andrew? Kerr?” Nigel asked as the three of them walked around the outside of the keep, idly surveying what damage had been done. “Sir Harcourt and my brother’s wife?”
“Lovers,” said Andrew. “Mayhap e’en in love.”
“And that wee lad Benet?”
“Theirs,” said Kerr. “Looks like ye just a bit, but nay so much when that mon is standing close to him.”
“I think the same. I would be angry, condemn her as a whore, if I didnae ken her at all,” said Nigel.
“But I did ken her ere I left. True, she was little more than a child sent to learn how to be the lady of the keep before she actually married the laird, but I find it verra difficult to believe she would betray David or try to pass off a bastard child as his heir.” He sighed.
“I also ken poor David could ne’er have sired a child.
” He nodded when his companions winced at the soft reminder of what had happened to David.
“Ye think your brother got Sir Harcourt to play the stud? To breed a child he could then call his own?” asked Andrew after a few moments of thoughtful silence.
“I do and I also think that everyone here kens it,” said Nigel. “I saw the way they looked when we were all together on the steps to the keep.”
“It was a good plan,” said Kerr. “Didnae work to keep Sir Adam away but it might have.”
“Since Sir Adam kenned full weel that David couldnae sire a child since he was the one who set that mutilating bastard on my brother, I think it only made him angrier. Aye, especially when it became evident that no one here would e’er deny that Benet was David’s son.
Nay, nor when David’s claiming the boy openly made it true by the laws of the court and the Church.
But, now, I need to decide what to do about it. ”
“Because ye wish your own get to be the heir.”
“When and if I have any, aye.”
“Ah, ’tis the ‘if ’ ye think on. Ye could breed naught but lassies.”
“Or none at all. Cannae see that happening but it could.”
“Then keep the lad as heir until he isnae needed any longer,” said Kerr.
“But that would tie Annys here and I am thinking she would like to be with Sir Harcourt. I had thought, for a moment, that I would just get a dispensation from the Church and wed her myself, but I dinnae want a lass whose heart is given elsewhere. She would ne’er leave that boy, though.”
“Ye dinnae need the lad here for him to remain your heir until ye can have one of your own,” said Andrew.
Nigel looked at Andrew and slowly nodded. “Nay, I dinnae, do I. Do ye ken? As Annys’s brother, I believe it is my duty to make certain she isnae shamed.”
“Shamed?”
“Aye, used by some rogue of a Murray and left behind, her good name ground into the mud, her tender heart broken.” He smiled faintly when his companions laughed.
“He should be offered the chance to do what is right and honorable for our lady. Aye, that is what a good brother would do. Kerr, go see if we still have a priest in Glencullaich and bring him to the keep.”
“Ye mean to put his back hard up against the wall, dinnae ye?” Andrew asked as soon as Kerr left.
“I do. I also think those two need someone to do just that.” He turned back toward the doorway into the keep. “Time to go and sort out the last of the tangles my brother left behind. Mayhap we will e’en be guests at a wedding.”