Chapter Fourteen
Ailsa was beyond exhausted, but so were Hannah and Mary. A fortnight had gone by since she’d made her discovery and all of them had been working, ensuring that every bit of food, clothing and linen was free of rosemary.
It had been found in everything. It was in the trunks containing folded linens.
Laundry, put out to dry, had been draped over the sturdy rounded shrubberies.
According to Rory, Paiden often brushed his teeth with the fragrant herb.
If that were true, it wouldn’t have taken much more to push him over the edge.
Frederick ordered everyone to keep quiet.
Not much could be kept hidden, but Frederick waited because he wanted to confront his Chief first. However, though everything they’d done for Paiden had been done for Hamish as well, the Chief never woke.
He still slept, his breathing laboured, his cheekbones sunken.
Bone broth was given to him in tiny droplets, but most now just dribbled down his chin.
Paiden, however, had woken within hours of Mary’s confession.
It had been a happy moment for all, but joyous for Rory.
Once she ensured Paiden’s breathing, eyesight and memory were restored, she left them alone in the room.
Right before she closed the door, Rory caught her eye and the look he gave her was full of warmth, gratefulness, and something more... something she dared not think of now.
For though Paiden was mending, Hamish still slept and looked ready for the tomb. Her work was not over with.
In the meantime, Rory and Frederick were seen together.
There were no more secret meetings, only open council sessions which they both attended.
Such open co-operation also brought open disgruntlement and scathing remarks.
Ailsa feared there would be no resolution between the clans and no peace within the McCrieffs.
Yet in the evening, when the doors were closed, she and Rory discovered their own peace. Fragile. New, but there was now some understanding between them.
The only fissure of worry was the matter of Rory’s parentage.
In the midst of it all, Ailsa could not forget.
Maybe it was because, with Hamish’s illness, it brought back memories of Rhona’s dying words.
Maybe...she more than cared for Rory now and wished for him to know the truth even if he didn’t know his life was false.
Was there a right answer here? With Hamish looking as though he’d never wake, maybe the answer would never come.
Thus far, she’d found no records on McCrieff land that Hamish had fathered a son or that a boy had been given away.
Maybe Rhona’s murmurings were just that.
Dreams and imagination cloaked within her illness.
Maybe it was all made up. And yet, Rory’s—
‘You’ve retired early.’
Ailsa spun around. Rory closed the door behind him. His clothes were dusty which could only mean that he’d helped with the fields or with training. ‘It appears so did you.’
‘Your father had nothing else on his agenda, I thought I’d take advantage of it. Why are you here?’
‘Mary and Hannah are looking after our patients.’
‘Is Hannah with Paiden? If so, I should warn her that he can be quite charming when he wants to be.’
She had no doubt. That man was all too free with his smiles. ‘Hannah can take care of herself. Moreover, Mary still wants to tend Hamish, though I don’t fully understand why, after what he ordered her to do.’
‘In my years, I have seen great men do terrible things and terrible men rise to occasions,’ Rory said surrounding her in his arms. ‘People are surprising with their actions.’
‘You surprised me,’ Ailsa said. ‘When Mary said it was Hamish who ordered the poisoning, you didn’t demand retribution.’
‘Because quickly after, Mary confessed Hamish targeted your father. It wasn’t about me or Paiden then.’
It was about her. Generations of strife and hatred worked to keep them separated, yet she and Rory... She didn’t dare believe there could be more, but when he said things like this, she couldn’t help but hope.
Which made it all the worse when she remembered Rhona’s story and the fact she kept secrets from him.
‘How is he faring?’
Rory chuckled. ‘He asked about the bruises. I told him I didn’t know where they came from.’
‘He believed you?’
‘No, we’ve known each other too long, but I won’t be telling that story until we are well drunk and years have gone by.’
None in the room told of what Mary had confessed to.
That Hamish had given the order. What it would have taken for Mary to lace the goblet knowing the harm she could do...
Ailsa couldn’t comprehend it. As for then turning the poison on to Hamish, Frederick couldn’t fault her.
It aided his proposal of marriage between the clans.
Further, it protected his daughter and her new husband.
Knowing that it was her father Mary had intended to harm, Ailsa tried to find some vengeful emotion within her.
Her father was very dear to her, but Mary was broken, and her remorse so great, that even if Ailsa rained down all the wrath she had on Mary, she could do no worse than what Mary was putting herself through.
As for her father, he’d had a discussion in private with the servant. What was said, Ailsa didn’t know, but some understanding was between them now and she left it alone.
‘Here we are with the whole evening ahead of us,’ she said, enjoying the dusty scent of him. Knowing that soon he’d wash the day away, and then it would be just them. ‘Because I told my father he needed his rest.’
Rory gave her a wolfish smile. ‘Truly?’
She nodded. ‘He looks tired, but I didn’t know if he’d do it.’
‘Well, he decided to so...’ Rory stroked down her arms and back up again ‘...we can work on giving him grandchildren sooner rather than later.’
Ailsa felt her skin flush. Even after all the nights they spent together, each of them with very little sleep, she couldn’t believe her good fortune that this man was her husband.
And yet... ‘With Paiden mending, you’ll be able to return home soon.’
Rory’s arms dropped. ‘Home?’
And here was the other matter. So much shared between them, but not Rory’s past or his future. He was the acknowledged son of Lochmore’s Chief and that was something they could not avoid much longer.
As much as she wanted to stay in his arms, to while away the night as they had been doing, there were some matters that needed to be discussed. Ailsa strode to the bed and sat down.
‘We’re married,’ she said.
Rory moved to a chair to unlace his shoes. ‘For some days now.’
One lace, then the other as she gathered her courage for what she needed to say. ‘I know of the letters to your family. I know you wrote them...but they weren’t returned.’
Rory threw his shoes in a corner, the heavy clunk sounded with finality. ‘My family is complicated, Ailsa.’
‘Any more than mine?’
He stood to unhook his belt, to remove his trousers. She waited patiently, knowing when he finished this task, he’d go to the water basin warmed by the fire and clean the dust away as he had done every night.
She waited, knowing these tasks were necessary for Rory as he thought about her question. After all, he obviously never intended to talk to her about his family.
But then he ripped his tunic up and over his head and her thoughts turned from Rory and his past to just...
him. The sunlight was dimming and the firelight was taking over their room.
His body carried many scars and many more bruises, recent ones from training his men, yet she’d never known anything more magnificent.
Except maybe the way he made her feel when he... ‘Are you trying to tempt me?’
‘Perhaps.’
She wouldn’t answer him. She couldn’t as she watched the way he strode to the basin.
‘You’re being quiet for you,’ he said.
‘Just being patient. I’m on the bed and you like your sleep. You can’t avoid me or my questions for ever.’
A rough exhalation. ‘I don’t want to.’
It was a start. Maybe this something new she felt, he did, too. ‘Your family didn’t come to the wedding, Rory. They didn’t come knowing Paiden was on his deathbed. Do they hate you?’
‘Thus enters my blunt-tongued wife.’
‘I thought you liked my tongue.’
It almost looked as if Rory flushed. ‘I’m baring myself to you and washing the dirt of the day away, Ailsa. Don’t put images in my head unless you’re prepared for the consequences.’
‘I like...consequences, just not now,’ she said.
He tossed the linen aside. ‘This is important to you? We have enough with your family. Your sisters are rather devious and your father works harder than twenty men.’
‘Hamish will die soon from illness or from poison and my clan is severely divided,’ she said. ‘But I still want to know about you.’
He glanced to his clean clothing, and then strode to the bed.
She shifted so he could come between her legs.
The dark of his eyes darkened further and she knew it matched her own.
‘Ailsa,’ he growled leaning forward. ‘You can’t look at me the way you do and think I won’t respond.
’ He was going to kiss her and she wanted him to.
But just before their lips touched, he suddenly pulled away.
‘There’s something I need to show you,’ he said, opening the trunk at the base of the bed and pulling out a rectangular flat box. Eyeing it, and her, he held it aloft.
‘You want to show me that now?’ she asked, knowing she sounded disappointed.
Rory’s lips curved. ‘My family sent it when we married, but with everything happening, I forgot.’
‘I gather it’s important?’
‘It could be.’ Rory eyed the box which had been in the large trunk that Duff had brought over from Lochmore land.
It was different than he remembered it, but it had been years since he saw it last. If his father honoured his marriage, the box would contain Lochmore brooches.
One for each of them indicating their position in the clan, and the unity with each other.
With an almost giddy eagerness, he couldn’t wait to pin the brooch to her gown.
‘I’m happy then.’
She meant it. All this time, he’d raged against his life. He came to McCrieff land wanting to secure his own future, only to realise with the McCrieff clan’s division that future was wrenched away from him. Positioned by Lochmores, manipulated by McCrieffs.
But this woman, what had she done? Only offered to save her clan, Paiden’s life...his own. By marrying Ailsa, he had gained something important for his future, a family he had always wanted.
His own family hadn’t come to his wedding, but she offered him the possibilities of a future where he could be happy, have children.
Where the strife around them would be something they would face together.
And at night, they could privately find peace.
With the contents of this box, however, the Lochmore familial brooches, no one would question what she meant to him, what they meant to each other.
With a snap, he opened the lid, only to see...
‘What is it?’ Ailsa asked.
A white roaring filled Rory’s head and his vision narrowed as he focused on the contents. The box...the box wasn’t the one that he remembered.
Ailsa huffed as if greatly wounded. It wasn’t a sound she ever made so he glanced to her. A teasing light was in her eye. He couldn’t reciprocate it. Shock, anger and now this gut-wrenching emptiness wrested away his hope. If someone had taken a sword to his gut, he’d feel no different.
‘If you think I’m disappointed with that necklace and ring you’re mistaken,’ Ailsa said, peering into the box, her tone as light as her eyes, ‘I would have preferred something more practical. Still, I could make do if—’
Rory slammed the lid and tossed the box on to the trunk.
Division here, division in his family. And one he obviously created by marrying a McCrieff.
There were no brooches in the box. It was clear his family did not recognise their marriage.
He’d done everything he could to please his father.
Even marrying this woman, in part, had been done for the clan. Why did he even try?
A gentle tug on his bare arm and he fell into green eyes and a gentle expression.
‘Where did you go?’ she asked.
If he explained, he’d sound like a bitter mad man. He’d worked tirelessly with the intrigue here, he’d braced himself for poison to hit him, or a sword to come slashing down in the middle of the night. He was on McCrieff land and he had expected betrayal here.
Never, not once, from his own family. Yet that is what they had done. They hadn’t come to his wedding and they didn’t offer the brooches that would acknowledge his marriage. Maybe his suspicions were true. Maybe he wasn’t his father’s son, and this, now, was how they told him.
Another tug, this time behind his neck as Ailsa pulled him closer. ‘Rory, you’re mostly naked.’
Her hand was warm, her words finally registering. His wife. Deceit from the McCrieffs. Betrayal from Lochmores. Caring...a chance at love, with Ailsa.
That thought, that certain bone-deep knowledge pulled the sword in his gut free and he felt a sudden dizzying freedom. This blunt-tongued woman whom he wanted more than anything or anyone just told him she wanted him. He’d take her.
‘You, however, are clothed,’ he said.
‘Of course I am, this gown has laces,’ she said, pressing light kisses along his jaw and down his neck.
‘Not for much longer.’