Chapter 15 #2
How the hell did he keep getting himself into this?
Sweet Mother Mary, can’t you ever keep your mouth closed for a minute? Why must you always get yourself right into the thick of any fight?
Robby’s eyes reflected his own doubts over Braden’s ability to handle the situation. “Can you now, lad? And how do you figure that?”
“I’d like for me and my brothers to try and talk to the women.”
The men broke out into laughter and several of them openly jeered.
Turning to face him, the man in honey raked Braden with a disbelieving stare. “Want to look like me, do you?”
Braden shrugged. “There are worse things than to be covered in than honey, and I’ve had harder things thrown at me than a cabbage. But I think my brothers and I might be able to get the women to listen to reason.”
Laughing, Robby MacDouglas put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “If you’re of a mind to try, then I’m of a mood to see you harmed. Go ahead, lad, and God’s favor upon you.”
Braden nodded, then gathered Maggie and Sin.
“All right,” Braden whispered to Maggie as they walked slowly toward the castle gate. “This is your one chance. You have to make the Lady MacDouglas listen to you.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
He exchanged a determined look with Sin. “Then, I hope you’ll forgive me for what I’m going to have to do to end this.”
The stricken look on her face tore at his heart. He didn’t want to add strife to her worries, but they had come too far to go back. She had to succeed.
As they drew near the door, a cabbage came whirling straight at Braden’s head. He barely had time to dodge it.
The old woman who had hurled it, shouted down from her place on the wall, “We done told you men we’d—”
“Hold!”
Maggie recognized the voice of Ceana MacDouglas.
The lairdess peered down at them for what seemed like an eternity. After a long minute, the lairdess left the wall and Maggie could hear the clip-clopping of her shoes as she descended the wooden steps on the other side.
A few seconds later, a lock rattled and rasped, then the small door to the side of the main gate opened to show the head of a beautiful woman only a year or two older than Maggie.
The MacDouglas lairdess looked like an angel with her golden hair braided and wrapped about her head.
The black and blue plaid she wore brought out the creaminess of her pale skin and made her blue eyes glow.
“Maggie, is that you?” Ceana MacDouglas asked.
“Aye. May we come in?”
“Of course.” Ceana stepped back into the safety of the bailey.
A woman of about two score, holding her broom like a sword, opened the door only enough to admit Maggie and her escorts, and as soon as they were through it, she slammed it shut and locked it.
Ceana stepped forward and took Maggie’s hand in her own. Her cheeks were bright and her eyes shone with happiness. “Is it over?”
Maggie shook her head. “Nay, it has gotten worse, I fear. The men of my clan have taken our laird hostage and are ready to kill him if he doesn’t settle this, and he refuses to settle unless your husband ceases to demand the life of his brother.”
The lairdess dropped Maggie’s hand and all the happiness fled from her face. “Oh Sweet Mother Mary, what are we to do then?”
“I don’t know.” Maggie glanced about at all the women she’d led into this mess. “I’m sick of the bloodshed, but I’m afraid the men have us this time.”
“My lady?” Braden drew their attention to him. “Do you know of anything that can make your husband give up this feud?”
Ceana’s face turned cold and angry. “Nay. He loved that she-devil to the exclusion of everything else.”
“Then why did he marry you?” Maggie asked, then quickly regretted the bluntness of her question.
Even so, Ceana didn’t seem the least bit taken back by it. And when she answered, her voice was completely devoid of emotions. “For my money, and because his own mother insisted he take a wife.”
Braden’s eyes widened. “His mother? Is she here?”
“I’m standing right behind you, you whelp, with a broom to break across your backside if you make one move on any of us.” She raked a look over him. “And don’t you be thinking I’m so old that I don’t remember what a young buck like you has on his mind.”
Braden turned slowly to see the woman who had let them inside.
Agnes MacDouglas looked young for her age. Her strawberry blond hair held only the faintest traces of gray in it, and her blue eyes were searing in their intensity and filled with the vitality of a woman half her age.
She placed the broom handle on the ground and held it like a soldier would a spear as she placed her left hand on her hip and narrowed a probing stare at him.
“I told my Robby-boy that woman was a snake when I first saw her and that wandering eye she had. I knew she was no good. But he wouldn’t listen to me.
He just had to have her, regardless of my warnings. ”
Maggie stepped forward. “Is there anything that could make him—”
Agnes shook her head before she finished. “She poisoned my babe with those practiced pouts. Pox upon her for all eternity.”
Ceana’s face turned to stone. “And now I carry his bairn and I will not give birth to this child until my husband stops pining for that she-devil!”
Sin snorted. “Should I point out, milady, that I doubt you’ll have a choice as to when you birth your child?”
Ceana cast him a withering glare.
Sin just smiled in response.
“Wait!” Maggie said, interrupting them. “I think I have a plan.”
Braden shivered at her words. God help them now, for he knew only too well about Maggie and her plans.
If he had any sense at all, he’d head back to England with Sin in tow.
He glanced around at the women surrounding them. All eyes were trained on Maggie, and his gut drew even tighter. They were actually going to listen to her.
Of course they are. They don’t know what they’re in for.
But he did.
“My brother Anghus used to have a saying. You don’t know what you’ve got, till it’s gone.”
The hair on the back of Braden’s neck rose, and some inner premonition warned him to grab her and run back home as fast as his legs could carry him.
But damn fool he, he didn’t move.
“Well,” Maggie continued, “I think I know a way to show Robby MacDouglas exactly what he has, and to see if it means anything to him.”