At The Laird's Command Part 9

Ian winced, perhaps remembering the day I dropped to my laird's feet and wept, begging him to take me instead of my father's life. My father had earned the laird's wrath; his execution would have been justice. But I couldn't let it happen, I knew I'd have done exactly the same again, even knowing where it would lead me.

"Listen, la.s.s," Ian said, clearing his throat. "I don't stand proud of how you've been treated. Not by the laird and not by me. I realize what last night must have been like for you and don't wish to make it worse."

"Then you must know the laird doesn't care if we share a bed together," I said, anguished. More anguished to know it wasn't true. He did care. In fact, he wanted us to share a bed. But I was too raw to be precise. "Or didn't he prove it to you last night? He's done with me now. I'm his cast off leavings, so you needn't worry-"

"Stop," Ian said, breaking through the litany of my upset. "Please. I canna have my mind filled with women troubles right now. You need rest. It's what we both need. You will feel better with some rest. So leave off your crying, climb into the bed and sleep unmolested by me or anyone else."

That's what we did that night. We slept. Him far to the edge of his side, me far to the edge of mine. We didn't touch. Not even accidentally in adjusting the covers. I had found my way into Ian's bed, but as for the rest...it still somehow felt like a betrayal of my laird and my heart. I would not, could not, do it.

And neither could Ian.

So it remained, night after night, as the siege on the castle went on and on.

Chapter Nine.

Brenna was the first to fall sick.

She lost her balance on the stairs carrying a tray to the laird's rooms. Then she was lost in some sort of delirium, the pupils of her eyes wide and fearful as she murmured seeing the ghost of the legendary MacBeth.

"Brenna!" I cried, snapping fingers before her eyes to bring her back to the present. "Can you hear me?"

"Heather," she said, tenderly touching my cheek, her eyes deep dark pools as if she were seeing into a waking dream, rambling nonsense. "Sweet heather. Every man loves heather honey on his biscuit..."

It was good that she was a tiny thing, and I was able to get her below stairs myself, to the makes.h.i.+ft infirmary, where my sister and I could tend her. But then others fell prey to the strange illness, too.

A shepherd's boy was brought to the physicker with a rash, flushed and barely of coherent speech. Ten more were ill before the end of the day.

"My G.o.d, is it plague?" I asked my sister, wis.h.i.+ng Arabella would don a mask as she nursed the sick.

"The Physiker doesn't think so," Arabella told me, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her forearm. "He thinks it's poison."

My heart beat faster at the thought. Glancing over the p.r.o.ne bodies of the sick, I whispered, "Who would poison a maid and a shepherd's boy?"

"I think it's in the well-water," Arabella said, grimly. "It's the last thing your friend did before falling ill. Brenna went to fetch water for the cook. She may have only sipped a little and she's lucky. I think she'll recover."

I was glad for that, but disturbed beyond measure that someone could have poisoned our well. I'd been too miserable to drink much of anything. But how many others had slaked their thirst? "It must have been the attacker; when he slipped over the wall to murder the laird, he must have poisoned the well, too."

"Then why are we only seeing signs of it now?" Arabella hissed through her teeth. "There is a traitor amongst us. Either way, without an easy water supply, we are in the greatest peril-and it would have never happened if Davy..." Arabella trailed off, miserably. Terrified, too. "He's been gone for weeks!"

Had it been that long since her betrothed had disappeared? My days and nights were such a fog of grief and loneliness, I had scarcely kept count. Every cold miserable day without my laird blended into the next, and every hollow night in Ian's bed was just as uneventful.

"Davy's come to harm," Arabella said, choking back furious tears. "He wouldn't stay so long from us otherwise. What could the laird have asked of Davy that would keep him gone for so long?"

I didn't know. And though I'd promised to ask the laird about it, he'd given me no opportunity to speak with him since making a gift of me to Ian Macrae. I had no right to approach the laird's bedchambers any longer and I never saw him but at mealtime, when our rations were carefully doled out.

For myself, I had no appet.i.te at all.

Especially now that our porridge could only be made with rain water and melted snow or water that we hauled up from the loch and boiled. It meant more labor, more exhaustion-a blow to the already crumbling morale within the castle.

And it meant that everyone began to suspect one another.

When the February snows began to fall in earnest, I came upon my sister shouting at the crofter she'd been betrothed to before she met Davy and Malcolm. "Is it you, Connal?" she demanded to know. "Have you turned traitor on Clan Macrae? If you're the reason I go down to the sea gate each morning to search for Davy's body floating in the loch, I'll kill you myself. I'll kill you myself!"

Malcolm and I had to pull her back from the bewildered farm boy, who protested his innocence. And though Arabella didn't believe him, I did. What, after all, did he stand to gain from helping the Donalds? And how would he have any contact with them?

He had no power or position or connection to those who, like Ian Macrae, were permitted to carry messages back and forth from the enemy. But Lady Fiona did. And while I no longer suspected Ian of anything more than too upright and uptight a bearing, I began to suspect that his mother wanted more for him than to be merely the heir of the laird...

Fiona must have known that I suspected her. Must have sensed my eyes on her in the Grand Hall where our rations were dispensed. Because she sought me out one day in the corner where I'd settled myself in the shadows. "Heather, is it? You must eat your salt-beef. Here. Take my rations, too."

She shoved her bowl into my hands, but I was wary as a cat. "Thank you, but others are needier. I'm not hungry at all."

"You must eat anyway. Your pallor is unhealthy."

I was sure she was right. In my sadness and heartbreak, I felt miserably unwell. I hadn't dared go to Arabella complaining of the way my stomach tossed and heaved. Not when so many were poisoned. It would worry her even more, and she was already facing the terrible prospect of having lost one of the men she loved. I was merely facing a stomach that heaved at the smell of my rations. I would just have to endure it. "I thank you, Lady Fiona, but surely someone else is in need of your charity."

"It isn't charity," Lady Fiona sniffed. "You're likely with child. And though it's supremely distasteful for me to take notice of my son's infatuation with you, it occurs to me that the bairn in your belly might be my grandchild."

I nearly dropped the bowl in my shock.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," Lady Fiona snapped. "This can't be a surprise to you."

But it was a surprise. A very great surprise. Even though the laird had, himself, said that I might be with child, I'd been too sad and miserable to think of my late courses, not to mention, quite certain it would be too early to tell. There was a bit of puffiness at my ankles and wrists, but also under my eyes because of all the weeping I'd been doing. And while I'd been sick most mornings as of late, it had seemed only my misery to blame.

Had Ian told his mother of this? I doubted very much that Ian had any sort of infatuation with me. I wanted to tell her that if I had got with child, it couldn't be Ian's. That though I slept in his bed, that was all we did there...

...and yet, that hadn't been all. There had been the once when the laird shared me with him. I remembered how Ian had been ready to finish in my mouth when the laird had suggested he take me between my legs.

Almost as if he'd planned it that way.

The thought made me so furious I threw myself back from the table. "Pardon me, Lady Fiona, but I must speak to the laird."

"Don't humiliate yourself in such a way," the lady sniffed, her distaste for me as plain as ever. "That one has likely sowed a hundred Macrae b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in the countryside. But my son actually cares for you. Which means, in turn, that I must make you my concern."

I didn't know if I should be glad or terrified to be of concern to the lady my laird had once called a dragon. "I believe you are mistaken, Lady Fiona."

With that, I rose to find the laird. But Lady Fiona stopped me with a hand on my elbow. "If you're off to share the news with our chieftain, you needn't bother. My nephew has given orders that you're not to be admitted to see him. He's made very plain to everyone in the castle that he's done with you."

I knew it. I had despaired of it. Wept of it. Wanted to hide away in shame. "But he will want to hear-"

"He will not," Fiona insisted. "Besides, if you go to him with this now, it will be a distraction he doesn't need in negotiating his marriage."

The pain I felt at hearing these words was crippling. I nearly doubled over of it, as surely as if she'd thrown an elbow into the softness of my belly. "His-his marriage?"

Lady Fiona clucked her tongue. "Don't you know how sieges are settled, you poor, deluded girl? The chieftain of the Donald clan has an unmarried daughter. He'll offer her to the laird in exchange for giving up the castle and breaking his alliance with the MacKenzies. Without reinforcement it's likely our only way out of this standoff. I don't like it; I never thought I'd live to see the day a laird of this clan would surrender the castle at Eilean Donan. But I'm not one to hide from the realities of this world."

I sat-no, fell, really-back into my chair. The laird had told me from the start that he wasn't interested in marriage. I suppose I had put too much stock in it. That was before he was pushed into this position. It made more sense now-why he'd sent me away from him. Why he'd fobbed me off on his second-in-command. And though a part of me railed against the laird for speaking words of love to me and promising to be as true as any husband while considering a marriage proposal, another part of me rejoiced to think there might be some way out of this that would not cost him his life.

Seeing that I had nearly swooned, Lady Fiona pursed her lips. "I might feel sorry for you if you weren't such a strumpet, allowing yourself to be pa.s.sed from man to man. My nephew isn't the sentimental sort." I started to protest that she obviously didn't know the laird if she could say such a thing, but she interrupted me. "But my son is. Under his gruff exterior, Ian is a very sentimental man. So I will insist that you behave as respectfully as a mistress can behave, for his honor. And for his heart. Because if you don't, I will come after yours with a butcher knife."

I'd never before been threatened in such dulcet tones, with such promise of violence, and for such an entirely ridiculous reason. "My Lady, you need not fear. I cannot endanger your son's heart. Ian has disapproved of me from the moment I entered this castle."

She gave a delicate snort. "Don't be a clot-headed fool. A woman of your station has to be wiser in the ways of men. My son doesn't bother to disapprove of anyone he doesn't love." With that, she pushed both bowls in front of me again. "Now eat."

The very same lady who had refused to let me help her sew for the war effort lest she be seen in the same room with me now sat beside me, imperiously supervising my every last bite. I ate, silently. Numbly. Trying to make sense of my situation. Trying to understand what I should say or do.

Understanding only one thing...

If there truly was a babe inside me, I had to worry about more than just my own broken heart. It changed everything somehow. A child would have to be provided for, whether it was the laird's get or not. Because the child was mine.

Unfortunately, Lady Fiona was right about one thing. The laird would not see me, even when I managed to slip up the stairs to his chambers. Young Rodric, posted outside his door, stopped me there. "No one pa.s.ses. Least of all you."

"My laird!" I shouted. "Please speak to me."

But there was no answer from beyond the heavy wooden door.

"I'm not leaving," I told Rodric. "I will camp here, in the hall, all night if need be. Surely the laird must come out of his chambers."

Rodric turned a bit red at the tips of his ears. "You'll make it harder for me to do my duty, woman."

Woman? To take such a tone with me when Rodric looked scarcely past the age of eighteen! I quite nearly boxed his ears, but I supposed he could have called me worse things. "I want to see the laird."

"He's given me orders to escort you away if you should come," young Rodric said. "I'll do it if I must, but that will leave his door unguarded."

And I remembered what happened to him the last time his door was unguarded. He was nearly murdered. Yes, I remembered. Though my hands and knees had healed of their sc.r.a.pes, the wound was as fresh as ever in my mind. So, it was with despair and defeat that I returned to Ian's chambers, my belly filled with such anger at my laird that I could almost imagine doing what he'd asked of me, in revenge.

That's what I need from you. To bed down with him. To make him love you as you made me love you. To find love with him, if you can.

It had been worked out between Ian and I a sort of schedule. He kept to the bed during the days so that he could man the walls at night. And I slept at night whilst he was gone. In the few hours of overlap, we sometimes read together, talking of the books we both loved so much.

But this time, when Ian returned from his rounds, I demanded, "Do you love me?"

Ian froze where he was, his s.h.i.+rt half-on, half-off. "What?"

"I asked you if you loved me, and I will have an answer."

Ian's mouth gaped open a bit, then he snapped it back shut. "You've no place to be asking such a thing."

"Your mother says that you harbor some depth of feeling for me. The laird insisted upon the same. I've never seen any evidence of even a fondness for me, but perhaps I am a clot-headed fool. I refuse to continue on in ignorance."

Ian threw his sword down. Threw it, with a clatter. His eyes narrowed in something akin to fury and he pointed to the still-red scar of the wound on his ribs. "No evidence of fondness, she says! Won't this do for evidence?"

The wound he'd taken defending me from the enemy. And the memory of it washed over me. Donald clan warriors been trying to grab me and make off with me as they'd done with Arabella. One of them had their hands on me.

Ian Macrae landed a staggering blow to drive him off. Ian had defended me with his body and taken a chop of the sword for his reward. I remembered the spray of blood-the hot, sticky feel of it as I tried to staunch his blood with my pretty gown...

And as I remembered it, Ian continued to rant. "I s'pose you will say that I took it for duty, and that much is true. But what of the wounds I've taken for you that you can't see? Like the one you've given me just now. To have been inside you with the laird-to have made love with you in his bed-and not only watch you turn back into his arms, but then tell me you've no evidence of my feelings!"

I swallowed audibly. "But you never said-"

"What was I to say? You don't want me. You don't belong to me. I've too much pride to say such a thing and see the pity in your eyes after it. We might have gone forever together, you and I, without this added humiliation of speaking about it, but you're like him, aren't you? You enjoy tormenting me."

"No, no!" I cried, swiftly, reaching for his hand. "Of course I don't."

"Then what is it that you're about?" he asked, his chest heaving.

"I-I don't know. I don't understand how it is between us. Your mother thinks I am your mistress."

"Och! My b.l.o.o.d.y mother," Ian cried, pulling his hand from mine to tear at his hair. "That woman is a meddler of the first order."

"Am I your mistress now?" I asked, because I felt as if I must know.

"Well, you're not my wife, are you?"

That made me shrink down a bit into myself in shame.

I went silent, and so did he. And in that silence, he yanked off the rest of his s.h.i.+rt and threw it to the floor. Then he climbed into his side of the bed with a crisp military precision, and brooded in silence.

I broke the silence with a whisper. "I never thanked you for saving me."

"It was my duty," he said, gruffly. "It is evidence of my feelings for you, but it is not a debt that must be repaid if that's what you're thinking."

"No, but it was the first and only thing you ever did for me without sourness or complaint, as if it were easier to take the cut of a blade than to teach me my letters..."

"T'was a thousand times easier than teaching you to read, and not because you're a slow student. To the contrary, the plainer it became to me that you've a fine mind beneath all that glorious hair, the more irritating it became to teach you. And not touch you..."

"You've wanted to touch me all along?" I asked, curious.

Without looking at me, he murmured, "I've been in a sweat of desire for you ever since you came to this castle and I saw you put the laird into a fever-l.u.s.t. I stand shamed for it."

"Because of what I am?"

"Because of what I let him make you," Ian replied.

I bit my lower lip, wondering how differently my life would have been if the laird had never made me his harlot. Then I realized that it was not the laird who made me that. "I wanted him, Ian. The laird would've never put a hand on me if I had not wanted him. You saw for yourself how much I wanted him."

"But he hurt you," Ian said. "I watched him beat you with a belt."

"You also watched me beg him for it."

"If you were my woman, I would never do that to you."