by Alisa Adams
“Nay!” cried Caden in a hoarse whisper. “She will get well. I vow this!” He looked at Cat with panic in his eyes. “She cannae die now,” he whispered hoarsely as he dropped to his knees beside the bed. “Not now that I have found her,” he said with a low, rough voice.
Tears spilled over Cat’s eyes and gently trickled down her cheeks. “Not now that I have found you,” she whispered back to him.
“You said we will have a wedding,” Caden said abruptly as he turned to the aunts. “Bring the pastor here, today!” He turned to Catriona and grasped her hands. “Catriona MacKay, marry me. I dinnae care if it’s for an hour, or a day or…I want you as my wife. For the rest of the time we have together…however long that may be,” he said in a broken whisper.
“Caden, no. Do not do this to yourself. Please. If I am to die, ye will be a widow! It hurts me to see you hurting,” she cried as tears ran down her face.
“Catriona,” he said in a deep, throaty voice. “I am on my knees, once again.” He tried to smile. “But this time I am on my knees begging you. Marry me? Have me as your husband for the rest of our lives,” he whispered as he kissed her hands. “Bring to me and the children we will have, your love, your happiness, your joy and kindness, and your gentle touch. I will die without you by my side for the rest of our lives.”
“For the rest of my life, Caden. My short life. Dinnae ye see? You will have a long life. You will find love and a woman to bear you children—”
“Nay! You will be my only wife. I will never love like I love you.” He swallowed past the lump in his throat, his voice shaking. “Ever again. I vow this. Say yes, say you will be my wife.”
“Caden, I do love you. I do...I will marry you,” she said very softly. “And I will fight this with everything I can. Because I am not fighting to live, but to be able to love you. Forever.”
Caden sprang from his knees and captured her lips with his and kissed her with such intense love that even Aunt Agnes had to wipe a tear away.
Gillis cleared her throat once, and then once again until Caden and Cat looked at her.
Gillis looked from them to the vials. “There is a chance,” she said hesitantly, “that I could be wrong, but it seems to me, seeing the length of your illness, that there is a chance that it has been a slow, very small amount of poison you have been getting regularly. If I am right, it has been just enough to keep you incapacitated and feeling very sick,” she said thoughtfully. “But not enough to kill you. This also means it leaves your system very quickly once you stop taking it in.”
Gillis handed the vials back to Aunt Agnes and Aunt Hextilda. The aunts took them with a look of horror, as if they were handling serpents. “We must put these back where we found them so Rhona doesnae know we took them,” Aunt Hexy whispered to Aunt Agnes.
Gillis snapped her fingers in impatience. “But if they are giving just a small amount to keep Catriona sick, but not enough to kill her, the question is...” She looked at a stunned Caden and Cat.
“Why,” Caden growled angrily, finishing Gillis’s sentence for her. “The question is why?”
“Aye, if it is both Rhona and her brother, why would they do such a thing?” Cat said with shock in her voice.
The room was silent until Caden slowly stood up and spoke. “The grain kiln is empty,” he said as his jaw tensed and he narrowed his eyes.
“Nay, that cannae be,” Cat exclaimed as she looked up at him. “It should be full at this time of year.”
“Those men carrying those sacks,” Caden started to say.
“Aye, the Sinclair men,” Gillis said.
“Sinclair?” Caden repeated in astonishment. “Aye, that is the name I heard called out. But how do you know they were all indeed Sinclairs?” he demanded.
Gillis looked at Kaithria. “One of them called the man I hit with my targe shield his brother, William Sinclair. Did you hear them, Kaithria?”
“Aye,” she said softly. “I did, now that I think on it. Samuel Sinclair was the one I hit with me Lochaber ax. They called him Samuel and told him to ‘get up, we are strong Sinclairs’.”
“Och, it is beginning to make sense,” Aunt Agnes said.
“Tell us, Aggie,” Caden demanded in a harsh, impatient voice.
Aunt Agnes settled herself on the bed next to Catriona. Aunt Hexy joined her on the other side.
“’Tis all my fault,” she said and took a breath to tell her tale. “A very long time ago my husband’s uncle, who was a MacKay,” she said, looking at Catriona, “well, he fought and won a duel by swords over a woman and had to go away for some time. When he came back, the Sinclairs had taken over Sanside.”
“Wait!” Gillis said, aghast.
Everyone looked at Gillis.
Gillis shrugged. “We are all thinking the same thing,” she said defensively.
When they just stared at her, Gillis turned back to Aunt Agnes. “You were married?” she asked. “Also, what was he like? Was he as tall as you, or smaller? I have so many questions,” Gillis exclaimed.
Aunt Agnes stared at her for a moment. Then she pulled the pipe out of her mouth and looked at it solemnly. “He used to smoke a pipe. ’Tis why I do. The smell, you see. It reminds me of him,” she said softly as she turned the pipe over in her hands. Then she looked up at Gillis. “I have many, many stories to tell you. So does Hextilda, I am sure. But that is for a later time.”
The room was very quiet; all eyes were on Agnes Gunn.
“Very well Aunt, I look forward to that,” Gillis said respectfully. “So...when your husband’s uncle came back, the Sinclairs had taken over Sanside?”
Kaithria cleared her throat. She blinked back a tear. She had had no idea that Aunt Agnes smoked those pipes in the loving memory of her dead husband. “That is so beautiful Aunt Agnes, that you loved him so much that you smoke a pipe in his memory,” Kaithria said softly.
Aunt Agnes threw her head back and laughed. Aunt Hextilda let out a little hoot.
“Och, no, dearest Kaithria,” Aunt Agnes said. “’Tis because I disliked him so much!” she said loudly as she jabbed the pipe in the air to make her point. “I smoke to remind myself to never, ever again let a man make me feel like less than I am, or to hurt me. That I can smoke if I want, and anyone who says a lady should not, well they can go take a swim in the Devil’s Pool, if ye know what I mean!”
Silence came to the room again. But it was Catriona who broke the silence. “Aunt Agnes, I love you!” she exclaimed. “You are magnificent!” And she gave her a great, long hug.
Kaithria swallowed. “That was not what I was expecting Aunt Agnes to say,” she whispered to Gillis.
“But much more fascinating,” Gillis whispered back. “I wonder if that is why she sometimes wears breeks too? If a thing is worth doing well, it is worth doing! Were the pants her husband’s I wonder?”
Kaithria wanted to tell her it was if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well, but she did not get the chance.
“Nay!” Aunt Agnes shouted at them before Kaithria could correct Gillis. “’Tis just that it is far, far easier to ride in breeks than wearing all those skirts. You should try it sometime!”
The girls stared at her with their mouths open.
Catriona said with great excitement, “I plan to! If I live, I will wear breeks! Och, I cannae wait!”
Caden smiled at Catriona but then glared at the rest of them. “Back to the subject if you please, ladies?”
Kaithria helped change the subject back to the matter at hand.
“Aunt Agnes, why did the Sinclairs take Sanside?” Kaithria asked. “Had the Sinclairs’ won the estate in the duel?”
“Och no, they just took advantage of the situation,” Aunt Agnes said crisply. “It had been abandoned, after all, leaving only an overseer who the Sinclairs poisoned to death. When the MacKay returned, he challenged the head of the Sinclairs to a duel.” Aggie pursed her lips. “He killed the Sinclair, of course. The Mackay was very good with a sword; they still are
, all of them. Once again he had to go away after he had fought and murdered a man in a duel, but this time he made sure that he left the whole of the Sanside Estate and house in his will to the MacKays. Eventually, it was your father’s turn to inherit it, Catriona, and he, in turn, left it in his will to you.” She put her pipe back in her mouth and thought for a moment. “You were sick before, at your brother’s castle, with Rhona taking care of you then as well?” she asked, looking at Catriona, who nodded silently. “They found out you were the owner and have been targeting you while they get rich off this estate’s plentiful harvests all these years.”
“Rhona and her brother, Richerd Redhed, the supposed healer? They are Sinclairs?” Caden asked.
“Aye,” Aunt Agnes said. “But this Richerd Redhed you speak of has lived on this estate for years, handed down as the appointed chamberlain over the property. I knew he was a Sinclair, but the MacKays thought the arrangement a fair solution. I did not know he was passing himself off as Catriona’s healer,” she said thoughtfully as she fiddled with the pipe in one corner of her lips.
Caden growled, “So Richerd is not a healer. But a snake! That is what he is!” he said angrily. He turned and looked at Cat sweetly. “Though he knew enough to leave your windows open at night so that in your weak state you would get sick from the cold night air.”
Gillis nodded. “Confusing the symptoms further.”
“And robbing my estate all this time,” Cat said angrily.
“The Sinclairs are a large clan,” Kaithria said quietly, with warning in her voice.
“A very large clan,” Aunt Hexy said. “Perhaps it is only a few of them?” she asked hopefully.
“We are too few. We cannae start a fight,” Kaithria said softly.
“But we can end it, Sister,” Caden said with a firm smile.
Caden stared at the people around the room. He turned to stare at Catriona sitting in the middle of the large bed with her aunts on either side of her, each of them with an arm around her. “How do you feel, my fierce heart?” he asked softly, his voice changing to a deep, velvet purr. “Ready to marry me?”
Cat was caught by the look in his eyes. He stole her breath away and she could not speak.
Aunt Hexy nudged her. “That man loves ye,” she whispered.
Cat looked at her aunt and blushed bright red. She looked back at Caden.
“Answer him, Catriona,” Aunt Agnes said. “Hextilda is right, even though she is a cracked old elf. That man loves you,” she said pointing her pipe at Caden.
Cat laughed softly as she stared back at Caden and grinned.
“I have never felt better! And yes, yes I am ready to marry you!” Cat said as her grin turned into a big smile as she stared at her very own black-haired, golden-eyed, exotically handsome Highlander. The man who would be her husband.
Caden smiled back at her. His eyes were glowing with all he felt for her inside of him. Then he spoke to the others in the room. “Catriona and I will need your help,” he said with a determined look on his face.
10
The women were all gathered on the bed with Caden walking back and forth in deep thought as they planned.
Kaithria and Gillis were each leaning against a bedpost at the bottom of the bed while Aunt Agnes and Aunt Hextilda were back sitting beside Cat after returning the vials of poison to the kitchen. They were handing her pieces of food from a basket and Cat was eating heartedly.
They were all feasting on the food in the basket as well as the delicious porridge, and the rock-hard biscuits the two aunts had made.
Duke was in the middle of the bed, sniffing everything. He leaned as far as he could over to the table beside the bed, sniffing at the box of oatcakes.
Aunt Hexy reached over and picked up the tin and opened the lid.
“Nay, Aunt Hexy!” Cat said urgently. “Dinnae let Duke eat any of those oatcakes!”
Aunt Hexy did not look at Cat. “Aye dear. I wilnae let him. I am just curious if he can tell they are poisoned,” she said quietly as she let her tiny dog sniff the oatcakes from a safe distance.
Duke poked his head toward the tin. Aunt Hexy moved it slightly back so he could not get too close. The dog sniffed at the tin, let out a small growl, and sneezed twice. Then he whined and backed away.
Gillis snapped her fingers as she sat forward. “Aunt Hextilda, you are brilliant! Dogs have a much better sense of smell than we do. We can have Duke check any food for Catriona!”
Aunt Hextilda cackled softly as she stroked her little dog. “He’s a right stotter doggie, he is!”
Caden stopped. He had been watching the dog. “Hextilda? Pull the bed covering back, will you? Let your dog sniff the green bed linens for me?”
Aunt Hexy and Cat pulled back part of the bed covering to reveal a piece of the pretty green-colored linens. Aunt Hexy patted her fingers on the linens and Duke came over eagerly, wagging his skinny tail. He sniffed where her fingers were pointed and immediately sneezed once again. He backed away with a quiet growl.
Gillis snapped her fingers again as Caden’s jaw tensed.
“Have those bed linens changed at once,” Caden said in a low, steel-like voice. “Anything but green.”
Aunt Agnes looked over with a grin at Aunt Hextilda. “That would be you, Hexy. That is a task for the household help!”
Aunt Hexy sniffed. “I helped ye make the porridge, Aggie,” she stated. “Early enough that we could get it to Catriona before that housekeeper wakes up. Ye could help me,” she said with an arched look.
Kaithria got off the bed. “We should pack what is left of this food back in the basket and take the tray of porridge and biscuits back to the kitchen before Rhona discovers that we have fed Cat,” she said slowly as she looked at all the food they had eaten.
“Aye,” Cat said urgently. “The sun is near fully up. Rhona usually sleeps until mid-morning but best to not chance anything.”
“What kind of housekeeper sleeps that late? She truly does think she is the lady of the house! And her taking the finest room in the other wing!” Aunt Agnes said, aghast, as she shook her head in disbelief. Then she looked back at Kaithria. “Why are we hiding the food, Kaithria? ’Tis fine that I have brought her some porridge,” Aunt Agnes said indignantly. “’Tis my position here as head cook,” she said with a look at Hextilda.
“Aggie, ye big goose,” Hextilda said, “they cannae know that we know.”
Aunt Agnes’s mouth fell open. “But of course,” she said. “Och, we must act helpful in poisoning her, of course! Och, this will be fun, particularly for you, Hexy. Arnae ye good at this sort of thing?” she said and arched her eyebrow at her.
Aunt Hextilda turned pink and busied herself with pushing her hair back to the top of her head. “Wheesht yerself, Aggie! Or I’ll be telling some of yer secrets!”
Gillis was watching the two aunts avidly. “Once again, I have so many questions! The two of you must sit down someday and tell me all these stories you have!”
Caden interrupted the ladies before they all started talking again. “Aggie, ye will need to get back to the kitchen. Hextilda, can you find some new bed linens for Catriona’s bed? I suggest Duke stays here with Catriona if you will allow it? If the housekeeper asks, the dog is a gift from me. He will know if Rhona tries to give Catriona anything with poison in it.”
Aunt Hextilda puffed up importantly, “Of course,” she said. “Caden? Please call me Aunt. Sometimes ye do, and other times ye dinnae. Ye are to be part of this family, after all.”
Caden blinked a few times as he stared at the diminutive lady.
Catriona swore that he blushed.
“Thank you, Aunt Hextilda,” Caden said.
“And you may call me Aunt Agnes, or Aunt Aggie if you prefer,” Aggie said as if she was a queen bestowing a great honor on one of her subjects.
Hexy mumbled, “’Twas me idea first. She just did it because I did.”
Aunt Agnes ignored her and smiled at Caden.
Caden
gave them a genuine smile, showing all his gleaming white teeth. Catriona thought he looked truly happy for the first time ever.
“Kaithria?” Caden said as he looked at his sister. “You and Gillis and I need to go back to the village. I will be bringing the pastor back. Can you find those herbs from Morocco that grandmother gave us to use in tea? I should think they will be good for Catriona. They will help cleanse the poisons from her body.”
“What kind of herbal tea?” Gillis said as she took her book out of her pocket and grabbed her pencil.
Kaithria said, “’Tis blended from dandelion, green tea, lemons, and ginger I believe, and some other secret herbs that Grandmother would not name,” she said softly as she smiled over at Cat. “It may help, indeed.”
Aunt Hexy and Aunt Agnes went back below stairs while Gillis kissed Cat on the cheek and promised to be back soon.
Kaithria looked down at her short-haired friend with a gentle smile.
“Will ye give me a hug, Kaithria?” Cat said to her in a teasing voice. “Now that ye are not afraid of the touch of others?”
Kaithria laughed in a husky soft voice. “Of course,” she said as she sat on the bed and freely enfolded Cat in a long, tight hug. Then she kissed her on the cheek. “Ye will get well, Cat,” she whispered fervently.
Cat nodded, looking at her beautifully exotic friend with the golden eyes. “For the first time in a long time, I believe I will!”
Kaithria stared into her eyes and smiled. “Ye have already helped him.” She nodded towards her brother, who was waiting impatiently on the other side of the bed.
Cat’s smile blossomed on her lips. “Nay, he has helped me find my way back to the world of the living. Truly, Kaithria, I had given up,” she whispered guiltily.
“We know. But we will get through this together. We all love ye, Catriona.” Kaithria smiled at her and kissed her again, then she got up off the bed. She quietly left the room, closing the door behind her.
Cat turned to look at Caden. He came and sat on the bed and stared at her with a satisfied smile on his face. “I love you, Catriona MacKay,” he whispered.