by Lucy Monroe
“Why should I believe you?” Una asked belligerently.
“Because I’m telling the truth, but maybe you will need time to accept that.”
“Time is not something she has,” Guaire said, his face set. “I will make sure the laird is made aware of your stand on the matter, Una.”
Una blanched, proving she might be prejudiced, but she wasn’t stupid.
Abigail shook her head though. “No.”
His brows drawn together in a frown, Guaire said, “The laird’s instructions in the matter were clear.”
“My mind is made up.” Abigail crossed her arms over her chest and gave Guaire her best no-nonsense frown. “I will spend the next month getting to know Una and she will come to know her lady, not the English hobgoblin she imagines that has her so frightened.”
“I am not afraid,” Una denied with disdain.
“What will happen in a month’s time?” Guaire asked, ignoring the other woman’s continued posturing.
“If she cannot learn to respect, if not actually like me, then she will be relieved of her position as housekeeper and head cook for her laird.”
Una’s mouth opened and then snapped shut without forming any words.
Guaire shook his head at her. “It is more than you should expect. Talorc made it clear he would consider disrespect shown to our lady as a direct challenge to his leadership.”
Una sighed. “I know. I was there.”
Abigail tensed. “That changes things.” She wished it didn’t, but the fact that Una had witnessed Talorc’s words meant Abigail could not choose her own course in the matter.
For the first time, Una looked at Abigail with something approaching respect. “In what way?”
“I cannot allow such a challenge to my husband’s authority stand. As much as I find it distasteful to do so, I must inform him of our discussion. However, I will attempt to convince him to allow you the month’s grace. In fact, I will ask him to give the entire clan a month to get to know me before he takes seriously any disparaging comments about or toward my person.”
Una and Guaire stared at her in varying degrees of shock.
“You would—”
“Talorc is not known for his patience,” Guaire said, interrupting Una.
“That is quite all right. I am convinced I have enough for both of us.”
Chapter 12
Abigail had reason to regret her certainty not an hour later as she argued with Talorc in their chamber. “Una needs time to come to know me before she will trust me.”
“I am her laird. She knows me well enough.”
Abigail opened her mouth but could not think what to say for a moment. That was an undeniable point. “I do not believe she intended to show you disrespect.”
“I do not agree.”
“Talorc, please! Do you not think this transition is hard enough for me? Must you put me in a place of enmity with your people without giving me a chance to prove myself?”
He looked astonished at her accusation. “That is not what I am doing.”
“But it is. I imagine Una is well liked among the clan. She is beautiful and takes care of not only the laird, but his most trusted soldiers. If you banish her for being a little cranky, I wouldn’t blame the other clan members for finding the fault in me. They’ll have a real reason to hate me, not an irrational prejudice.”
“Our hatred of the English is not irrational.”
She threw her hands in the air. “That is exactly what I mean. If even you, who considers me a friend, can say something so hurtful, how can you expect every member of your clan to be more circumspect?”
“I meant no insult, I did not say that I hate you.”
Cocking her elbows, she fisted her hands on her hips and just looked at the maddening man her king had dictated she marry.
Their gazes locked, but she refused to look away. And something told her he never would.
“You dare to challenge me?”
“Is that what I’m doing? I thought I was disagreeing with you.” She could tell right now this would be an ongoing argument in their marriage.
“I will not allow my people to mistreat you.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m not an idiot. I just want you to give everyone a chance to get to know me and realize I’m not like Tamara.”
Talorc picked Abigail up by the waist and drew her to him. “You are nothing like that evil bitch.”
“I’m not, Talorc. I’m really not.” She needed him to believe her.
He didn’t reply, but he did kiss her, long and deeply. Kissing led to touching and touching led to disrobing. Soon, they were writhing together in the furs. By the time she could string two thoughts together again, she was naked and snuggled atop her husband’s chest.
Sound vibrated through his chest and she knew he had spoken. She lifted her head, affecting a sleepy yawn. “What?”
“I said you will be the death of me.”
“I do not think so. You kissed me, if you will recall.”
“You challenged me.”
“Considering the consequences, I believe I will have to challenge you more often.”
He growled in mock outrage and rolled her under him to begin kissing her yet again. She loved his taste and could have kept at their current occupation in perfect bliss for the next hour, but Talorc lifted his head and looked toward the door.
Someone must have knocked. Chills chased down her spine as Abigail acknowledged yet another source of revelation for her secret. What if someone knocked and she did not hear them? She would have to keep the door open when she was in the chamber. There was no help for it. Unlike in her room in her father’s keep, she could not feel the vibrations of the floor when someone approached the door.
Or perhaps she had merely been preoccupied? She lost all sense of her surroundings when her husband started touching her.
He brushed a lock of hair back from her face. “We must go down for the evening meal, angel.”
“I am not overly hungry, are you?” she asked, placing her hand on his neck and caressing the sensitive spot she had discovered earlier.
He needed more time to calm down in regard to Una. Abigail still hoped to convince Talorc of her plan to give the clan a month to get used to her.
“I might be convinced to forego the evening meal if I thought other, more pressing appetites were going to be fed.”
She made no comment about how they had just been fed, but leaned up to press her lips to his throat. Many aspects of her new life were precarious, but not this.
The marriage bed was everything he had promised it would be and more. So much more.
Here, she felt like a complete woman, like her deafness did not matter. She did not need to hear to make him shudder above her like he was doing now while her lips moved along the strong column of his throat.
In this one place, where touch ruled, the silence of her world meant nothing.
The next morning, Abigail was both chagrined and relieved to wake alone. Again.
She had not managed to extract a promise from Talorc to allow his clan time to accustom themselves to their new lady, one who had been born and raised in England. A country and its inhabitants even he expressed nothing but disdain toward. She worried that even now, he was banishing Una. Abigail would feel terrible if that happened.
She knew too well what it was like not to have a secure place to call home, one in which she belonged without question.
However, as much as that possibility distressed her, Abigail could not regret having the privacy to face a more personally terrifying prospect—the risk she was going mad. Perhaps the Church was right in teaching her deafness meant she had an affliction of the mind, that her fever had robbed her of her reason as well as her ability to hear.
Though why such an infirmity should take so many years to show itself, she could not begin to comprehend.
Abigail refused to believe she was possessed by a demon, as the priest taught such impediments indicated,
but she could not deny something was amiss.
The night before, Abigail had once again been certain that she heard Talorc’s voice. It was a wonderful, masculine voice, one that made her giddy with warmth and filled with joy. Even the memory of it caused her to lament her perpetual silence more intensely than she had for many years. Only the voice could not be real, for just as in the hot springs cave, she heard nothing else.
The voice had to be completely conjured by her imagination, which was a disquieting enough thought. She refused to entertain the other possibility that the voice was that of some demon that supposedly caused her deafness. The fever had stolen her ability to hear and that was that.
According to Emily’s friend the abbess, priests were too quick to point to a demon when faced with the inexplicable. The learned woman had said so in one of her first letters to Abigail. They had continued a correspondence with each other that Emily’s move north had forced Emily to drop.
Now, Abigail had no more notion of how to maintain the friendship than her sister had done. It was the single relationship she truly regretted leaving behind. The abbess had known of Abigail’s deafness and never thought less of her for it. Other than Emily, the abbess was the only person who had ever been so accepting.
However, for the first time since losing her hearing, Abigail felt a niggling worry that the priests might actually be right. Because in addition to imagining she heard Talorc once again shouting her name during climax, Abigail had also heard the howling of a wolf.
Her stomach cramped at the implication of her mind playing such tricks on her.
She covered her face, wishing she really could hide so easily from what ailed her. She couldn’t and pretending never made reality any easier to bear in the long term. Fighting back the tears, she made herself face her fears. She had not gotten this far by giving in at the first sign of adversity.
The voices in her head were simply one more thing she had to hide from those around her. It was not as if imagining she heard her husband’s voice, or even that of a wolf, could cause her or the Sinclair clan any harm. In some ways, it was no different than being deaf.
It did not make her a demon instead of the angel Talorc claimed her to be. It didn’t! But how she wished she had her sister here to talk this over with, or some way to correspond with the abbess.
Loneliness swamped Abigail, but she refused to acknowledge the low feeling. Forcing herself to face the day before her, she crawled from the furs and stood to survey the bedchamber. She was gratified to discover a pitcher of what must be water beside a large wooden bowl already half-filled with it. Both sat under the window on a small table that had not been there the day before.
Who had thought to provide her with such a kindness?
It didn’t really matter if it had been Talorc or Guaire who had thought to provide this most welcome nod to civility; Abigail was just thankful someone had.
She wasn’t surprised she had not woken when the table was brought into the room. She had discovered that her tendency to wake at the least sense of someone nearby had flown the first night she slept in Talorc’s arms. Her husband made her feel safe. She did not even feel any anxiety at the thought that someone had been in the room while she slept. They would not dare to be there without her husband’s sanction.
If only he could protect her from her own weaknesses.
What would she do if the voices in her mind persisted? What if they got worse? Could she risk having children, knowing that her mind was so unstable?
Abigail tried to banish the unanswerable questions, but the implications of this new affliction plagued her through her ablutions. Her worries grew until her hands shook so badly it took three tries to get her pleats to stay tucked into her belt, much less straight.
This would not do. She had to get ahold of herself. She could not change her circumstances; she could only pray she did not hear the voices again. With that thought firmly in mind, she left the room.
Abigail was halfway down the steps when she sensed she was being watched.
She looked away from the steps in front of her toward the great hall. At first she thought it was empty, everything was so still. Then she noticed the old man who had vocalized his displeasure at Talorc’s marriage the day before. He was glaring at her from his place at the far end of the nearest banquet table. And if looks could catch fire, she would be singed for sure.
She tried a tentative smile, but his glower did not waver. Already upset by her earlier thoughts, Abigail came close to stumbling on the stone steps but caught herself in time.
Suddenly, Niall was there. He said something to the old man Abigail could not catch. The gray-haired warrior frowned at her and shook his head.
Niall looked up at her, his own disapproval evident. “Talorc said you were to be accompanied coming down the stairs.”
“I’m perfectly capable of walking down a set of stairs,” she said, but she could tell by his look that she had not projected her voice enough to be heard.
Wonderful. She put her hand against her throat and tried again, glad the vibrations grew stronger, which meant her voice was louder.
Sure enough, Niall’s confusion cleared, but he did not look appeased by her words. He crossed the room and was taking the stairs two at a time before she’d come down two more steps. His features set in implacable lines, he put his arm out to her.
She rolled her eyes but accepted his assistance and allowed him to guide her down the stairs. When they reached the bottom, she saw that Guaire and Una had arrived. She smiled at her new friend and tried not to frown at the woman who had been less than pleasant the day before.
Regardless of Una’s attitudes, Abigail was relieved to see that she was still acting as housekeeper to the tower. At least, that was what Abigail assumed the other woman’s presence with Guaire indicated.
Guaire smiled and nodded at Abigail. “Good morning.”
“It would not have been a good morning if our lady had slipped on the stairs,” Niall replied, his displeasure now firmly fixed on the seneschal. “The laird gave instructions for his lady to be accompanied at all times.”
“I am aware of that,” Guaire answered, looking just a bit harried. He stepped away from Niall’s approaching form in what was probably supposed to look like a subtle maneuver.
But the stiffening of Niall’s posture said he’d noticed all right. And taken offense. “So, why was she coming down to the great hall alone?”
“Because I am no child and did not feel like waiting to descend the stairs until someone came along to hold my hand,” Abigail said with asperity. Honestly, how could they all not see what a ludicrous directive it was that she needed a babysitter to descend the stairs?
“Una and I were on our way to see if our lady had woken when we arrived to find her coming down with you,” Guaire said. The look he gave Niall was filled with resigned longing.
From the way the big warrior crossed his arms and frowned, Abigail surmised he was entirely blind to the other man’s feelings. Which was probably for the best. If Niall did not return Guaire’s regard, he would most likely only hurt the seneschal’s feelings were he to discover them.
Those with afflictions such as blindness and deafness were not the only ones the Church taught their followers to revile as tainted.
Still, she wished there was something she could do to help.
“Was the water in the pitcher still warm when you woke?” Una asked, interrupting Abigail’s thoughts.
“Yes, it was fine. Very welcome, in fact.”
“I am glad.”
“It was your idea,” Abigail said as the thought came to her and then wished she’d kept her mouth shut.
But Una did not look offended. “Aye, the laird would have happily left you smelling of him to let all in the keep know who you belong to.”
“As if there could be any question.”
They shared a moment of female understanding, until Abigail realized Niall and Guaire were still arguing over her being
left to come down the stairs alone. Normally, she would have paid attention to their conversation, but she’d been so shocked by Una’s consideration, she had forgotten to watch the men’s lips.
“Will you two please stop apportioning blame? If you must assign responsibility, then place it where it belongs. With me. I am no child to hide behind another’s plaid. I walked down the stairs alone. There you have it, my heinous confession. And you may as well get used to it, because I’m not going to wait around for someone to escort me when I want to go somewhere.”
“You would defy your laird?” Niall demanded.
“Of course she would. I spent only a few hours with her yesterday and already I know our lady well enough to recognize a stubborn nature that rivals that of our laird. You spent days traveling in her company, how could you not notice the same thing?”
“I noticed that our lady respects our laird too much to dismiss his instructions out of hand,” Niall gritted out.
Abigail, who had had quite enough of being discussed in the third person, glared at them both. “Of course I respect my husband, but I am his lady, not his slave or his child.” And this was far too dangerous a subject to continue pursuing, because when pushed, she would have to admit that refusing to obey her husband wasn’t really all that acceptable. “I had hoped to get something to break my fast. Would that be possible?”
Niall nodded. “Guaire will see to it.”
“I am the housekeeper now? I may not be an oversized Chrechte, but I’m no woman. In case you had forgotten, I am seneschal here, not handmaiden.”
Niall looked like he wanted to explode, but he clamped his jaw and turned on his heel instead, leaving without another word. Guaire’s green gaze filled with pain as the other soldier stomped away.
The older soldier surged to his feet. “I suppose you are happy, sewing discord already,” he said to Abigail before making his own less-than-happy exit.
“That one has a temper,” Una observed.
Abigail asked, “The older warrior?”
“Oh, Osgard can be unpleasant right enough. My dam says he’s never been the same since losing both his wife and son to the English attack.” Una sighed and shook her head.