He was awake before the sun. Not because he was eager to begin a new day, working in the quarry. Nay, the walls of Brogan’s chamber seemed to grow smaller and tighter the longer the night wore on.
After dressing in the darkness, he quietly stepped to the door that connected his room to Mairghread’s. He placed an ear to the door and listened. Not a sound could be heard coming from within.
Suddenly, he was overcome with the need to see that she was all right. Quietly, he opened the door and peered inside.
He found her, curled into a ball in the middle of her bed, fast asleep. Lying next to her on the bed was an empty bottle of wine. A quick glance at the table where he had placed all the bottles the day before told him she had drunk more than one. Two were now missing.
She was a vision of beauty, when she slept. Lying as she was now, still fully dressed, curled up with both hands under her cheek, no one would be able to tell what she was like when she drank.
With a slow shake of his head, he stepped back into his room, quietly closing the door behind him. He sent a silent prayer heavenward for patience.
For the remainder of the day, he worked in the quarry alongside the Mactavish men. Comnall, who was still upset with Neyll as well as Brogan, brooded for the better part of the day. Brogan, having enough problems of his own at the moment, did not truly care about his friend’s sour disposition.
At the noonin’ meal, Reginald came to him with designs for the new wall.
They stood under the canopy of hundred-year-old oak trees while Reginald explained what he had come up with.
“It is verra much like the auld wall,” he said as he pointed to the parchment he had spread on the grass. “But this time, I think we could make it taller and add parapets not only on the four corners, but one higher, here, on the north side.”
Brogan liked the idea. From that location and height, they would be able to see for miles in any direction. “’Tis a good plan, Reginald,” he told him as he studied the plans closely. “What be this?” he asked, pointing to a spot near the suggested north parapet.
Reginald cleared his throat before answering. “I ken we’ve no’ been attacked in many years, save for that night when we lost James and Conner. But…” his words trailed off.
“But?” Brogan asked, encouraging the man to speak his mind.
“Ye ken I do no’ wish to speak against Aymer,” Reginald said.
Brogan did his best not to roll his eyes or curse under his breath at the mention of Aymer’s name. “Aye, I ken that. Yer loyalty is admirable, Reginald. None would ever say otherwise.”
He let out a heavy breath and raked a hand through his brown and graying hair. “I think we should have a secret means of escape. A way out that only certain people are aware of.” He cast a furtive glance at their surroundings, as if he were afraid someone might overhear their conversation.
Brogan ran a hand across his stubbled jaw. “Reginald, I believe that is the most intelligent thing I have heard anyone say in a verra long time.” A secret passage, that only he and Reginald, and mayhap someday Mairghread, would know about.
Reginald grunted.
“I wish ye to make another set of plans, Reginald. One for the men to work from, and another that only ye and I shall ever lay eyes to.”
“Verra well,” he said as he rolled the parchment up.
“How exactly do ye plan on hidin’ the door to the passage?” Brogan asked as he stood up and stretched his back.
“I saw one once, when I was a little boy. We were visiting me da’s uncle, outside of Aberdeen. The hidden gate looked just like the rest of the wall and ye could no’ tell it was there.”
“Aye, I understand that,” Brogan told him. “But how do ye open it?”
“I be gettin’ to that part,” Reginald groused. “Anyway, we found it by accident. Me cousins and I were playin’ ye ken, like lads will do. One of me cousins was attempting to climb up the wall, like a spider. Of course, we told him it could no’ be done.” He smiled fondly at the memory. When Brogan cleared his throat impatiently, Reginald continued. “Well, he began to slip, and he grabbed one of the sconces to hang on to. At first, he thought he’d pulled it out of its brackets. But then, a part of the wall slid sideways. Just enough room for a grown man to get through, ye ken.”
“Ingenious,” Brogan said with a raised brow, eager to hear more. “And?” he asked, growin’ more and more impatient. “How did it work? How was it done?”
Reginald shrugged his shoulders. “I do no’ ken. I was a lad of six at the time.”
Brogan rolled his eyes and cursed inwardly. “So ye do no’ ken how it actually worked?”
“Nay,” he replied.
Brogan let loose a frustrated breath. Aye, ’twas a good idea, to have a hidden passage, a secret means of escape. But he had no earthly idea how to make it work.
Chapter Ten
Alone in her room all the day long, Mairghread kept thinking on Brogan’s words. Unable as well to get the vision of Gertie’s black eye, the cut on her auld skin just below it, out of her mind.
Gertie.
Gertie was the one person the whole of her life who she could truly count on. When Mairghread was but ten years of age, her mother had died. Gertie had gladly stepped in to assume the role — even though she had taken it the day Mairghread had been born.
It had been Gertie who had given her ‘the talk’ every mum has with her daughter on the eve of her wedding. It had been Gertie who had seen her through childhood illnesses, had gotten her through the first months of morning sickness. It had been Gertie who held her hand while she had given birth to Conner.
It had been Gertie who nursed her back to health after the attack. Gertie was the one who had given her the bad news, had held her for hours while she wept and cried until she had no more tears left.
Always, always Gertie. No matter what horrible things she had done or said, Gertie never stopped loving her.
“And how do ye repay her?” Mairghread whispered her question into the dark night. She stood at her open window again, caring not that she was letting the rain in. It fell gently against the side of the keep, and softly against her skin. It chilled her, yet she cared not. Nor did she feel she had the energy necessary to move.
Numb. She was numb from head to toe.
How had her life been reduced to this? With so much sadness, regret and grief filling her heart there was no room for anything else.
The whisky was whispering to her again, begging her to take just one drink. Just. One.
What would James think of her now? God, how she hoped he could not see her. Would he be ashamed? Would he understand?
Would he hold her and tell her all would be well? Or would he walk away, with his head hung low, ashamed of the day he’d ever met her?
And what of her babe? ’Twas a physical ache to think of him, that sweet, innocent babe. Taken far too soon and in such a horrific manner. Thinking of him made her sick to her stomach, made her fingers tremble.
Last night, she had failed, had succumbed to the whisky’s power, its ethereal voice speaking to her, begging her to take just a sip. She had wakened that morn with a heart filled with regret and humiliation.
She had told herself all the day long she could try again, for it was a new day. She could get through just this one day without drinking. Just one day.
And now, ’twas the middle of the night and her hands were beginning to shake with that all too familiar need to put the bottle to her mouth and drink.
Her thoughts turned to her father, someone she had not thought of in years. She was seven and ten when he died. Less than a month before she was to say her vows to James. “I be so verra proud of ye lass,” he had told her the day before his death. “Ye and James will lead this clan well, lass. He be a good man, and ye’re a finer woman.”
And just like that, he was dead the very next day. Fell from his horse, his skull cracked open on a rock, just as had happened to her brother Charles, five years prio
r. Why was her family cursed? To suffer as many deaths and tragedies as they had? Why?
She’d lost everyone she had ever loved. Both her parents and four brothers. Then her husband and babe. The people she loved more than anything in this world were all gone now.
Save for Gertie, Tilda and Reginald.
No matter how hard she tried to choke back the tears, they came. Streaming down her cheeks, blending with the rain. Her shoulders shook as she cried, her stomach tightened. And all the while, the whisky and wine called to her. Both of them now, just as they had done last night, together, in unison. Like ugly, discombobulated voices calling to her from a grave.
Drink me.
Below stairs were three people who had stuck by her through it all. Three people who loved her as if she were their very own child. No matter what she said or did, they did not stop loving her.
And in the room next to her, was a man she barely knew. A man she had wed days ago for no other reason than she did not want to marry the man her uncle had chosen for her. A complete stranger, no matter what the church might have to say about it. A man she barely knew. Brogan had sworn he would do whatever he could to help her give up the wine and whisky. But why? He did not know her, not like Gertie or Tilda or Reginald did.
Slowly, she slid to the floor with her cheek against the cold stone wall. For the past three years, she had felt all alone in this world. Without James, without her babe, she had no true reason to go on living.
Or so she had convinced herself. Or was it the wine or the whisky that had done it?
Those two things had been her constant companions, never far from her reach. Always there, no matter the time of day or night. Helping to ease the pain, the grief, the heartache.
People died.
Whisky would always be there for her. Once a bottle was drunk, there was always another to reach for.
But people? People went away. People died. People were murdered. People couldn’t come back.
The lack of memory from that awful night tortured her to her very marrow. She remembered none of it that night, nor anything that happened prior. ’Twas all nothing more than a black void. All she could remember was waking up three days later, near death, with Gertie and Tilda hovering over her, with tear-filled eyes.
Everyone thought she drank to forget. To help ease her pain. That might have been the case in the beginning, but later on, when little bits of her memory started to return, the reasons she drank changed.
During her waking hours, when she was sober, she could remember nothing. But late at night, when she was well into her cups, in that place between passing out and falling asleep, little images had begun to appear. Nothing she could cling to. ’Twas like trying to hold the fog in your hands. You could see it, almost taste it, but the moment you pulled your hand into a fist, ’twas gone.
So she drank in hopes of remembering. Of remembering what truly happened in that room down the hall, the one boarded shut, the one no one was allowed to go into. The chamber that she had shared with James. The chamber where he and their babe had been murdered.
Had she truly done it? Sliced both of their throats with her dirk? The dirk James had given to her on their wedding day? The one with the beautifully carved hilt that she now kept hidden in the bottom of her cupboard?
“Though ’tis true I did no’ see ye do it, Mairghread,” her uncle told her when she was finally well enough to sit up. “But I did find ye on the floor, cryin’ like a banshee that ye had killed them. That ye had lost yer mind and in a fit of blind rage, that ye killed them both.”
He had promised to keep her secret. He had promised not to tell another living soul. But somehow, people had found out. How, she did not know, nor did she truly care. There were times when she heard them whispering behind her back. Long ago, those whispers had hurt just as bad as a fist to her face.
“Could I have done what they say?” she whispered against the cold, stone wall. “Why can I no’ remember?” Why can I no’ remember?
Pulling her knees to her chest, she wept quietly. Occasionally, she would wipe her face against the fabric of her gown. Though she clung to her knees for dear life, she could still feel the tremble in her hands. For a long time, she sat there, worried that if she let go she would come undone entirely.
Twice before, she had tried to give up the drink. Once, two years ago, for reasons she could no longer remember. An entire five days without a drop. But then something happened that sent her over the edge and back into the welcoming bottle.
Then last year, around the anniversary of James and Conner’s deaths. Gertie had convinced her it was time to say goodbye and put those ever present bottles down. She’d made it a full seven days. But on the anniversary of their deaths, she could take no more and dived right back in.
Was it even worth trying again? To what end? What was there for her?
All she loved was gone.
All she had left were two auld women and a steward who looked upon her with pity-filled eyes, wanting the old Mairghread back. The Mairghread they were proud of. The girl they had loved and admired. The woman she had grown into that would have made her parents proud.
But that woman no longer existed, at least not as she had once been.
Her thoughts turned once again to her father and how proud he had been of her. ‘Ye and James will lead the clan when I be gone. I will never worry over the two of ye. Ye will continue with our legacy, Mairghread and build one of yer own.”
A legacy.
She snorted derisively at the memory. “A legacy,” she murmured into the still night. “What legacy? I have no one to leave it to.”
When she closed her eyes, she saw her dear father’s face, his rich, dark red hair and bright blue eyes. So clear was his image ’twas nearly frightening. He looked so very sad. Not disappointed, just utterly, truly sad. “There still be time, Mairghread. Do no’ let Aymer lead. He never understood what ye and I did.”
The sound of his voice stole her breath away. Her eyes flew open as her breast pounded against her chest. He never understood what ye and I did.
Her father’s words played over and over again in her mind, pounding loudly against her skull, drowning out the sound of the whisky’s warm voice.
It all began to make sense. Like a rush of cold water from the falls.
“I be the last one,” she said aloud. “I be the only one who can continue me father’s dreams. I be the only one who can continue the legacy that was his.”
Without a doubt, she knew then, what she must do.
Once again, Brogan lay in his bed staring up at the ceiling. Although he was tired to his bones, sleep was elusive. His mind kept bouncing around from one thought to another. Of Mairghread, then Anna, the wall, his new home and its people. He also thought of his father, his stepmother, all of his brothers and sisters. He missed the Mackintosh keep. It seemed a lifetime ago since last he’d been there.
He’d travelled west with Ian to help him rebuild the McLaren keep, their sister-by-law’s home. Though he had enjoyed the hard work and felt he had found his purpose in life, something was still missing.
’Twas not until he saw Mairghread for the first time, that he realized what that something was; a wife, children, and loving home.
This, this current state of dread and worry, this keep with its odd inhabitants, its lack of walls, none of it was what he had imagined for his future. And he most assuredly had not imagined a violent, mean-spirited wife with the tongue of a harpy and the soul of a banshee.
There had to exist within her something more. More than she was allowing him to see. Aye, he’d caught brief glimpses at their first and second meetings. Even earlier that day when she thought Gertie had fallen ill. Enough so that he believed she was truly a kind and gentle woman. Was that nothing more than a facade to ensnare him? To lead him to the altar?
Could he truly have been so naive? So desperate for wife, hearth and home, as she had accused him?
He rolled over and stared at the l
ow burning embers in the hearth and thought on the matter. Nay, he finally concluded, he was neither naive nor desperate. Aye, he might have had his head turned by her auburn hair and emerald eyes. But there was something else about her. Something that called to him. Something he could not name or reason out.
He puffed out his cheeks and let his breath out in a rush of frustration. “God, I must believe ye brought me here for a reason,” he whispered to the embers. “Was it to help Mairghread give up the drink? Or was it to watch her die? Am I here only to help her clan, to make it safe once again?”
Part of him wanted to grab her up and toss her into a small room somewhere hidden within the keep. Put her there while the alcohol worked its way out of her system. Until she could once again breathe and function without it.
But he knew ’twould do her no good. The moment he let her out, into the light of day, she would seek out that which she loved more than any living person. She would be drunk in a matter of hours.
Nay, he could not force sobriety on her. Forcing someone into sobriety would be the same as trying to force them into loving someone. ’Twas as impossible a feat as any there was.
Closing his eyes, he strained his ears to listen for an answer. He was met with nothing but the soft crackle of the fire and the gentle rap of rain against the outer walls of the keep.
“What is me reward in all of this? What does my hard work in the quarry even mean? Will I build a wall only to have Aymer order it torn down?” he scoffed at the notion. He knew he’d fight unto his own death before he allowed Aymer to do that. And just why he felt this pull, this need to protect these people? ’Twas certainly not because they all adored him. And it was certainly not to impress his wife. Nay, Mairghread could not care in the least about these people. She was far too gone now, to hope she could change.
Mayhap I should just pack me things, round up me men, and leave here. Go home, back to Mackintosh lands. Have me marriage to Mairghread set aside and forget these past few weeks had ever happened.
Brogan's Promise: Book Three of The Mackintoshes and McLarens Page 14