“Gavin took Grace out riding the other day,” he said, leading a white mare from a stall. “Said she was a fabulous horsewoman.”
Ava didn’t respond, just watched him loop the horse’s lead over a hook. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Willa is gentle. She’ll follow right behind me. And if she scares ye, ye can ride back with me on Grendel.”
“You named your horse after a giant monster that devours people,” Ava said with a glance toward his stallion’s stall. “I think Willa and I will do fine together.”
Tor reined Grendel back to ride next to Ava. By the time they entered a broad path winding through the colorful forest, Ava seemed to have relaxed in the seat.
“Autumn overtakes rapidly here,” Ava said, her slender neck stretched back so she could see up into the falling leaves of the oaks and birch trees. They had been wed for nearly two months.
“Aye, and it rolls right into winter,” Tor said, watching as Willa picked her way across a small stream that wound to empty farther down into the Aros River. Ava wore a rose-colored riding costume that she’d brought from England. The material seemed thin, so he’d insisted on bringing a wool blanket, which lay across Willa’s hindquarters in case Ava became cold. The woman needed warmer clothing if she was going to survive Highland winters, and Tor was determined to see her healthy and safe.
As they rode, he pointed out landmarks. She pointed out birds and particularly radiant trees that held tenaciously to their leaves. They broke out of the forest into a clearing where he used to come as a boy. Five stones stood in a row, eight feet high, green moss and gray crusty growth growing along the sides.
“What are they?” Ava asked, riding close to one, her slender fingers reaching out to touch the soft moss.
“Cnoc Fada,” he said, dismounting. He left Grendel to wander, knowing he wouldn’t roam far. “A row of standing stones from ancient times. No one knows why they are here or who raised them on end.” He reached up to help her down and tied Willa to a nearby tree, a long length of rein to allow her to graze.
Ava walked from stone to stone, studying them. She touched a spot that had caught many a lad’s imagination. “This looks like a skull with crossed bones beneath it,” she said.
He came up close, breathing in the fragrance of her hair that he’d grown to crave. “Aye, it does. The symbol of death.”
“Could these be burial markers?”
He shrugged. “No one knows, and we don’t move them or dig around them just in case. Would be terribly disrespectful.” He grinned. “So, lads tell tales about the stones to torment their friends and dare them to sleep beneath them in this clearing.”
She laughed. “That’s terrible.”
“That’s boyhood.”
“Is that why you brought me here? To terrify me?” She looked around at the sun shooting down through the center opening of trees to warm the grass. “Because I can think of a better use of our time here.”
“Wanton,” he teased, kissing her.
“You like me wanton.”
“Aye, I do, lass, but I brought ye here to give ye a gift.”
“A gift? You already gift me with tarts daily. Poor Alyce must be getting tired of rolling pastry dough.” His gaze roamed down her frame. She still looked too slim to him, but the hollow look in her face had filled in.
“Alyce eats half of what she bakes. She’s thoroughly enjoying herself.” He tugged Ava around to face him and drew out his surprise from the leather pouch he’d taken off of Grendel. “Ye saw me making this soon after ye arrived, back when ye were tempting me each night in the great hall.”
“Tempting you?” she asked. “You seemed beyond tempting.”
“If I’d have known what I was refusing, I’d have carried ye to my bed that first night.”
She laughed, her gaze resting on the wool wrapping in his hands. He laid it in her hands. “For ye. Be careful.”
Her eyes danced along with her smile, like a child with a bag of candy. Christmastide would be fun this year if she enjoyed gifts so much. He’d bury her in them just to watch her glow with excitement.
Ava’s fingers tugged away the wool until the blade’s handle was revealed. “’Tis my symbol, the wolf,” he said. The wool dropped away, and she held the six-inch sgian dubh gingerly. “It’s a sgian dubh, a dagger, small enough to conceal and deadly enough to protect.”
“The carving is beautiful,” she said softly, running the pad of her finger along the etching of the wolf. “And the flowers add a gentleness to beast.” She glanced up at him with a knowing smile. “Perhaps they even tame the wolf.”
He growled, and she laughed. “My apologies, milady, but no one can tame the wolf.” He came closer, his face growing serious, and touched her hair. “I would teach ye to use it. If I am not with ye, my symbol will be, my protection.” He watched for the shadow that sometimes flitted over her lovely features when a bad memory broke through her careful mask. Her brows drew together slightly, pinching a tiny wrinkle between them for a mere second before smoothing out.
She smiled. “I would like that, and it’s beautiful. Thank you.”
“Do ye worry ye may have need for it?” he asked, trying not to push. Whenever he pushed Ava for information about her past, she either attacked him with passion or withdrew.
“I should ask that of you, since you’re giving it to me,” she teased.
“Ava?”
“No,” she answered. “Although a lady never knows for certain if she is safe. ’Tis a travesty, really. We are the ones that are strong enough to birth life, yet we haven’t the strength to fend off the fiends who would harm us.” She walked away from him, weaving around the stones, carrying the short blade in her hands. “So yes, please teach me to wield this,” she said, practicing a false lunge toward him from around the mossy face of the farthest tall stone.
Who would you kill? The words sat on his tongue, but he watched a flicker of worry tighten her smile, and he swallowed them. “Well, then,” he said, stepping forward and drawing his own dagger. “Let us begin your lessons.”
…
“There you are,” Grace called to Ava where she stood along the roofline near a turret. The wind carried Grace’s words so that they only reached Ava as a whisper. She turned away from her study of the channel to see her friend traipsing across the flat roof, tugging her shawl tightly about her shoulders. Grace pulled Ava into the enclosed turret. “God’s teeth, Ava, aren’t you cold up here?”
“I was checking the channel between Mull and Oban,” Ava said and leveled her eye on one of the arrow slits. The channel still looked empty.
“Has Tor asked you to help guard the keep, then?” Grace asked. “With as much as he seems to worry about you being cold, I’d think he’d have you locked up in your room before a fire, out of the wind.”
“Tor’s not here.” Ava followed the path of a large seabird swooping in from the vacant coastline. “He left at dawn after he received notice that the English want to check Mull for French conspirators.”
“Like the missive Cullen Duffie received that took him back to Islay?” Grace asked.
Ava blinked and gave Grace a numb nod. “From Captain Taylor and Captain Thompson.”
“What is Tor saying to them? No?” Grace wrapped her arms around herself. “You don’t say no to a contingent of armed men.”
“I think he’s going to assure them that no French conspirators are here, but I know that won’t satisfy them. They may end up coming back with him.”
Grace cursed under her breath, something she seemed to be doing more frequently now that she was in the wilds of Scotland and away from her mother’s lace-bedecked parlor. “And we have Samhain festival next week. A contingent of English soldiers will certainly put a damper on festivities.”
They had been helping Joan plan for the yearly celebration of the harvest, highlighted by the driving of the fattened cattle down from the summer grazing slopes near the interior of Mull. Samhain was a time to celebrate the blessin
gs of abundance before the bleak darkness of winter ruled the world until spring. There would be bonfires and games, apple tarts and pies, and a feast to honor the dead, but with English soldiers infiltrating Aros, Ava doubted anyone would be out of their homes. “Bloody English,” she said.
“You sound like a Scot.” Grace gave a short laugh. “Remember you’re an Englishwoman.”
Ava exhaled. “But not an important enough Englishwoman to protect Aros.”
“The captains in Oban don’t know that,” Grace said.
“What if they’ve been asked to report on us to Vincent, and they tell him I’m still alive?”
“Why would they report to Vincent?” Grace asked.
Ava threw up her hands. “I don’t know, because he’s alive and now an earl, not to mention that he’s evil. What if he doesn’t believe your letter?”
“Well, if the captains come across, I’ll hide away. Captain Thompson looked easy enough to fool. And Captain Taylor doesn’t seem to care about much other than Scots harboring French. We can tell Tor that I’m running from Vincent, so we’ve told him I’m dead. He’ll go along if you ask. The captains would only report back that Tor is wed and the maid that came with the bride is dead. Simple.”
Ava rubbed her hand across her forehead where it ached. “Lies multiply into more lies. I hate it.” Nearly three months of avoiding her background had frayed her nerves, and the more she redirected Tor’s questions, the more questions he had. He wasn’t a fool. He knew she was hiding something.
Grace’s cool fingers touched the back of Ava’s hand. “Are you saying—?”
“That I want to tell Tor everything?” Ava sank her back against the curved interior wall and met Grace’s gaze. “Yes, I do.”
Grace puffed out her cheeks with her long exhale. “You’re in love with him.”
“It doesn’t matter. Either way it is wrong to keep him believing that I am an earl’s half sister, someone who could possibly keep the English away. The more I find out about Tor …the more I realize the pain he felt when Matilda lied to him… I just…”
Ava cupped her own cheeks. “And if I get pregnant, I want him to really know who the mother of his child is.”
Grace reached up to smudge away a tear that Ava hadn’t realized had escaped her lashes. “God’s teeth, Ava. The secret is yours to tell, so you don’t need my permission. I’ll be happy not to act like I know what Cook is talking about. For some reason, she thinks I used to work in the kitchens at Somerset.”
“What if he sends us away?” Ava’s voice was small. She felt weak and powerless, despite the sgian dubh that Tor had told her to strap under her petticoats before he left.
Grace snuggled up close to her and tried to wrap her meager shawl around them both. “If he sends you away, I will come of course. We will run with wolves, Ava. You and me, together like we planned in the beginning.”
Ava nodded, but tears pressed hard behind her eyes. Grace hugged her tight. “I told you love didn’t follow rules,” she whispered against her hair.
“They wouldn’t row over this morning, would they?” Ava asked Tor as he wrapped his kilt around his hips. “Not with Samhain today.”
“Depends,” he said. “Successful invasions usually occur when they are not expected.”
Ava slipped from the bed and shrugged into the thick robe Tor had given her to stay warm. “You think they plan an invasion?” She tried to keep the worry from her voice, but she was finding it harder to keep things from Tor. She blamed it on the weight of her lies, lies she planned to reveal after the festival.
He reeled her into him for a slow kiss. So, he used passion for distraction, too, she thought as the worry melted in the fever his touch always ignited within her. When he slowly broke the kiss, he toyed with one of her errant curls, tucking it behind her ear. “No, lass. I don’t think they will invade Mull today, but my men will be watching.” He smiled wryly. “My da and ye may rest assured that I’ve made it quite known that I am wed to the daughter of the late Lord Somerset, an earl and important person in England. I would not endanger her by housing French soldiers.”
Ava’s stomach rolled with nausea. She forced a smile she knew he could see through. Hopefully he would assume she worried over the English contingent. “I will cast my cares away, then,” she said.
“And carry my sgian dubh beneath your skirts. Just in case.” He kissed her and walked toward the door.
“I don’t see me wielding it against a line of soldiers,” she called.
He looked back at her with a pride-filled grin. “Oh, ye are quite the brave lass when defending others. Even your timid maid against the Beast of Aros.”
She felt a small, authentic smile touch her lips at the memory of their meeting. And it was the first time she’d heard Tor mention his cruel nickname with a smile that reached his eyes. Could he be starting to forgive himself? A small relief opened up Ava’s chest, quelling the nausea. “You’re right. I can be quite vicious when stirred up.”
He laughed. “Stirred up? Aye, ye have quite the nip when stirred up.” His intense stare held promise of passion later, and her heart fluttered in anticipation.
Tomorrow she would tell him her whole story, but tonight she would love him well. She met his joyful gaze with a sweet one of her own. “I will see you down below.”
Ava dressed in a festive day-gown colored in tawny orange and gold to mimic the autumn leaves. She, Grace, and Joan had worked with several ladies from the village to sew the new costumes for the holiday season. She and Grace had woven together dried summer flowers with thin stalks of barley to wear as crowns.
Fog masked the channel in the morning, but by midday, the sun had burned through.
“Ye must have brought luck to Aros,” Joan told Ava as they carried out bowls of bread to a long table in the bailey. “Most Samhains, it’s either raining or thick with mist. We end up lighting a bonfire in the great hall’s hearth. Nearly burned the place down last year.”
“I tend to bring rain.” Ava set her bowl down. “The sunshine must come from Grace.”
“Where is she?” Joan asked, turning in a circle.
“Alyce asked her to help in the kitchens with the tarts,” Ava said, guilt warming her cheeks. Would Alyce hate her tomorrow when she found out Grace wasn’t trained in the kitchens of Somerset?
A small group of villagers with instruments started up a lively beat from a raised platform she’d seen Hamish and Gavin set up earlier. People cheered and waved, children running around as their parents brought in food for the festival. Tomorrow’s problems would come soon enough. Today was for celebration.
Ava surveyed the table of food. What a lovely bounty. Hazelnuts had been roasted and apples plucked, both of which were thought to bring luck. Wild birds had been caught for pies, and a boar roasted on a spit across the pebbled bailey. Duky rolled another barrel, probably filled with aged whisky, under the toothy portcullis.
The old man would probably throw her right into the channel to swim back to York when he heard who she really was. Maybe she and Grace should pack a trunk tonight. A trunk? How would they carry a trunk? They’d have to take only what they could carry. Maybe Joan would let them take Willa. Nausea again washed through Ava, and she plunked down on the long bench.
Joan bent to look in her face. “Ye look pale, Ava. Do ye feel well?”
Ava breathed deeply, trying to settle her stomach. But the wind shifted, and the aroma of roasting pig filled her nose. Blast! Would she be sick right here on the ground? “The…the smell of the pig roasting…” She flapped a hand toward the offending meat.
Joan’s hand shot out to rest on Ava’s forehead. “Ye feel clammy. Your stomach is upset?”
“Yes, but…it should pass. I think I overdid this morning.” Ava rested her elbows on her thighs and waited for the nausea to dissolve. “Maybe I should go inside for a bit.”
Joan looked between Ava and the pig, back and forth. She screwed up her mouth. “Are ye pissing often?”
“I…I don’t know. Maybe.” It was more annoying when she wore the sgian dubh on her thigh because she had to readjust the strap every time she lifted her skirts.
“Sour belching?” Joan asked, tilting her head.
“A bit,” Ava said. “But Tor’s been feeding me tarts every night.”
Joan stared hard into her eyes for a long second and dropped her gaze to Ava’s stomach. “Have ye had your woman’s bleeding?” she asked in a whisper.
Ava knew where she was going. She had been starting to think the same over the last week. “Not for two months.”
Joan’s scrunched face opened into a wide, tooth-filled grin. “Ava Maclean,” she declared in a hushed voice filled with excitement. “Ye are carrying Tor’s bairn.”
Chapter Thirteen
“I could have missed a month or two from the stress of adapting to married life. It doesn’t confirm anything.” She glanced around. “I want to know for sure before I tell Tor.”
Joan held her wrist, her lips moving silently as she took Ava’s pulse. She smiled wryly, the apples of her cheeks standing out. “I’ve had two children of my own, and I’ve helped dozens of mothers in the village. I have no doubt ye’re with child,” she whispered.
Ava met Joan’s smile, giving in a little to the joy the thought had brought with it. “Let’s keep this between us until we are certain.”
“I am completely certain,” Joan said.
Ava laughed softly. “I want to be the one to tell him.”
Joan patted her arm. “Of course ye do.”
Ava looked around the bustling tables in the courtyard. The crowds had spilled outside the bailey gates all the way down to the river. Children played apple bobbing games, and a group of lads fought with wooden swords. A cluster of girls inspected quilt squares hanging along a line where judges sought to pick the best design and tightest stitches. Warriors stood around in small clusters, and from the amused expressions, none of them feared an English invasion on this fine day.
Grace paraded out behind Alyce with a pie in each hand. She beamed proudly, and Ava strode across to her.
The Beast of Aros Castle (Highland Isles) Page 13