He grunted in frustration.
He couldn’t move his head enough to see to his sides. Just then, a face loomed over his.
“Cameron?” she whispered.
He couldn’t focus on her face- she was too close. His eyes weren’t accustomed to focusing.
“Step back, Mother. He cannot see ye so closely.”
Alice did as Aidan had requested and at last Cameron was able to see his mother’s aged face.
She looked as if ten years had elapsed.
He tried to speak again. “Mo-” he cleared his very dry throat. “Mother,” he said. His vocal chords were unaccustomed to the foreign vibrations.
She sighed, pleased. “Aye, Cameron. I’m here. Ye recognize me,” she said softly and he saw her look to her left. “Bess, he recognizes me,” Alice said, finding her first smile in weeks.
“‘Tis good, Alice. A verra good and promising indication,” Bess answered.
Cameron’s eyes wanted to close and he fought it. Damn it. Sleep wanted to claim him again, and for the first time in his life, he bowed to his defeat.
“Is he well?” Alice asked anxiously.
Bess walked over again, looking at the pale, sleeping laird. “Aye, Alice. He has awoken. We no longer need to give him the herbs, teas, and broth. He can simply rest now on his own.”
“How do we tell him?” Alice asked sadly, looking at her family standing around.
Aidan shook his head. Keith did as well, and brought a plumping Amy into his arms, kissing the top of her head. Catherine and Peter closed their eyes. Frances was present, crying from the fear of losing her oldest brother.
It was Bess who spoke. “We canna tell him anythin’.”
“But Bess, he will know when she’s nay here!”
Bess shook her head. “We must allow him to recover. Tell a lie, any lie, but not the truth. At least for a fortnight. We canna have him angry or vengeful. ‘Twould harm him, Alice.”
Keith sighed. “Aye, Mother. Bess has the right of it. He needs strength. If we tell him the truth, he will get out of that bed and leave this clan for vengeance. He has not the strength for that endeavor now.”
Alice sighed. “What are we to tell him then?”
They all looked at one another, dumbfounded.
“That she’s visiting her mother?” Catherine supplied.
Keith shook his head. “Nay. And left Trystan behind? How will we answer him when he grows angry that his wife visited her father, the man he tried to kill but didn’t? The man who beat his wife? He knows we would have never allowed her to leave here and go there.”
They stood with thoughtful faces.
“We’ll tell him this,” Catherine said. They all looked at her with hopeful expressions. “She left to meet her mother who wrote her a letter in which she said she was escaping from her father.”
Their eyes lit up. Alice slowly nodded but Aidan shook his head. “No. First, women doona leave their husbands, even if it is Abby’s father. Second, he knows we wouldna allow her to approach the border. Nay, it willna fool him.”
“Aye it will, because he would let her go, as long as he accompanied her,” Catherine said. She looked pointedly at Aidan. Her mother, Frances, and Amy also looked at him with half-angry looks.
“I doona think Aidan meant insult, ladies,” Catherine said and Aidan shook his head eagerly to appease the female members of his family. “What he meant was that it would be very difficult and is not commonplace, for a woman to leave her husband.” She shook her head dismissively. “But onto the story. He will believe it, because if he was unable to go,” she said, looking at Keith, “the next best person to take her would be,” she said looking at Aidan now.
“Aidan or Keith or Patrick,” Alice finished for her, smiling. “So intelligent, my love,” she said and Catherine preened, make a snide face at Keith and Aidan who rolled their eyes. “That’s what we’ll tell him.”
“And if he sees Keith or I?”
The women rolled their eyes and shook their heads. “For all of yer battle experience, ye men are unbelievably limited,” Amy said, and Peter and Frances laughed. “Both of ye will have to stay away. Ye canna be seen.”
“I willna leave Amy, nay for a moment,” Keith said firmly.
“Keith, ‘tis not as if I will birth our bairn on the morrow. I’ve still many months ahead.”
“Nay, Keith is right. I will sleep with the men,” Aidan volunteered. “Ye will tell him that I, along with fifty other men rode with her. Ye know he would send her with many as guard. And still he might argue that fifty was inadequate,” Aidan smiled ruefully. He sobered in the next moment. “This will be difficult.”
Alice nodded her head sadly. “We will tell him the truth once he’s recovered sufficiently.”
“We’re assuming he willna remember that she died,” Peter supplied, with eyebrows raised. They looked at him thoughtfully.
“Aye, very right ye are Peter,” Keith said.
“How will we know?” Amy asked.
Alice pursed her lips. “We’ll know when he awakens again. He’ll either be incredibly heartbroken or asking about his wife. We doona know whether he was awake or if he had already been felled when she was killed.”
“Good thinking, Mother,” Aidan said.
She walked over to her sleeping son. He’d grown thin, weak, and pale, but he still breathed. His hair was long and his beard had grown, fully covering his face. He looked much older with it. She reached out and brushed a lock of hair from his forehead.
“How I will tell him that his dear wife, the mother of his bairn,” she said shakily, “has died, I doona know. I havena the heart,” she whispered painfully.
“Wh-wh…” he began, finding it difficult to form the words.
How long had it been since he uttered anything?
“Where isss sh-sh…she?” Cameron asked two days later when he awoke again.
Alice and Keith were there. Catherine and Peter returned to their home and back to their children. Frances had done the same. They lived a day’s ride away, north of the holding.
Alice and Keith shared a knowing look. So he didn’t remember, or he never saw Abby’s murder.
Cameron’s face acquired the color he’d lacked for the last month as he turned red in frustration. He slammed his hand on the side trunk, knocking the contents on there to the floor. He looked Keith and his mother, his jaw tightening. “Wh-where is…sss…m-my w-wife?” he snapped, his nostrils flaring with anger.
“Easy, Cameron,” Alice began and sat on the bed. She reached out to touch his hand and as quickly as he could, he moved his hand away. She smiled at him, feigning her best nonchalant façade.
“She went to the border,” Keith uttered before Cameron began struggling to get up. Keith hurriedly and loudly said, “With Aidan!” Keith quickly told Cameron the tale they’d concocted.
“Damn it, Cameron! Do ye think I would let her go without escort? She rode with fifty men along with Aidan. Calm yerself. Obviously, ye were in no condition to go along with her. And since I’ve taken over as laird while ye were here, I couldna go.”
Appeased for the moment, Cameron relaxed back onto the bed. He still looked sternly at his mother and brother. “Tr-Trystan,” he demanded.
Alice nodded her head and called for Amy, who brought in Trystan. He’d noticeably grown in length and weight in the month’s time Cameron was ill. Alice’s heart constricted. She briefly closed her eyes against the emotion that stirred in her chest as she witnessed the pure elation that entered her own son’s gray eyes. When Trystan saw his father, he shrieked his excitement and kicked his legs.
Cameron smiled warmly, relieved and euphoric to see his son.
Keith helped a weakened Cameron sit up. Alice brought the baby over to his father. Cameron smiled as his son began tugging at his beard, babbling. Trystan began clapping and laughing at his father’s beard.
Cameron couldn’t believe how big his son had grown. He’d always had a full head of black
hair since the day he was born, but now his hair was longer. His eyes. Cameron closed his own wishing his wife were here. He opened them again, and smiled.
“His eyes,” he managed to say without stuttering.
Alice smiled and nodded. “Aye. He looks just like ye, Cameron, but with Abby’s beautiful green eyes. They didna change colors after all.”
Beautiful was not the word for them. It almost seemed as if Abby herself stared at him. Her soul was in his son, Cameron realized.
Playing happily with Trystan, he asked his mother and brother, “What happened?”
Not trying to avoid the question, Alice and Keith explained what had happened when he sought out Haynsworth.
“So the bastard lives?” he asked, his voice still very hoarse and strained.
“Aye,” Keith said. “We had to return home, Cameron. At first, we thought ye were dead. We’d found ye lying on yer back, eyes open and unmoving.” Keith rubbed his mother’s back as she began to sob. Trystan stopped tugging on Cameron’s beard and looked to his grandmother. Now nearly seven months old, he was a perceptive and curious baby. Alice looked at him and took him from his father, bouncing him on her knee. Immediately, the baby began playing with her dress.
“When we lifted ye off the muddy ground, we noticed ye were breathing. We doona know what happened, but could only surmise that an English bastard surprised ye somehow. Ye were deeply wounded, Cameron,” he sighed, emotion swamping him again at the thought of almost losing his older brother. Cameron studied his brother intently and slapped him on the back, emotional himself.
“It was a large gash. Ye can see for yerself,” Keith said, pointing to Cameron’s exposed chest. “From the top of yer chest to above yer belly-hole.” He cleared his throat again. “Ye were barely breathing and were bleeding a great deal, and I feared losing ye on our return home. I feared the long travel would do ye harm, and that the rains would bring lung fever. As it was, ye were warm with fever from the wound. I doused the wound with heavy spirits at least three times a day. Those were the only instances ye made noise. Once, I stood too close to ye and ye grabbed my arm, squeezing it, nearly breaking it,” Keith said, laughing. Cameron smiled, nodding his head.
Naturally, Keith didn’t mention the worry he had for his nephew. He remembered the shock at seeing Trystan in what he believed to be his dead brother’s arms.
“Bess mended ye and trussed ye up like a pheasant,” he said, smiling. “Ye werena out of danger but looking better. As the weeks passed, Bess gave ye draughts, herbs, and teas forcing ye to sleep for healing. Ye’d wake at times, but were incoherent.”
Keith cleared his throat again, which was clogged with emotion. “Ye’re weak and thin because,” Keith said laughing when Cameron pounded his back in feigned offense, “we could only make soups to nourish ye. Ye’ve lost a lot of bulk, a lot of muscle. Ye were only awake for small periods of time.”
Cameron cleared his throat, accepting the water handed to him by Keith. He looked at his son, who was happily playing with Alice’s dress. “And Abby?” he asked, his voice deep. He wanted to know how she reacted.
He didn’t remember a thing about that night.
Alice sighed. It was her turn. It wasn’t a matter she and the family had contrived or rehearsed. Keith looked concerned but she shook her head. She knew how Abby would’ve reacted at seeing Cameron the way he’d been.
“She was devastated and terrified. Horrified,” Alice said, her eyes tearing. She wiped them hastily, holding tightly onto her grandbairn. “She had the baby on her hip, and when she saw yer body carried in, immediately handed the baby over and ran forward,” she said, her voice breaking and lips trembling. Trystan looked back at his grandmother and Keith walked over, taking him from her lap. She coughed and cleared her throat.
“I could tell she was near to swooning, but what kept her standing was her worry for ye. She was hysterical inside and it bubbled out with a scream of anguish but she quickly quieted, to be strong for ye. She saw ye slipping away,” Alice quickly stopped herself.
She grasped his hand, her eyes sad. “She was torn, Cameron. She didna want to leave,” Alice said, again slipping back into the lie they’d fabricated. “She cried, forced to choose between her husband and mother. Amy and I, along with Keith and Aidan, convinced her that it was not a choice. Ye were sleeping and though she was needed here for ye and Trystan, her mother needed her as well.”
Cameron nodded his agreement.
“It took us a great many days to convince her to leave. She’d received a few messages from her mother and sent many in return with a man her mother had paid to be a messenger. Keith, Aidan, and Patrick helped to contrive a scheme.”
“When did she leave and when will she return?”
“She left the day before ye awoke,” Alice said, falsely smiling at the look of surprise on his face. “Aye. It took us a while to convince her. Ironic it is that a day after she left, ye awoke.”
He smiled, nodding. “She’ll be angry,” he added, laughing. He looked away and thought of his wife. “I miss her,” he said hoarse with emotion. He looked up at them again. “When is she returning?”
Keith cleared his throat. “We anticipate a fortnight.”
“A fortnight?” Cameron asked in surprise. “She’s not going into England for crying out loud, Keith. She’s remaining on the edge of the border!”
Alice stared at Keith, and Keith avoided looking at her so as to not raise Cameron’s suspicions that they knew something he didn’t. Keith gathered false anger and feigned insult. He needed to be forceful now, or Cameron would discover the truth.
“Cameron, I believe I know how to care for our family,” he said sarcastically. “I know that ye miss her, but her safety was seen to,” Keith said heatedly. “Ye insult me by suggesting I would risk any harm to yer wife. She’ll return with her mother once her mother comes to the location they’d agreed upon. That may be tomorrow, the day after, or the following week, it depends. Did ye forget that Haynsworth is a bastard who keeps a close eye on Abby’s mother.”
Contrite, Cameron nodded. “I apologize, Keith. I meant no insult. I know ye are a capable leader and would never harm our family or my wife. Ye are right,” Cameron said, smiling. “I miss her. I feel as if something is missing within me.” He shook his head looking sheepish. He looked at them with a smile playing on his lips. “It sounds fanciful, for I know that she lives, but I cannot help the emptiness within.”
Alice and Keith showed him a smile they did not feel.
“She’s nursing him.” They began to see doubt enter into his eyes.
“Wet nurse.”
Cameron looked at them a moment longer, which had them shifting.
“‘Tis a long time, still.”
“I am quite certain Abby knows what to do.”
“Aye, Keith,” Cameron said, nodding his head.
“I think ‘tis best that we leave ye to yer rest, darling,” Alice said, grasping his hand.
“I understand if ye both need to leave, but I want Trystan with me.”
“Ye need to regain yer strength, Cameron,” Alice said.
Cameron shook his head. “My son gives me nourishment for my starved soul, which will not be restored until my wife returns. Leave the door open and should I need assistance if he dirties his rags or becomes hungry, I shall call upon someone.”
“Verra well, then. Take time with yer precious son, for he’s missed ye both… ye,” Alice corrected quickly, “verra much.”
They left a bouncing Trystan with Cameron. They heard Cameron’s laughter down the corridor as they walked together.
“I cannot tell him, Keith,” she said, sobbing. Keith hugged his mother. “He will be devastated.”
“I will tell him then, Mother.” He sighed. “Ye were quick to think on yer feet, describing Abby’s purported reaction to seeing him fallen.”
She stepped back, shaking her head. She looked into Keith’s eyes. “‘Twas not all a lie, Keith. In fact, ‘twas
mostly truth.” At his look of surprise and curiosity, she said, “‘Twas how I felt when I saw yer father.” She sighed as the emotion swamped her.
Keith placed his arm around her, unable to speak. Slowly, they descended the stairs.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“I’ve been forced to lie here for a fortnight since having awoken, despite my going mad! I’ve done it to alleviate yer worry, Mother, but I cannot stay here a moment longer. I want my wife home and since she hasna returned, I want out of this chamber!” he said, irritably.
He had regained a good amount of his strength, but had yet to regain all of his lost muscle. That would require physical exertion and activity, something he had not yet been ready to do. Still, Bess had been very pleased and optimistic with his recovery. His wound was healing while his sour demeanor was returning. Cameron had also been eating enough for six fully-grown men. He devoured everything brought to him. He was regaining the weight, but to regain the little muscle he lost, he needed to train outside with his men. His arms, as they were now, were weak.
He’d kept his beard, vowing only to shave it off when his wife returned home, and not a moment before.
“Verra well,” Alice snapped. “Keith, help yer brother.”
Keith helped Cameron stand. Cameron had begun to walk again a week ago but still required help to get out of bed. Once solid on his feet, Cameron walked on his own, making Alice smile at his reacquired arrogant swagger.
“Keith, ye’ve done well in leading the clan. I am no longer a weak bairn and will be overseeing the clan again,” he said, his tone not allowing any argument that Alice or Keith may have given due to his injury. “I’m going downstairs,” he said, leaving his room.
He made his way down the steps, not as quickly as he used to, but neither as slowly as his condition would demand of a normal man.
But Cameron wasn’t a normal man.
He sat at the great room table in his chair, as he used to. Food filled the first quarter of the table, all meant for him. He ate and Keith caught him up on the clan. Once Cameron was done, he refused to heed Keith’s advice to rest, wanting to go outside instead.
Forget Me Not, My Scottish Love (Heart of a Highlander Collection Book 3) Page 24