by K. E. Saxon
Branwenn twisted slightly on her stool, turning her head in the direction of the doorway. “Grandmother! He awakes!” she called out, hoping to catch the older woman before she was too far down the passage to hear her. She turned back to her husband. “Callum, can you hear me? How do you feel? Does your leg pain you?”
“Drink,” he rasped.
Branwenn nodded and poured a bit of water from the ewer that sat on the table next to her into a silver cup. “Can you lift your head a bit—or would you like me to give you aid to do so?” she asked, bringing the cup forward, toward his lips.
Callum tried, but was too weak to lift his head. “Need...hh...hhhelp.”
Branwenn sat the cup back down and rose to sit beside him on the bed. Gently, she nudged first her hand, and then her arm, under his neck and lifted his head slightly. With her free hand, she took hold of the cup once more and brought the rim up to his parched lips. “Drink.”
Daniel and Lady Maclean hurried through the opened doorway. “Do not give him more than a few swallows at a time,” Daniel instructed, “as his stomach will not hold down more than that right now.”
He strode up to stand on the other side of the bed from Branwenn and lifted the blanket that was draped over Callum’s torso, revealing the bandaged and elevated leg beneath. “The wound dressing is still clean. A good sign.”
Branwenn helped Callum settle his head back on the pillow. His eyelids fluttered slightly before closing. In seconds, he was asleep again.
She turned to her brother. “He’s so weak, Daniel! What if he does not recover?”
“He’ll recover, fear not,” Lady Maclean said as she walked up to stand next to Branwenn. She took hold of her granddaughter’s hand. “Now that he’s at last come out of his sleep, he’s sure to. For he’s a strong lad.”
“Aye,” Daniel replied, “‘tis true. He was in his senseless slumber for only a few hours, not days, as we all feared.” He settled his gaze on hers. “And now ‘twill be much easier to get him the water he requires. Wake him every hour and give him more, in the same way that you did just now. All right?”
Branwenn dropped her gaze back onto her husband and worried her bottom lip with her teeth. Nodding, she said, “Aye.”
“I think that you should allow one of us to relieve your vigil, my dear, for you need your rest,” Lady Maclean said to her.
“Nay, I cannot—will not—leave his side in any case, so ‘tis best that I do this duty.” And she must tell him of the babe. The moment, the very moment, that he became aware enough of his surroundings, she must do it.
Which meant she must be here day and night, if need be, else she might surely miss the opportunity. For what if Daniel and Lady Maclean were wrong? What if he did not recover? She could not bear to know that he’d gone to his final peace without knowing of this wondrous gift he’d given her.
Lady Maclean patted her hand. “I must go tell my daughter that her son’s revived.”
“I’ll escort you down, Grandmother,” Daniel said. Then to Branwenn: “I’ll have some meat broth brought up. He needs his strength rebuilt.”
After the two had left the chamber, Branwenn settled once more on her stool. She felt under the blanket until she at last found Callum’s hand. Wrapping her own around his much rougher, larger one, she pleaded in a whisper, “Do not leave me.”
* * *
Sometime around the chimes of compline, Callum awoke on his own again. And this time, he felt much less dazed, less weak. The room was dim, the only light, that from the hearthfire and a single candle that flickered on the table beside his bed.
His eyes ached as they slowly panned the chamber, then halted and fixed onto the shadowed figure seated in the window’s alcove. Branwenn. His heart leapt, then settled into a rapid, joyous beat against his ribs.
He’d survived. Praise be to God. A vague glimmer of a remembered speech flitted through his mind, something he tried to hold onto, something about Branwenn, but was gone in a flash before he could grasp its meaning.
“My love?” he said, his voice raspier than he’d expected. When she didn’t respond, he cleared his throat and tried again. “My love? Might I have a bit of water?”
Branwenn swung around. “Callum!” And in seconds she was beside him, running her hand over his brow. “How do you feel?”
“I—”
“Your eyes are much clearer than they were before. And your cheeks have more color. Are you well?”
Callum chuckled. How was he ever to give her his answer if she’d not still that tongue? “I’m much recovered, I trow. And hungry. Is there naught to fill my stomach but that broth?” He indicated with a scan of his eye the vessel containing the liquid meal that sat next to the water ewer on the table beside him.
“I’ll have something brought up from the kitchens for you. But first, I’d best get Daniel, for he knows better what you should be eating now.” She started to turn but Callum grabbed hold of her wrist and halted her flight.
“Nay, stay here with me awhile. My stomach can wait to be filled. For now, ‘tis my eyes that need the filling. With the sight of you.”
“Oh, Callum. You are better!” Branwenn leaned down and gave him a quick kiss on the mouth. Callum lifted his arms to deepen the kiss, but Branwenn scooted out of his reach. “Nay, you must eat and gain more strength, for I’ve something to tell you when you have. Something wonderful.”
And then she was off. Out the door and down the hall before Callum could say “aye” or “nay” to her words. With a sigh, he smiled and rested his head back onto the pillow.
He lived.
And Gaiallard, the Norman fiend, was dead.
He closed his eyes. Instantly, an image of his opponent standing before him with his sword thrust deep into his thigh swam behind his lids.
“...patch...Branwenn...freckle...sucked dry...tongue lashing.”
Callum’s eyes flew open and he tried to sit up, but he was stymied by his wound. He gritted his teeth and bellowed as a sharp, eviscerating pain shot into his groin and down his leg, all the way to his toes. “Blood of Christ!” he ground out through clenched teeth as beads of sweat instantly formed on his brow and upper lip.
His lungs blowing hard from his struggle against the pain, he gingerly settled back onto his pillow and stared, unseeing, up into the darkness of the bed’s canopy above him.
Gaiallard had known about the mark on Branwenn’s thigh. And the freckle as well. How could he have known of them if he had not done as he’d said he’d done?
How?
He could not. For the position of the mark was in a place that only someone who had been granted intimate access to her naked, delectable body would be able to see it.
Only a lover....
Callum growled. She’d lied to him.
More of Gaiallard’s words floated up from the depths of his memory. “And then I fucked her. Twice. What a tight little cunt she has!
His skin crawled. She was tight. How could he know? Unless...Oh, God! She’d lain with that bastard!
“She did it for you, she swore. She wanted me to leave the two of you be; to release her from her betrothal contract.”
Had she? Had that truly been her reason? And even if it were, he’d never forgive her for it. Never. For, if she’d give her body to another when she was already wed, then she was not the woman she’d convinced him she was, not the woman he wanted as wife.
Another memory came to the surface. This time of a feast night a few sennights after his marriage to Lara. Of overhearing some of the soldiers, deep in their cups, wagering on him. On when he would discover that his wife offered herself each night to a new man; that she complained of her husband’s inability to please her.
Callum felt the hot flush of remembered shame sweep o’er his cheeks.
Had Branwenn played him for a fool these past moons, pretending timorousness in regard to unveiling her body when, clearly, she had no such compunction with her Norman lover? Callum’s fists clenched at his si
des. And what of her flirtation with that guard? Even if his mother had brought the guard to Branwenn only as a means to force Callum’s hand, the way Branwenn had reacted to him still rankled. Now, more than ever, he was sure that she was weaving her spell on Robert as well, even if the man was too dull witted to know it. Aye, she was a siren, a Boabhan Sith, irresistibly drawing him—and all men—to her.
He growled low in his throat, more certain with each passing moment that he’d been duped. That he’d once more entangled himself with a faithless woman.
Her duplicity twisted his gut and ripped at his heart like a blunt, rusted dagger.
She’d lied.
Just as Lara had done.
And that lie had made him the fool, the cuckold.
Again. As he’d sworn he’d never be. Ever again.
And—Blood of Christ!! The clan knew it. The hunters had seen the proof and now Callum would once more feel the brunt of his clansmen’s disparaging wit.
A great tide of humiliation crashed through him. He’d sworn, after Lara, after the ousting by the Maclean clan, that he’d be a man, not a lad. Be responsible. Do his duty. Wed a lady of high character, worthy of mothering his children. Be the man his family expected him to be.
And, once more he’d thoroughly blundered.
But ‘twas not too late to make things right. And he knew just what he must do.
* * *
CHAPTER 17
Branwenn met Bishop Richard outside the great hall. “My husband has revived, sir. Will you give us your blessing now, for I’ve something of great import to tell him, and I’d like it to be after the marriage is blessed.” Branwenn’s cheeks heated, but she kept her eye steady on the man of the cloth.
The Bishop smiled and gave her a wink. “Ahh. I ken you well, my dear. And ‘twould give me great pleasure to give you the blessing. Allow me to retrieve my holy book and I shall meet you in his chamber in a quarter-hour’s time.”
“Oh! Bishop. Will you not give me an hour? For he must have a meal first. And I must tell the others, as well, so that they may be there also.”
Bishop Richard nodded. “Aye. An hour then.”
Branwenn sighed and grinned. “My thanks to you,” she said and scooted past him through the doorway of the great hall.
* * *
All the family were settled around the hearth. Daniel, who faced the door, saw her first and stood up. “Is he awake, then?”
Branwenn smiled. “Aye, and hungry for heartier fare than what he’s had these past hours.”
“We must get the lad something to eat.” Chalmers indicated with a nod of his head to one of the servants to have a tray of food prepared for his stepson.
“I must check on his wound dressing,” Daniel said, and strode toward the door.
“Wait!” Branwenn called out to him. “First, I must tell you that the Bishop has agreed to bless our marriage in an hour’s time. I want all of you to be there.” She scanned her eye around the gathering. “Where is Alyson?”
“She’s not emerged from her chamber since the sheriff questioned her regarding the arrow that went into her brother’s eye,” Maryn said.
Branwenn walked over to the stool that Daniel had recently vacated and slowly sat down. “Was she the one to do the deed?”
“Aye, I believe so,” Lady Maclean answered. “Tho’ no one outside the family will ever learn the truth of it.”
“We told the sheriff that ‘twas a stray shot from one of the young squires we have training on guard duty,” Chalmers said, “that he no doubt was practicing where he should not have been and the arrow misfired.”
“Truth be told,” Bao said, releasing Jesslyn’s hand for a moment to scrub the back of his neck with the rough pads of his fingertips, “‘twas Callum’s dirk that killed the man, so even tho’ the sheriff was suspicious of our tale, he wrote the incident down in his book as an accident and let the matter rest.”
“It aided our cause, I trow, that his wife is a MacGregor,” Maggie said.
“Aye, no doubt,” Chalmers agreed.
“When will Reys be back?” Branwenn said.
Chalmers sighed and shook his head. “I hope ‘tis not more than another moon, for ‘tis plain his wife needs him.”
* * *
A quarter-hour later, Branwenn and Daniel walked back inside Callum’s chamber, the servant bearing the food tray directly behind them.
Callum, his head making a deep well in the pillow beneath it, turned his face away from Branwenn. “Get out, Branwenn.”
“What? Why? Are you fevered?” Branwenn rushed to the side of the bed and tried to place her hand on her husband’s brow, but he thrust it away.
“Get. Out.” Callum sat up a bit and winced, a harsh groan bursting past his tightly clenched lips and teeth. “NOW!”
Daniel took the tray from the servant and set it on a table by the hearth then quietly indicated that the servant should leave.
“But...Callum...please. We are to at last have our vows blessed by the bishop—in only a few minutes’ time.”
Daniel walked over to stand with his arms akimbo a bit away from the scene, his eyes narrowed in speculation as he studied his young cousin.
“We shan’t wed. The offer of my troth is rescinded.” He turned back to face her. “Get OUT!” he shouted, rising up again, tho’ it pulled his leg injury. His face crinkled from the pain it evidently caused.
“But...you love me,” she said, tho’ there was doubt in her voice now, “and I love you!” she continued with more surety.
“Nay, I love you not. I could never love a whore. Allow a whore to raise my bairns! And you are that—you slept with that Norman—and God knows who else, besides!”
Branwenn sucked in a sharp breath. “Nay! Never! How ever could you believe such?”
“You lie! For he told me so, on the field this day. And I—and half the MacGregor hunters—know you met the man this day past in the wood.” He gave a derisive snort. “I thought ‘twas only some chance encounter, even worried that the man had threatened you in some way, when David told me of it this morn. But then the Norman proved it to be a much more intimate meeting when he relayed a bit of knowledge of your body that only a lover could know. Ken you of what I am speaking, Branwenn, or do I spell it out in front of your brother?”
Branwenn shook her head in numb disbelief. “How? How could he know of such? How?”
Callum’s eyes narrowed. “Precisely,” he said through gritted teeth.
“And now I wonder if you shone that purple specter from that filet directly into my eyes apurpose. To distract me. Did you decide after bedding the man that he was the better lover?”
“Nay!—” Branwenn said.
“Callum—” Daniel said at the same time. ‘Twas a warning.
Callum ignored both of them, too caught up now in his own misery. “That you’d rather have him ‘tween your thighs than me?” He pointed towards the door. “Leave. I cannot bear the sight of you another moment.”
Branwenn’s heart twisted so violently in her chest, she couldn’t take in a breath.
“Branwenn, leave us,” Daniel said in a dangerously quiet voice.
Knowing she was in real peril of breaking down in earnest, Branwenn did as her brother bade. Whirling around, she fled the chamber.
Daniel, his shoulder resting against the jamb of another door, raised his hands and pounded his palms together slowly. “Well done. I do believe we’ve seen at last the underside of that silver tongue of yours.”
Callum glared at him through bloodshot eyes. “Go to the devil, you son of a whoredog,” he said hoarsely.
Daniel ignored him. Instead, he slowly straightened before sauntering over to the stool at Callum’s bedside and sitting down. “So we are back to this again. Another accusation of inconstancy thrown at my poor sister’s head, with little or no proof to support it. Truly, you do not deserve to be her husband. Mayhap ‘tis for the best that the blessing has not been given, for ‘twill be of no matter to v
oid the other.”
Callum’s brows slammed together and his face grew even more red. “Good! Do it forthwith, for I shan’t spend another sennight wed to such a one as she. And take her back with you. I’ll not have her kind sullying my bairns.” He dropped his head back onto the pillow and turned his face away. “And I do have proof. Undeniable proof, in fact.”
“Well, I see you’ve recovered some blood. But your sense has clearly been addled. What proof could you possibly have? My sister, if you recall, ran from the Norman—was nearly drowned in the process. Why would she give herself to him?”
Callum was silent for a long moment before saying at last, “He said she did it as a bargain so that he would not meet me on the lists this day.”
This gave Daniel pause. He could see his sister doing such if she were desperate enough. But had she? It bore investigating. “And you call her ‘whore’ for doing what she could to save your life?”
“‘Tis not the first time she’s enticed men. Remember Kerk and Robert? And all those lads she danced with ‘round the bonfire? And what’s to stop her from doing such again? Nay, she’s just like Lara, and I’ll not be wed to another of her ilk. Ever.”
“Branwenn is naught like Lara. Get that thought out of your head forthwith.”
Callum turned to look at Daniel once more, determination glinting like diamonds in his eyes. “I won’t take the chance. Not again. I won’t be a cuckold, the pity and laughingstock of my clan—ever again! I owe it to my bairns, to my family.”
Daniel sighed. ‘Twas clear Callum was in no mind to speak rationally about this now. And who could blame him? He’d come near to dying only a few hours past. Mayhap ‘twas best to allow the man some more rest before broaching the subject again.
All at once Daniel recalled the ploy that his father-in-law had used with him and Maryn. He decided to try it on his cousin. “Well, there’s naught for it then, I suppose. I’ll do what I must to get the contracts voided.”
The look of a cornered deer in direct line of a hunter’s arrow came into Callum’s eyes. “Good.”