by Maya Banks
“Have you all you need for the coming winter?” Maddie asked as they approached Christina’s parents’ cottage.
Keeley shook her head. “Nay. There are a few herbs I must look for. ’Twill require digging into the snow but I know what trees to look under. Many will come down with a cough and aching chest as it grows colder. Especially the children. There is a paste I make that eases the ache and helps with the cough. ’Twill be useful to have this winter.”
Maddie frowned. “When will you collect these herbs?”
Keeley grinned ruefully. “Not until it stops snowing and the wind dies down. ’Tis too cold to go digging about in the snow right now.”
“Aye, you’re right. Be sure to bring a man or two to help you. ’Tis no easy task for a lass to take on herself.”
“Now you sound like the laird with all his dictates,” Keeley teased.
Maddie stopped and knocked at Christina’s door. “The laird is a wise man. ’Tis no insult to be compared to him.”
Keeley rolled her eyes. “I was offering no insult.”
Christina opened the door and her face brightened when she saw Maddie and Keeley standing there. When they told her Mairin would like her to come to the keep, she pounced on the opportunity.
“I love my mother dearly,” Christina said as they hurried toward the keep. “But ’tis God’s truth, the woman is driving me daft. I can’t take being sequestered in the cottage with her any longer.”
Maddie chuckled. “Complaining about the weather, I imagine.”
“When doesn’t she complain?” Christina asked in exasperation. “If it’s not the weather, it’s my father, or me, or some imagined ailment. I was near to screaming before you knocked on my door.”
Keeley smiled and squeezed the young woman’s hand. “I’m sure the opportunity to see Cormac again never entered your mind.”
Christina blushed and Maddie hooted with laughter. “She has you there, lass.”
“Do you think he’ll ever try to kiss me?” Christina asked wistfully.
Maddie pursed her lips. “It seems to me that if he hasn’t been trying to kiss you then maybe you should take the matter into your own hands and kiss him.”
Christina’s mouth dropped open and her eyes widened with shock. “Oh I couldn’t! Why, that would be brazen. He’d think me … He’d think me …” she sputtered to a halt, clearly unable to voice the word floating through her mind.
“I wager he’d be too knocked off his feet to have such thoughts,” Maddie muttered. “Some men need a shove every now and again. A stolen kiss does not a harlot make. No matter what your mother might preach.”
“I agree with Maddie,” Keeley said.
“You do?” Christina turned to look at Keeley just as they stepped into the keep and were greeted by much warmer air. “Have you ever … kissed a man?” Her voice dropped to a whisper as she looked around to make certain they weren’t overheard. “I mean did you do the kissing?”
“Aye,” Keeley said softly. “I’ve kissed and I’ve been kissed. ’Tis not a shameful thing, Christina. If it doesn’t go too far. Cormac is a good man. He won’t take advantage, and if he does, you scream loudly and I’ll kick him betwixt the legs.”
Maddie dissolved into laughter while Christina looked so shocked that Keeley wondered if she and Maddie should have counseled the younger woman at all.
But then a speculative gleam appeared in her eyes and Christina’s expression grew thoughtful. As soon as they entered the hall, Mairin rose from her chair in front of the fire and hurried toward them.
“Thank goodness you’re here. I am driving myself daft with boredom. Ewan won’t allow me out of the keep but everyone else must still go about their duties.”
Then Mairin stopped and studied them curiously. “What is amiss? And Christina, why do you have such a peculiar look on your face?”
Maddie chuckled. “The lass is conspiring.”
Mairin’s brows shot up. “This, I must hear. Come, sit in front of the fire with me and tell me all. If there is mischief to be had, I want a part in it.”
“Oh sure, make the laird furious with us all for leading you astray,” Keeley grumbled.
Mairin grinned cheekily and settled back in her chair, her palm molding to her protruding belly. “Ewan won’t touch a hair on your head. At least not until our babe is safely delivered.”
“It’s afterward you need to worry,” Maddie teased.
Keeley sobered, for after she delivered Mairin’s babe, her future was indeed precarious. She had no idea if she even had a cottage to return to at this point. With her disappearance, naught would be known of her fate and her cottage would surely be taken over by someone in need of a sturdy shelter. She had no champion to back her claim, and in fact the cottage didn’t really belong to her. It was a McDonald holding.
“Did we say something wrong?” Mairin asked anxiously. “You look so … sad, Keeley.”
Keeley offered a valiant smile. “ ’Tis nothing. I was thinking of my fate after your babe is born.”
The other women looked shocked and a little appalled.
“Surely you don’t think you’d be turned out,” Maddie exclaimed.
Mairin shifted forward in her chair and clutched Keeley’s hand to hers. “Ewan would never allow such a thing to happen. You do know that, don’t you?”
“ ’Tis the truth I know nothing of my future,” Keeley said softly. “More likely than that, I don’t have a home to return to. Such as it was.”
“You don’t like it here?” Christina asked.
Keeley hesitated. Once Alaric married Rionna, ’Twas true that being here would take her further away from Alaric than returning to the McDonald land where she might very well be called to deliver Rionna’s first child. With Alaric. The thought was too much to bear. And yet staying here would also put her into close proximity with both Alaric and Rionna when they came to visit. ’Twas a conundrum that promised hurt for her no matter what the course of her fate.
“Aye, I like it here,” she finally said. “I never realized how lonely I was before I had all of you to laugh and talk with.”
“Keeley, will you tell us what happened to you?” Mairin asked quietly. “If ’tis none of our business, feel free to say so, but I wonder so why you no longer carry the McDonald name and why it is you say your clan turned their back on you.”
“ ’Tis shameful that,” Maddie offered with a scowl. “Family is family. A clan is all a person has. If they won’t stand behind you, who will?”
“Who will indeed?” Keeley asked ruefully.
She sat back and drew in her breath, surprised by how angry she still felt after so long. Resentment festered just underneath her skin, looking for a crack in which to spill out.
“I grew up as a close friend to Rionna McDonald, the laird’s only child.”
“Alaric’s Rionna?” Mairin asked with a gasp.
“Aye, Alaric’s Rionna.” It took her all not to flinch when saying those words. “It was common for me to be around the laird and Lady McDonald. They indulged Rionna and me and gave us run of the keep. As we grew older and became more womanly in look, the laird began watching me. So closely it discomfited me.”
“The lecher,” Maddie muttered.
“It became so uncomfortable that I started to avoid him entirely and started spending less time with Rionna inside the keep. One day when going to summon Rionna from her room, the laird caught me alone and he began saying horrible things. He kissed me and I was appalled. I told him I would scream for help and he asked who would go against him? He was laird. He could have what he wanted. No one would gainsay him.
“I was terrified, for he spoke the truth. He would have raped me in his daughter’s chamber, but Lady McDonald walked in.”
Mairin looked horrified. “Oh, Keeley.”
“I thought the worst of it was having the laird attack me so. I was wrong. The worst of it was when Lady McDonald labeled me whore and accused me of enticing her husband. I was b
anished from the keep and forbidden to return. I suppose I was fortunate that they allowed me to take a cottage a distance from the keep, but ’twas a lonely existence for a young girl.”
“That’s despicable!” Christina exclaimed. “How could they have done that to you?”
All three women’s faces were creased with horror and it sparked gladness in Keeley’s heart. It felt good to have someone be outraged on her behalf.
“The loss of Rionna’s friendship hurt the most. I didn’t know at first if she believed what was said about me. After Lady McDonald passed and she made no effort to see me or allow me back into the clan, I realized that everyone had indeed believed the worst.”
Mairin clumsily got up and enfolded Keeley in a hug, squeezing until Keeley was breathless. “You cannot return there. You’ll stay here with the McCabes. We don’t turn on our own and we’d certainly never cast a young girl out for the sins of a lecherous old man. The laird visited here some months past. I wish I had known then. I would have spit in his eyes.”
Keeley laughed. Once she started she couldn’t stop. Her shoulders shook as she imagined Mairin spitting on the laird. She looked helplessly at the other women and soon they were all laughing uproariously.
They wiped tears from their eyes and gasped for breath, and then they looked at Mairin’s disgruntled features and laughed all over again.
“I cannot tell you how much better that made me feel,” Keeley confessed. “ ’Tis the truth I’ve never told anyone the source of my shame.”
“ ’Tis not your shame,” Mairin said fiercely. “The shame is Laird McDonald’s.”
Maddie nodded her agreement while Christina still looked dumbstruck by Keeley’s tale.
“And ’tis why you simply must stay here,” Maddie announced. “You might not be a McCabe born, but a McCabe you’ll be and stay. Your healing skills are needed here and no one will dare treat you as you were treated on McDonald land. Our laird doesn’t stand for such injustice.”
“I’ve been so angry for so long,” Keeley admitted. “It felt good to tell someone. Thank you for not judging me.”
“Men are pigs,” Christina spit out.
The three women turned to the younger girl in surprise. Christina had remained largely silent through the telling, and now her cheeks were flushed and her eyes glittered with anger.
“I don’t know why any of us tolerate them,” she continued.
Mairin laughed. “They aren’t all pigs. Your Cormac has a good head on his shoulders.”
“If he had such a good head then why hasn’t he tried to kiss me yet?” Christina muttered.
Maddie laughed. “You see, lass, this is why you should take matters into your own hands and kiss him first. The lad is probably scared spitless to make a wrong move and offend or frighten you. Men take on the strangest notions sometimes.”
Mairin groaned. “Don’t get Maddie started about men. She’ll summon Bertha and they’ll scorch your ears with all their knowledge.”
“Aye, but lass, you and the laird benefited well from our advice,” Maddie said smugly.
Mairin blushed furiously and waved a hand in front of her face. “ ’Tis not me we should be discussing. Christina, I agree. You should kiss Cormac and see how he reacts.”
All the talk of kissing and intimacy started an ache in Keeley’s chest. Watching young Christina so in love and alive with joy and curiosity made her yearn for things she couldn’t have.
Christina leaned forward in her chair, her gaze darting cautiously left and right. “But when? I’ll not want anyone seeing us, to be sure. If it got back to my mother, I’d never hear the end of it.”
“Well, if your kiss has the impact you’re hoping, you won’t be your mother’s responsibility any more,” Maddie said with a smile. “Perhaps this will hasten Cormac to ask to wed you.”
A wistful, hopeful smile crept over Christina’s features, softening her eyes until they glowed in the light of the fire.
“Do you think he will?”
Keeley and Mairin exchanged looks and smiled at the younger girl.
“Aye, I do,” Mairin said. “ ’Tis obvious he’s smitten with you. Be bold. And if he rebuffs you, I’ll kick him, and we will convene to mutter all manner of blasphemies against men.”
Keeley grinned broadly as Maddie chortled with laughter. Christina smiled and all but bounced excitedly in her seat.
“I still must know when. It must be a private moment.”
“Tonight when the men have done drinking their ale, I’ll suggest that Cormac walk you back to your cottage,” Mairin said. “ ’Tis up to you to do the kissing as soon as you’ve left the hall but not outside in plain view of the watchmen. In the meantime, I’ll send a message to your mother explaining that you’ll be eating in the hall with me tonight.”
“Oh, I’m so nervous!” Christina exclaimed.
“Don’t be nervous, lass. Cormac will be nervous enough for the both of you once he learns he’s to escort you home,” Maddie teased.
“Wife, my men and I heard your laughter all the way out to the courtyard,” Ewan said from the entrance. “They’re all terrified that you’re plotting against them again.”
Mairin looked up to where her husband stood and grinned mischievously. “ ’Tis a fact we are, husband. You may of course tell them that, if you wish.”
Ewan scowled. “I’m not daft. They’ll all abandon their duties and hide like women if I tell them that.”
Mairin smiled innocently while Maddie and Keeley found something else to focus their attention on.
“I’ll not have you interfering with my men and their duties, Mairin,” Ewan said sternly.
“Of course not,” she soothed.
He cast a suspicious glare in her direction and then turned and left the hall. No sooner had he exited than the women all burst into laughter once more.
CHAPTER 16
Dinner was a lively affair as many of Alaric’s men supped with him in the great hall. A fire roared in the hearth and the furs were all rolled down over the windows with extra bindings to seal the gaps.
Keeley sat on Mairin’s left with Christina on Keeley’s other side. Cormac had been strategically placed across the table from Christina, and watching the two dodge the other’s gaze but take peeks when they thought the other wasn’t looking was amusing.
On either side of Cormac sat Alaric and Caelen, and despite her best efforts, Keeley found her gaze traveling to Alaric. Tonight Ewan discussed Alaric’s upcoming marriage, and it took all of Keeley’s strength to remain in her seat, smile in place, and act as though she hadn’t a care in the world.
Her cheeks ached. Her head throbbed.
Alliances. Bonds. Talk of impending war. Naught mattered but the fact that Alaric would marry another and move to McDonald land to take the position of laird.
The usually flavorful food was dry and unremarkable. She ate because there was naught else to do but eat and smile. Another bite. Another smile. Nod in Christina’s direction. Laugh at a jest from Mairin. Watch Caelen scowl. And then look in Alaric’s direction again.
She sighed and moved the venison around with her cutting knife. She just wished the meal over with so she could retire to her chamber and try to lose herself in a few hours sleep.
She chanced another peek at Alaric and sucked in her breath when she found his gaze resting on her. He didn’t move away or try to pretend he hadn’t been watching her. His eyes like green ice delved past her defenses and threatened to crumble her on the spot.
He didn’t smile. In his eyes she saw all that she felt. And yet she couldn’t make herself look away. Nay, if he could brave allowing her to see his torment, then she could offer her own in return. She wouldn’t pretend to feel naught.
Beside her Mairin cleared her throat, jerking Keeley from her locked gaze. Keeley glanced swiftly around, but all eyes were turned toward the mistress of the keep as she prepared to speak.
“The meal is done and ’tis nigh time for Christina to h
asten back to her cottage. Her mother will worry, with the weather so raw out.”
She glanced over at Cormac and gifted him with a sweet smile. “Cormac, would you kindly escort Christina? I’d hate for her to brave the weather by herself.”
For a moment, Cormac looked as though he’d swallowed his tongue. After casting a quick glance in Christina’s direction, he hastily stood.
“Of course, Lady McCabe.”
Ewan shot Mairin a long-suffering look while Caelen just frowned as Cormac walked around to offer his arm to Christina.
The table went quiet and it seemed everyone in the hall watched as Cormac awkwardly guided Christina from the table. As soon as they were gone, Ewan let out a sigh and pinned his wife with his stare.
“What mischief are you up to now, wife?”
Mairin smiled and exchanged a conspiratorial look with Keeley before facing her husband.
“Would you have Christina walk to her cottage alone? Why, she could slip and fall on the ice and then what would we tell her mother? That our laird sent a young girl into the weather unescorted?”
Ewan sent his gaze heavenward. “Why do I even ask?”
“Come now, husband. Have another serving of ale and tell me of your day,” Mairin said with an innocent smile.
“You know well how my day went. I’ve just spent the last half hour with the retelling.”
“Have you yet sent a message to McDonald agreeing to his terms?” Caelen asked.
He looked directly at Keeley, pointedly, as he spoke. Keeley held his gaze, refusing to react to his words.
“Aye, two days past,” Ewan said. “I don’t expect to receive a response until the storm has passed and the snows have stopped.”
“Then we should expect him closer to spring,” Caelen pressed. “He and Rionna.”
“Caelen.”
Alaric said only the one word, but his tone was glacial and as frigid as the winds outside. It was a clear warning to his brother to stop meddling, but it didn’t make Keeley feel any better.
Caelen was warning her. He knew of the attraction between her and Alaric. Keeley wanted to crawl under the table and die of shame.