“Aye, you’re right. I am with child.”
The older woman’s face collapsed into that sweet smile again. “Oh, lass. I’m very happy for you.”
“It isn’t Walter’s child, though…”
The smile turned wry, and her grandmother’s eyes sparkled. “Well, then. I’m even happier.”
***
By sunset, Aileen’s stomach was satisfied, and she’d taken a bath and changed into a clean shift, dress and plaid. Sitting with her grandmother beside the hearth, she told the older woman all of what had happened since Walter’s death.
“John summoned me to Ellandonan,” she said, “and he sent one of his men—a man who’d been a good friend to me in the early days of my marriage with Walter.”
Grandmother nodded. “This man is important to you.”
“He’s always been important to me, but now…”
The violet eyes softened. “The babe’s father?”
“Aye. His name is Niall MacRae.”
“Niall MacRae?” Grandmother asked, her eyes clouding and her forehead wrinkles deepening as she attempted to place a face to the name.
“You knew him before you left Dornoch,” Aileen said. Grandmother had lived at Dornoch for the first several months of her marriage to Walter, but Walter had despised her, and since the feeling was entirely mutual, she’d eventually left.
“Did I?” The old woman rubbed her chin between two fingers.
“He was Walter’s ward. My age. Very tall with dark blond hair.”
“I do think I remember him.” Grandmother smiled. “Quite the bonny lad he was, wasn’t he?”
“Quite bonny,” Aileen agreed. He was also gallant, gentle, courteous, sensitive, passionate. Ardent, but volatile. Self-sacrificing. And yet…he’d left her.
She continued her story. Grandmother didn’t speak through the remainder of the telling, and for a long while after Aileen had finished speaking, the old woman remained silent.
Aileen gazed at the fire. She missed Niall so much. What was he doing right now? He must be in Edinburgh. Perhaps he was sitting in a tavern, drinking ale and catching up with an old friend.
Would he ever know about his child?
He was living his life. Now, she must too.
Finally, Grandmother spoke. “This all began a score of years ago. Nay—even longer.”
Aileen’s gaze swung to her grandmother, who was staring contemplatively at the fire. She tilted her head in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“That was a difficult time at Dornoch. It was the summer Lady Dunbar died.”
“Lady Dunbar? Do you mean…Gilbert Dunbar’s mother?”
The old woman placed her hand over Aileen’s. “Aye. She was a distant cousin of mine. Even though she’d married an overbearing boor who never gave her the respect she deserved, she was a sweet lady, a loving mother, and her son was a happy child—rambunctious and full of boyish vigor.”
Gilbert?
“He took a fancy to you, Aileen,” Grandmother said. “Now that was an odd sight, seeing a growing lad handle a baby with such sweetness and adoration. Yet something about him—” She shook herself as if to rid a disturbing thought from her mind. “Well, in any case, nigh on every soul in the castle came down with a terrible ague that year. You and young Gilbert were the first, and in caring for you, everyone else seemed to have caught it. You bairns survived, but the adults didn’t fare as well. Lady Dunbar was the first to go.”
“Oh.” Tears welled in Aileen’s eyes. She remembered losing her own mother to sickness, and even after all these years, the pain of it was acute. The pain Gilbert must have felt as a lad might have been too much to bear—especially if his father was as harsh as Gilbert himself turned out to be. “What happened to Gilbert?” she asked.
“At the time, I thought the sickness addled his brain, quite frankly,” Grandmother said. “One night I went to his bedchamber to cast an old healing charm upon him, but he flailed and kicked and screamed. He said I was casting an evil spell on him, that he would kill me for my sinful pagan incantations.” She shook her head. “Later, I realized it wasn’t the sickness, but his mother’s death that had addled him. I never saw the lad again.”
“Oh, Grandmother.” All the fear drained out of Aileen. It was almost impossible to think that evil man had once been an innocent, happy youth. One who had apparently adored her.
“And Gilbert Dunbar is my husband now. He…kidnapped me…and married me…and tried to…to…” Aileen took a deep, shaky breath. “I think he would have killed me, eventually. He certainly would have killed my child. I know he would.”
“Oh, a leannan.” Grandmother stood and gathered Aileen into her arms. Aileen pressed her face against her soft shoulder.
“If his mother hadn’t died, he would be a different person,” Aileen whispered. “I know he would. I feel it. He’d be honorable and good—”
“Perhaps, but it isn’t your responsibility. You had naught to do with it.”
“I know…I just—” She squeezed her grandmother tightly. “I just wish I could change things. If things had been different…”
“Aileen.” Her grandmother stroked strands of hair off her forehead. “One thing we cannot change is the past.”
“I know. Sometimes, though, I think we cannot change the future, either. We are destined to be pulled through life by God or fate or those who surround us and never by free will.”
“Sometimes that’s true, lass. Especially for us women. But you’re different, a leannan. You are far stronger than most. You will go on, and you will make your own way.”
“Even married to a monster like Gilbert Dunbar?”
“Even so.”
“But…” Aileen’s voice was nearly a whisper. “I don’t think I can ever love anyone again.”
And how could she if she was already bound by marriage vows to Gilbert?
“Och!” The old woman narrowed her eyes. “Don’t be daft. Of course you are capable of love. The moment your child is born, you will have found the most enduring love of your life.”
Aileen couldn’t help but smile. It was true—the love for her child had started growing the day she realized that she was carrying him. “You know that’s not what I meant,” she said softly. “I am so angry. I feel so betrayed by Niall, by how he left me and our babe alone, to fend for ourselves, to protect ourselves against Gilbert. I feel…abandoned.”
“You are now safe with me, yet you are still confused,” the old woman murmured.
“I should feel safe,” Aileen said. “And I do—it’s just that…”
“You must be brave, a leannan. You mustn’t become enslaved by your anger or fears. Break free and you shall recover what was lost and begin again.”
Aileen nodded. “I think I understand.” She must let go of her resentment at Niall for leaving her. He had his reasons—and ultimately those reasons were justified. She could never stop feeling pain from his abandonment, but she must let go of her anger, for her sake and the bairn’s.
If she ever encountered him again, she’d tell him about the babe. After all, it was his child too. He had a right to know. And she would teach the bairn about his real father. Niall, the laird’s trustworthy warrior, the man of honor. The man who would sacrifice everything to honor the oath he’d made before God.
Still, the anger was there. As much as her rational mind told her she must let go, still a part of Aileen had wanted him to be there. Had wanted him to prevent Gilbert from taking her from Ellandonan in the first place. And once she was trapped at Castle Aird, how desperately she’d wanted him to ride in, her knight in shining armor, to defend her honor and free her.
“Listen to me, lass,” her grandmother said gently. “You showed your strength by freeing yourself from Gilbert Dunbar rather than waiting in impotence, depending upon someone else to be your savior.”
Aileen furrowed her brow.
“Never forget how strong you are, a leannan. You saved yourself, and your child, from that man’s evil.
Ultimately, you didn’t need anyone to come rescue you. You rescued yourself.”
It was true. She had escaped Gilbert on her own, without anyone’s help, before he had truly harmed her or her babe. “Aye, I did.”
“Then why resent him for not coming when you did not need him? Why hold so stubbornly on to this anger?”
“It would have made things much easier if he’d been there to help,” she muttered.
Grandmother laughed. “When did you become so spoiled, Aileen?”
Aileen’s lips struggled to turn upward. Her grandmother was right, after all.
She would try to let go of the anger and the resentment. If nothing else, she would be grateful for the time she had spent with Niall and the amazing gift of life he had given her.
Those feelings would sustain her.
Chapter Seventeen
Aileen stepped out into the bright sunlight. Leaning against the doorframe, she looked out over Loch Ness. The water was a stunning, shimmering blue today. The color of Niall’s eyes.
This morning, her grandmother had left for Inverness to visit an old friend. Grandmother said she had been planning the trip for some time, and although she’d offered to stay with Aileen, Aileen had convinced her to go. Truly, she didn’t mind being alone. Solitude calmed her.
Smiling and waving, Aileen had watched her grandmother’s old crotchety mule hobble away.
She’d spent the day in quiet contemplation, enjoying the summery weather and the cool breeze coming from the mountains and rippling over the water.
Grandmother swore that the infamous kelpie of Loch Ness often swam ashore, and that they were friends and had made a truce so that Grandmother could fish on the loch without fear of the animal capsizing her little rowboat. Aileen had always laughed at those stories, though. She’d never seen any such monster. The loch was too placid, too peaceful for such an animal to inhabit it, anyhow.
As she closed her eyes and tilted her face up to the sun, hoof beats sounded in the distance, growing louder with each moment. Swallowing hard, she glanced in the direction of the sounds. No horse had come near Grandmother’s cottage since she had arrived.
It might be Gilbert come to find her. She looked around, but really, there was no place to hide. Her grandmother’s house was exposed on the bank, and unless she dug herself into the mud, there would be no hiding for Aileen out here.
But then, listening intently, she realized it was only one horse. She knew Gilbert well enough to know he’d bring an entourage with him.
Who could it be, then?
The hoof beats stopped on the other side of the cottage. She heard the rider’s feet hit the ground as he swung off the horse, and the gentle whickering noises as he tied the animal to the post.
Niall?
She knew the chances of that were slim. He was in Edinburgh. He wouldn’t know anything of her abduction, her marriage, and her subsequent escape to Loch Ness. Still, she couldn’t stop her foolish heart from feeling that spike of hope.
The footfalls were steady, growing subtly louder with each step he took in her direction.
Still standing at the cottage door, she looked up as he rounded the corner of the cottage.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered.
It was him.
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut as he approached. Niall’s arms encircled her, and he pulled her hard against his chest. Was she dreaming? Could dreams be so vivid, so overwhelming to the senses?
Strong, big arms, and his scent…musk and masculinity. He smelled like Niall.
“Aileen,” he said into her hair, “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”
His voice. Soft, but edged with strength. A sound that would be formidable to any enemy. But this was not her enemy—it was her lover.
“How…how…?” Her voice dwindled. There were so many questions she wanted to ask him, she didn’t know where to begin. Finally, she grasped on to one of them.
“How did you find me?”
“I knew.” Pulling slightly away, he looked down at her. “I know you. I know where you’d go when you needed to be safe.” His fingers drew little circles near the base of her spine. “Look at me, Aileen.”
Slowly, she opened her eyes. It wasn’t a dream. She reached up to press her fingers over the strong angles of his face and stared into his glassy eyes. “You’re real.”
He blinked hard. “I shouldn’t have left you.”
“You did what you thought was right.”
Regret streamed through him—she could see it in his taut facial expression, the tension in the muscles pressed against her. His lips twisted into a grimace. “It was wrong. So wrong. God…” Shaking his head, he pulled her into his arms again.
“You needed to salvage your honor, to make the right decision, to respect the oath of fealty you’d made to my brother,” she said, her voice muffled against his broad chest.
“I left you to the wolves.” His voice was gruff with remorse.
“You did what you felt was right. That is what’s important.” It was odd that she was trying to convince him that he’d done the right thing when for so long she’d been angry at him for choosing his honesty and loyalty over her. And yet…it was his honesty and loyalty that made him the man that he was. A good man. The man that she loved. He had done the right thing in keeping his oath to her brother. He hadn’t known Gilbert Dunbar. He hadn’t known she was with child.
“I put you in danger.”
She cupped his jaw in her palms. “You didn’t know.”
He pulled back. “How can it be that you do not turn away from me? He hurt you. You could have died—” His voice broke, and he placed his hand flat against her belly. “The babe could have…”
Now Aileen tensed. She’d assumed he hadn’t been told of her pregnancy—but that was silly. If he’d known enough to follow her here, surely someone had told him of the child she carried. Did he know it was his? Did he know how she’d lied to the laird in that last vain attempt to free herself from the betrothal to Gilbert?
“But we are both safe,” she said soothingly. “He tried to hurt me, but he didn’t. He didn’t, Niall.”
“Are you sure?” He gazed at her, his face twisted with pain and regret. “He married you. There was…a wedding night. He…raped you.”
She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her cheek to his chest to find a deep shudder resonating through his body. “No, Niall. No. He tried to hurt me, but he didn’t succeed. I am well. The babe is well.”
He pulled back again, searching her face with tortured eyes. “You are not telling me this simply to soothe me, are you? Please, Aileen. Promise me you’re speaking the truth.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you,” she murmured. “I promise, mo chridhe. I promise.”
“Thank God,” he whispered on a low groan. “Thank God.” He touched his forehead to hers and pressed his hand against her abdomen again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know until a few days after you left.”
“My child,” he whispered, speaking the words with reverence.
He knew it was his, then. A smile twitched at the corners of her lips. “Aye.”
His blue eyes widened in awe. “I never believed it would be possible. All this time everyone thought you were barren.”
“Apparently it was Walter who was incapable of planting his seed in me.”
“Aileen, Aileen…” The regret and fear in his eyes had given way to joy. “All my dreams, all my desires are right here, standing right in front of me.”
“As are mine,” she murmured, still reeling with the shock of him being here.
He buried his face in her hair. “I almost destroyed everything. I left you, first all those years ago with Walter Munro and then with Gilbert Dunbar. I have sinned against you. Twice.”
“But you are here now.”
His lips brushed over the shell of her ear. “I thought it would be honorable to submit to my promise to your brother, that leaving you wou
ld be an act of self-sacrifice. For my laird and my honor. But I was selfish, Aileen. I sacrificed you as well.”
Something panged within her. This was the reason she had felt so bitter toward him for so long. Because in sacrificing his own happiness for honor, he’d sacrificed hers as well. Yet her grandmother’s wise words had already nudged her a long way down the path to forgiveness.
“Let us not think of the past. Think of the here and now.”
“My love for you never faltered. I never made it to Edinburgh. I encountered cutthroats on the road—death. I realized that I’d made a mistake, that I must give up everything and fight for you.”
“Oh, Niall,” she whispered. “I tried to let you go. I tried to be angry with you, but my love never diminished either. Not when I was kidnapped, nor when I married Gilbert, nor when I escaped from him. Never.”
Niall’s mouth descended on hers. When he nudged his tongue between her lips, she was not tentative as she’d been that first time at Dornoch. Instead, she opened to him, letting flow all the longing and desire for him that she had tried to squelch in the past weeks.
He pulled away. “Inside?” he asked breathlessly.
Unable to wipe the smile from her face, she tugged him inside, then shut and locked the door.
He took in the entire cottage in one sweeping look. “Your grandmother’s house.”
She nodded.
“Ah—” He shifted his stance, clearly uncomfortable. “Where is she?”
“Gone. She’ll be gone for a week.” She smiled. “You know they say my grandmother is a witch. I think something in her blood told her that you were coming and that it might be for the best that she wasn’t here when you arrived.”
“Do you think so?”
“Aye, I do.”
Reaching out, he pulled her against his body. “Does she approve of me as the father of your babe?”
She tilted her head to look up into his face. “Aye. She remembers you, and she approves.”
They stared at each other. In that long gaze, something shifted. Aileen wanted—no, needed—him to touch her intimately. Not only touch, but see, feel and taste. She could see in the swirling blue depths of his eyes and in the heightened color on his cheeks that he wanted it too, just as suddenly and intently as she did.
Sins of the Highlander (A Highland Erotic Romance) Page 15