The Fraser Bride

by Lois Greiman

  “You would rather appeal to this Ailsa?”

  She winced. “I know little of bairns!”

  Ramsay’s heart jerked, but he had no time to waste.

  “Come, lass. ‘Twill do you no harm to care for the babe for a wee span of time. Indeed, ‘twill do you naught but good,” he said, and pressed the wriggling bundle into her arms.

  She took it with breathless terror, holding it away from her body as if it were a serpent. The baby squawked and the fear on Anora’s face sharpened.

  “Hold her close,” he said, and nudged the babe toward her bosom. “She, too, is afraid.”

  For an instant he thought she might deny her own fear, but instead she nodded and straightened, bearing the babe to her shoulder.

  The tender image seared its way into his heart, but he didn’t allow himself to move closer. ‘Twas far too dangerous, so he turned with careful discipline and left the chamber.

  Outside, the air felt fresh and revitalizing. He drew it into his lungs, grateful for this time to think. By the time he reached his destination, his leg ached, but his mind felt clearer. His knock sounded against the cottage’s weathered door, and in a moment it opened.

  The widow Ailsa stood in the doorway. Her dark hair was loosed and fell about her shoulders in waves, but it was her breasts that drew his attention. Pale and round as rising loaves of bread, they greeted him from above her bodice.

  “Well!” Her voice sounded surprised but hardly displeased. “Me laird MacGowan.” She smiled and shifted her weight slightly, showing her incredible wares from a different angle. “You have finally come.”

  “Aye,” he said, and resolutely kept his gaze from straying south. “But mayhap for a different purpose than you suppose.”

  * * * * *

  “MacGowan, I have—” Meara’s words stopped as she shuffled into Ramsay’s chamber. “Lass, what be you doing here?”

  Anora held her breath for an instant. “MacGowan went to the cheese maker’s.”

  “The … Ah!” Meara said and grinned. “To fetch milk.”

  “So he said.”

  “But you do not believe him.”

  “He is a man.” Anora paced the floor again, the babe cuddled to her shoulder.

  “Aye,” Meara said, watching her. “He is that, and the father of this child, I believe he said.”

  Anora sent her a scowl. “I am no fool, Meara.”

  “Then pray tell, why did he claim it?”

  Anora tightened her grip on the tiny bundle. It felt heavy and limp and ultimately helpless against her bosom. “To win some hold on Evermyst.”

  “You are a fool,” Meara said, and turned toward the door. “Tell the MacGowan there may yet be a nursemaid to be found. I have sent Cant to inquire about it.”

  “Where do you go now?”

  “To find a milk bladder.” She turned toward the door.

  “Surely some other can do that so that you can care for this babe,” Anora said, but the old woman had already turned away and seemed suddenly quite deaf.

  “Meara!” Anora called.

  “What is it you want?”

  “Send Helena up to care for the bairn.”

  “Of course, me lady,” Meara agreed with all due subservience and creakily closed the door behind her.

  The baby mewled. Anora paced again and again. Minutes slipped away beneath the tread of her slippers, and fatigue set in. Where was Helena? Against her shoulder, the baby was silent. Trying to see past the concealing blanket, Anora walked to the bed and leaned carefully over the mattress, but with the cessation of movement, the infant awoke with a jerk. Anora straightened, and paced again, back and forth, until the tiny thing was again a limp bundle against her chest.

  Fatigue wore at her. Anora paced to the bed again, and this time she slipped onto the pallet herself, careful not to disturb the babe. Propping her back against a pillow, she lifted her legs onto the bed and waited breathlessly for the child to complain, but she did not awaken.

  Anora closed her eyes. Against her breast, she could feel the steady beat of the tiny infant’s heart, and upon her neck, the babe’s soft exhalations brushed her skin like the fluttering beat of a butterfly’s wing. Silence settled softly in, and in that gentle frame of mind, Anora fell asleep.

  * * * * *

  Ramsay hurried back up the steps toward his chamber. His leg ached and his chest wound complained, but with surprisingly little verve. Inside his tunic, the bottle of milk felt warm and smooth against his skin. How he was going to feed it, he wasn’t sure. The door opened silently beneath his fingers. Mayhap he could soak a cloth with it and—

  His thoughts stopped as abruptly as his feet, for there upon his bed was Anora. The babe slept against her soft bosom. Her lashes looked downy fine against her ivory skin, and in slumber, her face looked as young and vulnerable as a child’s. Gone was the harsh aloofness, replaced by naught but beauty and—

  “MacGowan.”

  Ramsay jerked at the hiss of Meara’s voice. She stood hunched nearly double behind him in the hallway, bent over a wooden cradle almost as large as herself.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, hurrying toward her. “Did you carry that yourself?”

  “Pipe down,” she ordered. Glancing through the doorway toward the bed, she straightened creakily and lowered her voice even more. “I commissioned the leather wright to craft a milk bladder. You’ll find it inside the cradle.” One more quick glance at the bed, then, “Good luck to—”

  “Me laird!” The woman called Helena rushed around the corner, her expression worried. “I just heard of your sojourn to obtain milk. ‘Tis surely a kindly thing you have done. Still, ‘tis a woman’s task to care for—”

  Upon the bed, Anora stirred.

  Helena jerked her gaze in that direction and gasped. “What be me lady doing here?”

  Meara scowled. “She appears to be sleeping.”

  The younger woman mouthed something indiscernible and stared at Meara again. “Surely ‘tis not proper for her to—”

  ” ‘Tis none of your concern, Stout Helena. I’ve seen to the lassie’s care since the day she was birthed, and—”

  “You! ‘Twas I who nursed her through her infancy.”

  “And you’ve stuck your nose into her life ever since. But I’ve no time for your meddling now.”

  “Meddling!” Helena gasped, puffing out her chest once more. “I only came to help me laird with the babe.”

  “He doesn’t need your help.”

  Ramsay scowled. “In truth, I could use—”

  “Hush!” snapped Meara, and glanced darkly past him toward the bed. “Or you’ll wake the lass.”

  Helena pursed her lips and crossed her arms against her immense bosom. “I know what you’re up to, Meara of the Fold, and—”

  “And if you care for the lass, you’ll not interfere,” hissed the old woman.

  Helena scowled, first at Meara, then at Anora. “If gossip starts, there’ll be no stopping—”

  “Then it had best not start,” Meara said. “And if it does, I shall know who to blame.”

  “I only came to assist with the babe’s—”

  ” ‘Tis the duty of the lady of the keep to care for the orphaned and unfortunate,” Meara said.

  “Surely you would not deny me the right to—”

  “Leave be!” Meara glared with such ferocious intensity that even Helena quailed as the old woman turned her toward the stairs, her voice lowered to a whisper. “If we are careful and wise, this keep may yet have more bairns than …” Her words faded away as they went down the stairs.

  Ramsay closed the door with a bemused scowl, then heard the baby rousing.

  Setting the bottle of milk on the floor, he approached the bed. The babe stirred restlessly in her cocoon. Reaching out, he drew her carefully from Anora’s arms, but the maid awoke.

  Her eyes, sleepy for only a fraction of a moment, snapped open, and her gasp was hollow with fear as she scrambled up against the p
illows. “Why are you here?”

  Ramsay straightened slowly. ” ‘Tis the room I was given.”

  She glanced about. “Oh. My apologies. I must have …” She licked her lips and watched him draw the baby to his chest. “I must have fallen asleep.”

  “Aye.” Something ached inside him. She feared him still. After all they had endured together. But nay they had not really been together. Since the first they had been apart, for she could not even trust him with her name.

  She cleared her throat and pressed back a few gossamer strands of hair from her elfin face. “Ailsa gave you milk?”

  “Aye.”

  “In exchange for what?”

  He glanced at her, wondering momentarily at her suspicious tone, but there were no clues to be found in her alabaster face. “We made a barter of sorts,” he said, and pulling his gaze from her, bent to remove the bladder from the cradle and put the baby in its place. She started whimpering immediately, waving her arms in protest and scrunching her reddening face.

  Lifting the bottle of milk and the bladder, Ramsay turned to Anora. She hurried over and together they managed to pour the milk into the supple dispenser, but by then, the baby had set to howling.

  Tension cranked up inside Ramsay as thoughts of his past failures gnawed at him. “I’ve not fed a bairn before,” he admitted, and bent to lift the babe from her bed. She turned her face immediately, searching for food, and Ramsay, stiff with fear, set the bladder to her lips. She brushed impatiently past it, still searching. He shifted his weight onto his hale leg and tried again.

  Anora motioned toward the bed. “Sit. ‘Tis enough that you hold the child. I will manage the bladder.”

  He considered refusing, but the babe was crying and his leg aching, and there was little room for pride.

  The mattress ropes groaned as he eased himself against the pillows. Anora took the bladder and leaned down, coaxing the babe to take what she so badly needed.

  Minutes ticked by. Minutes filled with worry, hope, and howling frustration as the baby refused the bladder.

  Anora straightened her back as if it were sore, then hurried around the mattress to crawl across the bed. In a moment their attempts began anew. Ramsay cradled, Anora coaxed, until finally, after what seemed a grinding eternity, the baby began to suckle.

  Ramsay remained absolutely still, holding his breath as he listened to the babe slurp and swallow. His heart leapt, and lifting his gaze, he found himself staring point blank into Anora’s eyes. They shone in the candlelight like liquid sapphire. Were there tears in her eyes, he wondered—but in an instant her lashes swept downward, hiding her thoughts. Against his chest, though, where her arm rested, he felt her tremble with emotion.

  The babe lost her grip on the bladder’s nipple, recovered it, and suckled again, until finally, sated and limp, she fell back asleep. Anora eased the nipple from between her parted lips and straightened. Against his hip, Ramsay felt her thigh shift away, and with that simple movement his heart twisted with regret.

  “She sleeps,” he said, trying to fill the void. Anora nodded wordlessly as he lifted the small bundle carefully to his shoulder. His chest ached dully with the pressure, but somehow it felt right. Rising carefully to his feet, he closed his eyes for a moment and let the soft weight of the babe ease his soul. Aye, he had failed in the past, but mayhap with this babe he might put his guilt to rest. Bending slowly, he placed the wee child inside the cradle, then wrapped the blanket more snugly around her. She wriggled momentarily and her hand, perfectly formed and impossibly small, curled softly around his finger.

  Ramsay’s throat tightened with emotion. New life, innocent life, and damned if he wouldn’t protect it. The thoughts clogged in his throat, and he swallowed.

  “She is well?” Anora whispered beside him.

  “Aye.” The single word cracked oddly, and he cleared his throat. “She is well.”

  “And you?” Her voice was velvet soft.

  “What?” he asked, making certain his tone was deep with masculine composure.

  “Are you well?” she asked.

  He turned toward her with a scowl. She didn’t move away, didn’t avert her eyes, so he lifted one hand to his chest and rubbed with absent annoyance. “Aye. I am healing fine.”

  Atop an iron clasped trunk, the single candle sputtered, tossing fickle shadows about the room.

  “I was not speaking of your wounds.”

  But his wounds were a relatively innocuous topic, while other subjects—

  “I wish to know why,” she said, and caused his hand to pause its fretful motion on his chest.

  “Why what?”

  Her eyes were as steady and bright as twin sapphires, glowing with candlelight and unspoken thoughts. “There were three score of men in the hall,” she said. “None stepped forward but you. Why?”

  He shrugged, trying to look casual, but fearing with a terrible fear that even that simple motion told the tale of his sins. “As I said, I am the bairn’s f—”

  “Please!” The word was sharp. “I would rather not hear that lie just now.”

  “At Dun Ard,” he said, “there be many babes about. ‘Twill be no great difficulty to take her there and give her into the care of a nursemaid.”

  Her expression didn’t change a whit. “So you say that you claimed her because it was the simple thing to do.”

  Her explanation, though obviously foolish, was far better than the truth.

  “That though you are wounded in a distant land,” she continued, “it will be no hardship to travel alone to your home and there give her to another.”

  He scowled and glanced toward the cradle. Even with the blanket wrapped tightly about the bairn, he could see her tiny face, her minuscule mouth, slightly parted, her perfect fingers, placed just so at the blanket’s edge. ” ‘Tis not … natural for a man to raise a babe. She will need a mother, of course. I am certain I shall find a woman who yearns for a child.”

  “So you will give her up.”

  From the cradle he heard a tiny sigh, and knew that despite his determination to cease being foolish, he’d be dead and damned before he’d let another have her. She was too tiny, too innocent, too fragile—a wee bundle of life that needed him and was not afraid to admit it.

  “You will give her up?” Anora asked again.

  “Of course.”

  “You lie,” she said, and in that moment he saw her eyes fill with tears. “You will raise her as your own.”

  “Nay, I—”

  “You will keep her,” Anora whispered. “You shall fawn over her and adore her, and make her believe that the sun cannot rise without her consent. Already you adore her. I see it in your eyes.”

  He cleared his throat and loosened his fists. “I fear you are shortsighted, lass.”

  “Nay.” Her voice was infinitely soft. “This once I see clearly, MacGowan. You cherish the child. I but wonder why.”

  Looking into her eyes, he saw the hopelessness of arguing. “Cannot a man wish for a child?” He paced toward the window. “Must he always be embattled and wounded and …” He swung his arm in a hopeless gesture to include the world at large. “Cannot he hope to right the wrongs he has—” He realized with belated panic what he had been about to say.

  Anora’s shadow flickered, slim and willowy against the far wall. “What wrong have you done, MacGowan?” she murmured.

  “I would begin a list, lass,” he said, “if I were not so in need of sleep.”

  “So there are many?”

  “Beyond count.”

  “More than one that involves a child?”

  He pivoted toward her without realizing he had moved. “What do you know of the child?”

  She held his gaze, unblinking. “What child?”

  Ramsay squeezed his eyes closed and blocked away a thousand grinding memories. “I claimed this babe because there was none other to do so. ‘Tis the only reason.”

  “You lie, MacGowan. You think you have done some horrid wrong.
And I wonder, what terrible things do you imagine you have—”

  “I do not imagine them.” The words came out of their own accord, though he knew better than to loose them.

  “What are they, then?” she whispered.

  Ramsay tightened his jaw, holding his swirling emotions at bay. “A child is dead because of me.”

  “Whose child?”

  “Me own. I was the sire!” he growled. “But I was not …” His throat ached. “I was not its father.”

  “How—”

  “I had not wed the mother,” he said, his voice hollow and empty.

  “Lorna,” she guessed, then, very softly. “You loved her?”

  “I …” He thought he had. Nay, he had been certain he had. She’d made him wild with burning emotions, and when she gave herself to him he could think of nothing else. “I planned to wed her, but circumstances …” He paused, reliving the past with aching accuracy. “There was trouble with a neighboring clan and I returned home. ‘Twas there that I received her missive.”

  She watched him with solemn, unblinking eyes.

  “It said that she carried me child. That she was sick with loneliness and would surely perish if I did not return to marry her.” He paced across the room, watching the shadows swell and die away before him.

  “She died?”

  “Nay. It seems that a grand title is a wondrous healer.”

  Anora shook her head in bemusement.

  “It took some time to receive the missive, but when I did, I returned posthaste to Edinburgh. ‘Twas then that I learned she had wed a fat marquis with a fatter purse.”

  “And the babe?”

  Beyond the window, the night was blacker than hell. “The wealthy marquis did not wish to raise another man’s child. Lorna wished for a wealthy marquis.” He loosened his fists. “She was not one to do without what she wanted.”

  “She … killed the babe afore it was birthed?”

  “Nay.” He turned slowly toward her. “I killed the babe. ‘Twas I who created it and I who failed to protect it.”

  Anora shook her head. ” ‘Tis not your fault that she would—” she began, but Ramsay stopped her.

  “Who shall I blame, then? The lass who thought she would have to go into travail unwed? The lass who would bear the brunt of people’s scorn while I took her innocence and walked away unblamed? Aye.” He nodded once. ” ‘Twas me own fault.”