Moonstone

by Olivia Stocum

  “I am of little use to you anyway,” he said.

  “That is not true.”

  “Birthing is women’s work. You dinna need me for it.”

  “Nay. Just to make one.”

  He glared.

  She glared back. “I dinna like this.”

  “I want you here with Mora when the time comes. You canna travel now anyway.”

  “You could wait until after the baby is born.”

  “I’m not waiting.”

  The timing was perfect. This way, he wouldn’t return until after the baby was born, and Rhiannon was still healthy . . . or not.

  William handed her Alec’s missive. “Go on. It is mostly about you, anyway.”

  She took the foolscap, her expression wounded. He needed to distract himself lest he break down and give her what she wanted. William reached for a fresh sheet of paper and a quill, trying and failing to focus on his letter. He watched Rhiannon read Alec’s missive out of the corner of his eye instead. After long minutes she placed it on his desk. Then she walked past him.

  Was she so focused on Alec that she did not even think to bid him goodbye before she left the room? “Where are you off to?”

  She swiped her fingers over her lashes. “I am off to Triona’s solar, my laird.” She ducked her head in an irritated curtsey.

  He should have known better than to talk to her like that. William stood and crossed the chamber, hoping his expression was as penitent as he felt.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Wait six months. I am sure Alec will understand the delay.”

  “And what will you do with the baby?”

  She shrugged. “I could leave him here with a nurse.”

  “You should stay with your child.”

  “I should be with you.”

  “You are staying here, and that is final.”

  She turned away, leaving him behind.

  He couldn’t be there when she gave birth. And he couldn’t take her, because he had also learned one final piece of information that he could never tell her.

  Geoffrey was alive.

  And this time, William had every intention of making sure he did not stay that way.

  Even if he had to hunt him down.

  * * *

  Rhiannon gritted her teeth as she made her way down the corridor to Triona’s solar. How dare William leave her while she bore his child? How dare he woo her with such tender hands, only to treat her now with a calloused heart?

  How dare he . . . be so afraid of losing her that it turned him into an addle-witted arse.

  Rhiannon took a deep breath as she neared the solar. She understood his fear, but they needed to battle it together. She didn’t want to have their baby without him.

  And Alec . . . He lived. He spoke of her in his missive. Warmth crept back into Rhiannon’s heart. Alec didn’t know that she’d been raped, only that she had been in a vulnerable position without her brother to protect her. Alec wrote that he felt responsible for her, and he was grateful to William for coming to her rescue.

  The door to Triona’s solar opened as Rhiannon neared, and Brian stuck his tousled black head out. He looked one way, then he looked the other way, and then he saw her. He screwed his face up.

  “Och, nay, little lad.” Rhiannon made shooing motions with her hands. “You get back into that chamber.”

  “I wanna go to the lists.”

  “Of course you do.” She ushered him back within. Triona was nursing Heather, the child squirming for a comfortable position over her mother’s swollen belly. Douglas sat on the floor on a blanket, playing with a wooden horse.

  “Thank you,” Triona said. She shifted in her chair, yawning.

  “I would never tell a mother what I think she should do,” Rhiannon said, concerned about how tired Triona was all the time. “But should you not utilize a wet nurse?”

  “I should,” Triona said, tickling Heather’s belly. The baby laughed. “But I canna bring myself to.”

  Brian took up a little wooden sword and swung it around his head with a battle cry, whacking his brother across the back with it.

  Douglas hollered. Triona set Heather aside to scold Brian. Heather, her meal disrupted, began to cry in great wails, fat tears streaking down her pudgy face.

  Rhiannon swept Douglas up in one arm and Heather in the other, bouncing them on her hips.

  “I wish Fanny could be here,” Triona said. She took the sword from Brian and set it up on a high shelf. The boy jumped up and down in a vain effort to reach it. “She was my nurse, and then my lady’s maid. But she canna be separated from my father these days. Not that I blame her. They waited a long time.”

  “Your father and your maid?”

  “I dinna think they will ever marry, but let’s just say that they are the closest of companions, and I’m happy for them.”

  “Where is Annie?”

  “Her mother is ill again, and it is not looking good for her.”

  “Ronan?”

  Triona lifted her brows.

  “Forget I asked.”

  Triona took Heather back and sat down with her. “Ronan conveniently disappeared at first light.” Her eyes narrowed. “He will hear about that later, I assure you.”

  Rhiannon watched Triona nurse her daughter over a crowded lap, her own stomach twisting. Was this what she had to look forward to?

  Betrayal. The word hit her like, well, like a wooden sword across the back. Did all men impregnate their wives and then abandon them to a life of servitude to their progeny?

  Rhiannon sat down on the bench. There was another option for her. She could convince her brother to take her back to England with him. All William needed from her was an heir. As long as their child was a lad, then there would be no reason for her to remain with him. And if it were a lass, then William would just have to come to England for his marital rights.

  “My brother is alive,” Rhiannon said, her voice hollow.

  “Aye, I heard from Ronan.” Her brow creased. “Does that not make you happy?”

  “Of course it does.”

  “But?”

  “Alec misses me, and he feels terrible about not being there when I needed him. But my husband looks at me as if I am a burden he cannot bear.”

  “Och, Rhiannon. Can I tell you a story?”

  “Yes . . .”

  Heather wasn’t nursing anymore. Her eyelids were heavy beneath blonde curls. Triona placed her in a basket lined with fur and came around to sit next to Rhiannon. “I was carrying Brian when the castle proper was still under construction. Ronan forbade me to be here. He was living in a tent in the courtyard at the time.”

  Rhiannon nodded.

  “I did not want to remain at my father’s hall while Ronan was here building our home.” Triona shrugged. “So I took matters into my own hands. I talked Graham into escorting me here without Ronan’s knowledge.”

  “The blond giant?”

  “Aye, the giant. Technically, he is my personal guard, but he bores easily, and now that we have a peace treaty with the McAllans, I dinna really need a guard.” She smiled impishly, and Rhiannon had the impression that if any lady had little need for a personal guard, it was Triona. “I brought Mora with me, and she has been here ever since. Ronan was furious when I appeared unannounced, midwife in tow. He was scared witless that something would happen to me. Highland men do not deal well with vulnerability. Vulnerable clansmen, vulnerable children, vulnerable wives even, are one thing. But when they themselves feel vulnerable, it is the end of the world.”

  Rhiannon plopped her chin on her fist. “How do I work past his pride?”

  “Dinna.” Her answer was swift.

  “Then what?”

  “Love him despite of it.”

  “He willna let me.”

  “Do it anyway.”

  “Is that what you did?”

  “Well . . . not exactly. I yelled at Ronan and made him sleep in the garrison.” She paused, smiling again. “I
like fighting with him. We always make up, and I like making up. Maybe I like making up a little too much.” She glanced at her children. “Now if we could only make it stop. Ronan wearies of my pregnancies.” She leaned back against the stone wall, her stomach more pronounced at that angle. “As do I.”

  “There is a cure for that,” Rhiannon said.

  “One we’re not likely to utilize.”

  “I know.” She understood the impossibility of keeping separate bedchambers.

  “Mora gave me herbs to repress fertility.” Triona eyed her stomach. “They didna work.”

  Triona’s eyes suddenly narrowed. Rhiannon turned to see Ronan filling the doorway. Brian let out a squeal and ran into his arms. Douglas pushed to his feet and tottered across the floor. Ronan scooped them both up, crossing the room with the squirming boys.

  Triona arched her brows. “Aye?”

  “Graham is taking the boys for the rest of the day?”

  Rhiannon straightened. “Graham?”

  “Aye, my lady,” came a deep voice from the doorway.

  Rhiannon checked herself before overreacting. Graham was so big that he had to duck to fit through the arched doorway.

  Triona struggled to her feet, Rhiannon giving her a hand up. She arched her neck back at her husband, fists on hips. Ronan inched closer, and Rhiannon watched, in disbelief, as Triona’s anger actually seemed to draw Ronan closer.

  “Maybe I dinna want to spend the day with you.” Triona looked at the basket where Heather was dozing. “Maybe Heather doesn’t want to either.”

  Ronan smiled. “Aye, you do.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Seeing to my clan, so that I could spend the rest of the day with you and my daughter.”

  Triona’s lips quirked. She moved closer, her stomach and their lads coming between them. Graham took the boys, corded muscles in his forearms shifting beneath tattoos.

  “Graham,” Ronan said, his eyes trained on Triona. “Take Heather for a wee bit as well.”

  Graham deposited the lads in the nursery next door, then came back for Heather, who didn’t so much as twitch as he carefully lifted her into his arms. He closed the door between the two rooms.

  Feeling like an intruder, Rhiannon slipped into the corridor. She heard hushed banter between Triona and Ronan, the creak of a floor board, and then silence. Rhiannon discreetly closed the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Moping?” Triona asked, sitting next to William at a table in the great hall, two mugs in hand. She handed one over to him.

  He took a sip of mulled wine. Spring had found the Highlands, and so had Rhiannon’s brother. “Nay,” William said.

  “Are you certain, because it looks as if you are moping?”

  “I am not moping.”

  She shrugged and drank. “Jealous?”

  “I am not . . .” He stopped when his wife’s brilliant laughter echoed across the hall. Rhiannon smiled at an auburn-haired, green-eyed man in a quilted doublet and breaches with a rapier slung low on his hips.

  Alec.

  When her brother first arrived, Rhiannon ran out to the courtyard to greet him. Her budding pregnancy had yet to slow her down. When she had seen Alec, her face lit up like she’d found her heart’s delight.

  William had given them their space. He hated it, but what else could he do? Force Rhiannon to want him?

  “Take her with you,” Triona said.

  “I will not.”

  “I birthed Brian out in the courtyard.” She pointed. “In a tent.”

  “Aye, I know. I am the one who had to wait it out with Ronan.”

  “She wants to be with you.”

  “She wants to be with her brother.”

  Triona’s eyes widened in recognition. “This is about more than Rhiannon’s safety. You fear that you will lose her heart.”

  “I willna have her accompanying me to England in her condition. I have already told her that.” He lifted his cup and drank.

  “Then wait until after the baby has come before you leave. At least give her that much.”

  “She is convinced that she will leave the child here and go with me.”

  Triona swirled the wine in her mug. “Imagine that. A mother willing to leave her child behind to follow her husband. She must love you verra much.”

  “Deborah died giving birth to my son,” he said. William had been less than pleased when he found out that Ronan had told Triona, especially when he and Mora had gone to lengths to hide it from anyone. But William had come to terms with it.

  “That wasna your fault. You have to stop blaming yourself for it.”

  “She died bearing my child, and I didn’t even have the decency to love her.”

  “She used you. It wasna as if you did not take responsibility for her. She got exactly what she wanted from you. A cottage, Mora’s care, plenty of food. She didna lift a finger her entire pregnancy.”

  “All while I was supposed to be in love with you.”

  Triona’s face softened. “You were in love with me. And you were also frustrated. I do not judge you. Ronan does not judge you. Why do you judge yourself?” She closed her fingers over his. “What is done is done. We canna go back and change it now. Rhiannon is strong. She will endure childbirth, whether she is here, or in England. I have no doubt of that.” A wicked gleam filled her eyes. “Likely, she will tolerate childbirth so many times that you will have more children than you know what to do with.” She let go of his hand.

  “If she remains with me for that long. If I take her with me, she could choose to remain in England with her brother. If I wait until after the babe is born, it will give her time to decide that she would rather live with her brother in England anyway.”

  “Quite the predicament you’ve gotten yourself into.” Triona rolled the mug between her palms. “So, you believe your only option is to break her heart by leaving her when she needs you most?”

  “It is not like that.”

  “Then what is it like?”

  William knew that Triona would continue to pry until she had all of her answers. “I keep telling myself I would never force Rhiannon’s hand, but that’s not true. I probably could have found some other way to free her from Geoffrey, had I actually wanted to.” He looked across the great hall at Rhiannon sitting in a padded chair by the fire, her feet tucked under her. “But I wanted to keep her. Maybe I’m no better than Geoffrey.”

  “That could not be further from the truth. She loves you, you idiot. Now go love her back before you really do lose her.” Triona stood, heavily, gave him her darkest look, then turned and stormed her belly across the great hall.

  William glared after her. Then he looked at Rhiannon again, and contemplated joining her and Alec. With an aggravated sigh, he took the coward’s way out, and went to bed.

  * * *

  Someone tugged on Rhiannon’s hair from behind her. “Brian, you naughty lad. I did not hear you.” Rhiannon turned to look for the child, but saw no one. “I know you are here somewhere. Where is your mother? Did you sneak outside without her?” Rhiannon bent to look under the wooden bench she’d been sitting on.

  A pair of black boots appeared on the other side. She straightened. “Alec. I should have known.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Pulling a lady’s hair whilst she is enjoying a rare glimpse of sunlight? How old are you?”

  “You are no lady.” He shrugged. “You’re my sister.”

  “Thank you.” She sank back down on the bench.

  He thumped down on it next to her. “You are getting fat.”

  Rhiannon glared. “For pities’ sake, I am with child.”

  He nodded as if he’d already known as much. “Well, then, I suppose you are entitled.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

  There was nothing like the love of a brother. He was as annoying as ever.

  And Rhiannon was so happy he was alive.

  “You look pale,” she said.
<
br />   “I know.” His rapier scraped against the bench as he repositioned himself. “Poison will do that to a man.”

  “Yes, it will.”

  He bumped her with his shoulder. “Are you happy here?”

  “Of course.” Mostly. Rhiannon looked across the training field. William was sparring with Graham. Triona trusted the tall blond guard with her children, and logically, Rhiannon knew he must be worthy of that trust, but she still preferred to avoid him as much as possible.

  Graham’s long hair was twined into a myriad of braids that were adorned with beads shaped out of bits of glass, metal, or shell. She shivered just contemplating the thousands of tiny needle pricks it would have required to set the die into his skin for his tattoos.

  Despite his scarred shoulder, William held his own against the larger man. He’d told her once that swordplay was a complex mix of strength, speed, agility, and mental focus. She watched his muscles strain, steam rising off his body in the cool air.

  And she wanted him in a dozen different ways.

  Only some of them had to do with physical desire. There were the sections of his heart he’d closed off to her. And they weighed on her like iron fetters.

  “I want to go with you,” she told Alec.

  Her brother shifted on the bench, making it creak.

  “Talk to him. Tell him I am strong and I can make the journey.”

  “And what are his feelings on the issue.” His brows lifted.

  “He is stubborn. He will not take me with him.”

  Alec’s gaze flicked toward her stomach, then back to her face. “I cannot imagine why.”

  “But I do not want to have this baby without its father. I’m,” she glanced across the field at William, “a little scared.” Her shoulders withered. “I know I’m in the best of hands with Triona and my midwife, but I have never had a baby before.” She winced and wondered if she’d told Alec too much. She was raised in a close family, but perhaps she’d crossed the line.

  Alec watched William, his brow furrowed. “He broke alliances and risked his life to save a woman. As that woman happens to be my sister, I am inclined to stand by his decisions.”