She blotted her cheek dry, straightened, and turned to face him. “If you feel such contempt for me, I wonder you didna stay away.” Married or not, how she wished he had.
“I didn’t come for you, you stupid slut. I came for my son.”
There, he’d said it. She’d suspected as much. Hearing it was almost a relief.
Crying from the crib sent her rushing across the room. She lifted Alasdair into her arms. “Hush, dearling, Mother’s here.”
From across the chamber, Alex watched them with smoldering eyes. “You coddle him.”
“And if I do? I am his mother.”
Wailing, Alasdair beat his tiny fists against her. “Kitty. Want kitty.”
Alys sighed. She rubbed slow circles along the baby’s back, seeking to soothe him. “Cat lives with Milread now. She is taking verra good care of him for us. Now close your eyes so the faeries can come and sprinkle you with their special sleepy-time dust.”
Alex blew out a breath. “The brat’s bawling is enough to make my ears bleed. If he doesn’t close his clapper, he can sleep in Milread’s chamber, too.”
Alys opened her mouth to say that he was welcome to make his bed elsewhere but glancing down she saw that Alasdair had fallen asleep against her shoulder. Relieved, she put him back down and drew the small coverlet atop him.
She rested her forearms on the crib rail, her heart fisting with all the love she felt for this tiny, perfect being. “There, there, my little lordling, nay worries, for Mother’s here to banish the boogie men.” She reached down and stroked his hand with her finger, tears filling her eyes. “God be willing, Mother will always be here to comfort you.”
“God be willing, indeed.” Alex crossed the chamber toward them.
Alys snapped upright. Feeling like a lioness guarding her cub, she stepped between him and the crib.
His cold gaze raked over her. “He will grow up and wish to be free of your clinging soon enough. Still, were I you, I’d take pains to please me lest I take him with me to England and leave you behind.”
Cold fear ripped through Alys and with it a savage protectiveness. “Only a monster would separate a child from his mother.” Not since the burgher’s widow had stolen Alasdair had she come so very close to wishing someone dead.
He lifted his lip, making the crook more pronounced. “Obey me and there will be no need.” He moved closer. “Now come here, wife, and give us a kiss. I would have us be friends again.”
She moved to shove him but before she could, he doubled over. Beneath the scars, his face drained. “Poisoned, I am poisoned.” Clutching his belly, he backed away from her, grabbed the chamber pot and raced with it across the room to the privacy screen.
Alys walked over to the front of the screen. Judging from the sounds coming through, he was ill indeed. Like as not he’d only eaten something disagreeable to him but if he cared to credit her as a poisoner, then so be it.
“Mark me, Alex. If you ever try taking Alasdair from me or in any way keeping me from him, I will kill you. Only it willna be with poison. I will use my dirk to slit you from ear to ear, cut off your cods for my trophy and never, ever, think of you again.”
THE FOLLOWING MORNING at first light Callum rode to Portree at full gallop, sparing neither his mount nor himself. Despite Ewan’s assurance that Field had drunk sufficient of the “special wine” to necessitate confinement to his chamber, Callum wished to take no chances. The sooner he arrived and made his way to the church, the sooner he might return to the MacLeod Castle and Alys. He only prayed that when he did, he would do so bearing glad tidings. He’d asked her to hope again. In the bright light of morning that request bore a heavy weight of responsibility.
Tethering his lathered horse to the post, he crossed the cobbled courtyard to the church. Stepping inside the narthex, he spotted a young acolyte. To his great good fortune, the mass had just finished. A swift explanation of his purpose sweetened with a donation of ducats for the repair of the roof won him a private audience with the priest, Father Seumas.
Sitting across from Father Seumas, he asked, “Do you remember the couple of which I speak? They would have married nigh on two years ago.”
The good father nodded. “Christian marriage is but one of the many rites of the church recorded in the records ledger. Ordinarily casting my mind back that far would present some difficulty, but an Englishman stands out in the memory. Aye, I mind him. Tall, blond and bonny with a soldier’s swagger.”
Callum nodded. That was Field all right, or at least it had been before the smallpox fouled his face and blackened his heart. “And his bride, do you remember her, as well?”
He nodded slowly. “She wasna a parishioner, either.” He scrunched his forehead. “She was Scotswoman, fair-haired and from the Lowlands.”
Callum’s heart sank. “Do you remember aught else?”
The priest squinted as if thinking back. “I seem to recall she was a tall lady, gangling some might say.”
Callum’s heart lifted a notch. Alys was neither tall nor gangling.
“And she had a haughty demeanor. She made it plain my humble church wasna near good enough for her.”
Callum’s hopes and his heart lifted further, for his lady hadn’t so much as a single haughty bone in all her petite and lovely body. “I’d like to see the parish records for myself.”
“Of course.” The priest called for the book. While they waited, he said, “You are the second man this week to request to see the records book.”
“There was another?”
“Aye, he is a fellow priest and the brother of our anchoress here. He never did say what he was about. Disappeared without so much as a by-your-leave. It was all verra strange.”
Before he could give the subject further thought, the young priest returned with the ledger and set it down on the table between them.
Father Seumas opened it. “Now what year was it that holds your interest?”
Callum answered, “1458.”
The priest turned to the requested year. Flipping through, his eyes popped and his jaw dropped. “By all the saints!”
Callum leaned across the table. It took every whit of patience he possessed to keep from snatching the book away.
“Why that’s verra odd! The page is missing. Not missing but torn out.”
Father Seumas turned the book so Callum could see. A page was indeed missing from the month of April, torn out and by the look of it recently so.
The missing page told Callum he must be on the right track. But to be safe, he further examined the book, going backward in time by several years. But there was no bridegroom with the name of Field listed.
The parish records will bear me out…
“There is another thing that strikes me as strange.”
Callum looked up from the book. “And what is that?”
“Several months later, a letter was sent in care of me for a young Lowlands woman living in town, a pretty young lassie heavily pregnant. ’Twas verra sad, a letter on behalf of her husband back in England. He’d caught a fever or some such and died. His name was Alexander Field and though I dinna mind it at the time, he must have been the same Alexander Field whom I wed in this verra sanctuary. Only…” He stopped himself.
On tenterhooks, Callum demanded, “Only?”
“The pretty pregnant lassie who claimed to be his wife, the one for whom I read his letter aloud, wasna the bride I wed him to.”
The codless bastard had been bluffing all along! There was indeed a marriage, only not to Alys. Already wed, Field must have arranged for the sham ceremony to keep her with him. Once he’d tired of the game, he’d announced the imminent need to return to his army post. Alys had admitted that when they’d first met, Alex had been exceedingly handsome with winning ways to turn a maid’s head. Callum didn’t doubt the rogue could be charming when the need arose. Who knew how many others he’d played the same cruel trick upon? He might have bastards scattered across the two kingdoms. Why come back for Alasda
ir?
He who’d never before prayed for anyone or anything had had his very first prayer answered! Alys was as good as free! Alex Field wielded no husband’s rights over her. He didn’t wield any rights at all. As for Alasdair, the boy belonged to Alys and no other.
After a sennight of darkest despair, the rush of relief was heady stuff. For the first time in his life, he was drunk on hope, drunk on happiness, drunk on a future that seemed once again brimming with love and laughter and wonderful possibilities.
He’d promised Alys a Twelvetide of unforgettable nights as well as a lifetime of never ending Christmas. He would be able to make good on both promises after all.
He couldn’t wait to begin celebrating.
9
Crofter’s Cottage
A village a few leagues from MacLeod Castle
MORAG SAT on a backless bench before the dressing mirror meticulously tweezing errant hairs from her brow. She was enormously proud of her high forehead, which she managed to hold back a full finger’s length from the line of her natural scalp.
Arms crossed to ward off further cramping, Alex asked, “Don’t you find all that plucking to be painful?”
She shrugged bony shoulders. “Beauty exacts its price. And you do find me beautiful, don’t you?” She turned about to face him, craning her long neck.
He didn’t find her looks more than passable, not that it mattered anymore. Even though they lived apart most happily, he in London and she in Portree, she was still his wife. When he’d sent for her a few days ago, his message hinting at a mutually beneficial enterprise, she’d heeded his call.
Because he still needed her and would for a while, he dutifully answered, “Your beauty shines like a beacon, my love.” He leaned over and brushed a kiss over her thin lips.
She sat back, apparently mollified for the moment. “You should have been a courtier, not a soldier.” She scrutinized his face, her cool expression more curious than repulsed. “You’re certain you won’t have me try covering those scars? I’m clever with paint and powder. You might be surprised.”
He shook his head, the prospect making his ruined flesh crawl. Once the pox pustules had turned putrid, he’d endured weeks of salving and bandaging and burning off the diseased skin before the lesions healed sufficiently to scab. The experience had left him with a fierce dislike of being touched, especially on his face.
Fortunately Morag didn’t seem put off by his spoiled looks. Theirs was a marriage of like minds, a union of twisted kindred souls. Both were greedy, grasping and entirely devoted to themselves. His wife was far too transfixed by the face she saw in the mirror to care greatly for what had become of his.
“You’re clear on the plan?” he asked her.
Spending the better part of the past two days between the bed and chamber pot had firmed his resolve if not his bowels. It was time, past time, to move forward with getting his son and himself back to England.
“Aye, I am.” She nodded. “And afterward my reward will be?” She lifted one painted brow and waited.
Knowing her so well, he’d anticipated the question. “Once we present Alasdair to my father, you will be installed in his castle and given all due deference as his mother along with whatever riches you desire.”
She lifted her heavy-lidded eyes. “Is that all?”
Alex shrugged. She was a bloodthirsty bitch, but then again that was what made her so very useful.
He hesitated, casting his thoughts back to Alys’s threat just as he’d fallen ill. Cut off his cods, indeed! “You may have Alys’s empty head on a platter, provided you’ve the heart to take it,” he finished. Morag had taken the banishment from the MacLeod’s great hall hard indeed.
Smiling, she turned back to her paint pots and picked up her brush. “My husband’s generosity is outweighed only by his deviousness.”
The griping pains hadn’t disappeared altogether but still Alex managed to smile. “In this world, lady, I have found it wise to have a goodly measure of both.”
SINCE SETTING OUT THAT MORNING, Father Fearghas had made passably good time. Because it was still the holy day, the main roads were deserted beyond the occasional straggler. Taking advantage of the open space, he’d pushed the donkey hard to make back the time his late start had cost him.
The oysters had been a most unfortunate affair, emptying him of his dinner and robbing him of any hope of sleep. For the better part of two days he’d divided the hours between a seemingly rocking bed and a chamber pot fast filling. By now his innards must be as clean as Adam’s upon the first day of his creation.
He rode on until nature’s call could no longer be denied. He dismounted, tethered the donkey to a low hanging branch and made haste to a stand of scrubby bushes. Slipping behind, he pulled up his clothes and squatted down.
“How now, what’s this, a plump partridge?”
Midstream, Fearghas shot up his head, his gaze meeting with two sets of thick, hairy legs. The limbs were attached to two burly ruffians who bore down on him. He gulped hard and let his robe drop.
The second piped up, “I think it’s a plump priest, brother.”
Taking hold of an arm each, they hauled him to his feet.
The first man rifled with his middle. “What do you have under your cloak there, good father? I venture ’tis a bonny fat purse to match your belly.”
In the end, they divested him of his cloak, riding boots, and even the wooden prayer beads hanging from his belt. Stripped down to his smock, Father Fearghas congratulated himself on concealing the folded records page within his hose.
Arms folded, one of them suggested, “Maybe we should perform a baptism and wash away the good father’s sins with a dunking in yon stream!”
“Nay!” Fearghas held up a hand. The water would be cold as a witch’s tit but beyond that, dunking would ruin his precious evidence. “I canna swim,” he added, hoping God would forgive him the lie. “Toss me in and I’ll sink like a stone. Then it will be a murder on your hands and your immortal souls damned. Only pause to think upon the fire, the brimstone, the eternity of famine and thirst!”
They looked at him and shrugged. He suspected they’d heard his standard priestly description of Hell many a time.
Inspiration struck, Divine inspiration. He dropped his voice and added, “Really big, really putrid, really painful boils down…there.” He patted the place between his legs where the records packet rested.
The thieves’ eyes grew wide. Their jaws dropped. They exchanged worried looks.
The larger of the two spoke up. “Down…there?”
“Aye, the verra spot.” Father Fearghas punctuated the statement with a knowing nod. “If that is the manner of rest you seek for your immortal souls, then by all means toss me in. Otherwise be gone lest you spend an eternity with Beelzebub’s creatures!”
The pair exchanged frightened glances. They seemed to shrink before his eyes. Arms full of the purloined articles, they turned tail and ran.
Unfortunately so did his donkey. Spooked, the beast let out a shriek and bolted, moving more swiftly than Fearghas had ever before seen. Too shaken to lay chase, he fell back against a tree.
Scouring a hand over his brow, he offered up a hasty prayer of thanks for his deliverance. Ere now, he’d never fully appreciated just how exhausting serving the Divine could be. Since setting out on his journey, he’d been purged, starved, beaten and stripped. Unless he found shelter before nightfall, death by freezing could not be far off.
He stood, brushed himself off, and foraged the foliage for a fallen twig of the requisite length and sturdiness. Finding it, he took up his makeshift staff and continued on his way to the Fraser fortress, determined to pursue his pilgrim’s mission and any further sufferings it might yet bring with a glad and joyful heart.
ALYS SPENT MOST OF THE TIME Callum was away in the kitchen garden, furiously turning up turnips and other root vegetables from the frozen earth. Even in the dead of winter with the fish pond frozen over and ice blanketing t
he stepping stones, the little walled place with its scrubby bushes and barren beds was her sanctuary.
But there was no refuge from her thoughts. Callum was now two days gone. He should be back any time now. She prayed and feared for him in equal measure. If the news he bore was bad, she would have to say goodbye to him yet again, this time for good, and submit herself to going to England with Alex. Alex’s illness, from which he was only just recovering, had kept him mostly in bed and out of her way for two days. Pale and thin, he’d risen and rode into the village a few hours ago. With luck, she would have yet another day’s sweet reprieve. Now that she’d known hope again, the thought that she might yet have to live with him as his wife was almost unbearable.
Alasdair dallied in the dirt beside her. She couldn’t be certain but she thought he might be pretending the piles she made were mountains. Bundled against the cold, he at least seemed to be having a grand time.
All at once, a smile suffused his cherub’s face. He dropped the dirt he’d fisted and stretched out his arms. “Papa! Papa, come!”
Alys shot up her head. Callum stood in the arched gateway. His cloak and boots were dust-covered, his face drawn with lines of fatigue, and yet he’d never been more beautiful to her. Catching her eye, his face lit with a smile.
He was smiling. That must be a good sign, it must! Heart pounding, she put down her trowel and rose on wobbly legs, brushing dirt from her knees.
Toddling to his feet beside her, Alasdair tugged on her sleeve. “Papa, come.”
She touched her hand to his shoulder, gently urging him forward, praying to the Blessed Virgin she could trust that smile, Callum’s smile. “Aye, dearling, I see. Go and greet him.”
He hurried off, chubby legs making short shrift of the stone path despite his wobbling. “Papa!” He launched himself against Callum’s legs.
Blaze Historicals Bundle II Page 31