Charming the Chieftain

by Deanie Roman

  After a time, she stood, stretched the kinks from her back and wandered over to the bookcase’s meager offerings. Some of the twine bound parchments and scrolls were in haphazard order. She laid the scrolls in a drawer below the shelf, alphabetized the yellowish tethered parchment and, as she righted the last two she noticed an irregularity in the line.

  Curious, she ran a finger down the queue then stopped on a book and plucked the Gutenberg Bible from the row. She narrowed her eyes and peered into the black cubby. A dark shape appeared wedged at an odd angle in the back of the bookcase. Unable to reach that far in, she retrieved a footstool from under the desk. This time she gripped the edge of the object and pulled it forward off the shelf and into the sun light. She examined the cracked leather and marveled at the proportions. It wasn’t any bigger than a moderate-sized sandtimer. She turned to the first page and discovered it was the clan Kirkuldy family Bible.

  Puzzled, she pondered aloud. “Why would Father Pollock have kept this Bible in his office, and not in the sacristy?”

  During their morning chats, she often questioned Onora on clan history. She knew the Kirkuldy were once a sept of the Maxwell. She flipped through a few more pages and landed on a sheet with a sketch of a vaguely familiar symbol.

  An inscription under the drawing read, “The ancestral symbol of clan Kirkuldy.”

  She tapped a fingernail on the intricate design. “Where have I encountered you afore?”

  The elaborate design continued to tug at her memory. A muddy image struggled to emerge in her mind. Then it struck her. In denial, she shoveled the sheets of parchment until she found the birth journal. She scanned the numerous names and dates inked by a meticulous hand. Her eyes dropped to the name of the last Kirkuldy birth, which took place in the autumn of 1455 and almost forgot to draw a breath.

  “How is this possible?” she whispered shaken by the discovery.

  She hadn’t been sleeping well since Aeden’s departure. Yes, that was it. Perhaps her sleep-deprived eyes somehow failed her. She reread the name in disbelief. It was no misconception. Frantic, she clutched the book to her chest and walked at a clip to her private solar. After bolting the door, she laid the bible on a low table near the window seat and retrieved her needlepoint basket. She took care and slid her hand along the side, in the slit cut into the lining. Her hand found its mark and she lifted a dagger from her wicker basket. She placed the knife on the same low table and took up the bible opening to the page with the distinctive design. Once she thoroughly examined the worn hilt of the dagger, she could not deny the proof.

  “Oh, Aeden, where are you?” she asked the empty chamber.

  After a few moments contemplation, she replaced the knife, thrust the Bible to the bottom of the basket and almost wrenched the door off its hinges when she fled the solar.

  • • •

  Elisande pulled the door closed and barred it against prying eyes. She gestured for Onora and Tam to sit at the small, round table and then took a seat opposite the two.

  “My goodness, niece, this must be quite something to disrupt the evening meal. You will have to smooth cook’s ruffled feathers if you ever want to eat again.”

  “Aye, ’tis a bit too cloak and dagger for my taste,” Tam teased.

  At the mention of a dagger, Elisande paled.

  Onora stilled. “Something is terribly wrong. Tell me what’s troubling you this instant.”

  In answer, Elisande fetched the sewing basket under her chair. She reached in and produced the two items, setting the dagger on the page with the design and scrutinized the older couple’s reaction.

  Onora went white as wash, and Tam’s expression turned to stone. He recovered first and raised faded, sky-blue eyes that bore into hers.

  “Where in the hell did you come by those?” he demanded.

  “I procured the dagger from your nephew’s back.” Elisande stared him down, waiting for an explanation.

  “Jesus Christ,” he shook his head and passed a hand over his eyes.

  Tam’s profanity jolted Onora from her dazed silence. “Tam, please, guard your tongue.”

  “My foul language is the least of our worries.”

  Elisande shifted her intense stare to Onora.

  “Niece, I must — ”

  “Onora,” Tam cut across her sentence his voice held a clear warning. “No good can come of it. Not now. Let it stay buried.”

  To Elisande’s immense relief, Onora ignored her brother-in-law and picked up the knife.

  “Just like Addis buried his knife in your nephew’s back?”

  Tam looked down and then away toward the window. He seemed to debate with himself, and when Elisande gave up any hope of learning the truth, he spoke.

  His watery eyes fixed on Elisande. “Where did you unearth that Bible?”

  “It was hardly secreted away. I was organizing Father Pollock’s books and parchments.”

  An errant notion tangled in with her disarrayed thoughts. “Do you think Father meant for me to find it? The reason it was in his office, and not the sacristy where it belonged?”

  A humorless smile crossed Tam’s face. “The auld busybody never could keep a secret.”

  Elisande looked between the two. “So, it’s true?”

  “Yes, niece, I’m afraid so. By rights, Addis is the Kirkuldy.”

  “Go on,” Elisande urged, impatience edging her voice.

  Onora shrugged. “She may as well learn the entire truth, Tam.”

  Tam hung his head and sucked on the tip of his thumb. After a few moments of quiet contemplation, he raised his head and blew out a heavy breath.

  “If you were not a woman well married, I would never have this discussion with you. What I have to tell you is an unsavory tale at best.”

  Elisande’s heart pounded, but she inclined her head in the hopes she presented a serene countenance.

  Tam stared at her a few moments more his eyes full of regret.

  “Gavin’s first wife, Maeri, was the widow of the Kirkuldy chief. The Kirkuldy was a vicious husband and an inflexible leader. Not many survived his rule. Therefore, she kept the news of his bastard son from her husband.”

  Confused, Elisande questioned, “So, Maeri’s husband impregnated another woman and she was aware of this liaison?”

  She knew in her heart she could never stand by as Aeden bore another woman to his bed.

  “Aye,” Tam answered. “She had no child of her own and doted on the clan children. No one regarded her interest in the boy as anything suspect.”

  “What became of her husband’s mistress?”

  Tam snorted. “She died at the hands of Maeri’s husband.”

  Bile rose in Elisande’s throat, nevertheless, she didn’t allow her upset to show. She swallowed and pressed Tam for more answers.

  “I assume the leman never told Maeri’s husband she bore him a son.”

  Tam shrugged. “No one knows for certain.”

  “Surely he would claim his own son?”

  Her uncle shook his head. “’Tis doubtful. The Kirkuldy clan only accepted those born with Kirkuldy bloodlines.”

  Confused, Elisande gave Tam a questioning look.

  “Go on, tell her,” Onora urged.

  “Yes, I should like to know how one keeps a lineage pure.”

  Onora and Tam exchanged looks.

  She seized upon on their furtive interchange. “There is something more to this story, isn’t there?”

  Tam nodded, his lips pinched in disgust. “’Tis not a pleasant prospect to think on. I’m not sure I should burden you with such knowledge.”

  “Please, if I am to understand, I would know all of it.”

  Her aunt lowered her head. Tam covered Onora’s hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. He avoided eye contact with Elisande while he related the account. “The Kirkuldy’s have kept the bloodlines clean for decades by marrying brother to sister, niece to uncle, aunt to nephew.”

  Elisande gasped and covered her mouth, repulse
d. “Dear God in heaven.”

  Horrified, Elisande was sickened to her soul such circumstances were allowed to exist. As the shock of the ungodly story diminished, the broader implications of such a lethal secret took shape. A slow angry simmer enveloped her.

  Tam continued. “It wasn’t much later that Maeri learned of the boy’s identity when the Kirkuldy died during a hunt. It was common knowledge the Kirkuldy’s young brother coveted the title, vowing it would belong to him one day. Of course, no one dared to try and prove it, but it’s believed young Roderick killed Maeri’s husband.”

  A shiver of dread slithered over Elisande’s skin at the eerily similar circumstances between Aeden and Addis. It seemed treachery and betrayal, as well as incest was inherent in the Kirkuldy line.

  “By this time, Maeri had come to look upon the boy as hers, and with no blood family of her own seeing to her interests, she feared for the child’s safety if his secret was ever discovered. She and Addis stole away in the night. When the clan realized she fled, her departure meant nothing to anyone, and so she turned to our clan for shelter. Gavin was immediately smitten, married Maeri and told the clan the child was his.”

  Disbelief forced her jaw to drop. “No one doubted the tale? One night a woman appears with a child in tow and everyone assumes he is a Maxwell?”

  “You must remember the Kirkuldy clan was our sept,” Onora reiterated.

  “Yes, but that — ”

  Onora talked over her. “My dear, it wasn’t the first time a child was presented to a father months, even years after the fact, and it certainly wasn’t the last. Therefore, no one thought it odd, and from that day forward Addis was accepted as Gavin’s son.”

  “So, why would Gavin and Maeri not tell Addis of his parentage and allow him to claim his true title?”

  “In the next few years the Kirkuldy clan had been decimated by the Black Death,” he spread his hands.

  “And the reason for telling Addis no longer existed,” Onora finished.

  Deflated, Elisande mused aloud. “Poor Maeri. I cannot blame her for wanting to spare Addis from the truth of his origins.” A humorless smile curled her lips. “Not that it mattered.” She thought of what the story might mean for Aeden.

  “Elisande?” The guarded quality of Onora’s voice unleashed a torrent of bitter condemnation.

  “So, no one saw fit to inform Aeden of this momentous news? What about enlightening him that his so-called brother is an unbalanced attempted murderer? My God — how do you justify such reasoning?”

  Outraged, Tam fired back. “Are you suggesting we knew he was the one who plunged a dagger in his back?”

  Elisande waved his accusation away. “Of course not! I was speaking about the first attempt all those years ago. Or am I the only one who thinks it odd one brother would apply a knife to another brother’s face?”

  Onora stroked her fingers across her forehead. “I tried.”

  “We both did,” Tam interjected. “I pleaded with my brother to tell Aeden, but Maeri didn’t want Addis treated differently by the clan. She believed Addis would outgrow his jealousy in time.”

  Elisande made an inelegant snort. “Really? Her own brother-in-law had no qualms about killing his … dear God … her brother too, and yet she thought nothing of it when Addis wielded his knife against Aeden?”

  “Do not judge Maeri too harshly, niece. Gavin never took to the child, and when Aeden was born, all his love was poured into his son.”

  Weary of the argument, Elisande sighed. “I do have sympathy for what Maeri must have gone through, however, I cannot understand the kind of love that overlooks cruelty.”

  “Even after Maeri’s death, banishment was the only solution my brother was willing to entertain, and it took him years to finally approach Bran Kerr.”

  “But why so long?”

  Tam cast a sympathetic glance at her aunt. “Addis was Gavin’s only link left to Maeri. Sorry, Onora.”

  A despondent expression overtook her aunt’s visage. She patted Tam’s arm. “’Tis all right. I always knew I was second to Maeri in my husband’s affections.”

  Heaviness settled on Elisande’s heart.

  “Unfortunately, Gavin died within months of the negotiations with Bran and the task fell to Aeden.”

  There was sourness in the pit of her stomach as she looked between the two. “You both know I must tell Aeden.”

  Onora’s mouth worked, yet no sound issued forth.

  “No. I should be the one to impart the foul story. It should have been done long ago by his father, and now it falls to me in Gavin’s stead,” insisted Tam.

  Elisande agreed though she added, “Just the same, I shall be at my husband’s side when you speak with him.”

  Tam’s faint smile softened the hard lines of his face. “You are a woman worthy of the Maxwell name, niece.”

  Elisande couldn’t find the words to respond. Disturbed by the account, she squeezed her comfort stone until her palm ached. The action did nothing to compose her riotous emotions. For the first time since she was a child, the smooth texture and repeated caress failed to soothe her disquiet.

  “Elisande, you’ve gone pale. I knew we should never have told her the sordid details,” Onora chided Tam.

  She offered her aunt a wan smile. “Do not fret, aunt, ’tis all right.”

  Muttering under her breath about pig-headed men, Onora moved to the washstand and submerged a cloth in the water bowl.

  “You’ve had a bit of a shock, I’m sure. Sit back and drape this around your neck.”

  Too unsettled to be coddled, Elisande shoved back from the table and hastened to the solar door.

  “Where are you going?”

  Good question. “I need fresh air.”

  “Eli — ”

  Elisande yanked on the handle and dashed down the corridor ignoring the odd looks thrown her way. She couldn’t breathe. The horror of what Aeden’s mother had survived only to raise a child the likes of Addis must have broken the woman.

  Unmindful of her destination, she inhaled the crisp autumn air and grappled with the unthinkable. Her stone failed to provide comfort. She wondered over the unforeseen development.

  If only Aeden were here, she thought.

  In a trice, an odd sensation struck her. The more she concentrated on Aeden’s image the less agitated she became and the calmer she felt. In that instance, she experienced a jaw-dropping revelation. The stone no longer brought comfort for the simple reason that Aeden had become her solace. And just as she knew the sun would dawn on the morrow, Aeden would be there for her, too.

  Removing the stone from her pocket, she stared at its oblong shape. It made her a bit sad to think a cold, hard piece of earth had been her one true means of consolation for so many years.

  Now, her husband was her comfort.

  A smile spread across her face. Gratified, she peered out over the deep waters of the loch. A hint of wood smoke tinged the air. The strident call of a curlew broke the silence, and she closed her eyes reveling in the knowledge she truly found her place in the harsh, yet, beautiful land. Finally free of the past, she opened her eyes and hurled her comfort stone into the peaty depths of the dark loch.

  Awash in her reflections, she was unaware of how long she stood there. The gentle lapping had lulled her somewhat. When pinkish-orange streaks of sunlight strafed the sky, and the cool air penetrated her plaid, she remembered her long ago promise to Aeden. She hadn’t meant to stroll about unattended, nor so far removed from the safety of Caeverlark’s grounds. The need to sort through her out of control emotions drove her to seek the solitude of the loch.

  The winds picked up and the opaque water churned violently. The earth shifted from loose sand to compacted dirt beneath her feet as she backtracked up the path to the holding. She caught site of something that seemed out of place in the undergrowth. The observation caused the hair on the back of her next to prickle in alarm. She realized, too late, it had been foolish to wander so far from th
e safety of Caeverlark’s grounds. Wolves were known to inhabit the countryside. Her heightened awareness allowed her to detect movement from the brush, though it proved fruitless to confront the source of the odd noise. She needn’t borrow trouble.

  With a sense of urgency, she continued along the overgrown trail, unable to completely discount the sensation of being hunted. Without warning, a hand grabbed the hem of her plaid and ripped the fabric halfway to the thigh. Stifling a scream, she whipped around to face her attacker and she slumped in relief when she recognized the culprit. She bent at the waist to release her skirt from the clutches of a branch, and admonished herself for leaping to unfounded conclusions.

  Reassured, she set off up the hill. Her stomach rumbled with hunger. It had been hours since she noon meal.

  “Onora will surely have a laugh at my fanciful imagination.”

  She spoke aloud to dispel the disquiet subverting her self-possession. She quickened her steps in anticipation of the noisy dining atmosphere when a sharp tug on her plaid impeded progress once again.

  “Apparently, it is not possible for me to arrive at the keep without shredding my garments further.”

  Her sigh of exasperation was overtaken by a scream when a large hand seized her from behind cutting off her air.

  “Hello, sister.”

  Her mind reeled in shock. Tam stood in the courtyard that morn along with Onora to witness Addis’ departure. How could he be here? Her brain tried to sort through the tangle of questions that vied for attention. She struggled to think as her air dwindled, until her only concern was her next breath.

  He tightened his grip on her throat, shook her roughly, and whispered, “Where is your savior now?”

  Her eyes rolled back and she drifted into a blackened abyss devoid of light and noise. Abruptly he let up on the pressure and shoved her hard to the ground.

  “You will not escape your fate by fainting. Oh no, I want you awake when I take you.”

  She dragged crisp night air into her burning lungs praying she recovered her breath before he inflicted any more damage. Large, rough hands seized her calves. Fragments of rock gouged her back and head as he dragged her across the hard ground into the inky blackness of the woods — her struggles futile against his superior strength. A few yards in, he stopped, dropped to his knees landing hard between her widespread thighs. Single-handed, he tossed his plaid aside to reveal his arousal. She knew a moment of abject terror when he leaned over her, and his erection slid along her leg. Pressing her lips together, she swallowed a sob and prayed desperately to awaken from this nightmare safe and secure in Aeden’s arms.