by K. E. Saxon
She was still rising from her bent position when she gasped. Her hands flew to her abdomen and Bao’s heart took a dive into his stomach before it lodged like a shot from a manganel in his throat. He bolted to her side and grasped her upper arms. “What? What ails you?” He stepped in closer, placing a hand over the one she held to her stomach. She tensed at his touch, which put an answering vise grip on his heart, but allowed the contact. “Is it the babe?” he asked.
“I believe the babe just quickened.” She held her gaze on her belly. “‘Twas a light tapping feeling. I was beginning to worry that I wouldn’t recognize it, but”—she smiled and her voice held wonder—“I did!”
“Of what are you speaking, Jesslyn? How could you not recognize something you’ve already gone through before?”
She went still. A look of dread washed over her face followed instantly by a mask of serenity and she took several paces away from him. He narrowed his eyes and said, “Is there something you are not telling me?”
The silence that followed held weight, but finally, with a sigh, she walked to the table, took her place and said, “Sit. I shall explain while we eat our meal.”
Bao sat down and took several bites of the pottage and watched her do the same before saying, “I’m glad to know the babe is hale, but why did you worry that you wouldn’t know when the babe quickened?”
She lifted her eyes from her trencher. “I’ve never had a babe before.”
Bao sat forward. “Wha—?”
“Alleck is the offspring of my sister and Graeme, my husband.”
“Your sister? Alleck is your sister’s bairn? Does Alleck know this?”
Jesslyn pushed her trencher out of the way. Leaning forward, she rested her crossed arms on the table and studied the remnants of the pottage as she replied, “Aye, I told him a bit o’er a year ago.”
Bao was stunned. “How came it that you and Graeme wed?”
“My sister was living at the MacBean holding. Graeme had been gone warring for almost the entire time Janet carried his babe. She became ill and needed to remain abed the last four moons of the pregnancy and sent me a missive requesting that I move from the MacLaurin holding, where we were raised, to the MacBean holding and take care of her while she regained her strength. I, of course, agreed.” Jesslyn’s mouth turned down at the corners. “Unfortunately, she died delivering Alleck.”
“Aye, I assumed that to be the case. Where were your parents—your mother?”
Her eyes closed tight and her brow furrowed. He was beginning to think she would not answer when she said, “My father was one of the men who died that bloody day of the massacre at the MacLaurin holding. He was Laird MacLaurin’s lieutenant.”
Bao leapt from his seat and leaned toward her. “Christ’s bones! Are you saying my father was responsible for your father’s death?”
Her eyes still tightly shut, she nodded.
And he’d thought her brother’s perfidy unforgivable. The fact that she’d known this and held no rancor for Bao because of it tore at his already stinging conscience like the cut of a thousand blades. He turned and stormed across the room. Bao’s mind reeled with the recollection of all Daniel had told him of that fatal, fateful day. Laird MacLaurin had sent most of his men to find the culprits who had set fires and killed livestock along three different MacLaurin borders. Thinking ‘twas some mischief his rival, the MacPherson, was up to, Daniel’s grandfather had kept only a few men back to guard the keep. But, in fact, it had been a well-organized trap their father and his band of corrupt soldiers had set. The real attack came once the keep was left undefended. In an act of bloody vengeance, Jamison Maclean had abused and executed the wife who’d left him and the father-in-law who’d sheltered her. Daniel, only thirteen moons at the time, had been fishing at the loch and had only survived because Jamison had not known of his existence.
Standing with his back to her and his head bowed, he asked grimly, “Was he one of those massacred, or did he die defending the keep?”
“He was one of the first killed defending the keep when the marauders rushed through the opened portcullis into the courtyard.”
He swung around to face her once more. “What of your mother—what of you and your sister? Where were all of you that day?”
“There was a cattle fair in the next town. My mother had taken my sister and me in hopes that she might find a merchant selling fine cloth for new gowns she wanted to make for us.”
“My God. When I think of what would have happened to you had you remained....”
“Nay, don’t think on it. We survived, as did Daniel, and we flourished,” Jesslyn replied.
Bao nodded and walked back to his stool. Sitting down, he asked, “And your mother? She’s alive, then?”
Jesslyn’s lips pressed into a straight line and she shook her head. “Nay, nay. She became ill from a lung fever one very cold winter. In truth, ‘twas the year before Alleck was born. She never recovered.”
“I see. So you were all alone at the MacLaurin holding for quite a time it seems.”
Her smile was sad. “Aye, but I managed. I make very good ale—did Daniel tell you?”
Bao cocked his head to the side and gave her a lopsided grin as he looked at her in a new light. “Nay,” he said, shaking his head. “Nay, he did not.”
Jesslyn placed her hand over her belly and her eyes glowed.
“The babe?”
“Aye.”
It took every bit of will he had not to take her in his arms and kiss that warm smile, but somehow he managed it. He took a gulp of his ale. As he settled the cup at the side of his trencher, he said, “Mayhap you should continue telling me how you and Graeme came to wed each other.”
Jesslyn rose from her stool and began clearing off the table, clearly unsettled by the subject she was to relate. “I’d never met Graeme,” she said finally. “My sister was betrothed to him by contract and she was escorted to the MacBean holding for the wedding. I was not allowed to attend, as I was but ten summers at the time and deemed too young to travel that far a distance. They were wed for five years before she got with child.” Jesslyn tipped her head back and lifted her gaze to some unknown place above, a wistful smile on her lips. She shook her head, saying, “She was so happy.”
“And then what happened?” Bao prompted when Jesslyn hadn’t resumed her tale after a moment.
Jesslyn turned her head, a look of surprise on her countenance, as if she’d forgotten his presence. “Before she died, she made me promise that I would take care of her bairn, that I wouldn’t leave it to be taken care of by one of the women at the keep. I swore my allegiance to her and waited for Graeme to return. When he came back, he was told of the death by Lady MacBean, and that I was there to take care of the babe. He ran to find me.” Taking a deep breath and letting it out on a sigh, she turned and faced Bao. Crossing her arms over her chest, she began to rub them as she said, “I was at the well with some of the other lasses of the village. He drew me away from them and asked me to wed him. I did, and we raised Alleck as if he were mine.”
“Yet you didn’t wed him solely to keep your promise to your sister,” Bao stated.
“Aye, you are right. There was an immediate attraction between us.”
Bao studied her, saw the residue of grief in her eyes. “You still love him. And I believe that even now, after almost three years have passed, you still mourn for him.”
Jesslyn dipped her head. “Aye, I suppose I shall always love him.”
Bao’s heart twisted. “I won’t ask for your love, for I know I’m not worthy of it. But is there naught I can do to win your forgiveness, your friendship?”
She looked at him for a long moment before she finally answered, “I think not. But, only time will tell. For as you said, we have a long life ahead of us.”
* * *
A sennight later, Bao took a step into their chamber in the keep just after the nooning meal and stopped short. Jesslyn stood with her arms crossed next to the clothing
chest he’d placed there earlier. “I see you’ve found my gift.”
She bent down and retrieved the coin that lay on top of the shimmery blue gown he’d added to the largesse and marched it over to him. “I shall, of course, accept the return of my possessions and the new gown as well, as you destroyed one of my own, but I have no need, nor desire, for this.”
It took a moment for Bao to respond as his eyes fastened on the gold circle swinging in slow sweeps from the worn leather thong to which it was attached. Finally, with a sinking heart, he stepped forward and took it. “I understand. I…” He swallowed and cleared his throat. “I have a bit of business to attend to with my brother. G’day to you.” He hauled around and bolted out of the room.
He plopped himself against the stone wall outside the chamber and banged his head against it in frustration, then lifted his fingers to the sharp sting and massaged it. What the hell was he going to do? Everything—everything was fighting against him. His own vile behavior, his father’s even worse destruction. Her love for her dead husband. Added to which was her belief of his adulterous interlude that he had no means of proving ‘twas not true. Aye, he could bring the lass before her, have the lass explain their arrangement—but would Jesslyn believe? After their earlier conversation and her continued cool reserve, he had no hope she would. What a fool he’d been to take the ‘lesson’ that far. But he’d thought that at least the return of her belongings would soften her resentment toward him. Mayhap not to the ultimate point he sought, but at least a move in that direction. Instead, she was colder than she had been before. As if the gift served more as a reminder of his deeds than as a reminder of his better, nobler self.
She wasn’t happy. She never raised her voice to him, was biddable enough, and certainly maintained the appearance that all was well between them when they were with his family, but her only smiles were for others, never for him. He was out of ideas. He wasn’t a man to give up a fight, but every warrior knew when to stay in the battle and when to retreat. And it was clearly time to retreat.
* * *
CHAPTER 7
Jesslyn was back at her cottage an hour later, having fled there after her encounter with Bao in order to keep from being trapped into sewing with the ladies in the solar. Firstly, because she didn’t think she could keep the calm and contented manner she presented to them from slipping, and secondly, because she needed some busy work to keep her mind off of the heavy ache in her heart.
She had just started crushing the malt for the ale she planned to brew when a knock came on the door.
“Enter!”
She was more than surprised when Daniel sauntered in. “I thought you two had moved back to the keep for good.”
“We have, but your grandmother said ‘twas fine for me to use the cottage to make my ale.”
“Ah.” He took a seat next to the fire where she had the iron caldron of water hanging, heating water. He studied his fingernails, which put her immediately on guard. There was something much too relaxed in his behavior, yet she could see the tension in his jaw and around his eyes. “I suppose you are aware that your husband is in the courtyard about to take his leave back to Perth. Shouldn’t you at least say farewell to him?”
Alarm tensed her muscles. “Why is he leaving? What about his babe?”
“He's leaving because you will not forgive him for how he reacted to the letter, how he blamed you falsely.”
“Of what letter do you speak?”
“He told you not?”
“Nay! What letter?”
“Bao discovered that your brother was a slave trader in the Holy Lands. He—”
“Wh—!”
“—was the man who sold Bao's mother to our father, Jamison Maclean.”
“Oh God. Nay. This cannot be.” Jesslyn sank onto the stool and leaned heavily against the table.
“’Tis true. And what is more, he acquired a letter from your brother that was never delivered to your sister in which it is made plain that she was well aware of how he made the coin he sent to fill your family coffers all those years.”
Light-headed, she rested her forehead in her hand. “And he thought 'twas me to whom my brother wrote.”
“Aye.”
“He wouldn’t tell me. He said ‘twould only hurt me and he couldn’t bear to hurt me more than he already had with his false beliefs.” Her eyes shot to Daniel's. “We cannot let him leave. Take me to him!”
* * *
Branwenn met Jesslyn as she rushed through the entrance to the courtyard. “Whatever he’s done, forgive him! See this! He’s given me his mother’s coin to keep safe for his bairn. I think he plans not to return. Go speak to him, I beg you!”
Jesslyn nodded and hurried over to where Bao stood speaking to his grandmother. “My pardon, Lady Maclean, but I must have a moment in privy with my husband.”
Lady Maclean gave her a look that said she understood more than she’d let them believe and stepped away.
“You were going to leave without telling me?”
“Nay, I sent Daniel to give you the tidings.”
“What about Alleck? Does he know?”
Bao’s lips thinned and he shook his head. “I—I needed to leave in haste, and that farewell may have made it impossible. I intended to send him a letter along with the first of the purchases and coin I will be proffering for your support.” He finally met her gaze. “I take care of my own, so have no worry. You shall want for naught. I’ll see to it.”
“I want the father of my babe here with us.”
“You know what I am, what I’ve done. The babe will not suffer with my absence.”
“A bairn needs it’s father.”
“Even if that father was unforgivably cruel to its mother?”
Jesslyn placed her hand on his arm. “I know about the letter. How can I not now feel understanding for your actions?” Even your finding comfort with another woman. How could he possibly feel truly wed to her when he saw her as his enemy?
He growled. “I told Daniel not to give you those tidings!” His jaw clenched as he shot a venomous look in his brother’s direction. “I shall enjoy trouncing him in a match the next we meet.”
“Do not leave. There is hope for this union, I trow.”
“Hope? Even tho’ you still pine for another? Detest my touch?”
She smiled, stood on her tiptoes, and gave him a soft kiss on his cheek. “I pine more for a strong, living, husband. And I do not detest your touch.”
He looked at her a long moment. Finally, he grinned, and with a wave of his arm, he called the stableman over. After taking his satchel from the horse, he told the man to take his steed back to its stall.
* * *
After supper later that night, Bao watched Jesslyn nervously twisting her fingers as she stood staring into the hearthfire.
His hopes for the evening plummeted. He walked to the bed and sat down. Clearly, she was not yet ready to give him her body. But at least the icy reserve she’d held in his presence prior to this afternoon had thawed. If he was mindful and cunning, he might be able to build a bridge between them through seduction. He looked at her again. Eventually.
He unlaced and took off first one boot and then the other before dropping each to the floor. It didn’t escape his notice that she started at the sound. Aye, slow and steady would be his strategy.
He bent down and lined his boots up like soldiers next to the bed and then lay down, propping his head on his hands and crossing one leg over the other. “Do you mind bringing that stool to the side of the bed?”
She started again but nodded and walked toward the stool.
She stumbled on her way and Bao bolted upright. He settled back when she didn’t fall and continued to regard her.
Her hands trembled as she picked up the wooden seat and brought it to the bedside. “Where would you like me to place it?” she murmured.
“You can put it down right where you are.” He saw the dew on her brow and asked, “Are you warm? Mayh
ap the fire’s too high.” He swung his leg over the side of the bed in a motion to rise, but she stopped him with a shake of her head. “Nay, I’m fine,” she told him.
“Will you sit down upon this, Jesslyn?” he said, indicating the seat.
“I-I’d prefer to stand, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, I do mind. Please?”
“A…All right,” she replied. She sat down facing him.
“Turn around, sweet, that’s not how I want you,” he said.
Her eyes dipped then widened momentarily on his erection. He knew it pushed against the cloth of his tunic, but he was helpless to control his body’s reaction to her.
“Jesslyn, please turn around,” he stated again. “I’ve no presumption that we shall couple this eve.”
Her gaze jumped to his and her cheeks flushed crimson, but she did as he requested.
He sat up and placed his knees on either side of her before reaching for the brush and placing it next to him on the bed.
When he tilted her head back, she jolted. Aye, nervous as a rabbit. First, he pulled the filet and the veil from their positions, and then he leaned down and took in a deep breath of lavender scented air.
As he gently unwound the golden tresses that she’d had arranged under her veil, Bao was reminded once more of their time at the fall, of his first reaction to the texture and sheen of her magnificent golden locks, glorying in the fact that they were still as soft and bright as he’d remembered. And the scent of it! God, he could drown in her scent. Remembering that he’d become intoxicated on this very fragrance while he moved inside of her made him grind his teeth in agony. But release would not come this night. Nor, mayhap, many nights ahead. For now, he must simply enjoy the pleasure of touching her where e’re she allowed it. He lifted the brush and gently pulled it through the long mane he had clasped in his hand. “‘Tis a bit tangled,” he said, “let me know if I tug too hard.”
She sighed. He felt her relax, her breathing slow, saw her eyes drift shut. “Aye, I will,” she finally replied. “How did you learn to brush a woman’s hair so well?” she said, her voice dreamy, but with a tinge of surprise.