Bride of Lochbarr

by Margaret Moore

  “You don’t think we have to keep anything from Roban?” Adair asked. “I trust him with my life, and so should you.”

  “It’s not because I don’t trust him, or any of the clan,” his father replied, dismounting.

  “Then what?”

  For a moment, he thought his father was going to raise his voice—something almost unheard of, unless he was hurt. He didn’t, but his frustration and impatience were clear just the same. “Will you not for once just do as I ask without trying to debate me?”

  Chastened, Adair immediately dismounted and followed his father to the stand of trees. The scent of the pines was strong, and the morning dew lingered on the grass in the shade.

  When his father faced him, Adair was shocked to realize he didn’t seem angry at all. “I have to ask youe this, Adair. Did you consummate the marriage?”

  Adair blushed like a lad, but he couldn’t help it. “Aye.”

  His father let his breath out slowly. “Good.”

  “If you had any doubts about it, you should have come to my teach before you went to her brother.”

  “I didn’t want to disturb you, and I was fairly certain what your answer would be anyway. I thought you’d need your rest.”

  Adair didn’t know what to say to that.

  His father’s expression altered to one grave and grim. “And I didn’t think you’d be able to keep your temper when you saw Sir Nicholas.”

  As much as he wanted to, Adair couldn’t refute that.

  “The man enrages me, too, my son, but we can’t risk open warfare with a friend of the king.”

  Adair nodded, silently conceding the point, albeit reluctantly. “So what happened when you got to Dunkeathe?”

  “Things are not as bad as they could have been, yet it wasn’t a pleasant meeting.”

  “We couldn’t expect anything else. I don’t suppose he even let you through the gates.”

  Seamus shook his head. “No, he didn’t. I doubt any Mac Taran’s going to get inside that castle again while he rules it, and that includes your wife. He met us outside the gates. But even so, I didn’t expect him to say what he did.”

  Adair tried to be patient as Seamus’s gaze scanned the sky as if searching for the right words before coming to rest on his son.

  “The man was filled with anger, Adair,” he said at last. “Not hot with it, as you would be. Cold, like the blade of a headman’s ax left out in the snow.”

  Adair could imagine it, and some of the things such a man might say at such a time. “Did he dare to threaten you? You’re the thane by right of charter, and a chieftain, and friend of the king—”

  “No, he made no threats,” his father interrupted, shaking his snow-white head. “Not in the beginning nor after I told him you’d married his sister.”

  “He didn’t say he’d go to Alexander?”

  “He never spoke of the king at all.”

  “Then he’ll not have me charged with a crime?”

  His father shook his head, and yet he still seemed grave and troubled.

  “What of the betrothal with Hamish Mac Glogan? He must have been upset about the end of that.”

  “He never said a word about it.”

  “Then what did he say?” That could make you act like you were facing execution, Adair finished in his thoughts.

  Or perhaps Seamus feared for his son’s life. “If he threatened me, I’m not afraid.”

  His hand on the hilt of his claimh mor, his father kicked a stone and sent it rolling through the dead needles at his feet. “He didn’t threaten you.”

  “Marianne, then? I can believe the lout’d go after his own sister. But that’s an empty threat, as he has to know. We can protect her.”

  Seamus shook his head again. “That’s not what’s troubling me, my son.” His heavy brows furrowed as he regarded his son steadily. “He wouldn’t take the letter she wrote. He said he had no sister.”

  Adair’s jaw dropped with stunned disbelief. “No sister?” he repeated, scarcely able to comprehend what his father was saying. Yet if Marianne wasn’t Sir Nicholas’s sister…“Is this some kind of Norman trick?”

  And if so, who was Marianne?

  “It’s no trick,” his father said, putting his hand on his son’s arm. “She’s his sister by blood and birth. That’s not what he meant. Sir Nicholas said that as far as he was concerned, Marianne was dead, just as if she’d fallen to her death when she went out the window, and she could rot in hell for all he cared.”

  “The bloody bastard,” Adair muttered. He wished the man was there now. He’d give him a lesson in family loyalty Sir Nicholas would never forget.

  “His sister’s hurt his pride as much as ruined his plans,” Seamus said. “And for now, it’s the injury to his pride that’s the worst, I think. That’s why his anger is more at her than you, although I think he’d likely run you through if he could.”

  Adair had never loathed anyone in his life as much as he loathed Sir Nicholas. “Yet he took the bride price?”

  “Aye. He said it’d be some small compensation for the breaking of the betrothal.”

  Adair remembered what her brother had called her. He’d shouted the word like an accusation of murder. “If he thinks she’s a whore, what does that make him for taking that money?” he snapped as he strode past Seamus, intending to go to Dunkeathe and teach that bloody Norman bastard respect.

  Seamus clapped a hand on his son’s broad shoulder, making him halt. “Leave him for now, my son, and stay away from Dunkeathe. We’ve got peace, of a sort, anyway. And the Norman does have a grievance, or enough that other Normans will take his side if he chooses to fight, so we should be relieved he’s not, and that he’s not planning to go to Alexander.” The chieftain eyed his son. “Will you obey in this, Adair?”

  Although Adair itched to tell Nicholas what he thought of a man who would so easily cast off his sister, his father had ordered him to stay away from Dunkeathe, so he would.

  He had to prove that he could still be trusted. “Aye, Father, I will.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  AT THE SAME TIME Adair was talking with his father, Marianne was wearing her ugly brown dress and wondering what she was supposed to do for the rest of the day.

  She surveyed the bare stone walls of the chamber. Perhaps with some tapestries, and a few more items of furniture and a brazier, this room could be comfortable, even in the winter.

  At least it was mercifully separate from the other buildings in the fortress. She blushed when she thought of the passionate noises she’d made last night, and Adair, too, as they loved. It was a relief to think that nobody had overheard them.

  Comfortable chamber or not, and in spite of the delicious pleasure she’d found in her husband’s arms, life here wasn’t going to be easy. For one thing, she didn’t know the language. She’d always hated it when the twins from Paris had jabbered away in their own secret tongue at the convent, shutting out everybody else while obviously gossiping about them. She wasn’t going to live the rest of her life feeling shut out from the people of her husband’s household, or the village, so she’d have to learn their language.

  She’d also have to find out the way things were done in Lochbarr. Her education hadn’t prepared her for life among the Scots, but she’d made her choice when she’d demanded Adair marry her, and it was up to her to learn to live here.

  A sound made her start. Something was scratching at the door—a dog, perhaps? Or a cat after a mouse? If it was a mouse, she wasn’t getting near it, even to catch it. She hated the furry little creatures, and always had since Henry had dropped one down her neck when they were children.

  The latch lifted. So, not a dog or cat.

  If it was Adair, she would find out what had happened when his father went to Beauxville. She was sure Nicholas would still be furiously angry, and could only hope her letter had served its purpose.

  Instead of Adair coming through the door, however, Dearshul appeared, carrying a tray covered w
ith a square of linen in one hand and a steaming bucket in the other. She didn’t move beyond the door, but stared at the floor and mumbled something that sounded vaguely like an apology.

  In spite of her desire to appear dignified as befit a Norman lady, Marianne couldn’t help blushing, too. Everyone in Lochbarr, Dearshul included, would know what had gone on here last night in general, if not in glorious detail.

  Nevertheless trying to act as if that thought hadn’t occurred to her, Marianne motioned for the young woman to come inside.

  Dearshul said something else again and scurried toward the table, setting the tray upon it and putting the bucket on the floor. As she uncovered the tray, the odor of fresh bread wafted toward Marianne. There was a bowl of something else on the tray, steaming like the bucket, and a bronze goblet.

  The bread smelled wonderful. It seemed a very long time since she’d had a proper meal.

  The bucket on the floor held hot water for washing, she assumed. That would be very welcome, too. But she couldn’t eat yet.

  “Mass?” she inquired of the young serving woman, folding her hands as if in prayer and raising her brows in query.

  Dearshul clearly didn’t understand what she was asking about.

  “Church?” she said, trying again. “Priest?”

  A look of understanding dawned. Then Dearshul frowned and shook her head.

  “The priest doesn’t say mass every morning?”

  Marianne realized it was useless to question a girl who couldn’t understand you. Nevertheless, she mimed taking the holy bread and shook her head. “No mass?”

  The young woman said something in a flurry of unfamiliar words, then likewise shook her head. “No mass,” Dearshul repeated, saying the French words tentatively.

  She should have guessed that they were no more religious than her brother. Living in such a place might cause one to despair that God could hear prayers, especially for fine weather.

  In spite of that disappointment, Marianne was impressed by Dearshul’s attempt to speak French. Perhaps as she struggled to learn Adair’s tongue, Dearshul could learn hers. It would be nice to be able to speak to a woman in her own language.

  Meanwhile, she would do as she’d done in Beauxville—ask God for forgiveness, and eat.

  “Food,” Marianne said, moving her hand as if bringing something to her mouth.

  Dearshul smiled shyly.

  “And drink,” Marianne said, pointing to the goblet filled with something that smelled like mead as she sat on the stool, feigning lifting it and drinking.

  “Drink,” Dearshul repeated.

  Marianne raised her brows. “Drink?” she asked, pretending to lift the cup to her lips again. She pointed to Dearshul, hoping she would understand that she was asking for the Scots’ word.

  Dearshul smiled, her eyes bright, as she, too, feigned taking a drink. “Ol.”

  “Ol,” Marianne repeated, nodding and smiling in return.

  Too hungry to learn or teach more words, she took the bread and bit into it, while Dearshul scurried over to the bed and started to pull off the sheets, including the bottom one that had small spots of dried blood on it.

  So much for her husband’s assurance that being a virgin didn’t matter. She shouldn’t have been so quick to believe him.

  Yet she was disappointed nonetheless.

  Her arms full of sheets, Dearshul said something else, nodded at the bed, then hurried from the room.

  Apparently it was important that this checking of the sheets be done quickly. Again, she shouldn’t be surprised, or even embarrassed. A Norman husband would surely do the same. She should be glad the evidence was there to be seen.

  So why did Adair tell her otherwise? To make her think Scots were kinder? To set her at ease?

  What did it matter? It was done. She had been a virgin, and she should be proud of that.

  Trying not to imagine people commenting about her wedding night and the blood on the sheets, Marianne finished the bread and mead, which was surprisingly good. She studied the unappetizing gray substance in the bowl, then leaned over and sniffed. She’d smelled worse, and she was still hungry.

  There wasn’t any spoon. Perhaps she was supposed to use the bread to lift it to her mouth. Well, she couldn’t do that now, so instead, she tentatively dipped her finger into the gray mass and stuck it in her mouth.

  Not the most appealing taste, but edible. She was nearly finished when Dearshul returned, opening the door without so much as a knock. She walked in, saw Marianne with her fingers in the bowl and stared.

  Marianne jumped up and instinctively stuck her sticky finger into her mouth, like a very small child. Hardly something that would inspire respect, she realized, quickly taking it out.

  She marched to the door and rapped her knuckles against the wood. “You should knock in future,” she commanded.

  Dearshul’s face reddened and she looked about to cry.

  Marianne instantly regretted being so abrupt. “You surprised me, that’s all,” she said, trying not to sound overly contrite, but sorry enough to tell the young woman she wasn’t very upset anymore.

  Head lowered, Dearshul scurried forward to pick up the tray, and Marianne was more sorry than ever that she’d reacted with such haste. She didn’t want to lose Dearshul’s good opinion, too.

  She smiled and stepped in front of the door as Dearshul hurried back. “I’m sorry,” she said, not caring if she sounded dignified or not.

  Dearshul nodded and gave her a shy smile before departing.

  Marianne sighed and hoped she hadn’t caused another problem.

  But what was she to do now? Sit and wait for Adair to return?

  She went to the window, opened the shutter and looked outside. For a miracle, the sun was shining and the ground actually appeared fairly dry.

  She would inspect her new home, this fortress and the village beyond. There must be a market there, where she could spend the money Seamus had given her.

  As she turned away from the window, a boisterous group of young men dressed in their wool plaids and linen shirts, and with daggers in their belts, strolled past a nearby building, laughing and talking.

  Would she be safe wandering about Lochbarr by herself?

  Adair was the chieftain’s son and she was Adair’s wife. Surely she would be.

  It was either assume she would, or sit here with the stripped bed, alone with her thoughts, while waiting for her husband to return.

  WATER JUGS BALANCED on their hips, a group of women by the well in the fortress of Lochbarr fell silent as Adair’s wife strolled past. The Norman glanced at them, her expression indecipherable, as she continued toward the gate.

  One of the Scotswomen, tall, with thick dark hair and ample breasts, spit in Marianne’s direction.

  “Look at her, that Norman slut,” Fionnaghal sneered. “Strolling about as free and easy as if she’s lived here all her life, and we’re all delighted that she’s wed our chieftain’s son.” She grimaced. “I’d like to rip the hair off her head.”

  A middle-aged woman whose light brown hair was streaked with gray, and whose body made it clear she’d borne several children, set her jug on the side of the well.

  “You’d better keep a civil tongue in your head when you speak of her, Fionnaghal,” Ceit advised as she started to lower the bucket. “She’s Adair’s wife now, and neither he nor his father or his brother will take kindly to insults to her.”

  “She’s Adair’s wife because he was tricked into it by that scheming Norman hussy,” Fionnaghal retorted. “Surely you don’t think we ought to welcome her?”

  The other younger women looked to Ceit.

  “Not welcome with open arms,” she replied as the bucket splashed deep in the well. “But when all is said and done, she’s the wife of the man who’ll be the chieftain when his father dies.”

  Ceit kept her gaze on Fionnaghal as she began to draw the bucket back. “None of us have to have the Sight to know why you hate her, Fionnaghal. Bu
t Adair never looked at you that way, no matter how you tried, so let it alone.”

  “So I wanted him. So I’m sorry he didn’t want me,” Fionnaghal shot back. “But to marry a Norman—and him always claiming he hated them.”

  “Aye. If ’twas anybody except himself brought back a Norman woman, he’d be frothing at the mouth like a rabid dog,” the sandy-haired Isaebal noted, siding with her friend. “And his father, too. Adair’s always been able to twist his father ’round his finger. Still, I’m surprised Seamus agreed to the marriage.”

  Ceit started to fill Isaebel’s jug, for she was skilled at that task and didn’t spill nearly as much water as the other women. “What else could Seamus do?”

  “Maybe taking that woman’s their way of paying back the Normans for the cattle they’ve stolen,” the newly-wedded Una shyly suggested as she moved forward.

  Una’s equally young husband, dutifully at his post by the gate, smiled at her and waved, making her blush and fumble as she lifted her jug to the side of the well. Ceit gave her an indulgent smile as the bucket hit the water again.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Fionnaghal snapped peevishly, making Una jump. “I tell you, she’s a lying, scheming whore.”

  “She was a virgin.”

  The women turned to see Dearshul approaching, a bucket grasped in her hands and a frown on her face.

  Fionnaghal’s eyes narrowed. “How would you know about that?”

  While Ceit filled Una’s water jug, Dearshul halted on the other side of the well across from Fionnaghal.

  “The sheets.” Dearshul lifted the bucket a few inches. “I’ve come to get water to wash away the blood.”

  “It doesn’t mean she bled from that,” Fionnaghal replied. “I wouldn’t put it past her to try some whore’s trick.”

  “She’s not a whore. She’s a lady.”

  Fionnaghal’s lip curled with disdain. “Oh, well then, no wonder you think she’s perfect. I’d wager she could treat you worse than a dog and you’d beg for more.” Holding out her woolen skirt, Fionnaghal swanned around the well. “Because you’re fool enough to think you can be a lady, too, if only you try hard enough. As if Lachlann’d ever think of marrying you. That’s about as likely as—”