The Highland Hero (Lairds of Dunkeld Series) (A Medieval Scottish Romance Story)

by Emilia Ferguson

  They slept.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  JOYOUS HOMECOMING

  JOYOUS HOMECOMING

  The ride back from Lochlann was slow. Blaine insisted that they only ride for half a day, and so they broke the journey at an inn called the Babbling Stream. The bed was cold and hard, but it did not bother them overmuch, for they spent the night lost in each other’s arms.

  The next morning, around noon, they found themselves almost at Dunkeld. Chrissie felt her spirits lift. Soon she would see her cousins again!

  Their welcome at the castle was indeed a hearty one. Amabel, always happy for an excuse for a party, invited their neighbors and threw a feast of which Chrissie – tired and slightly queasy again – was sure she could not partake as much as she would have wished. She found herself opposite a familiar face, however.

  “Alina!” she smiled. She had seen her only briefly when they arrived, a tall, dark haired woman in a white gown smiling serenely from the stairwell. Here, now, she found herself faced with a woman who, if still pale, had a flush of color in her cheeks and eyes that sparkled.

  “I am glad to see you in good health. And thank you for your help,” she added archly. Chrissie dimpled and felt suddenly shy, looking at her plate.

  “I didn't...oh, Alina! It is so wonderful to be home again.”

  “I'm glad you're back,” Alina agreed. “Now. Are you going to try some of this roast? I believe Broderick shot it earlier, which is why I am somewhat dubious. But apparently it's good for my health, so...”

  “Are you being rude about my hunting skills, again?” Broderick, who sat beside Alina, asked. He was grinning, though, and Chrissie guessed this was a longstanding gibe.

  “No,” Alina said lightly. “I just wonder if you're not too hasty to check what it is you're shooting,” she said. “I'm awfully suspicious that this is actually one of Seamus' goats from the hillside.”

  They all laughed. Duncan raised his glass to Alina and her black eyes were shining.

  Amabel giggled. “She has you there, husband.”

  Broderick chuckled, and waved away the laughter. “I surrender,” he agreed. “Yes, I am hasty.”

  “Not too hasty, though, brother,” Duncan teased, eyes twinkling. “You still missed your last shot.”

  Broderick looked at him, eyes wide. “You scoundrel!” he laughed. “Must you tell everyone?”

  Duncan tipped his head back and his merry laughter filled the room. “You beat me anyway, Brother.”

  “Good.”

  Chrissie, looking from one to the other, felt her heart fill with happiness. She looked to her right where her husband sat, smiling, dark eyes shining with mirth. She squeezed his knee and felt as if she had never felt so joyful.

  It was good to be back.

  Later that evening, she lay in bed, her stomach aching, wishing she had not eaten as much as she had. She felt as if she might die. She heard a knock at the door. Alina drifted in, long black hair freshly brushed and shining. She came and sat on the bed.

  “Chrissie. How are you feeling? Not well, I think?”

  Chrissie pulled a face at her and they both smiled.

  “I feel horrible, Alina,” she confessed. “Is this...as it should be?”

  Alina smiled. “I think so. At least, Amabel has felt this bad. I felt terrible, too.”

  “Oh.” Chrissie looked at her hands, feeling uncertain whether pregnancy was something Alina wished to discuss. She looked up again and noticed that her cousin had a strange secret smile. She wanted to ask her what it was, but trusted that Alina would tell her in time.

  “Your babe will be strong,” Alina said, though Chrissie had not asked her. She sat perfectly still, aware that Alina's gift did not move her to prophesy all that often, and that if she wished to know, she should be still and pay her heed. Alina smiled. “He is...he will surprise you,” she said.

  When she looked up, her black eyes, olive shaped and fringed with lashes, were smiling. Chrissie did not understand quite what it was she meant, but the words filled her with a deep sense of peace. She smiled back.

  In that moment, she felt as if she and Alina had crossed some sort of bridge. Always close, it felt as if they had entered a new realm of closeness. It was a good feeling. She squeezed Alina's hand and Alina squeezed back.

  Later, when her cousin had gone to bed, Chrissie lay back and waited for Blaine to come in. He had stayed on to talk to Duncan who had been quite merry when she went upstairs, feeling ill. She heard the door squeak and Blaine tiptoed in.

  She sat up, watching him take off his boots and sit down heavily on the bed. He turned to look at her, his eyes soft with love.

  “I'm awake,” she whispered.

  “Good.”

  He undressed and they lay together and their bodies explored each other almost without their volition. Later, as she fell asleep, Chrissie knew that she had never in her life felt quite this happy.

  The days lengthened into months. Winter came and the road to the castle filled with snow. Confined mainly to the upper rooms, Chrissie spent most of her time swathed in fur cloaks, sitting by the fire, sewing garments for the babe.

  Alina was a constant companion, and she seemed to be working on some complicated piece of sewing, the purpose of which she did not confide and Chrissie did not inquire. Amabel joined them sometimes in the cozier space of the turret room – the solar was too cold at this time of year. Sometimes, she brought Joanna to join them and Chrissie felt a stab of wistfulness, seeing the little girl curled up beside Amabel on the settee, fast asleep.

  Soon I will have a babe in my own arms.

  She wondered how Alina felt, seeing her sister with her babies. However, Alina always seemed happy with the children, never resentful, and Chrissie was glad it did not cause her pain. The months seemed to have helped Alina's health, for her cheeks had flushed red and her skin seemed suffused with a pearly glow that lent her already ethereal beauty a breathtaking loveliness.

  “Alina?” Chrissie asked one afternoon, just before Candlemas, the darkest part of the year. She was sitting opposite Alina, whose black hair was shining in flame light, the fire playing on the pearly sheen of her cheek. Her gown was low-necked, and the light shone on the soft roundness of her breasts, their skin traced with a pale blue veins.

  Chrissie stared. Suddenly, without needing to be told, she guessed. She looked up to see Alina's black eyes watching her. The damask lips smiled at her.

  “What?” Alina's voice teased her.

  “Alina,” Chrissie said softly. “You are...you're...”

  “I am expecting a child,” Alina said quietly. “You are right.”

  “But what? When? How...oh, Alina!” Chrissie exclaimed loudly. She jumped out of her seat and ran to her cousin, kissing that pearl white cheek. “Oh, how wonderful!”

  “About a few weeks after you, I should think,” Alina said carefully. “I didn't want to say, not until I knew. However, it is just on three months now, and nothing changed. So I ...” she trailed off, and Chrissie noticed her eyes shone and her mouth worked, as if she tried not to give vent to her tears.

  Chrissie gulped. “Alina,” she said gently. She felt lost for words. It was wonderful! Her cousin was expecting a child and she was, too!

  “I know,” Alina smiled.

  They said nothing, only held each other’s gaze. So much passed between them in that moment, so much of understanding.

  “Amabel,” Chrissie said.

  “She suspects, yes,” Alina said. “I think she knows I do not want to speculate...but she knows, yes.”

  “Oh!” Chrissie covered her mouth with her hands, a happy laugh escaping her before she could stop it. “Oh, this is so wonderful! We will give birth almost at the same time, I think...How full of life the house will be then!”

  Alina looked at her, dark eyes blank. She gave an ironic grin. “Yes. Indeed. That will be...quite an experience, I suspect.”

  They both laughed and the afternoon passed in h
appy sewing and excited thoughts.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  JOY DOUBLED

  JOY DOUBLED

  Chrissie and Alina went into labor on the same day. It happened suddenly, one June morning. The days were lengthening, the air with true warmth in it, carrying the scent of flowers.

  Chrissie stood to put her sewing on the table, having spent the last weeks confined to her bedchamber upstairs. As she bent down to put the sewing on the wooden surface, she felt it.

  Fluid, flowing down her thighs. Her womb clenched, suddenly, and she gasped, holding her hand there as the pain stabbed through her.

  “Blaine?” she called out. “Alina?”

  Ambeal found her, her hand going to her mouth. “Oh, milady!” she said, at once terrified and rejoicing. “It's come. Quickly, now, let's get you into bed and call Mrs. Tavish...”

  “No,” Chrissie said, gasping as another pain lashed out at her. “Alina...bring my cousin?”

  Ambeal nodded and hurried off, returning a moment later with a strange look.

  “Your cousin's been called down with birth pains,” she said.

  Chrissie stared. “Her baby is coming too?”

  “Yes,” Ambeal said. “Same day. By! We're in for a day.”

  They were. Chrissie did not experience much of it, however. Another contraction slammed into her and she gasped, this one even more painful than those pains that had come before it. Hissing in a breath, she sat up in bed and clawed at the chair beside it.

  “Fetch someone?”

  Ambeal nodded and hurried from the room.

  Amabel herself stepped in as midwife, assisting Mrs. Tavish and the cook, both of whom had skills in midwifery. Amabel spent her afternoon, and later on, as the day set and the night fell on the castle, her evening, rushing from the turret to the bedchamber, going between Chrissie and Alina, carrying cloths, water, and salt from one room to the other, her flushed face and bright eyes a comfort to Chrissie.

  “How...is...Alina?” she asked, hissing, as another contraction bit into her and she gasped, straining, and clawed onto the cook and Ambeal, who held her upright.

  “Oh, Alina's fine,” Amabel said with a smile, scraping stray hair off her own forehead with a distracted hand. “The one worrying me is Blaine.”

  “Blaine?” Chrissie felt a sudden stab of alarm. She gripped Ambeal's hand so hard the girl tensed, and Chrissie, feeling bad, tried to relax her grip. “Amabel? What's wrong with him? Please...”

  Amabel laughed. “Oh, Chrissie! I didn't mean to worry you. He's well. He's only wild with distraction. He would have come barging in here to check we were caring for you properly. Duncan's down there keeping him company. The pair of them are more nervous than if the castle was besieged. You ought to see them...” she chuckled, covering her mouth with her hand.

  Chrissie wanted to laugh, but the pain caught her then and for a while she was not conscious. All she could feel was the pressing, gripping, slamming, grating urgency as her child, big and strong, struggled to get into the world.

  As she felt her body almost rip itself apart, the contractions tearing at her womb, she screamed and saw in the eye of her thoughts a small boy, a button-nosed, dark-haired, wise-eyed boy who instantly snatched at her soul.

  Screaming, gasping, holding Ambeal's and Mrs. Hollis', the cook, hands as if they would break, her child was born.

  She lay back, almost too weak to open her eyes, as Amabel came in, radiant with happiness.

  “You have a son,” Amabel's voice said to her, reaching down into the deep half-consciousness where she lay. She sounded richly contented.

  I know, Chrissie wanted to whisper. “I can...see?” she asked, sitting up on the pillows. Beside her, Mrs. Hollis was busy collecting linen off the bed for washing, and Ambeal was busy in the corner, washing something.

  “Yes,” Amabel said gently. “Of course. Here he is.”

  Chrissie looked down at the babe in her arms. He looked up at her, wrinkled face reddened with the hot water in which he had just been bathed. His eyes were creased and closed, one hand resting just outside the swaddling. She stared at him, feeling her chest melt with emotions so complex she could not have ever thought she would feel them.

  She sighed. His head was covered with a dark down, and his little face was scrunched and perfect, his nose a button, just as she had seen. His brow was heavy and it had something of Blaine in it. She felt her heart beat faster and, when she unwrapped him, counting his toes, she knew.

  His second toes were bent over, a strange deformity she had only seen before in one place. Blaine. This was her husband's son, after all.

  He will surprise you.

  Chrissie, feeling as if her heart had just soared into the heavens, knew that he certainly had.

  “His name is Conn,” she said. “Conn Francis McNeil”

  Then, closing her eyes, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  Later, the darkness had filled the room, banished with the golden glow of candles everywhere. Chrissie woke, lifting tired eyelids, and straining for memory. She suddenly recalled why she was so exhausted, each muscle aching.

  Conn.

  “Conn...” she murmured.

  “Chrissie.”

  She blinked and turned right. Blaine was there. Blaine, hunched and gray with lack of sleep, his face weary and suddenly aged with worry. Blaine, who reached out and took her hands, holding her hand between his own. Blaine, who kissed her fingers.

  “My dearest. Are you safe?”

  Chrissie smiled. “Yes,” she said. “Have you seen our son?”

  “I have,” Blaine said cautiously. “He was asleep, though, and I did not want to wake you. Or him. So I haven't... not really.”

  “We should look,” Chrissie said. Blaine held out a hand as if to try and keep her in bed, but she sat up and slid her feet into the slippers she always left at the edge of the bed. Blaine stood and held her steady as she donned them, face and posture rigid with care. She patted his hand.

  Her whole body ached and she felt as if she had fallen down all the stairs in the castle. She went slowly, arm linked through Blaine's as together they made the seemingly long walk across their chamber to the crib where it stood across from the fire.

  “Here is our son,” Chrissie whispered.

  Blaine looked down at him. Chrissie saw so many emotions cross his face: gentleness, wonder, regret. When his face settled into a look of wistfulness that tore her heart, he whispered, “He's wonderful.”

  Chrissie swallowed hard. “He is our son, Blaine.” She reached down and, very tenderly, not wanting to wake the sleeping child, rolled his blanket aside. “Look,” she said, pointing to his feet.

  Blaine looked, a puzzled frown on his face. He looked at the toes, then back at her. He counted them. He looked at Chrissie, questions written in his eyes. He looked back at the toes. Then he suddenly understood. He stepped back and sat down in the chair, heavily. He stared at her. Then he covered his face with his hands.

  “Oh, Chrissie,” he whispered. “They're like mine, aren't they? They are. I thought...I thought...” he swallowed hard and Chrissie saw as he felt the relief and he broke down. He sobbed. “I would have loved him anyway, Chrissie,” he said to her sincerely as she came and sat down lightly on the bed opposite, taking his hands. “I would have! I swear it. He is your son, and that would be enough for me. But to see...to know...” he swallowed hard. “I...I can't believe it.”

  He gave her a shaky smile and Chrissie felt her heart melt. She leaned forward and kissed his lips and the salt of their tears mingled on their mouths, warm, clear, and cleansing.

  Later, when he lay beside her in their bed, his hands resting on her chest, her head on his shoulder, he whispered into her hair.

  “Alina is well, too. She was very weak. I think she is still sleeping. But she is recovering fast.”

  “How is she?” Chrissie asked quickly, rolling over and half-sitting, weight propped on one elbow as she looked earnestly into
his eyes. She felt wretched! In her own relatedness and fatigue she had momentarily forgotten Alina and her perils. “Is she well? Is the babe well? How is she?”

  “She is well,” Blaine chuckled. He kissed her hair. “So is the babe. Do you want to go and see her now? I'm sure she would not mind.”

  “Oh, yes!” Chrissie nodded fervently, and together they slipped out of bed, throwing a thick fur cape over her shoulders for warmth. So Alina had a daughter. That would please her, Chrissie thought. Perhaps the babe would grow to be a seer, like Alina herself. It seemed it ran in the family.

  Out of the bed it was cold. They struggled down the corridor together, wincing in the chill air, heading to the turret room where Alina had given birth some hours before.

  They slid open the door, wincing as it creaked. Inside, all was silent. Alina was in bed now, too, apparently asleep, her dark hair loose about her shoulders, pale face utterly reposeful in deep sleep. Amabel was sitting with her, fast asleep in a chair by the bed, head tipped back. So was Duncan: he sat at the end of the bed in a wooden chair, head slumped forward, breath wheezing in the easy rhythm of rest.

  Chrissie and Blaine smiled at the three of them and tiptoed to the corner, where a cradle was standing at the fireside. Together they peered in.

  A small face lay on the pillow, eyes closed. The hair was a faint suggestion of golden brown, like Duncan. The face itself was elfin, delicate and composed, just like Alina.

  “She has a daughter,” Chrissie said, more a statement than inquiry. Blaine had earlier mentioned “her”. This child seemed feminine already with her graceful features.

  “Yes,” Blaine breathed back.

  “Have they named her yet?” Chrissie smiled, looking at the elfin face, and noticing how different it was to Conn already. He had a heavy brow and a compact face, where this babe had the delicacy of Alina, with a pouting mouth that gave her a strangely determined air.

  “Not yet,” Blaine whispered. “At least, I don't think so. Duncan didn't tell me. I was too busy trying to claw the door down to get to where you were.”