It had only been two months since the battle, but Ardgleann was nearly as good as it had been. There was still some grief and unseen wounds, but the healing had begun. There were signs that a few of the men from the neighboring clans had their eyes on the widows of Ardgleann. Life goes on, Liam thought as he walked over and picked Lightning off Keira’s back, giving an exaggerated sigh when the cat draped itself over his shoulder and purred. Thunder hopped off Joan and draped herself over his feet, obviously trying to purr louder than her brother. Very spoiled cats indeed, he mused.
Keira sat back on her heels and laughed softly. “They dinnae believe all of your scowls and grumbles.”
“This isnae dignified,” Liam said, idly scratching Lightning’s back just to see if he could get the cat to purr louder. “A laird shouldnae be draped in cats.” Both women laughed, and Liam enjoyed the sound of the continued healing of Ardgleann. “I have just discovered another skill in our Kester. He is verra good at catching rabbits. He has a string of them and wonders what to do with them now.”
Joan got to her feet and brushed off her skirts. “I will see to that, m’laird. They will make us a fine meal tonight.” She hurried off toward the kitchen.
Liam held out his hand, and when Keira frowned at her own rather dirty hand and hesitated to offer it to him, he grabbed it to pull her to her feet. “I am draped in shedding cats, Keira. A wee bit of dirt willnae matter. If ye would be so kind as to take that cat off my feet, we could sit beneath the apple tree for a wee while.”
Picking up Thunder, Keira walked with Liam to the rough stone bench beneath the apple tree. She sat down beside him, setting the cat on her lap. “I should finish clearing away the weeds.”
“We will both return to our work soon.” He put his arm around her shoulders and held her close. “Do ye think there is enough time left in the growing season for ye to gain a good harvest from your garden?”
“If winter is kind enough to come a wee bit late this year, aye. Otherwise, we will get a harvest, but things will be much smaller than they usually are.”
“Aye, ’tis what the men say about the fields planted,” he murmured, “but ’twas worth a try. Howbeit, e’en the MacKay laird says that for this first winter, he will help if we need it. But there is hope yet, for we seem to be getting an equal share of sun and rain, which is good for the growing. Or, so the men in the fields tell me.” He smiled. “I nod in all the appropriate places.”
Keira laughed. “They are right if that is what ye are wondering. As I keep saying, we are most fortunate in our kinsmen and allies. They willnae allow us to go hungry, and ’tis a great comfort to ken that. ’Tis also comforting that our fighting men have been replaced. Sir Archie is verra pleased with them.”
“As am I. They begin to act as one now, as they should.”
“And ye are verra pleased your cousin Tait has come to be your second. Ye can admit it,” she teased. “I vow to tell no one.”
Liam lightly tugged her braid in gentle punishment for her teasing. “Aye, I am verra pleased. I was only a little hesitant because I feared there was some unhappy reason he came here, such as a falling out with Sigimor. But it is as he said. Sigimor has more men than he needs, and brothers and cousins are plentiful. Tait thought I might have need of another one.”
“And here he isnae just one of many,” Keira murmured. “Here he can be more than just another younger brother to the laird.”
“There is some truth in that. ’Tis also no sin to have a wee bit of ambition. At Dubheidland, Tait was really no more than another one of the men at arms. Here, he is my second, and he has some command o’er the men. Once I kenned Sir Archie’s sight had been restored, I had thought of asking him to be my second, but I hesitated for he didnae seem to want to do more than train the men. I am glad now that I did falter for Sir Archie’s warm acceptance of Tait revealed that I was right Sir Archie likes what he is—a good soldier and a good trainer of men. Oh, did ye ken that he has been courting Hattie?”
Keira nodded, enjoying the rare warmth of a sunny day almost as much as she enjoyed sitting with Liam and being held close to his side. “Hattie isnae sure what to do. She told me there is a part of her that is verra happy living in her wee cottage, making her dyes, and not having to deal with men, but there is another part that grows lonely.”
“Ah, but is that part lonely for Sir Archie?”
“Hattie feels certain it is. When she told him that she had been a whore for five years and had bedded down with a lot of men, he said he had been a mercenary for fifteen years and had probably put more men in the grave than she could bed in a lifetime. He said they would both probably go to hell but at least they could be there together if they were married.” Keira smiled when Liam laughed, but she quickly grew serious again. “Hattie also thinks that she is with child.”
“Is she?” There had been only six women so far who had found themselves with child after their ordeal, but as yet, none seemed to think they would need to accept Keira’s offer to give up the child to her care.
“Aye. She still doesnae believe it e’en though I told her two and thirty isnae too old and nothing outside of complete abstinence can guarantee that a woman willnae conceive a child. Sir Archie says he doesnae mind at all, e’en though it is surely Rauf’s child. I thought myself free of the superstitions concerning bad seeds and all of that, but I did suffer a moment of unease when she told me. Poor bairn will probably suffer for it, too, at least a wee bit.”
Liam nodded, having just suffered that same unease. “Ye need to pause and remind yourself that ’tis as much who does the raising of the bairn as who did the breeding that makes a mon. Or woman. One only needs to look at Kester to be reminded, too. Ridiculed and cast aside by his own blood, hard, unkind men, and yet he is a good lad.”
“I think that in some ways, it was good he went to the monastery, that those kinsmen didnae have the full raising of him.”
For a little while, they sat in the sun, quietly enjoying a moment of peace together. Liam soon decided that Keira was not ready to tell him that she was with child. There was a small chance she had not noticed yet, even though she was a healer, being either too busy or too blind to the changes in her own body. He had noticed, however, if only because it had suddenly occurred to him that there had been no interruption in their lovemaking since the day they had married. If she was not suffering any of the other ills that afflicted a woman with child, it was possible that she had not realized it yet. It was getting harder and harder not to just ask her, however.
Deciding he had better return to work before he did just that, Liam took Lightning off his shoulder and set the cat down, ignoring the animal’s disgruntled look. “I had best return to work,” he said, kissing Keira before he walked away. One more week, he told himself. He would give her one more week to tell him.
Keira watched her husband walk away, admiring his grace as he walked and, she was no longer ashamed to admit, the shape of his legs. Since it was a fine day, he wore what he called the Ardgleann plaid over a rough linen shirt and his deer-hide boots. The deep greens, blues, and touch of black in the plaid suited him. She had teased him the first time he had donned the outfit, claiming he was too shy to show his bare legs, and he had told her that he wore his boots because there were too many things upon the ground he did not wish to have oozing up between his toes. Keira understood that well enough, but she also knew that her husband was a very fastidious man.
She sighed, set Thunder on the ground, and returned to her weeding. Very soon she was going to have to tell Liam that he would be a father in about seven months. It still embarrassed her to think of how long it had taken her to realize it. For far too long, she had excused the uneasiness in her stomach by telling herself she was working too hard or was too concerned about Ardgleann and its people. When she had finally faced the fact that she carried Liam’s child, she had been delighted and then dismayed.
For almost a fortnight now, she had come close to telling him, only
to choke on the words. It was probably foolish, but Keira wanted to know how he felt about her before she became the mother of his child. Since she could not discern how he truly felt about her when it was just the two of them, she doubted she would ever figure it out after he knew about the child she carried. The only way she could know what he felt then would be if she asked him outright, perhaps even told him all she felt. Keira did not have the courage to do that yet, and she suspected it would be a long time before she did.
“Ye didnae tell him, did ye?”
Blushing a little, Keira looked up at Joan. “Weel, nay.” She sat back on her heels and shrugged. “It shouldnae be so hard, should it, but it is. ’Tis so foolish, yet, ’tis almost as if I am jealous of my own child. I have no doubt in my mind that Liam will be most pleased, and probably, verra caring, e’en too much so.”
“And ye would like it if he was that way for just you, nay ye and what rests in your womb.”
“Aye, that says it rather weel.”
Joan grabbed Keira by the hand, pulled her to her feet, and started to lead her toward the bench. “’Tis time ye and I had a wee talk, woman to woman.”
“I have already spent too much time sitting,” Keira protested softly. “The weeds—”
“Will still be there.” Joan sat down and then nodded when Keira finally sat down next to her. “Ye have a good mon there, m’lady.”
“I ken it, and if we are to talk woman to woman, should ye still be calling me m’lady?” Keira had to look away from Joan’s scowl before she blushed with guilt over her thin ploy to try to halt the lecture she knew was coming.
“Dinnae try to turn my thoughts down another path. Ye have been wed to that mon for o’er two months, and now ye carry his bairn. ’Tis time to stop wondering and sighing and thinking so cursed hard about it all.”
“’Tis good to think o’er a problem verra carefully.”
“Wheesht, that is true, but ye think it to death. Ye love the mon, dinnae ye?”
“Oh, aye,” Keira answered softly. “I love him so much that sometimes at night, I can be happy just lying near him, listening to him breathe.”
“And I suspicion it has been that way from the beginning.”
“Quite possibly, though I was quite successful in lying to myself.”
“It hits some of us hard and fast like that. I took me one look at Malcolm and thought, this one is mine.” Joan winked at Keira. “I was ten at the time. Malcolm was six and ten. E’en when he left the village for five long years, went away to learn how to make beautiful things with the metals, I ne’er lost faith. Ye need to have faith.”
“I have faith in what I feel, Joan. And I have faith in Liam—as a good mon, a kind mon, one who will ne’er turn from what is his duty. ’Tis what he might feel for me that I lack faith in. He is so bonnie and learned—”
“And ye think he cannae care for a wee lass like ye? Ye arenae still fretting o’er your troubles with Duncan, are ye? I though Malcolm told ye all about that poor mon. It wasnae ye. It was ne’er ye. Ye do ken it now, dinnae ye?”
Keira nodded. “I ken it. The poor mon had been, weel, damaged ere I met him. The verra ones who should have loved him and nurtured him destroyed him.”
“’Tis always sad when that happens,” Joan agreed. “So, ’tis that ye have no faith in yourself.” Joan crossed her arms and frowned at Keira. “And why is that, eh? Why would a bonnie lass like yourself feel she isnae good enough for any mon?”
“Ye havenae seen the sort of women Liam can draw to himself,” Keira muttered, wanting to deny Joan’s insight, yet unable to. She had to wonder just when she had begun to lose faith in herself and why.
“I am sure some of them were beauties, but ye are far from plain, lass. Ye have bright, beautiful eyes. Your hair is lovely, long, and thick. Aye, ye arenae a verra fulsome lass, but ye have flesh enough on your bones and in all the right places.” She glanced down at her own reed slim body and smiled faintly. “More than me, and my mon has ne’er complained. ’Tisnae the body that holds a mon at your side either, but the heart, the spirit of ye, and ye have a hearty serving of both.”
Keira was a little surprised when Joan handed her a scrap of clean linen, and then realized she was crying. “This is so verra foolish,” she said quietly as she wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“’Tis the bairn. Weel, some it is. Now, ye listen to me ere ye go to take a wee rest—”
“Take a rest?” Keira said, but Joan ignored her interruption.
“Ye have yourself a verra good mon. He is the laird and your husband, but he listens to you. ’Tis a verra fine thing that. He has made it verra clear to all of us that ye and he are the laird here, that ye speak for him as he speaks for ye.”
“Oh. I didnae ken that.”
Joan nodded firmly. “To share his authority with his wife is no small thing for a mon to do. And we ken he shares your bed each and every night. I suspicion he keeps it verra warm indeed.” Joan laughed softly when Keira blushed. “The mon cannae keep his hands off ye, m’lady. He is always having to touch ye or give ye a wee kiss when ye are in reach. We can all see that he cares for ye. I cannae understand why ye cannae see it. Wheesht, a bonnie lass of your good birth must have been wooed dozens of times.”
“Nay, I wasnae. ’Tis one reason I was quick to accept Duncan e’en though I didnae ken the mon as much as I would have liked to. I was o’er twenty, and I had ne’er been seriously wooed.” She sighed. “I so wanted children, ye see.”
“What I see is that, weel, how to put this? Did ye ne’er consider that ye just didnae see the attempts to woo ye for what they were because ye werenae really interested in those men? It sounds to me as if ye had already decided to accept the verra first mon to approach ye or your kinsmen and then along came our Duncan. A mon decides to take himself a wife, and he is verra apt to, er, test the water first. If there is no welcome, he will go elsewhere. I think that ye ne’er gave a mon any sign that ye would welcome their wooing, that ye didnae e’en ken that ye were being wooed. So they moved onto the next lass.”
Keira sat up a little straighter and began to consider that, suddenly recalling things said to her by her own family that had been very similar. Unfortunately, she would have to consider that matter later. Joan clearly had more to say.
“And, think, m’lady, ye are a wondrous healer with a blessing from God resting in those wee hands. Ye left here wounded and alone, yet ye got yourself to a safe place, healed, and regained your strength, then brought us what we needed to be free of that bastard Rauf. Aye, and ye were sorely tested by your marriage to a mon who was so scarred and crippled in his mind, he ne’er should have taken a wife. But ye held fast, and we who ken what Duncan’s troubles were truly believed ye could have helped him. There just wasnae enough time. Ye healed Sir Archie. My Malcolm doesnae suffer unending pain in his hand, and ’tis near as good as it was. All because of ye. Ye healed that husband of yours, and because of ye, he is a laird, a mon with lands and power, instead of just another cousin to a laird. All that he is now is due to ye.”
“But what does all that have to do with his feelings for me, or if he e’en has any deep ones?”
“Naught. It does have to do with how ye seem to think ye arenae good enough for him. Aye, most of us think he was born to this, that it would have been a sad waste if he had remained just another cousin, but he gained this because of ye. Ye love him; ’tis easy to see that ye warm his bed to his satisfaction, he treats ye as a true equal in all of this, and ye are about to give him a bairn.” Joan shrugged. “I cannae think of anything more to say. What ye need to do is have a hard look at yourself, and see the good in yourself, for I dinnae think ye do, nay clearly.” Joan stood up and tugged Keira to her feet. “And ye might think on just telling him.”
“Oh, I do intend to tell him about the bairn soon.”
“Good, but I was meaning that mayhap ye should just tell him that ye love him and see where that leads ye. Now, get some rest.”
&
nbsp; It was not until Keira was in her bedchamber cleaning the dirt from her hands that she realized she had just been sent to her room like a naughty child—by her cook. She laughed and shook her head. Lectured thoroughly, told what to think hard about, and then sent off to do so.
Keira sighed; she was forced to admit that Joan was right about many things. She had lost faith in herself. It was also very possible that she had simply not noticed any attempts to woo her because she had not been interested in any man enough to notice. That utter lack of interest would certainly have turned away any number of men. Many of her kinswomen had tentatively said the same. She had noticed Duncan, but that could have been because she had decided that she needed to marry and Duncan had been the first man after that to step to the fore. It was all rather sad. Recalling how she had felt when she had first seen Liam, even bruised and swollen as he was, she knew she had had no real interest in a man before that. It was easy to see how her feelings, or complete lack thereof, had turned aside any who had even thought to woo her.
Peering at herself in the looking glass, Keira saw yet again how much she looked like her grandmother, several of her aunts, and many of her cousins. And yet, had she not always thought them handsome women? she thought. Somehow she had neglected to carry that appreciation over to her own face. Surrounded by so many who looked similar to her, she supposed it was easy enough to begin to think herself very ordinary. She was not the great beauty Lady Maude was, but there was nothing to shame her in her looks.
Highland Champion Page 24