by Aileen Adams
“Would that ye had come a week ago. I would not have needed to bring Anne in to mind the twins.”
To this, Shana merely raised her brows, her lips pursed in silent question as she turned and walked to the house, her cloak billowing in the wind.
18
Anne placed the kettle on the table with a satisfied smile.
Was this how normal people lived? She had always asked herself about them, wondering late at night when she could not get to sleep how normal people went about their lives—she’d been too young while her father and stepmother were alive to notice much.
Only when a lass grew older did she begin to see the differences between her life and those around her. Only when she got word of this friend and that getting married and starting a family. Only when she watched from afar as giggling lasses walked down the road with baskets from the market, sharing secrets and feigning outrage as lads teased them.
Only then had she begun to understand that they might as well have lived in a different country from the one in which she lived.
Yet here she was, serving tea to a young woman who might have been her friend if given the chance. Even if the house was not her own—or even the kettle—she was sitting down at midday with a cup of tea while the twins slept.
“They shall be even more boisterous on waking,” she predicted with a groan, rolling her head on her shoulders. “I ought to sleep while they do.”
“Perhaps you should,” Shana encouraged. “I can only imagine how weary you must feel. They are lovely bairns, though.”
“That they are. I have already grown so fond of them.” And that fondness was folly. Nothing less than the worst sort of mistake, for she knew better. Did she not? Deepening her connection to them meant tearing an even larger part of her heart from her chest when she made her inevitable mistake.
If only Drew would heed her advice on how to treat them, for he would need to be kind once she was gone.
“I can see why. They are such charming things, and so fortunate to have a home to come to after losing their parents. It could have been far worse.”
Anne merely nodded, staring into her tea.
Shana gasped. “Forgive me! That was thoughtless.”
“Not at all.”
“But it was, and I know it was because you will not look at me.”
Anne had to snicker, raising her eyes as she did. “Now, I am looking at ye.”
Shana’s smile was warm and tender, the sort of smile a person wished to trust. Anne longed for a friend, just one person she might know deeply. One person in whom to confide.
They had already spent much of the late morning speaking of Shana’s past—always moving from place to place, never having a home or security. Always on the outside. They’d spoken of her escape from captivity, how William had fought for her.
Would that someone would fight for Anne.
They gazed at each other from across the small table, holding their steaming mugs before them like shields. “You said your brother lived with an uncle,” Shana recalled.
“Aye.”
“Who is this uncle? Is your brother far away? It seems you would be happier if you could see him. You have already spoken of him several times, and I hear the longing in your voice. I beg you,” she added, holding up a hand, “if I am speaking beyond what I ought to speak of, please, tell me so. I would not wish to insult you. I merely wonder.”
A lump found its way into Anne’s throat. She strained to swallow it back, to deny it, to fight it off. There was no cause for her to be so emotional. Was this not the sort of thing friends discussed? Shana had already shared so much. Was there reason to be on her guard?
She was so tired, always being on her guard. Always watchful, always questioning the reasons people had for doing as they did, for speaking as they did. Learned after years of living among filthy, slovenly men. After holding herself back while in the presence of others, keeping her head down while at the market. Afraid to attract attention, for attention meant questions and curiosity which Malcolm simply could not have.
Malcolm was no longer with her. She need not appease him any longer.
“I do long for my brother,” she confessed, turning the mug around in her hands. “I fear for him now. Our uncle is… not a kind man. He is very difficult, very coarse and terribly hard on him. Would that I might find some way to get Liam out of there, somewhere he might be safe and be able to grow up well. But I have no skills. I have no hope of earning my way.”
“What of this?” Shana indicated the house around them. “This is a means to earning your living.”
Anne bit her tongue to keep from laughing. It was all too amusing, but for no reason she could explain without explaining a great deal more. “We… have an arrangement,” she explained. “I earn no money. I cannot afford food for Liam, nor clothing or anything else he needs. It is one thing to have my needs met, but I cannot meet his.”
“I see. What if Rufus took him on? Perhaps he might learn a trade here on the farm. The smithy could teach him. He might be a stable hand, or he might assist Clyde in training the horses. When Tyrone and Alec return to train the men Rufus is gathering to provide guard, Liam might assist them.”
Anne looked at her new friend with growing interest. “Ye have been thinking on this, have ye not? Ye came up with that very quickly. What do ye know?”
Shana’s gaze turned to a pattern in the table’s woodwork.
Meanwhile, Anne cursed herself. What a fool she had been for believing she could trust this person. She did not know her at all. “Have ye spoken to Drew?” she challenged, rising from her chair on legs which shook enough to nearly topple her. She could not allow that. She would not allow it.
Shana’s brow furrowed, her lips pulling back from her teeth in a grimace. “Please. Do not be angry with me. ‘Tis only that I knew you missed your brother. I would miss mine if the circumstance were the same. I merely wished to be of help to you.”
Was that so? If it was, her outburst had made her look foolish. She sank into her chair, legs still twitching. “Forgive me. I ought not—”
“No. Do not apologize. I understand how you feel.”
“You do?”
“Certainly. Better than you can imagine, I would wager. You feel always as though you cannot trust others. Is that so?”
“Aye.” Anne leaned forward. “It is so.”
“Because you came of age believing you could not trust. I understand that. I could not trust anyone, either. We were thrown out of villages, cursed and spat upon.”
“My life was not so difficult, and I ought not make it seem as though it was,” Anne demurred, pouring fresh tea for lack of anything else to do. There was a hot, prickly feeling spreading over the back of her neck. Discomfort. She did not enjoy speaking of herself, not at all.
She also had no practice with it, which was why her tongue felt thick and useless.
She took a deep breath to steady herself. “I wonder if Liam made it safely to our uncle. I ask myself if he is well there. If he has what he needs. I know he would not send word, nor would anyone at the house. I’m afraid I shall never know for certain whether he is well—or even if he is alive.”
Her hands shook so, tea splashed from her mug onto her skin and made her wince and gasp.
Shana was gentle, but firm, as she pulled the mug away and blotted the spilled tea. “There, there. I understand that as well. I could not reach out to my family. None of them knew if I was alive, and I knew nothing of them or their safety. To do so—to make contact—would have meant revealing myself and taking a great risk. I could not do that. And though I blamed my brother for the risks he took, and still do, I did love him. I loved them all.”
Anne chuckled humorlessly. “I am the one who took risks. Not Liam. And he—”
“There, there,” was all Shana would say, patting Anne’s shoulder. “Do not trouble yourself. Perhaps if you speak to Drew, and to Rufus, they would see the reason in bringing Liam here. Rufus is a gen
erous man, and you would know as much if you dared meet him.”
Anne blushed, turning her face toward the wall. “I ought to do just that, I know. But Drew is hardly generous.”
“He has you here. In his home.”
“To work for him. Nothing more.”
“I am not so certain of that.”
Anne chuckled again. “Ye dinna know him as I do.”
“Perhaps not, Then again, you do not know him as I do.”
“How do you know him, then? What is there that I do not know?”
Shana went to the door and opened it, allowing a breath of fresh air to stir the staleness inside the small room. “There he is now. Coming from the barn.”
Anne stood and joined her there, the two of them watching as he led an ornery steer outside. The beast was many times his size and angry at being handled so, digging hooves into the dirt and freezing in place. It swung its head from side to side, attempting in vain to rid itself of the rope which Drew had affixed about its neck.
She clicked her tongue, murmuring, “He is going about his task all wrong.”
“How so?”
“Such beasts cannot be forced into anything. No beast can, in truth. They must sense they are working alongside a human, not being dragged or pushed. They will merely dig their heels in all the harder and refuse to move a muscle, as ye can see is the case now.”
“Perhaps you ought to instruct him. Or at the very least, provide suggestion?”
She laughed. “Och, a great deal of good that would do. He would never listen.”
“And why not?”
It was not possible to explain why he would not listen. Why he would take her words and throw them in her face. Naturally, she would know how to best control an angry steer, for she’d had so much practice while stealing them from their rightful owners. “He simply would not. He has too much pride.”
“Och, that he has,” Shana agreed with a soft laugh. “Most men do, I believe. Too much pride. Unwilling or unable to listen to those who might know better—or at least, who might know enough to keep them from making mistakes.”
Drew was unaware of their discussion, working as hard as he was. He pushed up the sleeves of his tunic, baring arms thick with muscle which bunched and flexed as he fought the angry beast. His legs strained beneath tight trews, his shoulders and back moved beneath linen already soaked through with sweat.
He was utterly engaged in his work, and Anne could not help but admire not only his determination but his not unimpressive build. He might have been somewhat smaller than most men she’d known—Malcolm was a giant compared to Drew, but there was not an ounce of softness or loose flesh on him. He was compact. Powerful.
Why did she hold her breath?
“He is a willful, arrogant man,” she whispered over the somewhat frantic beating of her heart. Her mouth suddenly felt so dry.
“That he is,” Shana agreed, “but he happens to be a good one, as well.”
When Anne scoffed, Shana insisted. “Do you know he saved my life? He did not need to do so. When he found William and myself in the woods—I was badly injured at the time, having cut my foot, leading to infection—he hid me in his cart beneath a pile of furs and brought me here, though there was a price on my head.”
These words worked their way into Anne’s mind and softened her opinion somewhat. “Did he now?”
“I owe him everything, nothing less,” she confirmed. “He took a great risk. He might have been brought up on charges of. I do not know. Aiding a fugitive, perhaps? He did a fine thing that day. He also took these bairns in and is doing all he can for them. That is worth considering.”
“Aye. So it is,” Anne admitted.
“Davina wrote to me about them, and about how lovely it is to see the three of them together. How they love him.”
“That, they do,” Anne agreed, still watching as he worked. He’d managed to make the steer walk, though it was still slow going and still required a strong will and even stronger arms and legs. He would be in quite a state upon returning home for supper.
How could one man have two such differing sides? Was he the roguish fighter who’d gained a reputation for brawling and beating men senseless? Was he the loving uncle, the protective friend?
Who was Drew MacIntosh? And why did she care either way?
She did not, and that was the end of it. Her spine stiffened as she turned away from the door. She would not allow herself to dissolve into flights of fancy, and she would certainly not spend another moment thinking about him or wondering who he was.
It mattered not in the slightest, for she was leaving. That very evening, if possible. Once Drew was asleep and the bairns as well, she would slip out of their bedchamber and out the door. Over the wall and farewell forever.
She would gather Liam and his things, and the two of them would be off. Anything was better than this place, where nothing was hers. Not truly. And it never would be.
She could just see herself getting away as the door to the twins’ bedchamber opened, and Owen tiptoed out into the main room. Moira followed close behind.
And instantly, Anne saw the flaw in her plan when she spied their flushed faces, their glassy eyes.
“Anne?” Moira mumbled, burrowing her head against her thigh. “I dinna feel well.”
19
The only thing Drew was interested in upon staggering to the house that particular evening was bed. A long, long night’s sleep in his bed with nothing and no one bothering him.
He would more than likely dream of ornery, impossible steer throughout the course of his sleeping, but it mattered not so long as he did sleep. His only hope was to awaken with the deep, throbbing soreness of his muscles having resolved itself overnight.
Perhaps he might convince Anne to boil water and fill the washtub on his behalf. A long soak in hot—
He came to a sudden halt just inside the front door. The main room, where Anne ought to be tending supper and the bairns ought to be at play, was empty.
“Anne!” he shouted, his voice far too loud for the small space, echoing to the point where it rang in his ears.
Within moments, there came a clattering noise from the twins’ bedchamber. Anne flung the door open, dashed out of the room and closed the door behind her in one single movement, or so it seemed.
“They are sleeping,” she whispered, going to the fire where a second pot bubbled away.
“Sleeping? So early?”
“They are ill.” Anne ran the back of her arm over her forehead, then tucked an errant lock behind one ear before wrapping her apron around the handle of the smaller pot and lifting it from its hook over the fire.
Drew’s heart clenched. “Ill? How so?” He joined her at the work table beneath the window, where she placed the pot before turning to fetch clean rags from a pile at the other end.
“Grippe, or so it appears.” She hardly looked at him as she went about her work, stirring the dreadful smelling mixture in the pot before dipping the rags into the mess.
“What is that?”
“It aids in healing,” she explained. “Once the mixture cools, I shall apply it to their chests and allow them to sleep with it against their skin.”
“And what will that do?” Lord above, he could hardly breathe. They were ill. Ill! With the grippe! “Are they not too young to be so ill?”
Finally, she looked up into his eyes, her own widening as if in sudden understanding. “Och, Drew, they shall be well. I promise ye. They shall cough and bring up phlegm, and their fevers will run high for a day or two, but it shall pass. They are healthy otherwise. If they were sickly children, I would be more concerned.”
“Just the same,” he insisted, grinding his fist into his other palm. “Perhaps I ought to fetch a healer.”
She went back to work, shrugging lightly. “If ye insist, but I would wager nearly anything in the world that any healer would tell ye as I have. If they dinna try to sell ye some strange tonic or poultice the moment they see h
ow worked up ye are.”
“I am not worked up, lass.” He stormed to the closed door and opened it, but just a crack, just enough that he might see into the room. Anne had left a candle burning on the table, by which he could see the pair of them asleep.
How his heart seized at the way their wee heads turned left and right, soft rumbling sounds in their chests as they coughed. Owen let out a soft whimper which nearly brought tears to Drew’s eyes. How pitiful they looked and sounded, with their flushed faces and uneasy slumber.
“Drew,” Anne whispered, beckoning him. “Allow them their rest. Do ye not recall being ill as a laddie?”
He closed the door as softly as he might, trying to remember back that far, and when he did, his aching heart ached all the more. “Aye. Bridget nursed me.”
Anne’s expression fell somewhat. “Och, I see. She was a fine sister to ye.”
“The finest,” he agreed. A bucket of water sat by the hearth, as always, and he used it to rinse his face and hands. “I ought to fill this with fresh, that they might have plenty to drink. That is one thing I recall Bridget forcing me to do.”
“A fine idea.” Anne flashed a warm, genuine smile as she hung the soaked, stinking rags to cool over the edge of the table.
He was glad for the excuse to be out of the house, for the memories of his sister were too thick and too tender to be examined while in the presence of the lass. They reminded him of a half-healed bruise which did not cause pain during normal movement but hurt like the devil when prodded.
Bridget’s smile. Her kind, caring words and the gentleness with which she’d mopped his sweat-soaked brow. How she’d sung to him in low, gentle tones—wordless, mostly, just a sweet melody which had lulled him into sleep.
He’d thought of her as the closest thing to an angel imaginable.
Moira would look a great deal like her mother someday.
It was nearly enough to make him laugh at himself. Was he a woman now? Allowing himself to give in to emotion over a simple illness which children survived every day? He gritted his teeth as he turned the crank to raise the bucket. Foolishness, plain and simple, and he was not a foolish man.
