CHAPTER FOUR
Heather threw herself across the bed when she reached the safety of her room. She was so full of love and hate that she felt she might explode. In the brief moments of their exchange, Nial had been the living embodiment of her dreams – intelligent, considerate and caring. He had seemed interested in talking and even in considering her thoughts, her opinions. He held her hand. She flexed it and stared at it a moment as though it might look different now that it had been graced with his touch.
Who was the woman? Did she have some hold on him? Heather wasn’t sure who she was but she instinctively knew what she was. Evil. The woman was pure evil. Proof positive that beauty could be only on the outside. But she and the laird did make a handsome couple, so dark headed and attractive, so confident and self-assured. Both were everything Heather wasn’t.
Heather knew she was too strange to be considered even passably attractive. But that was okay because pretty often meant a weak character, like Mother’s. Granny said that the time Mother spent on hair and clothes and such could have been better spent helping the poor and the sick. Heather sometimes thought Granny was right, although she had to acknowledge that her mother didn’t have a spiteful bone in her body. Even though Granny was gone now, she still felt like the rope in a tug-of-war, eternally stretched between Granny and Mother. She thought about it whenever she saw that look of disappointment in her mother’s eyes. Whenever she refused one of Mother’s attempts to dress her up or take away her bonnets and to stuff her in one of those tight heathen garments the others wore. It wouldn’t matter anyway because like Granny said, she was a sow’s ear sure enough.
A knock sounded at the door, and Heather opened it cautiously to find the young maid who had been cleaning the stairs just above them.
“Beggin’ ye’r pardon lassie, but I’ve a note for ye from the laird.” The girl said with a curtsey.
“Thank you, ahmm ...”
“It’s Fenella, ma'am.”
“What a lovely name. Thank you, Fenella”.
The girl took her leave and Heather hurried inside to read her note. A note from Nial. Imagine!
It said, Lady Heather, please accept my apologies for the scene you had to endure on the stairs a few moments ago. Rest assured that Sorcha does not speak for me. I hope to have the pleasure of your company at dinner, as I have asked that you be seated beside me, in hopes that we may continue our discussion. Nial Maclee.
She read the note three times, then traced it several more, following the strokes of the quill and imagining him writing it and thinking of her.
It was nearly dinnertime, so she might as well head downstairs. She cast a single wistful look at her closet, wishing she had something that would dress up the sow’s ear a little. On her way out the door, she paused by a mirror, glancing at her bonnet. She started to remove it, but remembered Granny warning that anyone who saw her hair would be “plumb scairt” by the strange concoction.
Regretfully, Heather simply walked out the door. She was even more regretful a few moments later when she arrived downstairs. She entered the room like an ugly duckling gliding into a pool of swans.
“You poor thing,” one of the kinder matrons said.
Another woman leaned to the kind lady and whispered something.
The kind lady snorted, as she said loudly, “No. Not possible. Well, I’m an elder myself but I’m not an old fool. Laird Maclee will never tie himself to that one.”
Heather breathed in deeply and went to find a nice, hidden corner to sit in. It was there that Nial found her a few minutes later. He asked permission to join her on the small sofa, and she shakily replied, “Well, after all, it is your sofa.”
“I suppose that is correct,” Nial agreed, with a smile that turned sad as he sat down and looked at her through lowered lashes. He shook his head slightly and sighed as he took her hand. “I’m so sorry about, well about all of it. I fear you have not been treated well at Kilcuillin thus far.”
“I’m fine, Laird Maclee. You mustn’t trouble yourself. Such things happen to me often,” Heather said, finding his sympathy more difficult to stomach than open animosity. She could withstand hatred and jeers easily enough. After all, she had lots of practice.
"So you take taunts like that often? You poor thing. No one should have to face such animosity."
The sympathy had been tough enough but her spirit rebelled at the pity. She turned the tables and challenged him. “I’m sure such things never happen to you do they, Laird Maclee?”
“Nial, please, if you will allow me to call you Heather. No, you’re right. Such things don’t generally happen to me.”
“But then again, I rarely have to spend my time fighting off the wandering hands of suitors, and I understand that happens to you all the time,” she commented and the man across from her started before he threw back his head and laughed loudly.
“What’s so funny?”
“On the rare occasions when I'm forced to acknowledge one female's attention to another I'm usually treated to a veritable font of jealous, spiteful comments. Or else I hear something like, why that cat, how could she presume to touch you. Somehow, Heather, you don’t seem quite as eager to protect me or fence me in as the other lasses.”
“It looks to me like a big braw lad like you could take care of yourself, ” she said as she quirked a brow doubtfully. “If you haven’t figured that out by now, nothing I could do would assist you. As to the fence, if you don't erect it yourself I imagine you'd spend a lot of time figuring out how to scale it.”
"You're a canny, cunning wench, aren't you?" Nial asked. "Your words remind me of a book written by a Scottish philosopher. It's titled, Lads, Lasses and Labels. Have you read it?"
"McLamb's challenge to the traditional role of the sexes?" Heather asked delightedly. "Heck, I've devoured the thing. But you're the first lad I've ever heard admit to reading the book. What did you think of it?"
Her questions launched a lively debate that continued with gusto until Sorcha showed up carrying only two goblets of wine. The black-haired widow passed one to Nial before she cast a spiteful glance at Heather. “I fear I was too delicate to carry a third one.”
Heather's spirit dimmed as she observed the laird watch the conniving bitch. Before she suppressed it with a Granny homily, she heard her mother's voice in her head talking about the pretty lure. Nial's eyes swept the length of the other woman without a trace of pity or sympathy. The widow wore a silver garment cut tight enough to have been sewn on. The seamstress must have been running low on fabric before reaching the neckline. Her breasts peeped over the top of it like apples piled too high in a basket. 'Twas male interest for the other woman sparkling in Nial's eyes so clearly that inexperienced Heather identified it as he drained the goblet in two swallows.
“All of that talk must have stirred a thirst. I thank you for quenching it, Sorcha,” Maclee said with a wink.
“I’ll be glad to quench your thirst, anytime, ” Sorcha replied, perching on the arm of the sofa beside the laird. That movement caused her long black locks to trail down and touch his neck. She turned towards him and hunched her shoulders slightly to display even more of her breasts than the low cut garment did already. Heather tried to keep up the conversation, but Nial wasn’t paying attention to anything other than the woman’s bosoms, so openly displayed that she, who surely didn’t want to see them, could hardly miss the sight. She shook her head at how easily the obvious ploy distracted the laird and tried again to suppress her mother's caution about the pretty lure.
Trailing a finger down Nial's arm, the widow said, “She and I both wear gray tonight. Who wears the color better?”
He responded in a voice much deeper than it had been a moment ago. “There is really no comparison, is there, my dear?”
Heather started at the comment. That it was true wasn’t the point. It was out of character for the man she imagined he was. The words, coming from him, hurt a great deal and she murmured, "Honesty can be more brutal
than all the taunts and jeers combined."
His eyes didn't leave the fruit about to overflow the widow's basket but his cheeks took on a bit of the hue of those apples and he winced at the direct blow. "I didn't mean..."
The wicked widow interrupted, standing directly before the laird as she tugged an amulet of some sort that had conveniently fallen into the vast crevice of her cleavage. She fingered it as she spoke. “Since I compare so favorably, perhaps you could tear yourself away from the pleasure of her company and join me in private for a moment.”
Heather watched Nial gulp as he goggled at the charm swaying over the prominent produce. An odd cloud swept over his navy eyes as his tongue rimmed his lips. After silent moments that felt like forever, he stood and Sorcha placed a proprietary hand on his forearm.
A pang of alarm impelled her to save the braw laird and a spasm of jealousy spurred a sudden longing for a fence. Compelled a bit by both, Heather tried to draw back his attention and chase away those clouds. “I will see you at dinner so that we can continue our conversation.”
He didn’t answer and his mesmerized regard didn't waver.
Still fiddling with the talisman, Sorcha replied instead. “It’s not conversation he wants from me dear. You shouldn’t hold your breath waiting for him. Then again, do. Please do.”
Heather awaited Nial's return through the entire meal but the chair beside hers remained empty. It received glares from all of the elders and across the way she saw her mother lightly rub her father's shoulder in an apparent effort to calm him. It didn't seem to help because Da's ruddy face darkened every time he looked at the chair.
Calum made his way to Heather after dinner and apologized for the scene at the fair, which he assured her would never have happened if he hadn’t had too much to drink. She knew this man was Nial’s friend and clansman and decided to err on the side of forgiveness. She put on a smile, chatted and pretended an animation she didn’t feel because she had too much pride to appear devastated by Maclee’s desertion. They traded stories about interesting folks who were members of each clan
He told her a story of a farmer. “Old Ian Grant spent his life trying to create the perfect Highland plough. The only problem was, he worked so hard at thinking up new ways to improve the device that he never managed to use it to tend his fields. His wife refused to hear a bad word about him – she defended him right up to the point where she keeled over one day tending those fields. Old Ian was a few feet away at the time, drawing a plough design on the dirt for their sons, who weren’t working either. It was some time before any of them noticed that the one who did all the work had gone on to her reward. ‘Twas said she passed with a smile on her face because she was lying down for the first time in years.”
She broke out in laughter, recounting a tale about one of her clanswomen. “That tale reminds me of Cora. Her marriage was a contentious union, as her husband never tended the land to her satisfaction. She let him know about it too. She let him know at home, at the pub, at clan celebrations – pretty much anywhere he happened to be at the time. As the years went by, the man would look high and low for hiding places from his nagging wife. He passed in a cave, and it took Cora half a day to find him. When she did, she had been complaining for about fifteen minutes before it occurred to her that anything was wrong.”
Calum laid his hand on her arm. “Perhaps we should introduce the widower and the widow, Heather.”
“Yes indeed. Do you suppose she would get any work out of him?”
“I suppose that both our clans would be betting on that for years to come.”
After several more tall tales, Heather rose to leave. Calum tried to detain her but finally acceded to her pleas that she was tired. He insisted on escorting her to her room. She was so keyed up and worn out that she reached up and removed her bonnet before the door shut completely. She didn’t see the other man stick a foot in the opening to watch her unwind her bun before she ran her hands through her hair and shook it out. Then she sat at the bureau and started patiently combing the long rainbow.
He spoke from the doorway long after she thought him gone. "How doesn't Nial see this?"
Heather jumped to her feet and grabbed her bonnet, intending to jam it on her head. She didn't because she realized it was much too late. It was also much too useless since he'd now seen her freakish hair and seemed to be mesmerized by her cursed eyes.
"Don't," he said as a command before he altered it. "Please don't. You're exquisite and unique and absolutely breathtaking. Comparing you to all the women downstairs is like comparing a Highland meadow in spring to a Sassannach garden."
"And yet their laughter is far kinder than your sarcasm, sir."
"I can't imagine how Nial doesn't see this. Has he been so blinded by rage that he can't see the truth beneath your disguise?"
Heather twisted the bonnet between anxious fingers. Her heart beat so fast there didn't seem to be a space between thumps. This man was the laird's friend. Had she ruined everything by a moment of carelessness?
She approached him, nibbling her lower lip anxiously. She laid a hand on his arm and when she spoke her tone was as plaintive as her words. "Calum, I beg you not to tell him. I know you're his friend, but I promise you I mean him no harm. I'd treat him well and I'd make him happy, I really would. This is my chance. I have this one opportunity to make my dreams come true. Please, don't take this away from me. Promise that you won't tell him."
He took her hand and raised it to his lips. "My dear, I promise you that if my friend proves himself to be too much a swine to discern the pearl before him, I shall not show it to him. Instead, I will work to teach you the merits of discarding an old, outgrown dream in favor of a new, more fitting one."
"What are you saying?"
"I've always been particularly fond of pearls. If Nial doesn't see the truth I shall make you mine. He'd see then, when it was too late. Laird Maclee would understand then that he'd lost the only contest that mattered."
"You're very kind to keep my secret but I fear that he might see my loss as the biggest victory of his life."
"No," Calum whispered. "But you and I shall keep our silence and we shall see who comes in second this time."
Heather watched him walk away, wishing she understood why she had a suicidal urge to find Nial and repeat the conversation to him. Perhaps her conscience simply pricked her at the deception she practiced and had just multiplied. Enlisting his friend to conspire against him seemed as wrong as the friend agreeing to do so. How much of her soul would she sacrifice to make her dream come true?
She was a long way from having a chance to sacrifice her soul for the laird at this point. After all, she was so repellant that Nial happily wandered away with another woman. He must have found her pretty compelling because he hadn't even returned for dinner. Where had they gone?
Armed with the memory of Nial entranced with the witches' beauty, she was just settling into one of the activities that occupied a lot of her time --staring with loathing at her reflection in the mirror -- when a knock at the door broke her self-absorption. It was Finella, the maid, who rushed in with tears streaming down her face to throw herself at Heather’s feet.
“Ma'am, it’s me little cousin Fergus. He has come down with a dreadful headache and a fever and he is getting worse. Earlier ye said ye studied herbs and such. I’m so sorry to impose like this, but would ye come?”
“Of course,” she said, already rising to get the black satchel of supplies she never traveled without. There was always plenty of room in her baggage to hide it from her parents. She followed the woman down the back stairs and through an underground tunnel. They emerged in a charming glade and walked until they came to a small stone house. It was a nice little cottage, surrounded by worried neighbors gathered in clumps trying to offer help or comfort to the family.
Heather entered the small dwelling to find it spotlessly clean. A blazing fire kept the room toasty, and she had only a minute to notice the cunning woodcarvings that
decorated the room. The child’s parents bustled over and the mother looked ready to keel over from worry. She seized Heather’s hand. “Can ye help him? Please.”
With a gentle smile, she said, “Fevers are often more frightening than threatening. Try not to worry so. He will need your strength soon when he is grumpy and wants to run out and play.”
The mother smiled at that and Heather tenderly examined the little boy. Despite her comforting words, she knew that fevers could be deadly and this child was hot indeed.
“Sir,” she said, turning to address the father. “Please go outside and fetch some cool water from the well. We shall need to keep doing that because we need the water as cool as possible. If there is an ice house, some ice would be better.”
When the water and ice were fetched, Heather wet the cloth and wrapped it around chunks of ice. She lightly rubbed the child all over, turning him to minister to his back. She had been at the labor for over an hour when the front door opened and Nial walked in. He gave her a friendly wave as he entered the small dwelling.
Heather was exhausted and her arms weighed a hundred pounds but his presence alone imbued her with renewed energy. Trite as it sounded, she felt better just because he was there and she knew what that meant, but then again, she had known how she felt about him for a long time.
What she hadn't known was how much friendship could hurt. She learned a little more about that every day.
CHAPTER FIVE
Nial entered the small dwelling with a wave and a darting glance at Heather as he walked over to the parents. “Cobb and Jean, I am certain that little Fergus shall recover.” He darted a smile at her. “He has the best help possible tending him.”
He squatted beside Heather and laid a gentle hand on her arm. She looked up at him and gave a weary smile. He rubbed the strain in her arm before his hand grasped hers to give it a small squeeze.
In a low tone he said, “You don’t have to do this. We have a healer, though he often barks when he is called out at night.”
A Faerie Fated Forever Page 4
