by Lois Greiman
Irvette stumbled into the doorway. Her face was gray and a lovely red bruise stretched like a rope bum across her neck.
“My dear Lord!” Rhona rasped and made the sign of the cross against her breast. “What happened?”
“’Twas Satan!” The words were little more than a croak from the lady’s alabaster throat.
”The devil!” Rhona stumbled back, clutching her neck. “Whatever did he want with you?” she shrieked, but the baroness was already stumbling away and the marquis went with her, shouting for every door to be barred and every window secured.
Rhona stood in silence, breathing hard and willing away the tension. All in all it had gone quite well.
She flexed her wounded arm, turned toward her bed and stopped in her tracks.
Catherine stood in the doorway.
The silence was broken only by the marquis’s distant shouts.
The child’s gaze never faltered, then, “Do you want it back?” she murmured.
Rhona scrunched her gown to her bosom as if terrified beyond all reason. “What are you talking about, child?”
”The knife,” she said and bringing her hand from behind her, hefted the blade she’d found stabbed into the floor. The blade that had skimmed past her father’s ear just moments before. “‘Tis yours.”
Silence descended, accented by distant shouts and the sounds of a hurried exodus.
“No,” Rhona said, and held the child’s gaze as she did so. “‘Tis my gift to you.”
Dawn had not yet arrived when Lady Irvette’s carriage rattled away from Claronfell. There were few explanations, perhaps because it was impossible for her to speak.
As for the marquis, he did not appear for the morning meal, but remained closeted away.
In fact, the stools around the table remained absolutely empty. Thus Rhona wandered from the dining hall to the nursery. Catherine’s bed was empty loo, so she hurried down the passageway to Edwina’s room. The door was ajar, and from the hallway, she could hear two tiny voices whispering from within.
“There were noises in the night… Frightful noises.”
Edwina’s voice was the tiniest scratch of sound.
“Aye.” Catherine’s was barely louder. “But you needn’t fear. ‘Tis past now. Go back to sleep.”
“‘Twas the devil, wasn’t it?”
“Nay.”
“He will come again,” Edwina’s voice was rising to a low panic. “He will come and eat my liver just as Lady Irvette-”
“Nay,” argued Catherine. “I will keep you safe.”
“But Catty, your face!” she said, and began to cry softly. “He has already beaten you.”
‘Twas then that Rhona stepped into the room. The girls jumped like frightened hares, huddling together beneath the blankets, their fingers gripping each other like tiny birds’ claws. She stopped where she was, her throat constricted.
“The devil is gone,” she said simply.
They stared at her in silence. She shrugged. “He left.” Still no response. “Forever,” she added.
Silence again, then Edwina spoke very softly, as though her voice might stir the dead from their restless hiding place. “But Lady Irvette said he would come if I was disobedient like Catty. He would beat me, just as he did her.”
“She is gone too,” said Rhona, and carefully quieted her anger.
The girls glanced at each other then back at her. Their grip in each other’s sleeves tightened slightly.
“She’ll return…” began Catherine, her tone not daring to hope. “After the nooning?”
“She’ll not be back,” Rhona corrected.
“Perhaps the devil ate her,” Edwina whispered. There was the whisper of hope in her tone.
Rhona stepped closer, her mind spinning. She knew nothing about easing a young girl’s fears.
“You needn’t worry, lass,” she said. “God is watching-”
But in that moment a noise sounded from the doorway. She turned, expecting trouble, but it was only MacGowan who shadowed the door.
“The devil did na want’ er,” he said.
The wide eyes had turned to him. He smiled, and with that simple expression the room seemed to lighten somehow.
“He did not want her?” Edwina whispered. “Nay. She was that bitter, she was.”
“How do you know?”
“I spoke to ‘im.” He entered the room with easy casualness, his stride long and relaxed. “Afore’ e left.”
“You spoke… to the devil?”
“Aye. I told him that an angel of the Lord guards these lassies and that there is no room for his evil here.”
“But Catty’s face,” murmured Edwina. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, her knuckles white against the coverlet.
A muscle twitched in Lachlan ‘s cheek and Rhona threw herself into the breech.
“‘Twas not the devil who struck your sister, wee Edwina,” she said, “but one of his minions, a person of flesh and bone. A person just likes one of us, but evil.”
Catherine seemed to have drawn into herself, but she spoke finally, her voice little louder than the silence. “She warned me not to tell. Said Edwina would suffer for it.”
For a moment no one spoke. Rhona noticed that Lachlan ‘s fingers tightened upon the hilt of his dirk, but finally he cleared his throat and loosened his grip. “Aye well, she be gone now,” he said. There was a forced cheeriness to his tone, but his face was hard. “And the archangel’ as vowed to keep it so.”
“Will he eat her gizzard?”
He laughed a little now. “Sooner than let ‘ er return, lass. But enough of this talk. I have been sent to fetch you down to break the fast.”
And so the day began. The girls ate their fill while Lachlan looked on, and then, because the marquis was reported to have injured his leg in his “valiant defense of his home,” Rhona suggested that they venture outside.
Edwina shook her small head vehemently. Catherine pursed her lips.
“You’ve no fondness for the out of doors?” Rhona asked.
Catherine’s scowl deepened. Edwina spoke in a whisper.
“It rained,” she said.
Rhona stared in bemusement and Catherine explained. “We might sully our gowns.”
“Sully your gowns! Well, I should hope so,” she said, and laughed.
“Filth is the devil’s garden,” Edwina quoted.
“But the earth is the divine Lord’s playground,” Rhona said.
Finally, dressed in their ugliest rags, they tripped through the endless gardens to the bum that babbled over its rocky bed toward the sea. Once there, they followed its wending course, their toes slithering in the mud as they went, and when they found a particularly lovely spot of muck, Rhona turned them loose to play.
Instead, they looked at her with eyes wide and faces wary.
“Play,” she repeated, but Lachlan shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “These two wee ones are not the sort to waste their hours such. They’ ave been taught to work, have you not, lassies?” They were still clinging together like tiny spider monkeys. “So ‘tis best to simply let ‘em, ave at it.” Rhona stared at him, and he shrugged. “I am ‘ungry, me wee lassies. Perhaps you could bake me a pie.”
Edwina’s little mouth circled. Catherine frowned before she spoke. “But we have no meat.”
“Ahh, well, mayhap you’d best use mud, then.”
“Mud?” Edwina whispered.
“Or twigs or grasses or whatever lies close t’ ‘and.”
“You cannot eat twigs.”
“You think not?”
Edwina shook her head. Catherine only stared. “Then you have not yet been to Dun Ard.”
No one spoke.
“‘Tis me father’s…” He paused, seemingly remembering he was to be naught but a servant here. “‘Tis the castle where I used to labor before I came to serve Lady Rhona.”
“They eat twigs there?”
“‘Tis like this, you see,” he said. Narrowing his
eyes, he leaned closer as if he were sharing some wondrous truth. “The lady of the keep is a great ‘ orse mistress, greater than all the lords of Christendom. ‘er steeds eat like kings, but ‘ er subjects…” He shrugged. “Sometimes we ‘ad to make do.”
Catherine studied him as if he were some strange new creature, but Edwina spoke again, repeating the question that haunted her. “You ate twigs?”
He laughed as he straightened to his full height. “This I tell you, wee one,” he said. “You make it… I will eat it.”
They set to work finally, and although their movements were uncertain at first, they soon caught the spirit of the morning.
As for Rhona, she had never been adverse to filth, so she settled herself on a nearby hillock and scooped up the sod with them. In a matter of minutes they had three pies set atop a rock.
“‘Tis ready,” whispered Edwina and turned her attention to Lachlan. Her dimpled hands dripped with slime.
He eyed their masterpieces with judicious sobriety then, “Nay, they be not yet baked,” he said, but just then the sun, seeming willing to play, skirted a bubbled cloud and shone down hot on the trio of pies.
“Well then,” said Rhona, “they’ll be done soon enough. What shall we do until ‘tis time for Champion to sample the fare?”
Neither spoke, but from beneath her tattered gown, Catherine drew out the dirk she’d rescued the night before. Rhona met her gaze.
“Very well,” she said finally, and thus the lessons began.
Although Edwina soon tired of tossing a sharpened stick into a circle of branches, Catherine practiced until her narrow arm shook and Rhona deemed she had had enough. Retracing their steps toward the house, they came upon the mud pies.
The girls stopped, eyeing the feast in tandem. Neither spoke for a long second, but finally Edwina lifted her gaze to Lachlan. The tiniest hint of a smile curved her soft lips.
“Look,” she murmured. “Dinner is served.”
Chapter 24
The days took on a singular cadence, for the marquis was busy nursing his injuries or an ale or both, and Lady Norval did not return, leaving Rhona to care for the girls. As for Lachlan, he rarely left their sides, but stayed close, acting as guard or jester as the moment demanded.
For Rhona this time was a revelation, like moments stolen from her secret dreams, like sunlight on her skin. The days were warm and lovely, the evenings irrevocably sweet, for it seemed almost as if they were a family-as if the girls were her daughters and the looming Highlander, her love.
As Lachlan finished his duties in the stables, Rhona laughed and tucked the girls into Catty’s narrow bed.
“Aye,” she said. “Now that you mention it, lass, Champion does indeed sound like a fine name for a steed.”
“Then why does it belong to a man?” Catherine asked.
“Is it because he came from a place with fine horses?”
“Nay,” said Rhona.
“Is it because you ride him?” asked Edwina, who had mounted his shoulders just that day.
Rhona kept her fingers busy on the blankets and her eyes averted. “Of course not.”
“Then it must be because he is your champion,” said Catherine.
“There you are,” said the marquis, and stepped into the room.
Rhona straightened with a start, then remembered to curtsy. “Aye, my lord, just seeing your daughters abed.”
“Bed,” he said. His words were slightly slurred. Since the night of the warrior’s visit, he seemed inebriated more often than not. “What a fine idea.”
“Aye,” Rhona agreed. “I too am tired.”
“You must have been busy indeed. I’ve barely seen a hint of you these past days. Where have you been hiding?”
“We were not hiding, my lord. ‘Twas a bonny day. We ventured past the gardens to the river.”
“So you are not afraid?”
“Afraid, my lord?”
“Of the bastard who broke into my house some nights hence.”
Hell’s saints, she had not even considered the fact that she should be afraid. “Oh,” she said, and carefully lowered her eyes. “‘Twas a frightful thing. But nay, I do not fear, for I am certain you will protect me.”
“Aye, and so I shall,” he said and straightened slightly.
He had changed since his sister’s exodus, or perhaps it was only her perception that changed.
“I am but sorry your sister felt the need to flee,” she lied.
“She was always the frightened little mouse,” he said. Rhona’s stomach turned at the thought of their twisted lives. Still, there was no proof that he was guilty of aught but deviant sex.
“But what of you, mistress?” he asked and watched her with eyes half mast. “You act the gentle maid, but things are not oft what they seem.”
She swallowed her worry and smiled shyly. “I am but trying to continue your sister’s education. Your eldest is becoming quite proficient at her needlework,”
“My eldest,” he said, then shifted his gaze to the girls and away. ”Ahh yes, my daughter.” He said the word strangely. “And what are you proficient at, bonny Rhona?”
“I fear my needlework needs some improving.”
“Well…” he said, and laughed. “I believe I can tolerate that.” Taking her arm, he steered her round the corner. He limped slightly, but in a moment they had reached her door. It stood ajar. He escorted her inside.
Nerves cramped in Rhona’s stomach. “Excuse me, my lord,” she said and drew her hand carefully from his arm. “But as I have said, I am quite fatigued.”
“Of course you are,” he said, and leaned a shoulder against the wall as he watched her walk away. “For you have the entire responsibility of my progeny since my sister left.”
“They are not a burden, my lord.”
“Still, you should not have to care for them alone. Although I’ve warned Colette not to be too harsh with them in the future, they are not as sweet as they seem at times and will need disciplining. Perhaps I had best call someone in.”
”That won’t be necessary.”
“You prefer to be absolutely responsible for their care?”
“Aye.”
He smiled. The expression was a bit sloppy. “And you would be grateful for that opportunity?”
She fluttered her lashes and tried to remain calm, for although she did not doubt her ability to defend herself, she was concerned about the probability of being sent away if his balls became mysteriously lodged between his noble ears.
“I would indeed be grateful,” she said. “But-”
“Me marquiship.”
They turned in tandem toward the hall. MacGowan stood in the doorway, his gaze on Lord Robert, his expression solemn. “I dunna mean t’ disrupt ye.”
The marquis scowled. ”Then why do you constantly insist on doing so?”
MacGowan bowed again. “Me apologies,” he said, “but there be a wee bit of a problem in the kitchen.”
“Then have Unter see to it.”
Lachlan shuffled his feet. But there was a gleam in his dark eyes, as if his charade was growing thin. “As yer wishin’, sir,” he said, and turned indecisively away. But finally he shifted nervously back around. The marquis had already returned his attention to Rhona. “But ye may be wantin’ to leave the ‘ouse soon.”
“And why the devil would that be?”
“Because ‘tis ‘bout t’ bum down.”
“What?” The marquis drew himself up with a start.
MacGowan drew back a pace as if frightened to utter the next words. “There be a fire, yer goodness.”
”A fire!” rasped Robert, and left the room at a gallop, yelling as he went.
Lachlan watched him go for a moment, then straightened his back. Placing a hand on Rhona’s door latch, he studied her with steady eyes. “Do you bar your door?” he asked, his voice ultimately low and deceptively casual. “Or do I kill him?”
Something tripped in her stomach, but she kept the joy fro
m her face. “I can fight me own battles, Champion.”
“Then you’d bloody well better do so, lass,” he said. “For if I take on the task your slimy marquis will be keeping his head with his pipe tobacco.”
For the next few days, the marquis was less of a worry. He confined himself mostly to his bedchamber, for either the pain in his head or the pain in his leg kept him busy. It was a relief to have him preoccupied, for lately he had had entirely too much time on his hands, and too many hands on her.
With this boon, Rhona found it much easier to poke about the house, but she found nothing. Even so, she had a good deal of time to spend with the lassies. Edwina became less timid, even laughing once, and causing Rhona’s heart to swell in her chest. And Catherine, though still quiet and lean, seemed less tense as she became more proficient with a knife.
And it was all Rhona’s doing. She knew that, felt that.
It was not a reason for any great amount of pride, of course. After all, she was a warrior, trained for battle and not for nurturing young lasses. Yet sometimes, in the evening, when the day stretched out full and lively behind them, and the girls were sleepy and soft-eyed, there was a strange kind of feeling that curled in her stomach. It didn’t hurt exactly, but it was not a comfortable sensation either.
Still, Rhona tucked them in brusquely, knowing it was best to be gone.
“Tell us a tale, Lady Rhona,” said Edwina. But she still did not speak well. Lady was said with a strange w sound and Rhona sounded much more like Ro. Something tripped in Rhona’s heart. She tromped it down.
“I have told you a half dozen tales already today,” she said, and though she meant to be firm, she found she had already settled onto the edge of their straw-filled mattress. “‘Tis time to sleep now.”
“But you tell the best of tales,” said Edwina. Catherine merely looked on. The swelling was lessening in her face, and she could see out of both eyes again, but from her brow to her cheekbone, the skin was brushed with bright hues of magenta and lime. Her hair, red as firelight and fine as gossamer, lay across her brow. Without thinking, Rhona reached out to push it back.
Catherine scrunched away, and Rhona slowed her movements, but when her fingers brushed the girl, she did not refuse the contact.
