Father’s voice was cold and slurred. He never drank, but on this night, he was so deep in his cups he could barely stand.
“Ha. ’Tis ye that’s cruel. ’Tis not kind of ye to make me worry about how upset ye are over my mother’s death. She is not yers to grieve over.”
Between sobs, I screamed at him.
“How can ye say that? She was the only mother I’ve ever known.”
“She was not yer mother. Nor was she yer grandmother.”
For a moment, I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. He turned to leave my room, but strength I didn’t know I possessed lifted me from the bed as I hurried to block him.
“What did ye say?”
Tears filled his eyes, and I gasped as he pulled me against him in a tight embrace. Father never hugged me. His breath ragged, he rested his chin on the top of my head as he spoke.
“Surely, ye’ve suspected it. I know ye believe I hate ye. I doona. I hate yer mother. Her dying act was to leave me with a child that dinna belong to me. Now, dress and join the rest of us for dinner. We willna wait for ye.”
He pushed me away and left. As the door to my bedchamber closed, I sank to the floor and lost myself in heartbreaking sobs.
Only three days before, my world had been bright and full of hope. Now, all I could see was loss. Two of the people I loved most were gone without a goodbye, and despite my complicated feelings about my father, I’d never once suspected what he’d revealed.
Alasdair was now the only person I had left in all the world.
My childhood was over.
Chapter 2
Eight Years Later —1620
* * *
Much changed at Conall Castle following my grandmother’s death. At our father’s insistence, no one within or around the castle ever spoke of Grier again. Within a fortnight of her banishment, all evidence of her time with us was gone. Already heartbroken and grieving over the loss of our grandmother, Alasdair and I were forced to wade through the deep loss of our friend alone.
My magic practices ceased entirely—or at least that’s what Alasdair and I worked day and night to lead our father to believe. I continued to practice as much as I could, but with no one to guide me, I made little progress. My apparent lack of magic pleased my father immensely and as I grew, his treatment of me improved. My feelings toward him remained unchanged. How much can you love someone who only loves the version of you that they want you to be?
I didn’t hate my father—I pitied his incurable unhappiness—but I couldn’t bring myself to love him, at least not in the way I loved my brother and friends.
Despite his confession that he wasn’t actually my father, I never allowed myself to travel down the uncertain path of wallowing in that revelation. Even if what he claimed was true, it mattered little. Simply by claiming me as his own, I’d been afforded a life that most people in Scotland would only ever dream of. Even as miserable and mean as he was, I had to be grateful to him for that.
Three years after that terrible summer, Alasdair fell in love and married one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen—Elspeth—a shy but strong woman who stole his heart the moment he laid eyes on her. At the age of thirty-one, most in Conall territory had begun to believe that Alasdair would never marry, so his nuptials with Elspeth were met with wondrous celebrations that lasted nearly a month.
Two years later, they welcomed a beautiful baby boy, Eoin, making me the happiest aunt that ever lived. Before the child’s birth, I spent years roaming around the castle with no real purpose. Now three, Eoin had grown into an energetic and abnormally-tall-for-his-age child that spent every spare moment following me around. As a result, I was the closest thing that wee Eoin ever had to a nurse, and I loved every moment of it. My father, Elspeth, and even Alasdair—who usually tolerated everything I did—hated it. Childcare was a servant’s work, and they all believed my role in Eoin’s rearing was below my station as daughter of the laird.
It wasn’t only them. Everyone I knew seemed to be deeply worried about me in one way or another.
Nearing twenty, the villagers seemed to have the same fears about me now that they’d had for Alasdair. I was quickly reaching an age where few would wish to marry me, and I knew my father well enough to know that he wouldn’t let such a problem go unresolved for long. My days of freedom were bound to end soon. Until they did, I was determined to enjoy every moment with those I knew and loved. Thoughts of true adulthood could come later.
“Again, again.”
I squeezed my nephew tight and grinned as his long legs bounced up and down against my thighs as he squirmed in my lap. Eoin pointed to the candles, urging me with his limited vocabulary to blow them out and relight them with my magic. For at least the eighth time that night, I flicked my wrist and watched the room go dark.
Bending in close to his ear, I whispered, “Only once more. Then ye must go to bed. Do ye avoid sleep in this manner when yer mother tucks ye in?”
Eoin simply laughed and continued to point to the candles as I re-lit the room. It was one of the few spells I could work without worry of something going dreadfully wrong, but even this must end soon. Eoin’s speech improved quickly. I would have to stop doing magic in front of him before he mentioned the candles to my father.
With the room now lit, I stood and carried Eoin to his bed, tucking him gently inside. He yawned as I wrapped the blankets around him. I knew it wouldn’t take long for him to fall asleep.
Most nights his mother saw him to bed, but Elspeth had appeared so weary at dinner that I insisted she go to bed early. With my brother away for the next month, I imagined that she was due a few weeks of uncrowded, peaceful sleep.
Just as Eoin began to drift, he suddenly jolted awake and reached beneath the covers for something he’d bumped against with his foot.
I watched as he pulled a large book from beneath the blanket. I took it curiously as he extended it to me.
I knew he couldn’t read. Neither could Elspeth. Had Alasdair begun to read to him at night?
“Is this yer da’s?”
Eoin shook his head and squirmed back until he sat up in the bed.
“No. I found it.”
I held the book, flipped it over in my hands, and looked suspiciously down at him.
“Ye found it? Where did ye find it?”
Books were rarely left just lying around the castle. As far as I knew, only Father, Alasdair, and myself could read.
Eoin scooted out from beneath the blanket and crawled to the end of the bed until he could look all the way down the hallway to his right. Slowly, he lifted his finger and pointed to the room at the very end—my father’s bedchamber.
I lowered my head and lifted my brows as I looked up at him questioningly.
“Ye found it or ye took it?”
The young child just smiled and returned to snuggle in beneath his blankets.
“Ye can bring it back. I doona want it.”
Why the child wanted it in the first place, I couldn’t guess. For the first time, I opened the book to its middle and looked inside.
A deep chill swept down the length of my body as I flipped hurriedly through the pages.
Spells in Grier’s hand filled the book’s entirety.
For eight long years my magic remained stagnant while assistance unknowingly lay only a hall’s length away—hidden by my close-minded, controlling father.
Trembling, I tapped the book’s cover as I spoke.
“Did ye see other books like this? When did ye take it?”
He nodded, and his eyelids grew heavy as he started to drift into sleep.
“Aye, in a chest. I found it this morning when I hid from ye.”
His little eyes closed. I sat perfectly still until his breathing deepened enough that I knew my leaving wouldn’t wake him.
Grier’s spell books were still in the castle. Soon they would be mine.
I would stop at nothing to learn to harness the magic that hummed with life inside of me.
Chapte
r 3
An entire week passed. With each new day, I grew more frustrated at my various failed attempts to steal Grier’s books away from my father. Each time I believed him far enough away from his bedchamber to risk entry, I would find him in some unexpected part of the castle. It seemed that the more I wanted access to the books, the more difficult it became to evade my father’s watchful eyes.
With Alasdair still away on a secret errand for our father, I was forced to wait until the perfect opportunity presented itself. Patience came to me as naturally as obedience did—I was rubbish at both. Still, there was no one else I would put in such danger. So wait I did.
The worst Alasdair or I would receive for sneaking into Father’s bedchamber was a good tongue lashing. If a servant was caught rummaging through Father’s things, the most lenient punishment they would receive was banishment.
Frustrated from days of thinking up entirely useless ideas, I went in search of Mary. Two years younger than me, she’d been with our family so long that at the age of only seventeen she ran our home with a level of authority surpassed only by my father. She was my dearest friend and the only person, save Alasdair, that encouraged my magic.
I found Mary just as I expected to—in our cold and damp basement kitchen, covered in flour, ordering around half a dozen girls between the ages of twelve and fifteen with a tone that made me pity each and every one of them.
The moment she saw me standing in the doorway, she wiped her hands on the bottom of her dress and turned to address one of the youngest girls in Gaelic before joining me in the doorway.
“I doona know why I bother trying to teach them. ’Twould be less work if I sent them all away and did everything myself.”
As several of the young girls looked nervously in our direction, I pulled Mary away and lowered my voice as I answered her.
“Ye teach them for ye know their families need what little they earn here. Ye care more than ye like to show.”
Ignoring me, Mary quickened her steps and motioned for me to follow.
“Come with me to the village. I promised Mae I would tend the inn this evening so she may care for her father. Ye can help me. He is verra unwell. I doona believe he will live past the end of the year.”
“Ach, no.” It would break Mae’s heart to lose her father. She knew little of life outside caring for him. “Do ye truly think he willna recover this time?”
“Every breath is a struggle. I canna see how he could improve. Mae’s accepted whatever will come. The lass is stronger than I hope I ever have to be.”
“What will it take for yer brother to see that Mae is in love with him? She will need someone when her father passes, and they couldna be more perfectly suited.”
Turning with the speed of someone half her size, Mary spun to face me and burst out laughing. Between strangled breaths, she spoke.
“Mae…Mae doesna love Hew. What possibly led ye to believe that?”
I found the intensity of the attraction between the two of them so obvious, it was difficult for me to imagine how Mary couldn’t see it.
“’Tis clear to me every time I see the two of them together, and she is not the only one who carries such feelings. Hew cares for Mae so much he can scarcely keep from trembling in front of her.”
Mary laughed even more loudly as we continued the short walk to the village just beyond the castle grounds.
“’Tis true that Hew is shy, but he wouldna tremble in front of anyone, most especially Mae. Why, he’s known her his whole life. Mayhap, the unused magic within ye is poisoning yer mind. Ye’ve never been so wrong about anything in yer life.”
Unaffected by her doubt, I glanced over at the castle stables as we passed. An idea popped into my mind. If Mary had so little faith in my ability to see what was right in front of me, I would make her believe by revealing a truth about herself I knew she’d never told another before.
“Are ye so certain that I’m wrong that ye’d wager against it?”
Mary’s confidence often got her into trouble. I knew she wouldn’t say no.
“O’course, I am. What do ye have in mind?”
“We shall ask Mae if she cares for Hew as I believe she does when we arrive at her inn. If she either flushes blood red or says ‘aye,’ we will know that I am right. If I am right, which I am, ye must go and confess yer own feelings to the lad ye fancy most.”
Laughing again, Mary stopped walking and doubled over as she gripped her stomach.
“Morna, ye must cease this. I havena laughed so much in weeks. I shall ache all day from it. Aye, I shall take yer wager for I canna lose.”
Keeping my voice level, I smiled at Mary as she straightened.
“Lose ye will.”
She shook her head and placed both her hands on her hips in defiance.
“But I canna lose, for ye know as well as I do that Mae doesna love my brother. Even if she does, I doona fancy any man around here. Thank God for it, too, for ye know how unseemly ’twould be for a woman to confess her feelings to someone she is not betrothed to.”
Resuming her fast-paced trot toward the village, I ran to block her path.
“Mary, I know ye too well for ye to lie to me.”
“I never lie.”
“Aye, ye lie more than any good person ever should. Ye do care for a man here. Ye care for him verra much.”
The amusement in her face faded, and I could see that she wondered just how I could possibly know.
“Oh? And who might that be?”
“Our stable master—Kip.”
Even Mary’s skin, darkened from too much time outdoors, flushed red at the mention of Kip’s name. I beamed with triumph as I placed my hand on her shoulder.
“Did ye feel what yer face did? If Mae’s does the same, we will know I was right.”
Smiling, I turned and walked ahead of her.
My incessantly talkative friend fell silent.
Chapter 4
“Ye canna mean that ye truly intend to make me tell him. ’Twould be improper, and Kip wouldna care for it. ’Twill only make him uncomfortable. Please Morna, I beg ye. I’ll do anything else.”
Still in shock over losing the wager, Mary continued to protest as we made our way back to the castle in the dark. Upon arriving at Mae’s inn, I sent word back to the castle to inform my father that Mae needed help and I would be absent from dinner, freeing Mary and me to tend to the inn until every last traveler was fed and abed for the night.
While father wouldn’t approve of my helping in the inn any more than he did of my tending to Eoin, Mae’s father and my own were old friends. I knew he would make no issue of my desire to help them if it was only for one night.
Of course I wouldn’t force Mary to tell Kip of her feelings. I cared for my friend too much to embarrass her—not that I intended to tell her that just yet. Perhaps a few more minutes of dread would teach her to not doubt me so fiercely next time. While I wouldn’t force Mary to say anything, I did intend to at least get Mary and Kip in the same room in the hopes that their feelings for one another might be strong enough to persuade one of them to take action.
“Aye, ye will tell him for I doona know if Kip will ever have the courage to do what he should without it. We will stop in at his cottage on the way to the castle.”
Shaking her head in the moonlight, Mary repeated her astonishment for the tenth time since leaving the inn.
“I canna believe how easily Mae admitted it. She’s never said a word about Hew before this night.”
“’Tis no surprise to me that Mae answered ye honestly. Have ye ever known the lass to speak an untruth? I doona believe she’s capable of it.”
“Aye, I suppose ’tis true. Mae speaks her own mind too plainly to lie. Though, I must ask ye, Morna, did ye spell Mae to say what ye wished?”
An involuntary snort escaped me as I turned and looked at my friend to gauge the sincerity of her question.
“Mary, yer eye is still bruised from my attempt to send a wooden spoon a
cross the kitchen to ye. Do ye truly believe I’ve the power to spell anyone to do anything?”
Rather than floating easily over to Mary’s hand as intended, the spoon had flown across the kitchen with such speed that it smashed against her face and knocked her to the ground. She’d been angry with me for days.
Mary shrugged, keeping her voice low as she answered.
“I doona know what I believe about ye anymore. I still doona know how ye discerned my feelings for Kip. I’ve never even whispered them aloud to myself.”
“’Tis a gift, not a spell. O’course I dinna spell Mae to do anything.”
Kip’s cottage lay just to the east of the castle’s stables. His home was dark as we approached.
“Morna, he’s already sleeping. We canna wake him up. I refuse to do it.”
Pointing over to the stables, I grabbed her arm to prevent her from running off toward the castle.
“Look at the candlelight. He’s still tending to the horses. I know he willna mind us visiting him there.”
“Kip never works so late. If someone is within the stables, ’tis Rab, the newest stable hand.”
Worry rolled off Mary in waves and her arm tensed beneath my grip. It was time to end her pain.
“Doona worry, Mary. I only mean to facilitate a meeting between the two of ye. Ye needn’t say a thing that ye doona wish to as long as ye promise to not be so doubtful of me next time.”
I smiled in the darkness as Mary sighed in relief.
“I’ll never doubt ye again.”
Inside, we found Kip leaning against the widest stall at the stable’s far end staring intently at the mare inside. Hearing our approach, he turned to greet us. His smile was wide, and his eyes never left Mary. I wasn’t even sure he knew I was there until he spoke.
“Did the two of ye come to see the birth?”
“Birth?” Mary’s voice rose with excitement as she moved around me to look down into the stall.
I grinned inwardly as I slowly approached the two of them from behind. A birth would be the perfect excuse for Mary to linger. Perhaps she could offer him aid while I slipped away feigning exhaustion.
Love Beyond Reach: Book 8 of Morna’s Legacy Series Page 3
