His Heart's Home

by Sterling, Stephanie

  “Liam!” Ciaran scolded. Avery and Aidan were hugging her, but she had one eye on the other boys.

  “But he’s all red and wrinkly,” Liam argued.

  “You were red and wrinkly when you’d just been born too,” Ryan said wisely.

  “I was not!” Liam cried, and his shouting and poking woke up Thomas, who made his displeasure known by balling loudly. “It’s crying!” Liam announced to the room at large.

  “Liam! Thomas is not an ‘it’!” Ciaran said sharply. “Duncan, can you pass him over here?” she asked her husband.

  “Which one?” Duncan chuckled, but he was scooping Thomas up as he spoke.

  The children stayed with Ciaran for almost an hour, before the younger ones started falling asleep and Duncan declared it was time for them all to be in bed. Mary had already dozed off, something he was rather grateful for. The little girl was not at all pleased about having to move out of her mother’s bedroom into the boy’s room in the loft.

  “You’ll be coming back?” Ciaran asked, sleepily.

  “Of course,” Duncan promised, still amazed at how well she was holding up. “I won’t be long.”

  The boys were really very good for him. They washed up and said their prayers, and all scrambled into their beds like perfect little angels. Duncan told them goodnight and then headed back to his wife.

  Thomas was sleeping in his crib again, and Ciaran looked like she had nodding off too. Duncan stripped off his clothes and blew out the candles, and then he very carefully slipping under the blankets beside his wife so he didn’t wake her.

  The following morning Ciaran woke up, and wanted to make breakfast. When Duncan refused to let her do that she offered to stay in bed for “just a little while longer” if she could at least see to the darning. Denied that chore, Duncan returned from the barn to find his wife on her feet washing the dishes.

  “Ciaran, please go back to bed?” he begged, hovering over her as though he was afraid she might collapse at any minute.

  “I feel fine!” Ciaran assured him. “Really, Duncan, I do! I feel much better than I did after having Liam and Avery and Mary, and I didn’t lie about in bed for half as long any of those times and I was absolutely fine,” she promised him.

  Duncan looked decidedly unconvinced. “I’m sure my sister stayed in bed for a week when she had each of my nephews…”

  “Your sister?” Ciaran turned to look at him, one eyebrow raised. “The Duchess?”

  Duncan grunted and gently wrapped his arms around Ciaran’s waist. “You’re just as precious as any duchess to me,” he murmured, pressing his lips against her neck. Ciaran smiled shyly and turned in his embrace. He kissed the tip of her nose and stared into her eyes. “You and the children have made my life complete.”

  “Duncan!” Ciaran flushed. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his chin. “I feel the same way,” she whispered, wondering if maybe now was the time to tell him that she loved him?

  Thomas decided it wasn’t, however.

  The baby’s hungry wail filled the house and Ciaran turned away from her husband to tend to their son.

  “Did you write Thomas into the family Bible?” she asked, opening the front of her blouse and helping the baby to nurse (she thought Duncan was doing quite a good job of not staring… poor man, he had been so patient with her, and his wait was almost over… just a few more weeks now).

  “I thought you’d like to do it.”

  “Me?” Ciaran squeaked, eyes widening.

  “Aye,” Duncan chuckled. “You can write as well as I can now!”

  That wasn’t true, but Ciaran glowed with pleasure all the same.

  “All right,” she smiled. “I’ll find it later. I think it’s in a box in our bedroom?”

  “Aye,” Duncan nodded. “I put it back in there after writing in the date of our marriage,” he grinned.

  Ciaran blushed deeply. “Do you think Thomas will be horrified when he grows up and sees that the dates between our marriage and his birth are only five months apart?” she muttered, looking a little shamefaced.

  “I shouldn’t imagine so,” Duncan said easily. “It’s hardly an uncommon occurrence. And besides, little Thomas is a MacRae man, or will be one day.

  Ciaran decided to pretend she hadn’t heard the remark about ‘MacRae men’.

  Duncan headed back out to the fields a little while later, although only after Ciaran had promised she wouldn’t lift a finger while he was gone. Mary and Thomas were taking naps, the older boys were helping Duncan on the land and the younger two were at school until lunchtime when Molly was going to arrive to help around the house.

  Given the free time she had on her hands, Ciaran decided to go and get the family Bible so she could enter Thomas’s name and date of birth. She carried the book out to the kitchen table, where she had already prepared some ink and a quill.

  There were a number of pieces of folded paper slotted inside the front cover of the Bible. Ciaran looked at them curiously. The first one was her and Duncan’s wedding certificate. She beamed as she read it over for the first time in its entirety, using her finger to follow the words, and stroking Duncan’s signature lovingly when she reached the end.

  The second piece of paper wasn’t nearly so pleasant! It was her marriage certificate to Sean. She had only been able to sign that one with a rough cross. Her cheeks blazed with embarrassment when she looked at it now. She had wanted to burn the thing, but Duncan had persuaded her that it might one day be needed and so she should hang onto it.

  She put it back at the back of the Bible however, hoping she would never need to look at it again!

  The third document that fell into Ciaran’s hand she had never seen before, or if she had, then it had been long before she could read. The words were mostly long, and mainly unfamiliar, but after applying herself for some time and with some effort Ciaran realized this was about her indenture.

  Her indenture, she had always understood, was to last two years. That was what Sean had told her when he first picked her up after her arrival from Ireland, and so she couldn’t understand why the document kept referring to her “twelve month term” of service. She had to be misreading something somewhere! She had to be! Because-because if she wasn’t misreading anything-then it didn’t even bear thinking about!

  Ciaran couldn’t persuade herself she was reading it wrong though. She needed Duncan. She needed him to confirm or deny her discovery! When Molly arrived to help with the household chores Ciaran sent her straight back out again to fetch her husband with instructions to tell him that he was urgently needed. Duncan arrived barely ten minutes later. He burst into the house, panting and looking frantic.

  “Ciaran?” he called, and relaxed a fraction when he saw she appeared to be all right. “What is it? What’s wrong? Is it Thomas?” he demanded, reaching out to her, but she held him back by waving the indenture in front of his face.

  “Read this!” she begged, almost in hysterics. Duncan wisely took it from her without saying a word and started to skim the document. “Out loud,” Ciaran cried. Her husband looked at her for a moment, clearly confused and worried, but he did as she asked. She listened in silence until he reached the “twelve months” part, and then she let out an anguished cry.

  “Ciaran, what in God’s name is the matter?” Duncan demanded, catching hold of her by the arms.

  “A year?” she cried, tears shining in her eyes. “It was only meant to last for a year? He told me-he told me it was for two!” she sobbed, turning away from Duncan and burying her head in her hands. “If-if I’d b-been able to leave after a year then I-then he-!” she was forced to stop as her tears came faster and thicker.

  “Ciaran, darling?” Duncan voice was choked with concern.

  He reached for her again, but she pulled away. She turned and bolted for the bedroom, shutting the door behind her-between them.

  Pain lanced through Duncan’s heart. She had never run from him before. He looked down again at the piece of paper in
his unsteady hands and reread it, trying to understand what it meant by trying to piece together what Ciaran had said. Sean, the he she had spoken of could only be Sean, had lied to her, but about what? What else had he done?

  Duncan stared again at the closed bedroom door, and then made up his mind to act. He had let Ciaran keep the painful secrets of her first marriage quiet for too long, mainly because he was afraid they would hurt him. He would risk any hurt to himself to try and help Ciaran though.

  He took a deep breath and went after her, relieved to find the bedroom door was only shut and not barred.

  “Ciaran?” he said gently, heart breaking when he found her sobbing on the bed. “Ciaran, love, you have to tell me what it is, all right?”

  “I can’t!” she wept, tensing when Duncan reached for her. He ignored it though, and used his superior strength to pull her gently into his arms. He sat down on the bed and held her on his lap, cradling her against his chest.

  “Tell me what he did to you,” Duncan urged, wiping away Ciaran’s tears with the pad of his thumb.

  “I’m scared of what you’ll think of me!” Ciaran gasped, unable to catch her breath because she had been crying so hard.

  “Scared of me?” Duncan tutted.

  “You might hate me!” Ciaran nodded, eyes red and tortured. “When I th-think about it all… I hate myself!”

  Duncan frowned fiercely. “That’s part of why you have to tell me,” he said. He touched her gently, just above her breast, where he could feel her heart pounding frantically. “All that pain you keep locked away in here-” he tapped his fingers softly against her skin “-I want you to give it to me to take away.”

  “I don’t want it to hurt you too,” she whimpered. “I don’t want-I don’t want it to come between us!”

  “Ciaran, I promise you that nothing you say will change the way I feel about you,” Duncan told her gently, and while Ciaran was desperately wondering how he did feel about her, Duncan sat confident in the knowledge what he had said was the truth.

  “I-” Ciaran hesitated. Could she really do this? “I was fourteen when I came over from Ireland,” she said quietly. Duncan nodded his head to let her know he was listening, but he didn’t interrupt. “It wasn’t so very bad at first,” she said quickly. “The work was hard and I was homesick, but-but Mr. and Mrs. Connelly didn’t seem like very bad people, and I liked the boys, Avery and Ryan.”

  “But?” Duncan growled, knowing there was going to be a big ‘but’ somewhere.

  “S-Sean used to beat his wife,” Ciaran whispered. She felt Duncan’s body tense beneath her. “The first time I heard him it made me sick… I was so scared! She was so afraid! But I-I was glad it wasn’t me… and I-I thought maybe it was her fault!” Ciaran cried, disgusted with herself. “Sean was always so nice to me… and he was so good at twisting everything around to make himself look innocent.”

  “I’ll bet he was!” Duncan snarled, and then made a concerted effort to calm down. He couldn’t go and lose his temper, especially not when he knew Ciaran’s story had to get worse.

  “You’re angry?” Ciaran whispered, paling.

  Duncan squeezed her hand reassuringly. “Only with him!”

  Ciaran nodded her head miserably. She took a wobbly breath and then tried to continue her difficult tale.

  “After-after I had been living with the Connelly’s for some months Sean started-he started-”

  “What did he do, Ciaran?” Duncan demanded, there was a pulse ticking in his cheek, but Ciaran had gone too far to stop.

  “I started to develop a more grownup figure,” she stammered, unable to look her husband in the eyes as she spoke. “I didn’t really realize it at the time, but looking back now I think that must have been the trigger. Sean started… touching me,” she said, with revulsion. “It was only little things at first,” she added hurriedly, because Duncan’s grip on her body was becoming almost bruising. “I sometimes wondered if it was innocent and accidental, if maybe I was being silly to feel uncomfortable about it,” she said, trailing off.

  “Go on,” Duncan urged. There was a strange, strangled quality to his voice that made Ciaran hesitate. “Go on,” he demanded, and so she reluctantly compiled.

  Ciaran did so in a monotone. “I’d just turned fifteen. If I had been told the truth about my indenture I might not have been there… Sean came home in a foul mood one night. He was drunk, he often was you know…”

  “Ciaran-”

  “He found me on my own and he-he-” she clenched her eyes shut against the memory as a wave of nausea rose against the back of her throat. When she managed to peep at her husband’s face, his shattered expression told her that she didn’t need to spell out what had happened to her that night. “I didn’t want it!” she said quickly, defensively. “But he-he was so much stronger than me,” she sobbed. “I couldn’t stop him!”

  Duncan had to remind himself to breathe. Rage had momentarily paralyzed his body. He took a great gulp of air and tried to repress the sudden urge he had to kill something. The thought of Ciaran-his Ciaran, his beautiful wife, being so sickeningly abused turned his stomach and chilled his blood.

  He had realized Sean must have taken despicable advantage of her when she was little more than a child, but he had always hoped there had been an element of seduction in her downfall. He had never allowed himself to confront the truth before - that she had been raped.

  “Duncan?”

  The sound of Ciaran’s sweet anxious voice stoked Duncan’s anger hotter. How could Sean have been so vile to a woman who was so tender and gentle?

  “Duncan, say something?” Ciaran begged, but Duncan couldn’t say anything. He was far too furious with Sean to speak. The things he wanted to say lodged in his throat and choked him. He eased his wife off his lap and began pacing the room like a caged animal.

  Ciaran watched her husband with wide eyes. She shuffled backwards on the bed until her back hit the headboard Duncan had made and then she curled herself into a little ball. She had known telling Duncan the truth would only make things worse! He was disgusted, revolted - he slammed his fist into the wall and Ciaran couldn’t help but give a small shriek of terror.

  “I’m sorry!” she sobbed. “I’m sorry, Duncan! Please, please don’t hate me

  “Hate you?” he echoed her, then turned and saw the frightened state she was in, and he swore under his breath.

  “Christ, Ciaran, I don’t hate you!” he said gruffly. “I hate him for what he did to you, but I love you, you know I do.”

  A few tears trickled down Ciaran’s cheeks. He edged towards her slowly and she steeled herself not to shy away. He was still radiating anger, something that she had never experienced before with Duncan, but she tried not to let it frighten her.

  “I would have killed him if I’d known what he’d done to you!” he swore violently. “God, I wish I had known you back then,” he said hoarsely. He sat beside her and wrapped a protective arm around her shoulder, drawing her against his chest. Ciaran sank against him, sank into all that male strength and power he had laid at her disposable. “I would have saved you. I would have taken you away!”

  Ciaran smiled tremulously, but she felt compelled to say, “I doubt your real wife would have liked that very much.”

  “My real wife?” Duncan frowned, confusion was etched across his face, but Ciaran couldn’t bring herself to look up at him.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, although she burned with jealousy whenever she thought about the woman that Duncan had truly loved. “I shouldn’t have mentioned her. I know it’s not my place.”

  “What are you-not your place? Ciaran, what do you mean?”

  Ciaran dashed her eyes with the back of her hand and tried to calm down. It did no good to be jealous of a dead woman. She supposed that, in much the same way, it couldn’t really help them in any way to have Duncan so angry with a dead man either, but that did make her feel a little better, however unchristian it might be.

  When
she looked at her husband she saw a man who wanted to drag Sean out of hell just so he could have the pleasure of sending him back there again… he had to-he had to love her a little bit to want to do that for her, didn’t he?

  “I wish-” she said quietly. “I wish I could have come to you as pure and unspoiled as she did…” she murmured, and then gave a shuddering sigh.

  The first Mrs. MacRae would have been a virgin on her wedding night, Ciaran had no doubt about that… she would have been complete. She would have had a perfect body to give Duncan along with the whole of her heart. Duncan had her heart! He had stolen it from her long ago, but she still felt unworthy at times.

  “What are you talking about?” Duncan murmured, gently running his fingers through Ciaran’s hair.

  “I-I don’t know really,” she sniffed, fresh tears falling. She decided to take a gamble, to risk everything on her next confession. “I just love you so much, Duncan. I just want to know that I have a piece of your heart!” she sobbed. “Just a little piece!”

  “Ciaran-Ciaran, you’re crazy,” Duncan whispered, his face was lined with disbelief. “You have it all!” he told her fiercely, gathering her up in his arms as he spoke, and crushing her against his chest.

  “But you love Aileen!” Ciaran cried brokenly.

  Duncan froze. He hesitated, should he speak? Should he explain about his first marriage to Ciaran? Would he hurt her more than she was already hurting, or would it help her to understand things?

  “Ciaran, I did love Aileen,” he confessed, and tried not to hear her sharp, pained intake of breath. “But I think you’re imagining my first marriage was something that it wasn’t…”

  “What do you mean?” Ciaran gasped, trying to recover from the huge blow of hearing Duncan confess her worst fears.

  “Aileen was Thomas’s fiancée before he died.” Ciaran’s head snapped up in shock. She stared at Duncan with teary eyes and waited for him to continue. “If Thomas had lived, Aileen would have married him and I-I don’t think I would have regretted it,” he said slowly, as if he was just working through these emotions. “Thomas’s death was what bound us together you see.”