And it was bare... No matter that she would deny it... she could scarce deceive herself. Somehow, without even trying, he’d found his way beyond the carefully tended barriers that had long since kept her safe... and so alone.
Once upon a time Page had sworn never to care about love, or even the respect of others—she couldn’t control those things—had even ceased to vie for them, choosing instead to go her own way. That frame of mind had gotten her into so much difficulty with her father. She knew that, and yet had provoked him nevertheless—not because she’d so desperately craved his affection, but because she was furious with him. She knew that now because Iain had forced her to acknowledge the truth of the matter. That she was furious with her father—enraged with a strength and depth of emotion that could never have waxed so full overnight.
What now? Dare she open her heart completely to Iain? Dare she hope he could love her in return, when no one else had?
Page nipped at her lip, biting until she felt pain, for she wanted to so very desperately.
Swallowing the knot that rose to choke her, she lay in Iain’s bed and contemplated the sparseness of the room. Even in the darkness she could sense its nagging emptiness. There was nothing here to give even the slightest insight into the man with whom she’d lain with so freely.
The man she dared to love.
She knew Iain MacKinnon loved his clan fiercely—knew he loved his son even more. But who was he?
There was a brooding sadness about the man—a sadness he hid behind that mask of unrelenting good humor. She sensed that. She realized, too, that he suffered nightmares... but over what?
As she lay there, contemplating the possibilities, she came aware of the distant wail of a pipe. Melancholy and haunting, the melody drifted through the night like a shuddering cry.
Driven by curiosity, she rolled from the bed and searched out her clothing, intending to follow the piper’s song…
* * *
“Da!” Malcom shouted. He came running, leaping into Iain’s arms, his smile brilliant, his eyes shining.
Iain laughed as he caught his boy, squeezing him tightly, embracing him unabashedly.
“Glenna told me no’ to pester ye,” Malcom complained. “She said I couldna go an’ wake ye!”
Iain’s grin widened at hearing his son’s grievance. “Did she now?”
“Aye,” Malcom said, squeezing him back with all the strength his stout little arms possessed. “I wanna ride on your shoulders, Da!” he declared.
“Verra well, wee auld man.”
Malcom giggled a mischievous little giggle and nearly strangled Iain with his glee. When, at last, he released the hold upon Iain’s throat, Iain hoisted his son atop his shoulders and waited until he was settled before making his way toward the gathering of his kinsmen. “Well, now,” he remarked, more to himself than to Malcom. “I see everyone is ready at hand.”
“Aye, Da, though dinna ye worry. We dinna begin withoot ye.”
“I see that,” Iain said, and thanked his son for standing in for him while he’d been else-wise occupied.
“Aw... dinna fash yourself, Da. I told ‘em ye couldna help yourself.”
“Ho!” Iain choked in surprise. “Di’ ye now, son?”
“Aye, and Angus said I had the right o’ it, too.”
Iain imagined is son was nodding fervently.
“Did he now?”
“Aye! And he said ye been without a woman for far too long.”
Iain strangled on another chuckle. He made a mental note to speak with Angus about Malcom’s premature education. Ach, though he thought his son understood far too much for his tender age.
Then again, he reconsidered, mayhap ’twas for the best. He knew better than anyone that one could not control fate. Were he to cock up his toes this very night, or tomorrow, or the next, Malcom would need every wisp of knowledge he might possess in order to survive. Aye, for he could shelter his son only so far. MacKinnon men had not the luxury of languishing in boyhood. They were pulled from the womb as men, with the weight of the clan upon their shoulders, and the shadows of their predecessors pecking at their backs. In truth, although Iain had vowed to allow Malcom as ordinary a boyhood as was conceivable, he was sworn by birthright, and by duty, to prepare his son to lead.
“Well, now,” Iain began.
“Awwww, dinna ye worry, Da,” Malcom broke in as he wrapped his chubby little hands around Iain’s chin and laid his own chin atop the pate of Iain’s head. Iain savored the feel of his son’s wee pointy chin needling the crown of his head and the small hand that gently patted his cheek. Ach, but it wouldn’t be long before this was naught more than a pleasant memory. The thought made him sigh. “I understand everything,” Malcom said, his tone conspiratorial.
Iain’s brow furrowed, hoping that wasn’t true. “D’ ye now, son?”
“Aye, Da,” his son declared with a certainty. “I been without a woman too long, too,” he revealed somewhat dejectedly.
Iain choked yet again, though not solely because of the little hands that were now tightening their grip upon his throat. He wasn’t at all certain whether to be amused or disconcerted by his son’s revelation. “You’ve been without a woman too long?” he repeated with no small measure of surprise.
“Aw, yeah, Da!” Malcom answered resolutely. “Ach, but I been thinkin’ it would be a guid thing to have a lassie aboot to croon me to sleep now and again.”
Iain chuckled at his son’s waggish admission. Struggling to contain his mirth, he whacked his son’s leg affectionately, and smiled as he walked.
“Oh, and Da,” Malcom ventured once again.
“Aye, Malcom?”
“Di’ she sing ye a guid one, I was wondering?”
Iain blinked at the innocent question.
“I heard cousin Lagan say she was gonna gi’ ye a good lay.”
It took Iain a full moment to realize what it was his son was asking. But he asked the question with such childish innocence that it made his heart squeeze. No matter that Malcom had no notion what it was he was asking,
“Aye, Malcom,” Iain confessed, clearing his throat. “She sings sweeter than any woman I e’er did hear.”
“I thought so, Da,” Malcom avowed. “She croons better than cousin Lagan, of a certainty.”
Iain’s brows lifted in surprise. “Lagan?” He stopped walking, surprised by the disclosure. Although Lagan had always been good enough to Malcom, Iain could scarce imagine his dour-faced cousin croonin’ to anyone. “Does Lagan sing ye to sleep, Malcom?”
“Aye, Da,” his son assured him. “He surely does.”
“Well, I’ll be…,” Iain declared. “Now, when did he go and do a thing like that?”
“Hmmmm...”
Iain imagined his son’s scrunched nose as he concentrated, and couldn’t keep from smiling once more.
“I dunno, Da,” Malcom yielded after a moment’s deliberation. “But he surely did. I canna remember, but I know he surely did.”
“Well, I’ll be,” Iain said again, and started once more toward the gathering. He decided there was much about his cousin that he had yet to learn.
“Oh, and Da?”
“Aye, son?”
“I was wonderin’ too... does she sing a finer lilt than my minnie?”
Once again Iain halted in his step, his heart squeezing within his chest. His brows drew together at the simple question, and he swallowed the knob that appeared in his throat, answering honestly. “I dunno, Malcom. I never did hear your minnie sing, at all.”
“Oh.”
There was keen disappointment in the single word. Iain heard it and his heart twisted.
“Da, you’re hurtin’ me leg,” Malcom said, a little frown in his voice.
Starting at the complaint, Iain eased his grip upon Malcom’s little legs. He sucked in a breath and said, “Forgive me, son.” And he swallowed the grief that rose to choke him, although it was no longer just for himself. “You know what, son,” he lied w
ith ease, for Malcom’s sake. “She woulda sung to ye... if she could have...”
“D’ y’ think so, Da?”
The note of hope in Malcom’s voice was like vin aigre spilled into a freshly healing wound. Iain’s eyes stung, but not from the smoke of the raging bonfire. The image of Mairi standing before the tower window, her eyes burning with hatred, rose up to mock him. There was no doubt in his mind that she’d meant to leave them both, for she’d left him standing there with their brand-new bairn cradled within his arms. Still, he forced the lie from his lips once again for Malcom’s sake. “I know so, son,” he said. “I know so. Had she been able to see your wee face, she would have sung to ye every night. I know she would.”
“I woulda liked that, Da,” Malcom said, and Iain could hear the smile in his son’s voice. His jaw clenched, and he closed his eyes, swallowing the curse that rose to his lips.
He didn’t think he’d ever forgive Mairi for leaving with nary a thought for Malcom’s wellbeing. Had she even said goodbye to their babe before she’d placed Malcom in his arms?
“What about you, Da? Did your mammie e’er sing to ye?”
Iain opened his eyes, watching the gathering at the bonfire as he considered the question, uncertain as to why he hesitated, for the answer could only be no.
He closed his eyes once again and contemplated the woman’s voice from his dream—the song, the eyes—and was filled with keen frustration. “Nay,” he answered, but he was confused. He opened his eyes to stare at the bonfire, frowning.
It occurred to him suddenly that his own mother’s death had gone undiscussed much too long. It was something he and his son shared in common, the lack of a mother from birth, and yet he’d grown so accustomed to it being an unspeakable matter between himself and his own Da that he’d never even thought to broach it with his son.
As a boy, Iain had asked questions interminably, only to be turned away at every occasion. And not merely by his father, but by every last clansman who might have known his mother. If your Da wants ye to know, they’d all persistently told him, he’ll tell ye himself. But his Da had never told him a thing, and after a while, Iain had quit asking altogether. All he knew of his mother, he’d learned from his aunt Glenna, and even that was precious little.
If Iain didn’t know better, that his Da had loved his mother fiercely, that he’d mourned her death until the day he’d died, he’d have thought her name a blasphemy in his house, for it had surely been unspeakable within his presence...
“Da?” Malcom ventured once more, breaking into Iain’s gloom-filled thoughts.
“Aye, Malcom?”
“D’ ye think she would mind if I called her mammy?”
“Who, Malcom?”
“Page.”
Iain went utterly still at the question.
“I think ye would do better to call her Suisan,” Page heard him tell his son.
She’d overheard enough of their conversation to feel the sting of tears prick her eyes. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but had nevertheless, and now she didn’t know whether to make her presence known, or to turn about and flee.
Drawn by the firelight and the melancholy sound of the reed, she’d come upon father and son standing there together in the shadows of the night, speaking softly with one another. A private conversation such as one Page might have longed for as a child. She might have... had she known it possible to share such confidences. She stemmed a flood of envy that rose to nag her.
Ahead of them, the fire’s glow was a beacon in the dark of night. A lone piper stood before it, playing his instrument with such funereal intensity that it seduced her feet to move forward. Curiosity along with the piper’s song drew her to Iain’s side to watch the strange gathering.
It seemed every last clan member was present for the occasion, their silhouettes congregated before the fire like moths before a torchlight.
Both father and son turned to peer down at her.
For a long instant, Page couldn’t find her voice to speak, so moved was she by Malcom’s sweet question. Still they stared at her.
“He can call me anything he likes,” Page said softly. “Page is fine.”
A moment of silence passed between them while Iain stared down at her with unblinking eyes. “I thought you preferred Suisan,” he said at long last.
Page drew in a breath. “I thought I would,” she said, holding his gaze, unblinking, as well. “Till just this instant I thought I would.” But it occurred to her suddenly that her name was simply that, a name. In a sense, it was a badge of honor for all she’d suffered at her father’s hands. But no more did she feel ashamed by it. To the contrary, she felt a sense of pride—because she had endured. She was unbroken. What greater revenge could she have over her misbegotten father than to live, and to live well, to walk away with pride? Who could dare pity her when her heart was so filled with gladness?
“I’ve decided,” she told them both, a slight smile crooking her lips, “that I like my name, after all.”
Iain’s beautiful lips curved softly at her declaration. “D’ ye now?”
“Aye,” Page answered flippantly, lifting her brow. “I believe I rather do.” Her heart swelled with a strange elation that she couldn’t quite fathom... and yet it was there... a keen, overwhelming sense of joy that was both unfamiliar and titillating.
Iain’s grin widened, and even in the darkness, she could see the glimmer of his smile and the amused twinkle in his eyes.
She turned away, feeling strangely elated. “What are they doing?” she asked father and son together.
She watched the clansmen from the corners of her eyes.
“’Tis for Ranald,” Iain revealed, still scrutinizing her. Page turned to peer up at him. Illuminated by the distant firelight, his face was startlingly beautiful with its hard masculine lines. And his youthful features were striking in contrast with the bold silver at his temples. Her heart fluttered within her breast. “Our way of saying goodbye.”
Page turned to regard the bonfire with new eyes, and at once focused upon the crudely constructed scaffold in its center. Understanding dawned, and her smile at once twisted into a grimace. “You plan to burn him?”
“Aye, lass,” Iain answered.
“Have mercy! Why? ’Tis barbaric.”
He merely chuckled. “Mayhap so.”
“No mayhap about it—poor Ranald!”
“It canna be helped, Page.”
It was the first time he’d ever spoken her name so gently, and Page lifted her face to meet his gaze, her heart leaping at the intimate sound of it upon his lips.
“Ye canna bury a man in stone,” he explained, his tone soft and matter-of-fact. The firelight flickered within his eyes, and the glimmer was both sad and amused at once. “Chreagach Mhor is built upon solid rock. No spade will turn soil so unyielding as this.”
“Oh,” Page replied. He turned again to watch the mourners before the fire and so, too, did Page.
“The stone walls of my home,” he revealed, “were carved from these cliffs so long ago that not even my forefathers could recall whose hands first hewed them. And still they stand.”
He turned to peer over his shoulder at the strange tapered donjon that loomed behind them. Page followed his gaze. “Every last stone remains in place.”
She thought of her father’s endless repairs, and conceded, “’Tis remarkable.”
Nay, but she was remarkable.
Iain found himself staring at the wife he coveted, admiring the proud tilt of her head, the stubborn lift of her chin, and the soft curve of her lips. He could scarce conceive that the woman he was seeing was the same woman he’d thought to pity. There was naught about her that elicited such a response from him this instant. Naught at all. She seemed taller even—something he’d never quite noticed about her—and he frowned, for she was perchance taller than any woman he’d e’er known.
She decided she liked her name, did she? Vixen.
Oddly enough, he found he sudd
enly liked her name, too.
Her face, illumined by the distant firelight, was aglow with something new... something he couldn’t quite place. Something delightful and heartening.
And his heart... it, too, was filled with something new... something deep and warm and yearning.
Something he dared not fully embrace lest he wake one unspeakable morn to find her expression rife with repulsion. He’d sworn to protect and care for her, aye, but love was an entanglement best eschewed.
Chapter 27
The funeral extended well into the night.
In his own manner, every last kinsman present paid last respects to Puir Ranald, and then Iain lit a torch from the bonfire and set the pyre to flame. Ranald’s mother stood, wailing. A few others wept softly. Most stood silent, their faces somber and their eyes melancholy. Among them, a lone piper played his reed, the melody both hypnotic and forlorn—and still a few others danced curiously to his strangely buoyant song.
Page watched in both revulsion and awe as the fire licked its way up the scaffold toward the body wrapped with new blankets. And even once the flames reached the platform she couldn’t make herself look away.
As she watched the flames consume the body, she felt curiously removed. For an instant, the piper’s sound drifted away, and only the roar of the fire reached her ears. From the corners of her eyes she saw the writhing dancers, and yet her focus remained upon the ashes that floated from the pyre—feathery shadows that danced upward and disappeared beyond the rosy light of the bonfire into freedom. Free to roam the earth and settle at will, or not at all. Page imagined herself one of those glowing ashes, and felt her soul lift along with it, into the cool black night. She lifted her gaze to peer into the moonless sky and found herself floating, floating... free...
Freedom.
It was what she’d always wanted... what she’d sorely craved...
Or was it now in truth?
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