“I just always thought you loved me. But now I don’t know. You frown at me as much as you smile, and you avoid me at all times except when we’re in this room.”
“I took you to the lake today. We had fun together, didn’t we?”
“Until you discovered I knew how to read and write. Then you frowned at me the rest of the day. You always frown at me.”
“I frown a lot, Cait. I can’t help it. It has nothing to do with my feelings for you. I love you very much. Now come, lay over my lap.”
She hesitated. “I don’t want to.”
“That may be, love, but you’ll do it all the same.”
“If you love me, why do you hurt me?”
Duncan sighed. “Honestly, we’ve been over and over this. Do I really need to explain it again? I will if you wish it, but you’ll be punished all the same. Now come, let’s get it over with.”
She dragged over to him, weeping openly now. He pulled her between his legs and tilted her chin up to him.
“These tears, Cait. What are you really crying about?”
“I don’t want you to do this. I just want you to hold me.”
“Disobedient wives aren’t coddled and cuddled, are they? You know that.”
He pulled her down over his knee, ignoring her sobbing. Of course he was devastated to see her so upset, but the worst thing he could do would be to let her go now, when she was obviously trying to see where the boundaries lay.
The spanking was harsh and painful, but not angry. He wanted her to feel she was being punished, yes, but to understand that she was loved. Afterward he made her stand again between his legs and look him in the eyes. She was miserable, conflicted, guilty.
“Tell me, Caitlyn, what that punishment was for.”
“It was...it was for being...disobedient,” she sniffled through her tears.
“For testing me, yes? For purposely not following the rules.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Are you sorry?” She was quiet a long moment. If he had to, he would start all over again.
“I’m sorry I made you angry,” she said finally. “I just want you to love me. If I have to be obedient for you to love me, that’s what I’ll do.”
“I told you already,” he said, his patience wearing thin, “that I love you always. No matter what you do. No matter if I frown and spend time away from you, you’re my wife and I care for you. I won’t allow you to be unsafe and unhappy, which is why I require obedience of you. Now repeat it to me, so I know you understand me. Do I love you, Caitlyn?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And why must you obey me? What is the reason?”
“To...to...to be safe...and happy,” she said with a fresh torrent of tears.
“Because I love you and I want you to be safe and happy,” he agreed quietly. He hugged her, pulling her close in his arms. “I know you aren’t feeling very happy right now, or very safe when I’m hurting you in punishment. Tonight you’ll dress and sleep in your own room and think over what I’ve said. Tomorrow we’ll try again.”
Her eyes pleaded with his. She didn’t want to be sent away, but he knew she needed time to think. She needed to understand the consequences of fighting his system.
“Go on.” He pushed her gently towards her clothes strewn on the floor. She dressed, still shaking with tears. He opened the door to her adjoining room and ushered her inside.
“Do not come back in tonight,” he said. “I’ve told you what I wish.”
“Yes, sir,” she whispered, just as the first hard rain started to fall.
He shut the door and crossed back to his window, staring out at the pummeling storm. Hard lessons now would assure smoother times later, but it still pained him to wish her good night and send her away. He hadn’t even enjoyed that spanking, not really. He was more worried about the miscommunication that had caused it. For her to believe he didn’t love her...that was the worst thing of all.
Lightning flickered in the distance. Duncan decided to return to the hall to see if any assistance was needed in battening down for the storm. Before he arrived, Connor came striding toward him down the corridor.
“What is it, man? Danger?”
“No, only something you should see. Someone,” he amended. “She claims to be mother to Lady Caitlyn.”
Duncan took in the uneasy look on his friend’s face. “And who do you think she is?”
“I think she is who she says she is, and much more than that. But she asked to see you and only you, not her daughter. She demanded it,” finished Connor with a frown.
“Where is she?”
“In the hall, my lord.”
“I’ll meet with her alone—”
“Duncan,” Connor warned.
“I’ll meet with her alone! And see that Cait doesn’t enter the hall without my permission,” he added as an afterthought.
Duncan stalked toward the great hall. He’d have answers now, at long last, from this woman claiming to be Cait’s mother, as if anyone like she had the right to call herself a mother. Abandoning her daughter to be raised like a pauper in the woods, alone with an aged nurse and a king for a father, and no earthly knowledge of who she was or of anything of the world. He banged open the door, worked into full fury, but stopped still as she turned eyes on him that were exact replicas of Cait. The woman drew herself up haughtily.
“You may think of me whatever you wish, bold warrior,” she intoned at his expression, “but you will hear my words before you send me away.”
Cait’s mother. Duncan had no doubt she was exactly who she claimed to be. To say that she resembled Cait was an understatement; it was as if Duncan looked upon Cait herself in twenty or twenty five years, garbed in the woad robes of a priestess. A priestess. She resembled Cait in appearance, but that was all. For this woman, though petite, had a presence that dwarfed Duncan and made him stop short where he was. A presence that Cait did not in any way possess.
A priestess. A high priestess of some kind, if not the highest priestess, he thought suddenly. He had known there was more to Cait’s parentage than he had been told, and now it was explained. As he thought all this the woman glared back at him balefully, looking down her nose at him with a frown. She was dressed in a plain, unassuming gown, but exuded such a strange and affecting power that she might as well have been garbed in the richest, most rare of dress with bedazzling jewels. He blinked, breaking her stare, suddenly certain that she tried to bespell him. Perhaps, he thought belatedly, he should not have met with her alone.
“I have been on a merry chase about Scotland looking for my daughter,” her voice rang out, “and I find her here at Inverness Keep, in the Devil’s own hands.” She glowered at him as she spoke the last words.
“I am no devil, madam,” returned Duncan, “but I have some words for what you are, to have cared for your daughter as you have.”
Her eyes narrowed, sizing him up. “You might do better to address me with respect. Do you know to whom you speak?”
“I have an idea of your high station, but I speak to you as the mother of my wife. The absent, careless mother,” he added with a scowl.
Her sudden peal of laughter surprised him. “Oh, cry and wail. My daughter was well cared for, better cared for that I left her alone. You understand me, Devil?”
“My name is Duncan of Inverness.”
“And my name is Edana, high priestess of the Isles, lest we both get confused. Now that the introductions are out of the way perhaps we can speak plainly and clearly. If you are finished criticizing my maternal capabilities, that is.”
Duncan stood and watched her with his lips pursed in a frown. “Plainly and clearly sounds fine to me. What is it you want?”
Edana lifted her chin and stared at him as lightning flickered in the darkened hall. “For all you imagine I have no maternal feelings for my daughter, the truth is I have traveled here to see that she is well.”
“She is well,” Duncan said. “For all that I am named a
Devil, I am a loving husband to your daughter Cait.”
“Love?” said Edana, her brows lifting. “Is it so? My lucky daughter, then, to know that which her mother has not.”
“Yes, lucky,” Duncan agreed. “We live very happily here. She is safe and content and much loved.”
“I am happy to hear it,” said Edana, her voice finally softening. “Based on your unfortunate moniker, I must say I expected the worst. But she is not completely safe here. You must hear this and know it, and take it to heart.”
“What do you mean? She is very safe here. She has a guard. She is always supervised. I know she is not one to be careless with. She has the blood of the king...and you...”
“Yes, me. Wretched pagan blood. The blood of a priestess who bore her with a king from the Beltane fires. I’m a poor mother, but I do have some worth to her. I have seen danger for her and I come to warn you. There is danger in a man—”
“I promise you, lady,” interrupted Duncan indignantly, “she is in absolutely no danger from me.”
“I know it,” she snapped. “I know much more than you can ever hope to know. I tell you only what comes to me, and what comes to me is a vague feeling that my daughter is not secure. There is a sinister specter I can see just in the corner of my thoughts.”
“The king. It’s the king you see. She claims that he hates her, that he wants her dead.”
Edana laughed. “The king? No, I know the king. I hold his soul in my hands and I feel what he feels and know what he knows. She is in no peril from him. No, this threat is unknown to me and as such, I come to warn you to look after her carefully.”
“Madam, I already do. I do everything I can, everything in my power to protect her.”
“Do you?” she said, looking at him with a searching look that set his hair on end.
“Yes, I do,” he replied with a little less conviction. “I protect her better than you have, at any rate.”
“Do you dare to judge me, bastard earl, Devil, living here at the edge of the earth?”
Duncan’s eyes flashed fire, accented by a deep sudden boom of thunder. “I’ll thank you not to insult me in my own home, madam. I am your daughter’s husband.”
“And I am her mother! And despite your judgments and accusations, I care very much for my child.”
The weight of guilt was apparent. Even her priestess powers and attitude couldn’t hide the sadness behind her eyes.
“Why then?” he asked suddenly, softly. “Why did you abandon her? Let her grow up unwanted and alone?”
“Why? You might as well ask me why the sun rises in the sky and the waves fall on the shore. It is the way of my world. Her father’s blood taints her, as much as I wish it wasn’t so. I had high expectations for her, but she is too cowardly and retiring to come after me and reign as high priestess.”
“Cait is exceptionally brave,” protested Duncan over the din of the suddenly violent storm.
She frowned. “In some areas, perhaps. But not in the areas that matter. She has no power, no insight, no inner or outer strength. For those reasons I am sure she is quite the biddable wife to you, but she is completely useless to me.”
“Useless. What endearing terminology for a mother to use to describe her own daughter. Perhaps it is best that she knows you not at all.”
“I hid her away because I couldn’t stand for a daughter of mine to be raised at court. That was a mercy done for her, for her protection. It was a kindness above all kindnesses.”
“Kinder still to know her mother’s love.”
“Ah, but she knows a husband’s love now,” she mocked. “Is that not enough?”
As if on cue, Cait’s voice, soft and plaintive, sounded from the doorway. “Duncan?”
“Cait, don’t come in here.”
She rushed to him and threw herself into his arms before Connor could stop her.
“Duncan, the storm! Please let me stay with you. I’m afraid!”
Duncan looked over her shoulder to where her mother watched, hunched down, almost completely obscured in the shadows of the corner. How had she gotten there so fast? How could she make herself disappear in plain sight? She watched him, and watched her daughter too, far too avidly.
“Cait.” He felt suddenly desperate to have her away from Edana. “Go to Henna. Henna will sit with you through the storm.”
“I’m sorry!” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. I’ll kneel for you. I’ll please you. I’ll do whatever you want. Please! Please give me another chance, Duncan. Don’t make me sleep alone! I’m sorry!”
His face grew hard at her words. In any other circumstance he would have taken her to his room and not let her go for hours, but right now, right now...
“I...you... I told you why we must sleep apart tonight. If the storm frightens you, you must go to Henna. I’ve duties I must see to tonight. Now go,” he said, throwing a look at Edana. He didn’t care for the way the woman watched her. “Go, now. Obey me. This is for your own good.”
With one last sob she let him set her firmly away.
“Connor,” he snapped, guiding her to the door. “Take her to Henna, and have Henna take her to her room and keep her there.” He emphasized the last three words.
When Cait was gone, Edana emerged from the dark corner, once again the haughty high priestess.
“How happy and content she looks,” she said acidly.
“She does not like the storm.”
“And how kind and affectionate you were when you pushed her away.”
“I didn’t want her to see you. I was trying to get her away. I do not trust you at all.”
“Perhaps it is best if you do not.” She looked thoughtful then, tilting her head at him with a puzzled expression.
“How long have you been married? She does not breed?”
“No,” said Duncan tightly. “She is not yet with child.”
“You have not even had her,” Edana scoffed, her suspicions confirmed by the flush of his cheeks. “Why is that? Are you a catamite, perhaps? Do you have difficulties with your organ? I can offer some herbs and remedies if you wish.”
“I have no difficulties, madam.”
“She is not so biddable then as I thought,” she said in surprise. “Well, perhaps she has some of my blood in her after all.” She looked thoughtfully at the door through which Duncan had sent her away. “If she is still a virgin, if you’ve no use of the girl, I’ll take her. I’ll harbor her at Canna Isle and she’ll come to no harm.”
“No,” said Duncan. “She is mine and you will only remove her from me if you put me, and every man who fights for me, to the sword. But long before then, lady, I will destroy you, if you think to take that which is mine.”
Edana’s eyes widened. “I do not fight with swords, I assure you, Duncan. And these are strong words from a man who cannot even be bothered to bed the woman in question.”
“In due time,” was all he replied.
Edana fell silent then, and pensive.
“There is no time. You must make her your wife in truth. Only this can subvert the danger that threatens.”
“You speak nonsense.”
“I speak truth!” she insisted. Her face changed, became so stark that Duncan grew alarmed.
“What is it? What do you see?”
“I do not know. An incomplete vision. An unexpected direction that must be avoided. You must get her pregnant with all haste.”
“I don’t believe you. I don’t believe in your pagan visions and lies.”
“Why are you frightened then, if you don’t believe? Let me take her if you can’t or won’t see to this. Let me take her to a safe place where she can be protected and hidden away.”
Protected. Hidden away. How much did he love her? Enough to let her go? Was Edana telling the truth about Cait being in danger? Or was she only trying to prise her daughter away from him using vague veiled threats?
“If I make her pregnant, this mysterious ‘danger’ you speak of will be averted?”
/>
“I can’t say. It appears to me that it is so.”
“My first wife died,” he blurted out. Why on earth had he said that to her?
Edana looked at him sharply. “Died? In childbirth?” For a moment, a soft expression of sympathy flitted across her face. “And you think to protect my daughter from the same fate?”
“Yes. I hoped to.”
Edana drew a deep breath, and her gaze met his. She stared at him for a long while.
“Have no fear,” she said finally in a low voice. “Even a brutish man such as you cannot get a child on her she won’t be able to bear. She will have the talent of her mother, her grandmother, and her great-grandmother to bear children with ease.”
Duncan rubbed his face and frowned. How could she know that? The disembodied way she stared at him made his hair stand on end.
“You don’t believe me, but I know it to be so. So I warn you, Devil, delay no further in putting this innocent to the ‘sword.’ If you do not, I will consider again if she might, after all, suit my own purposes. A virgin such as she can be a valuable asset and bargaining tool.”
“You will bargain with my wife’s virginity over my dead body.”
“See to it, then, that it is quickly gone,” replied Edana in warning before she turned, and without another word, took her leave.
Chapter Eleven
Duncan took the stairs two at a time, half frightened, half enraged. He had one thought and one thought only hammering in his brain. Cait. Cait. Cait. Cait.
I will consider again if she might, after all, suit my own purposes. He took it for the veiled threat it was. He had seen Edana looking at Cait, reconsidering, plotting, softening towards her. Priestess or no, he would kill her with his own hands before he’d let her take Cait away. He walked down the hall towards her bedroom and worked to school his face to calm. He knocked softly and was chagrined to see Henna open the door.
“My lord, she sleeps.”
“Wake her then.”
Henna slipped out into the hall, whispering insistently.
“She has retired for the night. She sleeps!”
Cait and the Devil Page 11
