by Jessi Gage
Ginneleah’s tan cheeks took on a hint of pink. “We’re verra thankful for the gift.”
“Lovely, dear. But I have a confession to make. Neither Wilhelm nor I sent that oil to you, and I fear whoever did has misused our name and may mean you harm.”
Constance was no mincer of words. Melanie cringed in sympathy as Ginneleah blinked in surprise and then paled.
“Harm? What do ye mean?” Her blue eyes darted around, as if looking for protection from the father she’d so confidently dismissed a little while ago.
Constance pulled a small velvet pouch from a pocket in her dress and carefully unwrapped two glass vials protected within. One had a clear stopper, the other a blue one. The contents of both vials looked indistinguishable from ordinary olive oil, pale gold in color and mildly viscous.
“I ordered these from Inverness when I sent for you,” she said. “One is a lubricant meant to assist marital relations. The other is used to prevent a woman getting with child. They both smell of roses or whatever perfume the maker chooses, and they both can make joining more pleasant, but–” Constance tipped the vial with the blue stopper to moisten the tip of one finger. She placed her finger to her tongue and made a face. “The one with quinine in it has a bitter taste while the other tastes only of perfume and oil.”
She held the vials out to Melanie and said, “Take a taste. It’s perfectly safe taken orally, and can, in fact, be given in quite high doses, even to pregnant women, to treat malaria.”
She raised her eyebrows, impressed as always with Constance’s knowledge. She inspected the vials under Ginneleah’s worried gaze and dabbed a drop of each oil on her tongue to compare them. The one with the clear stopper dried her tongue and sent sharp notes of rose scent straight to her nose. The one with the blue stopper did the same, but when she closed her mouth to moisten her tongue and swallow, a bitter taste made her wrinkle her nose.
The anxiety in Ginneleah’s eyes vanished as she watched. Her eyebrows lifted with curiosity, then furrowed. “Do ye mean someone might have sent the oil as a gift meaning it as a curse?” When Melanie handed her the vials, she didn’t hesitate to sniff and taste them for herself.
“I’m afraid so,” Constance said. “Although you won’t know for sure unless you taste a drop of the oil you have at Ackergill. That’s why I invited you to Dornoch. Not to give you more oil, unless you’d like the one in your right hand.” She nodded at the vial with the clear stopper. “But to warn you. I wouldn’t use the oil you have at home again, or trust any more that comes in Wilhelm’s name.”
Ginneleah made a face and shivered at the taste of the quinine oil. She searched Constance’s face with wide eyes. “But who would do such a thing?” she said in a voice so vulnerable it melted her heart. Tears pooled behind the girl’s lashes as she looked down at the two vials. “Steafan wants an heir so badly, and I want to give him one. To think of all the time we’ve wasted.” Ginneleah loved Steafan. It was clear from the sorrow in her voice and the disappointment etched on her young face.
She touched Ginneleah’s knee. “Someone must have a grudge against your husband,” she said gently. “But we’ve found them out. As long as you don’t use that oil any more, you’ll get the better of them, whoever they are.”
“All this time, I thought…I thought...”
“That you couldn’t conceive,” Constance offered, her voice more tender than she’d ever heard it. “It’s possible. But I’d test that oil if I were you before you go thinking anything is wrong with you.”
Ginneleah sniffed. “What shall I do without the oil?” she said so quietly she might have been talking to herself. She turned imploring eyes to Constance. “I fear using anything now,” she said, thrusting the vials into Constance’s hands. “But–” She looked down again, her cheeks pink.
“I’ll go see how lunch is coming along,” Constance said, wrapping the vials and tucking them away. “If I see your father, I’ll point him this way.” She gave Melanie an encouraging nod.
As Constance disappeared down the path toward the castle, she had the urge to take the despondent Ginneleah into her arms to comfort her. But they’d only just met. Instead, she said, “Here we are, me pregnant without meaning to get that way and you having tried so hard and been disappointed time and again.” She gave a mirthless chuckle. “My grandmother used to tell me you can never count on life to be fair. I guess she was right.”
Ginneleah attempted a smile. “Mayhap things will change for me and Steafan now. Oh, but I shallna enjoy telling him of this discovery. He will be furious. Anger comes so easily to him.”
She didn’t know what to say. Was Steafan abusive to her? As soon as she had the thought, she dismissed it. Ginneleah didn’t give the impression she was mistreated in any way. But from her quiet plea from a few moments ago, Melanie doubted Steafan was as talented a lover as Darcy had proven to be. She decided to get right to the point, hoping to say everything she needed to before Aodhan found them.
“Do you find it necessary to use oil?” She winced at the bald question, but she wasn’t sure how else to start.
The girl’s cheeks pinked up again. “Aye. As you must with Big Darcy.” She met her eyes with no small difficulty. “I may be young, but I’ve heard the rumors. If what the lasses say about your husband is true, ye have it harder than I do by far.”
She smiled gently. “Never trust a rumor. Especially one started by a spurned woman.”
Ginneleah gave her a curious look, so she shared with her the tale Darcy had told her one quiet night. Holding her in his arms, he’d told her about Anya, the woman who’d laughed at him in that most vulnerable moment of first showing himself to a potential lover, the woman who’d outright lied to make him think he was too large.
The bitch. She hoped she never met the woman, because she’d never been so tempted to slap anyone before.
“Oh, that’s awful.” Ginneleah’s face was free from her earlier wariness. “Would ye believe that one tried pushing herself on poor Steafan while he courted me? I dinna like the woman, and nor does Steafan. In fact, she’s the reason my husband took such umbrage to ye. She’s the one who told him of your wee box. To hear Steafan tell it, she found it in the stables and described it perfectly. She was the one to call ye a witch, and once the word was uttered, Steafan…well, he is verra protective of the clan. Mayhap too protective. But he’s a good man. In his heart, he wants to do what’s right.”
Clearly, the girl–no, the young woman, for Ginneleah had wisdom in her eyes that spoke of girlhood being past–was devoted to her husband. That was good. If she was afraid of him or disgusted by him, no amount of sex-ed would help them.
She stored away the information about Anya for later consideration. At the moment, Ginneleah desperately needed some encouragement in matters of intimacy.
“You love him, don’t you?” Surprisingly, she was glad Steafan had such a sweet, positive influence in his life. Without Ginneleah, he might be even crankier.
“He is my husband,” she said modestly. “’Tis my duty.”
Love wasn’t always part of marriage. Not in her time, but especially not in this time. But she didn’t bother Ginneleah with the observation.
“You wear your duty well,” she said, nudging her arm and smiling a little wickedly. “I can tell you care for him, and I’m glad. I might not be in a hurry to ever see him again myself, but I can appreciate that he’s an attractive man, and if he’s good to you, and you care for him, then I wish you both every happiness.”
“My thanks. I wish the same for you and Big Darcy.”
“Please, just call him Darcy. He’s not as big as all that. In fact, I don’t really think it’s possible for a man to be so big as to make joining with his wife impossible.”
Ginneleah snorted, then blushed and covered her mouth with her hand. “How unladylike of me.” She smiled shyly, but then her eyes darkened with sadness.
“It hurts, doesn’t it?”
Ginneleah looked away.
<
br /> “Intimacy between men and women can be wonderful,” she said carefully, “but it takes practice and some skill and knowledge to make it so.”
Ginneleah turned curious eyes her way.
They spent the next half hour talking about female anatomy, foreplay, and pleasures that could be had without intercourse. Eventually, the poor young woman stopped blushing. She even laughed some, and her mirth rivaled the joyous calls of the birds in the garden. It was easy to see why Steafan was rumored to be quite smitten with her.
By the time Aodhan clomped into the little clearing, Ginneleah was holding her hand and thanking her. “I shall speak gently to Steafan of the things ye have told me today. I dinna think he is ready to accept ye back to Ackergill, but mayhap if I can give him a bairn, I will inform him ’twas you and Darcy who found out about the oil.”
“It was Constance who thought of it. Not me.”
“Mayhap. But the Lady of Dornoch isna in want of my husband’s good graces.” Ginneleah sealed herself in her heart with a conspiratorial smile before rising to greet her father.
She dared to hope they might meet again one day, both of them with babies on their hips.
Chapter 22
A feminine shriek of delight made Steafan look up from his ledger. Golden and fresh as a sunflower, Ginneleah dashed around his desk, all shimmering hair and shining eyes the color of pale skies. A garden of innocence she was, and her exuberance lifted his spirits. The keep hadn’t been the same without her presence warming its halls.
“Ginnie,” he whispered into her hair as he swept her up in a tight embrace. She flung her arms around his neck and kissed his face, just in front of his ear. He grit his teeth to keep from taking her mouth in a deep kiss. Nearly two weeks she’d been away with her da, gone to Dornoch at the Murray’s invitation. ’Twas the only separation from her he’d kent since they’d wed. He wanted her badly, but he would hear about her travels first.
“Are ye well?” he asked. “Is your da seeing to the horses?”
She nodded in a circular way, ending with a shrug. “Da is seeing to…things. I am well, and happy to be home, but I have much news.” Dark thoughts clouded her eyes. “I’d like to wait for da. We agreed to tell ye together. I should go up and change. I’m dusty from the road.”
“Go on,” he said, letting her feet to the floor. His arms released her reluctantly. “I’ll send up a bath. We shall have a private dinner tonight. Just the three of us.”
Ginneleah pranced from his sight, whatever sadness he’d glimpsed in her eyes no match for her youthful stride.
Two hours later, he met his bonny wife in the private dining room. She and Aodhan were already seated, but they both rose when he came in. Ginneleah curtsied in the formal way, which she didn’t have to do, and Aodhan inclined his head in greeting, his eyes guarded as usual.
Pleasantries were exchanged. Dinner was served. Then Aodhan began with, “Hamish and Gil are dead.”
He stared over his full trencher. Of all the news his second might bring from Dornoch, that had been the least expected and the most unwelcome. He’d assumed Hamish’s and Gil’s absence when the rest of the search party had returned meant they’d caught the scent of his wayward nephew and his witch of a wife and were travelling far to capture them. He’d thought his loyal servant and the Keith’s best tracker merely thorough and obedient. Now he kent better.
Fury climbed his neck and heated his face. Two of his best men, gone. “How?”
Aodhan’s gaze was unflinching. “Darcy killed them.”
Ginneleah gaped at her da, a look of betrayal in her eyes he didn’t understand. But he was too shocked and angry to consider his wife’s feelings.
Rage pushed him to his feet. He gripped the table, the wood creaking in his hands. “’Twas no’ enough for him to flee with a condemned witch and turn his back on his responsibility? He had to take from me two of my best men? His own kinsmen?” His nephew would pay for his sins.
“They ambushed the lad on the road outside Dornoch,” Aodhan said. “Killed his horse. Ye ken how your nephew loved that horse. ’Twas a gift from your brother. They tried to take him as ye wished, and he fought. He fought well, and mayhap didna ken his own strength. Mayhap he was a wee bit crazed thinking his wife was in danger from them.”
“Dinna make excuses for him. He is a murderer. And his wife deserves what danger she meets.”
“We dinna ken what happened on that road,” Aodhand said evenly. “Mayhap Darcy meant to kill them. Mayhap he didna. It happened well before Ginnie and I arrived. I will say the lad confessed it to me as soon as we came to Dornoch, and when he showed me their graves, he wept bitterly in my arms for the loss of his kinsmen. My heart tells me many of those tears were for Ackergill and Fraineach. He is a Keith, Steafan, your brother’s eldest, and ye have set yourself against him.”
Indignation puffed his chest. “He set himself against me.” He thumped his fist on his breastbone. “He chose a witch over his clan, over his responsibility. He was my heir. He could have been master of Ackergill Keep one day, yet he tossed it all away. And now he is a murderer.”
Disappointment and grief pricked his temper as the weight of Hamish’s and Gil’s deaths settled on him. And Aodhan was defending their murderer, a young man with such promise who had been ruined by association with a witch. Since Darcy had met the wicked woman, he’d been a different man, a far less obedient and far more reckless one. He had been a fool to marry them. He’d been thinking only of Darcy having bairns to carry on his brother’s blood, nay of what kind of woman the stranger might be.
He slammed a fist down on the table, making the platters dance and Ginneleah jump. The poor lass stared at her trencher, her face drawn with fear.
He forced himself to calm. “Dinna fear me, lass,” he said as he resumed his seat and took her hand. “My anger is no’ for you.” Never for her. She was the ray of sun to the pall of his duty, the refreshing spring in the parching desert of leadership.
Aodhan cleared his throat. “Whatever your nephew is or isna, there is more news from Dornoch. Ginnie?”
“Wait,” he said. “Were Hamish and Gil seen to in the proper way?”
“Aye. The Murray and Darcy saw to them before I arrived. They are laid in the churchyard in Dornoch with markers to say they were Keith.”
He bowed his head and remembered his men. He hadn’t considered his nephew might fight rather than be taken. Always a peaceable lad, he’d been, until the witch. He shook his head. His stomach burned with regret. He should have sent Edmund to reason with Darcy. He should have foreseen the woman’s influence on him.
The weight of Aodhan’s and Ginneleah’s gazes made him look up at last. “So my nephew hides with the Murray,” he said. Anger coursed through him. If he had suspected Darcy and the witch might be at Dornoch, he never would have let his wife go, not even with Aodhan as her escort. “Why would he flee there rather than to Inverness or further south?”
“I think he went to the Murray because of the rumors of the laird’s wife.”
Aodhan’s words parted the curtain of his memory. Long ago, when he was just coming into manhood, the young and impetuous heir to the Murray was rumored to have razed an entire village to save the woman he later took to wife from a burning at the stake. If the rumors were true, the Lady Murray was a condemned witch. How could he have forgotten? Och, he’d let his pride at being noticed by the much-feared laird blind him to possible danger. If aught had happened to Ginneleah, he’d never have forgiven himself.
He gripped his wife’s shoulder and searched her face for aught sign of illness or, saints forbid, corruption. “My nephew sought the help of yet another witch and my Ginneleah was exposed to a double portion of evil? Why did ye no’ bring her straight home when ye realized ye were surrounded by witches?” he growled at Aodhan.
“The rumors arena true,” Ginneleah interrupted. Her face was as innocent as ever, her guileless gaze a balm for his fear. Bless the saints, she hadn’t been chan
ged.
When he didn’t discourage her boldness, she added, “Lady Constance is a fine, upstanding woman. She was a most kind hostess and saw me and da well cared for.”
Had any other lass of seventeen spoken with such confidence of something she should be far too innocent to ken aught about, he would have dismissed her words. But he couldn’t discount the earnest plea in her countenance. Ginneleah may be young, but he had never kent her to judge another’s character poorly. ’Twas one of the qualities he admired so well in her. She had wisdom others her age would lack even the wits to covet.
He exhaled and released some of his rage. Kissing her head to show his approval of her speech, he drew her soothing fragrance of gardens and sunshine into his lungs.
Remaining with an arm on Ginneleah’s chair, he eyed his second. “And what think ye of the woman?”
“Ye dinna believe my assessment of Darcy’s wife. Why should ye believe it of the Murray’s?”
He showed his teeth. “I asked what ye think. What I choose to believe after isna your concern.”
Aodhan’s eyes twinkled with disarming humor. Steafan could never quite cow the man, not even when they’d been lads and he five years Aodhan’s senior. ’Twas one of the reasons he respected him so well.
“Neither of them are witches,” his second said. “Darcy didna go to Dornoch for a witch’s help but for the help of another man who loved a woman wrongly accused.”
“The box,” he said by way of defending his actions. The wicked bit of wood and metal sealed Melanie’s guilt. He took a confident sip of wine, daring Aodhan with a glare over the brim to counter that proof.
“’Tis a strange item, indeed,” Aodhan agreed, no doubt recalling Steafan’s attempts to burn it, chop it with an axe, even grind it beneath the massive stones in Darcy’s mill, all to no avail. ’Twas impossible to even scratch the accursed thing. In a fit of fury, he had hurled it over the cliffs where if it dared to spite him and not be dashed to pieces on the rocks, at least he wouldn’t have to witness it. “But ye have no proof your nephew’s wife has aught to do with its magic. She claims to be a victim of the thing, to have no understanding of its workings. And I believe her.”
