by Lauren Royal
Iain’s heart twisted and his eyes burned with tears he’d never shed for a wife who had never loved him. “Malcom,” he began, anticipating her refusal.
“Iain, ye heartless cur,” Angus’s gruff voice interjected. “Let the lass—” The old man’s voice broke with emotion, and Iain knew his eyes stung, as did his own. “Let the lass sing to the wee laddie, will ye?” he finished, his voice sounding more tender than the old coot would surely have liked.
“Aye,” added Dougal. “Let her sing to the wee lad. Malcom never had him someone to sing him a lullai bye.”
Iain swallowed his grief for his son and felt a leaden weight in his heart. “’Tis a fickle lot, ye are,” he groused.
“Can she, Da?” Malcom begged. “Can she sing to me?”
“Will she?” Iain amended, frowning. He couldn’t make the lass sing if she didn’t wish to—no more than he could have made her stop when she would not.
“Aye,” she answered abruptly, surprising him. Iain’s gaze tried to reach her through the shadows, but she was staring down at his son. “I’ll sing,” she said softly, and there were murmurs of approval from his men.
“What is it you wish me to sing?” she asked Malcom after a moment.
“Ach, ye can sing anythin’,” his son declared excitedly, and then crawled over Iain to lie between them, as though it were a perfectly natural thing for him to do.
Iain sat speechless.
For an instant there was no movement from her side of the breacan, and then she lay down next to his son, jerking Iain’s arm out from under him and tugging him down to lie beside them. Iain thought she might have done it on purpose—her way of letting him know that while she’d given in to the son’s request, she didn’t like the father any better for it. He would have grinned over her pique, save that he was too stunned by the turn of events even to think clearly.
“D’ ye know anythin’ Scots?” Malcom asked hopefully, facing her.
“I know one,” she answered, “but not the words.”
“Oh,” Malcom answered, sounding a little disappointed. As he watched the two of them together, Iain’s heart ached for all the things Mairi had deprived him of. Six years old and his son still craved a gentle voice to lull him to sleep. He couldn’t help but wonder what else Malcom craved.
What had he missed? And had he done things right? No one had been there to tell him otherwise, and he’d just done what he could—what he knew to do. What if he’d not been a good father to Malcom all these years?
He coughed lightly, telling himself it was the bug that still scratched his throat, and not grief that strangled him.
“I-I can hum it,” the lass said, and began, a little hesitantly.
For an instant Iain was too benumbed to make out the voice, and less the melody. And then it became clearer, and the ballad penetrated the fog of his brain.
His heartbeat quickened.
From where did he know that song?
Hauntingly familiar, and yet so strange coming from the lass’s English lips, he couldn’t make it out, though he tried.
As she continued to hum, the memory tried to surface from the blackness of his mind, achingly dulcet, and yet so hazy and indistinct, he couldn’t bring it fully to light; a woman’s voice... so familiar and soothing...
Not Mairi’s voice, for he’d never heard her sing a note in her life.
Not Glenna either.
Whose voice?
His heartbeat thundered in his ears, as the words of a forgotten verse came to him.
Hush ye, my bairnie, my bonny wee laddie... when you’re a man, ye shall follow your daddy...
He felt the jolt physically, as though his body had been stricken by an invisible bolt of lightning.
Bewildered, Iain laid his head down upon the breacan and stared into the darkness, at the almost indistinguishable silhouette of the two lying beside him, trying to remember.
Hush ye, my bairnie, my bonny wee laddie, when ye’re a man, ye shall follow your daddy...
“Lift me a coo, and a goat and a wether,” he murmured, trying desperately to recall the words. He joined her hum without realizing. “Bring them home to your minnie together...”
He couldn’t recall the rest. His chest hammered.
Whose voice was it he recalled?
His mother’s?
Nay. He shook his head, for it couldn’t be. His mother had died giving him birth. It couldn’t be. He couldn’t be remembering a woman who’d taken her last breath the very instant he’d sucked in his first. ’Twas said that she had never even heard his first wail.
Whose voice, then?
His heart beat frantically, and his palms began to sweat. “Hush ye, my bairnie, my bonny wee laddie,” he sang softly, puzzling over the memory, unaware that he sang off tune and out of place—or that his men all were listening to him croon like a half-wit and a fool.
“Lammie,” auld Angus broke in suddenly, sounding weary and unusually heavy hearted.
Iain blinked, and asked, “What did ye say?”
“My bonny wee lammie. The next verse is lammie,” Angus revealed, and then sang, “Hush ye, my bairnie, my bonny wee lammie; Plenty o’ guid things ye shall bring to your mammy...”
Auld Angus waited until the lass reached the proper place in the ballad and then joined her hum with his rich baritone. “Hush ye, my bairnie, my bonny wee lammie; Plenty o’ guid things ye shall bring to your mammy...”
Some of the other men were humming now, and Iain couldn’t stifle his grin over the lass’s plan gone awry. He was suddenly aware that Dougal had taken to his reed and was playing the tune, as well.
The haunting strains floated upon the night with his memory...
“... Hare from the meadow, and deer from the mountain, Grouse from the muir’lan, and trout from the fountain.”
In unison his men all began to hum, and in his mind, the woman’s soft voice continued...
“Hush ye, my bairnie, my bonny wee dearie,” auld Angus crooned. “Sleep, come and close eyes so heavy and weary; Closed are ye eyes, an’ rest ye are takin’; Sound be your sleepin’, and bright be your waking.”
By the time they finished the last verse, Malcom’s little body was curled so close to the lass that Iain could scarce make out who was who. His son’s soft snore revealed he’d fallen asleep. Iain lay there a long moment, enjoying the haunting beauty of the reed’s song, wondering of the woman’s voice from his memory.
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THE MARQUESS’S SCOTTISH BRIDE by Lauren Royal & Devon Royal
Published by Novelty Books, a division of Novelty Publishers, LLC
205 Avenida Del Mar #275, San Clemente, CA 92674
COPYRIGHT © Lauren Royal & Devon Royal 2016
ISBN 978-1-63469-037-9
5th Edition, July 2017
Cover by Kimberly Killion
Book Design by Typesetter for Mac
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced or transmitted in any manner whatsoever, electronically, in print, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Lauren Royal, Devon Royal, and Novelty Books, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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