Once Upon a Plaid

by Mia Marlowe

  “I’d like my chances better if they were somebody else’s chances,” he said as William tied one end of his rope around Nab’s waist.

  Will’s falsely cheerful smile faded. “I’m countin’ on ye, Nab. We all are. And in truth . . .”

  “In truth, ye canna spare anyone else,” Nab finished for him. “I understand. I canna fight, but I can bolt like a hare if need be.”

  “God gives us all different gifts, Nab.” Will started to lay a steadying hand on his forearm, but seemed to remember how Nab felt about being touched and stopped himself. “It may well be that your gifts will be the saving of us all. D’ye remember the message?”

  Nab rattled it off word perfect.

  “Good.” William looped the other end of the rope around his own waist so he could help Nab control the rate of his descent. “Now off ye go before dawn catches ye in the open.”

  “Guess I’d best return this first.” Nab took the scepter from his belt. William took it from him solemnly.

  “Ye were the best Laird of Misrule I ever saw.”

  “Thank ye, William.”

  “No, ’tis I who should thank ye. Ye’re done with play and are acting like a laird in earnest. I’m counting on ye, Nab.”

  He’d never known what it felt like to be trusted with anything of importance.

  He still wished he didn’t, but he climbed into the small window in any case. Then he rolled over and lay with his belly on the sill so his arse and legs dangled over the loch below. If he looked down, he’d never have the courage to do it. He had to back into this descent. He grasped the rope with both hands, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.

  “Wait, Nab! I’m coming!”

  It was Dorcas.

  The rope slipped a bit and Nab had to scrabble his boot tips against the castle stone to remain in the window. Dorcas popped up at the head of the stairs, eyes wide when she saw where he was. Heedless of Lord Badenoch, she flew to Nab.

  Without any preamble she palmed both his cheeks and kissed him right on the mouth in front of William and God and everything!

  “Lady Katherine told me what ye’re doing. Nab, I’m so proud of ye I could burst.”

  Nab’s belly stopped squirming and glowed with something he suspected was pride.

  “But I’m that angry with ye too,” she said.

  He’d never know it by the way she kept peppering his face with kisses, bussing his cheeks, his forehead, his closed eyelids.

  “Why would ye leave without giving me a chance to tell ye good-bye, ye wicked, wicked man?”

  He couldn’t have answered if he’d wanted to because just then she thrust her tongue into his mouth. When Dorcas finally let him come up for air, he said, “I thought ye were taking up with that Hew MacElmurray.”

  “I only wanted ye to think so. To make ye jealous.”

  “It worked.”

  William cleared his throat. “The sooner ye go, Nab, the sooner ye’ll be back.”

  “Aye.” Suddenly he knew what he needed to do to keep from being afraid. “Dorcas, will ye marry me?”

  “Now?” Her brows shot skyward. “Ye ask me that now when ye’re about to go get yerself killed?”

  “That’s the point, ye see. Even a fool has to keep his word. If I promise to marry ye, I canna let myself be killed, can I?”

  Her warm-as-a-summer-day smile washed over him, though it didn’t quite reach to his nether regions. His arse hanging over the loch was colder than a well-digger’s knee.

  “Aye, Nab, I’ll marry ye.” She kissed him one last time. “And now ye must keep yer word, but ’tis not the word of a fool. ’Tis the vow of the man I love. I’ll have words with anyone, even you, who takes ye for a fool.”

  With those fine words ringing in his heart, he pushed off and let William lower him down the lochward wall. Dorcas leaned out the window, her little heart-shaped face filled with both yearning and fear.

  If he saw his own face in a mirror just now, he suspected he’d see the same unchancy mix.

  “Push, my lady,” Beathag urged from her place on the floor before Margaret’s spread legs. “’Tis almost done, lamb. I see a wee footikin peeping. The child may be coming backward but he’s finally coming.”

  Margie growled in response and bore down. Then when the contraction ceased, she trembled and panted, her head lolling on Katherine’s arm. Kat had been supporting her through the pains, and that arm felt as if hundreds of pins were pricking it, but she wouldn’t move it out from under Margie for worlds. The firelight should have bathed her sister-in-law in shades of gold, but her complexion was as pale and translucent as wet muslin.

  “Kat,” she whispered.

  “I’m here, dearest.”

  “I feel myself going, so I do.”

  Katherine cast a worried glance at Beathag, but the midwife only returned a tight-lipped grimace and lifted her shoulders in a small shrug that said, “’Tis in God’s hands.”

  “If I should die, I want ye and William to foster this bairn.”

  “Dinna speak so. D’ye wish to tempt the devil?” Katherine clutched Margie’s hand tightly, but her sister-in-law’s grip went limp. “Besides, Donald might have something to say about that.”

  Anger flared in Margie’s eyes, and for a moment she looked more like herself. “Dinna fret on that score. Donald would have to be here first before he’d have anything to say, would he not?”

  That spark of contentiousness died as the next contraction swept her up.

  “Lady Katherine, do ye press down on her belly,” Beathag ordered.

  Kat added her force to Margaret’s waning strength.

  “Aye, that’s it. She’s coming.”

  “She?” Margie stopped groaning long enough to ask.

  “Aye, the head’s not out yet, but both legs are free. There’s enough bairn here for me to see that ye’ve almost got a new daughter, my lady.”

  “God be praised.” Then Margie grunted like an old sow and the child came forth. “A wee lassie! Oh, I so wanted a girl-child.” The bairn sucked in her first breath and wailed her little head off. Margie chuckled weakly. “Maybe just not such a noisy one.”

  “’Tis a beautiful noise.” Katherine hugged Margie and kissed her cheek. Beathag didn’t say anything. She was too busy tying off the birth cord.

  “Here, Lady Katherine. Kindly take the bairn and give her a proper cleaning before ye present her to her lady mother.” The midwife pressed the squirming bundle into Katherine’s arms. “Lady Margaret, yer labor isna quite done, but I promise ’twill be much easier now.”

  While Margie passed the afterbirth, Katherine took the child to the washbasin and sponged off the blood and mucus. The baby’s skin was softer than a mole’s belly. As Kat washed her, the little one stopped crying and blinked slowly, her dark eyes enormous. A crest of fine hair of indeterminate color topped her perfectly shaped head and she had all her fingers and toes. Katherine didn’t think she’d ever seen anything quite so lovely in all her life.

  A Christmastide miracle with feet.

  Kat swaddled the babe tightly and then hugged her close, inhaling her newness, a last whiff of heaven. Judging from the midwife’s chatter, things were going well with Margie now.

  Kat breathed a silent prayer of thanks. Margie deserved something easy. She carried the child back to Margie, whose color had improved out of all knowing, and placed her in her mother’s arms.

  As she watched Margie and her new daughter become acquainted, a fist formed in her heart. She shoved the feeling away. She didn’t want it claiming space in her heart. It was unworthy.

  Jealousy was a bruise that never went away. It hurt to touch it, so she made a conscious effort not to.

  But it was always there.

  “I’m going to name you Katherine, after your beautiful auntie,” Margie told the bairn. Then she looked up at Kat. “But we’ll call her Kitty so there’ll be no confusion.” She clasped Kat’s hand. “Thank ye for being here for me. I couldna have . . . I woul
dna—”

  “Come, my lady,” Beathag interrupted. “Ye’ve had a long and trying day . . . and night, come to that! Past time we got ye into bed. Lady Katherine, if ye’ll send for the wet nurse—”

  “No,” Margie interrupted back. “I’ll suckle this one myself.”

  “Weel, that might be for the best, my lady,” Beathag said. “It’ll make ye less likely to bear again so soon.”

  “Why have ye never said so? If ’tis true, that’s the sort of thing that ought to be more generally known. If someone had told me before this, I’d have nursed all my bairns,” Margie said, some of the usual vinegar creeping back into her voice. Then she cast an appraising eye at Katherine. “Ye should find your bed too, Kat. Ye look all in.”

  “Trust ye to think of others even at a time like this.” Kat pressed a kiss to the crown of Margie’s head and stroked her niece’s cheek. “I’ll see ye both in the morning.”

  Wearily, she slogged up the stairs to her chamber, wondering if she’d be able to fight sleep long enough to peel off her clothing. When she reached her room, she was met by a sight that assured she’d stay awake.

  William was waiting for her there, naked as Adam. He was seated in the earl’s copper tub. Flickers of firelight kissed his bare chest and steam curled from the surface of the water.

  “Will ye care to join me, wife?”

  The time of grace has come—

  what we have wished for,

  songs of joy.

  —From “Gaudete”

  “I suspect every soul on earth could use a little grace—a little receiving of that which we dinna deserve but need as surely as our next heartbeat.”

  —An observation from Nab,

  fool to the Earl of Glengarry

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Katherine shrugged out of her clothes as she crossed the room, letting the pieces fall to the floor unheeded. By the time she reached the steaming tub, all that remained was her leine, and she made short work of that, pulling it over her head in one smooth motion.

  Will’s gaze sizzled over her. He lifted a hand to help her into the bath. “Ye do know how to make a man’s heart glad, Kat.”

  With a contented sigh, she settled between his legs and lay back against his chest, letting the rising water lap at her breasts. “The castle is under siege. Everything is upended. How on earth did ye manage this?”

  “Your father has no need of his tub just now. And before ye ask, Jamison says the earl’s resting quietly and even roused enough to take a little broth, though he still isna speaking sensibly,” William said. “In any case, after I sent Nab on his way to your brother, Donald, I had Hew MacElmurray move the tub up here and fill it.”

  Heating and hauling water for the bath was the province of Dorcas and the other maids. “That must have grated on him.”

  “He wasna inclined to complain. Hew has a debt to pay.”

  William reached around to hold her breasts. He didn’t tease along the underside of them. Didn’t torment her nipples into tight peaks. Instead, he just held her as if they were the most precious things in the world. She’d had so many demands on her all day, the fact that he made none now allowed all the tension to drain from her body.

  “Lady Margaret is well?”

  “Aye, she is and was this night made the mother of a fine wee daughter.” That fist clenched in her chest again.

  “Good for her.”

  “Aye, good for Margaret. She wanted a girl this time.” Katherine hated herself for the smoldering ball of envy in her heart but she couldn’t seem to stop it from flaring. Her arms, like her womb, would always be empty. It wasn’t fair.

  Why not ever good for me?

  A tear streaked her cheek and she swiped it away, hoping Will wouldn’t realize she wept.

  “I know ’twas hard for ye to be there with her, but ye made me proud by it.” His chest rumbled against her spine as he spoke.

  So much for her secret tears.

  “’Tis hard for me too,” he said. “Do I wish things were different? Aye, I do. Sometimes in my mind’s eye I see the sons and daughters we should have had and I wish—”

  “Then ye shouldna fight me about sending to Rome.” Assuming they made it out of MacNaught’s siege, of course.

  He put a hand to the crown of her head and smoothed her hair. “Ye didna let me finish. I may sometimes think on what we dinna have, but I never lose sight of what we do. We have each other. Do ye ken how rare a thing that is? We are a family, Katherine, you and me. We may be only a circle of two but ’tis enough.” He hugged her tighter to his chest. He was all broad bands of muscle and sleek skin in the warm water. “If I had ten sons and didna have ye, I’d be a pauper. Ye are all I have and all I need. Ye are my home.”

  Her soft palate ached from trying to hold back tears. “Oh, Will.”

  “D’ye know why I never fear to go into battle?”

  She shook her head, unable to speak.

  “Because if I should fall, ’twould not be the worst that could happen to me. The worst would be losing ye.”

  She’d never felt more unworthy. Or more grateful. Her insides might be in turmoil, but Will’s love was a calm sea on which to launch her soul. He’d always bear her up.

  She turned in the tub so she could wrap her arms around him and lay her cheek against his wet chest. “I do love ye so, Will.”

  He drew a ragged breath. “Feels like forever ago since I heard ye say that.”

  “I love ye so much it hurts,” she went on. “And yet I wouldna stop the aching for worlds.”

  “I dinna know what will come tomorrow,” Will said. “But that’s the condition of every man. All we have is now. This night. This moment.”

  She rose up and kissed him, his mouth both familiar and strangely new. “Then we’d best not waste it.”

  William didn’t know if kisses could heal. No matter how many times he and Kat loved each other, there were some hurts nothing would mend. They’d been so innocent when they first pledged to love each other till one of them laid the other in the arms of God. So naïve. Life had not yet smacked them down. Their hearts hadn’t bled.

  But not all wounds were mortal. Their hearts went on, calloused and bruised, but still beating.

  He rose dripping from the tub with Katherine in his arms and carried her to the bed. They tumbled into it in a tangle of limbs and a flurry of kisses. The feel of her skin against his was heaven enough to drive rational thought from his mind as blood pooled in his groin.

  Everywhere she touched flared with heat. Everywhere she kissed burned with forgiveness and hope. They knew the best and the worst of each other. And they had not turned away.

  It was a minor miracle.

  Her skin was his favorite flavor. He wanted to taste every bit of her. Each sigh was the music he most wanted to hear. Her fingertips made love to the old scar on his ribs. He played a lover’s game on her secrets. Something inside him nearly burst when she came under his touch.

  Then she wrapped herself around him and he sank into her. Complete.

  One.

  She was lightning to his answering thunder. Chaos roared in his veins. She rose to meet him with such abandon, he didn’t know if he was taking or being taken. When he came, he cried out something unintelligible, something in the language of demons or angels, he wasn’t sure which.

  Spent and gasping, they both sank into the feather tick, still entangled with each other, still connected.

  If he could magically go back to their first days of loving, he wouldn’t. Things might have been simpler before they buried their stillborn son.

  Now they were more real.

  It was the screams that woke him. William leaped from the bed and crossed the chamber to the narrow slit that overlooked the bailey in a few bounding strides. Plumes of black rose from the stables and tongues of orange licked the edges of the gaping hole in the thatched roof.

  “Merciful Christ,” he swore as he pulled his shirt over his head. “Ranulf is lobbi
ng fire at us now.”

  As if wall-busting boulders weren’t enough.

  A bucket brigade formed up and hostlers braved the smoke and falling ash, ducking into the burning building to lead terrified horses to safety. There was no saving the stables. Once the hay caught, the best they could hope was that the fire wouldn’t spread to other buildings.

  There wasn’t time to drape and belt a plaid, so William tugged on his trews. Katherine scrambled from bed to find his jacket while he donned thick stockings and boots.

  “Stand still a moment,” she said as she helped him shrug into the jacket.

  It would probably be the last time he’d see her all day—he wouldn’t allow himself to think it might be forever—so he hugged her fiercely and pressed a kiss to her forehead. If he kissed her lips, it would be all the harder to leave her. Then he glanced up at the underside of the thatch above their heads. “Get yourself out of this tower. Margaret and her bairn and your father too.”

  The keep and its tower were located close to the lochside wall. “Surely Ranulf’s machine canna reach so far.”

  Maybe not from where it was now. But if all the men in Glengarry were pulled from the walls to fight fires, there’d be nothing to stop MacNaught from moving the diabolical thing closer. A sharp breeze caught a whiff of smoke from the stables and sent it through the arrow loops.

  “Just do it,” William said as he made for the stairwell. “And quickly.”

  “Oh, my lady, I’m that glad to see ye.” Dorcas skittered to Katherine’s side when she appeared in the souterrain. Margie’s boys raised a cheer and surrounded their mother, hopping up and down and demanding to see their new sister. Jamison supported the earl, who was favoring his left side and not speaking beyond monosyllables, but at least he seemed aware of his surroundings. The seneschal found a barrel the right height to serve as a seat for the laird and propped it in a corner so Lord Glengarry could be supported by the stone walls at both his shoulders.

  “How is everyone faring here?” Katherine asked Dorcas after greeting as many of the women and children as she could in the crammed space.