“He was kind to me as well,” Rose admitted. “He certainly does no’ behave like the other Bowie men I’ve kent in me life.”
Alec Bowie was unlike any man Leona had ever known. Save fer Ian, Brogan, and Rodrick the Bold. But there was something different about Alec. He was handsome, to be certain. But there was a gentleness to him. She’d witnessed it with her own eyes, and felt it as well, when he carried her across his lap, all the way to Rowan Graham’s keep. All the while, he had whispered words of encouragement to her. Ye’ll be right as rain soon enough lass. Me brother be dead, lass. He’ll never harm ye again.
There was little she remembered of those few days, but what she could remember, left her with nothing but warm feelings toward the man.
“I think we will get along well enough,” Leona offered.
Rose shifted her weight, trying to gain a more comfortable position on the bed. “What of yer father? What of a dowry?”
The urge to laugh was inescapable. “I do no’ care what me father thinks. I am of an age where I can make such a decision. As fer the dowry? There is none, but Alec said he did no’ care.” They had been discussing that very thing when Ian had come for her.
Another pain shot through Rose’s abdomen. This one was much stronger than the last.
“I think I should get Angrabraid now,” Leona said as she shot to her feet. She’d never seen a woman give birth before. The thought of being alone with Rose was frightening.
Rose grabbed her arm to stop her. “Aggie has already gone to fetch her. Do no’ tell Ian, fer I do no’ want him to worry.”
Even in pain Rose worried over her husband’s feelings. Leona thought it a most beautiful sentiment, to love a man so deeply that you put his feelings above your own pain. But Alec had already warned her that their marriage was nothing more than an agreement for peace betwixt two clans. Lying to her heart, she believed that would be enough. An amicable friendship between he and she would be enough.
“I’ll no’ tell him, I promise.”
Very little went on inside his clan that Ian Mackintosh did not know about. Especially when it came to his wife. He knew about the conspiracy betwixt Rose and the clanswomen, had discovered it on the very first day of its inception. Loving his wife the way he did, he could not hold it against her. He knew he hovered and worried too much, but he had come close to losing both of them not long ago. It stood to reason he’d worry.
He also knew her pains had started that morn. He wasn’t a simpleton. But if pretending he didn’t know brought her at least a small amount of comfort, then he would feign ignorance.
The last thing he wanted for his wife to struggle through anything. Least of all with bringing his child into this world. There had been far too many struggles these last months. He’d fall on his own sword before he added to them.
So he pretended he didn’t know. Pretended he couldn’t see her face contort and twist whenever a pain hit. ’Twas one of the most difficult things he’d ever done.
So when he saw Angrabraid crossing the yard with his sister-by-law, Aggie, in tow, he pretended he hadn’t seen them.
Pretended his insides weren’t a jumbled knot of worry and dread.
Pretended he could get through the next hours of his life with his sanity still in tact. All because he loved her.
Alec was just making his way across the yard when Brogan Mackintosh and Rodrick the Bold approached him. Brogan, he liked and admired. But he had only just met Rodrick, a man with cold-as-ice eyes and a countenance to match.
“We would like a wee moment of yer time,” Rodrick said, blocking his path. “We want to talk to ye.”
Alec studied him closely for a moment. Why the man was glaring at him, he could not rightly say. “By talk, do ye mean where we actually converse? Or the kind of talkin’ where ye pierce me heart with yer sword?”
Brogan chuckled and said, “Converse.”
Rodrick looked as though he were pondering the latter option.
“Verra well,” Alec said as he braced his feet apart and rested his fingertips on his hips. “What would ye like to discuss?”
“Leona,” Brogan replied.
Alec should have known.
“She be a right bonny lass,” Rodrick said. “With a good heart and carin’ spirit.”
They’d gain no argument on that from him.
“We just want to make certain ye understand she be quite special to us,” Brogan said.
“And we’d no’ want to see her hurt. In any fashion. By any man.” Rodrick’s warning was as sincere as it was clear.
Alec could appreciate their concern. ’Twas not as if the Bowies were known for being kind or generous people. “I can assure ye that when Leona becomes me wife, she shall be well cared fer as well as protected.”
“Aye, that, I do no’ doubt,” Brogan said. “But there are many ways a man can hurt his wife. Besides the obvious.”
So ’twas her heart they worried over. He was beginning to learn the Mackintosh men cared for their women in ways he’d never thought to. The poor bastards. He was tempted to explain the danger of worrying over a woman’s tender heart, but knew ’twould fall on deaf ears. “I will guard her heart as well,” he told them. But I’ll guard me own first.
“See that ye do,” Rodrick warned. “Fer if we learn ye have hurt her in anyway, we’ll no’ think twice of burnin’ yer keep to the ground. With ye still in it.”
’Twas not a boast, Alec knew. He wondered if this man had wanted Leona for himself? If he did, ’tis his own fault for not speaking for her sooner.
“Ye have me word,” Alec said. With a slight inclination of his head, he left them standing in the yard. If he hadn’t seen Dougall watching from up ahead, he might have worried Rodrick would plunge a dirk into his back.
Oh, why oh why did Rose insist on Leona being present for the birth of her first child? There was barely enough room in the little cottage for Rose, Angrabraid and Aggie, let alone Leona.
She considered Rose her only true friend. She was also her only living relative aside from her father. A fact they both had only recently been made aware of. Their mothers had been cousins, which did much to explain why she and Rose looked so much alike.
Because of that, Leona boldly agreed to be there for the momentous occasion. But each time Rose winced in agony, Leona’s resolve to remain grew thin.
Eying a bucket warming near the hearth, Leona told the ladies in the room, “I’ll fetch more water.”
“We have plenty of water,” Angrabraid told her as she placed straw on the mattress near Rose’s…nether regions.
Flummoxed, embarrassed, wishing for all the world she could flee this cottage, run far away so she wouldn’t have to hear her friends cries of agony. “Sheets? Do ye need sheets?”
Angrabraid pinned her in place with a furious glare. “What Rose needs is fer ye to hold her hand and encourage her.”
Oh, why oh why had she agreed to do that? Why had she made the promise to never leave Rose’s side when her pains started? Because ye’re an eejit.
Shoring up her courage, Leona left the small corner and went to stand beside her friend. Ye can do this, she told herself. Ye have endured much worse. Birthin’ babes is the most natural thing in the world. Besides, it could be ye lyin’ in this bed a year from now. That single thought comforted her. A year from now she would be the one cursing her husband to the devil for getting her with child. ‘Twould only make sense to watch, observe, and learn.
“Ye be doin’ well,” Aggie told Rose. “’Twill no’ be long, and ye’ll be holdin’ yer bairn in yer arms.”
Leona had come to adore Aggie Mackintosh, Leona’s sister-by-law, almost as much as she adored Rose. She had met her for the first time when she arrived at Rowan Graham’s keep. It had been Aggie and Rose who had taken care of her those first days. It had been they who fussed over her, tending to her every need, along with Lady Arline, Rowan’s wife.
For the whole of her life Leona had lived without a single
person to call friend. Now, she could count the three women as such. But Rose? Rose was her dearest and closest friend. There was naught she wouldn’t do for her.
Rose and Aggie were as close as sisters, probably more so. They had each survived hell on earth. Leona was certain she did not know everything the two women had gone through. But she knew enough.
Even with the long scar that ran down her face, Aggie was a beautiful woman, inside and out. There was something about her, a quiet inner beauty that made one ignore the scar. She also had a way of making Leona feel quite at ease.
Wanting very much to be as strong and determined as her friends, she decided the best course of action would be to simply mimic whatever Aggie said or did. The woman had two children of her own. Certainly she knew what she was doing.
Sweat dripped off the tip of Rose’s nose, soaked through her chemise and the bedding. With each pain, her face contorted and twisted, and at times, she shook from the intensity.
Her friend’s suffering was difficult to watch. But Leona was not about to leave her side.
As his wife fought to give birth to their child, Ian paced outside their cottage. Brogan and Frederick each sat on old tree stumps and watched.
Brogan understood his brother’s worry and could not hold it against him. Anything could happen. Though he’d lost his wife to the wasting disease before he even had the opportunity to get her with child, he understood Ian’s worry.
Frederick understood as well, but the circumstances here were far different than when his wife, Aggie, brought their daughter into the world. Aggie had been poisoned and nearly died. To this day, she could not remember anything about the birth, for she’d been far too ill. But she had survived.
“If Rose be half as strong as me Aggie,” Frederick said as he stood up, “then she will be fine. Try no’ to fret so, brother.”
Ian cast him a wary glance but said nothing. Instead, he continued with his fretful pacing. His only thoughts were of his wife.
’Twas a miracle she’d even gotten with child. Three babes she had lost with her first husband. All before she reached the end of her third month. But somehow, the seed he and she had tried so hard not to plant, planted itself and grew.
Now, his sweet wife lay within their cottage, fighting to bring their child into this world.
He loved her beyond reason and she him. Silently he prayed God would not hold any of his sins — and there were many — against his wife or his babe.
If anything happens to me wife…
Oh, the things Leona learned over the next hours!
For instance, she did not know it possible for a woman as tiny and wee as Rose, nor as sweetly dispositioned, to know so many curse words. All of which she either screamed or whispered, depending on the intensity of the birthing pain. Poor Ian, she mused. Surely Rose did not truly wish to gut him with his own sword. Or to cut his manly parts off with a rusty dirk.
Nor did she realize just how painful bringing a babe into the world could be. Hence the cursing and swearing.
Nor did she realize a woman’s body could open as wide as Rose’s did when her babe’s head popped through. She hadn’t meant to look, but Angrabraid had needed her help, to turn the babe’s head around in the right direction. “If the head be facin’ up instead of down, he could breathe in the fluid. So we must turn the head,” Angrabraid explained.
Neither was she prepared for all the things she saw next. The babe, not fully born yet with only its head sticking out, squalling at the top of its lungs. Or all the pushing, crying, and blood that came afterward.
But all those things paled in comparison to the inordinate sense of awe, utter joy, and longing that came when Angrabraid handed the child to her to hold until she could tie off the cord.
’Twas the first time in her life she’d ever held a babe. Och, he was beautiful! Even though he was covered in blood and goo. His little hands balled into fists, his face contorted as he cried and cried and cried.
Damn it all, but she couldn’t help but cry along with him.
All too soon for her liking, Aggie wrapped the babe in a swaddling cloth and handed him to his mother.
Her arms felt empty, sadly empty.
But the relief and joy in Rose’s eyes, the blissful glee of holding her child for the first time? ’Twas enough to make a grown woman want to cry a puddle of happy tears. And long for a babe of her very own.
Fit to be tied and unable to wait a moment longer, Ian Mackintosh, upon hearing the sound of his babe crying for the first time, burst into the hut. For a brief moment, Leona would have sworn he was going to keel over.
He took one look at his babe before focusing on his wife. Leona watched as he let loose a sigh of relief, his shoulders sagged, and his eyes grew damp. He went to his wife then and knelt beside her.
“I have never been so worried in all me life,” he admitted.
Rose smiled up at him as she held her babe close. “Even more terrifyin’ than the night I was stolen away?” she asked, only half serious.
He kissed the tip of her nose. “I be no’ certain. Mayhap both events were equally terrifyin’.”
“Yer wife and bairn be well, m’laird,” Angrabraid told him.
With a gentle finger, Ian drew the blanket away from his child’s face. Rose smiled up at him. “Ian, I would like ye to meet yer son.”
His son.
’Twas a boy.
Aggie took Leona by the arm and led her to a corner of the room so that Rose and Ian could have this moment together.
Suddenly, Ian Mackintosh was beset with an overwhelming sense of relief, awe, and love, all of which turned his eyes damp. Until this very moment, he hadn’t realized how much he wanted it. Ian Mackintosh, the rake, the breaker of hearts, the womanizer, overcome with such intense feelings. Who would have thought it even possible? He certainly hadn’t. Not until he held his son in his arms for the first time.
Of course his days of breaking hearts were over the day he met Rose for the first time. But now? Now he was quite certain his life would never be the same. As he looked down at his wee son, swaddled in a Mackintosh plaid, he knew his life was irrevocably changed.
Chapter 3
Leona Macdowall had never thought to be married. Therefore, she’d never given any thought to weddings. Oh, perhaps a fleeting thought here and there, whenever she was on one of her longs walks and allowed herself a moment or two of girlish daydreaming. Daydreams in which her eyes were each of the same color. What color never mattered, only that they matched.
And daydreams of a life filled with friends and a family that loved her. A home where she felt safe. Safe from harsh words and harsh hands. A home where she could be herself without worrying others would think her daft, or worse yet, bedeviled.
There had been daydreams too, of a husband who adored her, thought her pretty and witty and smart. Her imaginary, faceless husband had all the good qualities she found in both Ian and Brogan Mackintosh. Kind, considerate, and oh, so very much in love with their wives. Aye, Brogan’s wife was long since dead, but to this very day, he loved her. What a woman she must have been to have a man still pining for her more than four years after her death. What a love the two of them must have shared.
But on this day of days, her wedding day — a scant fortnight after agreeing to marry the Bowie Chief — dressed in the beautiful buttercup yellow gown Rose had made for her, the last thing she wanted to do was daydream.
Nay, she was going into this marriage with her eyes wide open and her heart protectively shut. This was not a love match. ‘Twould and could never be that.
“Leona!” ’Twas Rose’s voice breaking through her machinations. And she sounded exasperated. “Are ye no’ listenin’ to a word I am sayin?”
Feeling duly chastised, she apologized. “I fear me stomach is in knots,” she admitted.
Rose rolled her eyes. “I said, a messenger just brought this.”
In her hands was the rolled parchment, the private contract between she a
nd Alec. With more trepidation than eagerness, she took the scroll from Rose’s dainty hand. Had he agreed to all her requests? Had he made changes or offered any requests of his own?
Careful not to sully her gown, she lifted the hem and stepped away for as much privacy as she could garner in these small confines. Taking a deep breath, she untied the string and tossed it onto the small table.
He had neither changed nor added a thing. Every request was just as she had originally written it. And there, at the bottom of the parchment, was Alec Bowie’s signature.
I, Alec Bowie, do promise and swear to:
Never beat my wife, Leona MacDowall
To allow my wife to have as many children as she wishes
At least twice a year I will allow her to return to her clan for visits of at least one week
If ever I take a mistress, I will be discreet
I will never turn her away from our marital bed
I will never take her against her will
I will never, no matter how angry I might be, ever lock her away in any small, dark space, no matter her transgressions.
For some odd reason, her heart pitter-pattered against her breast. He’d agreed to every single one of her terms. That could only mean he was a man with a kind and tender heart. Her spirits were much improved. When Ian came to take her to the large tent where they would hold the ceremony, she left with a bright, beaming smile and a skip in her step.
Leona’s breath was stolen away the moment she saw Alec Bowie standing at the altar. Resplendent and regal in his dark blue silk tunic, black leather trews, and the Bowie plaid — dark blue, green and black — draped over his shoulder. Black leather boots fit snugly around his well-muscled calves. The hilt of his sword had been polished, the candlelight glinting off it. He was a living, breathing wall of hard muscle that reeked of power and virility.
His dark hair was pulled away from his face, held at the nape of his neck with a leather thong, giving her a clear view of his more than handsome face, with its square jaw, straight nose, and full lips. She sent a silent prayer up to God that any children she bore him would look just like him.
The Bowie Bride: Book Two of The Mackintoshes and McLarens Page 3
