Bride of Dunloch (Highland Loyalties) (13 page)

“They say MacGillivray is not among the dead,” she said cautiously.

“That is correct,” Jane confirmed. “Lord Reginald rides daily in search of him. I fear he will not be lenient if he finds him.”

“So the baron believes he is alive then?”

“He does, yes. Though why he is so intent on catching the man, I know not. He’s hardly a danger to Dunloch now. Do you reckon he’s found shelter somewhere, or allies, perhaps?”

“Our Robbie were always resourceful. I’ve no doubt he’s out there taking care of himself.”

Jane started. “Robbie?”

“Aye. Robert MacGillivray.”

“Pray, tell me—did he happen to have a son by the same name, and did he bring his son into battle with him?”

“Robbie, a son?” Margaret scoffed at the notion. “He’s barely more than a lad himself. Oh, he could have settled down wi’ a nice girl from the village had he wanted to, or negotiated for a bride among the daughters of the neighbouring lairds I suppose—his betrothed died in childhood, ye see. But he had no’ shown much interest in ... Baroness, are ye alright? Ye look a bit peaky.”

Jane felt more than peaky, she felt downright sick. It was as if the ground had fallen out from under her feet and she were spinning in empty air.

Robbie was MacGillivray.
Her
Robbie. All the pieces she had not thought to wonder about before fell into place with this revelation.
That
was why he’d been hovering around the dead.
That
was why he’d lamented, crying “What have I done?” MacGillivray was not among the dead and was nowhere to be found, despite Lord Reginald’s exhaustive efforts far and wide to locate him, and yet she’d managed to stumble upon the lone survivor of the attack. A
wounded
survivor no less.

Good God. Robbie was MacGillivray!

“I ... er, I fear I must depart,” Jane said rather woodenly, and stood on numb legs. “Thank you for speaking with me, I am very sorry for your loss.”

Margaret regarded her with wide, startled eyes. She made to raise herself from the chair in which she sat, but Jane halted her.

“Nay, please you, remain seated. I can show myself out.”

With a sharp turn, she departed the small hut. Her head was reeling as she stepped outside into the moist afternoon air.

“I want to speak wi’ her,” she heard a small voice insist as she began to walk away.

Warily, she turned back to the door to see the little boy, Connall, come bounding towards her. His blonde locks swayed vigorously as he trotted forwards with the determination of youth.

“My Lady,” he said in his child’s voice.

Jane bent down to the little boy’s level, focusing her efforts on maintaining her composure in front of him.

“Yes, little one, what is it?”

“You are the baron’s lady?”

“I am, yes.”

“D’ye ken where my da is? Mam says he isna coming home, and when I asked her if he’d died and gone up to heaven, she started crying. But if he’s died, then he must be buried and we can visit him. D’ye ken where he is?”

The innocence in his clear, green eyes as he waited expectantly for her answer broke her resolve, and her face crumpled. Bitter tears sprang to her eyes, and she put a hand on his little shoulder. Pulling him close, she placed a remorseful kiss atop his forehead.

“Sweet boy. I’m sorry, I do not know,” she lied. Then, before despair completely overwhelmed her, she stood and fled his presence.

Once she’d rounded the corner of the smith’s shop, she pressed herself against the timber wall. She breathed deeply and with purpose, willing her thoughts to calm and her trembling limbs to still. In Sussex, the plight of the people of Scotland had been to her stories of brutal wars and savage men. Sheltered within the walls of Dunloch, it had been closer to her, but still no more than a concept, a vague notion. Now however, that small, innocent boy Connall put an irreversible human quality on the fight. The MacGillivrays of Dunloch had lost their rightful land, and as a result, that beautiful little boy had lost his father. What a cruel, cruel thing, she thought angrily, swiping at tears that refused to be contained.

When she had reclaimed some semblance of composure, she resumed walking. A short distance later she encountered Lord Reginald, followed by his retinue, on his way to meet her.

“There you are, my dear. We were just coming to collect you from the widow Margaret’s home.”

Jane swallowed the chafe at the casual way he’d spoken of Margaret’s loss, and plastered a demure, if somewhat unconvincing, smile on her face.

“I have finished, my Lord, and was returning.”

“Why were you visiting the widow?” his eyes narrowed slightly.

“I only wished to extend my condolences. She is so young, and with a young boy and a babe on the way it cannot be easy for her so soon after her loss.”

“Her loss?” Lord Reginald spoke carefully, but Jane sensed a darkening in his voice, a warning that she was treading on dangerous ground. “She lost a husband who laid siege to a castle that was not his. His death was of his own making. Is that a loss for which you should express sympathy?”

“Forgive me, my Lord, but these are the people you now lead. I only meant my visit to be a gesture of good will. Perhaps it will be easier to lead your people if an attempt to mend bridges was made.”

The baron studied her for a moment as if judging her sincerity. She felt as if his gaze was penetrating her very soul, and for a moment she feared he might be able to divine her true heart. But then, he smiled.

“An excellent idea. Quite a keen young mind you have, my dear. I hope your efforts were fruitful. Now please, let us continue our visit.”

She allowed him to drape his arm over her shoulder protectively. Possessively. She accepted the gesture outwardly—what choice did she have?

Inwardly, she was seething.

Chapter 10

Jane was practically hopping from foot to foot for the rest of the evening. She was eager to confront Robbie with the knowledge she’d inadvertently gleaned from Margaret MacGillivray, and waiting for that time was proving to be torturous.

Her agitation was not lost on Ruth. Her maid watched her with suspicion as she was readied for bed that night.

“Where is it you’ve been going every night, my Lady,” she enquired finally as she let Jane’s hair down at the vanity.

Jane met Ruth’s gaze through the glass, her eyebrows rising with surprise.

“I know not what you mean,” she insisted.

“I am not daft, my Lady,” Ruth persisted. “I know you sneak out each night after you’ve been visited by Lord Reginald. I suspect you are going to the same place where you spend your days, thought I confess I know not where that is ... or with
whom
you spend your time.”

Jane’s cheeks warmed. “And you disapprove?” she challenged.

Ruth’s suspicion faded from her face, and her hands came to rest on Jane’s shoulders. “My Lady, I do want very much to disapprove, but for your sake I cannot. I see every day that you are discontented with Lord Reginald, and I do not blame you—I only want for you to be happy. But take care you do your duty by your husband; give him your body when he desires it and make sure you give him an heir. Whatever else you do to fill the remainder of your time, you shall hear no criticism from me. I only ask in return that you take care you are not found out.”

Jane read the sincerity on Ruth’s face, and patted her maid’s hand lovingly. “My Ruth, it is not like that.”

“Perhaps not yet,” Ruth answered knowingly. “But I suspect from the blush on your cheek and the sparkle in your eye that it very soon will be.”

“I am not like Amelia.”

Ruth chuckled gently, and squeezed Jane’s shoulders. “I think you shall find there is a vast difference between married and unmarried women who seek the pleasures of men. Amelia, beautiful though she may be, is a fool girl. Men know when a maid is no longer a maid. Whoever takes your sister for a bride will have to be made aware from the off that she’s impure, for he’ll not believe otherwise when it’s his turn at the gauntlet. With married women,” she continued when Jane laughed in astonishment at her bluntness, “there’s no way to tell. And I think you’ll be surprised at how often it goes on. Oh, my dear girl. Take your pleasures where you can. I could not bear the thought of you living life without happiness.”

Jane pondered Ruth’s words long after she left her chamber. She wondered if her maid, the woman who had been a second mother to her for the whole of her life, would be so sympathetic if she knew who it was she was visiting each day. Somehow she doubted it.

Her thoughts hopelessly snared, she waited impatiently for Lord Reginald to come. He’d claimed her body every night since she’d wed him, but this night he was significantly delayed. An hour passed, and then another, and still he did not come.

Finally, desperate to have her nightly duty be done with, she slipped from her chamber to enquire after him.

“Excuse me,” she said to a passing ghillie, “but have you seen the baron this night?”

“In the great hall, my Lady,” the boy said with a gangly bob of his knees. His voice cracked comically with the onset of manhood.

She thanked the boy and continued through the castle. Stopping at the door to the great hall she saw that the ghillie was right. Lord Reginald sat at the head table on the dais with two companions—all three men were sound asleep. Their heads rested on the wood tabletop in front of them, and empty ale goblets were scattered close by.

The reprieve of her wifely duties came to Jane as a great relief. With no further prompting needed, she hurried through the halls of the castle to escape. So eager to get away was she that she did not even bother to return to her chamber to change from her shift.

Robbie did not mention her state of undress when she burst through the door of the hut a short time later. Indeed he looked rather glad simply to have her there.

“I thought something terrible had happened to ye,” he said with a breath of relief. “Or that ye’d decided not to come anymore.”

Jane shook her head, slightly out of breath herself from the speed with which she’d travelled. She pressed herself against the door, leaning on it with her hands behind her, and regarded him with a note of amazement.

“Nay, I am fine, but I fear I cannot come as often anymore. My husband has begun to notice my absence during the day.”

“Has he forbidden ye to go out then?”

“Oh, no. It is nothing like that. But I do not wish to push his leniency, so I think it best I only come when everyone is asleep.”

She paused, observing Robbie’s image in the firelight. It was an odd sensation—reconciling in her mind the Robbie she’d discovered him to be with the face that had become so familiar to her in the time she’d known him. His face flickered in the mellow light, the same—and yet so much changed.

“What is it?” he asked, sensing her hesitation.

“You did not tell me you were the chief of clan Gillivray,” she accused.

He raised an eyebrow quizzically. “And
ye
did not tell
me
that ye were the Baroness D’Aubrey. So I reckon we’re on an even keel wi’ each other.”

Jane gasped. “Have you known all this time who I was?”

“Of course I kent.”

“How?”

Robbie gave her a look as though the answer was obvious. “Old Reggie is preparing to wed his bride, a young English lass from Sussex, and next day
ye
turn up, a young English lass from Sussex? Ye’d have to be a bloody
amadan
not to figure that one out.”

She blushed and lowered her head. “I did not realize.”

Robbie examined her intently a few moments before speaking. “And how is it, Jane Sewell, that ye learned who I am?”

She pushed herself off the door of the hut and came to sit beside him. Pulling the hem of his shirt up, she checked his bandage.

“How does it feel?” she asked, lifting the salve to view the wound.

“Aye, much better,” he acknowledged. “I can get up and move about some, though it itches like mad.”

“Yes, the healing does that. But it looks very good. I’d say you’ll soon be clear of danger that the infection will return.”

“Jane, ye didna answer my question,” Robbie pursued.

“I visited Margaret MacGillivray in the village. I never knew what the MacGillivray laird’s name was until she called him ‘our Robbie.’ From there ... well, I suppose I could say one would have to be a
bloody amadan
not to figure that one out.”

Robbie laughed at her imitation of his accent. But then, sobering, he fixed his eyes on hers intently.

“And now that ye ken who I am, what do ye intend to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, will ye be telling yer husband where I am?”

“I hardly think so, considering how much effort and personal risk it was for me to heal you in the first place.”

Noting the grin on her face, he relaxed a bit, and raised himself up on his elbows.

“I certainly will not tell him,” she continued, “and I think there is little risk that he will find you on his own. He thinks you have left Dunloch to rally forces in surrounding lands, and is concentrating his efforts far from here. Now lay back and rest. You are better, but you are not yet well.”