Microsoft Word - Jenny dreamed (37 page)

"Lass, let me put a question to ye ere I reveal what I suspect. Do ye believe I'm sage enough to decipher the diary our Thomas left us?"

Fiona was growing more puzzled by the second. Why would Granddam ask such a thing, when she knew the answer before it passed her lips to say it? Probably of all Sir Thomas's descendants, Mara was the most religious in her devotion to his written legacy. "But of course," Fiona finally answered with a casual shrug of her shoulders, "I couldna doubt tha' ye know it by rate, so who's better to understand the mysteries the diary holds?"

"Good, now tha's settled," Mara said, taking a deep breath, "ye might be interested in knowin' tha' I've come to the belief tha' our Thomas and his Elainn are here now, their lovin'

spirits come back in body to fulfill wha' was prophecied. Thomas is-"

Fiona's face lit with delight as she interrupted Mara to cry out, " ... is Devlan! Am I nae right, Granddam? Oh, I knew it had t'be him-'tis why we are so drawn to one another."

"Well, I canna say tha's the reason for the attraction, lassie, but 'tis my belief tha' he is Thomas come again. As for Elainn, her spirit dwells in a body other than ye'rs." Mara closely studied her granddaughter's expression to note the mood of her temperament. "The Lady Jennifer-"

"Nae!" Fiona insisted, her cheeks coloring with an angry flush of rose, her mouth set in a spoiled pout. "How can Rodrigo's whore be the gently bred lady tha' was Elainn? On tha'

point, m'lady, I canna agree!"

"Agree or nae, 'tis!" Mara snapped sharply, irritated by the childish attitude Fiona had taken.

Then her voice softened as she considered how long the girl had clung to the belief that she was a part of a romance that would come alive again, after five long centuries of waiting.

"Wishin' canna change wha's set to be, darlin', and naether can denying the truth. But now tha' ye know, I'll be takin' ye'r promise tha' ye'll keep it to ye'rself."

Fiona's sullen .nod was accepted as a pledge of her word, but her mind was a whirl of contradictory emotions. Once given, she could not break a promise to someone like Mara, but she longed, oh, how she longed to do something to retaliate against the raven-haired bitch whose sweet-honey voice fooled so many and who seemed to have everything in the palm of her slender white hands!

"Might I be excused, m'dam? Ye've had my promise, and 'twill be kept; but I canna pretend tha' I find it pleasin'! 'Twill take more 'en a few minutes to absorb such a disagreeable shock."

"Think wi' ye'r mind, girl," Mara chided, blaming herself for Fiona's ill-mannered, sulky behavior, "and na' ye'r feelin's, and ye'll see how't makes sense!" The girl bobbed a stiff curtsey, her expression guarded, as she hurried to the door in a hasty retreat from her grandmother's disapproving frown. For minutes Mara stared at the closed door. Fiona's reaction had been predictable; she was not used to being denied what she wanted; and in one stroke Mara had passed two of her fondest desires to a younger and more beautiful woman.

Had Mara herself inherited a bit of her ancestor's powers, she should have known that Fiona should have been raised with more discipline and less indulgence. She could only hope now, though, that her granddaughter respected her enough to keep from troubling Jennifer.

The good Lord knew that the poor lass already had her share of troubles. Now, Mara rose with a weary sigh, deciding to take the nap she'd postponed. She would be able to think more clearly with a bit of rest.

She was just shutting the door when a breathless Shiona rounded the comer of the hall and hurried toward her, calling out her name in an alarmed tone of voice.

"Goodness, wha' is it, child?" Mara asked, a tiny frown forming between her frosted white brows. "Calm ye'rself, lassie, take a deep breath and start at the begginin'l Now, wha' seems to be the matter?"

"It's Lady Jennifer ... she's gone off wanderin', m'lady!" Shiona finally managed to stutter out, and then proceeded to tell Mara a breathless tale of the "strange" way Jenny had been acting. She'd just been coming to wake her from her nap when she'd found Lady Jennifer in the hall, walking toward the steps with a fixed, wide-eyed look almost as though she were wandering in her sleep. "I called out her name, but she didna hear me and when I caught up wi' her, she didna see me, either. Oh, m'lady, I am so frightened for her!"

Mara was almost afraid to ask where Jennifer had gone in such a trance-like state. "Go on, dear," she prompted, and even though she was shaking within, kept her voice calm. "Wha'

happened next?"

"She went down the steps, wi' me trailin' close t'see she didna take a tumble, and then, once outside, headed straight for the ... the crypt, m'lady, almost like she had a purpose there."

The hour was almost dusk, and the clouds that had covered the sky all day had lowered to a foggy mist that swirled across the damp ground. Jenny had stopped several times in her slow, steady progress toward the stone building that lay some fifty yards along a twisting, tree-lined path from the manor house, pausing to lean against a sturdy tree trunk as she caught a deep breath and clutched at her belly. "I followed her up to the entrance, afeared she'd stumble o'er the couple steps leadin' into the vaults, but, m'lady, her feet were more sure than mine!"

"And was the room nae dark, Shiona?"

Shiona shook her head with a bewildered expression. "It did surprise me, but someone had left a torch alight in the cresset. Wi' a very determined step, the lady walked right o'er to the stone memoria holding Sir Thomas's remains and reached out to touch his carved likeness."

"And did she say anything?"

"Aye, m'lady, in a voice na' like her own and sounding very sad, she whispered, 'Oh, Tom ...

how I do love ye!'and tha' was when I took off running to find yeo Lady Mara, wha's the meanin' of it all? Did I do wrong in na' comin' for ye sooner?"

"No, child, ye didna do wrong, but ye must stay calm now. Though 'tis too early, I fear the lady's labor has started. I want ye to go find Sir Raddock and send him to the crypt, then see Janet is fetched to my own room, for tha's where we'll be takin' the Lady Jennifer."

"But Janet's wi' Meg, -m'lady," Shiona said.

The steward Dughal's young daughter had been overdue to deliver her first child for three weeks now, and even as Shiona had hurried back from the crypt, she'd heard a shrill scream coming from the servants' quarters, indicating that Meg's bairn would wait no longer.

"Well, leave word wi' her, then. "Twill be some time anyway, 'til Jennifer's wean is birthed.

Go now, quickly, dearie," Mara urged, already starting down the hall. "I canna leave the girl alone longer!"

But Jenny was not alone. Dev stood in the shadows to the far left of Thomas's bier, silently watching the odd behavior of his wife. To his right, the hidden door that led down into the caverns was still half open, as he'd left it when he'd slipped back into the crypt to douse the torch that had been left burning. The guns and ammunition that were used for their daily target practice were stored here, out of the dampness of the caverns. Now, though, the carelessness of leaving a light in the seldom-visited shrine was forgotten.

He'd seen her only once, from the window of his room, when she'd arrived and even though he'd accepted the fact that she was carrying his child, the sight of her belly rounded by her condition still came as a shock. Somehow she had looked even more beautiful and he'd turned away, fighting his old feelings, feelings he'd thought had died.

But it wasn't Jenny he heard speaking now, as she looked up, staring straight ahead at something he couldn't see. In profile her face was soft and yearning, radiating a luminance of its own. To Jenny, there were no thick stone walls surrounding her, no shadows. She stood in a glen, in a bright wash of spring sunlight filtering through the trees, looking up at the strongly sculpted, craggy features of the man she'd loved for the past nine years. The meadow was green with waving grass, sweet with the scent of wildflowers, and the birds and small animals that inhabited it moved freely around them, un alarmed by their presence.

She had taught Thomas how to keep so still that the wild things accepted him as one more among their company. But after today, she and they would never again see him. "Nae, m'love," she answered him now, "I canna go, ye know tha'!" Though he had not voiced it, Elainn knew that he was jealous and confused by her decision to stay with her people. She tried to keep that in mind now as she reached up tenderly to smooth the taut lines of stubborn resistance that were drawn about his full, sensual mouth. He was so handsome, her Tom, with his curls of burnished copper and eyes that reflected the color of the sky at dawn.

" 'Twill be but a whisper of time, the shadow of a night's sleep. 'Twill pass like minutes, Thomas. And soon after our eyes open, 'twill be twice the joy to gaze upon each other once again!" She hugged him close, unwilling to let him see the tears she'd sworn to herself she would not cry and against the comfort of his hard-muscled chest, whispered, "Oh, I promise, Tommie ... do ye nae believe it's true?"

Then his hands gripped her shoulders, and Thomas lowered his head to touch his lips to hers, gently at first, then with such a yearning that she knew he'd accepted the finality of their parting and meant to go with the sweet memory of her kiss to see him through the loneliness of the future. Once before he'd left her to return to Erceldoune, but this time he would not come back.

She had something more to stave off the emptiness of a life without him, though, something more lasting than a lover's kiss. Elainn carried his child, and even if it would be months before her body blossomed with the planted seed, she knew and rejoiced in knowing. In that last minute, when he pulled away from her and turned to go, she almost betrayed the secret. But he would have stayed, and Thomas had his dream to chase; she loved him too much to make him abandon it.

She'd seen much-in the crystal before handing it over to his keeping today, and her own destiny lay on a path different from his. There would be loneliness and pain in her future and a great joy in the son she would bear, a son with his sire's fiery hair and her own, meadow-green eyes. Eventually she would die a fiery death, but in a good and just cause, for the freedom of Scotland, leaving her young stripling of a son in the care of her father's relatives, the Woodvilles.

But all that was in her future now, as she watched Thomas disappear beyond the trees of the glen. His long legs carried him away from her, but not forever; their love was too strong to die a mortal death. Her eyes were glazed with tears as she turned away and felt a stab of pain that was almost physical. The sun was no longer bright, and the wall of trees surrounding the deep, cool glade had changed to dark, cold stone. In a place that was as silent and shadowed as death, the birds could no more be heard warbling their spring-songs; there was no sound but a low, moaning whimper of pain.

The tight, drawing contractions within her abdomen chased away all remembrance of the high emotions Jenny had felt through her regression to Elainn. She found herself clutching at the carved lid of a gravestone, panting for breath as she looked around in dazed fright at the ominous, dancing shadows that seemed to threaten her from the corners of the room. There was a sound to her left, the shuffle of a footstep against the stone floor. Jenny was afraid to look, afraid not to. She held her breath, slowly turning her head, catching only a glimpse of a man's figure before another contraction hardened her belly. Her eyes shuttightly, her fingers losing their grip as she felt her body and mind slipping into a deep pit of blackness.

Dev caught Jenny as she slipped toward the floor, lifting her into his arms as she lost consciousness. Despite the additional weight of her pregnancy, she seemed light as a feather, and he stood there a second looking down at her face. Now at least he had an inkling of the identity of the man who'd haunted her dreams, though he was still mystified by what he'd witnessed. He had to get her back to the house, to Mara's care. Though the baby wasn't due yet, he'd seen enough Indian women in labor to recognize that his own wife was too far into her delivery for it to cease now.

Turning toward the door, Dev found Mara staring at him. His first reaction was relief, then he found himself wondering how long she'd stood there, watching. There was a shouted hail from behind her, and Raddock came up to the door and peered in, apparently surprised only by finding Dev at the scene. In a tone of gentle command Mara asked Dev to give Jenny over to Raddock's care.

"He'll see she's safe into the house, lad. Ye do na want to add to her burden by lettin' her wake and see a man she thought was dead these past months."

Dev was reluctant to release Jenny, but as Raddock came up, she moaned, starting to rouse and he laid her carefully in the cradle of the knight's large, muscular arms, adding a warning in a harsh, low whisper. "Be gentle, Raddock, and watch where your big feet carry you ...

that's my child about to be born!"

"M'big feet know the path well, e'en in the darkness, lad," Raddock snapped with a whisper of his usual roar, then he softened his answer by adding, "I'll take a bit o'extra care, though.

Tend to yerself; ye look na'ne too steady." Then, with a fussing, nervous Shiona carrying a torch to light the path, Raddock carried Jenny toward the manor.

Dev started toward the crypt door, but Mara caught his arm, tugging at him with a hand whose frail-looking fingers had a surprising strength. "Do na be in such a hurry, Devlan.

Babies take their own sweet time comin' and especially the first. It'll be hours yet, 'til dawn most likely, afore ye know whether ye're the father of a lass or laddie. I want to have a wee talk wi' ye-I wouldna ask if it were na' important."

"About Jenny," Dev guessed, "about what she was saying?" He looked reluctant to discuss it, his gaze straying to the door, his mind obviously on Jenny and how she was faring.

Despite the bitterness he'd revealed to her that day they'd discussed his past with Jenny, it was perfectly clear to Mara that he loved her still. But of course he would, she chided herself silently, after five centuries of separation. "She's a good, strong girl, Devlan," she reassured him now in a cheerful tone, hooking her arm within his as she led him back, toward Thomas's bier. "'Tis an agony to bring forth a bairn, but I've had one m'self and watched many another come squallin' into the world and, believe me, son, 'tis na' only worth the pain ten times o'er but 'tis also a sufferin' tha's soon forgot!