A Noble Deception (The Douglas Clan) (18 page)

Now that she thought about it, she was no better than them.
Where she did not wish to be dismissed by virtue of her appearance, she’d done just that to Lachlan by virtue of
his
.

The thought was slightly depressing.

When she reached her father’s chamber, she was startled to find Lady Glinis seated at his bedside. Normally she was not there this time of day. They’d made a routine of avoiding each other these past few weeks, and she’d not expected to cross paths with the lady anytime soon.

“Oh, er
... I’m sorry, my Lady. I’ll come back, shall I?”

Lady Glinis glanced in her direction. But instead of the
derision with which she normally regarded Moira, her face held only mild curiosity.

“Nay, dinna fret. I’m just about ready to leave anyway
.”

Moira’s mouth fell slack.

Vacating her seat so Moira could have it, Lady Glinis made for the door. Moira entered the room, giving the lady a wide berth, just in case. When she had seated herself and took her father’s hand, Glinis did not leave as Moira thought she would. Instead, she hovered at the foot of the bed and continued to watch her husband.

Her presence
made Moira nervous. Did Glinis expect her to do something? Talk to the man? Moira seldom ever talked to Lord Kildrummond anymore, for he slept almost all the time now. And when he was awake it was no use talking, for her could not talk back. He had too little strength and there was too much phlegm rattling in his chest.

She snuck a glance at Lady Glinis. The woman gazed
wistfully upon the wretched form in the bed.

“He breathes so queer,” she whispered. “’Tis almost painful to watch.”

“Aye,” Moira agreed tentatively. “I keep telling him he must let go, but he hangs on.”

“He were always stubborn
,” she said affectionately.

“
He never spoke ill of ye, ye ken. Quite the opposite, in fact, even to my mother. Even when she spoke ill of ye, and railed at the fact that ye had his hand by lawful right... even then, he’d no’ speak ill of ye. Whatever else he might have done, he respected ye greatly.”

For a moment, she worried
that she’d overstepped her bounds, that the mention of her mother would darken Glinis’s mood. But the lady simply smiled. A sad, lonely smile.

“
I ken.”

Glinis
paused. When she spoke again, Moira could scarce believe what she was hearing.

“Ye
must forgive me, Moira. I dinna think I can change overnight. Twenty years of anger is a difficult thing to bury, and I’ll no’ be able to overcome it in a day.”

Moira eyed
her warily. “Change, my Lady?”

“Change,” Glinis nodded. “I dinna want to hate ye, lass. I’ve never wanted to hate ye. I dinna think hate is even the right word for it. I dinna want to
... to
blame
ye—aye, that’s a better word. Blame.”

“Why change now,
my Lady, if I may be so bold?”

Glinis frowned, thinking.
“I’m... I’m weary,” she answered. “Weary to my bones. I dinna have it in me to hold onto that hurt anymore. For so many years I thought that life held nothing new for me. I thought there would be nothing else but marriage to a man that didna love me. A good man, true, but still, a man that was not in love wi’ me. I’ve only now been able to see that I’ve still so much life to live. I dinna want to spend the rest of it with a bitter heart.”

The two women studied each other.
There was no hatred in Glinis’s eyes. Moira had never dreamed the lady would ever look at her like she was now—like a person, an equal, rather than a blight. A small glimmer of hope burned deep in her chest.

“
I thank ye for saying so,” she said simply.

Glinis gazed at her a
touch longer. “Well, I’ll leave ye be, then.”

She departed the room, and Moira watched her retreating back. For
a long time after that she stared at the empty doorway.

When she
turned back to Lord Kildrummond, it seemed as though the old earl’s breathing had eased. And perhaps (she might have been imagining it, but just perhaps), he looked a little more peaceful. As though he’d been aware of what had just transpired at his bedside.

Of course such a thing was
impossible. Fanciful thinking ...

Though it seemed that
his hand, once limp and unresponsive, gripped Moira’s ever so slightly.

Fifteen

THE FALLOUT FROM the Battle of Arkinholm descended upon the Douglases with a fury as swift and terrifying as the destrier of Moira’s dream. And it fell on Sir Alexander MacByrne’s shoulders to warn Lachlan of what was to come.

On a cool, rainy evening in early May he returned to Glendalough. The sentry atop the
wall walk spotted his sodden silhouette against the twilight sky, and shouted to a ghillie to alert Viscount Strathcairn.

Lachlan had been in the treasury all that afternoon, combing the records of the previous year’s modest prosperity. Perhaps
it was not necessary to give the figures such singular attention, but he found it was the best excuse to avoid the tension that pervaded the castle of late. Everyone wanted to know how the battle had gone, and they all looked to Lachlan for an answer.

An answer he did not have.

He was just about ready to give up for the night—his eyes were now burning with strain—when the ghillie’s knock came.

“Come,” he invited.

The ghillie, a boy of perhaps fifteen summers and as gangly as Moira’s friend Niall, stood in the entrance. He was anxious; his rigid posture and the waver in his deepening voice attested to it. Lachlan’s senses heightened.

“My Lord Strathcairn, Sir Alexander
MacByrne has returned. He is being attended in the bailey.

Lachlan rose from his chair, his hands braced on the edge of the oak desk on which a roll of parchment lay open. “And?”

“And... and what, my Lord?”

“H
ow does he look, lad? What can ye tell me of his face? Is he excited? Worried? What?”

The
lad’s eyes darted around the room, and his hands twisted together in front of him. “I dinna ken, my Lord. ‘Tis no’ my place to say.”

Lachlan
pulled in a breath, willing himself to calm down. He was making the young fool nervous.

“Fear not, lad,” he said evenly. “I am no’ one to hold the messenger responsible for the message he brings. I only wish to ken yer impression of him, so that I might prepare myself. Please—how did he look?”

“He looked... grim, my Lord,” the ghillie admitted.

Grim. So
Kildrummond’s fears had come true; it was the worst. What, exactly, did the worst mean for Edward Douglas, Earl of Albermarle? What had his fate been... or, more horrible, what might his fate yet be?

“I shall wait for him in the solar
.”

Relieved
at the discharge, the boy bowed hastily and scampered off, leaving the door open behind him.

In the close, still air of the treasury
, Lachlan listened to the patter of rain against glass. The scent of parchment and dust was so heavy he could nearly taste its musk. How many years, how many lives of Douglas men and women were stored here? The details of their existences: their harvests, their commerce, their births and deaths... had their collective story officially come to its end?

Abandoning the open parchment, Lachlan snuffed out the single candle and locked the door behind him.

The solar was cold when he arrived. A modest fire burned low, having been lit just ahead of him. He didn’t much like this room, and came here seldom. It was large and hollow. Finely furnished, yes, and decorated with enough tapestries (Moira’s by the look of them, or her mother’s) that it should have been comfortable. But there was something about the room that put Lachlan on edge. The few times he’d been in the solar alone he had the unsettling notion that the ghosts of Kildrummond lords past—Douglases, all of them—were watching him. Disapproved of a Ramsay taking their beloved realm.

It was fancy, of course. Yet the rain tapping at the windows and the
bleak, grey light that suffocated the room did nothing to dispel it. The feeling was especially acute this night, as Lachlan waited to hear the fate of Clan Douglas.

He was grateful that Alex did not keep him waiting long. He appeared at the open door and
stopped at the threshold. His hair and cloak were sopping from his journey, his face a canvas of defeat. Lachlan’s pulse quickened.

“What chance is there that ye mean to play me a trick
wi’ that face of yers?”

Alex shook his head.

“Ah.” Lachlan breathed. “I thought not.”

He gestured to the two large chairs positioned in front of the hearth, and
took one. Alex followed, and took the other. They regarded one another, both men weary. Not for the first time over the years, Lachlan reflected on his friend’s devotion. The strain of the Douglas feud was etched on Alex’s face as if it were his own family that suffered it. Lachlan’s future earldom meant as much to Alex as it did to him. One day he would find a way to tell his friend how much he meant to him.

Now was not the time, however. With reluctance, he spoke.

“Give me the news then, for I’ll hear it sooner or later.”

Alex
’s eyes trailed to the fire. He perched his elbow on the wide, polished armrest, and his forefinger stroked his upper lip absently.

“Lost,” he
confirmed. “Lord Douglas’s men faced a force equal in numbers, but they were outmatched.”

“Whose force did they face?”

“The Earl of Angus.”

Lachlan blanched.
“The Earl of Angus—as in
George
Douglas?”

“One and the same.”

Lachlan slumped in his chair. George Douglas of the Red Douglases. Kin to the Black Douglases. James had been opposed by his
own kin
.

“So Red takes Black,” he murmured.

“Aye. These noblemen ken nothing of blood loyalty... that goes for both sides, by the by.”

Lachlan looked up. “Oh?”

“It were over before it began,” Alex said gently. “Lord Douglas’s allies abandoned him. He fled to England before the battle. In the end, his brothers took on leadership and led the fight. James Douglas, the coward, saved his own neck, and left his own brothers—his
blood
—to suffer the fate that should have been his.”

“Lord in heaven,”
Lachlan whispered.

“Ye certain ye wish to be a noble?” Alex jested
without humour.

He then proceeded to tell Lachlan everything he knew about the three Douglas lords. Archibald Douglas, Earl of Moray, killed. Hugh Douglas, Earl of Ormonde, captured. John
Douglas, Lord Balvenie, escaped to England. The lands of the Black Douglases had been declared forfeit by the king. Heaven knew what would happen to the clan now.

“And what of Lord Albermarle?” Lachlan asked
when Alex had finished.

The knight
inhaled. “Captured, too. He is imprisoned at Stirling wi’ the Earl of Ormonde, and awaits trial.”

“And his sons?”

“His eldest, Edward, were killed near the end, and his second son, Brandon, escaped wi’ Lord Balvenie to England.”

They lapsed into silence. A draught
from the hall whispered through the room; the tapping of the rain and the crackle of the fire were the only other sounds. Lachlan felt sick as he contemplated what he’d heard.

This may very well be the end of the Black Douglas clan.

“Lady Rosamund will have to be told,” he said heavily.

“Should I have a messenger sent?”

“Nay, this I must do for myself. I am Lord Kildrummond’s heir. ‘Tis time I started acting the part. Lord Kildrummond would have told her himself if he were well enough to do so. I am sure of it.”

“And how does Lord Kildrummond fare?”

“He’s in his last days,” Lachlan affirmed. “It willna be much longer now, I think.”

“Will ye tell him? About Lord Albermarle?”

Lachlan knew the answer already, for he’d spent much time thinking on it. “Nay. There is no purpose to that. Besides, I doubt whether he can hear us anymore.”

LORD KILDRUMMOND’S LAST
hours came the next night. The sky had cleared, revealing a spray of stars and a brilliant moon. It was as if the heavens had parted the bounds of earth, ready to receive the earl’s soul.

His family gathered in his chamber, and waited for him to take his
final breath. No one spoke. Moira sat in the single chair beside his bed and held his hand. Glinis sat on the other side, perched on the edge of the bed by his withered knee. Lachlan and Alex stood solemnly against the wall as a priest gave the final benediction. A handful more Douglas clansmen rounded out the watch.

Moira
swallowed thickly. “I canna stand the sound of his breathing,” she whispered to Glinis. “D’ye think he’s in pain?”

Glinis gazed at Moira
. There was not a trace of the animosity which had existed for years between them. Then her eyes fell to her husband, and she listened to his irregular, shallow breaths which rattled sharply in his wasted chest.

“I dinna think so,” she said evenly.
Taking his other hand in both of hers, she leaned over him, and spoke quietly to the dying man. So quietly that only Moira was close enough to hear over the priest’s murmured prayers.

“John, love,
can ye hear me? My love, ‘tis time to let go. Ye’ve done all ye can in this life. No one could have asked more of a man. Ye’ve secured the future of Kildrummond, and yer people will live and prosper under our Lachlan’s hand. Yer daughter will have a home, and will be protected for the rest of her life. And... and I will be fine as well. What we had wasna love, but I ken ye cared for me. Ye did everything for me that was in yer power to do. I ken that now, and I thank ye for it, John. But there’s no more ye can do for any of us. ‘Tis time ye went home now.”

Several minutes passed, long minutes in which there was nothing but the sound of Lord Kildrummond’s breathing and the whispers of the priest. Then, even the priest fell silent as the earl opened his eyes. He gazed across the chamber, seeing not the brick and mortar and faces of those present. Whatever it was that he saw was not of this world. A smile of wonder crossed his parched lips and his blue eyes shone with love.

“Lilian,” he whispered.

With the name of his love hanging in the air, John Douglas, Earl of Kildrummond, closed his eyes for the last time.

Glinis slumped, and released his hand. Her onyx eyes filled with tears, and she allowed them to wet her lashes and cheeks. Her obligation to her husband had been fulfilled; no one could say she hadn’t done her duty—not in his time of illness nor in their fruitless marriage. Neither could anyone fault her for the relief she felt. Her grief was true, but her burden was lifted.

Moira, though, began to sob. Her shoulders shook, and her chin
lowered to her chest.

“Papa,” she cried quietly
.

Unable to stop a few wayward tears of his own, Lachlan went to his young wife’s side. Gathering her into his arms, he pressed her head to his shoulder, and rocked her while she poured out her grief.

“I wasted so much time,” she moaned, the words muffled against his tunic. “I canna make it better. I canna tell him that I love him anymore. I’ll never have another chance.”

“He kent, love,” Lachlan soothed, stroking her hair.

“Aye, he did,” Glinis added. “And ye gave him a wonderful gift—ye gave him the love of a daughter in his final days. Ye sent him to his Blessed Father a happy man.”

The mourners in the room huddled together, offering each other condolences for the loss of a great man.

Beyond the chamber wall, the clear night sky twinkled one star brighter.