Highland Protector (31 page)

“I had a pony but the laird saw me playing with it and he hit it because it wouldnae let him near and that made him mad and he decided he needed meat for the table and he killed my pony and had Cook make a stew and he made me eat some.”

Simon pulled her into his arms and sat her on his lap, rubbing her back as she sniffled into his shirt. “Then we shall fix the stables and get a pony. Now, dinnae we need a fine place for our horses, too?” He felt her nod against his chest. “It was a fine suggestion. I can see that Malcolm has already added it to his list of what must be done.”

She leaned back and looked at him as she wiped her tears away on her sleeve. “I have another one.”

Simon was terrified to ask what it was, but he forced himself to smile. “Tell us then.” He was a little startled when she gave him what he could only describe as a mean look. “Marion?”

“I want a rule saying that men cannae hit ladies and make them cry.”

“Done,” said Malcolm before Simon could find the words to answer what was yet another horrifying insight to the life this child had led.

It was late before everyone left and Malcolm had several sheets of suggestions before him. Simon sipped at his ale and stared around the great hall. There was little left of the grandeur that had once existed. Between his father and Henry, it had been stripped of all its fine tapestries and carpets as well as many of the old weapons.

“When Marion said that about her pony,” began Ruari, and then he just shook his head. “I think we will be hearing of our brother’s cruelty for a long time.”

“ ‘Tis astonishing that she is still such a sweet lass.” Malcolm suddenly grinned. “Weel, maybe nay so sweet for that was one mean look she gave ye when she wanted that rule about hitting ladies.”

“Aye, it was. Reminded me of the one wee Elen gets on her angelic wee face when she is ready to bellow in temper.”

He suddenly heard that last bellow, the one that had echoed in the dungeons. There had been more than anger in that sound. There had been a lot of hurt.

“Ye, brother, are an idiot,” said Ruari.

“Why do ye keep prying at me about it?” snapped Simon. “Look at this place. We will be lucky to find clean linen and a blanket for the nights when it is cold.”

“That isnae why ye walked away. Ye think ye might go mad like Henry.”

“And what is wrong with worrying about that?”

“Because he is the only one who went mad. Nay, he was born mad. I am not, neither are Malcolm or Kenneth. Neither are ye. Father was a brutal bastard but he wasnae mad. It doesnae always run in the blood. I think sometimes it is something wrong in the head. It was there in Henry from the moment he first opened his eyes. We all ken the tale of how he butchered a poor cat when he was but four years old. That isnae right. Henry was ne’er right.”

Simon rubbed at his temples. “I ken it, yet, how can one be certain that fault willnae show up again? In a child? In a grandchild?”

“Ye cannae. Just as ye cannae be sure a child ye breed doesnae come out with its breathing wrong and all yellow, barely living long enough to cry the once to say it is alive.”

That made so much sense that Simon felt like punching his youngest brother in the mouth. As the days had passed, filled with dealing with Henry’s trial and execution, and then the ride to Lochancorrie, Simon had mulled over the matter of Henry’s madness so often that he had wondered if he could go mad just from thinking about it so much. He had begun to waver in his fear. It was strong one day, such as when he heard Marion’s story of her ill-fated pony, and then it would fade and he would feel a fool for allowing that fear to rule him.

He was afraid that he would let his need for Ilsabeth make him cast aside all good sense and just reach out for her. He would wake up in the night and reach for her, then groan from the weight of the loss when he found his bed empty. Simon was beginning to think he should have heeded Morainn’s words more carefully, however. He had made the painful choice and it certainly felt as if it was the wrong one.

“I will take some time to work on bettering this place and promise to think on the matter,” he finally said, as much to himself as to his brothers.

“Weel, dinnae ponder it too long. A lass like that doesnae need to sit about waiting for a fool.”

Ilsabeth wiped the sweat from her brow and looked about the bedchamber with a sense of satisfaction. It was finally clean. The soldiers had been swine in their habits and she wondered if she was insulting the swine. Everyone was working day and night to clean up Aigballa. The only good news was that the men had not stolen anything. They had the coin to make up for the loss in supplies and some of the linens and things that would never be good for anything but rags now.

She flopped down on the clean bed and breathed in the crisp scent of clean linen. As always, the moment she stopped working, her thoughts went to Simon. It had been almost two months since she had seen him and there had not been any word from him either. Ilsabeth knew she had to accept the fact that he had left her.

Placing a hand over her still flat belly, she grimaced. Her mother was too busy to notice yet, but Ilsabeth was sure that soon her mother would know that her daughter was with child. The problem she faced now was whether she should tell Simon.

And just how did one do that? she wondered. Send a polite letter? Send her brothers to beat him into the mud and then, while he lay there bleeding and groaning, congratulate him on his upcoming fatherhood? Maybe she should just wait until her belly was huge and then ride out to Lochancorrie. That might be entertaining if only to see his face when he caught sight of her belly.

“Moping again?” asked her sister Finella as she walked in and sat on the bed by Ilsabeth’s feet.

“I am nay moping,” protested Ilsabeth.

“Oh, aye, ye are, Two.”

“Ilsabeth,” she said through tightly gritted teeth. “I was but thinking for a wee while ere I go and start to clean another room.”

“Ye shouldnae do so much heavy work.”

“Why not?” Ilsabeth slowly sat up and eyed her sister with a touch of apprehension.

“Ye could hurt the bairn.” Finella grinned.

“There is no bairn. Ye are just imagining things.”

Finella made a rude noise that would have gotten her soundly rebuked if their mother had been near. “Ye are with bairn. I cannae say how I ken it, but I do. I can see it in women who have only that night conceived. Ye are going to have to tell Maman and Papa soon.”

“Why, are they planning to conceive tonight?” She grinned when Finella blushed for, at sixteen, she still refused to accept that their parents made love.

“Ilsabeth, it was Simon Innes, wasnae it?”

She sighed and flopped back down on the bed. “Aye. I love him although I am trying verra hard to make that I
loved
him.”

“But, if he wished to bed ye, why didnae he ask ye to marry him?”

“I think it was because his brother was utterly mad, viciously mad, and now he fears that will happen to him. He always said it wasnae something one could catch and he didnae believe it could run in the blood, nay for all madness leastwise, but then he watched Henry rant and rave and a fear set in his heart.”

“Oh, and he feared he would go mad and didnae want ye to be with him when he did.”

“That is what I think and, if I am right, there is naught I can do. The cure for that fear must come from him.”

“Elen still misses him. So does Reid, I think, but he is already such a little mon, he hides it.”

Ilsabeth nodded. She had seen Reid up on the walls at times, just staring out into the distance. She knew he was hoping to see Simon ride up. What Reid did not know was that, if that happened now after two months with no word, she would have the doors locked against him. A simple change of his mind was not enough to make up for the pain he had caused her and the utter silence she had endured for two months.

“Ah, there are my girls,” said Elspeth as she hurried into the room with some flowers in a jug. “Something to sweeten the air.”

“But, it doesnae need sweetening. I just cleaned in here,” protested Ilsabeth.

“Aye, but it takes a wee bit more to fully get rid of the scent of a woman getting sick every morning.”

It took Ilsabeth a full minute to understand what her mother had just said. “Oh, bollocks.” She was certain she heard her mother laugh, but the face the woman turned toward her was an utterly serious one. “It was something I ate.” She frowned in confusion. Had her mother just said
lucky Simon?

Elspeth sat on the edge of the bed and stroked Ilsabeth’s tangled hair. “Ye need to cease working so hard. Whate’er else happens or is said, there is one thing that must concern ye above all others–the health of the bairn ye carry. It was Simon Innes, wasnae it?”

“Aye.” There was no point in lying to her mother. “I love him. He might love me, but he fears he will go raving mad just like his brother.”

“Are ye sure he is the one?”

“I was sure the moment I saw him and felt the fire in my blood. He was trying to brush cat hair off himself. He has a cat he hasnae named yet. A stray he fed who refuses to leave the house. I thought that was a good sign although a better one would be if he named the poor beastie. He also had no trouble taking in Elen and Reid.

“And yet where is my perfect man? At Lochancorrie worrying that he will catch his brother’s madness.”

“That will pass, dear, and ‘tis no small worry. We have had a few in our family and I am sure your father can tell ye a tale or two of some in his. Not all madness comes down through the blood. In truth, I am nay sure all that many do. But, nay matter how sensible a person, the mere thought of being inflicted by madness can terrify him. It is a frightening thing to see and I heard that Henry Innes’s was terrifying.”

“Aye, it was that. Such viciousness and all done just because he wanted to do it, enjoyed it. Some how that type of brutality when there isnae really anger there, that calm, cold butchery, is more terrifying than rants and rages. And, he made Simon so enraged that I fear Simon saw that as a bad sign instead of a sign that he had never resolved things from his past, and I dinnae ken how one talks a mon out of such thoughts.” She scowled. “Especially when said mon is staying verra far away.”

Elspeth nodded and stood up, then leaned down and kissed Ilsabeth on the cheek. “I am going to tell your father....”

“Oh, nay, Maman.”

“Oh, aye, daughter. So if ye hear a lot of yelling, cries of
I will kill the rutting bastard
and the like, just ignore them. I will get him settled and then we can talk about this like sensible people.”

Several hours later, Ilsabeth sat in the great hall with just her parents and watched her father pace the room muttering dire threats against Simon Innes. He did not look very settled or sensible to her. Her mother, however, just sat in a chair near the fire and did her mending.

“I think it is a little late to be lopping off that part of the mon, my heart,” murmured Elspeth when Cormac Armstrong muttered a particularly bloodthirsty threat against Simon. “And, just think, if she and the fool do get married as I think they ought and really want to, she will miss it.”

The look of horror on her father’s face at the thought of her enjoying that part of Simon made Ilsabeth giggle. She hastily swallowed the sound when he glared at her. No, her father was not feeling very sensible and settled at all.

“They will be married,” he said firmly. “I willnae have any grandchild of mine marked as a bastard.”

“ ‘Tis still early days yet,” said Elspeth.

“How early?” he asked, and stared at Ilsabeth’s stomach.

“Two months.” Ilsabeth suddenly recalled exactly where she was two months ago.

Elspeth sat up straight and frowned at her daughter. “What is that strange look on your face? Ye look absolutely horrified.”

Ilsabeth refused to believe that her child had been conceived in a prison cell so she frantically counted back several times. Each time the answer came out the same. Her baby had been conceived in the dungeons at the king’s keep.

“Oh, bollocks.” This time Ilsabeth was certain she heard her father choke on a laugh but when she looked at him, his expression was one of the utmost seriousness.

“Something wrong?” he asked. “Might it be exactly where ye were when the child was conceived?”

She had the sinking feeling her father knew. “It might be.”

“Such as in the king’s dungeons?”

Ilsabeth was not sure why her father was sounding angrier but she nodded. “It appears so.” There was a red flush spreading over his face and she hastily said, “I was verra afraid. I was all alone there and I didnae ken whether I would be tried as a traitor or–” The rest of her words were smothered by her father’s broad chest.

“He didnae take advantage of that, did he?”

“Nay. Simon is an honorable mon. I just think that he is a wee bit confused.”

Cormac stepped back and stared at his daughter. “Sir Simon Innes, the king’s hound? Confused?”

Ilsabeth took a deep breath and told her father about Simon’s life, from his childhood through to the betrayal by Mary and right up to finding out Henry had tried to kill his three younger brothers when they were just bairns. “Ye see? Henry tainted every part of their lives. Every part. And o’er it all is that taint of madness. I just hope I am right and that is what made him suddenly walk away. Then again, if it is that he fears the madness is the sort that could touch him or any child he bears, he may ne’er shake free of that fear.”

“The mon butchered the child’s dog?” Cormac shook his head. “Someone should have killed Henry the moment he slid out of his mother’s womb.”

“True,” Ilsabeth said. “He has ruined so many lives and there was so much blood on his hands. Simon cannae see that he could ne’er be like that. He is too honorable. He has an ugly stray cat who sits on his lap and eats roasted chicken.” She smiled at her mother when Elspeth laughed. “And he thinks it is cute when Elen bellows his name.”

“We have a month or two before we risk bad weather for travel. I will give him that time to come to his senses.” He smiled when Ilsabeth hugged him, kissed his cheek and skipped out of the room, and then he looked at his wife. “I was right.”