Loving A Highlander (12 page)

              “It’s a girl.”  She smiled at the new mother.”

              The storage room door opened to admit the cook carrying a pitcher of water.  “I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner,” the woman huffed.  “But one of the new maids scorched the Christmas pudding.”

              Her eyes widened at the sight of the infant in Isabella’s arms.  She rushed over.  “Let me have a look at the wee thing,” she said, her face wreathed in smiles.

              “It’s a girl,” Isabella said, as she finished swaddling the baby who had begun to squirm.  “And a healthy one at that.”  She placed the infant in its mother’s arms and began to remove the dirty bedding.

              “What a perfect Christmas,” the cook said with a tear in her eye.  “A Christmas miracle.”

              The sun was just peeking over the horizon when Gerard slipped out of the castle into the cold air.  He walked to the lists, expecting to see it empty at this time of day, but was surprised to see Rowan already there, thrusting and lunging as he battled an invisible foe.

              “I believe you are losing, cousin,” Gerard called, with a grin on his face.

              Rowan stopped what he was doing and walked over to him with a smile.  “Merry Christmas, cousin.  What brings you out so early?  I would have thought you would still be in bed with a lovely woman in your arms.”

              Gerard scrubbed a hand across his face and sighed.  “Aye, those were my plans, but they were interrupted.  One of the scullery maid’s babe chose this moment to enter the world.  Isabella is attending the birth.”

              “Ah.”  Rowan nodded in sympathy.  “Let us pray the birth goes well and the infant arrives quickly, healthy and whole.”  He lowered his head for a moment and was silent.

              “What are you doing up so early?” Gerard asked after Rowan opened his eyes and lifted his head. 

              Rowan grinned.  “I thought I would get a little training in before Eva drags me off to morning mass.”

              Gerard groaned as he thought about the service he would be forced to attend.  The sermons were usually enough to put a man to sleep and being that it was Christmas, it would be long and boring.

              Rowan nodded at the sword in Gerard’s hand.  “We should have a few more minutes before we are forced to go back inside.”  He raised his own sword.  “Care to join me?”

              Gerard grinned.  “Aye, cousin, I believe I will.”

              Isabella rushed along the corridor.  The sun had risen by the time she left both the new mother and infant to their rest.  Elspeth had named her daughter Mary and with a headful of fiery red curls, she would no doubt grow up to be a beautiful lass.

              She turned a corner into the dimly lit corridor leading to her room and bumped into someone.  Opening her mouth to apologize, the words died on her lips. 

              Owen stood in front of her.  He reached out to grasp her arm to prevent her from escaping and leered down at her.  “Are you in too big of a hurry to watch where you are going?”  His hand reached up to roughly grasp her breast.  “Are you rushing to get to that man whose bed you have been keeping warm since you got here?”

              “You shouldn’t have come here,” Isabella hissed, as she pulled her arm away and took a step back. “There is nothing for you here.”

              “Ah, but that is where you are wrong.”  Owen recaptured her arm and pulled her into the bedchamber. 
“You
are here,” he said, as he pushed her back on the bed.  “And the pleasure I know I will find in your arms is here.”  He yanked up the skirt of her dress, ripping it in the process.

              Isabella fought hard.  She had just managed to land a well-placed kick, when the bedchamber door crashed open and Gerard rushed inside.  He grabbed Owen by the back of his tunic and hauled him off of her.

              “I should kill you,” Gerard growled as he slammed the man against the wall.

              Owen’s face turned red as he struggled.  “She is my
wife!”
he spat.  “Not yours.”

              “Isabella is not legally your wife,” Gerard said, as he slammed the man once more against the stone wall for good measure before releasing him.

              “Is she yours, my lord?” Owen sneered.  “Have you wed her?  Or is she just the whore you take to your bed?”

              Gerard drew back his fist, but was stopped when Rowan entered the room.  “Gerard!  Enough!”  Rowan’s voice was commanding and left little room for argument.  Gerard stepped back but not before giving Owen a dark look.

              “Good god, man.”  Rowan gave Gerard an incredulous look.  “Need I remind you it is Christmas?”

              “Aye,” a disgruntled Owen said.  “I was just saying Merry Christmas to my wife when he,” he pointed at Gerard, “interrupted.”

              “Is that what you call it?” Isabella gave Owen a murderous look.

              Rowan scrubbed a hand across his face as he assessed the situation.  He finally turned to Isabella.  “Do you wish for this man to leave?”

              “Aye,” she said softly.  “Nothing would make me happier.”

              “Consider it done.”  Rowan motioned to a guard who was standing in the hall.  “Escort this man outside the castle walls and see that he does not return.”

              “What about the coin you promised me?” Owen called as the guard began to haul him away.  “I should receive something for my troubles.”

              “Aye,” Rowan said darkly, “you should.”  He turned to the guard.  “Put him in the stocks and then release him in the morning and send him on his way.”

              Gerard turned his back on Owen and pulled Isabella into his arms.  “Did he hurt you, lass?” he murmured, as he stroked her hair.

              “No,” Isabella said, as she snuggled in his arms.  “You arrived just in time.”

              “Ah, Bella,” Gerard rasped, as he leaned in for a kiss.  “This isn’t the Christmas I wanted for you.  I wanted it to be perfect.”

              “It is perfect,” she said, gazing up into his handsome face.  “At least it is now.”

              “Let’s make it even more perfect, shall we?”  Gerard said as he led her down the corridor in the direction of his bedchamber.

              “I thought you would never ask,” Isabella murmured as she followed him inside the room and shut the door.

Chapter

Twelve

              Isabella struggled from sleep and peered into the darkness of her bedchamber.  Something had awoken her, and as she listened, she could hear the faint sound of movement outside the door. 

              A woman’s voice called her name softly. 

              Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she rose to open the bedchamber door.  Eva stood in the dim light.  Tears sparkled in her eyes and on her lashes and she was shivering in the cold.

              Isabella flung the door opened wider and motioned for Eva to come inside her bedchamber and close to the fire, but Eva shook her head.  “No, I can’t stay,” she said, wringing her hands in front of her.  “I need your help.”

              Isabella’s eyes widened in surprise.  It was obvious from Eva’s expression that there was something wrong and she immediately thought of the children.  Anne had been coughing at bedtime and wee Nicholas had been running a slight fever.

              Isabella grabbed a cover off of her bed and threw it around her shoulders.  Next she put on her thin soled slippers before she hurried back to the door where Eva was waiting.  “Is something wrong with the children?  Are they ill?”

              Eva shook her head as they hurried down the corridor.  “No, Anne’s coughing has eased and Nicholas’s fever broke some time during the night.”

              She stopped outside her bedchamber door.  The door was open a crack and the sound of labored breathing could be heard.  “It is Rowan I am worried about.  His skin is hot to the touch and he has been mumbling incoherently.”

              Isabella’s breath caught as she entered the dimly lit bedchamber.  A fire burned low in the grate, but it was the man on the bed that drew her attention.  Rowan Mackenzie moaned as his bloodshot eyes looked in their direction.  His skin was slick with sweat and even though it was obvious his fever was quite high, he was deathly pale.

              Isabella’s heart jumped into her throat as she moved to the laird’s side.  She placed her hand against his forehead and just as she suspected, it burned to the touch.

              “Can you help him?”  Eva asked, as she moved to stand beside her.  There was a desperate note to her voice.  “I have never seen him like this.  Rowan has always been the strong one and rarely falls ill.”

              She paused to wipe the tears that were now flowing freely down her cheeks.  “I can’t lose him, Isabella.  I don’t know what I would do without him.  I would be lost.  I can’t make it here without him by my side.”

              “When did his symptoms start,” Isabella asked in a calm voice.

              “Just after the evening meal.  Rowan complained of a headache and stomach pain and retired early.”

              Isabella remembered seeing the laird Christmas evening.  He had been unusually quiet, his warm smile noticeably absent.  She had thought he might have a lot on his mind.  Managing a castle and the surrounding lands couldn’t be easy, but now she could see it had been more than that.

              “I will go to the north tower and see if I can find any herbs in the healer’s chamber that might be of any use,” Isabella said, as she moved toward the door.

              “Isabella?” Eva called in a tear choked voice.

              She turned.

              “Please, hurry.”

The healer’s room in the north tower was dark and cold.  The shutters on the window had been left open and a harsh wind blew inside, causing the flame on the candle Isabella held in her hand to sway and dance before it guttered out completely.

Using the light from the moon, Isabella crept across the floor to the cupboard against the wall.  Her feet crunched on broken pottery  and with a sinking heart, she realized that someone had rifled through the cupboard’s contents, spilling precious herbs onto the floor.

A vague memory stirred.  She had witnessed the governess and the constable exiting the tower a few days ago.  At the time, she hadn’t thought anything of it.  Both of them were young and the tower room had become a popular trysting spot since the healer’s death.

She reached in and pulled out one of the remaining containers.  Lifting the lid, she saw that it was a tincture containing Burdock.  It wasn’t her first choice in treating a fever, but it would have to do.

Isabella carefully navigated the uneven steps of the spiral staircase to the floor below.  Making her way quickly through the Great Hall, she climbed the staircase to the second floor and hurried down the corridor to the laird’s chamber.  Pushing open the door, she stepped inside to find Eva pacing.  “How is he?” she asked, even though one glance at the man on the bed told her that the laird’s condition had worsened in the short time she had been gone.

“Rowan is unconscious,” Eva whispered.  “I tried to wake him, but to no avail.”

“Can you lift the laird’s head?” Isabella asked, as she moved to the bedside.  Opening the container, she waited for Eva to do her bidding so that he wouldn’t choke and then dribbled a few drops into the laird’s mouth.  When she was satisfied that he had ingested enough, she placed the container on the bedside table.

“Do you think it will work?” Eva whispered.

“I hope so,” Isabella said, even though in her heart she knew she couldn’t be certain.  She walked to the bedchamber door and then turned.  “Let me know if his condition changes.”

Isabella had just slipped a clean dress over her head and was straightening the skirt when a loud pounding began on her bedchamber door, the blows rattling it in the frame and threatening to tear it from its hinges.

She hurried to open it and found an extremely angry Gerard on the other side.  “Has something happened?” she asked, resisting the urge to take a step back as his thunderous gaze skewered her.

“Aye, lass,” he growled, as he reached out and fastened a hand about her wrist.  With a tug, he yanked her forward and out into the corridor.  “Something has happened.  The laird’s condition has worsened.”

“I’m not surprised,” Isabella said, as she sighed.

Gerard’s brows arched as he dragged her along the corridor behind him.  “Aye, you did intend to poison him, then.  I didn’t want to believe it, but when a traveling physician arrived at the castle this morning and examined the laird, he claimed that someone had deliberately tried to do harm.”

Panic clawed at Isabella’s insides.  She thought about the tincture she had given the laird.  She had thought it was Burdock, but something told her something else had been mixed in with it.  Something that was intended to cause pain and death, not heal.

“I was trying to help,” she whispered, as Gerard opened the laird’s bedchamber door and shoved her roughly inside.  Eva was sitting on a chair by the bed, weeping. 

A dour faced man turned to look at them and then scowled.  “Is this the lass who poisoned the laird?”

“Aye.”  Gerard sighed heavily.  His hand remained firmly on her wrist and his grip tightened.  “It is.”

Anger flashed in Isabella’s eyes as Gerard’s words cut deep. 

The physician’s eyes narrowed as he looked Isabella over.  “She attempted to kill the laird.”  His accusation rang out in the room.

Eva gasped.

Gerard growled as he pulled Isabella against him.  “Is that true, lass?”  He gave Isabella a shake.  “Answer me!”

Isabella looked from one to the other and then to the still form on the bed.  The laird’s cheeks appeared sunken and his skin had a grayish tinge.  “No,” she whispered as she shook her head in denial.  “I was trying to help, not hurt.”

“I suggest you lock her up before she does any more harm,” the physician said with a wave of his arm, his voice dripping venom.  “You had better hope the laird survives.”  His gaze zeroed in on Isabella’s face.  “I would hate to see a noose fitted around your pretty little neck.”

Isabella looked at Eva for help, but she was leaning forward, her cheek resting against the laird’s chest and sobbing quietly.

Isabella began to struggle as Gerard hauled her from the room.  She stared up at him as they stood in the corridor, her breath coming in quick pants. 

“What is going to happen to me?”

Gerard’s expression was weary as he looked down at her.  “There is only one place to put you,” he said, as he scooped her up and tossed her over his shoulder.  He carried her down the corridor and down the main staircase.  In the Great Hall, he ignored the curious looks from his clansmen and servants, as he marched across the wide expanse and stomped up the spiraling staircase leading to the north tower.

Isabella winced as he jostled her, making no attempt to be careful.  When they reached the landing and the tower room door, he flung it open and tossed her inside.

With tears in her eyes, Isabella stared up at him from the spot where she had landed on the stone floor.  “You can’t just leave me here,” she whispered, thinking Gerard looked a far cry from the man who had made love to her only hours earlier.

“Oh, aye,” Gerard rasped, his eyes glittering with anger.  “I can.  After your lies and schemes.  After you hurt a member of my family,” he thundered. “I can walk away and leave you here until you perish and your bones turn to dust.”

“I didn’t mean to harm the laird,” Isabella said softly, her eyes pleading.  “You have to believe me.”

Gerard turned and walked out the door, slamming it behind him.  A key turned in the lock.  “Pray to whatever gods you believe in, Bella,” he called from the other side.  “You are going to need it.”