Marriage By Arrangement (21 page)

Father, You promised to be a Father to the fatherless and a Husband to widows. I’m taking You at Your Word. If Jenny and Mary are still alive, please protect them.

Steady rain fell harder. The children nodded off, rocked to sleep by the swaying carriage. The atmosphere hung heavy. Dull sounds of horses’ hooves reached her ears. Metal wheels slipped and slid along the narrow pitted road. Over the thudding rain, she heard the straining of leather harnesses, the flap of reins, the rhythmic thudding of hooves, and the occasional snort.

If the soldiers stopped their carriage, she didn’t want to know in advance. She lowered the curtain at her window shutting out the dark sky and slashing rain.

Fiona lowered her curtain as well.

The two older boys by the other windows roused and followed suit. Their eyes grew heavy and their chins fell to their chests. As they plunged deeper into sleep, the gaunt haunted look on their young faces softened into innocence.

Soldiers who imprisoned seven-year-old lads, enslaved their mums, and left the smaller bairns to starve wouldn’t stop to ask questions of two women with a carriage filled with Highland bairns.

She scrunched her own eyes closed.

Surely God spread His sheltering arms around their lurching carriage.

23

Behind Cailin, the drawing room door slammed, making the myriad of candles waver.

Fiona ran to stand before her. “The rain has stopped. Come with me to the broch. I’m dying to see the bairns.”

“But it’s already dark.” Cailin dropped a stitch, stuck the blue-threaded needle into the unfinished baby quilt and pushed back the quilting frame. Still wrapped in her own exciting cocoon, she gazed up. “Why are you animated? Yesterday we visited the bairns for several hours, and they settled in beautifully.”

“I’m most anxious to see Grady.”

“Ah. So that’s what is turning your face pink.” Cailin placed the thimble back on her third finger. “All right. If you like we will visit the bairns again.” But she must see that Grady was moved soon. “You seem far too enamored with the lad.”

“The little ones are happy under Mikey’s wee wife’s tender care.” Fiona smiled her saucy smile.

“Wee wife? Elspeth has to be six feet if she is an inch.”

“Just a manner of speaking, Cailin.” Fiona dimpled. “Do ye…you ken if they are safe.”

“I think so.”

“Aye. For the time being. Those partially broken down, monstrous walls serve as a warm welcoming home. But I’ll breathe a good deal easier after all of them move into the castle.”

If
.

Cailin swallowed. She must see that Mums and Papa didn’t harden their hearts against the sweet bairns. But until then, the old broch, which had been built upon the site of a Norman motte and an even earlier Iron Age hillfort, would serve as their home. True, the surrounding wall had mostly tumbled down, but the round stone tower stood mostly intact.

“That ancient stone structure isn’t likely to enter a searching English soldier’s thoughts. But I will breathe easier when the bairns move into the castle. I must talk with Mums.”

“Aye, the sooner the better.”

“Have you seen Avondale?” Blood rushed to her cheeks. Had she spoken aloud? Once he saw the bairns, perhaps he would stay home more.

“Nay.”

Cailin’s heart stuttered. How she prayed Avondale might smile at her just once in the broad daylight. What was wrong with the man? He acted as though she held him in judgment. He had a sickness beyond her ability, yet she must help him. But he had even begun to avoid her during their times alone at night.

She heaved a deep sigh. Well, she wouldn’t dwell on that. She preferred to hold her good memories close and not ruin them by trying to uncover Avondale’s mystery.

“I’ll carry the torch. Do ye think the bairns need us to bring them anything?”

Tonight she would face her husband and make him explain. She smiled in her secret heart. Perhaps she’d calm his nerves with her lips. When he was relaxed, she would insist he tell her what haunted him. Warmed with her plan, she rose from her chair. “No. Mikey said they are well taken care of. Let’s—”

Hennings entered the drawing room, his bearing stiff and formal. He bowed. “I’m very sorry, Milady. Lord Avondale asked for you. He’s in your rooms.”

Her eyes teared.

Thank you, God
.

“Oh, dear, Fiona. I really must rush to him. You go ahead to the broch and see to the bairns.” She smiled and tripped from the room, her light footsteps tapping a pleasant tune on the granite.

Avondale wanted her.

****

Fiona had gotten but half-way across the keep when Avondale stumbled into her path.

His clothes were disheveled. Minus his suit coat, his shirt rumpled, his sable-lined vest half-unbuttoned and one bare foot, he walked with a pronounced limp on the cobblestone.

She turned to run.

Like a bear from a cage, he rushed at her. A low growl vibrated from his throat. Before she could utter his name, he grabbed her arm in his iron grip. She fought to break away. He seized her other arm.

“Let me go!” She jerked and fought and tried to kick him. “Avondale, stop!” She stumbled and turned her ankle on the cobblestones. She gazed frantically around in the dusky twilight. Where was Rafe? She writhed in Avondale’s gasp. Arms aching, she exerted all her strength but couldn’t pull free. Her feet slid on the damp cobblestones.

****

Cailin’s feet flew down the long hallway. She took the stairs as quickly as she dared and sped in the direction of Avondale’s suite of rooms. Though scores of candles lighted the passage, it remained shadowed and dark. Halfway to the double doors, she stumbled but caught herself before she fell. “What—?”

A human form lay on the floor.

She knelt beside the figure and held her candle close to his face. “Rafe!”

Rafe’s body splayed full length on the hall floor, the back of his dark head dressed with a puddle of blood. He moaned.

He was alive.

The door to their suite stood open. What she could see of the small drawing room looked a mess. A chair was overturned. The heavy rug was bunched. A candelabra lay broken on the granite floor.

She rose, and then hesitated. She needed to summon one of the servants to tend Rafe, but first she must find Avondale. Goose bumps puckered her arms.

As she turned to go inside, she caught the hem of her skirt on Rafe’s limp foot, and then jerked it free. A hard knot circled her heart. She hurried on, knowing she wouldn’t find Avondale in his rooms, but she must make certain. Perhaps he, too, was hurt.

Did he truly not recall his actions while under the influence of his black spells?

He’d made a wreck of his strapping bodyguard and their rooms showed evidence of a massive struggle. What was Avondale up to?

Her heart fluttered crazily against her ribcage.

His spells were steadily growing worse. Would he harm her or their child? Hand on the doorknob, she hesitated. Perhaps her love was not strong enough. Perhaps she’d have to take other measures to keep her loved ones safe from her husband.

She opened the door. The bed chamber was empty.

A scream filtered through the heavy glass window. Someone outside. Fiona!

Cailin picked up her cumbersome skirts, rushed back to the hall, and passed Hennings leaning over Rafe.

“Oh, see to him, Hennings, while I find Avondale.” She didn’t wait to hear his reply. Clinging to the banister so she wouldn’t fall and harm her unborn child, she hurried down the stairs.

Thank you, God. The candles are lit so that I can see my way.

A wild pulse beat in her temple.

Just what was Avondale’s obsession with Fiona?

Her husband had so few lucid hours lately. Would she have to lock him away and remain a virtual widow the rest of her life? Her mouth went dry.

What had he done? She must pry the haunting out of him. Her stomach quaked anew. But she must now be strong and face the problem with her husband. If she could not, she must take measures to restrain him.

She tightened her lips. Or take more serious measures. She shook her head at the horrifying thought Rafe had proposed. No. No. No. She wouldn’t even think of something so drastic.

Despite his ever more frequent demented spells, she loved Avondale. How could she face locking him away? Or…the other?

Leaning against the ground-floor castle wall, she paused to catch her breath. This continuing suspense couldn’t be good for the baby. She followed the melee of sounds that replaced Fiona’s scream.

The clamor came from outside in the keep. Voices, screams, footsteps, and vibrating above it all, Avondale’s distinctive baritone, sounding wild and incoherent.

For the baby’s sake she must be careful. She must not put her baby in danger.

She neared the back kitchen and called through the open archway, “Help me, please. In the keep!”

Pots and pans thudded against the wooden dry sink, and then heavy footsteps lumbered after her. Good, at least two of the cooks were following.

She pulled open the exterior door, caught a whiff of fresh evening air mingled with the scent of burning torch, and sighted two shadows struggling near the outer door of the curtain wall.

Avondale gripped Fiona by both arms and was dragging her towards the stable.

Cailin motioned to the cooks. “Hurry, help me with His Grace.”

The two robust women nodded. “Ye take it easy, Milady. Ye take care of that wee one in yer womb. We’ll see to His Grace.”

So, all her efforts to keep Avondale’s malady strictly between Hennings, Rafe, and herself had been wasted. Apparently, even the cooks knew her husband suffered a severe mental problem. A small sense of relief washed through her.

“Thank you.” She turned back through the door, and scurried down the long hall in the direction of the servants’ quarters. She knocked on every closed door she passed.

Soon heads peeked out, candles held high, and a bevy of voices queried, “What do ye need, Milady?”

“Come, help me with His Grace. He’s having one of his spells.”

She didn’t wait to see who followed, but rushed back to the castle keep where she found the two cooks wrestling with Avondale.

Avondale swatted the two cooks with butting head and slashing elbows as he dragged Fiona towards the stable.

The twisting group maneuvered halfway through the curtain door.

“Hurry, please,” Cailin screamed over her shoulder to the massing servants, their feet pounding towards her. “Please don’t hurt His Grace.”

One of the servants, a short, brawny Scot, carried a club. “I’ll just give him a wee tap on the noggin, Milady,” he rushed past her. “Then we can carry him to his quarters.”

“Oh, do be gentle,” she urged.

In a few strides across the cobblestones, the man caught up with her husband.

The wee tap the brawny Scot administered didn’t appear so benign.

She groaned for her dear husband as his knees bent, and he crumpled to the cobblestones.

“Are you all right, Fiona?” The lass looked shaken and her gown was torn at one shoulder, but she nodded.

“Aye. He didna hurt naught save my arm.” She rubbed her skin, and tried to stretch the tatters of her sleeve over the scratched, reddened nakedness of her arm. “I think I’ll trudge upstairs to my room and enjoy a sip of tea.”

Cailin nodded. “And take a hot bath.”

Fiona walk slowly back towards the castle.

Cailin sighed, and her shoulders drooped. She felt as if even the babe within her womb carried the weight of the castle on his shoulders.

Avondale’s lay arms outstretched, his face against the cold cobblestones.

Then, as if the man she loved weighed not an ounce, the short, strapping Scot heaved Avondale, his head lolling, onto his own broad shoulders and carried her husband back into the castle.

She followed and touched Avondale’s limp hanging hand as they lumbered up the wide granite steps.

The Scot soon had Avondale ensconced in his own huge bed.

“Thank you. I would beg you to keep His Grace’s illness to yourselves.” Cailin waved a hand at the bevy of curious servants gathered outside Avondale’s bedchamber and filling his sitting room. “T’would be unseemly to spread gossip of his ill health throughout the countryside. I would hate to have to dismiss any one who repeats ill news to the neighborhood.”

“Oh, nay, Milady. We will keep this wee problem to ourselves.” The short Scot who had knocked her husband unconscious faced the other servants. His polite voice took on more than a hint of authority, “Will we nay?”

“Aye. Aye, that we will,” the other servants chorused.

“And I’ll see to Rafe as well, Milady,” the robust Scot promised. He walked back into the hallway where Hennings still knelt beside Rafe, holding a bloodied cloth to his head.

She must discover the Scot’s name and raise his station among the house servants. Whoever the man turned out to be, poor Rafe was injured, and she needed a new bodyguard. Judging by the sound of his heavy burr, the unknown Scot had to be a Highlander. Perhaps he was one of the fugitives who had been nursed inside the broch. If so, what was he doing in her servants’ quarters? Perhaps Brody had added more than one fugitive to her contingent of servants.

“Come, let’s nay tarry. ‘Tis nay a sideshow.” Again the Scot took command.

The remaining servants emptied Avondale’s drawing room and filed down the hall to the back stairs and their own rooms.

The two cooks left Avondale’s drawing room last. “We are that sorry, Milady, if we hurt His Grace. He fought us something fierce.”

“I see you have some scratches and bruises as well. Thank you for helping, ladies. I am certain you kept Mistress Fiona from harm. I’ll see you are rewarded for your loyalty. Do have someone to clean your scratches.”

“Thank ye, Milady.” The two hefty servants bowed awkwardly. “Aye, the head housekeeper will take care of us. Donna worry yer head for our sakes.” They backed out Avondale’s door.