Marriage By Arrangement (25 page)

“Yes, Mums. Though he’s a fugitive Highlander, you did accept Aunty Moira’s husband.” She couldn’t help adding, “After a fashion.” She frowned. “And you knew they would have to flee as soon as Ian recovered from his leg wound.”

Mums heaved a sigh and finally met her gaze. “I do the best I can. I need time to change my ideas and my behavior.”

“That’s just what we don’t have, Mums. Time.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“I know your heart is much bigger than you let on.” Cailin smoothed her gown over the tapestry on the footstool.

“Why, thank you.” Mums’s voice had an edge Cailin seldom heard from her mild-mannered mother.

She was going about this all wrong. She grasped Mums’s hand, taking care not to unravel the loops her mother still counted under her breath. “I need your help.”

Mums squeezed her fingers. “I know you’re having marital problems. I’ve never laid eyes on a stiffer husband than Avondale. The man is a cold fish. This castle is a mausoleum since he moved in.”

Cailin swallowed and pushed the hurt her mother’s words evoked into the deep folds of her heart. She’d deal with her husband’s situation later. “Not Avondale, Mums.” Now that she’d started this discussion, she became even less sure how to continue. But she really must have permission. Something had to be done soon. “I know you love bairns.”

Mums’s eyes brightened. She dropped her knitting, and her warm, heavily jeweled hands clasped Cailin’s. “Are you expecting twins! Oh, what joy to have two babies in this nursery.” Her soft hands squeezed Cailin’s fingers again. “I’m so happy for you, darling.”

A sick feeling wafted deep inside her stomach. Would she lose her breakfast? She was long past morning sickness. “No, I don’t think I carry twins, though the baby kicks like there are two of them.”

Mums touched her cheek and gave such a tender look that Cailin’s heart warmed. “Surely you carry a son.”

“I pray so.”

Mums smile faded. “Drat, I dropped a loop!” She jiggled her knitting needles, trying to pick up the stitch.

A giggle worked up through Cailin’s tight throat. Probably her nervousness. “I’m sorry, Mums. But I
am
speaking of babies. Actually bairns, rather than infants.” She gazed up into Mums’s face. “But not my babies.”

Mums’s cocked head reminded Cailin of their inquisitive sheep dog. “Oh? Bairns? As in more than two?” She dropped her knitting in her lap.

“Mums, I really need your help and permission!”

Mums stopped rocking and sat forward. “I may not always express my love for you, but you are precious to me.” Her warm fingers cupped Cailin’s face. “I don’t recall you’ve ever before come to me asking for help. You’re so capable. Whatever your need, my answer is yes.”

Unshed tears clogged Cailin’s throat. She rose, wrapped her arms around Mums’s slender shoulders and kissed her smooth cheek. “Oh, thank you. I knew I could count on your support. I love you, too.”

Would her request shake her mother’s love? She’d not realized her own self-reliance had pushed Mums away. In the future she’d make a point to ask Mums for help rather than muddle through her problems alone. And she really needed Mums to love Avondale. Perhaps when she explained his behavior, Mums would open her heart.

Avondale was far from a stiff, cold husband. Except for his injury, he pleased her well. Every thought of him melted her heart like ice beneath an early spring sun, leaving a warm puddle reflecting the life-giving rays.

Yet now she feared more than ever to ask Mums to understand him. One monumental task at a time. She’d hate so to break the fragile web of love Mums had spun to reach out to her.

But she must obtain her cooperation. She swallowed. “I…I wasn’t sure you loved me.” Her voice sounded thick.

“Of course, I love you.” Tears sparkled in Mums’s beautiful eyes. “You’ve always been the sweet, obedient daughter. How could I not love you?” She picked up her knitting and kept her eyes downcast. “But, after your marriage to Avondale fared so poorly, I feared you did not love me.” She gazed up. “Papa gave me no voice in your covenant with Avondale.”

“Oh, I do, Mums. More than you can ever know.” Cailin smiled. “And, we shall discuss my marriage at another time.”

Mums leaned forward and embraced her. “Whenever you are ready.”

Sweetness stirred inside her chest. She hugged Mums’s slender shoulders and yearned to cling to this moment and not let anything spoil it. Yet she must risk just that.

She must act with urgency. Explain to Mums. Lives hung in the balance.

Her heart tripled its beating. She twisted the square-cut engagement diamond on the gold chain around her neck. “So, this is the problem. Mikey brought word just this morning that lobsterbacks will soon patrol our Lowland borderlands. They will be setting up camp and moving from place to place.”

“Oh, dear. They’re sure to frighten the livestock.”

Cailin tipped her mother’s chin up so their eyes met. “Brody has more relatives whom I would really, really like to invite to live with us. There are eight bairns, and they are in danger.”

Mums’s brows shot to her forehead. Her mouth dropped open.

Cailin bit her lower lip.

“More bairns?”

“Seven more boys and one small girl. You know Brody’s two older brothers died in the Battle of Culloden?”

“Yes, of course. Mrs. MacCaulay speaks of little else, poor soul.”

“Duncan and Colin had wives and other bairns, besides the two older boys Megan rescued from slavery and Papa sent off to school.”

Mums’s rocking chair squeaked and teetered faster. She pulled off her spectacles, stuck the needles into the knitting, and stared out the window. “And the women and bairns need a place to stay for a season?” Her words dropped into the silence like beads clinking on a chain. Her hopeful tone as to a short stay wasn’t encouraging.

Cailin swallowed. “No. English soldiers took Brody’s sisters-in-law away somewhere. They’ve disappeared. Maybe they were carried to the coast or….” How could she tell her gentle mother that Brody’s in-laws had almost certainly been molested and were now being used as slaves, or might even be dead?

Mums gasped. “I’ve heard stories. Brutal stories. And Brody and Fiona’s relatives are missing?”

Cailin leaned forward, letting her eyes beg. “Yes. Duncan and Collin died, and their wives have been taken captive. The soldiers left their bairns to starve.”

“Gracious! And you want to bring the whole lot here?” Mums’s yarn ball fell to the floor and rolled across the room, leaving a long strand of light blue yarn trailing across the carpet. “But Cailin, the danger of harboring Highlanders! Think of your baby! Think of the danger to all of us.”

“I know. I know. But we have so many rooms inside the castle. And we already protect Mrs. MacCaulay and Fiona.”

Mums’s expression tightened, and a frown puckered her forehead. “You say there are eight of them?”

“A sweet, small baby girl who just barely toddles. Her name is Baby Fiona.”

Mums forehead smoothed, and she nodded. “Yes. By all means bring the baby here. We shall protect her.”

Cailin’s heart lightened. She smiled. “Thank you, Mums, but….”

“Oh dear. And there are seven boys?” Mums frowned and shook her head.

“Yes, Mums. There are eight children.”

Mums closed her eyes. “Eight orphans! Oh, dear God!” She raised her hands in supplication to Heaven.

Cailin nodded. “If we don’t take them in”—she gazed at the window—”soldiers will find them and cart them to prison…or sell them to be slaves.”

“Good heavens! I simply cannot believe the English are so cruel. I would not have expected them to be so inhumane.”

“Remember, the soldiers left the bairns to starve. The Crown wants no more rebellions from the Highlanders, so England is totally destroying them and their way of life.”

Mums rubbed her chin and hunched her shoulders, and then her expression brightened. “You’ve seen these bairns?”

“Mums, I love you.” She pressed her lips against her mother’s flushed cheek. “Fiona and I brought them to the broch two days past. Mikey and Elspeth are having a difficult time keeping them in that upstairs room.”

Mums’s eyes widened. She dropped her head and closed her eyes. “Dear God, help me accept all this!” She lifted her head. “What has Scotland become? I cannot believe all this.” Her eyes shimmered. “We must get to work, mustn’t we? I’ll break the news to your father. Just leave him to me.” She rose from the rocker, the blue yarn in her hands. “Lads! God knew how much I wanted a son. Now He’s done exceeding abundantly above all I ever asked, or thought.” Mums’s face looked young and eager.

Surely this was the lass Papa fell head over heels in love with, though their marriage had been arranged. Perhaps if he accepted the bairns, Mums would accept him? Their marriage might yet become loving.

Cailin’s heart warmed and expanded. Lightness replaced the fear in her mind. She lifted relaxed shoulders as if a burden had slipped from them. Calm that had so eluded her of late washed over her. “Thank you, Mums.” She would explain later that more homeless, hungry bairns wandered the Highlands.

Darkness slithered over her brightened spirit. More bairns seeking roots and berries to fill their empty stomachs and with no roof over their heads. More lads and lasses out in the chill of spring and rain. More broken hearts pining for lost Mums and Papas.

“Shall we call them cousins, kin to your father’s sister-in-law?” Mums sauntered to the window, pulled aside the thick drapery, and looked out.

“Yes, Papa’s in-laws.”

“I had so wanted to help the poor Highlanders. To sit idly by while evil is being committed is a sin. One must do what one can.”

“Even though the course is dangerous?”

Mums clutched the window sill. “Yes. We must do what we can.”

Cailin strode to hug her mother around the waist. “I love you so much!” She twirled Mums’s slender form around the nursery, barely missing the rocking chairs, cradles, and stools.

“You’re making me dizzy.” Mums smiled up at her and cocked her head. “Listen.”

The clip clop of a horse’s hooves on cobblestones three stories below sounded faintly through the window.

They both rushed to look down at the courtyard. A single horse walked slowly into the keep.

“Ah, Avondale returned from one of his haunts. I thought it might be an English soldier seeking Highland fugitives already.” Mums dropped the curtain and paced the nursery. “I think it’s time, dear heart.” She paused and the conflicted expression on her face showed she fought some emotional battle.

“Yes?”

“I never could force myself to tell you and Megan, but now seems timely.” Mums turned back to the window. The soft morning light streaming through the thick rippled glass made her skin glow. “You and Megan had an older brother.”

Cailin dropped the yarn she had bent to retrieve. “What!”

“Your Papa and I had a son.” Mums absently caressed her cheek with her knitting needle. “Our son passed away before he reached a month of age. Papa and I buried him beneath the gnarled rowan tree. We called him our sweet visitor, our baby of the mist.”

“I never knew.”

“It hurt me too much to tell you and Megan.”

“Oh, Mums.” The faraway look in Mums’s fixed gaze contracted Cailin’s heart. Even her mother carried secret pain.

“Every January on the fourteenth day, your Papa and I visit Aiden’s resting place. We planted a rambling rose near his headstone and purple heather at his feet. Each year Papa leaves a wooden sword, and I leave a wooden horse by his headstone.” Her mother smiled a wry little smile. “That’s silly, but it makes me feel better to think he’s not alone. That he has something to play with.” She sighed. “When Aiden left us, he took a part of my heart.”

Cailin brushed at the hot tears sliding down her cheeks. She buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. How could this be?

“Now, my dearest, you’ve given me seven boys to rear.” She smiled through tears making trails down her face. “I’ll have nine when the other two return from school.” She waved her knitting. “Nine fine lads.”

Cailin hugged Mums and their bittersweet tears mingled.

She would ask Elspeth and Mikey to make arrangements immediately for the bairns to move into the castle.

Especially since redcoats were beginning to dot the Lowlands.

She’d seen several already today. In case of emergency, she would also ask the two servants to whisk the bairns to six different crofters, so if soldiers did arrive at the castle, they would not wonder why so many bairns would be living with the MacMurrys.

“Oh, it will be so much fun to have bairns underfoot. And Baby Fiona can play older sister to my son.” Cailin caressed the small roundness of her stomach. She brushed wetness from her cheeks and shivered.

But what would Mums say about her plans for Avondale?

And would he agree to them?

27

The unborn baby insisted she eat breakfast early, so Cailin rolled out of bed.

Now the first rays of sunlight pushed inquisitive fingers into the dining room window. She wiped her mouth with a napkin, pushed back her empty bowl, rose from her chair, left the dining room, and rushed through the hall and up the grand staircase. Her heels clattered on the granite floor of the passageway, then stopped abruptly as she knocked lightly on their bedchamber door.

No answer. She knocked again.

When Avondale didn’t call for her to enter, she turned the decorative handle and slid the door open. No one looked up smiling from the overstuffed settee by the crackling fire. No one had partaken of the tray of inviting breakfast things waiting on the low table in front of the two couches. The sitting room was empty.

Perhaps he still slept.

She opened the door to the dressing room. Empty. She worried her lip as she walked through the room with the large clothes presses on both sides, and her hand touched the door handle to their bedroom.

Oh, God, please let him still be in bed.

She tiptoed inside. A shadow stole over her heart. The sunshine-filled room felt abandoned. But the privacy curtains were still down enclosing the bed. Oh, if only he still slept. She reached out and pulled the red velvet drape open.