The Highlander's Stolen Touch (14 page)

‘Then who...?’ she managed to squeak out. No matter what else the rumours said, they had never questioned that she was the daughter of Marian Robertson.

‘My dearest friend and sister by marriage died giving birth to you. She placed you in my arms and begged me to protect you and care for you.’

‘Beitris? Uncle Iain’s wife?’ she asked. ‘How could that be?’ There were several glances exchanged between them before her mother spoke again.

‘My father was going to shame her for...’ Her mother paused and could not say whatever she’d planned to. She tried several more times, but her tears flowed heavily. She looked to Duncan now, pleading silently for him to continue since she could not.

‘Beitris and Iain could not conceive a child together. They tried for years and lost at least two babes. So, in desperation, she agreed when he brought others to their bed.’

Plain, simple words that tore her world apart and destroyed every part of her being.

Ciara could usually come up with questions to clarify issues or to explain situations, but she was completely dumbfounded by this news. Her uncle could be her father. Her mother was not the woman who gave her life. No one was who she thought they were, including her. But this was only the beginning and she closed her eyes against the rest.

‘The old laird, Devil take his soul, was determined to shame Beitris and to protect his heir. Marian could keep you if she would take the attention and the shame on herself. She did it for you, for her friend.’ The disgust was clear in his voice. ‘The old laird announced to all that while Beitris and her babe died in childbirth, Marian took men to her bed and shamed her family. He called her a whore and cast her out.’ Duncan paused then and she opened her eyes to see him tightening his fists again and again. ‘The word and story spread across the Highlands, hiding the real truth.’

‘The only honourable thing the old bastard did was to make the arrangements he’d sworn to do and you and Marian were sent away to kin on the other side of Robertson lands.’

Her mother, nay, her aunt...nay. No matter the story. No matter the way it had happened, the woman sitting before her, torn by these admissions of the past, was her mother. And now she took a breath and spoke.

‘I raised you and thanked God every day that I was blessed with you, Ciara. If I carried any shame, I knew it was not true. It was worth any cost I needed to pay to raise you when your real mother could not.’

‘Is Uncle Iain...?’ She could not finish the sentence now as she thought on numerous encounters with the man who might be more than he ever admitted.

‘He could be,’ her mother said. ‘There were the others involved, but you do resemble him.’

When she calmed a bit, she noticed the terrible fear in her mother’s eyes and went to her. Her mother opened her arms as she had done countless times before and Ciara fell into them. The embrace became something more and Ciara cried in her arms for the pain and humiliation Marian had suffered to keep her safe.

‘I can never thank you enough for what you did for me...for your friend...for everything,’ she whispered, kissing her mother’s cheek. ‘Never.’

Ciara glanced over at the only father she’d known and nodded to him. He cleared his throat against the tears she could see in his eyes. ‘Now you understand why this must be kept secret?’ he asked.

He expected her to use her mind in this and she tried to, even though she was overwhelmed by the disclosures and the truth. Examining all those who could be harmed, she realised that this truly did affect a number of clans, the honour or dishonour of many people and the innocence of a woman who agreed to give her husband a child by any means.

‘I do,’ she said.

Thinking about something that Tavis had witnessed, she asked about the visit from Beitris’s family some months later. ‘Why did Beitris’s family come here? Tavis told me you were questioned,’ she said, facing her father.

This time it was his turn to pale at her question. Again her parents glanced at each other. They were not expecting this matter to be brought up, but she needed to understand as much of the whole truth as she could discover.

‘Rumours flew about the night of your birth. Some in the keep heard a bairn’s cry. Others claimed to see you being spirited out of the keep alive. Worse, one of the men involved confessed his part on his deathbed and Beitris’s family learned of it. Knowing that my word was my bond, they asked if your mother, Marian, came to my bed a virgin or if she could be your mother.’

Of all the things she could have heard, this was the most shocking for its implications on his honour.

‘You lied for her?’ she whispered, fearing that saying those words in any volume was a terrible thing. The accusation could have resulted in punishment or even a challenge if uttered by a man in public, but her surprise was so great, the words blurted out.

‘You were her child. Losing you would have destroyed her and I could not allow that to happen.’

His words were a declaration of the deepest kind of love imaginable and her heart swelled listening to it. A man of honour who would give it up for the woman he loved...and still loved just as deeply from the way he gazed at her now.

There were probably other questions, but Ciara could not think of them now. What she had heard thus far changed everything she knew about her family, her clan and herself and she would need time to come to an understanding of what this all meant. For now, she would consider everything and speak to her parents again when she’d calmed down more. If she thought to speak about it further, the loud knock on the cottage door stopped her. Duncan left her chamber, closing the door as he did, and went to see who knocked. She remembered just as his voice reached them there.

‘Ah, James! Welcome! Elizabeth, come inside,’ Duncan said loudly, loud enough that most of the village probably heard him.

Ciara started to go to the door, but her mother stopped her. ‘Let him handle this. You need time to...’

‘Stop crying and let my eyes stop swelling?’ she asked quietly.

She never looked delicate or dainty or feminine when she cried. Instead her eyes swelled, her nose looked like a bulbous mess and nothing helped except time. Tavis had teased her more than once over it and she’d known it was true when she peered into the looking glass for herself. Ciara smiled sadly and nodded.

The conversation in the other room continued and her father ended up sending James off with Elizabeth for a tour of the village since Ciara was too fatigued to leave her bed this morn. When the door shut, Ciara waited several moments before leaving her chamber.

‘Elizabeth seemed agreeable to showing James through the village. They hope you will feel up to the ceilidh this evening at the keep.’ Elizabeth was her closest friend and she would always appreciate her help in this.

‘I will.’

‘James tried to apologise to me for upsetting you.’

Ciara smiled then. James was trying to be honourable about this predicament since it was his words that had revealed it to her.

‘He seems genuinely sorry that I overheard it all.’

‘A good sign for a young man to take responsibility for his actions, even if it was accidental,’ her father said.

‘So you approve of this match, then?’ she asked. Looking from one to the other, she could see they differed in opinions in this.

‘Aye, I do, Ciara,’ he said plainly. ‘This just confirms it for me.’ Her mother snorted—snorted!—but looked away when she turned to her.

‘Mother?’ Ciara said, giving her the chance to voice her concerns. An unspoken but communicated thought passed from one to the other and her mother simply shrugged, keeping silent about any concerns she might have.

‘This is your decision to make, sweetling. I will support you in it.’

They turned to leave, with a suggestion that she rest, when she remembered the other question that nagged at her mind and memory.

‘My dowry,’ she said. They stopped and faced her, this time with their hands joined. ‘Is it from him?’

‘Iain?’ her father asked.

‘Aye.’

He shook his head in reply. ‘He provided a dowry for both you and Marian. We decided to put it together for you, since your sister, our Beitris, inherits lands from her Robertson grandmother.’

‘’Tis blood money, then, paid for his part in his wife’s, my mother’s, death?’

‘I think of it as repayment for all that was lost, Ciara. We existed in poor circumstances when both of us were entitled to more, much more, but could not claim it.’

‘To ease his guilty conscience, then,’ she offered.

‘To offer help when he could not in the past,’ her mother countered.

‘You seem eager to forgive him for his sins, Mother.’

‘Ciara, do not let this make you bitter. You were raised in love by us, given every privilege and comfort you needed. I would have refused it at the time, but decided you deserved it, to ensure a happy future.’

The irony that struck her was that the dowry was the heart of the problem for her. It made her more appealing as a bride to any and all clans who had an unmarried heir and need for gold. Without it, she might have been able to marry someone here, someone...

Ciara shook her head, trying not to allow that thought to complete itself. If she were honest, she would admit that it also gave her a measure of control that other heiresses did not have. And she did not feel like being generous in her consideration of Iain Robertson’s actions in the past right at this moment.

‘I understand,’ she said, accepting that she would not win this argument.

They kissed her once more and then began to leave.

‘I would like to walk a bit and settle this in my mind.’

‘I will have a bath ready for you when you get back, Ciara. Once you feel refreshed, things will be clearer to you,’ her mother said. She watched as her mother took her father’s hand and met her gaze. ‘We are here any time you have questions. We will answer what we can.’

She nodded and closed the door to her chamber. Finding a clean gown in her trunk, she dressed and put on her leather boots. It was a warm day out, so she needed no cloak now. She would walk to the stream and freshen her face before returning. It would give her time to think about all these matters and the changes wrought by them in her life. She waited for her father to return to his
duties before going outside and heading to the path next to the cottage.

And found Tavis watching her.

Chapter Fifteen

H
e’d been there for some time and watched Duncan arrive, James and Elizabeth arrive and leave and then Duncan depart, too. Only then did Ciara open the door and step outside. She looked terrible and calm at the same time. As she lifted her eyes and noticed him, he waited for her to turn away.

Instead, she offered him a soft smile and a nod.

‘James and Elizabeth headed through the village to the keep,’ he said.

‘Then we should go in this direction,’ she said. If her attitude should have shocked him, it did not.

He followed her into the forest and the path that led to the stream that fed the wells hereabout. They walked in companionable silence, through the hills, until they reached the banks of it. Ciara walked to the edge and knelt down, dipping her hands in the water and splashing it on her face.

‘You just do not cry well, do you, lass?’ he asked, already seeing proof of the answer in her swollen eyes and puffy nose and mouth. He handed her a small square of linen he’d brought along, suspecting she might need one.

‘Nay, Tavis,’ she said, accepting it. ‘’Tis one thing I do not seem to outgrow.’

He waited for her to use it and apply cold to her face before speaking to her. He wanted to ask her so many questions, but he sensed that right now she needed the silence he could give her, or she would have followed James and Elizabeth in the opposite direction. When she stopped dabbing the wet linen on her face, he knelt next to her.

‘Are you well, then?’

‘I think so, Tavis,’ she answered, though her gaze showed no certainty.

‘Did you get the answers to your questions?’

She took in a deep breath and he thought she might begin crying again. But she did not.

‘I did.’ She nodded and looked away from him then, staring into the rippling surface of the stream.

‘Did it change how Duncan and Marian feel about you or you about them?’ He would not probe further if she did not wish to speak of it.

‘I think I love them more now than I did before we talked this morn,’ she said. ‘Far from being unwanted, I was most wanted.’

‘’Tis well, then,’ he said.

‘Will you be at the ceilidh this evening?’ Ciara stood and waited for him.

He climbed to his feet and shook his head. ‘I have other duties to see to,’ he lied.

‘Do you, then?’ He sensed she knew it for the lie it was, but did she have to challenge it?

‘Ciara, please,’ he whispered as she stepped nearer to him, though he could not say if he wanted her to stop or to move closer. Hell, he wanted her closer.

She stopped and stepped away and he wished she had not in the same moment he thanked God above that she had. He could not resist her when she was vulnerable and though she had stopped crying and looked considerably better than when he’d found her, he could feel her need for his support in his heart and soul.

‘Forgive me, Tavis, for putting you in this difficult position. I am still undone by what I have learned and need some time to consider the consequences of it all.’

The thing he could not ignore was that she had followed him and not James. She spoke to him about this matter and not James. Damn it all to hell! Why did she not share such confidences with her betrothed or seek him out for comfort?

Tavis knew why. He knew, he felt, the connection between them—one born in childhood fancy, nurtured through friendship and exposed during this transition into adulthood. He’d ridiculed it. He’d doubted it. He’d resisted it. He’d even tried to deny it before he was forced to accept it as real.

Through their journey, he understood it and the challenges that loving her placed in his life and hers. They each had their responsibilities to the clan and their duty was clear: she would marry James and he would leave. This love just made it more difficult.

The admission he’d just made to himself should have chilled him to his soul; however, denying it any longer was simply not within his power to do. But acting on it was something he would not do.

‘Your life has thrown you this way and that for months now and especially these last weeks, Ciara. Give yourself time.’

A sad smile barely lifted the corners of her mouth. She nodded her head without meeting his gaze. ‘With the harvest approaching and the cattle to be moved and all the tasks of autumn, they want the wedding to be in a week.’

No time at all and he would lose her forever.

But he would lose her sooner if he revealed the whole of the reason he feared trying to claim her. In truth, he did not fear being cast out. He could live on his own, even move to a distant cousin’s village in the south, if need be. He did not fear losing everything here: his house, his duties, his friends. He would lose them soon when he moved out of Lairig Dubh for another of Connor’s holdings.

What he feared most was seeing the disappointment in her eyes and watching her love for him die even as he watched Saraid die because of his foolishness.

‘Would it be easier for you if I left Lairig Dubh now?’ he offered. It seemed kinder than constantly be faced with a love that could not be.

‘Nay,’ she said, reaching out and laying her hand on his arm. ‘I pray you not to do that.’ She swallowed several times and then spoke in a tear-thickened voice. ‘It helps me to remember how to carry out my duty to those I love when I can see you doing the same thing.’

He nodded and stepped back, allowing her hand to drop from his arm. ‘Only if you say so.’

‘Come now,’ she said, stepping away from the edge. ‘My mother is waiting a bath for me and will seek me out if I do not return.’

He did not take her arm. ‘I will see you at the ceilidh.’

That was his compromise and the only one he was willing to make. There would be countless other people there to distract him from her. He could do it for her.

Ciara left without another word and Tavis followed her far enough to make certain she returned safely to her parents’ cottage.

Then he spent the day completing tasks left undone when he had decided to accompany her to Perthshire those weeks ago. He kept so busy that he almost did not dwell on the coming wedding.

Almost.

Instead he took out his anger and frustration in a time-proven manner that was guaranteed to wring it free from him—he challenged Rurik to a fight. Hours later, he was too weakened and battered to worry about most anything.

He barely made it to the ceilidh after all.

* * *

James sat at the high table and watched Ciara dancing with her family below. Her lithe figure moved gracefully through the steps of the dance being played on pipes, drum and harp. He smiled, knowing she would be his in a few short days. He made himself smile whenever anyone mentioned the coming wedding. It was what was expected of him now.

They would accommodate each other in their marriage, that much he had learned about her during their trip back. She’d sworn that she would come to his bed a virgin and he believed her, but that did not mean she would not be thinking of another man in her heart. James glanced across the huge hall, four or five times the size of theirs, and found that man.

Tavis MacLerie.

The laird’s man. Honourable. Trustworthy. Dependable.

Yet none of those qualities had stopped him from falling in love with Ciara. Truth be told, James could understand it, for she was a fetching lass. Intelligent. Skilled in numbers and languages. Trained by the best, her stepfather, to understand financial matters. A gift to the man who would marry her.

Though he masked it well when he knew others were watching and he would never admit it to a stranger like him, James knew Tavis loved her as James himself should.

But, he did not. Not yet and mayhap not ever.

Elizabeth returned to her chair then and he watched her long, curly dark hair sway across her back and hips as she leaned over to speak to the MacLerie before sitting down.

While Ciara intimidated him, Elizabeth did not. She smiled and took a sip from her goblet of watered wine. Turning back to watch the dancing so he did not stare at the way her lips touched the edge of that cup, he
nodded towards Ciara.

‘She seems well now,’ he observed.

‘Oh, James. She does not blame you for revealing the terrible rumours to her.’ She caressed his arm in a soothing way, rubbing along his sleeve until their bare skin touched. They both moved back quickly as though it had not happened.

He knew they needed to change their topic, so he moved to one brought up by Ciara herself. An unpleasant one, but one he could draw her out with.

‘Ciara has asked my help in finding a husband for you. Why do you not tell me what you favour in a man and I will think on who in my family might do well by you?’

As she leaned in and mentioned characteristics and skills she found pleasing in a man, he reminded himself it was all simply flirting. That he would marry Ciara and any feelings for her best friend would go no further. But by the time she had described her perfect man and it sounded too much like him, James knew he had a problem. Then, as she pointed out men at this celebration whose physical traits were identical to his, he reminded himself of all the reasons he must marry Ciara.

In the end, he imagined he must be as miserable approaching this wedding as Ciara was, but wondered how she never let it show.

She returned to him and spoke with both him and Elizabeth of the wedding plans. She went and brought him food and filled his cup when it emptied. Ciara was the perfect hostess as she would be the perfect wife; he had no doubt of that. And if her gaze slid over the crowd from time to time and watched Tavis through that evening, did it bother him? Strangely, it did not.

He liked the man, for even when he questioned his actions and behaviour with Ciara, the man had been frank and direct and did not deny their friendship. And once they left to return to his home and Ciara took over her duties as his wife, Tavis would be only a memory to her.

James would be the only man in her bed, he knew that, but not in her heart.

He wished it was not true. He wished he did not need to force her into this marriage and take her from the life she so clearly loved here. He wished that the dowry did not matter.

But it did and it mattered so much it pushed those other regrets out of the realm of possibilities.

And what would happen when James found a woman he wanted to love? He glanced over at Elizabeth and met her gaze as she smiled at him. Then all three of them would be trapped in the same hell until one of them died and could claim their real love.

James pulled himself from his melancholy thoughts and asked her, Ciara, to dance. She did not hesitate and he enjoyed touching her and guiding her through the pattern of the dance across the floor. For a moment, the music faded into the background and he stared deeply into her eyes, seeking some indication of her feelings for him.

And, though he saw many things there, he did not find love.

* * *

Ciara accepted his invitation, she accepted his touch and encouraged it even as they swirled around through the other couples. She wanted to enjoy James. She wanted him to enjoy her. But something was missing between them.

They drew to a stop and she introduced him to more of the MacLerie clan who joined in the feast to celebrate their coming wedding. In a week, she would join with him and become his. She would live with him, sleep with him and, if God was willing, make bairns with him. Her life would be his to control, to command and to guide. One day he would lead his clan and she would be at his side, as Jocelyn stood by Connor and even her mother stood by her father in his duties.

And she would try every day with every breath to never let him know that she loved another.

She stumbled then, but he caught her, setting her to rights and keeping his hand on her waist until they walked back to the high table and sat. The night was nearly over when he leaned in close and whispered to her.

‘I would speak to you in private, Ciara.’

She smiled. Was he finally going to kiss her again? She’d nearly given up hope of finding out if his kiss appealed to her before the wedding. ‘Of course, James.’

‘On the morrow?’ he asked.

‘Elizabeth? When did my mother say the dressmaker was coming to fit our dresses?’ she asked. Elizabeth was more organised when it came to things like this.

‘Mid-day. After the noon meal, but before the heat of the day reaches its peak.’

‘Would you like to walk after Mass in the morning? Father Micheil will say it on the morrow and we could walk back together?’

‘I will meet you there, then.’

‘Jamie, he will begin just past first light,’ Elizabeth said.

The familiar form of his name coming from her friend startled her. They looked at each other and then away, so Ciara did not know what to think of it. She’d never called him by anything but his whole name. He stood then, preventing her from asking about it.

‘I will bid you goodnight, Ciara,’ he said, lifting her hand to his lips and kissing it gently. ‘Elizabeth,’ he said with a nod to her friend.

Ciara watched him leave and then caught a glimpse of Elizabeth watching him, too. A strange shiver crept down her spine, but it disappeared quickly.

‘Ciara. Elizabeth,’ her father called their names. ‘Are you ready to return home?’ He and her mother stood then and bid goodnight to the laird.

‘Aye,’ she said. She doubted that one night of rest had replenished her and she looked forward to her bed.

She walked over to the laird and lady and thanked them for their hospitality of the evening’s dinner. Since it was their custom to be the last in their hall, she knew it was fine to leave before them. A busy day would find her up and out early on the morrow, now adding a private talk with James into the many tasks she had to complete in preparation for their wedding.

They walked along the path to Elizabeth’s cottage to see her home first, then on to theirs. Since the wee ones would be asleep, they trod quietly through the main room and to their chambers. Soon, the house was as silent as the entire village and Ciara found herself following an endless trail of questions and suspicions about what James wanted to talk about in the morning.