The Highlander's Enchantment Page 23

  “We need to talk.”

  She looked toward the ground, nodding meekly.

  “Come.” He took her hand and led her outside to the stables. Silently, he lifted her onto his warhorse, not bothering with a saddle. He pulled on a bridle, and leapt up behind her, steering his mount through the gates and in the direction of the firth’s beaches.

  This was not what he should be doing as the new laird, avoiding his work in order to comfort his bride, but what other choice did he have? He was her husband, her protector, and she needed him.

  Chapter 19

  Blair closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath of the salty air. Though it was nothing compared to the North Sea and Dornoch Firth upon which her family’s castle of Dunrobin sat, the Moray Firth was close enough for the smell of salt to carry.

  Edan dismounted, tugged her down with him and held her in his arms. The familiar scent of him surrounded her. She wanted to sink against him but doing so made her feel all sorts of things she’d been told were wrong. How could they be? He was her husband. Wasn’t she supposed to want him? Hadn’t she seen the same looks she gave Edan mirrored on the faces of her sisters? The same look she’d seen on Aurora’s face too, and Blair had judged her. This made her feel a bit like a hypocrite, for she hadn’t judged the guards who so eagerly agreed to embrace her cousin, but she had harshly wished her cousin would be sent to a convent, where nuns and priests would likely shame her as Father Thomas had just done to Blair.

  It wasn’t fair. Edan made her happy, and she wanted no other. How could this be wrong?

  “Tell me,” he said, and though it was not a request, neither was it a demand.

  Blair sucked in air through her nose, closing her eyes for a moment, a gentle breeze washing over her skin. What was there to say? Too much…

  “Father Thomas asked me if I’d given myself to ye before marriage.” She bit her lip and stared at his chest. “I know I did not in the sense he meant, but I did seek ye out. Let ye kiss me. Perhaps what they are saying about me is true.”

  Edan stroked his fingers over her cheek and then tipped her chin back so that she was looking up at him. “What are they saying?”

  How could she tell him? What if he said they were right? Blair bit her lip and started to shake her head, feeling the crush of those nasty rumors deep in her heart. But the one person who’d been on her side was her husband. She could count on him, trust him, she was certain. Hadn’t he come for her, to protect her, before he’d even known who she was? “They’ve called me a whore. The priest said I should not enjoy the marriage bed. That I should only think of God.”

  Edan scoffed. “Lass, if ye’re not enjoying the marriage bed and only thinking of God when I touch ye, then I’m not doing it right.”

  Blair looked up at him sharply, her mouth forming an “O” of surprise. Edan cupped her face, his thumb stroking over her cheek.

  “’Tis perfectly natural for ye to want me. It doesna make ye a whore for wanting to kiss me afore we were wed. Physical attraction between two people is completely normal and should not be shamed. I dinna like that the priest was trying to shame ye, love, and I dinna like that the women were doing it to ye, either.”

  “I dinna understand.” She shook her head, thoroughly confused. “Why would everyone try to make it out like I am sinful? I got the sense Father Thomas was searching for something, hoping I’d confess to more than what I did. Almost like…”

  “Someone filled his head.”

  “Aye.” She looked up at him then, meeting his eyes. “That is exactly it.”

  “I’ll have no more of it.” He stiffened, the muscles in his chest bunching beneath her fingertips.

  “Wait. Dinna do anything just yet.”

  “Och, I dinna plan to just yet. First, I’m going to make love to my wife before God and all, so they might know that when the two of us are together, it is heaven on earth.”

  Blair’s belly did a flip, and she shook her head, but he stilled her protests, silencing her with a kiss that made every inch of her heat up. Edan swept her off her feet and laid her down on the sand, covering her with his body. And he made good on his promise then, showing her that pleasure, while it was not an earthly thing, neither was it a sin. It was something much more beautiful, much more profound, than either of them could have imagined.

  “Agnes, I should like to prepare baskets of food to bring the ill, as well as mothers in childbed.”

  “That would be a lovely thing, my lady.” Agnes was still smarting from the tongue-lashing Edan had given her upon their return from the beach, a verbal whipping the housekeeper then had to give out to the clanswomen who served in the keep.

  No one had yet come forward to apologize about her dresses, but Blair didn’t expect any of them to, least of all Agnes, who she suspected of either being in charge of the trickery, or at least participating in some way.

  Well, Blair wasn’t going to let anything get her down. She was still glowing from all the attention her husband showered up on her on the beach, her skin still tingling, and her rear still stinging just slightly from the sand.

  A brand, she would think of it as such. Edan’s mark on her. A shiver swept over her.

  “Are ye well, my lady?”

  “Perfectly.” Blair found herself humming as she filled up a basket with freshly baked bread, cured meat, cheese, fresh-picked berries and various herbs that could be used in tisanes to cure the numerous ails of the people. When she was finished, she hoisted the hefty basket in her arms and marched out to the bailey. At the last second, she decided to take Bluebell with her. She attached her to a leading string and then made her way toward the village. She asked along the way to be taken to the new mothers’ crofts first. Outside of their small croft, she tied Bluebell to a post and then knocked.

  A tired-looking young woman, with her ginger hair falling in ragged tendrils around her face, opened the door.

  “My lady.”

  “I have come to visit ye and your bairn.”

  “Och, not mine, but my sister’s.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “Come in, my lady.” She stepped back, allowing Blair entry into the dusty, dimly lit hut.

  The main room was small, appointed with a cot on one wall, a table in the center, and shelving and a workstation on another. Near the small window, a brazier held a fire and overtop of it a pot of something, stew perhaps.

  Lying on the cot, sweat covering her body, was the new mother. The sister who’d answered the door stood beside the soaked mattress, holding the bairn who cried as though in pain. Blair’s heart lurched at the scene.

  “Her milk’s not come in, and she’s got a fever,” the sister explained, face drawn with worry.

  “Has the midwife been to see her?”

  “Aye. Says she’s got childbed fever.” She shook her head and swiped at a tear.

  Blair’s throat constricted. Not many mothers lived through that. Blair wasn’t an expert in herbs or midwifery, but she knew enough to offer a little bit of comfort.

  “Has the midwife offered her anything for her fever? A tisane or poultice?”

  “She bled her.”

  Blair nodded, knowing this was often the remedy for most illnesses, though she was skeptical it would work, especially for a woman who had not healed from the bleeding that came from having the bairn. “Will ye try this? ’Tis a tisane for fevers and infection. It may make her feel a little better.” She pulled one of the small herbal sachets from her basket and laid it beside the meal she’d placed on the small table in their cramped hut.

  “What is it?”

  “Rosemary, thyme, chamomile, ginger and willow bark. I dinna know if it will help her, but it is used often for infections and fevers at Dunrobin, and so I thought it might help those here, too.”

  The woman eyed her warily, as if she didn’t trust her. “I’m not certain I should give it to her.”

  “I can make it for ye if ye want. Or hold the bairn while ye make it.”

&
nbsp; Exhaustion etched the other woman’s face. “’Haps if ye held the child. There’s no wet-nurse for him, and I’ve not yet had a child, else I’d feed him. Mayhap if ye want to try the goat’s milk and the rag again, he’ll eat. He doesna seem to want it from me.”

  Blair set down her basket and reached for the bairn, whose cries had grown weak. His eyes were closed, his face pale and thin, the blue lines of his veins showing visibly on his forehead and cheeks. Not like what the bairns she’d seen before had looked like, with pink in their cheeks.

  She located the bowl of goat’s milk and the rag beside it on a small table near the bed where the mother lay, silent and sweating. She dipped the rag into the milk and held it to the bairn’s lips, rubbing back and forth and cooing for him to open. He made a little noise, moving his lips slowly, searching out the rag. She dipped it again and placed it on his mouth. He sucked hungrily. And when he wrinkled his brow, she moved to dip it into the milk again, repeating the movement over and over until the bairn drifted off to sleep, a little color back in his face.

  “How did ye do that?” the woman asked quietly, peering at the sleeping bairn.

  “I dinna know.”

  “Did ye have younger brothers or sisters?”

  “I am the bairn in my family,” Blair smiled. “But I often went with my own mother to visit new mothers in our clan.”

  “That is admirable of ye.”

  Blair found it odd that this woman mentioned it was admirable for the leaders of the clan to take care of their own. The Rose clan was thriving, so it was clear they were taken care of somehow, but all thought it odd for her to be so involved. “It is the way it should be. The way I intend it to be here. What is your name? I feel remiss in not asking for it sooner.”

  The woman flushed with color. “Och, my lady, ye dinna need to feel that way. I am Helen, and my sister is Frances.”

  “And the bairn?” Blair glanced down at the sleeping infant in her arms.

  “He is named for his father, Alan.”

  “A strong name.”

  “Aye.” Helen smiled sadly down at the bairn, then walked over to her sister with the steaming tisane in a cup. “Franny, open please. Drink.”

  When she didn’t respond, Helen dipped her finger in the cup and put a drop of tisane on her sister’s lips. The woman shook her head and moaned.

  “Please, Franny. Drink for Alan. The bairn needs ye.”

  This time, Frances’s yellowed eyes blinked open, her mouth parted. She tried to take a sip, sputtering at first. Helen held her head up with a hand beneath her neck to help ease her with drinking, which seemed to help.

  “After she drinks, she should be washed, and another poultice placed on her…” Blair felt herself blushing, as she slid her gaze toward Frances’s womb.

  “I understand. The midwife did do that yesterday.”

  “I dinna want to step on your midwife’s toes, Helen, but in Dunrobin, we did this several times a day. The infection seems to breed in the nether regions, and when cleaned often, it doesna have enough time to grow worse.”

  Helen bit her lip and nodded. “I will see it done.”

  “I’ll come back tomorrow and check on the lot of ye. Where is Alan the elder?”

  “In the fields, my lady. He’ll be there late, doing the work for the three of us.” As she spoke, she continued to help her sister drink until Frances refused another sip.

  “He sounds like a good man.”

  “He is.”

  Blair settled the swaddled bairn in the wee basket fashioned into his bed and quietly left the small hut, her heart sad for those inside. It was rare for a woman to survive childbed fever, but she would pray all the same.

  She visited several other crofts, distributing more food and herbal tisanes, taking the small children out to play with Bluebell and giving their mothers a moment to rest, until the sun was starting to set. Though she was exhausted, a smile covered her face. As she made her way back to the keep, she made a list of all she would need to gather on the morrow to bring during her next round of visits, but her joy was stopped short when she reached the bailey and a hysterical woman shouted and pointed at her.

  She recognized her as the wife of one of the men she’d visited who had a fever and what appeared to be an infection of the lungs. He’d been coughing up blood, his breathing rattled. His wife had told Blair that Father Thomas had already been by to give the last rites, for they didn’t expect him to live much longer.

  She was shouting horrible things.

  “The food she brought us was rancid! Poisoned, like done to our laird. As soon as I fed him her poison, he started to vomit, and then…and then…he died!”

  Blair stilled, her hand coming over her heart, her basket dropping at her feet. The one part of her wanted to rush forward to offer this woman comfort in her grief. She’d just lost her husband. Blair couldn’t imagine would that would be like. She couldn’t bear to lose Edan, not when she’d finally found someone in this world who seemed to understand her.

  But worst still, this woman somehow thought Blair was at fault… Clearly, she wasn’t; the man had already been in the throes of death when she arrived, but that didn’t make it any better. Not when people in the bailey were staring at her, shaking their heads and whispering behind their hands.

  “She’ll kill us all!” the woman screeched.

  Blair covered her mouth, her hands shaking as she tried to hold in her sobs.

  One of the warriors, perhaps a cousin or brother, came up, grasped the woman and tugged her into his arms. He led her away, trying to calm her.

  Blair stood rooted in place; the accusing looks of everyone around her boring through her like nails in a coffin. How could it be that they thought her capable of such a thing? She shook her head. “I didna. I wouldna. I was helping—” She cut herself short and hurried toward the keep steps, acutely aware of those whispering that she’d been sent by her brother to kill them all. That they shouldn’t let her near them, that they should take care of her first.

  “My lady,” the stable master held out his hand, and she passed Bluebell’s tie over to him.

  Distraught, Blair ran up the steps, realizing at the last minute she’d left her basket in the middle of the bailey. She turned around to get it but then stopped. She was in mid-sob, tears streaking down her cheeks, and she didn’t want anyone to see her looking like that. Not when they would only judge her as guilty, her sobs that of someone remorseful for what they’d done.

  At the sounds of the screeching in the bailey, Edan called a cease to the training he’d been doing with the men in the field. The sun was already starting to set, and the lot of them were exhausted anyway. A sense of dread filled him, and without knowing yet what was happening, he was certain it had something to do with his wife.

  The poor lass couldn’t seem to get away from trouble. He’d been so worried about them finding him worthy, but now it was his wife he was more worried about.

  When he reached the bailey, most of the commotion had died down, but there were more than a dozen people willing to tell him that Blair had been accused of murdering James, the warrior who’d taken ill with a lung infection some weeks before.

  “This is ballocks,” he told Raibert. “How could they possibly think her at fault?”

  Raibert was scowling just as hard. “It doesna make sense. The man was already dying. Given his last rites even.”

  “Aye. They are looking for a way to blame her. A way to blame her for Connor’s death, I warrant.” He confided to his clansman about what Blair had told him happened with the priest.

  “What are ye going to do?”

  “I will speak to the people. But first, I must find my wife.”

  Raibert nodded. “I’ll find out who else she visited today and see if they’d be willing to step forward when ye call the clan, to bear testimony to her goodness.”

  “Thank ye.”

  “Ye need not thank me. ’Tis my duty to ye and the lass. Ye’re my family, my l
aird, and she your wife, which makes her my family, too.”

  Edan nodded, running a hand through his hair. “I thought it would be hard to gain the people’s respect after my brother’s death, but I never thought I’d have to deal with this.”

  Raibert pursed his lips in concern. “Aye. ’Tis not right.”

  Edan left Raibert in the bailey to go in search of his wife. He entered the solar betwixt their chambers to find her chamber door shut tightly. And when he tried to lift the handle, he found it barred.

  He tapped softly at the wood. “Blair?”

  There was a rustling behind the door but no answer.

  “’Tis Edan, love, will ye let me in?” He asked, rather than demanded, she open the door, understanding that in her vulnerable state—a state completely out of her control—she might want some measure of control herself.

  There was more rustling and then a thump against the door as she lifted the bar. She didn’t open it, though, and so he tapped once more. “Does that mean I can come in?”

  A miserable sounding, “Aye,” came through the cracks.

  Edan opened the door slowly, scanning the chamber to find her face-down on the bed they’d shared. The place that had been filled with much happiness and pleasure was now drenched in her tears. He shut the door behind him and approached the bed. He sat on the side and stroked a soothing hand down her back.

  “I heard what happened.”

  “I didna kill that man.”

  “I know ye didna. Raibert knows it. And likely, most of the people know it, too.”

  “Why would she accuse me of such? The priest was leaving when I arrived, having just given last rites.”

  “Aye, love. James’s been dying a long time. In her grief, his wife is looking for someone to blame.”

  “But why me? I did nothing but try to offer her comfort.”

  “Some things people do or feel canna be explained.”

  Blair blew out a ragged breath and rolled over to face him. Her cheeks were flushed, her reddened eyes swollen and damp, and her nose was running. Edan stroked her tear-stained face with the pad of his thumb, and then he reached into his sporran and pulled out a small square of linen that he used to wipe her nose.