Elusive (9 page)

He had told the Laird a few weeks ago that he
was making plans to marry, and that he wanted Caena for his wife.
Grinning to himself as he continued down the stairs, he remembered
the shock on the Laird’s face. Macrath knew he held the advantage,
but just as surely he also knew the stupid girl would be given her
choice in the matter. The Laird was a silly fool, giving any female
such power. To let her be so influenced by outside forces as she
was by all her fanciful reading—it was a fool’s mistake.

And, oh, he thought—she was so
loved
by his dear brother. Well, he’d stop all that foolishness once and
for all. The only delight he looked forward to more than
deflowering that insipid girl was the knowledge that his doing so
would destroy his brother.

He strode into the Great Hall where the Laird
awaited him, and found his palms sweating. He didn’t like being
beckoned at someone else’s whim—not one bit.

“My Lord,” he bowed as slightly as he could
get by with. “You asked for me?” He refused to admit, even to
himself, that he had been
sent
for.

“Yes, Macrath, please come. Sit.” Finnean
knew this boy could not be trusted and yet…what choice did he
really have. “I have decided that when the time comes, you shall
have Caena to wife,” the Laird told him.

He
decided! Macrath knew better. The
girl had more brains than he’d given her credit for. “My Lord, I am
honored. However, it is my intention that we be married next
week.

“Next week?” Finnean stood up, his face
reddening, and his deep voice booming across the huge room. “Next
week? Why so soon? Surely this can wait until she is a bit older.
She is but sixteen years next week.”

“It is my wish to begin a family, my Lord.
Surely you agree that it is best to assure that a McDonnough heir
be ready to assume the title and responsibility for the clan when
the time comes.” He nodded his head slightly in feigned politeness.
“I do not wish to wait and leave our futures to chance,” he said,
as meekly as he could muster. Family responsibility would, he knew,
rank highly with the Laird of McDonnough.

Finnean, unfortunately, felt he had to agree.
But that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.

Seeing the look on the Laird’s face, Macrath
continued, “Of course, my Lord, if she is not ready, there is young
Seonaid, whose father is your wife’s cousin. She would make a good
match as well, don’t you think? She has expressed quite
a…
willingness
.”

Willing, she certainly was. He remembered
bedding the beautiful, buxom but somewhat empty-headed girl three
times during their visit last Yule. Of course, at eighteen years he
had not been her first, he was sure—despite her screams and tears
the first time. He smiled as he remembered she had been all too
willing the second and third.

Inside he was clapping his hands in as near
to glee as his black heart could muster, as he watched the
expression on the Laird’s face.

Sighing, Finnean conceded. “No need, nephew.
No need,” Finnean was boxed in and he knew it. “Next week it shall
be. Your mother and Caena can make the female decisions that are
needed.”

“I look forward to it, my Lord,” Macrath
said, as he removed himself from the Laird’s presence. All the way
back to his rooms, he laughed aloud. He had bested the Laird, and
both knew it.

***

One week later, on her sixteenth birthday,
Caena and Macrath were married. One more reason she would detest
the date. The entire village celebrated the wedding of The
McDonnough’s daughter. They wore the traditional great kilts used
for formal occasions.

Caena’s hair had been prepared by Ròs, who
had also helped her with the kilt pinning, and wrapping her ghillie
laces. The extra length of her earasaid, the feminine version of
the man’s great kilt, was brought to bustle at her waist. Beneath
it she wore a homespun chemise.

Her head would remain uncovered until after
her wedding day. Thereafter, she would wear a cap on her head, or
the extra cloth of the earasaid would be raised to form a hood to
cover her head, as appropriate for a married woman.

Due to the speed of the marriage, the
traditional shearing and weaving of the wool for their wedding
clothes was lost. Such traditions took a year to accomplish. Caena
didn’t care.

The girl hadn’t cried nor, Ròs remembered,
had she smiled in the last week. Ròs’s heart broke. She knew that
Macrath would be careless with the girl. He would not be gentle
when he took her for the first time. Her heart broke as she saw her
little mistress walk out of the room—the saddest bride she had ever
seen—a lamb to the slaughter!

It wasn’t until after the Laird’s death later
that year, and Mordag’s own death during the Battle of Calloden
years later, that they would realize the results of today’s
celebration. It was just the preface to years of pain, death, and
suffering at the hands of the man who would become the new Laird of
Donnach, as well as those of his father’s descent who followed
him.

***

Just weeks later, Caena and Sòlas met on the
cliff overlooking the loch for what would be the last time. He’d
never seen her look more beautiful. Her face was that of an angel.
The long, plaited, almost white-blond hair still fell to below her
waist despite the length lost to the braiding. The simple costume
she wore didn’t look like a wealthy lady’s. She never did like all
the trappings of her family’s status. Even dressed simply as she
was, in his eyes Sòlas thought she looked like a queen.

Once she reached him, he saw the pain in her
eyes, the marks from her husband’s hands on her throat and also at
her wrists. He thought his heart would break. His hands fisted at
his sides, and he had to strain to let go of the anger he felt
toward his brother. “I’ll kill him!” Sòlas swore.

She wrapped her arms around him and hung onto
the only anchor she had, “No, my love. No.”

“Caena, my dearest Caena,” he whispered into
her hair as he pulled her tight against him.

“My love,” she breathed, and then she pushed
him away from her. She needed to look deep into the eyes of the man
she loved more than she had ever believed possible. “We must be
careful. If anyone told him we were meeting like this, we would
both be dead by morning.”

He knew she was right. His brother had a
temper as quick and deadly as a viper’s. Sòlas would not gamble
with her life.

Now standing away from him at what would be
considered an acceptable distance, she told him what she had come
to tell, and the telling would nearly destroy her. “Sòlas, I am
with child,” she whispered. “The babe is yours.”

He started toward her, and when she held out
her arms he stopped in his tracks. “Please, my love, let me finish
or I may die here and now of a broken heart. I must get this said,”
she pleaded.

He simply nodded at her, and she continued.
“I have not yet told my husband,” her cheeks flushed at the mere
mention of him. “I cannot ever let him find out that this is your
child. We both know what he would do…to us…to our child,” she
almost whispered as she placed her hands where the child still lay
safe. Taking a deep breath, she straightened, and looked Sòlas in
the eye. “I have a plan to protect the child, and I beg you, my
love, to hear me out and agree to help me in this.”

“I will do whatever I can to keep both of you
safe, surely you know this,” he responded in a voice that told her
he was upset with her for even questioning his willingness to keep
her safe.

A glance at the taught white knuckles on his
hands told her that he was barely holding onto the fury he felt
inside. “This will be the most difficult thing you will ever do, my
love. But, yes, I know you will do it.”

She laid out her plan in detail, watching his
face flush as she told him what she knew was the only way to
protect their child. “This means you would be giving up everything
for our child, my love.”

“None of it has any meaning without you,
Caena. Surely you know that.” He turned to look out over the cliff,
away from the pain in her eyes that he knew was reflected in his
own.

“I’ve often thought of tossing myself over
this edge, rather than live without you in my arms,” he confessed
quietly. He heard her draw in a quick, shuddering breath. Quickly
turning toward her, he said, “No, Caena! I know that would be a
coward’s way. I may not have been strong enough to grab you in the
middle of the night and take you away with me rather than allow you
to marry my brother—but a coward, I’m not.”

He sighed deeply. “I’ll do as you wish,
Caena. I’ll give up everything, including you, to give our child a
good life away from Macrath, away from here. I will do all of it
because you ask it of me. All because I love you more than I ever
thought it possible to love another. Just tell me once more,
please, my love, tell me!”

She knew what he needed to hear, what she
would say in her own mind, every day for the rest of her life. “I
love you with all my heart, my beloved, and I will with my last
breath,” she said, as she turned away, tears streaming down her
face, and stumbled back down the path toward the castle—toward life
without her heart.

She hated the knowledge that she had
ultimately caused the very things she had tried so hard to
prevent—the loss of her love—his loss of the land he loved. But
their child would live!

***

For months Sòlas suffered the loss of her in
quiet, secret desperation. Unable to allow his father or brother to
know of his desolation, he had to find ways to handle the pain, to
let go of his fury. Most often this was accomplished by practicing
his skills with the ax and claymore, getting into fights and, in
general, being a pain in the arse of anyone who disagreed with him
about most anything. He sincerely believed the entire castle would
be relieved by his absence when the time came.

He was unaware that Macrath was relishing in
his pain, or that his mother recognized the pain whenever he was in
Caena’s presence. She knew the consequences if she spoke of it to
anyone. She was not unaware of her husband’s or eldest son’s
cruelty. She had lived with both for years. But, Sòlas—her
Sòlas—was the kindest, most loving, young man she’d ever known.
Rather than put his safety at risk, she kept her thoughts to
herself, hoping desperately that his heart would eventually
heal.

If she had known about the child with a
certainty, she would have acted no differently. She would not have
seen her beloved son destroyed by her other son’s jealousy, greed,
and malevolence.

When she could finally stand it no longer,
she went to him. She found him reading in the woods across the road
from the castle, in the shade of a huge tree undoubtedly descended
from one when Arthuan had been king, she thought. She watched him
as he read. He was pale. She knew he had been practicing
ferociously with his heavy basket-
hilted
claymore, and with the short, thin dirk
that hung at his side. Despite his youth, he had grown the figure
of a man. She was so very proud of him. If only his heart was not
breaking.

“Sòlas?” She broke into his reverie.

“Mother,” he answered her. Looking up, he
smiled without it reaching those pale blue eyes now sunken in his
handsome face and surrounded by purple smudges from his lack of
sleep. “Come. Sit by me.” He patted the ground near him, and she
moved to sit beside him.

“Son, can you not talk to me about this
weight that has been put upon you?” She watched as the pain came to
his eyes, and then he controlled it. “It has to do with Caena, does
it not?”

“Mother, if your other son learned of my
feelings, my life would be forfeit, you know that,” he sighed.

“Sòlas, I am your mother. Aye, I am also
Macrath’s mother, but I wish no harm to either of you.” She placed
her hand on her son’s cheek. “I know you love the girl, Sòlas, but
she has made her decision, and she is a strong lass. She will do
what she must, and she will live with the choice she has made. You
must learn to do so also.”

“Never,” he snarled. “As long as I live, I
will never forgive my brother for this.”

“But Sòlas, as Finnean’s daughter, she was
given a choice. Not all maidens are treated so generously by their
fathers. If she loved you as you love her, she would surely have
chosen you. How can you blame Macrath for her decision?”

“It is the estate, Mother. It is the only way
she can keep the estate in Finnean’s bloodline. Macrath knows this.
He covets what is mine, what is Finnean’s—damn his black soul to
hell! He would have it all!” He threw the book as far as his anger
would take it. “Even the woman I would have taken to wife! And…and
so much more.” Then quietly, he added, “So very much more.”

“Ah, yes, of course,” now she understood.
“So, she has chosen for her future generations, at the cost of what
she holds so very dear to herself. She is a brave, strong lass,
your Caena.”

The thought of her took the fury out of his
heart and voice. “Aye, and I am not certain that I am as brave as
she, mother,” he said quietly.

She took his face in her hands, “Sòlas, you
are the bravest lad I have ever known. She lays this on your heart,
and you survive. You will honor her love for you by living on, by
finding happiness and love elsewhere. I love you, my son, and I am
so proud of you. Could I only be as proud of both of my sons,” she
sighed, rose, and left him.

***

Finally, the fall arrived and weeks later
Caena’s confinement. Sòlas had fought off most of the mean temper.
Now he just felt empty and alone. Somehow he had to pull himself
together. The time was near when he would be responsible for
raising their child…without her. He wouldn’t live like a brute.
That was what she had feared from his brother. No, he would give
her what she wanted most in this world—a loving father for their
child. To the outside world, they would see him as he had appeared
for all these months. Alone, he contemplated the time when he would
disappear with their child, never to see its mother or his own
again.