Meghan: A Sweet Scottish Medieval Romance (14 page)

Lyon had spotted her already, she was pleased to see, but David was in the middle of his discourse and didn’t appear to notice. Until she placed the lamb before them upon the table.

“Good evening,” she bade them. “We’ve come to join you at table.”

She smiled at David as he turned to peer at her with a bemused expression that nearly made her laugh aloud.

“We?”

Meghan smiled sweetly and nodded. “Of course.”

David eyed the lamb warily. “I usually prefer my mutton well done,” he told her with lifted brows.

“Och! Mutton!” Meghan exclaimed, sounding perfectly affronted at his declaration. “This is not mutton,” she informed him brashly. “This is Fia!”

She saw that Lyon rolled his eyes, and tried not to appear pleased by his reaction.

David turned a questioning glance to Lyon.

“Humor her,” Lyon urged his liege.

David turned once more to face her. “Fia?” he dared to ask. “What is a fia, might I ask?”

Meghan sighed in exasperation. “Why, yes, Fia is my grandmother, of course. Have you no eyes with which to see, sir?”

The lamb began to bleat as it trampled a dish near David’s trencher. David slid his chair backward across the dais in alarm. He stared at the creature, aghast. “This lamb is your grandmother?” he said, repeating her outrageous claim as though he could not believe his ears.

“Och! Not you too?” she complained and rolled her eyes. Her hands flew to her hips. “What did he tell ye?” she demanded, casting Lyon a vexed glance. “I don’t know why he should think her a lamb.”

“Perhaps,” Lyon interjected, his tone mordant, “because she is a lamb.” He was frowning at her now.

So let him frown. Meghan resolved. She hoped he was humiliated.

She glared at him in turn. “I told you, Sassenach. This is no lamb. This is my dear sweet grandmother. And you have insulted her quite enough.”

She turned to David once more, narrowing her eyes at him. “That brute you would have me wed,” she informed him pettishly, “is a verra poor host, I should tell you. Why he tossed my grandmother out in the meadow yesterday morn.”

She stared at David expectantly, as though anticipating he should do something about her complaint. “Have you naught to say about that?” she demanded when he did not respond, and tried not to laugh at the harassed expression he wore.

“Lyon?” David said warily, turning to face Lyon again, clearly taken aback by her behavior.

Meghan lifted her chin as she too turned to face Lyon Montgomerie, tilting a victorious look at him.

She was either a very shrewd actress, Lyon decided, or she was deadly in earnest.

He could no longer tell, and he frowned.

The beast was dressed in a wimple. And he didn’t care to look so closely at what she’d formed it of, because the cloth looked entirely too familiar, and he hadn’t as yet had the opportunity to procure more.

David turned to glare at the bleating lamb. “Let me get this aright,” he said, addressing Meghan once more. “This lamb, you claim, is your grandmother?”

Meghan nodded, lifting her chin. “Of course,” she persisted.

Lyon tried not to laugh at the blatant challenge flashing in her green eyes as she met David’s gaze once more.

“I see,” David remarked calmly, turning again to Lyon. He lifted his brows. “Lyon, you would wed this woman?”

Lyon was uncertain how to respond: while he did not wish to impugn her before David, neither did he enjoy being made the fool.

“Where might we sit to eat?” she persisted, seeming entirely too pleased over the havoc she’d wreaked. “Or did you plan on starvin’ us as well?”

“Meghan,” Lyon said softly in warning, through now playing games.

“You said you would make us both welcome,” she reminded him pertly. “And so far you’ve not. Are you a liar as well as a thief?”

Lyon eyed the bleating lamb in growing frustration. He cast a glance at David, who was staring now, quite displeased, and for the first time in his life, his face burned with chagrin.

“Meghan,” he warned, clenching his jaw.

If she was serious, he determined, then she was truly mad... and if she was not, then she was undermining him before his friend and his liege. Feeling obliged to take the situation in hand, to save his food if not his face, he stood and lifted the noisy beast from his table, placing it at his feet.

“My pardon if it offends you, Meghan, but your grandmother is not welcome at my table.”

“How dare you?” she exclaimed, and sank to her knees at once, unfazed by his growing ire. Lyon peered down in trepidation to find that she was crawling beneath the table to reach the wee lamb, shoving at David’s knee. “Get out of my way,” she demanded.

She
was
mad.

Of a certain, she was a beautiful lunatic.

“What is she doing, Lyon?”

“There, there…poor Fia,” she cried out, and then peered up accusingly at Lyon from under the table. “How dare you?” she declared once more, crawling out from under the table at last. “You will not win me like that,” she swore, and having said that, she stood, brushed herself off, and quite rudely reached between him and David, seizing a loaf of bread from the table. “If Fia is not welcome, then I am not welcome,” she proclaimed, and reached down to snatch up the lamb into her arms, as well. “Hmmph,” she said, and gave them her back. And without a by your leave she left them, hurrying toward the stairs, with her grandmother and his food in tow.

David stared after her, bemused. “What was that?”

Lyon sat staring after her as well. “Naught more than stubborn Scot pride, I think,” he answered, and his brows drew together as he watched her stomp her way up the stairs to his chamber. His face contorted. “I hope.” And then, “Pardon the interruption... what were you saying?”

“Never mind,” David declared. “I’ve changed my mind. I should think twice were I you, Lyon. That woman might be beautiful, but she’s daft besides. You’d be better suited to wed Alison MacLean.”

Lyon wasn’t willing to concede. “I respectfully disagree,” he said. “And I’ve already made clear my reasons why. Aside from that, Alison MacLean is entirely too—”

“Sane?” David interjected. “What has come over you, Lyon?”

Meghan Brodie.

Meghan Brodie had come over him.

A stubborn-as-the-devil miss with flashing green eyes and a temper as fierce as the Highlands that had bred her.

He frowned. “How should I know?”

The slam of his chamber door reverberated throughout the hall. Lyon could hear her stomping across his room, bearing the weight of the lamb within her arms.

“As a friend, not your liege...” David began.

The floorboards creaked ominously. Lyon peered up, making a mental note to fix them soon. He could hear her muffled ravings and her subsequent tantrum, designed specifically for his ears, he was well aware.

She continued to stomp, punctuating her every rant with another stomp, bringing an unwilling smile to his lips... until he heard the first crack...

David continued ominously. “... I beg you, think with your head and not—”

It happened so fast, Lyon hadn’t time to react. “Meghan,” he shouted.

The floorboards gave even as he surged from his chair.

She came crashing down through the ceiling.

David leapt up and out of the way barely in time.

The little lamb gave an unholy shriek as it followed her down.

Meghan landed with a crash, smashing trenchers and cracking her forehead upon David’s tankard.

The lamb landed upon the floor with a sickening thud.

Meghan murmured, “I—I decided to j-join you a-after a-all.” And she closed her eyes as her head landed in a plate full of mutton.

For an instant, Lyon was too stunned to move.

The hall fell into a stupor.

David stood beside him, staggered.

She lay before him much too still.

He turned to David. “Find me a physician,” he snapped, dispensing with formalities for Meghan’s sake, and reached out to scoop her at once into his arms, his heart pounding with fear.

L
yon bore
her up the stairs, barking orders to his men: one to bring water, another to bring rags.

She was bleeding somewhere on her beautiful face, but it was too soiled with food

and blood for him to tell precisely where she was injured.

He kicked open his door with an urgency born of fear.

She began to murmur unintelligibly within his arms. “Fia,” she whimpered.

His heart twisted a little. He carried her to his bed and laid her gently down upon it. What was he going to say to her? How could he tell her? “Shhh,” he urged her.

She opened her eyes, and stared up at him with a dazed expression upon her face. “W-where is Fia?” she persisted.

“Sleeping,” he lied, and winced as a vision of the animal’s twisted form flashed through his head.

She closed her eyes. “Not dead...”

“Shhh...”

“Sleeping,” she murmured. “Dinna mean to wake her,” she whispered, drifting off once yet again.

David came into the room as she lost consciousness, his concern evident in his eyes. “They say there is only a midwife to be found,” he said. “ ‘Tis the best we could do. I sent one of your men to fetch her. How does she fare, Lyon?”

“She spoke,” Lyon said gravely, peering up at his longtime friend. “She asked after the lamb.”

David shook his head. “Poor creature,” he said low. “I ordered the carcass lifted.”

Lyon nodded, and then muttered an oath beneath his breath. “Where is the water to wash her? Mercy, I can see naught for all the blood.”

David placed a hand upon his shoulder.

“I should have fixed those floorboards,” Lyon said in self-reproach. “I should have fixed them.”

“You could not have foreseen this.”

“Nay. I saw their condition days ago,” Lyon confessed. “I should have fixed them.” He shook his head in self-disgust. “I should have fixed them.”

“And I should never have interfered in MacKinnon’s affairs,” David countered, much too calmly for Lyon’s state of mind. He could scarcely think, yet alone reason, and David would speak to him of politic matters?

David’s voice was drowned in a torrent of his own thoughts. Where was she cut? Was she hurt elsewhere besides? And what was he going to tell her about her poor lamb?

His beautiful, spirited Meghan; she was bleeding too much.

“I should not have taken his son,” David continued, his voice grating upon Lyon’s nerves. He couldn’t think. “Because of me Lagan MacKinnon lies dead. I should not have interfered in the MacKinnon’s affairs, and because I did, your task is made all the more difficult.”

At the moment, Lyon didn’t care.

“And my goal lies all the more distant,” David added as well.

“I cannot think of this just now,” Lyon said, and thrust his hands into his hair, maddened by the wait, feeling helpless but to stare.

“What good does it do me to regret?” David persisted.

“None,” Lyon answered impatiently, understanding David’s meaning at once.

These were all things he knew, of course. And yet...

“Precisely,” David said. “What is done is done.”

Lyon grit his jaw stubbornly. “Now is not the time for lectures, David. Help me with these sheets,” he demanded, spying the shredded linen she had used for Fia’s scarf. “They are taking too long.”

Seizing the cloth in his hand, he ripped it in half, handing the bigger piece to David. He tore a smaller piece for himself and began to clean the blood from her face—gently, lest he hurt her more. He found the wound near her temple, within her hair, and pressed the cloth to it in an attempt to staunch the flow.

David continued to tear the linen. “’Tis not as though you purposely left the floor to rot.”

Lyon gently pushed the blood-soaked hair from her face.

“She truly is lovely,” David remarked.

“Aye,” Lyon agreed, watching her face closely for some sign of lucidity. At the moment, beauty didn’t concern him, only that she would be well.

His men arrived bearing water and rags.

“About time,” Lyon snapped as he was handed a rag already soaked with water. He ordered them all from the room, and began to clean her face once more. “Send the midwife in the instant she arrives,” he commanded them before they went.

“It appears to be the single cut,” David said, watching. “Allow me to hold the rag. You inspect the rest of her to be certain there is no other wound.”

It was precisely what he intended to do.

Lyon released the blood-soaked rag into David’s hands, and did as suggested.

David lowered his voice. “And what shall you tell her about... the lamb?”

“I’ve no idea,” Lyon admitted, and proceeded to remove her soiled clothing, leaving her in her shift.

She stirred, moaning softly as he undressed her, and he peered at her face expectantly. She didn’t reopen her eyes, and he stared at her, contemplating what he would say when she awoke. At worst she believed the lamb to be her grandmother. At best it was a beloved pet. Either way she was going to be aggrieved.

At the moment, however, he was too concerned for her to feel anything more than sorry for the animal.

He removed her sleeve, drew it down, and his heart wrenched to find that her arm had been twisted in the fall. It was swollen about the elbow, already turning an ungodly shade of crimson-blue.

“Heavens above,” David exclaimed. “I think she may lose the use of that arm.”

Lyon cast him a black glance.

Not on his watch, he vowed, and at once set about untangling her from her gown.

L
eith had insisted
he bring her home.

He’d kissed her once more, a gentle peck upon the lips before bidding her farewell, and Alison had yet to walk inside. She stood in the shadows of her father’s home, watching him go, her fingers pressed to her lips in something akin to awe.

Leith Mac Brodie wanted to wed with her.

Her?

She still could not believe it, though he had sworn it with his heart in his eyes. She had never thought a man would ever look at her so.

She didn’t know how long she stood there, but he was long departed when a voice startled her from her reverie.

“Alison?”

Alison saw the man coming from the woodlands, and she turned and walked quickly toward her father’s hall, ready to shriek for help, and horrified at her own stupidity for waiting so long like an idiot to watch Leith go. It had been a stupid thing to do.

“Alison MacLean,” the man called out.

Alison lifted up her skirts to flee, but he shouted out, “Wait, I mean you no harm. I bring news of Meghan.”

Alison spun to face him, responding instinctively to the note of alarm in his voice. “Meghan! What of Meghan?” she demanded.

He came near enough so she could see his face, and then she recognized him. “Cameron!”

“Aye, lass, you remember me,” he said. “ ‘Tis Meghan,” he hurried on. “There is no time to speak long. You must come.”

“Come?”

“To Montgomerie’s.”

“Me?” Alison asked in surprise.

“She has had an accident, Alison, and I dinna know how to say it, but they told me she didna look so well when I left there. They sent me for a midwife, and I know you spent much time with her and her grandmother. I didna know where else to go for help. She needs you now, lass.”

“Oh, no,” Alison exclaimed, and her heart nigh leapt from her chest in fear. “But how shall I go? He would know me,” she said doubtfully. “I think he would know me. Will he let me tend her?”

The old man suddenly seemed to share her concern. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know.”

“Wait,” Alison said. “I know what to do. He shall not recognize me when I am through, and he’llna turn me away if he does not know me. Wait here for me, and I will return in a trice,” She clutched the old man’s arm. “Thank you. Thank you for coming to fetch me. Wait here now, if you will, and I shall be back anon. Wait,” she begged him, and raced into the hall, taking care that her father did not see her, as he believed she was still within her room.

Meghan needed her now, and she would not fail her dear friend—she would not.

M
eghan awoke
to the sound of voices.

She couldn’t seem to gain her bearings.

She heard everything, was keenly aware of her surroundings in the oddest sort of way, but her lids were too heavy to lift. Nor could she move. It was as though she were sleeping still and could not awake.

“I have reset the bone,” said a woman’s voice from somewhere beyond the haze. Meghan faintly recognized it. She tried in vain to open her eyes, to look upon the bearer of it. “’Twill need time to heal,” the woman continued gravely. “Dinna let her use the arm, and if you must... bind her to the bed until she awakes.”

“I shall remain with her,” she heard a familiar male voice say in a low tone. “How long will the drogue last?”

“Until the morrow,” came the woman’s reply.

Drogue.

They’d given her a drogue... like the ones her grandmother sometimes used... Her heart lifted with hope.

“Fia?” she murmured.

Shadows descended like a shroud over her senses.

“Fia?” she persisted.

She sensed more than felt the hand at her brow... not a small one with calluses on the tips of fingers raw from pulling herbs... but a large one... as gentle as it was coarse.

“Hush now, Meghan,” the man’s voice commanded, though not unkindly, and the familiar sound of it reverberated through her very soul.

Lyon?

Meghan heard herself whimper softly, and was surprised by the distance of the sound. Strange, it didn’t sound like her at all, didn’t feel like her, though she knew it was.

What was wrong with her?

And why did her arm hurt?

And why had they drugged her?

“Och, you really should bind her to the bed,” the woman said, concern in her voice. “You dinna want her to injure the arm any more.”

Meghan shook her head. She didn’t want to be bound to the bed. She whimpered, trying to tell them nay.

“Poor wee thing,” the woman lamented, and once more the familiarity of it struck her.

Who was the woman?

“Fia...”

The woman let out an audible sigh. “Crazy auld Fia has been dead nigh on two years now,” she said. “The two were inseparable; where you spied the one, the other was not far behind.”

It wasn’t Fia.

Fia had been dead nigh two years now. Meghan’s heart fell as she remembered that. It wasn’t Fia.

Who was it?

She heard weeping again and wondered if she were the one sobbing.

She felt so weighty, so dizzy... so insubstantial...

“Fia... Fia is her lamb, as well,” Lyon confided to the woman.

The lamb.

Meghan groaned as slices of memory began to return to her. She’d been holding the wee lammie within her arms, dancing with it across the room—with a few well-placed stomps for special effect—so happy that her plan had gone so well.

“Aye, but she seems to think the lamb is her grandmother,” another man’s voice disclosed.

Silence.

“Och,” exclaimed the woman after a moment. “Poor wee thing, but it does not surprise me,” she said grimly. “She comes from verra bad blood, you see. ‘Twas merely a matter of time before Meghan Brodie succumbed to the madness as well.”

“She seemed well enough to me.”

“So were her mother and grandmother in the beginning,” the woman pointed out sadly. “And then it came over them, twisting their minds. Och, but ’tis a shame, too, as Fia understood the magic of the woodlands well.”

Naught had come over her mother and grandmother, Meghan wanted to scream. They had simply been misunderstood. Who was this woman who would befoul her mother’s and grandmother’s names?

“I’m afeared she’ll end like them if something is not done—and soon.”

She wanted to speak up and tell the woman that she was wrong—all wrong. It wasn’t true. But she couldn’t open her mouth to speak. Nor could she lift her lids. What had they given her? The heaviness seemed to be dragging her down into oblivion.

Meghan fought to stay awake... fought until finally, the will to sleep was too great...

“
W
hat can be done
?” Lyon asked the old woman.

“I have a potion,” she answered, and those vaguely familiar eyes began to gleam with the color of gold, though in the dimness of the room, it was difficult to tell their true color. “I am something of an apothecary,” she disclosed. “But the price of this particular potion is high,” she cautioned him. “And you will not relieve me of it for less than a handful of gold.”

Lyon wasn’t entirely certain it was necessary to do anything at all to cure Meghan’s so-called madness, but if the old woman’s medicine was harmless enough, he might consider the prescription, no matter the cost. “What sort of potion, woman, would cost me a handful of gold coins?”

She smiled, a brilliant smile that seemed to smooth the wrinkles from her brow, making her appear much too young. Her hair was covered with a scarf that concealed much of her face, as well, and was tied entirely too tight about her chin besides. He wondered that she could bear it.

“A powerful potion,” she assured him, eyeing him first, then casting a glance at David. “Made from roots.”

“I have never heard of such a thing,” David interjected.

“Of course not,” she replied, drawing back and peering at him, obviously insulted by his challenge. “It is the root of a tree found in the Far East alone.”

“You have been to the Far East?” Lyon persisted, at once doubting her claim.

“And you have seen this tree with your very own eyes?” David added.

“Och, nay,” she confessed, “but I do have the root with me even now.”

“But you have seen it work its magic?” David inquired, saving Lyon the trouble of asking.

“Nay. You will need to take my word.”

“’Tis rather convenient a tale, I should say.” Lyon eyed her speculatively. “And you just happen to carry with you this root of an unknown tree—”

“Do you not also carry upon your person your most valuable possessions?”