Parris Afton Bonds (25 page)

As the weeks moved into March, life for Enya had fallen into an almost peaceful pattern of rising early to kindle the kitchen fires. After cooking and cleaning, the afternoons were hers to fritter away as she chose—usually embroidering with her mother or engaging in philosophical discussions with Arch, whom she was coming to know on different terms.

Jamie she avoided for fear of the retribution Ranald would visit upon his cousin.

Duncan she should have avoided.

Regrettably, she didn
’t that morning.

The day began with sunlight that was brilliant that high in the mountains. Just a few patches of snow skirted the outer bailey. Townspeople streamed under the castle
’s iron-grated portcullis to partake in the first Highland games of the new year.

These games, the Wappinschaw, provided the opportunity to mingle, to demonstrate a swain
’s prowess, and to dissipate the winter’s accumulation of lethargy, tension, and restlessness.

The Wappinschaw consisted of foot races, dancing, shinty, bagpipe competitions, and tossing the caber. The caber was a long log that weighed as much as a hefty yew trunk. The kilted contestants vied to see who could heave it the straightest, so tha
t it landed in a precise way determined by the judge.

In this case the villagers selected Jamie as rightful judge. Not only was he a Cameron, but he was not athletic by nature. Ranald would have abstained, but the other men prodded him, albeit respectfully
, to compete. Every male wanted the honor of being the one to defeat the mighty chief.

Many of the women found diversion in folk dances. Their partners were the men who did not compete in the games. Enya watched the beginning of the games. Their early stag
es revealed that the reluctant Ranald would be an outright winner, especially in the tossing of the caber. His brawn, his prowess, had no match.

Rather than watch them fawn over their laird at that final moment of his triumph, she forsook the sidelines to
observe the dancing. Wooden clogs clapping against the hard-packed earth marked the staccato rhythm of the morris dance. Bagpipes skirled and skirts swirled. Even old Dame Margaret, clapping her hands in time to the music, managed a smile.

As Mhorag
’s bondservant, Duncan did not dare approach the chief’s sister for a dance. Instead, he danced with first one maid and then another.

Enya delighted in seeing her childhood friend enjoying himself. With Duncan, one laughed at life. The woman who took Duncan to hu
sband would be a lucky one, she mused. He might not be a valiant warrior, a skilled huntsman, or a towering intellect. But he valued people. He would make a woman feel treasured.

When he sauntered over to her and bowed with all the elegance of a court dand
y she couldn’t help but laugh and dip a curtsy.

That silly grin curved his lips. His eyes glinted with merriment. "Dance, m
’lady?”

Her eyes reflected her buoyant feelings. "Aye, m
’lord.”

The steps weren
’t that difficult to master. After every round partners were circulated, until the original partner was regained. Several rapid rounds were enough to leave a dancer breathless.

Her auburn hair tumbling loose from its crown, Enya sashayed away from her last partner, a portly man whose stomach shook in time wit
h the music, and fell into Duncan’s arms.

Laughter gurgled on her lips. "Ah, but that was a grand time, me lad!" Without thinking, she bussed him on the cheek.

She was feeling marvelous. The dancing, she reasoned, was a reminder that she could not have changed, no matter how much her situation had. Alas, duty called her back to the kitchen, along with Flora and Annie. A hungry mass would clamor to be fed come mealtime.

Bridie-cakes, lamb
’s sweetbreads, tatties, venison pasties, and steak and kidney pudding would tease the palate. Whiskey, ale, beer, and hot tea would quench the thirst.

When Enya went below to the oak-beamed buttery, as was her practice before helping with the cooking, the entryway candle was missing from its sconce. In the dark, she felt her
way along the cold, damp stone walls. As if blind, she let her feet carefully pick out each step.

She almost gained the mid-landing and the next candle sconce. Then her footing slipped on a step sweating with a thin coating of moisture that had iced over.
She plummeted. At the same time her hand flailed for the rickety banister. Splinters gouged her palms and fingers. Her feet dangled over the dark abyss.

Her grip was slipping. The banister rung wobbled. She screamed again. Slivers of wood slid beneath her
nails. The image of the twisted heap of barrel staves and cooper’s bands mounded below her renewed her screams.

Above her a shaft of light penetrated the cold gloom. Someone had opened the door! "Help!"

A figure leaned over the balustrade. Tangled, tawny hair draped around a tortured countenance. Just as quickly, the light receded and was eclipsed with the shutting of the door.

Paralyzing fear robbed her blood and robbed her of coherent thought. Her fall was surely an accident, but then why hadn
’t—

With a
crack, the rung to which she clung tilted outward.

From somewhere she drew upon a last burst of energy. With a tremendous gathering of strength, she released her hold on the one banister railing and lunged for the next. It quivered
—but didn’t break off.

Sh
e didn’t have the muscle to lever herself up, but she could lower herself, rung by rung ... if she could ration her remaining stamina.

Her hands were slippery with sweat and blood. With each passing second her skirts weighed more heavily. She swung to anot
her rung. Clung. Swung again to the next. Clutched it—for one brief instant—slipped—and plunged into the chasm of darkness and pain and, finally, oblivion.

"Mmmnnnhh.”

"M
’bairn? Ye are mending?"

Enya tur
ned her gaze toward the voice and looked at Elspeth. It was as if peering through gauze. She blinked. Her cloudy vision coalesced.

"Ye got a braw egg-size lump on yer head, ye do." The old woman slipped her gnarled hand under her charge
’s head and held a pewter cup to her lips. "Here, drink this, we’an. Twill rid ye of yer drouthy tongue.”

She swallowed the viscous green liquid. "Aggh! That is awful."

"Dinna be
carnaptious
, me bairn. Ye are lucky to be alive."

"Two days. Twas the laird who went looking for
ye and found ye. For the past few minutes ye been talking dowfie-like. Sad moanings. I ken then ye were comin’ round. Sent for yer mother. She’s been
glaikit
with worry.’’

Glancing around, Enya realized she was in Ranald
’s room. "Did he—Ranald—sleep ... here with me?"

Elspeth
’s hooked nose wrinkled. "Had he wanted to, do ye think I would ha’ let him? Nae, he slept on yon rug.” She nodded at the bearskin stretched before the fireplace. "If ye call
ain
eye on ye sleepin’.’’

The door opened, and Kathryn entere
d. "Enya! You are awake!”

"It appears that you and I are taking turns convalescing, Mother."

Her mother dropped a testing kiss on her forehead. "No fever." She straightened. Relief was reflected in her velvet-brown eyes. "You have visitors outside. Do you feel like seeing them?"

She nodded and managed a smile. Even that effort hurt. “
Aye. Send them in."

Before the afternoon was over a steady stream of well-wishers had paraded through Ranald
’s room: Duncan, Arch, Annie, Mary Laurie, Jamie, Flora, Patric, and even Dame Margaret.

But not Ranald. Nor Mhorag.

Enya was certain Mhorag was the woman who had looked over the balustrade and ignored her plea for help. Just as Ranald’s sister doubtlessly ignored Ruthven’s pleas for help. For all that, Mhorag could have been the instigator of Ruthven’s horrifying death!

Kathryn returned in the evening, bearing a tray of food and more evil-tasting medicine. The bowl of steaming stew assuaged Enya
’s hunger but not her hurt. Not the hurt in her heart. Ranald had not wanted to lose his precious captive—and not because she had succeeded in making him love her.

The medicine, or the stew, made her sleepy, and she welcomed the respite. Sometime during the night she awoke. Ranald knelt on one knee at the hearth. He was replenishing
the fire that had languished. He must have heard her raise to one elbow because he glanced up. The anger blazing in his eyes was like a physical slap, and she recoiled.

Suddenly she lost all her determination, her resilience, her strength of will. "I yield
. I lost. I canna make you love me. I dinna understand it, but you hate me something fierce. I canna make that go away.”

He rose, brushed off his hands, and crossed to the bed. For once he was giving her a second and more attentive look. He had never seen
her passive. She fell back onto the pillow, waiting.

He reached down and picked up a lock of her hair, pooled over the pillow like the Red Sea of his Bible. "You dinna try to rid yourself of our bairn?"

"What?" She felt a wee groggy and wasn’t certain she had understood.

"The fall. You weren
’t carrying me we’an in you? You weren’t trying to rid yourself of it?"

"My God, Ranald!" Gone was that moment of weakness. She sprang upright to a sitting position. Her head swam with the sudden action. She rubb
ed her temples and muttered hotly, "Damn ye, Ranald. How could I be carrying your child when I feel so—so barren?"

He turned away, began tugging off his shirt. She thought to bring up Mhorag
’s pitiless act, but what was the use?

He shucked his breeches. In
the soft candlelight, his body was beautiful. Supremely male. Muscle plated his chest, knotted his shoulder blades, laddered his stomach, and roped his thighs and calves.

"Do you think I hate you so verra much,”
she asked, “that I would risk killing myself?"

He stretched out on his side on the rug, pillowed his head in his arm, and tugged one side of the rug over his shoulders. “
I think ye do not care what you do."

The broad back presented to her told her that, in turn, he did not care what she did.

Chapter Sixteen

I
t couldn’t be possible!

Enya swallowed the putrid taste and went in search of her mother. She was nowhere inside the castle. Outside, the drift of warmer air from the south had come so slowly that Enya was surprised to reali
ze that spring was indeed here. Its drizzling rains had brought a drizzling overcast, but the air was raw and refreshingly penetrating.

She found her mother crossing the bailey. "You shouldn
’t be out in this weather, Mother.”

"I was looking over the ponies
.”

“
Looking over the ponies?” She fell in alongside her mother in returning to the great hall. "Why?"

“
Arch believes Ranald has set some of his lackeys to watch him."

She lowered her voice. "Mother, the passes won
’t be clear of snow yet.”

"Another couple o
f weeks they may be. Kincairn won’t be expecting us to flee this soon. And we’re not going down through the passes. Arch is taking the best of the horses for all of us and driving the rest with us into the woods. Well wait out the thawing deep in the forest."

Enya had her doubts whether Ranald would let them go so easily. Especially if what she feared was true. "Mother . . . I was sick this morning. I threw up the oatmeal I had for breakfast.”

“You have missed your monthly?"

She felt miserable. "Aye. I thou
ght maybe the fall from the stairs had upset my bodily routine. But I am almost two months late now.”

Her mother eyed her critically. "Daughter, I do not know what goes on in the privacy of Ranald
’s chamber between you two. But he seems, basically, a fair man. Highly intelligent, if not highly educated.”

"Mother, his only interest is using me as an instrument of revenge. I am so bloody disgusted with him and his messianic sense of mission.”

"Is that all you feel about him?"

She searched
her feelings and replied honestly, "I . . . I am attracted to him.”

Her mother was carefully keeping her expression bland. And her tone. "I see. But you don
’t love him?"

"I don
’t know. How can I? One moment I hate him for using me so callously. The next, when he touches me . . .” She broke off, embarrassed.

She was overwhelmed by one feeling these days: apathy. She behaved with a sickening helplessness. Day after day. Gone was her
joie de vivre
, her independent spirit. She let Ranald’s moods act as a catalyst for her own actions. She was responding and reacting, rather than being her own person.

She was sinking fast into bottomless depths of shame as Ranald
’s captive—more appropriately, Ranald’s whore—a shame from which there could be no faintest hope she might ever escape.

Should she manage to escape Lochaber Castle and Ranald Kincairn, she suspected that she would nonetheless feel that shame the rest of her life.