The Adventurer (25 page)

She couldn’t be many years older than Isabella, but her condition had aged her markedly. Her eyes were hollow sockets on a gaunt face, the skin paper-thin. Her hair, probably once a lovely blond, was now a gritty shade of brown and very thin. She opened her eyes wearily as Isabella approached, sucking in a sudden and labored breath when she realized it wasn’t her son, but a stranger standing beside her.

“Leig leam ... leig leam ...”
she gasped.

She started to lift herself, as if to attempt to flee, but Isabella put out a hand and whispered, “Nae ...
shh.”

The woman seemed to sense that Isabella meant her no harm and eased back onto the pallet, but not without wincing from the effort.

She was indeed very ill, though it appeared to be more from malnourishment than for any other reason. She likely gave whatever they managed to find to eat to her son, and he was too young to realize by doing so she was slowly starving herself. She wore what amounted to little more than a tattered chemise and Isabella suspected she had given up some of her own clothing to fashion coverings for her son. The pallet she lay upon smelled of urine and stagnation. Isabella wondered if she had grown too weak to relieve herself properly.

Isabella reached inside the basket she’d brought and removed a skin of water, touching it to the woman’s cracked and dried lips. She sipped, closing her eyes as she labored to complete even that one simple task. Isabella wiped the bit that had dribbled down her chin with her handkerchief, then she smiled as she took the woman’s hands and covered them with her own to warm them.

The woman responded with a weak and fragile smile, closing her eyes out of sheer, interminable fatigue.

Isabella decided against giving the woman any food, not until they had gotten her to the castle where M’Cuick could prepare her a healing posset. If she hadn’t eaten in some time, as Isabella suspected, her stomach might rebel at the sudden introduction of ordinary food. The effort of vomiting it back up would only cause the woman far more pain and exhaustion than it was worth. So instead Isabella continued to offer her sips of water while waiting for Hamish to return.

He did not keep her waiting very long.

Hamish arrived with a litter and the supplies Isabella had asked for, along with something else utterly unexpected.

M’Cuick had apparently come upon Hamish brewing the tea and had questioned him until he’d revealed what they were about.

Isabella met them outside the cave.

“Miss ...” M’Cuick began.

“If you’re going to tell me Calum won’t be pleased about this, Malcolm, I have no wish to hear it.” Her concern over the woman’s condition had steeled her resolve.

“Nae, miss. That isna what I was going to say at all. I was going to tell you if there was to be any retribution for bringing them to the castle, I would take it upon myself.”

“Oh.” Isabella smiled at him. “You needn’t worry, though. I don’t think there will be any question about it once Calum sees how in need these two truly are.”

She led them back inside the cave and waited while Hamish spoke to the woman, explaining who they were and why they had come. Her name, he translated, was Kettie Munro, and she had traveled there from Tain, from which she had been aimlessly wandering the moors for over six months.

Hamish and Isabella gathered up what little was worth keeping from the cave while M’Cuick gently picked up Kettie and carried her to the litter.

In the daylight, Kettie’s condition showed even more starkly.

It took them some time to return to the castle. Every bump and rut seemed to jar Kettie’s fragile bones, and though she fought to keep from crying out, the strain of it showed on her face. She was a brave woman. Isabella would very soon learn just how far that bravery extended.

The first thing Isabella did when they arrived back at the castle was hasten to her chamber to fetch Kettie some clean clothing. M’Cuick set to arranging a chamber for the two newcomers off the kitchen, where they would have the warmth of the cooking hearth to keep them, and would be close enough to see to throughout the day. Two small beds were set up with mattresses stuffed with heather and herbs, and laid with fresh linens. Then while M’Cuick went off to prepare one of his healing possets, Isabella helped Kettie into a much needed bath.

The Scotswoman was embarrassed at first, and fought with what little strength she had against having herself undressed, but Isabella did everything she could to preserve her modesty while reassuring her with words of comfort in Gaelic that Hamish had quickly taught her. She helped her to pull the soiled chemise over her head, promptly tossing it into the hearth, and then blinked back tears of dismay at the many sores that marred her skin, the absence of flesh that caused the skin to stretch dreadfully over her ribs and shrunken breasts.

But none of this caused her as much concern as the one that had her leaving Kettie to soak a moment while she went into the kitchen.

“She is with child.”

M’Cuick looked up from the pan of milk and whisky he was stirring over the fire. “Nae, lass ...” He shook his head. “She canna be.” And then, “You’re certain?”

Isabella nodded. “She’s far enough along that there is little doubt of it. And if her husband fell at Culloden as they have told us, it cannot possibly be his child. The only explanation I can come up with is ...”

She didn’t want to say what she thought had happened to the woman.

“She was raped?”

Isabella nodded solemnly. “How else could she have gotten with child? No doubt it was when the soldiers came and attacked her house. I’m not so sheltered to think such things are not happening all across the Highlands. There’s no telling the horrors she went through. Oh, God, Malcolm, do you think Druhan was there? Do you think he saw what happened to his mother?”

Tears were spilling from her eyes and her voice broke with emotion. M’Cuick left the fire to put a comforting arm about her shoulder.

“There’s no point looking back,” he said. “We canna do a thing about it. What we can do is see that she and her bairn are given the best of care now.”

Isabella looked up at him. He was right. They needed to see Kettie through to a healthy and safe future. She nodded slowly.

Isabella washed Kettie’s hair and scrubbed her skin with an herbal soap that M’Cuick had given her made with thyme and lousewort. It would kill any vermin and would also serve to help heal the sores that covered her body from having lain as she had, unmoving for so many days on that unhealthy pallet. M’Cuick kept a steady supply of the stuff for the prisoners they freed from the English hulks, who were often left for months in the most inhumane conditions.

By the time she’d finished, Kettie’s skin had begun to pink up and her hair glistened once again. She squeezed Isabella’s hand weakly, whispering a soft
“buidheachas”
that Bella needed no translation to understand.

Druhan, however, was less enthusiastic about his turn in the bath. He shook his head furiously when told, and then when Isabella tried to approach him, he darted underneath the huge trestle table in the kitchen and refused, absolutely refused to come out. It finally took M’Cuick snagging him by the ankles and hoisting him up, dunking him in the tub headfirst, to get him there.

The resulting yowl echoed throughout the castle, and even had Fergus’s dog, Fingal, bolting for the door.

After she’d helped Kettie from the bath, Isabella slipped one of her own chemises over her head and then took her to sit by the hearth fire, to sip on M’Cuick’s restorative posset while Isabella slowly and carefully combed the knots and tangles from her hair.

It was thus Calum found them when he walked into the kitchen a handful of moments later. He’d been summoned by the echo of Druhan’s cry. He stopped in the doorway. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to.

His expression said it all.

“Calum.”

Isabella stood, crossed the room to meet him. “Before you say anything, I would like to tell you that if there’s to be any recourse for having brought them to the castle, it should be directed at me. No one else. I am the one who insisted upon bringing them here.”

He looked at her. “The only
recourse
you’re to receive, lass, is my gratitude. Hamish told me everything. Had you not done what you have, I shudder to think what would have become of them.”

Isabella smiled, and blinked. “Thank you.”

She poured Calum a cup of tea and told him everything, including her suspicions about the origin of Kettie’s unborn child. When she’d finished, he sat for several moments, silent, thoughtful. Then he walked over to where Kettie yet sat by the fire, took her hand as he hunkered down before her, and spoke with her in private, hushed Gaelic.

“You were justified in your suspicions about the child,” he said to Isabella later, after they’d gotten Kettie and Druhan off to bed. Kettie had eaten very little, her stomach too weak to accept much more than a few spoonfuls of a thickened pap of meal and milk. Druhan, however, had eaten and then had asked for more, cleaning his trencher of M’Cuick’s kidney stew, three bannocks, and finishing off two servings of lemon pudding afterward. It was his reward, he’d been told, for submitting so “generously” to his bath.

The hour was late. They were sitting in Calum’s study, poring through the prisoner ledgers together. Calum had decided to tell Isabella the truth of his quest to uncover Uilliam’s whereabouts and free him before he was transported across the sea. Though Fergus would likely tell him he’d been a fool to trust her, after her undertaking on behalf of Kettie and her son, Calum couldn’t help but believe that he could trust Isabella with anything.

Including the one thing she deserved to know, but that he had purposely kept from telling her.

He would tell her about his brother.

“What will Kettie do?” Isabella asked, as Calum tried to think of the words to say to her.

Even though he had decided he would tell her the truth about Alec, he was reluctant, because he feared once he did, she would very likely leave. She would have to go to Alec to see if it was he who was the rightful holder of the stone. And once she did, she might never come back.

So he waited, allowing himself one last night with her.

“What else can she do?” he said. “Kettie will bear the child, and if it is a son, she will give it her husband’s name. She will tell Druhan that it was his father’s last gift to them. She will teach it to speak the Gaelic tongue and she will raise it as a Scot. It is the only thing she can do to prove to the English bastard who sired it and to the rest of the world that their brutality did not conquer her.”

“You hate the English so very much,” Isabella said, her voice nearly a whisper. It was not a question, rather a statement of fact.

“They killed my father, lass. They have imprisoned my foster father. They have violated my country in every manner possible. They have murdered our children, and they have raped the mothers of Scotland. They thieved the crown of my forefathers. I fear they will not rest until they have driven out, killed, or enslaved every last Scot.”

“I am English, Calum.”

“Aye?”

She looked at him, utterly hopeless. “Does this mean you hate me as well?”

Calum looked at her, just looked at her, and he felt something tighten inside of him, deep inside of him, deeper than he’d ever felt anything before. He gave her the only answer he could. He gave her the truth.

“I could never hate you, lass.”

Because the truth of it was, he was falling in love with her, every day a little more. From the moment she had arrived, she had captivated him just as she had captivated every man with him. The selflessness she’d shown in risking his anger to bring the rebel widow and her son into the castle was only one of the many reasons.

He loved her for the way she had so effortlessly conformed to their simple way of life at the castle, how she treated the men, every one of them with respect, breaching the barrier of English versus Scottish with just the soft curve of her smile.

He loved her belief, her utter belief in the legend of the Mackay stone, how she defended it, refusing to give it up even to him, how she hadn’t scoffed or ridiculed what could only seem to others as ridiculous.

He loved her for the way her hair curled softly around the back of her ear, how she tucked it there when she was reading.

He loved her for the way her eyes sparkled when she laughed.

He loved her.

It was the first time Calum had ever loved a woman. And it was that more than any other reason that brought him to turning his head, and brushing her lips with his.

He’d only meant to kiss her, softly and quickly, as a way of thanking her for the compassion she’d shown to Kettie and her son. But somehow that kiss got lost as he drew her into his arms and felt the warmth of her body calling for him.

She had dressed for the night in a delicate lawn nightdress covered only by a woolen wrap. And he looked at her before him as he slowly pulled away the tartan folds.

She didn’t move, just stayed there, staring at him with those blue eyes wide and wondering. He could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest beneath the stone that yet hung there, sparkling against her skin.

He took her hand, led her to the hearth, and urged her down to sit with him before the dancing light of the flames. She was nervous he could tell, perhaps a little frightened, but she lifted one hand and reached for him, touching the side of his face with her fingers, and coaxed him to kiss her again.

She opened her mouth to him, tasting him with her tongue in the way he had taught her as she lowered herself back to lie against the rug, taking him with her. Calum lingered above her, framing her face with his hands and staring down at her in the firelight.

She only seemed to grow more beautiful with each day that passed. Would that still be the same ten years on? Twenty? He would give anything to know.

He kissed her nose, her forehead, and her chin, then he trailed his mouth down along her jaw to nuzzle at her neck. Slowly, gently, he loosened the ties of her nightdress, listening to the soft expectant hush of her breath as he finished the last one and slowly, and with care, parted the fabric.