The Firebrand (28 page)

“Aye, and he is not too happy, they’re saying in the kitchens. Sir Wyntoun has been asking all kinds of questions in the Great Hall about what ye have and have not been doing these days.”

One more day, Adrianne had promised herself tonight. At the most, perhaps two. She simply had to stay here until Gillie was well enough to leave his bed. Once the boy was fit, then she could carry on with the rest of this masque she and Wyntoun had devised. Right now, though, she was too tired to think about such complex issues.

“And who would blame him, I’m telling ye,” Bege was saying as she crossed to the brazier. Adrianne watched the woman put another block of peat on the fire. “Whoever heard of a bride refusing her husband’s bed? staying clear of him? Tsk, lassie! Ye ought to be ashamed!”

Though Adrianne wasn’t about to set Bege straight, in truth it was Wyntoun who was staying clear, she thought. A week had passed, and she was yet to catch a glimpse of him in this chamber. True, there were excuses. Alan cheerfully delivered them every day. Wyntoun had to go north, to check on the rebuilding of the gristmill that had burned. Or south, to see to the peat cutting. Or west, to look at horses, or at sheep, or to hunt, or…whatever. She had become convinced days ago that he would go anywhere to avoid coming up here and checking on Gillie. Or on her…not that it truly mattered.

She was just too tired to care. Too weary to take notice. At least, this was what she needed to keep reminding herself.

Their wedding night, apparently, did not exist. Their ride to the bluffs overlooking the moonlit loch was nothing but a dream. What she’d felt in his arms must have been just an illusion. And that matter that Mara kept reminding her of—the need to take a firm hand in curbing ‘those wenches’ and their interest in Wyntoun—could only be a distressing nightmare.

She leaned forward with her face buried in her hands as the old servant continued to busy herself in the room. Her body ached from lack of rest. She hadn’t slept in a real bed for days. The buzzing, jumbled mess in her brain would undoubtedly remain as it was for the rest of her days. No matter, she would just keep up the pretense of being a responsible individual. Maybe someday, she would truly deserve Gillie’s devotion.

All of this should have been so easy, but she was just so confused...so tired.

“Bege, I would like you to spend the night here with Gillie.”

Adrianne was jerked out of her stupor by the sound of her husband’s voice.

“I will, m’lord. I have been making the same offer to the mistress here, every night.”

Dried mud covered his boots and legs, and his tartan and shirt were spattered as well from the travel. But even so—she felt the tightening in her belly—Wyntoun MacLean looked perfectly magnificent.

Adrianne straightened in the chair as her husband moved across the chamber. He did not look her way. He did not even acknowledge her presence. Wyntoun strode to the bed, studying the sleeping lad for a long moment before running a gentle hand over Gillie’s hair.

“How is he doing?”

Bege was quick to volunteer an answer. “He seems to be doing much better today, m’lord. Jean the midwife came by this morn, and she said so herself. In fact, the laddie ate some bannock soaked in barley water, and even managed to keep down a wee bit of oat brose while sitting up, he did.” The woman frowned at Adrianne around the Highlander’s broad shoulders. “Though I wish I could give ye the same encouraging news about this jimp-faced taupie ye married.”

“Keep a civil tongue, Bege,” he growled.

Then, for the first time since entering the room, he looked at her, and Adrianne felt her heart stop. The chamber walls swayed in an odd way for a moment, and suddenly she was aware only of the wild pounding in her chest…and him. Wyntoun’s green eyes were gazing into hers, searching, on his face a reproving scowl.

It hardly mattered, though, that after so many days he still appeared to be angry with her. The sensation…the worry…that dominated her brain right now focused on the way her entire body had come alive at his mere presence. In the way her insides suddenly ached at the thought of how much she had missed him over these past few days.

“And you, Adrianne, are sleeping in
our
chambers this night.”

“But Gillie--”

Bege was quick to jump in, her tone now curiously polite. “I’ve already told Sir Wyntoun that I’ll spend the night right here beside the lad’s bed, mistress. He is faring much better. Whatever he’ll be needing, I’ll be right here to give it to him.”

“I--” She started to complain, but Wyntoun’s glare was direct and dangerous.
Our
chambers, he’d made a point of saying. For her to refuse would be the same as openly refusing Wyntoun himself. The same as publicly renouncing her marriage. Adrianne gnawed at her lip a moment, considering the consequences. She would be leaving after this ordeal, but he would stay. It would be wrong to undermine his authority by refusing him now.

She sighed. And who said she didn’t think her actions through?

“If you are quite certain that you don’t mind,” she said to Bege before slowly rising to her feet. “But you must promise to fetch me if his sleep becomes troubled…or if the fever returns!”

“Aye, mistress. That I will. Ye needn’t fear at all.” The servant cheerfully ushered her toward the door.

Adrianne was certain she knew the old woman’s mind. Auld Bege surely couldn’t wait to take this news to Mara. She puffed out her cheeks and cast a glance over her shoulder at Gillie…and at Wyntoun, still standing beside the bed.

“I’ll be along, Adrianne,” he said, nodding sternly toward the door. “You go ahead.”

As she made her way along the corridor to the spiral stairwell, her weariness struck her hard. Her knees wobbled as she took the first step down. Her body felt sluggish and weak for lack of activity and the absence of food. Even her clothes felt weighted down, as if they were wet and her pockets filled with stones. Adrianne leaned one hand against the wall to control her descent as a strange wave of lightheadedness struck her suddenly.

“And would this not be another fine thing for the clanfolk to blame on Gillie?”

Adrianne let out a gasp of surprise as she found herself swept off the stairs and lifted into her husband’s arms. She clutched at his neck as her head continued to whirl with the suddenness of his action. “What...what could Gillie be blamed for?”

She stared at his profile as he descended the stairs. Even in the shadowy darkness of the stairwell, she could see his furrowed brow, his brooding expression.

“Is it not bad enough that there are rumors claiming Gillie is sucking the life out of you to build up his own strength? Now, if you had fallen down these steps for any reason, there would be an outcry that the poor lad surely pushed you as punishment for leaving his side.”

“What gibberish!” she cried incredulously. “What is this nonsense?

With a shrug of his broad shoulders, he continued down the stairs.

“You can put me down, you know,” she said. “I am perfectly capable of walking on my own.”

“Humor me. I am actually enjoying this.”

Something softened inside Adrianne, but she tried to not read too much into his words. She held him tightly, and made no further comment about him carrying her. The masculine scent of the sea and leather was intoxicating, and it must have been exhaustion, she thought, for she laid her head against his chest as they exited the stairwell at the ground floor of the keep.

Her voice was quiet. “How could people think such foolishness about Gillie?”

“My people are simple folk…”

“I am no more than a simple person, myself,” she interrupted, raising her head and looking into his face. “Tell me a reason.”

His eyes were gentle, but he said nothing. A few more steps brought them to his chambers…
their
chambers. As he pushed open the door to the outer chamber with his shoulder, Adrianne again felt the threads of heat coiling and burning in her middle. Suddenly, she wondered if he intended to continue on from where they had left off on their wedding night.

She had not prepared herself. By the Virgin, she didn’t even know what she needed to
do
to prepare herself. Oh, this was all becoming so confusing!

“Naturally, you have been causing it all, unknowingly.”

Instantly alert, she lifted herself in his arms and stared into his face. “What do you mean,
I
have been causing it?”

He pushed open the door to their bedchamber with his foot.

“Caring for someone and sacrificing yourself are not always one and the same thing.”

He dropped her on the bed, and she scrambled to sit up as he stood over her.

“Now you are trying to rile my temper!” She pushed back his hands as they reached under her for the bedclothes. “Stop these riddles. Instead, explain yourself.”

Ignoring her, he simply knocked her arms away, making her fall backwards again onto the down-filled mattress.

“And here, I thought you were so tired that I could just take advantage of you without any complaining.”

Her mouth went instantly dry. “Take advantage of me?”

“Aye, of course, take advantage.” The twitch at the corner of his mouth was too obvious to go unnoticed. “Lecture you. Push you about. Have you sit quietly and listen to my commands with the utmost respect and submissiveness.” He reached under her and pulled back the coverings. She found herself lying on linens as he took one of her feet in his hand and began removing her shoe. Stunned, she watched in disbelief as he tossed one and then the other to the floor. Nonchalantly, he pushed back her skirts to the knee and pulled the tie of her garter, stripping off her hose in a single movement.

With a sniff, Adrianne gathered up all the dignity she could muster and sat up, tucking her bare feet under her.

“If you consider this lecturing, Wyntoun MacLean, then you must have been a poor student.”

“Perhaps you should make that decision once you’ve heard the entire lesson.”

Adrianne’s face burned, a reaction that was unaccountable to her, considering the chills that were racing through her body.

“You’re distracting me! Tell me whatever ‘twas you were going to say about Gillie.”

He stood over her, his fists resting on his kilted hips. “After your initial foolishness—behaving as you did the night we found the lad—what you have been doing for him has been most admirable. But…” He paused, unfastening his long sword from his wide leather belt and laying it aside. “But my people do not know you as I do. They cannot understand that there is no going part of the way in anything you do in life.”

Adrianne raised an eyebrow. In a way, that all sounded somewhat complimentary. She shook her head. “I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with Gillie sucking the life out of me. I am here, well and alive!”

“You do not understand because you are not listening,” he said gruffly. “Can you not see that by spending endless days and nights beside the boy, by allowing no one else to take care of him, you are excluding those whom he will truly need in his life? Like it or not, Adrianne, ‘tis the people of Clan MacLean that he will be living among and working with as he grows older. These folk—and not you—are the ones whose acceptance—whose affection—he needs to win. But more importantly, he needs to have their trust.”

Adrianne didn’t want to think about Gillie on his own again, and she fought back the knot that suddenly rose in her throat. Nay, even at the thought of Gillie, powerless against the buffets of a world that could sometimes be so cruel and ignorant, she would not give in to the hot tears welling up in her eyes.

His voice was softer as he continued. “Aye, you look away, but you know what I say is true. And to make matters worse, what do you do while you are up there caring for him? I’ll tell you. You stop caring for yourself. You give no attention to your own health. And what are these castle folk going to think when all they know is that the new bride of their master appears bewitched? And not by her husband—as they would expect—but by a wee lad who looks as strange as any creature they have seen in their lives.”

Wyntoun reached out and took a hold of her chin and drew her face around until their eyes met. “They think that Gillie is the cause, that there must be dark magic at work here, since not one of them understands the change in you.”

She pushed away his hand as the tears finally escaped. “If they are all so blind, then they don’t deserve to have Gillie among them.”

“Tell me then, where
does
he belong?”

“With me!” she cried, stabbing away the tears. “I’ll take him…wherever I go! I’ll take care of him.”

“And you think this is the way for a lad to grow into manhood? You think this will make a happier life for him? To go through life having no place to call as his own—having no clan that he can belong to?” As she heard him voice the echoes of her own thoughts, Wyntoun sat on the bed and leaned toward her. “Adrianne, do you truly believe that Gillie can be happy hiding behind your skirts anytime life rises up to challenge him?”

“I can protect him! I can keep him safe until he can fight for himself.”

“Listen to me, woman. Gillie does not need protection as much as he needs acceptance. Hiding him away from all these people is not the answer. He needs to be a part of his people. They have to see that he is no different than the rest of them. ‘Tis the only way for the lad.”

The tears continued to fall, but through her misery she started to hear his logic. Despite all of her desire to protect him, she could see the sense behind his words. After all, she herself had been different from her sisters in so many ways, and yet her family had never tried to shield her from the world that she wanted to experience. True, she had taken some hard knocks, but she was better for them. Of course, no one had ever tried to feed her to the fish.

She found herself hugging her knees—her face buried in the soft wool of her skirts. Her breathing was growing erratic as hiccups and sobs began to wrack her body. Never in her entire life, Adrianne thought vaguely, could she remember falling apart as she was right now.

“I am a miserable failure…in everything I do!”