She smiled at him. ‘A good one. A man who would be allowing me to finally have a choice in my future. I have no desire to be a wife, sir. I find marriage did not suit me. It would be unkind for me to allow you to marry me and keep you from your heart’s desire. Do you understand?’
He studied her. ‘You are sure?’
She nodded.
After an agonising minute, he answered. ‘I will agree to release you from our engagement upon one term.’
‘And what is that?’
‘You will promise me that if your situation with Laird McKenna changes, even in the slightest, and you are in need of me for protection in any way, that you will send word. Immediately.’ His voice was hard, unflinching, and his features tight. ‘Do you promise?’
She swallowed hard. Such an offer was unimaginable, but he was a gentleman, a protector, and he seemed unable to offer less. ‘I do not entirely understand why you feel so bound to grant me such protections, but aye. I agree to such a term.’
He released a breath. ‘Then I release you, and I will tell your father, so you can make your own choice. And I wish you every happiness, Mrs Fraser.’
‘And I you, sir.’
With a quick bow, he was gone, and she stood stunned. She watched him disappear through the meadow, walking with ease through the tall grass. His solid, steady form assured of his future. Still clutching his linen handkerchief in her hand, she stared blankly after him. What would it feel like to be so sure, so very certain, of one’s future? To know that it bent to your pleasure? She shoved the handkerchief into her dress pocket, determined to find out. Moira turned and stared back towards the castle, eager to find and speak with Laird Rory McKenna, but he was gone.
Where had he disappeared to?
Her stomach dropped and her fingers tingled. What would she do if she suddenly went from having two possible husbands to none? While she might have wished such just an hour ago, now fear had replaced those wishes. Father was desperate to secure her a union. He no longer cared who with, which meant she could end up with a man as horrible as Peter...she swallowed hard...or, heaven help her, worse.
Chapter Six
Rory blanched and breathed in the cool, crisp autumn air outside Glenhaven Castle. He sucked in air through his teeth willing the abdominal spasms to pass. Breaking his fast with a plate of boiled eggs and sausage after meeting with Mrs Fraser this morn had seemed a good idea at the time, but now he wasn’t so sure. He wasn’t used to such a feast and then seeing Laird Garrick MacLean so openly attending to Mrs Fraser right after consuming such a meal had left him unsteady and uncertain, a feeling he despised. He’d carried on his walk to the other side of the meadow to distract himself and to disappear from her sight while he collected his thoughts and his stomach.
Before the first tournament event of the day began, he had hoped to speak with Laird Stewart to ensure his engagement to Mrs Fraser was secured. But keeping down his morning meal was a requirement for such a meeting. The old man was no fool and from what Rory had heard the laird had a temper. He’d waste no time on a man who was not only dying but casting up his accounts on his castle floors.
Clenching his fists by his sides, Rory swallowed down the sickness which burned the back of his throat. These bouts had become more frequent over the last year. Rory’s bitter memories of watching his father waste away to nothing when he was but a boy washed over him in a chilled wave. All the desperate prayers he had spoken hoping his father would be healed. Whispered pleadings with his uncle to explain why his father would never be well. The tears Father had ordered him not to shed after his passing and the promises that he would not have a similar fate still echoed in his ears. Father had been so certain that the curse would stop with him and that Rory would have the life of happiness he and Mother had missed out on.
‘Do not worry yourself, my son. You will live the lifetime I have not. Have the brood of babes your mother and I were meant to. Happiness will be yours. Forget about this nonsense of curses. You are strong, Rory, for you are our boy. Our son. This will not be your fate.’
Rory could still feel the trembling, frail fingers of his father lightly touching his cheek, the cool signet ring chilling his skin before his father drifted away from him for ever. A breeze ruffled his coat and Rory shivered. Yet, here he was. A grown man who was sick, anxious and unable to control his body, his health or his future.
Rory swallowed hard. He was a mirror of his father.
Mrs Fraser carried on in the distance into the fields heading towards the next competition where men were readying themselves for the hammer throw. Determination carried her along. He could spy it in the furrow of her brow and rigid, strong set of her shoulders. Her cloak whipped behind her as it caught another breeze. Seeing her with Laird MacLean had thrust an unexpected question upon him. One he’d not really thought upon, mostly because he had not wished to. And he wondered if his father and those McKennas before him had experienced this same moment of hesitation, guilt and uncertainty before they’d met and bound themselves to their future wives.
Did he have the right to bring his sickness and the agony of his untimely death upon Mrs Moira Fraser? While he had felt so certain and sure that he was doing something to help her and fulfilling his duty to secure an heir, was he lying to himself? Was he doing it so he wouldn’t be alone in his final days? And didn’t a lovely woman such as her, who held hidden sorrows from her first marriage, deserve more?
Aye. She did.
Yet, he’d made a promise to her, and he’d not break it unless she too did not wish to go further in their arrangement.
‘Seems you have made quite an impression upon my eldest daughter.’
Rory stilled and then turned slowly. Laird Bran Stewart stood beside him and studied the horizon. Perhaps he’d been watching Rory stare out upon his daughter with questions and concerns about her future as well.
‘Laird Stewart,’ Rory answered in greeting. ‘It is she who has made quite an impression upon me. Mrs Fraser is a remarkable woman. One that I hope to one day soon call wife.’
The old man sniffed, but continued to gaze far out into the distance as he crossed his arms against his chest. ‘What kind of man proposes to a vibrant woman knowing full well he will die, leaving her unable to care and fend for herself?’ He turned, setting the full ire of his scowl upon him.
Rory nodded and met Laird Stewart’s glare, determined to ask the question he most desired an answer to, although he doubted the man would give it. ‘And I wonder what would make a woman, as intelligent, kind and beautiful as she, so willing and so eager to acceptmyproposal. The proposal of a dying man.’
Laird Stewart’s brow rose and colour flushed his neck. ‘I’d be careful of how you speak of my daughter.’
Rory hadn’t expected to hit quite a nerve. His curiosity won over any desire he should have held to please a possible future father-in-law. When the man didn’t say more, Rory pressed on. ‘I think quite the world of her, sir, despite our limited encounters, otherwise I would not have proposed. I am just unsure of why she wishes to abandon any hope of a more permanent union with a man who could provide her a longer commitment. We spoke openly of my situation, and it seems she finds my limitations the most promising of attributes of all the men at this tournament. It came as quite the surprise, even to me.’
