Leila did not sleep.
It was not solely because she had lied to Fergus.She felt as if her tale about her courses planted a stake between them, the beginning of a barrier that could quickly become an insurmountable wall.
She felt as if she had erred in beginning the construction of that obstacle.
On the other hand, she tired of his persistent consideration for beautiful Isobel.Even in death, the other woman drew his attention and his time.Leila suspected Fergus did not understand how difficult it had been for her to try to make allies in a strange land, with unfamiliar customs, where people spoke a language in which she was not fluent.She missed having a friend or a confidante, and though she had hoped that might be Fergus, it seemed that it was only abed that they had a perfect union.
The fact was that she would have done as much as she had done already and more besides, simply for the promise of winning his heart.Her determination faltered because she began to fear that his heart would never again be his to surrender.
Isobel had died with it securely in her grasp.
She knew from Radegunde that it had taken Duncan twenty years to dare to love again after the death of his beloved.Leila knew she was not so patient as that.
Did she desire too much too fast?Was she overly impatient?Perhaps her dutiful attempts to be the wife Fergus needed were not sufficient to win him truly.
Perhaps they never could be.
She would never be tall, beautiful or blond, after all.Aye, as Leila stared at the canopy overhead, her doubts redoubled and redoubled again.Should she tell him that she had conceived?She did not know.She was not even certain herself.She feared that Fergus would make theirs a marriage in truth, then, but for the sake of the child’s legitimacy, not out of any affection for her.
And she would be trapped in this land, trapped with a man who forever yearned for another, trapped amongst strangers.
Alone.
It was unlike Leila to be indecisive, but when it came to the matter of Fergus, she was torn.Could he ever come to love her?She was not interested in half-measures and she did not need his complete commitment immediately—what she did need was hope.She wanted her husband to be Fergus, and for Fergus to love her as completely as she loved him.She wanted their children to be conceived in love and raised in a loving household.She wanted all of him and was prepared to surrender all of herself.But though she made progress with others at Killairic, she felt that Fergus still regarded her as a comrade.
Was it true about the babes in his family all having red hair?Or had Fergus denied Gavin to avoid a confrontation with Stewart?Leila wished she knew.Could there be more to the matter than that?There might well be a custom of which she was ignorant.
She rolled over, vexed with her own endless questions.
Had Fergus lied to her about the import of the handfast?Leila doubted as much, but after Isobel’s words, she wondered.It was likely the other woman had intended to cause dissent, but that did not mean there was no truth to her words.
Leila exhaled mightily.The truth was that she was prepared to accept less for herself, in the hope of the future bringing more, but she was not willing to compromise the future of her child.She might be second-best, a substitute for the dead Isobel, but her child would not stand second to Gavin.She would leave Killairic, Scotland, and Fergus before she let her child grow up with the conviction that he or she was not good enough.
The possibility that she had conceived changed all for her.
Was that selfish?Did she make too emotional a choice?Leila’s thoughts spun and she knew it was because she had no anchor, no friend, no one to hear her worst fears and dispel them, either with laughter or practicality.She had no one in whom she could confide, no one she trusted fully, no one who would tell her when she was wrong.
She ached to see Aziza again, to talk to her just once, to pour out her worries and have her cousin laugh at her, then help her to see the solution.
Leila’s heart clenched and she closed her eyes against unwelcome tears, refusing to recall her parting from Aziza.She would think of her cousin’s life on this day instead.
It was yet dark here, but the first tinge of the sun was on the horizon.It would be morning at home by now and Leila envisioned her cousin there.Aziza would be in the kitchen, where the sun shone brightly in the morning, warming the room.Leila’s uncle would be in the adjacent smithy, greeting his neighbors and starting the fire in his forge.There would be the sound of horses being brought to the smithy, and those stabled there being fed by the two boys who worked for her uncle.
Karayan would be telling the woman who helped in the house what to do, though Noura knew her labor well enough.Noura would roll her eyes at his bossiness even as she complied.Aziza and Noura would have started the bread already and the house would be filled with the scent of it.Aziza would be playing with her son, Kamal, in the sunlight, and Noura would halt her tasks to admire the baby at such frequent intervals that Karayan would chide her for her laziness.They would bicker, as familiar with each other as a married couple, though in truth they were not.
Leila smiled, able to perfectly envision the house.
Kamal had been a new babe when Leila had touched her lips to his soft brow in farewell, the dark tangle of his baby hair tickling her face.He had chortled at her, his dark eyes wide, not understanding that they parted forever.
Kamal would be crawling by now, chubby with Aziza’s good care, strong and tall for his age.He had been a long baby, and even then, the cousins had agreed that Kamal would take after his father, Husain.
A handsome man and a hard worker, Husain was soft spoken and kind, as well as honorable.His eyes shone when he entered Aziza’s presence, and Leila’s cousin always smiled at the sight of her husband.The love between them had been so strong from the outset that it was clear they had been meant for each other.
How much would Kamal have grown by now?How much more silver was in Noura’s hair?Had Aziza conceived again?What of Husain?Was his business thriving?He had wanted to put his olive press in the house, a matter of great contention with Leila’s uncle, though Hakim well understood the urge to keep one’s eye upon one’s trade.She wondered if those two had found a solution.Aziza had been adamant that she would not move from her father’s home to her own.Perhaps Hakim had built that small addition to the back of the kitchens, as Karayan had quietly suggested one night as a compromise.
If only Hakim could have chosen such a good man for Leila as he had selected for his own daughter.
If only the cousins’ dreams of raising their children together could have come true.
