“And her old nurse and my own good wife watch over her now, so you’ve no cause to stare holes of wrath into the Yule log.”
Duncan’s brows snapped together. “I am not staring at anything, you great lout, I’m straining my ears for the cry of a bairn.”
He made a great sweeping gesture. “A near impossibility with all the buffoonery going on around us.”
“ItisYule,” Marmaduke reminded him, filling a mug with the warmed, spiced wine and handing it to Duncan. “Even one of your sour disposition should be able to tolerate a bit of revelry.”
“I do not care how many lasses are ravished this night, how loud the trumpets are blasted, how much roasted meat is consumed, how often every blithering fool in your hall shouts ‘Wassail!’ or ‘All hail the oldones!’ Nor do I care if they all dance so hard they fall on their faces,” Duncan declared, folding his arms when Marmaduke tried to offer him more hippocras.
“Tsk, tsk.” Marmaduke shrugged and set down the wine cup. “And I thought your fair lady wife had mellowed your temper.”
“And it is that fair lady who is on my mind, you dolt!” Running a hand through his dark hair, Duncan glanced again at the vaulted ceiling. “She is up there, mind you, and-”
A babe’s cry, faint but undeniable, sounded from above, fine and lusty enough to be heard over the din, its portent instantly wiping the dark frown from Duncan’s face.
A grin spreading across his own face, Marmaduke drew back his hand to give Duncan a hearty clap on the shoulder, but his friend was already sprinting across the hall toward the turnpike stair. Marmaduke ran after him, and, together, they took the winding steps three at a time.
The bairn’s wails grew louder the closer they came to Marmaduke’s and Caterine’s bedchamber, and the door burst open as they neared. “You have a fine bairn, my lord.” Caterine beamed upon seeing the MacKenzie laird. “A wee lassie with your dark hair and deep blue eyes.”
“A lassie?” Duncan’s eyes widened, his heart laid bare and smiling. “A wee lass?”
Caterine nodded, dashing away a tear. “And such a fine one. She is perfect…beautiful.”
But Duncan had already pushed past her into the room.
“She looks just like him,” she said, smiling up at Marmaduke, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. “Raven-black hair, and lots of it, a sweet rosebud mouth, and the deepest blue eyes.”
Pausing, she swiped the back of her hand across her cheek. “Ne’er have I seen a more lovely babe.”
His good eye watering as fiercely, Sir Marmaduke slung an arm around her and led her into the bedchamber, purposely hanging back in the shadows to allow his liege a few private moments with his wife and their new child.
As private as one could be with old Elspeth, the midwife, bustling about, hovering over the bed like a mother hen.
Worse, every fool from below now gathered in the corridor, straining their necks to catch a glimpse of the MacKenzies’ new bairn…some cheeky souls even pressing into the birthing room.
“I told you, you had naught to fret about, laddie,” Fergus declared, his scrawny chest puffed with pride. The cheekiest of the lot, he marched right up to the bed.
Leaning forward, the aged seneschal examined the child for a long moment, then turned to the merrymakers crowding the door. “A bonnier lass ne’er graced these hills,” he pronounced, and, with even more cheek, smoothed his gnarled hand down the side of the mother’s face. “As we knew she’d be, eh, lass?”
“…as we knew…?” Duncan grumbled beneath his breath, but even he couldn’t sound very fierce with a thick voice and over-bright eyes.
Joining them at the bedside, Caterine smiled down at her sister as Elspeth smoothed a damp, scented cloth over Linnet’s brow.
Pale and shadow-eyed, Linnet MacKenzie lay back against the pillows, her new daughter cradled in her arms.
“She is beautiful.” Caterine touched a finger to the babe’s teensy, pink hand, her heart swelling.
“Andyouare beautiful, my sister. I am so pleased to have you back.” Linnet reached for her hand. “You are not angry at me for…for…”
“For sending my champion?” Caterine glanced at him, her free hand straying to the large ruby ring hanging about her neck. “Nae, my dear, I only wish you had sent him sooner.”
Linnet nodded, clearly pleased. “And neither because I-”
“Because you kept a sweet secret from me?” Caterine reached out to stroke the black down crowning the babe’s head. “Nae, that, too, I understand,” she said, sending another look at her love, her heart squeezing when he wrapped an arm around her, drew her close.
“And you were right. Had I known, I would have come at once, and a certain champion would ne’er have known if I’d truly given him my heart.”
“And have you?” Linnet asked. “Do you love him as-” breaking off, she shot a quick glance at her own husband, “as we’d hoped you would?”
