‘How are your lessons coming?’ Jocelyn asked. As the woman’s blush deepened and she stammered, Jocelyn knew her words had been taken wrongly. ‘Your reading and writing lessons? From Ciara?’ she clarified.
‘Forgive me, my lady,’ she said. ‘I thought you meant...But then you could not have meant... Forgive me,’ she said. Catriona offered a seat in one of the chairs and then went to the pantry, still mumbling under her breath.
‘A cup of water, if you please, Catriona,’ she called out.
Soon they sat together in the silence.
‘The last time we spoke, it was a difficult time for you. How do you fare now?’ she asked.
‘I thank you for your help when Gowan died, my lady. He was a good man and he sav...’ Catriona paused then for a moment. ‘He was a good man.’
Had she started saying that Gowan had saved her? Jocelyn wondered about that, but let it go for now.
‘My son said you refused him while Gowan yet lived?’
‘Aye, my lady, I did. I held true to the vows I spoke with Gowan. No matter what the rumours,’ she said. Catriona shifted in her chair and drank from the cup.
‘Were you forced to this? Did he, did Aidan, pressure you to this?’ Jocelyn motioned her hand to the house. ‘I pray you, tell me true and do not try to protect him. I know my son and he can be...persuasive when it comes to women and filling his bed.’
If she was shocked by Jocelyn’s candour, the woman did not show it. Instead, she answered the personal and prying, her son would call them, questions in a calm, thoughtful manner, keeping her dignity as she was questioned about things a mother rarely spoke of to her son’s woman.
‘His guilt caused him to arrange this house. I ken he thinks that his pursuit of me robbed me of house and home, but I think that would have happened on Gowan’s death, no matter.’
Catriona had no idea of the true part in her husband’s death that Aidan had played. If she did...
‘But I gain so much from this arrangement, my lady. A house for my use as long as I need it. An education in letters and numbers that someone like me would never have had. And a short respite from grief and pain.’
‘A short respite? Is he leaving you?’ He had tired of women quickly, moving from one to another in a ceaseless process over these last several years. But surely not already?
Catriona stood then and walked to the open door. Staring out it, she shook her head and then met Jocelyn’s gaze.
‘Oh, nay, not yet,’ she said softly. Taking a breath and letting it out, she turned and faced her. ‘But I know you seek a wife for him and I know he must marry soon. And, lady, I know my place and it will not be at his side.’
Jocelyn stood and walked to her side now. Her heart hurt somehow at this woman’s sense of how things would work. There was no regret or shame in her voice, no disrespect in her tone. But there was also no hope, only a clear understanding of Aidan’s future and her own separate one.
‘Worry not, if that is what brought your visit here,’ Catriona said. ‘I will make no demands on him. There can be no bairns and I will not keep him from what he must do.’ She smiled then, a watery one, and she shrugged. ‘You see, I am taking advantage of all he offers me even while you think he takes too much from me. I will leave here with a skill and some coin to ease my way wherever I go.’
‘Does he know this? Does he know you will not stay?’ Jocelyn asked.
‘I have told him so, but you know men, my lady. He hears only what he chooses. But we women know how it must be,’ she finished.
What struck Jocelyn in that moment was that in different circumstances a woman like Catriona would have been the perfect wife for her son. And the sadness of that revelation brought tears to her own eyes. Blinking them away, she walked to the door. She took Catriona’s hand in hers.
‘If you have need of anything, you have but to call on me and I will do whatever I can to help you. Do you understand?’
‘I thank you for your generosity, my lady. But I will not have need to call on you. I know what I’m doing.’
Jocelyn looked into the face of the woman her son loved and who loved her son and nodded, knowing she would not argue the point. The offer had been made and Jocelyn would honour it.
‘Good day, Catriona. My thanks for your hospitality.’
She walked away quickly, the tears that had threatened pouring down her face now. Jocelyn waited until she turned the corner and Catriona would not see her before tugging a linen square from her sleeve and mopping her eyes and face. By the time she entered the gates, she had herself under control. She spied her husband standing in the place high on the walls of the keep in the spot he liked because he could see all the comings and goings.
Jocelyn must speak to him now. He must know what they were up against.
* * *
Connor watched as she walked with purpose towards the stairway that would bring her to him. This was a place where they could speak without being heard. This was a place where they could do other things without being seen as well.
