‘And I have.’ She stood then. ‘But I must be doing something wrong if Dougal thought...’
‘Men will think what they want,’ Jamie said. ‘I just did not want you misunderstanding, or worse, missing the signs he or any other might be giving you. With no experience in such matters, it would be easy enough to misunderstand.’
‘I thank you for your concern and your help.’ Feeling overwhelmed by all of these new concerns, Sorcha needed to be alone. ‘I am just going outside for a few minutes,’ she said as she grabbed up her cloak and threw it around her shoulders.
They did not speak or try to stop her as she left. Though the moon was bright enough, she would not dare wander too far down any road away from the cottage. She did not have the surefootedness that Dougal and the others who’d lived here their whole lives did. As she walked away, she heard whisperings within the cottage and knew that Clara and Jamie now argued over her.
Sorcha found a bench next to a tree near Jamie’s smithy and sat there, listening to the sounds of night around her. During the day, Jamie would sit here cool from the unrelenting heat of the forge. Clara and the bairns sat here to watch Jamie work. Sitting here now, Sorcha realised how significantly different it was for her.
She’d never been permitted to simply sit outside by herself when she was still at home. There was always a servant or maid or guard or relative to accompany her every venture from the safety of the castle. Here, she could sit by herself in the quiet for as long as she wanted. Or as long as she needed, in this case.
Leaning against the tree, she loosened her braids and ran her hands through her hair to release it. Undone, it flowed over her shoulders and down to her hips in waves of brown so dark a shade that it sometimes looked black. Disguised as a widow, she wore it covered, but at home it would be loose like this, wearing only a circlet to hold a small veil in place.
She would be the first to admit that letting it loose would be dangerous as she worked alongside Clara cooking or caring for the bairns. Now though, with the cooler breezes rustling through it, she enjoyed the freedom for this short respite. Since no one could see her, there would no harm done.
Not like the harm that could be done if she were not more careful during her stay here. Sorcha closed her eyes and tried to remember back to a time when she lived her own life—an orderly, comfortable life.
To the time before her mother warned her.
To a time when she knew who she was and what she would do. She could see her mother’s taut and pain-filled expression as she explained her plan to free Sorcha from the bonds that her father would inflict on her. Before her mother died.
Before Padruig died helping her carry out her mother’s plan.
Was this God’s punishment for rebelling against the role she should have played? The one of dutiful daughter, obedient to her father’s will. The one of the nobleman’s heir who would marry to cement alliances. The woman who did and said what a woman was supposed to. Was she so foolish as to think that she could thwart those who were in power over her?
Her mother told her she was strong. That she could take care of herself. That she could live a life of honour and loyalty and courage. At this moment, she’d never felt so weak and frightened. And lonely. When the tears came, she could not stop them. Gathering her legs up under her gown, Sorcha wrapped her arms around her knees, leaned her head down and let them flow.
* * *
The soft sobbing echoed across the clearing and brought him to a halt. He thought his sight had adjusted to the moonlight and yet he could not see the source of the sound. Alan was close to Jamie’s cottage and remembered the wooden bench that his friend positioned under the large tree across from the smithy. They’d drank many cups of cold water or cool ale under that tree after working close to the powerful fires in the forge.
Now though, it was the place where someone, where Mistress MacPherson, sat crying.
He was reluctant to invade her private moments, but she seemed in true distress. He walked several paces closer, not caring about the noisy steps he took, waiting for her to hear him and raise her head. When she did not, Alan knew he must break the silence and seek to aid her.
‘Mistress?’ he said softly. ‘Mistress MacPherson? Are you well?’
The crying ceased then and he thanked the Almighty for he could not bear to see a woman crying. She slowly lifted her head from where she’d rested it and rubbed her arm across her face, first in one direction and then the other. Then her voice whispered in reply, carried like mist on the wind to him where he waited.
‘Nay.’
So many choices ran through his mind in the moment after that one word. Alan’s first reaction was to go to her, pull her into his arms and soothe whatever fears or ailments afflicted her. His next reaction was the opposite to that—he should bid her a good night and walk all the way back to the keep without seeking out Jamie as he’d planned. Rather than the one extreme or the other, he chose the middle path.
‘Is there anything I can do? Should I fetch Clara for you?’
An offer of help without forcing his way into her private matters. He thought that was what she would want him to do. Her next word ruined his chance of being successful and of walking away before he acted on the growing desire he felt for her.
‘Nay.’ And then nothing else.
She was sitting there in the dark, in the night, under a tree. He could not tell whether she was looking at him or not, for the shadows under the tree’s branches were too deep for the moonlight above them to illuminate her.
‘So, you are not well, you do not wish me to aid you and you do not want your cousin either?’ he clarified her answers with his questions.
‘I just want to be alone,’ she said after a long sigh. Her voice gave every sign that she was not being truthful.
Now that she knew of his presence, he walked closer and could finally see her better. She did not appear to be ill or harmed. Then he noticed that her hair fell around her like a fine, silken curtain, covering her form all the way down to the bench’s surface. Alan’s hands wanted to touch it and he began to reach out just before gaining control over himself and those wayward hands.
‘Then, I will leave you,’ he said. It was the smartest thing to do—leave a woman alone when she told you to do so. But her voice had trembled and was filled with uncertainty and sadness when she’d spoken. Surprising even himself, Alan walked to the bench and sat next to her. ‘If that is what you want?’
