“I wonder what he saw. T’would be good to ken what was odd,” Bethoc said as she began to unpack the food she had brought.
“I will be sure to ask him when he returns. Um, where is wee Margaret?”
Bethoc grimaced. “Colin has her again. He swore he would ne’er leave her alone and made me leave her behind. It still feels odd to nay be carrying her weight. And I am trying to nay think about her. ’Tis best if there is some separation now that she is growing older.”
“But ye probably willnae stay long, either. Like last time.”
Bethoc leaned against him. “Foolish. I ken it. Colin is a good lad and she has obviously decided she likes him. Yet all I can see is those four wee babes and think on how, if I hadnae been there for her birth, there could have been five. I must teach myself nay to cling to her with the idea that I am just keeping her safe.”
He turned her face up to his and brushed a kiss over her mouth. “Ne’er think on what-ifs, lass. What if I turned right instead of left, I might nay have been caught. And beaten. And had my leg broken. For everything that happens there are many what-ifs. They dinnae matter. Ye were there and she has lived to be a fine little lass who demands kisses on her forehead for being a smart lass.”
She laughed and nodded. “True enough.” She lightly patted his broken leg. “I think I have come up with a better way to wrap your leg and will bring the things I need on the morrow if I can.”
“This serves. I can now put some weight on it. Just a wee bit, enough to make moving about a lot easier, but I ken it will get better.”
“Aye, but what I have planned will serve better, I am certain of it. It will hold it more firmly. Although, as ye say, ye are healing nicely.”
“Will it make it easy to ride with?”
“Ah, aye.”
She did not like to think of him leaving, which was foolish. The man could not remain captive in a cave so that she could visit him now and then. He was a laird, after all, and must be eager to get back to his lands and his people. He had a rich life somewhere else he needed to get back to. Now that his friends had found him, he would gather up Cathan and go as soon as he could ride. Knowing that, she settled against him, enjoying the closeness that would soon be gone. She tried not to think on how much she would miss it.
“Ye could come with me,” he said, shocking himself for a moment, then realizing it was what he wanted. “Ye and all the others.”
“Ye cannae take eight others with ye. E’en with your friends, there isnae enough room. And what would ye do with eight strays plus Cathan?”
He idly wondered why he was not relieved that she obviously saw his suggestion as no more than a kindness. He should be. It was a large responsibility to take on and he had enough of those. Nor was he sure of just why he was so reluctant to say thank ye and walk away from her.
“I have a lot of strays at my keep. I collect them,” he added, and smiled.
She leaned back a little and frowned at him. “Ye collect them?”
“Aye. When I was a child I swore I would always protect the wee ones. I was a child of the streets after my mother died. A feral boy, Payton called me, and I was certainly that. Got taken up by an evil mon and, at eleven, was close to being killed because I was getting too old and too rebellious, but the mon’s wee wife saved me. She got me and several others out of there and got Payton to help us even while she was still wet from her husband trying to drown her. Fool forgot she could swim.
“Ye wonder on how I understand what is happening. Weel, I lived it, Bethoc. And so much worse. If not for Payton and Kirstie I would be long dead.” He gave her a quick kiss when he saw the sadness she could not hide. “But I survived and have done verra weel ’til now. I found my true family and my grandfather turned out to be a laird. My father was his only son. It saddens me that my father was killed but at least I ken he had handfasted with my mother first so I wasnae a bastard cast aside like too many are.”
“So ye were legitimate? That must have eased your mind.”
“Nay at first for I didnae ken the worth of it, but, aye, it did. Grandfather and I got along weel and I ended up living with him. He died a few years ago and I was his heir. So, I am now a laird. ’Tis an odd thing to get accustomed to. Cannae forget where I began so am often astounded by it.”
She smiled. “I suspicion ye are a verra good laird and none care where ye began.”
“T’would seem so. I do wonder at where your mother began. She was at court, after all, when she met Brett so she must have come from a good family, one with standing enough to be invited to court.”
Bethoc frowned. “I have little knowledge of her beginnings. There were things said from time to time that implied she had married beneath herself, or wouldnae have if she hadnae been with child. I think my father may have been paid to take her as a wife.”
“What was her maiden name?”
“I dinnae ken.”
“She ne’er told ye?”
“Nay but that may be because she felt her family was lost to her. Also, my mother was nay weel. She could, weel, drift away a lot of the time. Ye could see her eyes go cloudy and then there was no talking to her. Or, if ye tried, her answers made no sense. I used to fear I would become like her but then, weel, I realized she was just broken and I didnae ken how to fix her.”
“Sometimes it cannae be done. The dreams are so much better they cannae leave them to face what life really is. I have seen it happen. Sometimes what is broken stays broken.”
“I ken it and she did, right up until she birthed Margaret and then, for one bright moment, she was clear-eyed and fierce.”
