“In the beginning, but nay always. Yet I still said naught.” She sighed and shook her head. “When I was older I should have questioned.”
“And what would ye have accomplished?”
She frowned at him. “Weel, I would have kenned the truth.” And been heartily beaten for it but she decided that was not something to tell this man.
“But what would ye have done with it? Sent the lads home? They say they dinnae e’en ken if they have one. Would ye go through the whole village asking people if they had lost a boy?”
“He cannae just snatch up a bairn as he pleases and put them to work for him. ’Tis nay right.”
Callum smiled faintly, thinking her quite striking in her outrage. “I ken it and he will, or should be, punished for what he has done.”
“I dinnae see how,” she said. “If they are naught but boys tossed on the streets, who will care? Aye, he took them but all would say he gave them a home and work. Under his harsh fist. Another thing I did naught about.”
Guilt, Callum thought as he fought the urge to stroke her hair. He recognized guilt. He had suffered it often enough. If only for Cathan’s sake, he needed to give her some confidence and strength to keep on doing exactly what she had been doing. She had cared for those boys and, he had no doubt, shielded them from her father. He needed to revive that strength.
“Your father beats ye, aye, lass?” he asked quietly. “Ye have the bruises and swelling that comes from some hard slapping. Does it to the boys, too, aye?”
“Aye.” Bethoc tried to show the humiliation she felt over confessing that.
He took a deep breath to still his anger and then took a risk, reaching forward to take her hands in his. “Bethoc, look at me,” he said quietly, and waited until she did. “Ye are a wee lass. I suspicion ye have lived under the mon’s fists all your life and learned as a child that the best way was the quiet way. Dinnae say anything that might make him angry. Dinnae do anything that might stir his temper. Aye?”
Bethoc did not want to admit it. Yet, as she stared into his green eyes, she saw understanding. Glancing down at their joined hands, she finally nodded.
“’Tis nay an excuse though,” she muttered.
“Och, ’tis and the best of ones. Children learn the lesson quickly and weel. They learn to be quiet in speech and movement, to do what is ordered quickly, and e’en when to hide. And they often learn to hide verra weel. Dinnae fault yourself for it.”
She looked at him. “Ye seem to ken a lot about such things.”
He smiled fleetingly. “A bit. I have seen a lot in my time. Now, how many lads has your father got?”
“He is nay my father.” She was shocked that she had said that but then realized she had wanted it known.
“Nay your father? Did he take ye as weel?”
“Nay. He married my mother but he is nay my father. She was already carrying me when they wed. I have wondered on that, once I kenned he wasnae my father, for t’was a strange thing for him to do. But when my mother was dying, after she had Margaret, she told me the truth. She made me swear to watch over Margaret and never leave her. She was verra adamant about that.” She glanced toward where the little girl sat watching the horse.
“And ye havenae, have ye?”
“Nay, and when I thought on it, weel”—she shrugged—“it gave me some verra dark ideas as to why she would ask that.”
He nodded, easily imagining the thoughts she had. “Do ye ken who your father is?”
“What difference does it make? I will find him when ’tis time.”
“I may ken who he is.”
Bethoc sighed. “She met him at court. They were both rather young, but sixteen. She said he was all any lass could wish for.” She rolled her eyes. “But then he had to leave. Had to return home. He gave her a letter in which he put how to find him if she got with child but she lost it.Mamanwas a good woman, verra sweet and all, but I dinnae think she was particularly quick of wit. She remembered his name though. Brett Murray.” She saw the shock on his face and prayed it was because he knew the man and not because the man was notorious.
“Jesu,” he breathed. “Are ye certain?”
“Aye, she was verra certain too and I heard her correctly. Brett Murray. Ye would think him an angel come to earth if ye had heard her.” Bethoc softly cursed. “I fear he may have been her dream.”
“Her dream?”
“Exactly. When things are nay as ye wish them to be, ye dream of what ye wish ye could have. I think she dreamed of him.”
“Weel, I dinnae ken what he was like when he was young but he is a knight now and newly wed.”
