A little smile touched her bruised mouth. She could just picture Parlan tied to his bed by his wound and making life a misery for all. As the blackness overtook her again, she recalled that there was something she needed to tell Leith, but it would have to wait.
Parlan’s roar could easily be heard even before the raiding party had entered the tower house. He had heard the men returning far earlier than they should have and was anxious to know why. Catarine’s pleas for him to lie still earned her only curses. She wished she had obeyed her desire to leave when the men entered with Malcolm carefully carrying the girl Catarine had thought dead.
Maggie espied Catarine trying to slip out of the room. “’Tis her. ’Tis the one who told Rory where to find mistress Aimil.”
Catarine fled, and Lagan moved to pursue her, but Parlan stayed him. “She willnae show her lying face about here again or elsewhere we go to. She willnae dare. She will be in fear for what remains of her natural life. So too will her treachery become weel known thus closing many a door to her. ’Tis enough. Tell me what happened.”
Maggie was urged to retell her story as Old Meg tended to Aimil who was placed beside Parlan in his huge bed at his insistence. His dark gaze never left Aimil as Maggie spoke. The extent of the beating Aimil had endured became evident as Old Meg stripped her. Even though he was filled with a blind rage against Rory Fergueson, Parlan felt like joining young Leith in weeping over his sister’s injuries.
“Poor, poor wee lassie,” Old Meg crooned then fixed her keen gaze upon Parlan. “Could have been worse. She could have lost the bairn.”
“What?” Parlan’s question was but a soft croak in the silence of the room.
“The bairn, ye great gowk. Ye certainly have been working at one hard enough. ’Tis weel past time, too.”
“Aimil carries my child?” His stunned gaze was fixed upon Aimil’s slim waist, the covers drawn up only to her hips.
“Aye. ’Tis time ye stopped tossing good seed to the four winds. I ken what ye planted at the verra first took root or near to. She will be rounding before long now. ’Tis set in there good and tight. Fergueson couldnae shake this fruit from the tree for all he tried to.”
“Why did she tell me naught?” Parlan’s unsteady hand brushed the hair from Aimil’s bruised face.
“I dinnae think she kenned it,” spoke up Maggie. “She was sick a time or twa, and I guessed it, but she thought t’was from the beating. I noted a thing or twa whilst I tended to her as weel. Nay, I be fair certain that she doesnae ken it.”
“Ye must wed her now,” said Leith. “Ransom be damned.”
“Aye, I must wed her. Recall that I had set my mind to it before Rory took her.” Leith nodded and Parlan’s big hands suddenly clenched into fists. “I wish to God that I could kill that bastard Fergueson more than once. By faith, he will beg for death before I finish with him.”
Aimil heard that familiar, if muted, roar through the receding haze of unconsciousness and was comforted by it despite how the voice trembled with fury. “Parlan?”
He caught the small hand that reached out to him. “Aye, little one. Ye are safe at Dubhglenn now. Tucked up in my bed again.”
“T’was Catarine, Parlan. She betrayed ye.”
“Aye, we ken that now. She will never give us any further trouble. The bitch will keep herself weel out of sight.”
She nodded wishing that she could see him. “Are ye still angry about the trick I played on ye? He would have killed ye.”
“Aye, he would have for all he promised Catarine he wouldnae. Nay, I am not angry though ’tis furious I was at the time.”
She managed a little smile. “I didnae think he would try to kill me so it seemed the thing to do at the time.”
“Aye. I should have told ye about him, but I didnae want to frighten ye and I thought ye safe here.” He looked at Lagan and Malcolm. “I can hear the other men returning. See if there was any incident. Old Meg, show Maggie to a room.”
“Humph,” Old Meg grumbled as she ushered Maggie out of the room, “sitting in that lewd bed, barking out orders like some king.”
“Is Leith still here?”
“Right here, Aimil.” Leith immediately turned from leaving and returned to her side.
“I must speak to Papa.” She shivered as she recalled the tales Rory had related as he had beaten her.
“Aye, Leith,” growled Parlan, “fetch your father. Best he sees how the man he chose to wed Aimil treats a lass.” He shook his head. “Here is the proof we sought of the man’s madness though I wish to God it hadnae come into our hands this way.”
Leith was gone before Aimil could say anymore. He was anxious to show his father that the dark, whispered tales about Rory Fergueson were not rumors. There would be no wedding now. Even Lachlan Mengue could not send his daughter to such a man.
“Aimil? Did he rape ye?” Parlan asked, realizing that no one had mentioned that and he feared the worst.
“Nay, Parlan. He kenned that, for all my brave talk, I feared that, and he planned to torture me by nae letting me ken when he would do it.”
