“Aye, he might think that especially”—he lifted the covers and peered beneath them—“if he catches a glimpse of this poor fellow what’s a mere shadow of his former mighty self.”
Aimil could not resist a peek and rolled her eyes. “Some shadow. ’Tis plain to see that your wound hasnae dimmed your appetite.”
“I begin to think that my appetite for ye will never be dimmed.”
Her gaze flew to his and widened slightly for there was no twinkle in his eyes. His obsidian eyes were warm and serious. As she was about to inquire just how serious he was, a choking sound reached her ears. She looked toward the door, and her eyes grew even wider but with horror as her gaze locked with her father’s. Seeing how his face was turning a choleric red, she buried her face in the pillow with a soft moan. It was cowardly but she could not help herself.
“I ken now why I was disarmed,” Lachlan bellowed, his hands curling into fists. “Ye bastard! Ye swore ye wouldnae harm her.”
“I havenae, have I, Aimil?” Parlan asked, his voice soft as he ran his hand through her hair.
“Then ye deal in a rough wooing, ye bastard,” Lachlan snarled as he neared the bed.
“Papa,” Aimil gasped, forgetting her cowardice and looking at her father, suddenly realizing that his fury had not been due to her place in Parlan’s bed but her wounds. “These marks werenae made by Parlan.” Without thought, her hand sought Parlan’s in a gesture meant to soothe the sting of her father’s assumptions. “T’was Rory Fergueson who left me so.”
Lachlan’s expression changed with alarming speed from anger to a fearful disbelief. He moved to Aimil’s side of the bed. Leith, who had arrived with him and Lagan, hastily produced a chair. Lachlan sat down heavily, suddenly showing his age.
“Ye dinnae mean it, lass,” he rasped, but his knowledge of her honesty weighted his words with doubt.
“I do. T’was Rory not Parlan. Parlan has never hurt me, never raised a hand against me even when he was in a fury spurred by my tongue which often runs too free and with a sharp edge.” She swallowed nervously. “Papa, how did Mama die?”
Tensing at her soft question, Lachlan replied, “Birthing Shane, as I told ye.”
His reaction made her fear that all Rory had told her was true. “Is that true or a tale to ease our pain for the truth would have been too great a horror for a child to bear?”
“What have ye heard, lassie, and who has told ye the tale?”
“Did ye not tell him what happened, Leith?”
“Nay, Aimil. It never occurred to me that he would think your wounds were delivered by Parlan. I thought to speak before he saw ye.”
“I will tell that part, sweeting,” Parlan said, his anger over Lachlan’s assumption gone as he realized the man had made it due to a lack of information. “Save your strength for the telling of what has been troubling ye. I ken it will cost ye dearly to tell all that has made your dreams so dark and frightening.”
In a voice that revealed his simmering fury, Parlan told of the treachery that had resulted in Aimil’s capture by Rory. Parlan left out nothing including her rescue of him and then herself with Maggie’s aid. By the time he had finished, it was clear that Lachlan shared his rage. Parlan mused that it would take Rory Fergueson a great deal of running to escape death.
“What is it that ye must tell me, lass?” Lachlan asked in a voice hoarse with anger at Rory.
“Rory Fergueson told me a tale of my mother’s death that doesnae match yours,” she answered quietly.
Rising slowly, Lachlan went to the window, turning his back to her, and clenching his fists at his side. “Tell me. Do ye remember it all?”
“I cannae forget. He told me as he beat me. With each stroke, he released another sickening detail. She was murdered.”
“Aye,” Lachlan murmured. “Go on, lass. Tell it all. Dinnae think to spare me.”
“He said I would die in the same way, but t’would take longer for he kenned how to make the pain last now. I would survive long enough to give him the vengeance he felt his right. His revenge for her spurning of him.”
Lachlan nodded heavily. “’Tis right so far. She did spurn him. I always felt I had wronged the man by taking her from him. That was foolish for he was five years younger than she, barely grown. T’was a lad’s first love. She didnae return it.”
“He seems to think she would have. He said he found her alone that day. She refused his offer of love, told him she loved only ye. He said he meant to change her mind, to show her how much more a man he was than ye.” Aimil began to shiver, the tale Rory had tortured her with spilling from her lips uncontrollably.
By the end of her tale she was so choked with tears she found speech almost impossible. “She never stopped calling for ye, Papa. He told Mama that he would finish avenging himself upon me, for she was dying. He said she damned him with her dying breath, told him that if he hurt me the Devil would rise up and drag him into hell. He said he left her there, in the wood, dead and no longer beautiful.”
Parlan held her face against his shoulder for she began to weep. His gaze rested upon Lachlan whose hands gripped the window frame and whose head was bent. He was sure that the man wept as well. Remembering the nightmare Aimil had suffered, Parlan wished he had heeded it more closely.
“Papa?” Leith rasped. “Is that the true tale? Did our mother die that way and not of a sickness of the birthing bed?”
“Aye,” Lachlan answered in a choked voice, his back still to them. I couldnae tell ye, ye were all so young. T’was a tale that would have badly frightened a child. I never suspected Rory. He wept like a bairn at her burying. We never found the one who did it. He searched with us, didnae he?” He gave a shakey, harsh laugh. “Her slaughterer rode amongst us.”
