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Scotland 1375
“A toast to the bride who will one day unite the MacFarlanes and the MacCordys in her womb.”
The bride Ailis MacFarlane’s deep brown eyes narrowed as she surveyed the men at the head table in the great hall of Leargan. Her lips thinned by a growing fury, she needed to unclench her even white teeth before she could take a reluctant sip of wine from an ornate goblet. The knuckles of her long slim fingers were bone white, but she was unable to ease her grip upon the goblet as she set it back down on the tapestry-draped table. Beneath the heavy oak table she agitatedly tapped her small booted foot. Her rage craved some outlet. None of the men so jovially toasting each other and making plans were paying any mind to her or her increasing fury.
She wondered if they would pay her any heed if she stood and screamed out her fury. Probably not, she decided. They rarely noticed her or her moods. She sent a hard glare at Donald MacCordy.
The cause for the increasingly rowdy celebration was her betrothal to Donald MacCordy, the eldest son and heir of the laird of Craigandubh. The union would strengthen their alliance of arms. The two families would now stand shoulder to shoulder against their enemies. Of which there were an ever-growing number.
For years the MacFarlanes had had a tentative connection to the MacCordys, occasionally coming to one another’s aid. Now it would be a much stronger tie, one of a common heritage in the children to come. As yet unconceived despite Donald’s intensive efforts whenever he chanced to catch her alone, Ailis thought furiously.
For the past few days Ailis had struggled to avoid the man she was soon to marry. She was as determined to delay the fateful day when Donald MacCordy would make her a woman as the lecherous Donald was eager to precipitate it. His clammy hands were much too swift and cloying. His too full lips reminded her too much of the leeches the physicians so prized. As yet another toast was raised to the approaching nuptials, Ailis raised her goblet and briefly wished it held poison. She loved life far too dearly, however, even if it meant suffering bondage to Donald MacCordy.
At twenty she knew she was over ready to be married. Her uncle and guardian had no children of his own, and as she was the only surviving child of his only brother, she could inherit the small but prosperous holding of Leargan. There was only a slight chance that her uncle’s new wife, Una, who was young, lovely, and somewhat simple, could yet produce a child, and that slight chance faded more every day the poor woman suffered in Colin MacFarlane’s grasp. It was with a covetous eye on Leargan as much as enhancing the alliance that the MacCordys accepted her for a bride for their future laird.
Suddenly Ailis tensed. She realized that in all the talk of marriage, living arrangements, dowers, and the future of their clans, there had been no mention of her nephews and niece. Since her sister Mairi’s death two years ago, Ailis had cared for the three children conceived during a six-year liaison with a wild but unnamed man. Rath and Manus, the seven-year-old twins, and Sibeal, their five-year-old sister, were the only source of happiness in Ailis’s life. Ailis began to fear that she would not be allowed to keep the children with her. She decided it was time to find out for certain.
“Uncle? What about my sister’s bairns?” she demanded.
“The bairns have been considered,” Colin MacFarlane said in a cool, calm tone.
Ailis did not trust the smoothness of her uncle’s reply, a smoothness echoed in Donald’s smile. “I dinna expect any great cost to be expended upon them,” Ailis said. “I just want them to remain in my care as my sister wished and as I promised her they would.”
“We are all well aware of that promise, lass. Dinna worry on it.”
Her uncle then ignored her and returned to his drinking. Ailis silently cursed. A few minutes later she slipped away to go to her chambers. To stay and participate in the betrothal revelry would be like dancing at her own funeral. She was trapped and they all knew it, just as they all knew she would rather wed one of the devil’s own horsemen than Donald MacCordy.
“And now that I ponder it, Donald probablyisone of the devil’s horsemen,” she grumbled as she paused in front of the door to the tiny, damp room that had been grudgingly allotted to her late sister’s children.
The poor quarters had been reluctantly offered by their uncle. Colin MacFarlane called the children the Bastard Trio. There were times when Ailis was hard-pressed not to do violence to the man, for his attitude hurt the children. They had suffered enough pain. Instead of being welcomed and comforted at Leargan, the children were crowded into a small, drafty room by a cold, unfeeling man. Ailis could do nothing. She could not even get the children into her more comfortable quarters. The few times she had tried, her uncle had had them forcibly removed, for, he claimed, her chambers were to be her bridal suite, and her groom would not appreciate it if it was cluttered up with bastards. Ailis had swallowed her fury, for she had finally realized that the bickering and confrontation were hurting the children more than if she simply let the matter be.
As she quietly entered the children’s room, Ailis looked at their faces, searching yet again for some clue as to who had fathered them. No one had been able to stop the besotted Mairi from meeting her lover, and after her father had died, no one had really tried. The twins had already been born, and Mairi had been considered unweddable. Ailis had only once stooped to following Mairi, but she had just managed to get lost. All attempts to get Mairi to tell her the man’s name had also failed despite their close relationship.
Although Ailis sorely missed her sister, she often thought that it was for the best that Mairi had died before their mother had, and before the onslaught of their uncle’s guardianship. The shame Mairi had brought to the family and the fury that stirred within her too-proud uncle would not have been tempered by a parent’s love. Colin MacFarlane would have made life a sheer misery for the lovesick, erring Mairi. Ailis doubted that she could have protected the sensitive Mairi from Colin’s venom any better than she had the children.
All three children were smiling at her and, although she smiled back, her attention was centered on the twins. She was sure they held the greatest clues to their father’s identity. They were handsome boys with rich blue eyes and gleaming black hair. The hair was like hers, like Mairi’s but the eyes and the lean faces were definitely from that unknown father. Little Sibeal had strawberry-blond hair. Yet another clue? The big brown eyes and small oval face were just like hers and Mairi’s. What bothered Ailis was that of all the men she could think of who held such features, none were friends to the MacFarlanes, and one clan, the MacDubhs, were the bitterest of enemies, for her uncle had stolen Leargan from them. Ailis hid a grimace as she thought yet again that it was bad enough her sister had carried on a liaison with a married man. She dared not let herself believe that it had been with one of their deadliest enemies as well. She forced the chilling thought aside and bent to kiss each of the three children.
“Are ye to be wed to Donald MacCordy, then?” asked Manus as Ailis tucked him in.
“Aye. There isna a thing I can do to alter that dire fate, laddie.”
“Are ye certain?”
“Very certain. I have thought on it long and hard, but there is naught for me to do.”
“I dinna like the man, Ailis,” Sibeal whispered. “I ken he doesna like us at all.”
Ailis tried not to place too much weight on the solemn little girl’s words. “No man can be at ease with another man’s bairns, sweeting. ‘Tis all that is.” Ailis could see that the children had as little confidence in her soothing words as she did.
A half hour later, when Ailis finally sought her own bed, she found sleep annoyingly elusive. Sibeal was right—Donald could not tolerate the children. In truth, Ailis was beginning to fear that Donald deeply hated them. He had been betrothed to Mairi when her illicit liaison had become common knowledge, but Ailis did not think that was the whole of it. She began to suspect that Donald knew who Mairi’s lover had been, knew and hated the children for it. Unfortunately, Ailis did not believe it would be easy to get that knowledge from him.
She tensed as a noise yanked her from her musings. It took only a second to recognize the sound as that of her door being stealthily opened. Ailis slipped her hand beneath her pillow to grasp her dagger, a weapon she was never without. When the shadowy figure finally reached her bed and bent over her, she struck, driving her dagger deep into the man’s flesh and just as swiftly yanking her blade free as she leapt to her feet. The ensuing bellow of pain brought several people bustling into her room with candles held high. As the light filled her chamber, Ailis was not surprised to see that her erstwhile ravisher was Donald. The man was on the floor clutching his badly slashed arm and making an inordinate amount of noise. She watched scornfully as his father, brother, and cousin rushed to help him.
“What the devil are ye about, ye daft lass?” bellowed Colin MacFarlane. “Ye have just skewered the man ye are supposed to wed.” He swung at her, but she was used to his quick, brutal hand and neatly avoided the blow, returning his fierce glare as she clung to the bedpost. “Ye could have killed him!”
“I treated him as I would any man who comes a-creeping to my bed in the dark of the night,” she snapped. “He has no right to be here.”
