“Do ye ken of any puppies, Alexander?” Barra patted Sibeal’s head in a gesture of awkward helplessness.
“Nay.” Alexander shook aside the unwanted pang of jealousy he suffered while watching Barra with Sibeal. “A few of our bitches are due to whelp soon, but I dinna think they have. The earlier broods are too big to be called wee puppies.”
“But they are puppies!” Sibeal yelled. “They are! Ye have to get them out of the water. Ye have to!”
“I think we had better speak to Ailis,” said Barra when nothing he did soothed Sibeal.
Alexander grumbled a curse as he followed Barra down from the walls. He really did not want to see Ailis. Barra had been painfully close to the truth before little Sibeal had interrupted them. Alexander could not resist the draw of the sweet passion he shared with Ailis in the night, but he refused the woman all else. It was the only way he knew to keep some distance between them, although he felt the worst of hypocrites, for he had once lectured a friend on the wrong done by such a game. Despite that, at night he fed the hungers of his body, but by avoiding her for most of the day, he also hoped to evade becoming emotionally drawn to her.
It was a plan that was not working very well at all. He was finding that he ached to see her, wanted to talk to her, to hear her laugh. It was why he had taken to spying on her. That weakness in his plan would not make him discard it, however. It was the only plan he had. It was the only defense he had against Ailis—a woman he was certain was a great threat to the shield of bitterness he had encased himself in. He knew instinctively that Ailis MacFarlane could touch him, so he would stay out of her reach.
As he and Barra, who still carried Sibeal, approached Ailis, Alexander hardened himself. Ailis looked endearingly dirty. She still wore one of his boyhood shirts, but skirts and petticoats had replaced the hose. The women of Rathmor had been quick to sew her up some women’s clothing after seeing her dressed as a lad. Her rich black hair hung in a thick braid down her back. The sleeves of the linen shirt were rolled up and she had dirt on her up to the elbow as well as several broad smudges upon her face. She was no cleaner than the twins, who had been helping her. Alexander found it very hard not to smile, and that irritated him.
One look at Sibeal’s tear-stained face, and Ailis forgot her interest in Alexander. She wiped her hands on her apron and quickly took her niece into her arms. “Hush, my loving.” She kissed Sibeal’s forehead, then looked accusingly at the two men. “What have ye done to her?”
“Naught,” snapped Alexander. “She keeps weeping about puppies.”
Barra hastened to explain how Sibeal had come to him and what she had said. “Once she started crying, ‘twas impossible to understand. She just keeps wanting us to help with the puppies.” He frowned when he saw an odd expression settle on Ailis’s face, one echoed on the begrimed faces of the twins. “What is it? What is wrong?”
“The child is upset is all,” Ailis muttered. “Ye need not linger here. We can tend her.”
“Nay,” Sibeal wailed and lunged back toward Barra, who quickly caught her in his arms. “We have to go outside, outside the walls. Ye canna go, Aunt, but Papa can. Papa can.”
“All right, Sibeal.” Ailis rubbed the little girl’s back. “Calm yourself, sweeting. Ye ken well that ye must be calm, that ye must think hard and speak carefully.”
“Aye, and that ye were supposed to be quiet,” grumbled Manus, earning a slight punitive nudge from his aunt.
“Quiet about what?” demanded Alexander. “Have ye been keeping some secret, Ailis?”
“Oh, aye, just a wee one.” Ailis gave a sour laugh. “However, now is not the time to discuss it.”
“Now is the perfect time.” He reached for her.
Ailis slapped Alexander’s hand away. “Nay, it isna.” She easily ignored his look of astonishment over her blatant impudence. “Now we must calm Sibeal, find out what she needs, and get it. After that we may pay court to your petty suspicions and animosities.” She immediately turned her full attention to Sibeal. “Now, take a few deep breaths, lassie, and still those tears. If we are to save these puppies ye speak of, then we need to ken a few things—such as where.”
“They are in the water,” Sibeal answered, calmer, but with her high clear voice still unsteady.
“Are they standing in the water?”
“Nay, they are in a sack. A man tosses them off of a cliff.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Alexander interrupted, ignoring Ailis’s cross look. “There are no cliffs in Rathmor nor streams running through the bailey. The child but had a bad dream. Some old memory haunts her.”
“I saw it! I saw it!” Sibeal began to cry again as she protested.
“Now ye have fixed it.” Ailis saw that Barra was doing as good a job of calming his daughter as she could, so she turned her attention to Alexander. “I hadna wished to reveal this so soon. I had wanted ye to come to ken Sibeal better. She has the sight.” Ailis was not surprised by the look of shock on Alexander’s face, a look that quickly changed to disbelief tinged with fear and anger. Barra looked much the same, but he said nothing, simply continued to calm Sibeal and try to get some answers from the child.
“Now ye try to make game of me,” Alexander snapped, grasping Ailis by the arm and giving her a little shake.
“Nay, but I dinna think anything I can say will change your mind on that.” Ailis did nothing to hide her annoyance with his suspicion, for, after two weeks of suffering his distrust, she was heartily sick of it. “The only solution is for ye to play along and see the truth for yourself. Unless ye have something else ye must do.”
“Not at the moment. So, go ahead, make a fool of yourself.”
Ailis ached to tell him exactly who the fool was between them, but bit back her words. “Is there a place near at hand where a man could toss something off a cliff into a stream?”
“Aye,” answered Barra when Alexander just muttered something crude. “About a mile from here. Pagan’s Point.”
“Pagan’s Point?” Ailis asked.
