Artan only grunted in reply for he knew he was going to need every scrap of good fortune he could grab hold of. Never had so much depended on his ability to speak clearly about what he felt, and never had he been so fully aware of how little skill he had for such a mission.
Chapter 22
Cecily looked at the shirt she was sewing for Artan. A good wife was efficient with a needle. A good wife wove tapestries, made cushions and altar clothes. A good wife could sew a straight line of neat little stitches. Looking at the shirt again, Cecily decided no one could ever say that those seams were straight or her stitches neat.
She would have to pull out all her stitches and start all over again. Cecily took a slow, deep breath, but it did little to ease the anger building inside of her. It made no sense that she should be feeling so angry over nothing more than a badly sewn shirt, but she was. For several days, the anger had lurked inside her, but until now, she had been able to push it aside. She just wished she could discover where it was all coming from.
Plucking at the stitching, she wondered why it was all going so horribly wrong. She was doing what she should. Cecily had been very careful about which of Anabel’s thousands of rules she would heed now, weeding out the ones she felt had been imposed upon her just to make her miserable. What had been left were the sort of rules most ladies were taught. As a result of following those rules she should be happy, Artan should be happy, her uncle should be happy, and they should all be living in a happy home.
Instead, she was utterly and completely wretched. Her body ached from trying to be a good wife in the bedchamber, as it took a great deal of effort to be a lady when Artan kissed and caressed her. Artan was starting to look as angry as she felt, as well as confused. Her uncle occasionally looked at her as if he were sorely tempted to shove one of his carvings down her throat. Old Meg looked as if she wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled. Glascreag had not changed much, but some of the MacReiths were starting to look at her as if they thought she had been hit on the head once too often. She had failed and she had failed miserably.
She suddenly threw the shirt on the floor. Muttering every curse she could think of, she stomped on it repeatedly. She was just thinking that she should have done this earlier, that the knot of anger inside of her was rapidly loosening, when she abruptly realized that she was no longer alone.
Artan silently closed the door behind him and stared at his wife. She was doing a strange sort of dance on top of a piece of linen and muttering some very creative curses. One thing he had never considered concerning the odd humor she had been in lately was that she might be suffering from some sort of madness or a brain fever.
He quickly shook aside that alarming and foolish thought. There was not a thing wrong with Cecily’s mind except that it could be too quick for a man’s comfort. At times she also got some strange ideas stuck in that clever mind of hers. He suspected there was one there now.
When she looked up and saw him, Artan felt as if someone had just reached inside his chest and squeezed his heart. His Sile looked so lost, so forlorn, he quickly strode across the room and pulled her into his arms. His little wife had been through a great deal of turmoil and change just lately. She had faced some hard, ugly truths and survived. She had thus far survived marriage to a man like him and having Angus for her uncle. It was not surprising that she should be feeling emotional from time to time, especially when the people who should have cared for her had spent the last twelve years doing everything in their power to crush her spirit, to enslave her to their will.
Which, he daily thanked God, they had failed to do. His Sile had all the spirit and passion he could have ever hoped to find in his wife. It had just been waiting there inside her for someone to pull it free again. He just wished she would cease trying to bury it again, which she did from time to time. Anabel’s grasp on Cecily’s spirit was still tight and choking and he desperately needed to find a way to break it permanently. Artan listened closely to what Cecily was muttering against his chest, selecting what words he could understand and felt might be useful. He also waited patiently for her to stop crying on his shirt and tell him what was wrong.
Hearing a little voice in her head telling her that this was not how a good wife would behave, Cecily tried to step back, but Artan tightened his grip. “Is there something ye want, Artan?” she asked.
“Aye, I want ye to tell me why ye were dancing on that piece of linen,” he replied.
Cecily looked down at the crumpled remains of the shirt she had been trying to make and felt like crying some more. “I wasnae doing a dance. I was stomping on it.”
“And just what is it.”
“Was. It was a shirt. I was trying to make ye a shirt.” She nodded when he frowned down at it, certain that he was seeing exactly what a poor job she had done. “’Tis ruined. S’truth it was weel ruined ere I threw it on the floor and started stomping on it and cursing it. I failed. Miserably. I think someone could threaten to cut off all my toes one by one and I still couldnae sew a straight seam. All good wives are skilled with a needle. But nay me. Do ye see any cushions in here?”
“Ah, weel, nay. No cushions.”
“Of course ye dinnae see any. I havenae made any. I have failed at that, too.”
“I dinnae mind that there are no cushions in here, and if I need a new shirt, weel, there are plenty of women about who can sew a fine stitch and would be pleased to earn a coin or two for making me one.”
Artan began to feel a little desperate. He could tell by the look on her face that he was not saying the right things. She looked even more upset now than she had before he tried to soothe her.
“So ye failed to make a shirt for me and cushions for our bedchamber. It doesnae matter,” he said firmly; then frustration over being unable to talk freely to the woman she had become and his inability to bring his ewer-tossing Sile back seized hold of him. “Do ye really want to ken what I want?”
Cecily heard the faint hint of a growl in his voice and eyed him warily. “Aye, of course. A good wife—”
“I wantmywife back,” he snapped, interrupting what he felt was going to be an irritating list of all the truly stupid things Anabel had said.
“But I am trying to give ye a wife, to get back to what I was ere we left Dunburn.”
“Nay, it isnae what ye are doing. E’en at Dunburn ye werenae like ye have been these last few days. Ye have been acting verra odd.”
“Odd? I havenae been acting odd. I have been trying to learn how to be a good wife to ye and—”
“Curse it, yehavebeen a good wife, a verra good wife.”
“Artan, I threw a ewer at your head.”
He nodded and kissed the tip of her nose. “Aye, and your aim was true. I would have been trying to explain a blackened eye or broken nose if I hadnae ducked. Ye have a fine aim with a rock, too.”
“Artan”—she grasped him by the upper part of his arms and stared into his eyes—“when ye were dying—”
