“I’ll see to him after I do some avenging.”
She was still laughing about that when he dropped her on the bed they had shared once. She held out her arms and welcomed him into them when he joined her on the bed. This was what she had been searching for. Laughter, love, family, and passion. For the first time in five long years Arianna knew she was home.
Epilogue
One year later
“What is taking so long?” Brian shouted at the ceiling.
The sudden silence in the previously noisy great hall of Scarglas caught Brian’s attention and he looked around at all the MacFingals, Camerons, and Murrays gathered there. They were all staring at him as if they feared he was going to need to be chained down. Brian feared they might have to soon as this waiting was driving him mad.
Sigimor was the first to make a sound. The man started laughing so hard he was in danger of falling out of his chair. A moment later, just as Brian decided he needed to go over and kick his cousin, all the rest of the crowd started to laugh as well.
“Och, weel, ’tis verra glad I am that I can provide ye all with such amusement,” he grumbled, and flung himself into a seat next to Harcourt. “I doubt any of ye who have been through this were verra calm and sensible.”
Harcourt grinned. “None in my clan.”
“Sigimor wasnae, either,” said Fergus, earning a slap on the back of his head from his laird and brother.
“Ye have been through this often enough,” said his father. “Dinnae ken what ye are fretting about.”
“It was ne’ermywife ormychild,” snapped Brian, and he quickly poured himself a tankard of ale, hoping the drink would ease the knot of fear in his chest.
“Wheesht, if ye had just told me that the fool lass thought she was barren, I could have settled her mind about it.”
“What do ye mean?”
“I could have told her she wasnae.”
“And just how would ye have kenned whether she was or wasnae?”
“Nay sure how I ken it, I just do. Always did. Ken when a lass is a fertile wee thing and when she isnae. My Mab can tell when a lass has quickened. We make a fine pair.”
“If ye can tell when a lass is fertile or nay, then why did ye keep breeding them?”
“Weel, didnae seem to trouble me much when the fire was burning, did it?”
Brian was not surprised when Sigimor started laughing again. He was torn between joining his cousin and knocking his father right out of his chair. The fact that the man could tell if a woman was fertile was not nearly as startling as the fact that he had gleefully bedded them anyway. After the first half-dozen bastard children he had, one would have thought the man would have taken more care.
Before he could give his opinion on that idiocy, a scream from up the stairs cut through the air. Brian leapt to his feet only to have his father and Harcourt yank him back down. Despite all his efforts and several minutes of wrestling in a vain attempt to break free of their hold, they held him in his seat. He knew that he would not get free unless he wanted to get into a brawl. He glared at both men. It would not be easy to knock them both down but he was in the mood to try, especially when another scream rent the air.
“I need to go up there,” he snapped. “Arianna just screamed. Twice. She screamed twice.”
“Suspicion ye would scream, too, if ye were pushing one of those out of your body,” Odo said, and then stuffed an oatcake into his mouth, shrugging when everyone stared at him.
Ewan cleared his throat. “Verra true but, mayhap, nay something one should say, young Odo. Weel, at least nay without making verra sure there are no ladies or bairns about.” Ewan nodded toward Adelar and Michel, who stared at Odo with wide eyes and worried frowns.
Adelar looked at Brian. “Anna will be fine, will she nay?”
“Aye, she will be,” Brian said, and then slouched in his chair to drink his ale, wishing he were as confident of that as he sounded.
The others worked to reassure Adelar and Michel while Brian returned to staring up at the ceiling. He had spent the last few months, from the moment winter eased enough to allow travel, making sure that the house he and Arianna would share was readied for their family and the land Claud had left his sons prepared for planting. He had done the same with the property Arianna had brought to their marriage.
He had also done a great deal of strutting about as if he had accomplished some rare and wondrous deed by putting a bairn into his wife’s belly. The larger she had grown, the more he had coddled her, and the more he had strutted. He did not feel much like strutting now. Somehow he had blissfully forgotten all the danger and pain of childbed right up until Arianna had been taken to hers.
Once Arianna no longer feared miscarrying their child, her happiness had helped to blind him to those dangers. Even when ill every morning or suffering an aching back as her belly grew rounder, she had been happy. It was not until a fortnight ago when Jolene had arrived to help with the birth—followed quickly by Arianna’s cousins, Fiona’s sister-in-law Gillyanne, and Liam’s wife, Keira—that a hint of fear occasionally shadowed her eyes. Brian knew it was not caused by the possible dangers to herself that came with childbirth or the pain, however. Arianna worried about the health of the child she carried. Nothing he had said had fully banished the fear that, even though she had carried their child to full term, she might still lose it.
All Brian could do was pray that Arianna would soon hold a living child in her arms. He would grieve if they lost the child, but his deepest fears concerned what such a loss would do to Arianna. The prayers he constantly whispered in his mind were mostly for the life of the child. He prayed for Arianna, too, but he was doing his best not to allow his thoughts to linger too long on all the dangers a woman faced when bearing a child. That way led to bone-chilling terror.
