‘Good. I will leave one on the table. Take it with you, if you ever venture beyond the cottage.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I said so. I’ll go to Connie and tell her to look out for you, for I’ll be coming and going a lot, and you will have to fend for yourself.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To my den of thieves and other places, lass.’ His voice was all bitterness as he said, ‘Do not fash. I will still attend to my duties here.’
Chapter Seventeen
Lowri stared up at the rare bright sky, trying to find joy in it. Since coming to Ireland, it had rained relentlessly, the ground a constant quagmire of mud, sucking at her boots and skirts. But now that spring was peaking its head out, Ireland was a green and budding delight swathed in sunshine. If only she were not a prisoner, or as good as.
She skipped across the stepping stones spanning the brook to Connie and Gormal’s cottage, which was a ramshackle place with rotting thatch, small and rough. Three weeks ago, they were strangers, but the couple were simple, friendly people, and because they held Cullen in high esteem, they had welcomed her. They were poor as dirt, sliding into middle age, and poverty had withered them beyond their years. They scraped a living by farming a small plot of land with a few crops and livestock.
The cow lowed a greeting as Lowri approached, and the door was open, but she announced herself with a tap.
‘Is that you, lass? Come on in. I’ve just baked a loaf and kneading another. There’s butter.’
Lowri was pathetically grateful for Connie’s smile of greeting. She desperately needed companionship and had warmed to the woman, who had a kind and motherly way about her. ‘I brought tea,’ she said.
‘Ah, that is kindly of you. Such a luxury.’
‘Tis Cullen’s gift, not mine. God knows where he gets it.’
‘Best not to ask, but it is nice of you to bring it. Put the kettle to the fire, and we’ll take a cup.’
They talked for a while about the weather turning and other inconsequential things. Their friendship was new and hesitant, on Lowri’s part. Cullen had told Lowri that all he had said to Connie was that they had married under his father’s orders to strengthen the clan, and that was that. She was not sure whether to trust in his telling of it, for Connie would look at her with pity and puzzlement now and again.
Connie was giving her one of those looks now. Then Gormal came in, stooping as he walked in his usual way, his back all but broken from the hard labour of squeezing a crop from his fields. He took a slice of warm bread oozing with yellow butter, grunted a smile at Lowri and walked back out.
‘Your man does not say much,’ said Lowri, grabbing a slice for herself.
‘No, and it’s a good thing. I like a man who knows when to shut up. As far as I’m concerned, a man’s mouth has better uses than talking, as no sense comes out of it. Cullen is like that, keeps his feelings to himself. And I’m sure he uses his mouth for better things.’
‘Well, it certainly is not used for talking. He is barely here, and when he is, we mostly sit in silence.’
‘That’s just his way. He doesn’t rattle on like some folk. You will get used to it.’ Connie scanned her face. ‘There’s dark rings beneath those eyes. Has Cullen been keeping you up nights?’
Lowri squirmed. ‘No. But I have a pain in my belly, and that usually means my courses are about to come.’
‘I’ve some dried yarrow to soothe the pains. We’ll pop it in the tea.’ Connie bustled about trying to find the herb. ‘That man should take better care of you,’ she muttered.
‘He is not here to take care of me. He has sloped off again and will not tell me where, for Cullen likes his secrets.’
‘As do all men, and it’s best you don’t know all of Cullen’s secrets.’
‘The smuggling, you mean. I know about that. Connie, I think he has a woman somewhere, while I am left here alone to do all the chores. He climbs into our bed, reeking of ale and tobacco. I should banish him from it.’
Connie raised her eyebrows. ‘Have it your own way. But the nights will be long and lonely with just the howling wind for company, and there’s not much else to do around Kildara besides enjoying your man and making bairns.’
The very thought of making bairns with Cullen made Lowri shudder inside, yet sent a strange warmth spreading through her belly. Once she had given Cullen permission to take her, he could not keep his hands off her. The bed head creaked every night, and every night Lowri would stare at the beams in the ceiling, taking her mind far away as Cullen did his work with a sombre face, gently but hurriedly. A few times, he had thrown up her skirts in the stable or the fields and lay with her.
While he was never nasty or hurt her, Lowri often felt he both wanted her and hated her. Cullen had a dirty way of speaking when his blood was up, which shocked and aroused her. Yet he took her in an almost chaste way, never fully undressing her nor touching her beyond the essentials to get the chore done. He did not kiss her, and he seemed to prefer darkness. And sometimes, the worst times, she felt pleasure from his touch, building to a peak. She had to bite her lip hard enough to draw blood tostop from crying out. Of course, she never told him any of that, and she could barely admit the truth to herself- that she had developed a taste for lovemaking, even if it was with hateful Cullen Macaulay.
Connie’s voice intruded. ‘Lowri, lass. You were far away then. I asked if it pains you that you cannot catch a bairn.’
‘Forgive me.’ Lowri looked down at her bread, trying to avoid Connie’s eye. ‘It’s true, I dearly want a bairn, but it is…well…it is not always easy between us. And Cullen is gone a lot, and when he is here, I’m not sure that I want to lie with him when he is so indifferent to me.’
