‘In time, I will tell you everything. But for now, can you just know that I am happy and married, and you cannot hate the Macaulays, not with a bairn coming.’
‘Aye, that makes it final, doesn’t it?’ Peyton’s face soured. ‘If you are so happy, why did you look at your husband as if he terrified you?’
‘I am not terrified of him, but for him.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he has gone to Scarcross to challenge his brother for the lairdship of Clan Macaulay. It will end with one of them dead.’
Peyton considered this for a while, then he said, ‘Ah, well, rats often eat their own kind. And if that Cullen of yours triumphs and comes back a laird, then he will think he owns you. He will be beating down my door to claim his bride and the bairn in her belly.’
‘And when he does, I will go with him.’
‘Why? You have my protection, and he has no hold over you. Your marriage was forced under a lie, so you can abandon it.’
‘I can’t, because I love him, Peyton. I love Cullen Macaulay, and years of enmity and feuding will not change it.’
Peyton suddenly burst into laughter. ‘Damn that rat, Griffin Macaulay. His scheme to get revenge has borne more fruit than he ever could have hoped. Not only did he get a Strachan to marry a Macaulay, but now you have a bairn in your belly, and you are hopelessly in love with that rat’s son. And love it is, for I could see it on your face when you looked at him. In that moment, I knew I had lost you all over again, sister.’
Lowri fell at his feet and clutched his hands. They were calloused from all the fighting for his clan.
‘Stop being a fool, Lowri, and get up,’ he snarled.
‘No. You are my brother, my blood, and you will never lose me. You will just have to get used to having the Macaulays as allies again.’
‘Only if Cullen triumphs over his brother. If not, I will go to war with Griffin Macaulay, and I will get vengeance for what he has done to you.’
‘Peyton, this is my battle to fight.’
‘No. This cannot go unchallenged, Lowri. I am Laird of Clan Strachan, and any attack on my blood must be met with blood.’
Peyton rose and left Lowri alone before the fireplace. She stared into the flames for the longest time, but she could not settle, nor sleep, if she went to her chamber, for she was too fraught with worry. Lowri made her way down to the edge of the estuary, wrapping her shawl about her as the biting wind tightened her skin on her scalp and took her breath away.
She had often come out at the edge of the water to order her thoughts and get away from others. This time, she was not alone. She crunched over the shingle to Cecily.
‘Peyton was crushed when you disappeared,’ she said, staring across the water.
‘I have begged his forgiveness, Cecily, and he has given it.’
Cecily turned angry eyes to her. ‘What about mine? I missed you, too. I fretted as to your fate. Has some man hurt her, I thought? Is she lying in a ditch somewhere, mouldering away so that we never know her fate? Or did Lowri just run away to a new life, selfishly and cruelly leaving us hanging? It was awful, and I had to endure my husband being brought so low by your disappearance. It almost finished him.’
‘I was taken to Ireland against my will, Cecily.’
‘And the reiving of Macaulay cattle. Who forced you to do that?’
‘My foolish pride and arrogance. It was a mistake, and I own it. I have learned my lesson, Cecily.’
Cecily suddenly reached out a hand, took Lowri’s, and placed it on her belly. ‘Feel how he kicks, your nephew.’
It was strange, the quickening inside Cecily’s belly, as if some tiny person was knocking to be let out. Would she feel that too, with Cullen’s bairn?
‘He will need his aunt’s protection as well as his mother’s, Lowri. Are you going to leave us again? I only ask so that we can guard our hearts against it.’
‘No. I won’t leave again. I have a good reason to stay.’
‘Cullen Macaulay.’
‘Aye.’
