“I don’t know yet…mayhap.I’ve not bled this month, but it’s too soon to tell—oh!”
Lisette had flung her arms around Aislinn to embrace her, her beautiful sister-in-law breaking into soft laughter.Lisette laughed, too, but only for a moment before the weight of the day’s events crept back into her mind and she released Aislinn to rise from the bed.
She winced a little at the twinge in her ankle, but it was nothing compared to earlier in the day.The liniment had worked wonders, which made it so much easier to walk to the window where she’d spent hours waiting for Conall, watching for him…
“I’m sure he’ll return before it grows dark,” she heard Aislinn murmur, though Lisette didn’t turn away from her post.“I’m sure he’s wondering, too, about Colin.I’ve never seen him look so shocked as when Lorna blurted out that the boy was his son.Mayhap that’s what so angered him…not knowing anything about the lad.Lorna plans to leave for Perthshire as soon as Colin is up and playing again.She says he’s a good-natured boy in spite of her husband’s dislike of him—”
“Oh,non, I hope he didn’t beat the child!”That terrible thought had made Lisette spin from the window and meet Aislinn’s eyes.“Mayhap that’s why she’s so eager to leave Colin here.He wasn’t safe with her husband.”
“All the more reason for you and Conall to make him feel as safe as possible and give him as much love as you can muster.”
“Muster?”
“Aye, for another woman’s child.A woman that Conall loved at one time—”
“Or mayhap loves still.”That same pang assailing her, Lisette swiped away the wetness blurring her vision even as Aislinn shook her head sternly.
“Lorna’s married to another man, Lisette.Even if they wanted to, she and Conall could never remain together, and there is so much anger between them—aye, even hatred on Lorna’s part, though I don’t fully understand why.”
“Conall wouldn’t change his life for her,” Lisette said almost to herself, though her soft words made Aislinn nod.“She wanted him to find another trade, or so you told me that’s what he said.You told me as well that love and hatred are a double-edged sword—ah, God.”
Lisette turned away and leaned her forehead against the window, despair overwhelming her even as Aislinn jumped up from the bed and rushed over to her.
“No, you mustn’t think Conall will mayhap betray you!I’ve seen how he looks at you, remember?I didn’t see him look at Lorna at all the same as he does with you—if anything only with pity, just as I felt for him to learn in so startling a manner of his son.Lorna is lovely, aye, but with a haggardness that comes when life has been hard and unkind.The marriage bed she made with her blacksmith, Hamish, must be as unhappy as the life she envisioned with Conall, a warrior sworn to serve a harsh overlord—”
“All the more reason for her not to want to leave him now, no matter what she says!”Lisette pushed away from the window and limped over to the fireplace, nothing upon the iron grate now but smoldering logs crumbling into ash.
Just as her new life with Conall felt as if it were crumbling into ash.
No wonder he had said he could not promise her love.His heart still belonged to another!If there was a chance that he was falling in love with her, as Aislinn had claimed just that morning, surely all of those burgeoning feelings must have vanished to see Lorna again.
His true love.
The woman he had not been able to forget in spite of his dalliances—mon Dieu!
All of that secret suffering and heartache and vowing never to marry had been because of Lorna!
“Lisette, you’re walking well enough now,” came Aislinn’s voice behind her as Lisette stared unseeing into the glowing embers.“Come with me to supper.”
“Non, I’ll stay here.”
Lisette heard a heavy sigh, but Aislinn did not argue with her.Instead, she clasped Lisette’s fingers as if making one last attempt to reassure her and then left the room, closing the door with a low thud behind her.
It might have been the sound of Lisette’s heart breaking in two as her fondest hope for a happy life with Conall faded and sputtered like a dying spark beneath the grate.
Never before had she wished she had told him at the church that she wasn’t Isabeau, but Lisette did now…
Conall bounded up the tower steps, everything accomplished that he had set for himself except for one most important task.
He felt so much better since speaking with the priest at the village church, his heart and his step lighter.He had rode out of the fortress consumed by anger that Lorna had never let him know about his son—their son!—and he still felt a twinge of bitterness, he was human after all and no saint.
Yet the worst of that dark emotion had eased at the priest’s admonishment to simply be thankful for Colin’s arrival and to look to the future.Not the past.A future with a new wife and a son to protect and provide for…and mayhap an even bigger family one day if heaven blessed him and Lisette with more children.
That thought made him hasten toward their bedchamber down a hallway lit with flickering candles in wall sconces, for the hour was late.
Before he’d made his way to the church, he had tried to clear his head with a long ride, so it had been near dusk when he finally left the priest.It was well past supper now, but there had been much to do before he would allow himself to seek out Lisette—och, he hoped she would understand that he hadn’t purposely avoided her.
Aislinn had pulled him aside shortly after arriving back at the fortress to tell him that she had spoken to Lisette about Colin…and Lorna.He hadn’t been irritated by this news, given that he had ridden out in such a fury without first visiting with Lisette, which would have been the caring thing to do.
