“Tira, dinna go, I beg you!”
CHAPTER 7
Her heart rammed in her throat, Tira had all she could do not to collapse into a heap upon the floor and she grabbed for the doorframe to steady herself.
The hoarseness of Errol’s voice and the surge of emotion across his handsome face flooding her with memories of when she had promised to wed him so long ago.A lifetime ago!
Memories of his strong hands clasping hers as she kissed him, the warm pressure of his lips covering hers after he had proclaimed his love for her—God help her, no, she didn’t want to think upon these things, she couldn’t! Everything had changed between them and could never be the same?—
“Tira, please, lift your head. Look at your fine son, aye, and your wee daughter in her cradle. You’ve refused tae see me at every turn, so I came tae see your bairns—the only way I could be close tae you. Here, hold him for a while so I can look upon you…”
Tira sharply inhaled as the swaddled infant was held out to her, the little one’s fists curled tightly and downy-looking reddish hair upon his head. At once her thoughts flew to Thorgren, but his scalp was shaven and adorned with pagansymbols in blackest ink—no, no, she didn’t want to think about that fiend, either!
Crying out, Tira turned so abruptly that the bairn was knocked from Errol’s outstretched hands and yet somehow she caught him, everyone gasping as she clasped her son against her breasts.
Her chest heaving with fright that he might have dropped to the floor and been harmed, her eyes meeting Errol’s.
He appeared shocked, too, though relief instantly followed and he stepped back as if to give her room, and gestured to the chair set between the two cradles.
“Go sit with him, Tira. I will leave you now. Mayhap later in the day you will allow me tae see you, aye, tae speak with you at last.”
Tira couldn’t seem to tear away her eyes from his, so intensely blue, so searching. She found herself giving him the barest nod only to regret it when he smiled at her as if he couldn’t believe her assent.
His teeth a flash of white and his jaw stubbled with reddish whiskers, the hue nearly the same as her son’s, as if Errol were the father instead of…
A plaintive sigh escaped Tira and she skirted around him and went to sink down in the chair, doing her best to force Thorgren’s face from her mind.
She heard Cora speaking softly to Errol and then he was gone, the room seeming strangely empty without his presence and a telling pang in Tira’s breast.
God help her, she loved him still, she couldn’t deny it, but it no longer mattered. Nothing would make her unsullied and whole again—nothing!
Tears blinded her at the mewling sound from her son, and she stared down at the wonder of him…a sensation like the unfolding of a flower inside her.
She glanced up to see tears shining in Cora’s eyes, too, the beautiful woman who had been so kind to her gently picking up her daughter.
The smaller babe soon settled against Tira so she could cradle both of her children, her tears dripping onto their blankets and wetting their silky-looking skin.
Her son scrunched up his face at the wetness and flailed his fists while her daughter merely slept on, pursing tiny lips as pink as rose petals.
The faintest hint of gold upon the babe’s head that told Tira her daughter would have hair the same hue as hers, mayhap even blonder.
“Shall we consider names for your bairns?” came a soft query, Tira meeting Cora’s gaze of deep blue against milk-white skin, her eyes filled with kindness.
Tira couldn’t give an answer, she was so overcome by the precious weight of her children nestled in her lap and the good will that had surrounded her since she’d arrived at Castle MacLachlan…though a shadow still gripped her heart.
She had become pregnant within a month or so of her abduction so the bairns would have become a part of her life no matter when she had been rescued afterward…but why had no one attempted to find her sooner? Not her father nor Errol nor anyone else while she had suffered such cruelty, such terror that Thorgren might even kill her whenever a drunken rage descended upon him?—
“What was your mother’s name?”
Saved from her crushing reverie by Cora’s query, Tira murmured, “Isobel,” to which Cora gave an approving smile.
“Aye, a beautiful name for your daughter.”
Tira nodded, glancing down at the babe who slept so peacefully, while her son had begun to squirm and stretch, the wet nurse appearing at her side.
“I think he’s hungry. May I take him?”
Again Tira nodded, her throat grown so tight that she didn’t have milk with which to feed her own children, Cora laying her hand upon Tira’s shoulder.
