“As soon as spring came and the northern sea currents were safe tae navigate, Errol went tae Dumbarton tae plead with King Robert on your behalf, Tira, he was determined tae try and rescue you. Canna you see how he has suffered, too?”
She met Cora’s gaze, hearing no censure in her voice, only pity reflected in her eyes that Tira sensed was meant as well for her.
Pity that made her throat grow tight and her chin to tremble, the two of them walking the rest of the way to the keep in silence.
A silence that continued until they had climbed the tower steps and were passing by the nursery, Tira stopping suddenly at the closed door though Cora nodded toward her bedchamber.
“No, please…I need tae see my bairns.”
Cora didn’t protest, but opened the door for her and Tira hastened inside to the pair of cradles…her thoughts upon Errol even as she leaned over to gaze at Isobel first, and then Monroe, both babies sleeping so peacefully.
Was it fair what she was considering? She didn’t need any prodding to know what Cora had meant about what must come for her sake and that of her children…yet what kind of wife would Tira be for him?
She loved Errol, she knew that much, just as she knew now how deeply he loved her after hearing his anguish and his plea for forgiveness…though she shuddered even to think of him wanting her to…to?—
“Och, Tira, dinna torment yourself,” came Cora’s murmur as if sensing her fear, Cora’s gaze filled with understanding. “Errol knows you need time tae heal, but that doesna mean a wedding canna take place, aye, as soon as the healer says he can leave the infirmary. Will you agree tae become Errol’s wife?”
Errol’s wife… Fresh panic swept Tira, but glancing at her bairns, she knew there was no other course for her.
“Aye, I will agree tae it, if he still wishes?—”
“Och, Tira, he asked you a year ago and nothing for him has changed!” Clearly relieved, Cora enveloped Tira in a hug, though her outburst had awakened Monroe, who screwed up his face and began to cry.
Yet it was Tira who reached her little son before the wet nurse, scooping him up into her arms as Cora drew closer to say against her ear, “Errol told me that he wants tae raise your bairns as his own. If that isna love, Tira…”
She couldn’t answer, her throat tightened from such a welling in her heart that assuaged the fear lingering in the back of her mind…a soft laugh escaping her at Monroe’s fists punching at the air.
Tiny clenched fists that reminded her suddenly of Thorgren, Tira sobering even as she thrust the disturbing thought away.
“Monroe Sutherland,” she murmured almost defiantly to herself, though Cora must have heard her because she drew close again to hug them both.
“Aye, Monroe Sutherland!”
CHAPTER 9
HOY ISLAND, ORKNEY
“Damn the bastards! I’m gone for less than a fortnight and this is what I find upon my return?” Thorgren demanded of the ragged-looking men facing him in the dull morning light, a drizzle-laced wind lashing at them.
Some bore bandaged wounds while others kept their eyes downcast as if fearing his wrath—and by Odin, they should be afraid for their lives!
All around him was devastation, from the burned-out settlement—a charred smell lingering in the air—to the freshly dug graves of raiders slaughtered by rampaging Highlanders, as those who survived the massacre had described their attackers.
Thorgren had anticipated that they might one day sail to the Orkneys to avenge the raids he had committed against the northern Scottish coast, but how had they known to come to this side of Hoy, out of dozens of islands?
“Loose tongues,” he muttered, answering his own query and guessing that the settlement on the western side of the island must have been attacked as well…and someone there had revealed Tira’s whereabouts.
A traitorous act causinghiswoman and the mother ofhisbairn to be stolen from him!
The cluster of bodies discovered on the slope above the village those of the four guards along with Brinda’s near-decapitated corpse, Thorgren imagining exactly what had occurred.
The Highlanders had struck the settlement first, which had given Brinda and the guards some time to flee with Tira from the outlying cottage where Thorgren had purposely left her. Yet they hadn’t gotten far before they were overtaken, Brinda failing to slay Tira before she’d fallen into the Highlanders’ hands.
More than one survivor had seen Tira, still heavy with child, screaming before she was lifted up by a red-haired warrior and carried to one of three ships, her rescue clearly as much a focus of the surprise attack as vengeance.
Damn them, Thorgren had never known such galling humiliation that her death would have spared him!
Enraged, he swore so vehemently that the raiders in front of him jumped—and now he did strike out at the nearest man, who collapsed groaning to the ground from a fierce cuff to the side of his head.
