“Mother!”
“Ye rash, bear-headed fool!” she cursed. As she reprimanded him, she tugged on his ear, forcefully dragging him back toward the main doors. Reade drew in a quick breath at the pain and her actions. Why was she reacting this way? He’d just taken care of a spy! “Ye are going to march back down those stairs and let her out.”
“Oh nay, I will no’!” Reade screeched back as Sorcha kicked her way past the double doors, yanking Reade behind her. He wiggled, trying to fight his way out without hurting his mam, but he couldn’t unfasten her tight grip.
“Och, aye, ye will! If ye dinna do it, I will!” She was dragging him into the courtyard toward the side of the keep. “And then ye will have to face your father, your laird, and explain yourself. As ‘tis, what could she possibly have done to make ye think she deserves such treatment?” Sorcha had to yell to make herself heard over the rain, which had transformed from a fine Scots’ rain to a full-blown storm.
How well the weather reflected his tumultuous feelings. And his mother’s, apparently.
“I found her in the wood, red faced, and a treasonous Gordon racing away! Father had a meeting with us this week to be on the lookout for Campbells and their allies on our lands, and she led one nearly to our doorstep!”
“Red faced? And ye could think of no other reason why she might have been in that situation? That she might have been threatened or attacked by that man? ‘Tis what the Campbells have been doing on our lands, threatening and attacking! ‘Tis what your father told me! Yet, instead of thinking her the victim, ye thick-headed fool thought her to be the villain! Your own wife? What has possessed ye?”
They reached the door to the dungeon, and Sorcha somehow managed to throw him against the wet wood. Reade found his feet and stood with his back to the door, glaring at his diminutive mother, who seemed much larger in her ferocious anger.
“I tried, Mother. Ye know how I’ve tried . . .”
She pressed a hand against his chest, trapping him against the door. Mighty, powerful, Highland warrior Reade MacDonald put in his place by his mam’s slight hand. No one would believe it. But then, she had a way of manhandling the most powerful of men. One only had to look at what she did to Father. Sorcha glared at him through her sopping hair that ran into her eyes. Lightning exploded in the sky, followed by a bone-shuddering crack of thunder, but Sorcha ignored the storm around her as she focused on the storm he had created.
“Nay. Yepretendedto try. She’s done everything expected of her, everything possible, fit in, to become part of this family and clan, even as her own husband kept one suspicious eye on her. Ye claimed to have put the past to bed and opened your heart to her, but ye are a liar, Reade MacDonald! My verra son, a liar! If ye truly loved her, or were trying to love her, ye’d no’ put suggestion or rumor over the word of a loved one! What did she tell ye about why she was in the woods with a Gordon?”
At that, Reade reached a hand behind his head and rubbed his wet neck. If she was this irate over his treatment of Blair, she was going to go completely mad when he told her he didn’t give Blair the opportunity to explain what happened.
He didn’t need to tell his mother. She deciphered it from his sheepish expression that the rain couldn’t hide. He blinked away the rain from his blurred vision.
“Och, Reade! Your hard head will get ye killed, I vow it!” She reached past his waist and lifted the bar at his side. The door shifted behind him. “Now get ye down there and bring her home. Bring her to your chambers, get her warm and fed, and for the love of Christ, Reade,listento her. Put your own thick-headed sorrows and hatred to rest, and I mean to rest, my lad, and give this woman a chance!”
She shoved him and he had to spin and catch the first step, lest he fell down the steps to his death. Sorcha followed him, ducking in out of the rain, and pointed a finger into the black dungeon.
Reade screwed his face up at his mother, his single act of defiance in their conversation, yet obeyed his mother and continued down the steps, snatching the hanging key as he reached the bottom.
When he opened the cellar door, he expected to see Blair simpering on the ground, grateful for his return. What he got was her back turned toward him, her arms wrapped around her slender body to ward off the chill. Her stance was as frigid as the dungeon itself.
“I’ve uh, I’ve come to get ye. Return ye to the keep.”
Blair didn’t answer. She spun on her heel and marched past him with her head high and her familiar scowl returning to her face. She did not give him a second look. In fact, her expression mirrored the icy air and cold stones of the cell. The reddish bruise on her cheek blazed against her pale skin — she’d been struck harder than he had realized, and that knowledge made his chest clench under his sopping tunic. She continued past him and up the stairs, leaving Reade to scramble behind her.
When she reached the top, she gave Sorcha a slight curtsy. Sorcha’s expression softened, and she placed her hand against Blair’s injured cheek.
“My apologies for your treatment in my home,” Sorcha told her.
Blair dipped her head. “Ye have naught to apologize for. Thank ye for letting me out.”
Sorcha pursed her lips, then watched with Reade as Blair exited the cellar door into the storm.
Sorcha then turned her face back to Reade, any softness gone.
“Ye had better listen and apologize to the lass. She’s suffered enough. If ye dinna, ye will suffer more under my hand, I vow,” she spat out.
“What about me, Mother?” Reade countered, his ire bubbling under his skin. When had his life spiraled so beyond his control?
Sorcha’s hand flew to the neckline of her léine. “Ye think ye are the only one who’s suffered loss? Had to manage the conflict among the clans? At least your body is your own and ye did no’ suffer a heavy hand to boot. She’s had fewer choices than ye in her life, and ye are whining like a bairn. Now, ye do as I say, or I’ll send your father after ye to tan your hide, no matter how old or large ye be. No son of mine will behave as ye have behaved as of late. ‘Tis time to rectify this. Now march.”
Sorcha pointed out the door. Reade opened his mouth to protest again, then snapped it shut. His mother hadn’t threatened him with a beating in years — he was a grown man and far too old for one — thus for her to threaten such a punishment, he must have been in the wrong. Why couldn’t he see it that way? All he saw was a gray world tinged in shades of red, his anger and sorrow over the loss of Camden, the mess with the Campbells, and how his future had been manipulated tainting everything else in his life.
As he trudged through the muddy grass to follow Blair to the keep, Reade realized that mayhap much of his loss of control was much of his own doing. He was martyring himself when others, his wife included, had suffered as much, if not more. Yet she took him to her bed and opened herself to him, tried to fit in with the MacDonalds, and start her life anew.
A slim ray of light cut the stormy night when Blair opened the door to the keep. Picking up his pace, Reade reached the main doors right after her and wiped the rain out of his eyes. The path he’d been set on, along with the one his wife had walked, had been a rocky and painful one indeed. Perchance ‘twas time to listen to the wisdom of others and set himself on a better path.
