As Mary had expected,her father and a few other men took Erik hunting the next morning. Fiona was glad. She would not have to explain to him why she spent so much time with the healer, though she could have passed it off as time spent chatting with her and Lia. She swore Mary to secrecy before asking to see them.
Mary had answered with a laugh. “I kenned that must be the reason for yer visit, despite what ye told yer husband. Ye have that look about ye.”
“Look? What look?”
“Hopeful, happy, like something good could be happening, but also like ye are up to something.”
Nothing that would make Erik suspect, Fiona hoped.
The healer asked her questions, and most she was able to answer.
After a quick examination, the healer patted her shoulder, making Fiona fear the worst.
“Ye are carrying a bairn, Fiona.”
Not until Lia, working across the herbal with her back to them, turned and squealed did Fiona understand what the healer said, rather than what she feared she was about to say.
“I’m so happy for ye!” Lia announced. “And Laird Ross will be thrilled.”
Fiona smiled, certain that he would, and turned back to the healer. “When will this wee one arrive?”
She cocked her head as if thinking—or counting. “In late summer, or early fall, I think. ’Tis hard to be precise. Have ye been ill or tired?”
“Aye, tired, but we’re working so for the clan, I thought that was the reason.”
“Ye must find a way to rest. To share yer burdens. Ye will learn ye canna be Lady Ross for as many hours of the day as ye have been, especially after this wee one arrives.”
“We will figure something out,” Fiona promised with a smile.
After knocking on the door, Mary came in. “Ye are smiling. Good news?”
“The best,” Fiona told her. “Erik will be so pleased, as am I.”
Mary gave her a hug. “I’m so happy for ye. But we will keep quiet about this until ye have a chance to tell him, aye?” Her gaze traveled over the healer and Lia. “Later today, after the hunters get back,” she suggested to Fiona. “Ye dinna want the secret to get out before ye see him.”
After a successful hunt,Erik was tired but pleased. The buck he got would feed Rose tonight, along with smaller game their escorts provided. James Rose didn’t seem disappointed not to have been the one to get a buck, but perhaps he was simply being a good host. And that was a pleasant change from the way Erik left Rose the first time last autumn—disgraced, without Fiona, and without their wedding night—when a drunken brawl among Rose’s men and his made them unwelcome.
After delivering their bounty to the Rose cook, the hunters went their separate ways to clean up. He headed up to the chamber he and Fiona shared, expecting that she might be busy elsewhere, so he was happy to find her reading, and with a large tub and buckets of water heating by the fire. “Hello, love. Ye made ready for me, I see,” he said by way of greeting.
She set aside her book and stood. “Ye were successful?”
“Rose will dine on venison this evening, unless Cook chooses to serve it tomorrow. Aye, we were successful.”
“Let me help ye then,” she said. “Ye’ve blood on yer clothes.”
“Dinna come too close or ye’ll have it on yers.” He poured several buckets of water into the tub, then stripped, tossed his clothes out into the hall for the maid to take to wash, climbed in, and leaned back. “’Twas a good day,” he said, eyes closing as Fiona poured more warm water over him.
She soaped a cloth and helped him wash as he told her about the hunt. Finally, he ran down and asked her what she’d done while he was out.
“Stand and let me rinse ye,” she said. “I want ye on yer feet and awake, not dozing in the tub. I have news ye’ll want to hear.”
“What news?”
She gave him a sheet to dry off with, then a clean léine. “Patience, love.”
“Aye?” He pulled her to him. “Now that I’m clean, I want a kiss from my bonnie wife.”
“And ye shall have one,afterI tell ye my news.”
