Page 69 of Highlander’s Haunted Past

He leaned over and stole one soft kiss, whispering, “Get better, lass. I miss ye.”

She may not be willing to say it, but he had no such resistance. He did miss her; he missed her more now that she was so close than he had when they were on the road fighting back Gordon rebels. He would have rather gone back to the first week of their marriage, to their nightly cessation in their shared tent, than be in a room next door, unable to do anything but wonder at how she was.

Kenna stirred in the quilts and Rob rose, slipping from the room before she could wake and find him there.

Rob slept restlessly that night, tossing and turning and dreaming of the archer. Rob was chasing him, as he had in that forest weeks ago, but this time he couldn’t keep pace at all. He kept falling further and further behind until, just as he had in reality, he had lost him.

The dream was shattered by the loud thud of a door being thrown open.

“Rise and shine, lad, there is no time fer a bit of hard work like the present!” Laird Lovat looked far too energetic for the hour.

Rob groaned into his pillow.“Ye’re trying to kill me.”

“If ye need a break, I am sure I could find some light and menial tasks fer ye. Murtagh and Jacob are going to fetch all that firewood ye could not haul back on yer own. I am sure that one of them would be willing to trade jobs with ye, so they could go hunting.”

Rob paused. “Hunting?”

“Aye,” his father confirmed, sitting on the edge of the bed and crossing his arms in assured victory. “We need more meat to keep us from touching our stores.”

Rob grunted and sat up, “Ach, fine, twist my arm why don’t ye. But I have one condition: when these snows finally come, ye’ll let me sleep in peace.”

Laird Lovat smirked. “Done. Now get dressed and get down to the hall for a quick breakfast. Yer brother will be waiting fer ye.”

As his father left, Rob grimaced. Maybe ‘tis best to go to the mill after all…

In the end, Rob decided that it would be unlikely for Hugh to still be acting so surly. However, just one hour into the hunt, Rob was dreaming of the little forest clearing and the endless beat of an ax against wood.

Hugh wasn’t particularly angry that day, for at least that emotion seemed to have passed, but there was a deep melancholy that had settled into his features, making him look gaunt and pallid. When Rob made early attempts to coax out a conversation, Hugh would simply grunt or shrug, refusing to meet Rob’s eye.

Hunting had always been a place where the brothers could rely on each other, to know the moves of the other before they made them, trained by years and years of experience. Those years had all been for naught. Today, Hugh had walked around the forest with the clumsiness of one who had never hunted before. When following deer tracks, he became distracted by other tracks that crossed their path. When setting rabbit traps, his fingers were clumsy with the knots. When Rob held up his hand, thinking there was a deer in the clearing ahead, Hugh had just keep trudging forward, scaring off the small herd.

Rob was worried about him, but he did not know what to do about it. Somehow, Ellen was rooted at the center of it all. Florence would have to try and coax the answers from her. Perhaps she’d had another miscarriage. Maybe Hugh had promised her a babe before year’s end, and he was now thinking of stealing one away. Or maybe he had promised her wealth beyond compare and had placed poor bets that he now would be struggling to pay.

Stop thinking about it, Rob told himself, clutching his head.

As the day had dragged on, his ideas had become more and more outlandish. At one point, he had even considered the possibility that he had promised Ellen a separation because she wanted to run off with Murtagh. But who would want to run off with Murtagh?

Rob stopped outside of his chamber door and sighed. His shirt was covered with blood and grime. He needed something clean to sleep in, but he did not want to wake Kenna. Florence had warned him when he arrived home that the healer had not shared any details of Kenna’s illness, but had simply said that she needed at least one more night of rest.

As much as he did not want to wake her, he would have to take the chance.

But when Rob opened the door, he found the room bright with a freshly stoked fire. Kenna was sitting in a chair placed just in front of it, her eyes focused down in her lap, where she stabbed a needle through a bit of white cloth, cursed, and undid the stitch. Her face was still a little pale, but she seemed otherwise all right.

He let the door fall shut behind him, the latch clanging softly as it closed. Kenna nearly jumped from the seat and looked up at him in surprise.

“Look who has finally decided to come home,” she said icily, though her tone was betrayed by a twinkling in her blue eyes.

“Aye. Ye have Laird Lovat to blame fer that. I’m just grateful to be allowed across the castle threshold at all.”

Rob crossed the room and kissed her gently on the forehead before sitting himself right in front of her chair, leaning against her and settling his head in her lap as he tried to slow the thrumming of his blood that was all headed south at the mere feeling of being close to her.

“At least things are almost done. It seems like ‘tis going to start snowing any day now,” she said, reaching out to run her fingers through his hair.

“We can only hope. I’m a bit surprised that ye are still awake. Does that mean ye are feeling well again, lass?”

“A little, and yet not at all. ‘Tis not an illness I’ll recover from so quickly.”

Rob’s head shot up and looked her over. Unlike the last time he had seen her, she did not look feverish, and her eyes were bright. She certainly did not look unwell.

“What is it? The same disease yer sister has?”

“No, or, at least, she had better not have this particular illness right now.”

“Then what the devil is it?” he pressed, the thrum of his heart quickening.

She was smiling at him, the foolish wench. She was enjoying the panic that she was drawing from him.

“I’m pregnant.”

Rob felt his jaw drop. The blood fell from his head, and he suddenly felt as if he was going to faint. Was he going to faint? Was he suddenly rendered so spineless?

“Christ, Rob, do not fall over and hurt yerself,” Kenna admonished, grabbing him by the shoulders to keep him from falling backward.

“But we have barely—I mean, I didn’t even finish that time—”

“Well, Highlander, it would seem that one time was all ye needed.”