Page 33 of The Laird’s Lost Wife

She considered it. She could slip away, avoid whatever it was he had to say to her. The coward’s way out, really.

Too bad I’m not a coward. Anyway, I suppose a conversation is long overdue, she thought unhappily. Better get it over with.

This way, it was easier to attribute the bubbling in her chest to anxiety over their conversation, and nothing to do with any other, more troublesome feelings.

Feelings that the last few years should have dampened down. They hadn’t, of course, and no doubt she’d have to face that sooner or later.

Ideally, later.

Hiking up her skirts, she hurried after him.

He must have heard the approaching tap-tap of her feet, hurrying to keep up, but made no move to glance behind him.

She caught up, and they walked side by side in silence.

The carriage was out of sight by the time he turned towards a narrow doorway. A single thick step led up into the door, and a young maid sat on the step, sewing a crisp linen shirt. She glanced up at them and smiled, ducking her head respectfully to Hunter. However, she didn’t jump up and curtsey, only shuffled out of the way.

“The servants behave differently here than the servants in England,” Daphne remarked, stepping through the doorway after him. The hallway was narrow, cool, and dark, and the footsteps on the stone floor echoed. “They’re less subservient. I suppose I have gotten used to the English way.”

“Do ye prefer it? The English way, I mean.”

She considered, then shook her head. “Nay, nae at all. Lady Pilbury treats her servants like family. She’s a good, kind woman. But I used to go with her to pay calls, back when she was well, and I saw how other families treated their servants.”

He glanced back over his shoulder. “Bad?”

“Bad,” she confirmed. “I watched a woman dismiss a maid for dropping a teacup. The girl cried and begged, but it did no good. Lady Pilbury, on the other hand, learned that I was pregnant and didnae throw me out. Now that was unusual.”

“Any woman me mother loves so much must be special.” Hunter shrugged. He kept his back turned to her, his broad shoulders nearly filling the narrow hallway. “That’s why I invited her. Our healers might do her good, ye ken. And it will do me mother good to have a child to spoil.”

He didn’t say her grandchild, but the words rang in her head anyway. She wondered briefly if Hunter had heard the words in his head, too, ringing out clear and crisp, like a bell.

A person could never undo being a parent. A home could be left behind, a spouse could be abandoned or might die, but once a child had been born, a person never ceased being a mother or a father. After all, how many mothers or fathers did she know who only had dead children? No, the brand of parenthood remained, no matter what.

I am a mother. He is a father. That knowledge cannae be taken back. It just cannae. What does he think about that? Does it terrify him?

It had certainly terrified her, long before Willow was born. That was normal, though, wasn’t it? New parents dreaded the event as much as they longed for it. It wasn’t just the pain and horror of childbirth, but the reality of what came after. Raising a child. Not an easy task. In fact, based on what she’d observed herself, it was one of the hardest things a person could ever do.

Enough of these musings, she scolded herself. Concentrate on the here and now.

Now that he was here, with the dark, cold walls of Keep MacCrimmon looming around her, the reality of her situation flooded in. She was far from home, both her real home and Lady Pilbury’s house, the place that had become home.

And I am mother to the only MacCrimmon heir.

I suspect that’s a dangerous situation to be in.

The endless hallway opened at last into a wide, cavernous space, full of tapestries and old portraits. The ceiling swept up and up, furred with dust and old cobwebs. A galley ran around the walls, and she saw soldiers and servants milling around, smothering their boredom or going about their business.

Hunter didn’t stop.

“This way,” he ordered brusquely, and set off across the room. He didn’t bother to moderate his pace to let her keep up. He just walked, fast, and assumed that she’d follow.

For the most part, he was right, so far. She did follow him. There was something undignified about trotting after him, like a sheep hurrying after a shepherd, but what could she do?

I could stop dead, I suppose, but what’s the point of that?

No point at all. So, she kept going.

Eyes lingered on Daphne as she followed him. Soldiers eyed her with curiosity, and the maids whispered as she went by. Uneasily, she realized that her appearance here would be remarked upon and gossiped about. Gossip like that would easily escape the keep and make it to other clans.