Leith’s ma rushedto see him as soon as Rory left him alone in his quarters. She brought his sister, Aisleen, and he’d scarcely ever been so happy to see them. Ma, not a woman who customarily made a fuss, did so this time, running her hands up and down his arms before taking his face between her palms and kissing him on the forehead.
She looked like him, did his ma—the same fair hair and gray-blue eyes. Ainsley had been fair also. Da’s hair had been darker, and Aisleen’s carried a deeper hue, like red gold.
“We thought ye lost to us,” Ma said as she embraced him, her voice choked by tears.
“Aye, brother,” Aisleen agreed. “After so much time, we did fear the worst.”
“Ye canna imagine how I worried,” Ma went on.
He could. He’d known the whole time she would be sick with it.
“I was treated well, withal.”
“Rory was beside himsel’,” Aisleen said, sitting close beside Leith. “At least half o’ it was from affection for ye. The rest—”
“The rest,” Leith finished for her, “was aggravation at losing another man to MacBeith.”
“Aye,” both women agreed.
“Ye ken fine how Rory be.” Ma’s gaze met Leith’s, dodging no truths. She had helped to mother all three of them—Farlan being an orphan, and Rory motherless after his own ma had died. Being their mother, she’d learned their strengths and weaknesses. “It hurt him, losing Farlan, wounded him deep, though he does no’ like to admit it.”
“He’d sooner die,” Aisleen put in.
Ma went on, “The prospect o’ losing ye as well—I do no’ think he could countenance it.”
“He’s a different man since Farlan left,” Aisleen whispered with a glance to the door, as if afraid Rory would come in. “Short tempered and likely to fly into a rage.”
“More than usual?” Leith asked, and they both nodded gravely. “Word came to me there at MacBeith that he’d been badly wounded in that last battle, the one that took place at MacBeith’s gate. Arrow in the back.”
“Aye, so,” Ma confirmed. “He was carried back, and we thought at first we would lose him. I helped in tending him mysel’. ’Twas a bad time, him at death’s door and me no’ knowing what was happening to ye.
“But he rallied. Fought through the pain wi’ sheer determination, I should say. He still has pain, though he does no’ like to admit that either. It makes him impatient. Wi’ himsel’ and others.”
Leith raised his eyebrows. A more impatient Rory, an angrier one. It made a formidable prospect.
“I will ha’ to talk wi’ him,” he muttered. “Try to reason wi’ him—over wha’ to do about MacBeith.”
“Wha’ is to do about MacBeith?” Aisleen asked. “We fight them, do we no’?”
“We do no’ ha’ to fight them. We might, so I believe, strike a peace.”
“Good luck wi’ it,” Ma said. “Since losing Farlan, he is more determined than ever to conquer the whole glen. How is Farlan? Is he happy there among strangers?”
“’Tis no’ an easy path he has chosen. The clan has no’ yet accepted him.”
“Poor lad.”
“Yet he is happy wi’ his Moira.”
“One o’ the old chief’s daughters,” Aisleen breathed. “Who would ha’ thought?”
Who indeed? Could he tell these two, so dear to him, that he had also lost his heart to one of MacBeith’s daughters? That the woman he adored carried his wee son? Ma’s grandchild.
Nay, he could not. Not yet. They would think him mad and raving.
“And this wound o’ yours? How bad is it?”
Leith met his mother’s gaze again. “Bad. I ha’ only just regained the ability to move this hand, and ’tis no’ sound even yet. When first they brought me in as a captive, I was blinded from a blow to the head.”
