She hurried out,intent on going about her duties and her visits, and almost at once met Moira. The two of them were up so early, she about her mother’s former tasks, and Moira, if Rhian was not mistaken, about Da’s former ones.
“Sister, where are ye bound?” she asked.
“The battlements, to check the guard.” Doubt and unease flickered in Moira’s eyes. “Now that we ken Rory MacLeod is alive—”
“Aye.” Rhian drew a breath. For a short time in Leith’s embrace, she’d been able to lay the fears and worries aside. How could she have thought, even with him inside her, she could defeat them entirely?
With him inside her.
“But surely,” she suggested to Moira, “he will no’ renew the attack so soon. Saerla did say he was sore hurt.”
“Aye.” Moira pressed her lips into a tight line. “And Farlan has told me again and again, that will no’ stop him. Rory has met defeat on our land time after time. Each attack he has launched upon us since Da’s death has left him creeping awa’ again. Farlan says Rory does no’ accept such defeats readily. ’Twill mak’ him more determined than ever to overthrow us.”
The very idea had Rhian’s fears rising again. “Wha’s to be done?”
Moira jerked her head at the battlements. “Keep up an eagle-eyed watch and a strong defense. Decide wha’ will be in our best interest.”
“Such as?” Rhian asked with considerable trepidation. She did not think Moira the woman to carry the battle forth and attack MacLeod while the injury to their chief made them vulnerable. But Alasdair was quite possibly the man for it. And Moira no longer led the clan on her own.
Moira shook her head. “There will be another meeting of the council later today to discuss just that.” She hesitated but a moment. “Sister, in your opinion, how much harm will it do the prisoner to be sent back at once to MacLeod?”
Dismay washed over Rhian, so powerful her knees trembled. How much harm? To Leith, physically—and to her own heart. She flashed back to last night—him lying beneath her, his gaze locked to hers as he flexed his strong body and came to her. Cameinher.
“Sister? What is it? Is he dying?”
“Nay. I believe he is on his way to recovery,” Rhian lied to her sister, something she’d done but a few times in her life. “But no’ ready—no’ ready to travel that distance yet.”
She needed him with her. Inside her. Needed it with unprecedented hunger.
Moira, of all women, should understand that. She was in love with Farlan, he of the even temper and steady gaze.
Aye, but this thing between Rhian and Leith was private. Pure and magical. She could not speak of it yet.
Moira laid a hand on Rhian’s forearm. “I ken, sister, that ye hate losing a patient. Heal him up well, and heal him up fast. He may need to return to MacLeod as soon as possible.”
Rhian nodded. When she parted from her sister, it was with a heavy heart.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Rhian never knewat what point during that long day she became aware—aware of the change within her. It might have been while she tended her many patients, her attention focused on them. When she peeled away stinking bandages and administered draughts.
While she treated the festering stump where young Fergus’s hand had once been, as Calan, Fergus’s best friend, stood by anxiously waiting for reassurance she could not give. The two young men were just barely eighteen, and had grown and trained at arms together.
Rhian did not think she could save Fergus. It was going to break Calan’s heart.
Or it might have been during the later meeting of the council, which Moira had begged Rhian and Saerla to once more attend. Calan was there also, one of a few younger men joining that august body.
It was possible the knowledge just crept upon her, filtered through like the blood in her veins—the desire that simmered inside her, a steady fire in a hearth. She was the hearth, and the fire quickened.
She carried Leith MacLeod’s child.
She’d always had an instinct for such things, as had her mother before her. Women could come to her early and ask whether they were carrying a child, and she could sense it. She could often also tell whether the bairn was a lad or a lass.
As soon as conviction flitted through her and became undeniable—during the meeting in the hall—she knew that also.
The child Leith had given her was a boy.
It must have happened that morning when he remained so deep inside her, leaving his seed and staying seated in place. When their hearts had beaten as one, and it seemed impossible, now that she thought about it, that she couldnotconceive his child.
