Two miracles occurred in Glenna Douglas’s life following Tavish Cameron’s tyrannical demands; the first was that it rained for the next full fortnight. She watched from her chamber window as, day after day, the gray skies hung rippling sheets of silver rain across the leaden waters of the firth. During that fortnight, Tavish Cameron’s cog ship arrived and departed on four occasions, on the latest trip finally able to send men over the new dock that had been reconstructed even through the deluge.
Much rain on the firth in spring was no wonder, of course; the miracle of it was that the rain would often stop before midnight, allowing Glenna to catch a glimpse of a brilliant black sky. But when she awoke in the morning, the sunrise was smothered by the choking, watery clouds again, the rain once more drowning the fields, the muddy paths, and ditches of the village, the Tower Road.
There was not one dry day in a fortnight for the Edinburgh merchant to enforce his eviction, and indeed, she had not caught sight of the man except from her window in those many days. And so Glenna had had much time to think upon her situation, which had been further complicated by the occurrence of the second miracle.
Iain Douglas had woken the day after Harriet Cameron had assumed his care.
He was not at all well, and indeed, his wakeful periods were marked by slurred, delusional murmurs. He seemed largely unaware of the strange woman who plied him with strong-smelling concoctions, and pressed thick, muddy toweling to his chest and abdomen. Indeed, he didn’t even recognize Glenna herself, once holding out a frail, trembling hand toward her in the still of midnight and croaking, “Meg.”
Neither did Harriet Cameron seem pleased by her success in rousing Glenna’s father. Her usual kind smile was pressed into a grim line when she warned Glenna that even if he lived, he might never completely recover his nimble mind. Harriet guessed that he’d been apoplectic, perhaps during the night early in his illness, for now his face drooped on the right side, his right arm was drawn up against his body, his mouth seemed unable to stiffen and form words out of his shapeless moans, as if he were trapped in a state of perpetual pain or nightmare.
Glenna was left to consider the realities of her future on those long, lonely, clear nights, contemplating the blazing stars washed sparkling clean by the days upon days of cold rain. She had no idea how she would fend for herself if Tavish Cameron turned her out of Roscraig, never mind if she were to be turned out with an invalid father. Even with the hold undoubtedly in deep debt, Glenna felt she had no other choice but to appeal to the crown. Iain Douglas was still one of Scotland’s lairds—surely the king would have some mercy on them both.
Perhaps he would make a match for Glenna. She tried to ignore the logic that told her any husband the king would find for such an impoverished lady would likely be old and hoary; a widower, perhaps, with children to care for. Or her imagined betrothed would be cruel and wicked, taking on the king’s charity that was Glenna and her father and paying Roscraig’s debts to avoid punishment for some evil.
Without doubt, he would be ugly and harsh; vulgar and foul. There was no dearth of well-off women willing to marry a handsome and landed man, young or old, after all.
The idea quickly brought the image of Tavish Cameron to Glenna’s mind. He was certainly not ugly, even if he had been unkind to her. She frowned as she admitted that there would be plenty of maidens eager to come to Roscraig as the wife of such a young, virile laird and take Glenna’s place as lady of the Tower.
Then she went very still.
Why should any other young woman need come to Roscraig to take her place? Why should the king have to marry Glenna off to some distasteful stranger? Glenna was already Lady of Roscraig; Tavish Cameron was already sufficiently distasteful to her. It wouldn’t take much for her distaste to blossom into full loathing. The bastard would need some credibility to lend to his newfound class status, and Glenna knew more than anyone left at Roscraig, save Frang Roy, about the village and its resources.
Perhaps a rich, bastard Edinburgh merchant was just what Roscraig needed. Perhaps Glenna was what Tavish Cameron needed.
And so, by the time the fourteenth day of her captivity arrived, sunny and clear, Glenna at last had a plan.
* * * *
Tavish sat back in his chair with a contented sigh as the servant took away his dish. He looked down the length of the trestle table, gleaming in the candlelight of the hall, the dry stones flickering with the cheery glow of the hearth mingled with the red wash of sunset coming through the windows behind him. At the other end of the table, Mam picked up her dish and handed it to the girl with unintelligible words of encouragement.
It had taken him four days of pleading to convince her not to clear the table herself.
But now his mother looked very fine, sitting in her embroidered kirtle, wearing the blue stone earrings he’d purchased for her. Even if she was glaring at him once more now that they were alone in the hall again.
“You’re still set on it, then?” she asked without preamble. She had done little else but harangue him over the matter of Glenna and Iain Douglas in the time Tavish was not tending to the revitalization of Tower Roscraig.
He sighed. “Mam, please.”
“The laird’s unwell, Tav.”
“I beg to differ,” he said, lifting his cup to salute her. “I’ve never felt better.” He took a drink.
“What if you’re wrong?” she pressed, leaning forward. “What if the king doesna side with you?”
“He’d be going against a legal inheritance,” Tavish reminded her. “You saw the state Roscraig was in at our arrival. James would have to be mad to deny an experienced merchant such a location on the firth. From both military and trade standpoints, my inheritance of the Tower will be an answered prayer for our monarch. And I’ll more than welcome his experiments in artillery.”
“Perhaps he’ll want Roscraig for himself,” she sniffed.
Tavish took another sip of wine and then shook his head as he swallowed. “He won’t want the tending of it.”
“You doona know that,” Harriet insisted.
“I reckon I will once he comes now, won’t I?” Tavish rolled he eyes as his mother looked toward the window with a hurt expression. “I ken you’ve grown fond of her, Mam. I feared that very thing. ’Tis why I wanted them out at once.”
She still refused to look at him. “’Tis nae right, what’s happened to them.”
“Perhaps it isn’t. But that doesn’t change the fact that Roscraig doesn’t belong to them.” He sighed and pushed back from the table with a screech of chair legs and, carrying his cup, walked to the end of the table to crouch down at his mother’s chair. “This is our home now, Mam. The home that Thomas Annesley wanted us to have. Would you let the woman play on your sympathies so as to take the very bed from beneath you?”
