Iain’s head twitched as if refuting her answer. “Who s’ere?”
“Who…who’s here?” she repeated.
Her father gave a long blink.
“You mean…” Glenna broke off and felt at a loss as to how to answer his question. In his mind, were there other people in the chamber with them?
Or could he have realized that Roscraig had been seized by strangers?
As if to answer her questions, Ian’s mouth moved again.
“’Arr’et.”
“Harriet?” Glenna repeated, surprise making her words bright. “Nay, I’ve nae seen her today.” She swallowed. Her father continued to stare at her, as if waiting for her to expound. But Glenna didn’t know what to say as her heart thudded in her chest.
She’d never thought to hear her father’s voice again, never thought that he would regain enough awareness to question the hostile takeover of his home and his title—and perhaps his only child. He was a proud and quiet man, a private man, and fiercely protective of what was his—especially Glenna. If she told him now that Tavish Cameron had not only challenged his place as laird but had already overthrown his rule and turned Roscraig upside down—even for the better—the shock alone might kill him just when it looked as though he could live.
She pulled the coverlet higher and tucked it around his thin shoulders, avoiding his gaze now. “Are you hungry? Aye, you must be. I’ll just pop down to the kitchen for some broth.” She straightened with a smile and chanced a glance at his face, but he was still staring at her.
“Sen…t’er?”
Glenna frowned. “Center?”
His head twitched again. “Who…sen…ter?”
Who sent her?
Iain seemed to want to gasp for air, but the best he could manage was a reedy inhalation. “Har…cave?”
“I’m sorry, Da,” Glenna said with a feeling of relief. He wasn’t making sense at all, which meant that he still didn’t realize what had happened. “I don’t ken your meaning. Perhaps the words will come easier after a nice bowl of broth. I’ll fetch it now.”
She leaned down to kiss his thin, cool cheek.
“Har…cave,” he whispered, so faint the words were little more than breaths bookended by the clicking of his throat.
“I’ll be right back,” she reiterated quietly, cupping his face in her hands. Then she stood and fled the chamber as quickly as she could without running.
Once she was on the stairs, however, she slowed her pace, relishing the cool breeze wafting up the dim spiral, the fresh scent of spring from the greening land beyond the walls, and letting it calm her mind. At a narrow window on the level of her own chamber, Glenna paused and looked out at the fields beyond the moat to the left of the village. The tall tangle of feral plants was gone, revealing long, low swaths of rich brown dotted with the bowing shapes of workers already well set to their tasks.
There would be food growing in Roscraig’s fields this season. But it would belong to Tavish Cameron.
When she had thought Iain Douglas to die, her bargain with the Edinburgh merchant mattered little. But if her father lived, neither man would accept the other. And where would that leave her? Presuming she had a choice, which would she choose—staying in the only home she’d ever known as Tavish Cameron’s mistress or being forced out to a destitute and uncertain future with the only family she possessed and the only person who loved her? Her father had spoken of the remote Highland town of his ancestors once long ago, lamenting it as a place of constant war. Would they be welcomed there after so many years?
And if their ancestry was of a Highland town, what lineage had brought them to Roscraig?
Glenna pulled herself away from the window and started down the stairs again, intent on putting the matter out of her mind for the time being. She ducked into the kitchen only moments later, finding the now familiar form of Harriet Cameron before an enormous iron cauldron on the hearth, a servant girl at her side. The maid was listening intently to the instruction by the older woman, who gave the contents a final stir and then turned over the long-handled ladle with a smile and an encouraging nod.
Harriet noticed Glenna right away. “Good day, milady!” At her greeting, the other servants busied about the benches and shelves of the kitchen gave short curtsies or nods in Glenna’s direction. Harriet stepped to the doorway and grasped Glenna’s elbows briefly. “How fares the laird this morn?”
“He is…improved,” Glenna said, and then added quietly, “He spoke to me as if he knew who I was. Although his questions made no sense.”
Harriet nodded. “It was the same last night,” she confided and then glanced over her shoulder before hooking her arm through Glenna’s and stepping back out into the busy sunshine of the courtyard where the women could speak with some privacy. “I wasna sure what to make of it myself. At first I thought it only ramblings. It’s when he gave me the brooch—I assumed I was to give it to you, as I had been going on about the feast.”
“I’ve no idea where he could have been keeping it so close during his illness,” Glenna said. “But it was you he was asking after just now, Harriet.”
Tavish’s mother’s eyes widened. “Me, milady?”
“By name. Also something about a cave. The cave on the cliff, it must be.”
