Chapter Thirteen
Adaira
“She’s still moping, then?”
Seamus came behind Sorcha and wrapped his arms around her waist as he spoke. Sorcha stood at the window that overlooked the castle yard. She had just come from Adaira’s room in a fruitless effort to encourage the lass to get some fresh air.
Adaira had left her stunning blue wedding gown in a pile on her floor, climbed into her bed, and had not left in nearly a month.
They had let her mourn for a sennight, but over the past week, they had tried in earnest to get her to leave her room. Other than racing outside in a distressed state in her mistaken belief she might rescue Sawny from drowning, she had not left her chambers.
Instead, she laid on her side and stared at the wall, or sobbed and kicked her family out. Even Maddock had tried to engage her, using his carefree grin and witty jokes to bring a smile to her face, but his humorous words had fallen on closed ears.
All the brightness that had been their Adaira was slipping away, like the sunlight in the grip of winter, pale and wan.
They were entering yet another week with no word of the missing Keppoch MacDonald, or thefeckin’ bastardas Seamus and Reade had taken to calling him. Adaira was as distraught as she had been on her wedding day.
The heart would heal, Sorcha knew. What woman hadn’t had her heart broken in one way or another? It always healed, and many times for the better. Scars made one stronger.
But not yet for Adaira. Una had removed another untouched tray from Adaira’s room this morning and brought it directly to Sorcha. Adaira had not taken more than a cup of tea or a nibble of a bannock in nigh three weeks. Sorcha had rushed to her daughter’s room that instant and curled around the lass in her bed. She was losing weight, and her skin was dull.
Adaira had been a beautifully curved and shining bright lass, so much so that her father and brothers had to chase many men, young and old, wealthy and with position away. She was everything a man was looking for in a wife and life partner, and when she fell in love with a Keppoch MacDonald, Seamus saw it as a blessing and a curse.
“Perfect for an alliance in the Highlands, but with a clan known for lechers,” he had commented wearily.
“And thieves and reivers,” Reade had added.
Sorcha did not care. Under the banner of Sawny’s love, Adaira had bloomed even more. She had become impossibly beautiful, so much so that Sorcha’s heart trembled when she looked at her daughter. Striking beauty in such an unbearable world. Mayhap they had all been too prideful in that beauty and what came with it.
Now that the banner of Sawny was absent, Adaira was withering like a flower without sun, and Adaira’s pain was a knife in Sorcha’s heart. Her beautiful and charming daughter, brought low by a lecherous Keppoch.
Feckin’ bastard, indeed.
Adaira had ignored Sorcha’s pleas to leave the room, perchance to bathe or take a bite to eat, to no avail. Sorcha dropped her head and shuffled out of the room, nearly as despondent as her daughter.
What would happen to the poor lass now?
And worse, given the politics and Glenachulish’s status in the Highlands, their unmarried daughter could not remain unmarried long.
Sorcha could not face her duties for the day, not until she gathered her wits and emotions, so she had paused at the window and let the wash of late spring sunlight cleanse her of her dismal sadness for her daughter.
That was where Seamus had found her.
Sorcha leaned back into her husband’s warm and supportive embrace.
“Aye,” Sorcha answered. “She’s lost more weight. She’s barely skin and bones. I dinna know what to do to get her to eat anything.”
Seamus leaned forward and rested his chin atop his wife’s blond head where her hair was pinned at the crown.
“We have larger concerns,” he said with a sigh.
Sorcha’s chest deflated. From his tone, she could tell she was not going to care for Seamus’s next words.
“Word of Adaira’s predicament has run rampant throughout the Highlands.”
Sorcha huffed. “Rumors run like deer through the woods here.”
“Faster,” Seamus agreed. “And we’ve had offers for her already. Some were less than appealing, suggesting our lass is tainted goods –”
