Discourteous, but he’d risk sounding like a petulant child if it meant from this day forward his wife was treated with more respect.
His mother paled. ‘That’s not why I asked, I—You care for her.’
Ailsa stiffened at his side, but he wouldn’t shirk the truth. ‘Very much, so I won’t have talk of McCrieffs versus Lochmores. Not in my presence.’
‘There’s something...’ Helen said. ‘You have to believe I wish only—’
Whatever it was she wanted to tell him, it wouldn’t be here. Not in the courtyard, not before he talked to his wife. Once the truth was said, it couldn’t be unsaid. He needed to prepare her. He needed to face his past.
All his life he’d felt like an outsider. Now that he was married, he refused for his wife to be made to feel the same way. For once, he’d face his past and see if he could find the truth, or at the very least, talk to his wife about his belief.
‘I know what I believe, Mother, and it isn’t here.’
Placing his hand on Ailsa’s back, Rory turned them towards the chapel.
‘Rory, wait!’ Helen called.
Never again.
Rory didn’t shorten his strides and Ailsa was almost running by his side. ‘Where are we going?’
‘I need to see a priest.’
Ailsa said nothing more. Rory’s storm-ridden countenance didn’t invite conversation, nor did she want any now. After Helen’s questioning, and Rory’s response, Ailsa had much to consider.
Helen’s questions were very specific. She was concerned Rory might have married Hamish’s family and then Rory defended her.
Soon, maybe now, she needed to tell Rory of Rhona’s story. She shouldn’t, couldn’t lie to him any more. Especially now that Rory, in front of his parents, and Lochmore’s Chief, confessed his feelings for her.
Ailsa kept her silence when they entered the chapel, kept it again as he talked to the well-intentioned priest. Agreed with him when he asked for privacy and so followed as he carried the chest full of cartularies to a quieter location.
Now they were here in Lochmore’s crypt. Her family’s burial tomb wasn’t as fine as this. Cool and damp, but the stones were clean, the markers shining. Even dead, the Lochmores held more wealth than a McCrieff. For this crypt wasn’t uncomfortable or unlit and the wooden benches, now covered with quilts, afforded a place to put the chest carrying the parchments and for them both to sit comfortably.
Only it wasn’t the differences between McCrieffs and Lochmores she wanted to explore.It was Rory and his expressions as he...one by one...carefully opened the familial cartularies.
‘What are you searching for?’ she said.
A tightening of his jaw, a shake of his head. ‘Ailsa, there is something I feel I need to tell you, but I—’
He read the document in his hand, his expression one of incredulity.
‘You were right,’ he said, looking back up at her. ‘Lochmore’s nephew who tried to stop the fight and was stabbed by the McCrieff was named John.’ Rory handed her the journal. ‘How could the story of the Great Feud possibly have been switched to my name?’
She read the inscription, the print so small it hurt her eyes. The entire document was written in this way. It was an effective way to preserve parchment and to keep secrets hidden.
‘You keep forgetting that, according to McCrieffs, the baby who died was always named Rory.’
Rory picked up another journal, glanced at it and set it down. ‘Ah, yes, so it’s good I married a McCrieff to remind me.’
One mystery solved. Rory was named after the baby in the Great Feud. According to McCrieffs, Rory was named after a McCrieff baby. Ailsa was beginning to understand why.
Clever Helen. It was her way of telling Rory who he was without telling him.
All her life, Rhona carried the secret of the boy who was secretly born of Hamish and carried away from McCrieff land. She now knew Rory was that baby and that Helen knew it. So she had named him after a McCrieff child.
Helen knew the secret, Ailsa also knew this secret. Of all the women Rory could have married, he had married her.
Was now the time to tell her husband? Her whole life, she spoke exactly how she felt. Now she wished she had gained other ways of conversing so that she could soften her words. Even as she clenched and unclenched her fingers, she suspected there would never be a way to soften these words.
