Isa ran along ahead of the wagons, surprised to find two women hurrying across the bailey toward her, one young and one considerably older.
“My apologies, my tinkler friends,” the older woman said, taking Isa’s hand in hers. “I am Margery MacQuarrie and I bid you welcome. The young man on the wall hasn’t been with us long enough to have learned we never turn tinklers away. He said you have my son with you?”
Robbie’s mother.
She was supposed to tell this woman she was Robbie’s wife. She’d agreed to his request to do so. The words were on the tip of her tongue. But they weren’t the words that came out.
“Aye, he’s badly hurt and in need of special care.”
The women asked no more questions, neither of them. They simply ran to the wagon where William and Ralph were helping Robbie to the ground.
“What have you done to yerself this time, lad?” Margery exclaimed, running to her son. “Hugh! Get those men over here to help. Leah! Come with me. We’ll take them to Robbie’s chambers.”
Isa stepped back, feeling suddenly out of place. She considered climbing back into one of the wagons until a small, hot hand slipped into hers and she remembered her promise to Robbie.
“Come on, Jamie,” she urged, pulling the boy forward. “Wait. Leah?”
The girl slowed, turning back to look at her with obvious suspicion in her eyes. “Yes?”
“Yer father made me give an oath to ask you to have a look a Jamie’s injuries before you treated his own.” She pushed the boy in front of her and toward Leah.
“Before I...” Leah’s words trailed off. “Oh no. He didnotthink I was going to... well, of course he did. It is Robert, after all. I should have known.” She came to a full stop and her head dropped as if she studied the ground at her feet.
What was wrong with the girl? Did she not want to help her own father?
“Esther, the tinkler, said Robbie’s injuries were beyond her abilities. She said his only hope was a born healer. Robbie... yer father, that is... said you were one such.”
Jamie backed up against her as if he sought to hide in her skirts and she put her arms around the trembling boy, rubbing her hands on his shoulders to comfort him. To comfort herself.
Leah’s eyes darted toward the hand on Jamie’s shoulder, and for a moment Isa thought she wasn’t going to reply.
“You’re Isabella, aren’t you? You’re the one he came back for.”
Of all the things Isa expected to hear, that wasn’t one of them.
“Leah!” Margery called from the top of the stairs.
“Coming!” Leah yelled back. “Come on, you and the kid, both. We’ll sort this all out upstairs.”
One thing was certain. Though Leah MacQuarrie might not favor her father’s looks in the least, her speech was every bit as confusing as his.
Isa and Jamie followed the girl through the castle and up the stairs. By the time they reached the bedchamber, the men who’d helped get Robbie into bed were coming out of the room.
“She says Robert wanted the boy taken care of first,” Leah said to Margery as they entered.
“That sounds like something I might expect from my son,” Margery murmured, flattening out the covers over Robbie. “And who are you that he’d give you this message to deliver?”
The look Margery turned on her was entirely no-nonsense. This was it, the opportunity for her to say the words Robbie had instructed. But how could she claim to be wife to Robbie when she had already wed another man? The words stuck to the roof of her mouth. She couldn’t bring herself to lie to the woman.
“That’s Isabella,” Leah answered, placing a basin of water next to the bed. “HisIsabella.”
“Ah, I see. So yer saying Robbie wants us to have a look at yer young man there before we treat my son?” Margery asked, peeling the wrapping away from her son’s chest.
“Exactly what I want. Leah’s to see to Jamie first.” Robbie’s hand covered his mother’s, stopping her movement.
“Yer awake!”
Isa all but ran to the other side of his bed, reaching out to touch him, but stopping as she remembered his mother and daughter looked on.
