Page 20 of Twelfth Knight’s Bride

Curious faces turned to stare as they entered the bailey, now consumed within the belly of this stronghold, as maidservants gathered dutifully on the steps. Soldiers leaned warily over the walls to catch a glance of her. Her face burned with heat. Surely they were all making opinions of her. Surely they hated her, or judged her plainness for themselves.

“Ye bring the enemy?” called down a ranking soldier who wore a sparkling brooch. Was he James’s first-in-command?

“Lady Aileana isnae our enemy, Angus man,” he replied in defense of her.

“The Grants are our friends now, is that it?” the man named Angus replied to a rumbling of chuckles. “The scar on me arm begs to differ!”

He must rank high to talk back so freely. Aileana clenched James, her mind swaying now. She blinked to clear the headiness and lifted her chin, ever defiant. What was I thinking, agreeing to come here?

“What be the lady’s business?” came a feminine voice in a much kinder tone.

A woman with soft blonde hair swept back in beaded netting and a braid of hair looped over her head like a crown stood regally at the steps, a MacDonald tartan wrapped around her back and clutched in the crooks of her elbows. Her eyes were a pretty blue, and her looks favored James’s. Was this his sister, Brighde? And then Aileana’s gaze migrated to the dangling bobbles at the woman’s ears. Pearls embedded in gold in such a distinctive design, it would be hard to mimic. My mother’s earrings bequeathed to me…that had been stolen. Aileana had coveted those precious gifts. James had gifted them to this woman!

“She comes with no business,” James replied, coming to a halt and addressing the gathering. “She’s my wife.”

Gasps resonated. Wide eyes loomed around them, and someone, somewhere, dropped their burden with a clattering of metal. Sweat trickled down Aileana’s temples, nerves chewed mercilessly at her stomach. And the fever she feared had taken root threatened to get the better of her. She focused on the one thing that wasn’t starting to spin: the other lady’s earrings. To know this man who she was beginning to feel fondness for had stolen them was one thing, but to see the spoils of his raid flaunted before her now stung. Her distress, held at bay by a thread, overpowered her.

“My earrings,” she murmured, and she blinked desperately to clear her foggy mind but tipped off the horse, grappling fruitlessly to hold onto James’s waist as her vision swirled, as she fell, fell…and lurched hard.

…

26th of December

Pounding. Aileana winced. Her head was pounding. She was so tired. But as her head lolled on the pillow…

A pillow!

It was soft and lush. The linen covering it was finely woven and smooth against her cheek. It smelled of lavender, a faint waft meeting her nose each time she moved. Ah, heaven, such a scent. It had been so long since the Grants could afford so fine a fragrance as lavender. And she was warm.

A heavy blanket was draped upon her, cocooning her to the firmly stuffed mattress. She basked in the sensation until curiosity got the better of her, and she dared to blink awake. Where was she, and what had happened? The chamber encompassing her was dim but, my, so fine. Bed curtains of deep-red velvet were drawn back to reveal a hearty fire crackling in the hearth, the smell of the peat both pungent and comforting. When was the last time they’d had such a fire at Urquhart? The Grants only burned one when they needed it. Otherwise, their drafty hearths remained cold.

She pushed onto her elbow and brought her fingers to her forehead to feel the source of the pounding. Surely she’d bruised herself. How? Slowly, as the memories of her arrival to Tioram Castle filtered back through her groggy mind, she recalled the sensation: feverish, shivering, vision going black, body drifting…

She bolted upright. Pain throbbed through her head. “Goodness, I fainted dead away, off his horse.”

She waited for the sensation to ease and pushed back the covers to stand.

“Ohh,” she groaned, and she dropped back to her rear, bracing her forehead again.

As the swirling sensation settled, she glanced around her chamber at the tapestries hung over the window shutters, wooden furnishings polished to shining with embroidered pillows upon the chairs at the table. Anger at Urquhart being so deprived of these things swarmed her thoughts like angry wasps, and she moved to the hearth to kneel before the heat. The floorboards were coarse under her bare feet, save the soft rugs before the hearth.

Bare feet.

She looked down. She was bare footed and in a chemise! She hadn’t been wearing one before, only her tunic beneath her gown.

Clenching the neck hole to her throat as her sleeves billowed to her elbows, she huddled at the fire and looked about for a robe. The trunk beside the dressing table seemed the likeliest place for a robe to be stored, though it sat draped in a silken cloth, with baskets of bobbles and a mint box atop it. Who had undressed her? Dear God, had James done so himself?

The door opened. She whirled around to look over her shoulder, her chemise still clutched at her throat, and, speak of the devil, the Devil MacDonald. James pushed through the door. He froze, his hand in midthrust. His eyes widened an increment, traveled down her body, and lingered upon her for longer than was gentlemanly before traveling over her hands clutched beneath her chin.

“My dress,” she croaked, snapping his attention back to her face.

Propelled to action, he closed the door and cleared his throat.

“Ye were burning up. Ye fainted. Yer attendants assisted ye, and thankfully, yer fever broke whilst ye slept, or else I fear it might have become something worse. Then Seamus would have had my head upon his pike.”

The distress in her stomach unclenched at his admission. He strode within and plucked a garment from a chair to hold up like proof of wrongdoing at Court—his jaw freshly shaven, clamped tightly—and thinned his lips.

“Why were ye traveling in a wet tunic? As a woman whose family claims ye to be a skilled healer, I’d think ye would have more wisdom. Were ye trying to catch yer death?”