Page 43 of Twelfth Knight’s Bride

James frowned but felt Aileana’s gaze fall upon him. He nodded. “She never cared that I was bastard born. It meant something, to have both my sisters’ acceptance when I’d never have my stepmither’s. I wish I could have done more to protect her.”

“Ye were still a lad, Jamie. How could ye have protected her?”

Jamie. The moniker was growing on him again. And as he stood here, before Marjorie’s resting place, it felt oddly fitting. He turned and dropped down to his rear, too, the coldness of the snow biting through his kilt and nipping at the bare skin behind his knees, though he kicked his legs out and leaned back against his stepmother’s headstone, to Marjorie’s other side and next to his sire’s.

“I was old enough to ken the sharp end of a blade from the hilt. Old enough to fight if needed. And fight I did. We tracked her husband down, attacked, and made sure the MacLeod whoreson knew it was us before we drove our dirks into his chest. I’ll never forget the look upon his face, and I nay think I’ll ever regret that moment of justice.”

“Marjorie’s death brought out the devil in ye.”

James pondered her apt remark. He supposed it had. He’d never killed a man before that moment. He’d found his battle cry that day, and he’d used it ever since. Hell, the whole of the Highlands called him the Devil MacDonald.

“I imagine if anything happened to ye or Lady Peigi that Seamus would do the same.”

He laced his fingers together to rest upon his belly.

“Aye, he would. And yet ye do nay seem much like a devil to me. Nay anymore.” A gentle smiled creased Aileana’s lips—a small favor he would tuck away with the other memories he was compiling of this woman. “What was she like?”

Memories of Marjorie’s kind face; blue eyes; soft dark-blonde hair, which she’d always worn carefully plaited as a child and perfectly coiffed as an adult, swirled to life. The way she’d sung to him as a bairn, or cheered for him alongside Brighde at the occasional fair when he’d participated in a contest, had always warmed him and given him a sense of belonging among his siblings.

“She was much like Lady Peigi seems to be. Dutiful, never thoughtless. Somehow, she was always perfectly mannered, knew perfectly what to do or say in each moment. She was obedient, but she always defied her mither when it came to me. My sire’s wife would have preferred her daughters shun me, but they never did.”

“It must have been difficult, growing up as ye did.”

But Aileana was prying deep down into the memories he wished not to speak of.

“Harder than some, easier than others.” He shrugged. “What about ye? What was it like growing up a Grant?”

A wistful smile turned up Aileana’s lips, and she huffed into her mittened hands to warm them further, staring into the distance as she thought. “Idyllic, I suppose, except for the occasional reave. Those were terrifying. But it seems everyone has wanted to get their hands upon Urquhart, and sadly, being prepared to hide during a reave became a routine. The first I remember, I was a wee one. Peigi and I were frolicking along the shore of the loch, collecting pebbles—well, I was collecting them and had my skirts tied up so I could touch the waters with my bare feet, though I could never submerge them for long. . . the waters are always freezing,” she added with a smile.

He smiled, too, at the thought of a young Aileana, before freckles and beauty and dowries designed to capture a suitor had mattered and only a child’s happiness had been the ambition. Her smile fell, and she began to swirl her mitten in the snow, making an idle spiral pattern.

“There was a commotion. My faither’s sentries upon the wall were shouting. Our crofters were running though the crops, screaming, trying to take shelter within the walls. Peigi and I didnae ken what to do and stood frozen. Should we thrust ourselves in the water rather than be taken prisoner, as we’d been told to do should we ever face an enemy’s kidnapping?”

His heart clenched, and without much thought, he took her hand. This wasn’t what he’d bargained for when he’d asked about her childhood. Hurt skittered through him for the frightened lassie she’d been, contemplating drowning in the icy depths of the loch instead of being taken prisoner, and yet after she’d endured listening to the hardships his people had suffered, he felt compelled to let her speak about this now.

“And then they did see us. And a massive horse galloped our way, a man in furs and with a claymore strapped to his back, bedecked in a metal breastplate, spotting us. He abandoned the crofters he was chasing and put us in his sights. Peigi screamed, nay knowing what to do. I tugged on her, panicking, and cried that we needed to jump in the waters, though I couldnae uproot her. And then Seamus was there, as valiant as a king. He was barely old enough to carry a sword, still gangly, nary a whisker growing upon his jaw and certainly had earned no titles yet. And yet he thrust himself in front of us, shouting at our assailant to nay lay a fingertip upon us. And so, ye see, I believe he would have defended us exactly the way ye sought justice for Marjorie.”

James squeezed her hand, and she squeezed his in return.

“My faither arrived to defend us next, and distracted him whilst Seamus tossed Peigi and me upon his shoulders to run us to safety behind the castle and through the water gate, whilst my sire fought off the attacker, though the skirmish left him maimed. I remember Seamus telling us to stay hidden in a trunk, to nay make a sound, and told us to play a game, that we were mice trying nay to get caught by a lion, and the way he kissed each of our foreheads before closing the lid had Peigi and me terrified, for it felt like a goodbye—”

James dragged Aileana to him, wrapping his arm around her.

“Who attacked ye, Allie?” Gruffness laced his whisper as he pressed his lips to her crown.

She wrapped an arm about his waist, like a comfortable lover, nay the nàmhaid she’d once been. Yet he feared the answer, and for a moment, she fell silent.

“Jamie, it might be best nay to speak on those details,” she muttered.

“’Twas my sire, was it nay?” He croaked. How dare Aileana have sympathy for him right now and try to shield him from the truth.

She said nothing, simply nodded, her hair brushing back and forth against his lips.

The air left his lungs. Gut punched.

Aileana looked up at him, but his jaw clenched, and he fixed his eyes upon Loch Moidart’s wintery water.

“Are ye all right?” she asked.