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She was the daughter of a laird and the sister of a laird and the aunt of my laird. Even before the laird ruined me, she would likely have said the same thing. I was a crofter’s daughter; she was a lady of landed wealth. But now that the laird had taken me to his bed, I knew that my lowly social origins were not her foremost objection. “My lady, surely at a time like this, all hands are needed—”
“This isn’t the first siege I’ve lived through,” Lady Fiona snapped. “And it probably won’t be the last. But a lady’s virtue must be guarded well, so that it may endure eternal.”
I swallowed, waiting for the pain of my shame to blossom in my chest.
Yet, it did not.
Because if the laird was pleased with me, then I ought not care what Lady Fiona thought. Nor her daughters. And I suddenly realized what a blessing the laird had given me by asking me to devote myself to his pleasure and his alone.
Why he’d given me some manner of armor!
“I find my virtue in doing my duty by the laird,” I said simply.
Then I turned and left her gawping, for she could hardly argue with that.
Having no where else to go, I wandered down the stairs to where my sister worked with the physicker, madly grinding something to a powder with a mortar and pestle. She knew herbs—healing herbs—and was determined to keep the castle well-stocked or well-organized. I had to confess, while she’d never been terribly reliable at home on my father’s croft, away from our father’s oppressive presence, my little sister had recently come into her own.
“Can I grind that for you?” I asked, discomforted by the change in our roles.
Blowing a tendril of hair out of her eyes, Arabella looked up from her worktable and held out a jar for me. “You can tell me what this says before I end up mixing the wrong things together.”
I stared at the smudged markings on the jar, but could make no sense of them, a thing I was embarrassed to admit, since I’d been taught to read at the laird’s command and expense. “I’m—I’m not sure what it says. Does the physicker have some idea?”
“He says he’s never seen it before and doesn’t know how it came to be amongst his collection. And he also said he didn’t have time for my nonsense. A direct quote…”
“I can try to find out if you let me take the jar.”
“Take it where?” Arabella asked.
“To Ian Macrae. He’s the one who taught me to read.”
She snorted. “I don’t see what place a big brawny warrior has playing your school master.”
“The laird told him that he must,” I said.
She snorted again. “Is he always obedient? Because between you and me and these gray stone walls, I must say, I’m not sure the man can be trusted.”
“He…” I trailed off, not knowing exactly what I meant to say of Ian Macrae. He was the laird’s kinsman, but a thorn in his side. He was a close advisor, but a hostile one. Though he’d never been particularly kind to me, he’d also risked his life to protect me. “Before the siege, when you were captured by the enemy, and the Donalds tried to capture me too, Ian was nearly killed defending me, so I cannot say a bad thing about him.”
But I also couldn’t speak much of him without remembering how he had also been present when the laird deflowered me. How he had watched, with lust in his eyes. How I had wondered if he would take a turn with me—not hating the idea, at the time. The memory made me blush, which caused my sister to misinterpret my embarrassment entirely. “Well, then I’ll say nothing against him, Heather. Is he a bad teacher? Does he bellow every time you get a word wrong?”
I turned away. “He doesn’t love teaching me, but he’s been surprisingly patient. We’ve found together a love of books.”
“Books,” Arabella said, dreamily.
I sighed, too, for I loved them. Ever since I’d learned to read, I’d found great solace and escape in their pages. Books seemed to me a magical thing. Murmuring softly to myself as I puzzled out the words, I was sometimes transported to other times and places. Sometimes I marveled at the poetry of a phrase. Sometimes I learned things that I longed to put to use somehow.
And I owed that, in part, to Ian Macrae.
So I was feeling entirely charitable toward the man when I found him out in the wintry cold by the gate, where he had his sword drawn against two terrified villagers. “Out you go,” he barked at them. “And be glad you’re not being dumped over the walls into the cold loch.”
At the sight of the villagers’ tear-streaked faces and the sound of these harsh words, I came to a dead stop, my hand curling around the jar. Ian couldn’t mean to send villagers out of the castle, defenseless against the enemy.
“T’was just a misunderstanding!” one of the villagers cried, and I could see that he was bleeding at the nose. “There’s bound to be brawling when tempers are so high.”
“But it’s not the first time between you two, is it?” Ian snapped. “I warned you last time you took to each other that you’d be thrown out of the castle, and the cook now tells me that you broke her crockery and busted open a cask of wine.”
“T’was an accident!” the other villager exclaimed, his beady eyes darting to me in desperation. “We’ll starve out there, or be beaten, or worse, lass. The laird wouldn’t want that for his people would he?”
