Becca St.John (23 page)

Seonaid took the pillow, knelt upon it, clasped her hands at her waist to stop their trembling. She bowed her head, as fear ransacked her innards, a thousand hungry minnows swirling in her stomach. Greater than any fear in battle for, with this, she would die. For better or worse, part of her would be gone forever.

Father Kenneth blessed the goblet, dipped his hands in and sprinkled the holy water on Seonaid’s head before placing his hand upon her forehead. “You, dear child, bore the weight of another’s sin. You lived your life with courage and integrity. You have followed your quest, traversed the breadth of Scotland, to the heart of your soul. You triumphed over adversity, challenged danger, and offered your life to free others. Tireless and selfless, you prevailed. Seonaid is now a legend, gone to mere mortals, but a tale to be told to inspire strength and power. You are no longer the woman you were, Seonaid MacKay, but a new woman. A woman of light and courage. I bless you.” As he spoke, he made the sign of the cross on her forehead. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. I christen you, in the name of all that is Holy, Gwenllian Irvette, descendant of the Macleods.”

Seonaid gasped, as he poured water over her head, as if the startling texture of the water shook her old self out of her. The woman she had been was no more. She was dead, buried. And yet, she still was, for he had not changed her line of descent, just acknowledged it through the line of her mother, rather than her father. A tradition of old.

Everyone waited for her to rise, but she was not capable. She needed the time for his words to sink into the depths of her.

“Gwenllian,” she whispered. “I am Gwenllian, to be called Gwen,” she repeated, rolling the name through her head. Freedom, freshness, welled within, as if the friar’s words poured water on thirsty seeds.

Padraig took her arm, to help her stand. “I am the same,” she told him in awe, “and yet I am different.”

Father Kenneth patted her arm. “Exactly,” he told her, as if such things happened daily. “And now for you, lad.” He took Deian’s arm. “Now that your mother is not kneeling, you kneel.”

“Why?”

“Because you are to have a father.”

Bewildered, Deian watched, as Padraig stood before him, a dagger in his hand.

The lad stiffened, but did not move. “You wouldn’t hurt me,” he stated as fact, though his steely look admitted he thought Padraig just might.

Padraig laughed. “No more than I would hurt myself,” he said, then placed the blunt side of his dagger on Deian’s shoulder. “I adopt you, Deian, to be my son. You shall be called Eban MacKay.” He moved the dagger to Deian’s other shoulder. “Your blood shall mingle with my blood.” Then he placed the dagger on Deian’s head. “An equal and legal heir with any children borne of me.”

Padraig got down on his knees, in front of the lad Deian, now named Eban. “Give me your hand. The right one.”

Eban hesitated before opening his palm. Padraig took the brooch, passed it to the newly-named Gwen. “You will have to be brave,” he explained, as he took Eban’s thumb and sliced just deep enough for blood to well. He then did the same with his right hand, pressed his wound to Eban’s. Angus wrapped a strip of plaid around their thumbs.

“Padraig’s blood now flows in Eban’s body and Eban’s blood flows in Padraig’s. In the name of our clan, with all who witness this act this night, I decree they are now father and son.” He unbound their hands, as Padriag pulled Eban’s head to his chest, tears pooling in his eyes.

Gwen fell to her knees, wrapped her arms around father and son.

Angus cleared his throat. “We aren’t done yet.”

Seonaid—no, she was no longer Seonaid—Gwen looked up. “But we have done everything.”

“Not quite, and I would like to see an end to this and take to my bed,” Angus groused.

“Oh.” All three of the new family stood. “What else is there?” she asked, despite Padraig’s smirk. “What?”

He reached out with his right hand, blood still seeping from the cut. She took it, thinking to clean it, but he stopped her. “Not that hand, Gwenllian. Your right hand.” And she suddenly knew what was happening, what they’d yet to do.

Still dazed by the whole of the night, she lifted her right hand for him. He shifted her left to his left, took her right in his right. Held her in the age-old symbol of handfast. Angus used the same plaid he had for father and son, to wrap around the clasped hands of the couple being wed.

Father Kenneth stepped forward.

Padraig smiled at him. “You don’t need to say a thing, Father. I’ve been practicing these words for years.”

“Aye,” the friar stopped him, “but I will add my words at the end. This is no handfasting, for a year-and-a-day. This will be a marriage, sound and true, from this day forward.”

“That it will be, Father. Have no fear I mean different,” Padraig confirmed, before he turned to Gwen, eyes narrowed with determination.

Did he expect her to stop him, to say no? He was daft if he did. He meant the world to her, she’d not let him go, now that she was free of the past. She met his gaze, her own serious, and listened to the words he’d memorized without her even knowing.

“I vow you the first cut of my meat, the first sip of my wine, from this day only your name shall I cry out in the night and into your eyes shall I smile each morning; I shall be a shield for your back, as you are for mine, not a grievous word be spoken about us, for our marriage is sacred between us and no stranger shall hear my grievance. Above and beyond this, I will cherish and honor you through this life and into the next.”

He turned from her, looked about the room, panicked. She’d never seen Padraig panic. “I’ve no ring,” he admitted. “No ring!”

Angus gestured at his brooch. “Give her that,” he suggested.

Padraig looked at his bride. “Do you mind? I will have a ring made for you, an unbroken circle. I promise, but this is all I have.” He gestured with his chin, as his hands were in hers. Lady Alissa hurried forward, unclasped it and then handed it to the friar, who blessed it with quiet solemnity.

He held it then, above their heads, a silver brooch shaped like a sword. A circle decorated to its hilt, with knotted designs of old and the words
Manu Forti
, for the MacKay motto ‘with a strong hand’, framing an upright sword held in a fist.

Padraig’s voice rang clear. “With
this brooch I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.” And as he said the last words, the friar moved the brooch in the sign of the cross. “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

Seonaid, now known as Gwendllian or, as Padraig deemed to call her, Gwen, of the Macleods, once a MacKay soon to be a MacKay again, asked her son, their son, “Bring our brooch here, Eban. I’ve placed it on the table by the bed.” She looked at Padraig. “For it’s time I said my vows to this great man.”

CHAPTER 23 ~ A FAMILY

“I wish you’d stop crying.” Padraig looked over his shoulder at Gwen, as they rode to their little place upon the hillside. “If it weren’t for that wild smile on your face, I’d think you were unhappy with how things have turned out.”

“No.” She shook her head against his back. “No’ unhappy. No’ unhappy at all, it’s just such a turnabout. I can be like any other lass with her husband and lad. We are a family now.”

“Aye, so much so we almost had Deian…”

“Eban!” she corrected.

“Aye, Eban, joining us for our wedding night.”

Eban hadn’t understood the idea of being apart, now that they were securely united. Had tried to leave with them until Lady Alissa cried foul. “Who is going to watch over me?” she asked him. “Me, who came up with this tangled web to bring you together. Is that all the thanks I get?”

Angus hadn’t helped by saying he would stay with Lady Alissa. Fortunately, Gwen herself nudged Eban back into the room. “You stay with Lady Alissa. She’s been good to us, she needs a protector.”

“What about when we leave?” Eban asked, taking his responsibility seriously.

“By then, Brut will be better trained,” Padraig offered, looking at the well-behaved wolfhound. “But he needs to learn by your example.”

Eban gave this serious consideration. “Then I should teach him to sleep in the bed,” he announced.

“No,” Lady Alissa shook her head. “No, I donna’ think that would be necessary.”

“I don’t know.” Angus shook his head. “But I’ll tell you what, lad. If Brut canna’ manage the job from the hearth, then I’ll take your place.”

Eban scowled at him, but nodded, appeased, and stayed with Lady Alissa.

Gwen’s hands tightened around Padraig’s waist. “Do you mind all this, Padraig?”

Was she daft?

“I mean, going to the Isle of Lewis? Do you mind? Does it break your heart to leave Glen Toric, the seat of the MacKays? We are MacKays, after all.”

“Aye, but the Macleods need us.”

“That they do.” Gwen sighed in contentment. She would not have to go to England. They would not have to leave the highlands. Their clan, aye, she could never be on the mainland. Too great a risk of meeting someone who would know who she was. But the Isle of Lewis, well, that was a different beast.

And they were needed.

“Angus explained what the Macleods are about. There will probably be battles, with the Norwegians, but we are fit for that. Especially if there are more highlanders there. We’ll outnumber them.”

“Did you know of this before?”

“That an appeal had gone out to warriors and their families to settle there? Aye, The Bold had mentioned it. No one took the call to settle. Not from Glen Toric. Though they vow to fight, if, when, it comes to that.”

She wondered about it. “So there are both Scots and Norsemen up there?”

“Aye, though it’s no’ even in Scottish hands. The Norwegians claim it as their own, but the plan is to take it back. The king’s working to that end. He’s written agreements for them to sign, but it may come to battle. That’s why he wants more of us living there.”

“And when warriors come for the battle?” Gwen argued. “They’ll recognize me.”

“No,” Padraig explained. “You and Eban will have to go somewhere safe.”

“Och no!” she argued. “I’d want to fight.”

“Not with wee bairns, you won’t.” Padraig countered. “They’ll be needing their mama, teaching them to be strong.”

She stilled, pulled away. “I hadna’ thought,” she fretted.

“I know.” She felt him smile; even with his face the other way, she felt it in the ripple of muscle, he was smiling huge. “And you haven’t thought about your own bleeding.”

She swatted his arm.

“Och, aye, Gwen.” Her name was a long, drawn-out breath, “’for I’ve thought of that, too, and you haven’t bled but once on this whole journey and that was a while back.”

“And how would you be knowin’?” she snapped, embarrassed.

“Because I know everythin’ about you, and my guess is, we’re already expecting a wee little one.”

“No!”

“Aye, a wee little one,” he sighed, a kind of contentment she never thought she could offer him. That she’d have for herself.

A babe. That in itself changed her. A brother or sister for Eban. A new beginning with a new name and an old name. Gwen MacKay. Not so different  from any woman in marriage except for her, her given name was changed, not her surname.

So much, just so much in one night. She put her head on his shoulder, suddenly exhausted. “Everything is topsy turvy, like the world’s been turned upside down. Do you think it’s possible, that the friar changed more than my name?” she whispered. “He’s such a funny little man. Something inside me brightened with his blessing. I felt it run through me. I’m not who I was, but I will always be the same.”

“No, you won’t. The friar was right, you are a different woman than when you left Glen Toric. Didn’t you say as much the night you cried in my arms? That it felt like you were washing the ugliness from the past?” Gently, he touched her head. “It’s gone, Gwen, it’s gone forever.”

“Do they have to send that missive to Talorc?”

“Aye, the Laird deserves to know. His wife, Maggie, loves you like a sister, you know, and she never had anything but brothers.”

“I’ll miss them.”

“We’ll miss them, but there will be new people in our lives. People who will not know of yesterday. The shadow is gone. You’re free,” he whispered.

She lifted her head, whispered in his ear. “But you’re not, Padraig MacKay. And I mean to get my pound of flesh.”

And she did, that night, under the stars, surrounded by the breeze, with the scent of heather and dawn’s sweet smile. She got her pound of flesh and more, many a night, and he delighted in giving it to her. Knowing they’d created a wee bairn, proud in being the father to Eban.

They were a family, for now, for always, and he thanked her God for that.

The End

EXCERPT ~ AN INDEPENDENT MISS

CHAPTER 1

Lady Felicity Westhaven pushed through the tradesmen’s entrance of Ansley Park Manor and stripped off her work gloves.

“Humphrey,” she addressed the butler who had the mysterious ability of knowing exactly when someone would come through a door.

Any door.

“Father said a gentleman is waiting to speak with me.”

“Yes, Miss.” Humphrey took her gloves in one hand, the other out and ready for her apron.

“Don’t,” Felicity warned, at the infinitesimal rise of his nose as she handed over the apron. “I know I look a fright,” she brushed clumps of dirt from her skirt, “but I am in the middle of a rather difficult concoction and do not have time for this consultation, let alone changing. Whoever it is will have to take me as he finds me.”

Humphrey’s nostrils flared. She ignored it by pointing out his hypocrisy. “How is your lumbago, Humphrey? Any better?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Are you using that salve I made up for you?”

“Yes, miss.”

“And Cook’s sister’s impetigo?”

“Much better, thank you, miss.” He almost hid his smile.