Torn Between Two Highlanders (14 page)

Heather raised a brow. “No, I didn’t. But there were a great many things I did not know were possible that my laird has taught me about. I might even be brave enough to ask him of this.”

“Don’t!” Arabella couldn’t imagine what the laird might think of her, and worried he might punish Davy and Malcolm for it. Or, if she were more honest with herself, she was worried that he would simply dismiss her as a strumpet and forbid a marriage with Davy.

Did that mean Davy was her choice? Arabella was so confused!

Worse, she felt like a selfish chit. The whole castle full of people was determined to show
fortitude
while fending off the invaders. Women cooked, and cleaned, and kept careful record of the stores. Men manned the walls. Drilled in the courtyard. Some of them had been in skirmishes, and were wounded nearly as grievously as Malcolm had been.

And here was Arabella sobbing about her heartache.

Well, that could not be borne.

Since Davy and Malcolm were busy almost all the time now with the laird and his men, she decided that she must find a way to keep busy. Make herself useful. She knew better than to offer her services in the kitchen, and Heather suggested, “You can help Brenna on her rounds.”

Arabella flamed red with the memory of the serving girl watching her be carried off over the shoulder of her lover. “Brenna thinks I’m a prostitute.”

“She thinks I’m one too,” Heather replied. “But she’s very sweet if you can get past her disapproval. She was the first person here to be nice to me.”

At the thought of what Heather might have faced upon coming here to the castle, Arabella felt even more selfish. She should’ve asked what Heather had been through when she first came to serve the laird. Whereas Arabella had given her maidenhead freely, Heather had been claimed under duress.

“I’m a horrible sister,” Arabella uttered, grasping hold of Heathers hands. “Please forgive me. Forgive me. I should have never let Papa cast you out and call you names. I should have never—”

“Arabella,” Heather said, softly. “I’m happy now. So much happier than I thought I could be. The laird is an extraordinary man and treats me kindly.”

“But he will never be your husband,” Arabella said.

Then wished she hadn’t said it.

Her sister’s beautiful violet eyes pinched with pain. “I know…but I would rather be his harlot than the honest wife of any other man. That is me. But you, Arabella… Davy is offering to marry you. You can have respectability
and
love, if you think he truly does love you.”

“He does,” Arabella said, firmly.

“Can you be sure? Davy is a wee bit—well, he doesn’t strike me as a very serious man.”

“He only seems that way!” Arabella protested, squeezing the turnip flower in her palm. “He wants to make everyone happy. He is always thinking of others before himself. That’s why he jests and smiles and laughs in the face of danger and—”

“You love him,” Heather said, with a wry smile.

“I told you I did,” Arabella growled. “Is that why you keep insulting them? To see if I will leap to their defense.”

“Aye, and you leap every time.”

Arabella made a sound of frustration in her throat. Older sisters could be so vexing. Even ones that had been disgraced. Nevertheless, her sister’s point was not lost on her. She might marry Davy and have some measure of respectability in the eyes of the clan and in the eyes of God. Or she might live as Malcolm’s mistress, in sin and dishonor. And yet that was not the thing that would decide her. She couldn’t choose precisely because she could not look at either man and say she would rather be
his
than any other man’s.

~~~

The laird knows
, Arabella thought, her heart thumping madly in her chest.

She was sure the laird knew precisely what it was that she and Davy had gotten up to on his writing table. Brenna must have run to him and tattled. She could think of no other reason why Laird John Macrae should summon her to him. Why he should wish to speak to Arabella alone.

And now that she stood before him, in a simple gown, her hair tucked behind her ears and her hands winding in her skirts, she felt like running away. Especially when he looked up from his work, scratched behind his ear, and said, “I’m not sure what I’m to do with you, lass.”

Arabella gulped. “What you’re to do with me, laird?”

“You have a way of causing gossip,” he said. “First, I hear that you’re a witch. Next, I hear that you’re entertaining my men for a price—”

“That isn’t true,” Arabella said, daring to interrupt. She didn’t care how much her sister liked the maidservant; Brenna was obviously a mean-spirited gossip-monger and Arabella would be sure to box her ears the next time she saw her.

“Which part isn’t true?” asked the laird.

“I’m not a witch, as I’ve said countless times before, and I’m not…I’m not…”

“Entertaining my men?” the laird asked. “Not that I mind. A castle needs a whore to keep the men happy, especially during times like these. And your older sister…well, she will not be serving as such. But what troubles me is…”

Too offended to speak, Arabella still hung on his every word.

The laird scratched the back of his neck again, as if this were the most irritating conversation he’d had in years. “Malcolm is my best swordsmen. And Davy is the sneakiest, most resourceful warrior in the clan. I need them both, now more than ever. I need them both in fine form. Instead, they both appear to be distracted and lovesick, both of them over the likes of you.”

“Oh,” Arabella said, softly, pierced by an arrow of guilt.

“I can’t have it,” the laird continued. “Men who are distracted at war end up dead. And while it may tickle your fancy to dangle yourself before both of them upon a string, do you really want to put either of them in their graves?”

Arabella’s temper flared. Were it any man but the laird who spoke to her this way, she’d have blistered his ears. But it was the laird, so she only swallowed and said, “Of course I don’t.”

“I would put you out of the castle if I could,” he said. “But that would destroy your sister. So you must take a husband.”

“A husband?” Arabella asked. Was he about to command her to accept Davy’s proposal?

But the laird said, “Conall, I think his name is. You were betrothed to him, were you not?”

Arabella’s mouth soured. “Yes, but—”

“He’ll marry you if it’s my command, no matter what scandal surrounds you.”

In a blind panic, her soul in torment, Arabella dropped to her knees before the laird. “Please, my laird. Please do not make me marry Conall. I beg of you!”

John Macrae seldom looked startled. But he allowed himself to look startled now. His eyes flew wide, and he asked, “For the love of God, lass. Is he a bad man? Do you fear him so much?”

Arabella wished she could lie. “He is not bad, but he is…” Not Malcolm. Not Davy. Not any man she could ever love. Not any man she could ever consent to wed. “In a very short time, I have been abducted from my home, stripped naked by strangers who meant to rape me, trapped in a cottage with your warriors and abandoned by my betrothed, and now—”

“Oh,” the laird said, his voice filling with sympathy. “Yes, I can see you might not be very keen on marrying any man at the moment. I feel as if perhaps I have been given some kind of misimpression…” Arabella pressed her lips together, and nodded, praying for the laird’s mercy. And it came, in a fashion. “Well, then, I will not force you to marry. But you cannot continue to torment my men by giving or withholding your favor. No. I am putting you to work in the physicker’s laboratory.”

Arabella blinked. “Pardon me?”

“The physicker says you are a help to him. That you know your herbs. It’s a thing your sister has confirmed to me. And we will need all the healers we can get until the end of this siege. So I am offering you a position. A way to support yourself without a husband.”

A way to support herself without becoming a prostitute…

That was the unspoken end to his sentence, and she ought to have resented it bitterly. She ought to have told him that she gave herself to his men freely, but she was not sure that was the sort of splitting of hairs he would appreciate. Besides, it was the most generous offer she was likely to get her whole life long. A place to work in the castle in the laird’s employ? A way to be her own woman?

“What do you say, Arabella?”

Why the laird was more generous than she could have ever thought. Perhaps Heather was right about him after all. And she found herself wishing to kiss his feet in gratitude. “I say yes. Happily. I will gladly serve you and your physicker, my laird.”

He grunted with satisfaction. “Good. Just stay clear of Davy and Malcolm.”

Arabella’s heart sank. This was the condition, she realized. He was offering her a new life, freedom and independence and a chance to be someone more than a fallen woman. And all he asked was that she cut out the two torn halves of her heart and throw them in the fire. Her lower lip wobbling, Arabella nodded. “I cannot choose between them, so I suppose I must choose neither.”

The laird leaned over to pat her head, sympathetically. But that was all the comfort he offered before sending her away. The laird had larger concerns than Arabella’s heartbreak. Larger concerns by far.

Feverfew. Lavender. Thistle.

Arabella knew all the herbs and took solace in arranging them in the right jars, making a mental list of which jars must be replenished, worrying how that might be done in a garden over winter. She would have to learn her letters. The physicker insisted upon it. She would need to learn them in order to write lists that weren’t only in her head. And she welcomed learning. Welcomed anything, really, that kept her from thinking about the nightly warfare on the walls. About the near daily skirmishes. About the fact that she’d seen Davy and Malcolm in passing, but always scurried away before she could talk to either of them.

She had promised the laird she would stay clear of his men, so she did. Even though it hurt her to do it. Physically hurt her, like an ache in every joint. Without Davy’s sunny smile, every part of the castle felt like a cold dungeon. Without Malcolm’s penetrating gaze and hard strength, she felt as if she scarcely existed in the world. It had been miserable enough to contemplate losing one or the other of them. Instead, she had lost both of them.

And she thought it might kill her.

Heather told her that was not likely. That it was arrows and pikes and swords that killed people. But Arabella didn’t believe it. Grief could kill people; everyone knew that. And what was it but grief she was feeling now knowing she could not even spare a glance for the men who had changed her life?

Changed her world. Made her whole…

And now she feared to shatter.

So she toiled with the physicker, day after day. Earned a reputation not as the harlot of the castle, but as an eccentric. Some of the men revered her as a healer and swore by her remedies. Some of them made the sign of the cross at her whenever she passed. And that suited her, truly. It almost amused her to make men fear her. And they could not
burn
her so long as she had the laird’s protection.

But in case she should cease to have it…she thought it best to keep to herself as often as she could, and began taking her meals in the physicker’s laboratory.

She was in a castle full of people. And yet she was terribly lonely.

She hoped—somewhat insanely—that a child might be growing inside her. Both men had spent themselves inside her, and even if Davy couldn’t make children, Malcolm could. It would be a disaster, of course, if she were pregnant. A disaster beyond anything she could comprehend. And yet, a beautiful disaster that might give her some piece of her lovers to hold onto.

She dreamed of them often. Thought she caught glimpses of them when they weren’t there. Heard Davy’s infectious laugh upon waking. Imagined Malcolm’s smoldering eyes upon readying herself for bed.

Maybe that’s why she didn’t quite believe her eyes the day the two of them stood in the doorway of the physicker’s laboratory, side by side.

“You can’t be here,” she whispered, even as her eyes feasted upon Davy’s ruddy good looks and Malcolm’s savage beauty. How glad she was to see that they were both healthy and whole—Malcolm still walking with a limp, but well on his way to recovery.

“We can’t be here, or you don’t want us to be?” Davy asked.

“You
can’t
,” she said, turning her backs to them, squeezing her hands upon the wooden workbench. “I know you want me to choose between you, but I can’t choose. And since I can’t choose…well, the laird forbids me to keep dangling myself before you on a string, as he put it.”

Malcolm snorted.

Davy also snorted.

“You can’t choose?” Davy asked, moving to her side, taking her chin in his hand and forcing her to look at him. “Are you sure?”

Arabella exhaled with bittersweet frustration. “I love you, Davy,” she said, which elicited from him a smile as bright as the blue sky on a summer day. “I love your laugh, your freckles, your irresistible dimples…I love that you choose, every day, to find a way to be happy. You choose it. And you lighten the hearts of everyone around you. You give them courage. You gave
me
courage.”

Her eyes filled with tears as she said this, and she noticed that his blue eyes were a bit misty as well. So it pained her to drag in a deep breath and turn to Malcolm. “And you, my ill-tempered, surly, man. How you have touched me deep inside. How you have awakened things in me I scarcely knew were there. How you have honored me by sharing the pain of your wife, and offering me some small part of a heart that belonged to her.”

“More than a small part,” Malcolm whispered. “Much more.”

Arabella reached for his cheek. “You are both loyal and strong men. I am more fortunate than a faerie princess to have your love. And I would do nothing to hurt either of you. My head says that I should choose one or the other of you, so as to bring happiness, but my heart…”

“What if you don’t have to choose, lass?” Davy asked.