Page 68 of Sweet Home Highlander
“No, Pauline, it isn’t your fault. None of it this is anyone’s fault but my own. I’ve been nothing but a fool to come back here. To think I could handle facing my own choices and not let them crush me.”
She swallowed hard and pressed the cloth again to her eyes, to absorb the next rush of tears.
“I will happily lay some of the blame upon that woman,” Pauline hissed, and Aisla knew who she referred to.
A knock upon the bedchamber door made Aisla nearly drop the cool cloth. Her muscles seized with the idea that it might be her soon-to-be former husband. She wasn’t ready to see him. In fact, she hadn’t expected to have to face him ever again, not after his blatant order for her to get off his land as if she were some diseased cur. Had he wanted to make sure she left? To throw her out bodily?
Aisla stood on shaky legs. Pauline put out her hand, and gestured toward the antechamber where she usually slept. “My lady,” she whispered, “perhaps you should wait in there. I will see to your visitor.”
“No,” Aisla said, dredging up as much determination as she had left in her reserves. “I will see to it myself.” After another moment, and a deep breath, she called, “Enter.”
The door opened, and while it was not Niall, she felt no relief at who did walk in. A gloating Fenella.
“His lairdship ordered ye from his land, and yet here ye are, trespassing. I’ve come to see ye escorted away.”
The woman was relentless. An open wound, refusing to heal. Aisla felt none of the rage she’d come to expect when in her presence. Just the hollow drop of defeat. Fenella had won. She’d succeeded in turning Niall against her, once and for all. “I am seeing to my things. Now please leave, so I can get on with it.”
Fenella took a step farther inside the room. “He should have been rid of ye years ago and married someone in his own clan.”
Aisla could only laugh at her spite. She couldn’t touch her, not any more. “And you think that’s you?”
“Aye,” Fenella answered, either unaware of her sarcasm, or simply uncaring of it. “Ye were never wanted here. Ye should have just married Dougal as yer father wanted.”
The mention of Dougal and her familiar use of his name made Aisla pause. She’d seen Fenella entering the inn with a man who, from the back, had looked like the Buchanan heir. Was it a coincidence? Aisla’s senses were firing on every level. Fenella was hiding something. Something to do with this man from her past, and the man who had been a thorn in her marriage bed for years.
“What doyouknow of Dougal Buchanan?”
Fenella hitched her chin and sniffed. “Everyone at Maclaren kens the gossip.”
“But you know him personally, don’t you?” Aisla stepped closer to her, eyes narrowing on Fenella’s face. “I saw you together. He was escorting you into the inn the day after the festival.”
Her pupils constricted, and Aisla knew she’d struck upon a secret. But Fenella quickly masked her surprise. “I made his acquaintance, aye. He confided in me all about how ye wronged him.”
Wrongedhim? The admission made Aisla frown. The match had been made when they were children by her madman of a father. No one had expected it to stand once her brother became the new Duke of Glenross. And in any case, why would Dougal dally withNiall’shousekeeper, lamenting to her about ancient hurts? He was allied with the Campbells now, and happily betrothed. What could either of them achieve by swapping idle gossip?
Unless, they weren’t just commiserating about lost chances.
Aisla’s mind went to all the recent mishaps at the mines, and the burgeoning feud between the Maclarens and Dougal’s future clan. HadDougalbeen involved somehow? He’d never held Niall in any esteem, and the timing of his arrival at Tarbendale seemed much too convenient to be discounted as chance. Not when so much was at stake, especially for Niall.
“Fenella, what did Dougal want?” Aisla asked, frowning.
Her mouth tightened. “Nothing but to right a wrong against him.”
She tried to understand what “wrong” Fenella could possibly mean. Her elopement with Niall? “Dougal Buchanan is betrothed to Rose Campbell—”
Fenella barked laughter. “Is he, now? No’ if he gets what he wants. And I hope he does, for the good of the clan, and for the good of my laird.”
Her words were twisting around Aisla’s mind, refusing to settle. “And what exactly do you think Dougal wants?”
“Ye, o’course, though God kens why he’s so set on ye.”
Aisla glanced to Pauline, who was no longer pretending not to be listening in. The maid wore an expression of concern, much like the emotion chilling Aisla’s blood.
“Fenella, surely you cannot be so blind. There’s something more going on here.”
The housekeeper pinched her lips and clasped her hands behind her back. “’Tis nae secret I’ve wanted ye gone since the day ye set foot on Maclaren lands, and he was simply happy to help. Dunnae read more into it.”
“Open your eyes. I’m trying tohelpyou, you daft woman. You do realize Dougal is tied to the Campbells, and clan relations with them have been strained of late. You’d know that if you were in your laird’s confidence. I certainly hope you haven’t betrayed your clan somehow because Niall will never forgive you.”
