Page 38 of The Wrong Highlander (Highland Brides 7)

Conran grinned. “Good for you.”

“No’ so good,” Evina assured him. “I was punished for it. Me da gave me a good whipping,” she added. “And I was told that aye, technically a wife had to do as her husband said. But I could refuse to eat worms and, by rights, he could no’ punish me for it until I was twelve and the wedding was consummated.”

“Hmm.” He frowned.

“Collin, me husband,” she explained, unsure he knew his name, “he apparently did no’ ken about his no’ being able to punish me until the marriage was consummated. On the second day of the journey, he hit me when I refused to eat a wormy apple.”

“What was his fascination with worms?” Conran asked with disgust.

Evina shrugged with bewilderment. It was beyond her. She’d never seen the attraction herself, but said, “’Twas no’ just worms. He drowned because he was trying to catch a fish to make me eat raw.”

“Yer father said he was fetching water,” Conran said with surprise.

Evina shook her head. “That’s what Father tells people, but in fact, Colin was standing on a log, dipping a bucket in to try to catch a fish.”

Conran grunted with disgust. “It sounds like yer husband was a spoiled brat.”

“Aye,” she muttered.

“But he was a lad, Evina,” he added quietly. “I am no’.”

“Me uncle was no’ a lad,” Evina said solemnly.

Conran stilled, and asked with confusion, “Yer uncle?”

“Gavin’s father, Garrick MacLeod,” she explained quietly. “He beat me aunt Glenna to death for displeasing him somehow.”

Conran sat back with dismay. “That is how Gavin came to be here?”

“And Donnan,” Evina murmured. “He was Garrick’s first. He’d pledged his fealty to both me uncle Garrick on accepting the position, and to me aunt Glenna when she married me uncle. But Donnan had to choose between them in the end.”

“And he chose yer aunt,” Conran murmured.

Evina shrugged. “Donnan’s own father had been free with his fists when drinking. There is nothing he hates more than a man who enacts violence against women and children. After years of suspecting me uncle’s doings, he saw him at it with the last beating and that was the final straw. He decided his loyalty was to me aunt. He bundled them up, me aunt Glenna and Gavin both, and brought them here to Maclean in hopes me father could keep them safe from me uncle. Me aunt did no’ live more than an hour after arriving here, just long enough to tell me father what had happened and to beg him to look out for Gavin and ne’er let his father get him back.”

Evina sighed. “Tildy said me aunt had wounds inside that could no’ be healed. Bleeding inside. But truly, there were enough wounds on the outside to kill her anyway. To this day I have ne’er seen anyone so battered and bruised as Aunt Glenna. Both her arms were broken, one o’ her legs and several ribs. Traveling here must have been agony fer her,” she said quietly. “Donnan said he wanted to let her heal before leaving, but she knew she would no’ survive, and was determined to get Gavin away from his father.”

“Surely yer uncle was punished?” Conran said with a frown. “Correcting a wife is allowed, but beating her to death is no’.”

“Nay,” Evina said on a sigh, and then grimaced and admitted, “Well, God punished him.”

“God?” he asked dubiously.

Evina nodded. “Father was preparing to petition the king for justice in me aunt’s murder when uncle Garrick’s brother, Tearlach, arrived at Maclean. It seems Garrick, on realizing Donnan had taken me aunt and Gavin away, rode out after them, determined to bring them back. He was still drunk, however, took a tumble from his horse and broke his neck.”

“Ah.” Conran nodded. “So why was the brother there? Why did he no’ just send a messenger?”

“He wanted our silence,” she said grimly. “He had inherited the title and castle, and had no interest in Gavin, but wanted to ensure our silence on the matter. He didn’t want the MacLeod name tainted by his brother’s actions. In exchange for our silence, he offered a king’s ransom in jewels and coin. He called it a thyftbote.”

“A theft fine,” Conran said grimly.

Evina shrugged. “Murder is looked on as a theft of life.”

“And yer father accepted?” Conran asked, sounding outraged.

“No’ at first,” she said solemnly. “But then, as he explained it to me later, he realized that Garrick was dead, and me aunt was dead, but Gavin yet lived. His name too would be sullied. He’d grow up the son of a murderer, and at least this way he’d have an inheritance. Father kept the thyftbote for him and plans to give it to him when he is eighteen.”

Conran was silent for a moment. He was impressed that she’d told him this. It was another example of her honesty. Many would have kept such dark family secrets just that, a secret. As if the fact that it happened somehow reflected on them. She had told it simply and without concern for how he would take it. But what he was seeing was that her aunt’s story, while a tragic one, was made more so because it had happened when Evina was ten. That was a very impressionable age, and with it following on the heels of an immature boy for a husband who tried to make her eat worms and hit her when she refused, it must have just seemed like men, or at least husbands, were the devil.

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