Shona had no idea who Ciara was, or what Abigail meant by Caelis being of royal blood. Any other time, she would have demanded answers, insisted on understanding, but she was barely able to maintain her composure as it was.
Exhaustion beat at her more relentlessly than her husband had ever done, mention of her son’s “gifts” bringing additional worry Shona simply could not take in at the moment.
“I did dream of you,” Eadan said to Caelis. “Lots. ’Specially since we left the barony. I knew we’d meet you here.”
Shona gasped. That was a bit of information she would have liked to be privy to. Though would she have believed her son, or thought him guilty of wishful thinking again? This time with an uncanny similarity between reality and his dreams?
“I am very pleased you dreamed of me,” Caelis told their son. “I am even more pleased you have come to the Highlands so we can be a family again.”
Shona’s knees would have buckled if Audrey had not held her up. Shona had her own dreams, but they had not been prophetic and she’d known without any doubt that they could never come true.
For him to stand there and talk like everything had been decided without a word from her…it was too much. Once again, a man she could not trust sought to take her choices. How would she fight him? Law and tradition stood firmly on Caelis’s side.
Shona felt the waters closing over her head as air became more and more difficult to draw into her lungs.
“You have to love Marjory, too.” Eadan had no trouble making demands of his own. It was not the first time she’d seen similarities between father and son. “She’s your daughter like I’m your son. My dreams said so.”
“Naturally.”
Her son accepted Caelis’s easy agreement with a firm nod of approval, but Shona could not be so trusting. Even if he told the truth, she desperately did not want to link her life to this man’s after the way he’d hurt her so deeply six years ago.
Then, incredibly, Shona’s overly shy daughter, who would hide in her mother’s skirts at the first sign of a stranger, released her brother’s hand and moved over to Caelis. Marjory put her hands out to the big warrior as if to be picked up.
Though his focus was so intent on Eadan that Shona could not believe Caelis had seen the gesture, he turned and took the wee girl into his big arms without hesitation or pause.
The world grew black around the edges, but Shona would not give into the blessed solace of unconsciousness. She inhaled more deeply, clutching at Audrey, pleading silently with the other woman for help.
Audrey, true friend that she was, strengthened her hold and asked Lady Abigail if they could not have a goblet of watered wine.
Abigail’s attention shifted from the spectacle of Shona’s children clinging to the man they’d met only that day. When her eyes landed on Shona, they widened and concern filled her gaze. “Of course.”
Caelis turned then, as if somehow attuned to Shona’s distress. He stood with Marjory in his arms.
Shona lifted her hand in a staying motion and spoke through barely moving lips. “Do not come near.”
The hand not holding her daughter fisted at his side, his expression hardening. “Shona…”
“Nay.” It was Thomas speaking, surprisingly enough. He shifted so his body was a physical barrier between Shona and Caelis. “You have wrought this with your actions. I do not know how our Shona came to be in the predicament she is, but you’ve done her grave damages in the past, breaking sacred law and dishonoring your own nature. The boy standing by your side is testament to it.”
Incredibly, Caelis made no effort to deny it. In fact, he nodded, his jaw hewn from rock, torment she neither understood nor wanted to see swimming in his gentian gaze.
Thomas’s own visage was harsher than Shona had ever seen it. “She has told you to stay away. You will stay away.”
“Are you her protector then?” Caelis asked in a dangerous voice.
“I am her friend.”
Audrey added, “A truer one than you have been. Thomas and I were there the few times the baron’s temper overcame his sense. My brother taught the boy you seek to claim for your own to sit his first horse. Like me, he helped nurse both Eadan and Marjory through the fevers of babyhood when neither the baron, nor his son, nor even the snooty servants they employed were willing to lift a finger in aid.”
Caelis dropped his head, then lifted it to meet Thomas’s stare. “I am in your debt.”
“Aye, you are, but more important, you are in Shona’s.”
Caelis nodded, his gaze slipping back to her. The yearning she saw there had to be a trick of the light.
He was the one who had told her love meant nothing between the two of them. That the marriage he’d promised those nights they had shared their passion would not come to pass.
Not content with that, Caelis had made an official declaration of lack of intent, telling both her mother and father that he would no longer be courting her.
They had accepted his rejection without comment or argument, telling Shona that it was for the best. They had not known she carried his child then. She had not known it, either.
She’d had a feeling and taken Caelis aside to express her worries, but he’d adamantly denied any possibility that she could have his child in her womb. He’d gone so far as to say that if she were with child, it must be another man’s by-blow.
Sick at heart from the memories and unable to stomach the sight of him one more moment, she turned away.
He made a sound like denial and plea all rolled into one, but she ignored it. Just as he had ignored her begging and desperate words of love six years ago.
“Mummy?” Eadan’s little boy hand tugged at hers.
She looked down at her son, always so beautiful to her regardless of the memories his visage kept alive. “Yes, sweeting?”
“You are sad.”
“No.” She was not lying.
It was so much more than sadness. Despair fought for control, but she would not give in. She was stronger than that.
“I can smell it,” Eadan chided.
He was always saying things like that.
She squeezed his hand. “I am well.”
“You are tired,” Audrey corrected. “Too exhausted by worry and travel for this discussion.”
Thankfully, the goblet of watered wine arrived then, delivered by a smiling young woman who looked like the princess Caelis had called Marjory.
“Drink, it will help,” she said in tones that soothed. “I am Ciara, oldest daughter of Talorc and Abigail.”
She was too close in age to Abigail not to be adopted, but Shona had enough manners not to remark on it. “Thank you.”
She hadn’t the wherewithal for further pleasantries.
“You are most welcome. Mother is quite excited to have an Englishwoman visiting who can share news of her former homeland.”
“No news of England is always good in my eyes,” the laird opined.
Ciara laughed. “Watch yourself, Father, or one extra guest room will be in use tonight, I am sure. And I do not think it will be one with a comfortable bed.”
Surprisingly, everyone laughed at that, rather than taking offense, even the laird himself.
The banter went on around Shona, but she paid it no heed. Drinking the watered wine in small sips, she was proud that she did not require Audrey’s assistance to bring the wooden goblet to her lips.
At some point, everyone had stopped talking. And now they all looked at her, an air of expectation indicating someone had asked her something they expected her to answer.
“I’m sorry?” Shona looked to Audrey to tell her what had been missed.
But the Englishwoman simply shook her head.
“Further talking will wait. It is clear that Lady Heronshire needs her rest. If you will allow your children to keep mine company until the latemeal is served, you can find rest in your guest chamber, my lady,” Abigail said with perfect manners and in clearly native English.