Chapter 51

Startled, Jenefer gasped.

Alicia’s voice apparently rattled Morgan as well. When his arrow sprang from the bow, it missed the target completely.

“What are you doing, amor meu?” Alicia asked in plaintive tones.

Jenefer saw the pleasure vanish instantly from his face, replaced by shame and defensiveness.

“I’m takin’ care o’ things,” he assured her.

“Are you?” she asked. Her question was innocent enough, but Jenefer detected a sharp edge to her voice.

“Aye,” Morgan said. “I’ve got the matter well in hand.”

Jenefer scowled. Matter? What matter?

Alicia clasped a hand to her bosom as she leaned out the window. “I’m sorry, Morgan,” she said in dulcet tones. “I’m afraid, since the kidnapping, my trust has been…damaged.”

Morgan colored at her remark. His jaw tensed. He lowered his gaze.

As for Jenefer, righteous indignation boiled up in her like a cauldron of molten iron on the fire.

Lady Alicia knew very well the guilt Morgan must feel over what had happened. How he must blame himself for allowing her to be taken from him. Damaged trust? The woman was intentionally jabbing at his wounds.

Jenefer itched to tell the vile wench just what she thought about her treachery. She had the weapons in her verbal arsenal to send the woman recoiling from the window.

But her ire was tempered by pity for the Highlander.

So instead, she rose to defend him.

Pushing away from the wall, she shook her head in wonder. “Oh m’lady, be at ease. I’m certain you could have no more trustworthy a guardian than Morgan.” She intentionally called him by his first name, knowing it would aggravate Alicia. “No kidnapper could slip past his keen eye a second time. Not without some help.”

Jenefer could feel the wave of rage Alicia sent her way. But in the next instant, the woman recovered, as if she’d donned a coat of chainmail that hid her malevolent underbelly.

Alicia affected a smile of sympathy, “No man is perfect. I’m sure my husband,” she said pointedly, “did the best he could.”

“Morgan is a valiant warrior,” Jenefer replied. “You couldn’t hope for better.” She didn’t have to lie about that. It was the truth. Then she drew her brows into a puzzled frown. “’Tis perplexing how an abductor slipped past him the first time. Even more bewildering is how the villain knew the exact day of your labor.”

Her remark unnerved Alicia, but only for a moment.

“I suppose he lay in wait nearby,” she said.

“Indeed. But then, to have somehow made his way inside the keep,” Jenefer mused, “hiding right under the noses of the mac Giric clan…”

Alicia gave Morgan a nervous glance, then replied with sweet condescension, “With all due respect, lass, you weren’t there.”

Jenefer ignored the comment, pacing pensively before the window. “Was it just the English lord by himself? Or did he have his men with him? How did he manage to steal you out of the castle while you were kicking and sceaming?”

Alicia’s fury was palpable, but she gave Morgan a trembling smile. “I don’t wish to talk about this now.” She lifted quavering fingers to her brow. “I don’t feel well. Will you come up soon, Morgan?”

“At once,” he said.

With that, Alicia withdrew from the window.

Jenefer was unprepared for the venomous glare Morgan shot at her a moment later. He wasn’t vexed with Alicia. His anger was aimed at her. Sharper than any arrow, his betrayal pierced her heart.

He stepped near, looming over her like a raging dragon, and spoke through clenched teeth. “How dare ye speak like that to my wife?”

“What?” For a moment, hurt left her speechless.

“Ye don’t know what she’s been through.”

Her pain was quickly replaced by outrage. She narrowed her eyes at him, muttering, “Neither do you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he hissed.

“It doesn’t make sense, Morgan. None of it does. And you know it.”

“I don’t know what battle ye think ye’re wagin’, lass, but I won’t allow ye to attack the woman I…my wife…in that way.”

She met him, eye-to-eye, both of them aware of the subtle change he’d made in that statement. He’d meant to say “the woman I love.” And he hadn’t.

“Fine,” she said.

She sensed it was time to leave the field of battle to recover for the next. Despite Morgan’s stubborn defense of his traitorous wife, Jenefer knew her words would haunt him and make him question the truth. Meanwhile, she’d do everything in her power to protect him—and Miles—from Lady Alicia’s treacherous ways.

“I won the match,” she reminded him. “I’m keeping my longbow. And I’ll be commanding your archers.”

She could see he wasn’t pleased by the outcome. But he was a man of his word.

“Ye’ll be trainin’ my archers. Command o’ them is still mine.”

Morgan trudged up the stairs to his bedchamber on leaden legs. He was displeased that Jenefer had upset his wife. He’d hoped to get Alicia to reveal the name of her abductor today. Now, because of Jenefer’s prodding, his wife had likely taken a step backward in her recovery.

But that wasn’t the only thing niggling at his brain.

Jenefer’s questions had been sensible. If he’d felt anything but relief over seeing his wife alive again, he would have asked them himself. And now they gnawed at his sense of reason like a rat at grain.

Godit the midwife may have facilitated Alicia’s abduction. True enough, she’d disappeared at roughly the same time. But she couldn’t have carried her out of the castle. After all, Godit had been the one to inform Morgan that Alicia hadn’t survived. She’d handed him their newborn infant. And she’d never allowed Morgan to see his dead wife. Which meant…

Someone else must have spirited Alicia away. Someone strong enough to silence her protests. Someone capable of conveying a new mother—desperate to save the bairn torn from her womb—out of the keep.

So how had her abductor managed to infiltrate his household? And how had he slipped out again?

Why had he left the bairn behind?

Surely whoever took Alicia must have known she’d be more compliant with her child in tow. The bairn was Morgan’s firstborn son and heir. The abductor could have demanded a hefty ransom for the lad’s return.

But he hadn’t.

There was something Morgan wasn’t seeing. But until he could get the name of the villain from Alicia, there wasn’t much he could do.

Reaching the top of the stairs, he pushed the door open.

“Morgan,” Alicia sighed from the bed, wiping stray locks of hair from her brow with the back of her hand. She wasted no breath. “Did you get rid of her?”

Morgan couldn’t admit the truth. He turned around to close the door so he wouldn’t have to meet her eyes. “She won’t trouble ye anymore.”

“Thank God. A woman like that with a longbow. I was afraid she might harm you, Morgan. Or our son.” She shuddered. “She was too wild and unpredictable.”

Wild and unpredictable were two of the things Morgan loved about Jenefer. But that was in the past. Now he had to make peace with his wife.

“Ye know, ’twould make things easier,” he gently ventured, “if ye took your place as Allison’s ma.”

The smile she gave him was brittle. He knew it was a difficult step for her to take. She’d virtually never been the bairn’s mother. Snatched from him at birth, she hadn’t had a chance to bond with the lad.

But he was certain, once she saw how beautiful he was with his creamy skin and bright eyes, his bow of a mouth and his sweet, gurgling voice, she’d fall instantly in love.

“All right,” she agreed. “I’ll try.” Then she muttered, “You know I can’t feed him.”

“O’ course.”

Her lips pursed nervously. “And I haven’t held an infant before.”

“Neither had I,” he said with a smile of encouragement. “Shall I fetch him then?”

“Not if he’s squalling. I won’t be able to quiet him.”

He grinned. “If he were squallin’, ye’d hear him.”

“What if he’s asleep?”

“’Twill be worth wakin’ him to meet his ma,” he assured her.

He could see she was fretful. But the longer she waited, the harder it would be. And considering Alicia’s feelings toward Jenefer, it would be best if she took over the bairn’s care as soon as possible.

When he rapped softly on the nursery door, Bethac and Feiyan greeted him with cheeky smiles.

“I warned you my cousin was a master archer,” Feiyan gloated.

He shook his head. “Ye know very well I wouldn’t have missed that last shot.”

Bethac shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Is my son awake?”

Bethac opened the door wider and glanced over her shoulder. “He is now.”

From his cradle, the wee lad waved his fists wildly. Morgan approached, and the bairn looked up at him. He cooed at once, then sighed, and his open mouth formed the most charming smile.

Morgan smiled back. Alicia was going to love Allison. He just needed to unite them and let maternal instincts do their magic.

“I want to take him to his mother,” he said.

To his surprise, Bethac’s brow wrinkled. “Are ye sure ’tis wise?”

“She’s his ma, Bethac.”

“Aye. But Lady Alicia is still sufferin’ from her ordeal.”

Feiyan scoffed.

Morgan scowled at her. “She wants to meet him.”

“Does she?” Bethac asked.

“O’ course. Why wouldn’t she?”

Bethac had no answer for that. And to be honest, he was annoyed at the maid’s distinct lack of enthusiasm.

Without another word, Bethac bundled up the lad and put him in Morgan’s arms. “Good luck.”

All the way back to his bedchamber, the bairn babbled softly at Morgan, looking up at him in wide-eyed wonder. Morgan couldn’t help but smile down at the comely lad. Suddenly he longed for a whole keep full of sons and daughters. He hoped Alicia would feel the same.