Hugh stared down into the bailey. He didn’t remember wandering to the window, but most of his body was numb anyway. The ache had started in his chest and spread downward slowly, traversing his limbs into his feet and hands, but then the burn froze, shifting down his spine as if he’d jumped into the Minch. His fingers and toes tingled, then stiffened as if bitten by the frost outside.
It was winter, bitter outside, but that was pretty close to how he’d felt, until everything had iced over, so frigid it actually felt hot, scorching in its contraction.
His bones started to shake and even his teeth chattered, despite the fire behind him. The scent of peat moss filled the room, but it was mixed with an aroma that was just his wife.
Somehow, the shuddering got worse. Hugh flexed his hands and arms, but it didn’t help.
He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the scene below. Two horses stood waiting, hitched to an open-bed cart. A petite blonde woman embraced his wife, her hair lighter in color than Juliette’s honey locks. She was dressed warmly, in a dark green cloak with a fur-lined hood she’d just lowered. His sister-by-marriage appeared to share words with Juliette before she returned to the cart, gesturing to his wife, then to the dark-haired man who’d accompanied her into his gates.
Duncan MacLeod hopped off the bench seat.
Hugh’s lip curled of its own accord, and a snarl breeched his lips. His hand landed on the hilt of his sword at the first touch he witnessed. He opened and closed his fingers on the grip, but his feet disobeyed orders to run down there and challenge the MacLeod laird’s brother.
Another man wrapped his wife in a fur. Another man put his hands on her, lifting her gently to the front of the cart. Another man was offering her the comfort he could not, if his rival’s gentle expression was any indication.
Hugh wasn’t far enough away that it wasn’t as plain as the clouded breath from all three of them.
She’d sit next to him up front, while his own wife was in the back.
They were taking his Juliette away.
It wasn’t against her will.
‘I’m leaving, Hugh.’ The horrid sentence reverberated in his mind, making him freeze all over again. He swallowed, but it helped naught.
Hugh closed his eye when he heard the thump thump of what could only be his Aunt Mab’s cane, and the shuffling of her uneven gait.
Juliette had left the door to the laird’s quarters open when she’d departed.
“Hugh MacDonald!” The shout made him flinch, but he didn’t move away from the window.
He tried to ignore his meddlesome aunt, and watched the cart rock with Duncan MacLeod’s added weight. The man had indeed taken a seat next to Juliette. He clenched his jaw.
Duncan took the reins, and even though he couldn’t hear anything from his position, Hugh imagined the shout for the horses to dart forward at the moment they did so.
“Hugh MacDonald!”
“Doona ye mean, ‘my laird?’” he asked, trying to keep his voice dry. He’d failed. It’d come out a pained crack, betraying how he was feeling. He didn’t turn to the woman who’d raised him.
“Nay. I doona!” She slammed her cane to the floor with a bang that echoed.
“Weeel, I am tha laird.”
“Ye are a foolish, foolish lad!”
He sighed and dragged his hand down his face.
The bailey was empty now. As empty as his heart and soul.
She’s really gone. You drove her away, Hugh MacDonald.
Guilt and pain swirled low until it jumped up for a bite, and a lump strangled his throat. He remained at the window, looking out. He couldn’t deal with himself, let alone Mab. Hugh wished her away, but knew better.
When he’d girded his loins and faced his aunt, he tried to avoid the scowl on her lined face, but her dark eyes speared right through him. That renewed his pain, somehow.
“What. Are. Ye. Doin’?” Mab said the words slowly, each one gaining volume. She panted, she was so angry. Her thin shoulders shook and her face was crimson, the bright color splotching her cheekbones up to her ears. Her salt and pepper hair was plaited, the thick rope swaying with her tremors. Even her dark skirt shook where it rested above the floor.
At least he’d come by his MacDonald temper naturally.
“Sit down, a’ fore ye hurt yerself,” Hugh admonished.
His aunt narrowed her eyes and brandished her cane like a sword. “Doona ye try ta order me ‘round.” With a speed that belied her uneven legs, she crossed the room and smacked his thigh with the staff he’d taken such care to carve for her.
“Ow!” He rubbed his leg as she readied for another strike. Hugh dodged, but she advanced on him with an agility she shouldn’t be capable of.
“Tell me why yer lass has left Armadale.”
“My marriage isna yer concern.” He held his hands up in surrender, then thought better of it. If she hit his bollocks, he’d double over, and he’d just left them unguarded. Wouldn’t put it past her, either.
“Yer marriage? ‘Tis verra much my concern when tha lass carryin’ tha MacDonald heir flees her husband wit’ou’ warnin’!”
He stilled and sucked in a breath as anguish spread across his chest all over again.
Juliette really left me.
It hurt to breathe. His heart cantered and he wanted to clutch something, but didn’t want to show weakness, even in front of Mab.
She studied his face, and lowered her cane to the stone floor. “Ah, jus’ hit ye, did it?”
“What?” he croaked.
“Ye’ve gone as white as a ghostie.”
He swallowed and his knees wobbled.
His aunt’s countenance lost some of its ire. “Sit, laddie.”
Hugh should be mad it wasn’t his idea, but if he didn’t obey he was going to fall on his arse; in his current attire of a MacDonald plaid, he’d likely bare something Mab had no need to see.
The bed creaked as it protested his weight and he fought the urge to cradle his head and crush his eyes shut. “‘Tis my fault.” He winced at the obvious pain in his voice.
Mab snorted. She stood before him, her hands layered on the round knob at the top of her cane. She shook her head, then narrowed her eyes. “I didna think any fault lay wit’ tha’ sweet lass ye wed.”
He didn’t speak.
“Wha’ did ye do, lad?” This was softer.
Emotion stung his eyes. Hugh refused to cry. “I canna lose her.” This was even more anguished than what he’d managed to say before.
“Ye allowed her ta leave ye.”
He shook his head. “Nay. ‘Tisna wha’ I’m meanin’.”
“Then…wha’?”
Hugh cleared his throat and reached for the right words. The ones he could never say to his wife. He’d tried a few times, especially when Juliette had demanded he talk to her, but he never had been able to. When she’d cried, he’d plan his own demise. He averted his gaze from his aunt. “I…I…canna lose her…like Brenna.”
The name he never said. The wife he never thought about. The bairn who’d never got a chance to be. His son.
Mab’s sigh drew his eyes back to her face. His aunt’s bottom lip trembled and she reached for him.
He couldn’t deny her, so Hugh wrapped his much larger hand around her gnarled one. He helped her take a seat next to him on the high bed.
“Oh, lad.”
Misery washed over him. Her sympathy made him wish she was still shouting. Or hitting his legs with her cane. Maybe even his head. Should he volunteer his bollocks after all?
He studied his boots and suppressed the shudder in his chest. Hugh tried to square his shoulders, but couldn’t. He didn’t shake Mab off when she squeezed his forearm.
“Lad. Look a’ me.”
He didn’t want to, but damn him, he wouldn’t say that.
“Hugh.”
Sucking in air, he finally mustered the guts to meet her eyes. Words wouldn’t cooperate, but he managed not to weep like a lass as she regarded him.
“Did ye tell sweet Juliette of yer fears?”
Shame and guilt mixed with his agony. “Nay,” he croaked.
His aunt blew out a breath and shook her head, making her thick braid dance. “Why no’?”
Hugh didn’t answer. He couldn’t.
“Juliette isna of our time, lad, she—”
“I’ve ruined everythin’.”
His aunt tugged his wrist until he looked at her again. “Nay, ye didna. Ye can go ta her. Speak wit’ yer wife, lad. Ye love each other an’ are abou’ ta have a bairn. Together.”
Quivers raced down his spine. That was what he couldn’t deal with. Week by week, month by month, Juliette’s waistline had expanded, revealing the seed he’d planted inside her. Reminding him her passing could be within sight. The bigger her belly got, the closer the impending birth. The closer he was to losing her. He’d not even thought of the bairn.
Hugh couldn’t admit that to Aunt Mab. She was more excited about his child than he’d seen her in a long time. Happy.
Along with his wife, they’d already prepared the long-unused nursery. A room he couldn’t even stomach entering. Not a place for men, anyway.
“I didna birth ye, bu’ ye know yer like my own, Hugh MacDonald. I raised ye up, alongside my brother. I never wed because ye needed me. I’ve never asked ye fer anathin.”
He frowned; didn’t want to spare her a glance, but when he did, his mouth wobbled at the emotion in her eyes, on her face.
She was still pretty, but his aunt had been stunning back in her day, and many a man had sought her hand. His father had always left it up to her, and she’d turned down all her suitors.
Because she’d not wanted to leave him?
Hugh’s mother had died days after his birth. Mab was the only mother he’d ever known, and he loved her. Had he ever told her so?
His father had died when he was one and twenty. His aunt had been there for him then, too. Barely a man, but already a widower, then a laird too young for the sudden responsibilities thrust upon him.
He’d promised his da on his deathbed he’d marry again and provide a MacDonald heir. A vow he’d never intended to fulfill…until Juliette.
Hugh hadn’t acknowledged that his aunt had hung her hopes on his gorgeous wife, too.
Guilt wasn’t something he needed more of, but it lodged in his gullet, threatening to close it off. He couldn’t have spoken a word if he’d had a sword to his back.
“Tha’ lass is yer match, my lad. Doona let her go. I tol’ ye this a ’fore ye wed, bu’ now I implore ye, doona lose her. Doona lose yer bairn. I’ve never seen ye as happy as I have this past year. I love ye, lad. I love tha’ lass, and I doona wan’ ta lose either of ye. Or tha’ bairn.”
He gave in to the urge to close his eyes, and his breath came in short bursts he had to concentrate on to get any air into his lungs. His head spun. “Aunt Mab—”
“Juliette has tol’ me of many wondrous things,” she said, yanking him from the chaos in his head.
Their gazes collided and held.
“She needs ye, lad. She left a world we canna even imagine. Fer ye. Ta be wit’ ye. An’ now she gives ye a bairn. An heir, for ye and the clan.”
“Wondrous things?”
His aunt nodded and swallowed. Her grip on his arm tightened.
“Wha’ if…” Hugh took a breath to steady his words. “What if…she asks tha Fae Princess ta take her back ta tha future?”
Mab’s dark gaze pinned him. “Ye better hie ta Dunvegan so tha’ doesna happen.”