Page 24 of Claiming His Highland Bride (A Highland Feuding #4)

‘T he midwife said you should remain abed,’ Sorcha warned as she entered Arabella’s chamber and found her standing at the window.

‘I will scream if I have to lie abed any longer, Sorcha.’ But Sorcha noticed that the lady did sit in the chair there instead of standing.

‘Here, place your legs on this,’ she said, tugging the cushioned stool from the corner and helping Arabella get more comfortable.

‘I ken that you are handling me,’ the lady said. ‘You have been watching my husband too much.’

‘Aye,’ she admitted. ‘I thought him so different from my father when I first arrived here.’ Sorcha pulled the other chair closer and sat down, her own body’s increase in size making her ungainly as she moved around now. And she tired more easily. And she wanted strange combinations of food. And she wanted...more. Her thoughts drifted away from Brodie to her husband’s attempts to appease the other appetite that had recently increased during her pregnancy. Arabella’s knowing glance brought her back to it. ‘Brodie gets what he wants, but uses completely different tactics to accomplish it.’

‘Beware, my friend, for Alan is his able student and he will use those same tactics on you soon.’

Almost as though called by Bella’s words, Alan entered the chamber. Both of them laughed and then again at his confusion. He kissed her and whispered a promise in her ear that made her blush and grow hot.

‘A letter from my mother,’ he said, holding out the folded parchment. ‘Would you like to read it to me?’

Elizabeth’s letters came regularly now and were filled with bits of information about Alan’s brothers and the changes in Achnacarry since Gilbert’s death. His mother had an amazing sense of humour and imbued her letters with it, leaving Sorcha laughing so hard that sometimes she cried from it.

Sorcha understood now that it was that sense of humour and inner strength that had seen the woman through her terrible ordeal those years ago. Now, no longer in fear of disclosure or retribution by Robert’s brother, she was a different person.

‘I would love to,’ Sorcha said, opening the parchment and flattening it on her shrinking lap so she could read the words. But, before reading it aloud, she quickly read bits of it to herself.

‘That is interesting,’ she said after seeing one part of it.

‘Interesting?’ Arabella asked.

‘Elizabeth speaks of a witch who lives on Cameron land north of Achnacarry.’

‘A witch?’ Alan asked, peering over her shoulder.

‘There have been stories of a witch who lives near the falls there.’ Arabella smiled at some memory. ‘Aunt Devorgilla used to tell us about her, but the details always seemed to change. In one story, she was old and wizened and in another she was young and comely.’

‘Us?’ Sorcha asked, looking at Alan who shook his head.

‘My brother Malcolm and I.’ A sadness entered her voice then, but Arabella shook free of it. ‘He was my twin.’ She brushed a tear away quickly, but Sorcha noticed it and realised of whom she spoke. ‘He used to claim he would find that witch and chase her from our lands. It was a challenge made to all the young men in Achnacarry—find the witch and be a hero. He was determined to be the one.’

‘And did he? Find her?’

‘’Twas just a story, Sorcha. There was no witch.’

Sorcha began reading the letter then and Arabella smiled when she reached the part that mentioned the rumours of a witch, shaking her head again at the fanciful idea.

But at that very moment, near Caig Falls on the lands of the Camerons, a woman looked out of her small cottage hidden deep in the woods. She whispered words that rhymed as another Cameron warrior climbed the rocky sides of the falls seeking her. When he slipped, his grasp on the wet stones not strong enough to hold him, and when he fell down into the deep pool that gathered below, she smiled.

That should scare him off for a while.

So, for a time, she would be safe from discovery and her secrets would remain hidden there with her.

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