“I just always thought you loved me. But now I don’t know. You frown at me as much as you smile, and you avoid me at all times except when we’re in this room.”
“I took you to the lake today. We had fun together, didn’t we?”
“Until you discovered I knew how to read and write. Then you frowned at me the rest of the day. You always frown at me.”
“I frown a lot, Cait. I can’t help it. It has nothing to do with my feelings for you. I love you very much. Now come, lay over my lap.”
She hesitated. “I don’t want to.”
“That may be, love, but you’ll do it all the same.”
“If you love me, why do you hurt me?”
Duncan sighed. “Honestly, we’ve been over and over this. Do I really need to explain it again? I will if you wish it, but you’ll be punished all the same. Now come, let’s get it over with.”
She dragged over to him, weeping openly now. He pulled her between his legs and tilted her chin up to him.
“These tears, Cait. What are you really crying about?”
“I don’t want you to do this. I just want you to hold me.”
“Disobedient wives aren’t coddled and cuddled, are they? You know that.”
He pulled her down over his knee, ignoring her sobbing. Of course he was devastated to see her so upset, but the worst thing he could do would be to let her go now, when she was obviously trying to see where the boundaries lay.
The spanking was harsh and painful, but not angry. He wanted her to feel she was being punished, yes, but to understand that she was loved. Afterward he made her stand again between his legs and look him in the eyes. She was miserable, conflicted, guilty.
“Tell me, Caitlyn, what that punishment was for.”
“It was...it was for being...disobedient,” she sniffled through her tears.
“For testing me, yes? For purposely not following the rules.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Are you sorry?” She was quiet a long moment. If he had to, he would start all over again.
“I’m sorry I made you angry,” she said finally. “I just want you to love me. If I have to be obedient for you to love me, that’s what I’ll do.”
“I told you already,” he said, his patience wearing thin, “that I love you always. No matter what you do. No matter if I frown and spend time away from you, you’re my wife and I care for you. I won’t allow you to be unsafe and unhappy, which is why I require obedience of you. Now repeat it to me, so I know you understand me. Do I love you, Caitlyn?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And why must you obey me? What is the reason?”
“To...to...to be safe...and happy,” she said with a fresh torrent of tears.
“Because I love you and I want you to be safe and happy,” he agreed quietly. He hugged her, pulling her close in his arms. “I know you aren’t feeling very happy right now, or very safe when I’m hurting you in punishment. Tonight you’ll dress and sleep in your own room and think over what I’ve said. Tomorrow we’ll try again.”
Her eyes pleaded with his. She didn’t want to be sent away, but he knew she needed time to think. She needed to understand the consequences of fighting his system.
“Go on.” He pushed her gently towards her clothes strewn on the floor. She dressed, still shaking with tears. He opened the door to her adjoining room and ushered her inside.
“Do not come back in tonight,” he said. “I’ve told you what I wish.”
“Yes, sir,” she whispered, just as the first hard rain started to fall.
He shut the door and crossed back to his window, staring out at the pummeling storm. Hard lessons now would assure smoother times later, but it still pained him to wish her good night and send her away. He hadn’t even enjoyed that spanking, not really. He was more worried about the miscommunication that had caused it. For her to believe he didn’t love her...that was the worst thing of all.
Lightning flickered in the distance. Duncan decided to return to the hall to see if any assistance was needed in battening down for the storm. Before he arrived, Connor came striding toward him down the corridor.
“What is it, man? Danger?”
“No, only something you should see. Someone,” he amended. “She claims to be mother to Lady Caitlyn.”
Duncan took in the uneasy look on his friend’s face. “And who do you think she is?”
“I think she is who she says she is, and much more than that. But she asked to see you and only you, not her daughter. She demanded it,” finished Connor with a frown.
“Where is she?”
“In the hall, my lord.”
“I’ll meet with her alone—”
“Duncan,” Connor warned.
“I’ll meet with her alone! And see that Cait doesn’t enter the hall without my permission,” he added as an afterthought.
Duncan stalked toward the great hall. He’d have answers now, at long last, from this woman claiming to be Cait’s mother, as if anyone like she had the right to call herself a mother. Abandoning her daughter to be raised like a pauper in the woods, alone with an aged nurse and a king for a father, and no earthly knowledge of who she was or of anything of the world. He banged open the door, worked into full fury, but stopped still as she turned eyes on him that were exact replicas of Cait. The woman drew herself up haughtily.
“You may think of me whatever you wish, bold warrior,” she intoned at his expression, “but you will hear my words before you send me away.”
Cait’s mother. Duncan had no doubt she was exactly who she claimed to be. To say that she resembled Cait was an understatement; it was as if Duncan looked upon Cait herself in twenty or twenty five years, garbed in the woad robes of a priestess. A priestess. She resembled Cait in appearance, but that was all. For this woman, though petite, had a presence that dwarfed Duncan and made him stop short where he was. A presence that Cait did not in any way possess.
A priestess. A high priestess of some kind, if not the highest priestess, he thought suddenly. He had known there was more to Cait’s parentage than he had been told, and now it was explained. As he thought all this the woman glared back at him balefully, looking down her nose at him with a frown. She was dressed in a plain, unassuming gown, but exuded such a strange and affecting power that she might as well have been garbed in the richest, most rare of dress with bedazzling jewels. He blinked, breaking her stare, suddenly certain that she tried to bespell him. Perhaps, he thought belatedly, he should not have met with her alone.
“I have been on a merry chase about Scotland looking for my daughter,” her voice rang out, “and I find her here at Inverness Keep, in the Devil’s own hands.” She glowered at him as she spoke the last words.
“I am no devil, madam,” returned Duncan, “but I have some words for what you are, to have cared for your daughter as you have.”
Her eyes narrowed, sizing him up. “You might do better to address me with respect. Do you know to whom you speak?”
“I have an idea of your high station, but I speak to you as the mother of my wife. The absent, careless mother,” he added with a scowl.
Her sudden peal of laughter surprised him. “Oh, cry and wail. My daughter was well cared for, better cared for that I left her alone. You understand me, Devil?”
“My name is Duncan of Inverness.”
“And my name is Edana, high priestess of the Isles, lest we both get confused. Now that the introductions are out of the way perhaps we can speak plainly and clearly. If you are finished criticizing my maternal capabilities, that is.”
Duncan stood and watched her with his lips pursed in a frown. “Plainly and clearly sounds fine to me. What is it you want?”
Edana lifted her chin and stared at him as lightning flickered in the darkened hall. “For all you imagine I have no maternal feelings for my daughter, the truth is I have traveled here to see that she is well.”
“She is well,” Duncan said. “For all that I am named a
Devil, I am a loving husband to your daughter Cait.”
“Love?” said Edana, her brows lifting. “Is it so? My lucky daughter, then, to know that which her mother has not.”
“Yes, lucky,” Duncan agreed. “We live very happily here. She is safe and content and much loved.”
“I am happy to hear it,” said Edana, her voice finally softening. “Based on your unfortunate moniker, I must say I expected the worst. But she is not completely safe here. You must hear this and know it, and take it to heart.”
“What do you mean? She is very safe here. She has a guard. She is always supervised. I know she is not one to be careless with. She has the blood of the king...and you...”
“Yes, me. Wretched pagan blood. The blood of a priestess who bore her with a king from the Beltane fires. I’m a poor mother, but I do have some worth to her. I have seen danger for her and I come to warn you. There is danger in a man—”
“I promise you, lady,” interrupted Duncan indignantly, “she is in absolutely no danger from me.”
“I know it,” she snapped. “I know much more than you can ever hope to know. I tell you only what comes to me, and what comes to me is a vague feeling that my daughter is not secure. There is a sinister specter I can see just in the corner of my thoughts.”
“The king. It’s the king you see. She claims that he hates her, that he wants her dead.”
Edana laughed. “The king? No, I know the king. I hold his soul in my hands and I feel what he feels and know what he knows. She is in no peril from him. No, this threat is unknown to me and as such, I come to warn you to look after her carefully.”
“Madam, I already do. I do everything I can, everything in my power to protect her.”
“Do you?” she said, looking at him with a searching look that set his hair on end.
“Yes, I do,” he replied with a little less conviction. “I protect her better than you have, at any rate.”