Oh, to raise babies in a place like this.
Babies who would know who their mother and father were, unlike Adrienne. Babies who would never have to wonder why they hadn't been worth keeping.
Adrienne rubbed her eyes furiously and turned away. It was too much for her to deal with.
And she turned right into Lydia. "Lydia!" she gasped. But of course. Why should it surprise her to run smack into the wonderful mother of the wonderful man who'd probably built the wonderful nursery?
Lydia steadied her by the elbows. "I came to see if you were feeling all right, Adrienne. I thought it might be too soon for you to be up and about—"
"Who built this room?" Adrienne whispered.
Lydia ducked her head, and for a brief moment Adrienne had the absurd impression that Lydia was trying not to laugh. "The Hawk designed and crafted it himself," Lydia said, intently smoothing tiny crinkles from her gown.
Adrienne rolled her eyes, trying to convince her emotional barometer to stop registering vulnerability and rise to something safe, like anger.
"Why, dear Adrienne, don't you like it?" Lydia asked sweetly.
Adrienne turned back and swept the room with an irritated gaze. The nursery was bright and cheery and alive with the creator's own outpouring of emotion into his creation. She glanced back at Lydia. "When? Before or after the king's service?" It was terribly important that she know if he had built it at seventeen or eighteen, to please his mother perhaps, or recently, in hopes of his own children someday filling it.
"During. The king gave him a brief leave when he was twenty-nine. There was some trouble with the Highlanders in these parts, and the Hawk was permitted to return to fortify Dalkeith. When the feuding was resolved, he spent a measure of time working up here. He worked like a man possessed, and in truth, I had little idea what he was doing. The Hawk has always worked with wood, building and designing things. He wouldn't let any of us see it, and didn't talk much about it. After he returned to James, I came up to see what he'd been doing." Lydia's eyes misted briefly. "I'll tell you the truth, Adrienne, it made me cry. Because it told me that my son was thinking of children and how precious they were. It filled me with wonder, too, when I saw it completed. I think it would most any woman. Men don't usually see children like this. But the Hawk, he's a rare man. Like his father."
You don't have to sell me on him, Adrienne thought morosely. "I'm sorry, Lydia. I'm very tired. I need to go rest," she said stiffly, and turned for the door.
As she entered the corridor she could have sworn she heard Lydia laughing softly.
* * * * *
Hawk found Grimm waiting for him in the study, gazing out at the west cliffs through the open doors. He didn't miss the tiny whiteness at Grimm's knuckles on the hand that clenched the door frame, or the rigid line of his back.
"So?" Hawk asked impatiently. He would have gone to the Comyn keep to investigate his wife's past himself, but that would have meant leaving Adrienne alone with the damned smithy. No chance of that. Nor could he have taken her with him, so he'd sent Grimm to uncover what had happened to Janet Comyn.
Grimm turned slowly, kicked out a chair, and sat heavily before the fire.
Hawk sat as well, rested his feet upon the desk, and poured them both a brandy. Grimm accepted it gratefully.
"Well? What did she say?" The Hawk's grip tightened on his glass as he waited to hear who had done such terrible things to his wife that her mind had retreated into fantasy. The Hawk understood what was wrong with her. He'd seen battle-scarred men who had experienced such horrors that they had reacted in similar fashion. Too many barbaric and bloody losses made some soldiers spin a dream to replace the reality, and in time many came to believe the dream was true. As his wife had done. But, unfortunately, with his wife he had no idea what had caused her painful retreat into such an outlandish fancy that she couldn't even bear to be called by her real name. And whatever had happened to her had left her totally unwilling to trust any man, but especially him, it seemed.
The Hawk braced himself to listen, to channel his rage when it came so he could wield it as a cool and efficient weapon. He would slay her dragons, and then begin her healing. Her body was growing stronger day by day, and the Hawk knew Lydia's love had much to do with it. But he wanted his love to heal her deepest wounds. And the only way he could do that was to know and understand what she had suffered.
Grimm swallowed, fidgeted in his chair, tilted it at the sides like a lad, then got up and moved to the hearth to shift restlessly from foot to foot.
"Out with it, man!" The week Grimm had been gone had nearly driven the Hawk crazy imagining what this Ever-hard man must have done. Or even worse, perhaps the Laird Comyn himself was to blame for Adrienne's pain. Hawk dreaded that possibility, for then it would be clan war. A terrible thing to be sure, but to avenge his wife—he would do anything. "Who is this Ever-hard?" The question had been gnawing at his insides ever since the night he'd first heard the name emerge from her fevered lips.