Kirsten lowered her head, feeling his hands tightening over hers in a vise-like grip. She nearly yelped, but used it to elicit a sob of pain from her throat.
"Kirstin!" he growled, letting go of her hands-he'd realized he was hurting her-and grabbed her little shoulders, shaking her. His eyes were wild. She saw the fear in them-and knew his pain. It wasn't Raife who would have to fight to keep his mate from marrying someone else. Sibyl was no longer promised to anyone but him. And mayhaps, after this little ruse, he'd finally realize that it was only Raife she'd ever loved.
"What Englishwoman?" Raife thundered, standing and knocking the chair out from under him.
She shook her head, remaining mute, pretending she couldn't talk because she was sobbing so hard-and it wasn't hard to do. Because the tears were real. There was an Englishwoman who would soon be at the MacFalon doorstep who expected to marry Donal and bear his children on orders from her king. It brought up pain so great for Kirstin, she could barely breathe, let alone talk, and she just sobbed into her hands, unable to answer Raife's questions.
"Sibyl...?" Raife's big fingers dug into her shoulders. "Is it Sibyl?"
"Enough, Raife!" Darrow snapped, glaring at his brother.
"Look at 'er!" Laina clucked, shaking her head. "She's so upset, she can'na e'en speak..."
"D'ye know?" Raife pointed a finger at Darrow, then Laina. "Who's this Englishwoman?"
"I-" Laina looked at Darrow, blinking innocently. "I... uh..."
"Well..." Darrow cleared his throat, leaning back in his seat. "Uh..."
"Ne'ermind!" Raife kicked the toppled chair out of his way as he stormed toward the exit. He nearly knocked over the little blonde maid, the one with the gap between her teeth called Gayle, as she came in. She shrank away from him, pressing herself flat against the wall, clearly afraid of the wulver warrior.
"I'll speak to The MacFalon meself and wring it out of his scrawny neck..." Raife growled, sweeping past the maid without even seeing her.
"He's in the chancery!" Moira called helpfully after him, chuckling when the door swung closed.
"Did it work?" Kirstin lifted her tear-filled cheeks, lowering her hands completely. She'd been peeking out of them between her fingers until that moment.
"Aye. That was quite a performance." Darrow scowled, tearing roast chicken off the carcass in front of him. His appetite had come back threefold, his body requiring more protein to heal faster, and Moira had been happy to roast a chicken or two a day for him. "I hope so. Now it's up to The MacFalon."
Kirstin wasn't about to tell them how little she'd had to pretend.
"The MacFalon plans t'keep Sibyl in the chancery 'til Raife arrives?" Moira asked, pouring more mead into Darrow's empty glass.
"Aye." Kirstin sniffed, cooling her red cheeks with the wave of her hands. "Angus'll signal 'im when Raife's almost there, so Donal knows just when he should propose to Sibyl."
That thought brought more tears to Kirstin's eyes, even though she knew it was all a ruse. She didn't like the thought of Donal proposing to anyone-except her. And he'd done that, several times already, in the past couple weeks. If only she could accept him...
"Nothin' like jealousy and possessiveness t'motivate a wulver t'action." Laina smiled coyly, nudging her husband with her elbow.
"Since t'dawn of man, when Eve took that first bite of apple." Darrow sighed, reaching to the middle of the table to grab one out of a bowl of fruit, taking a large chunk of apple flesh out with his teeth and chewing noisily. "Ye women've been so vera cruel."
Kirstin wiped her face with the edge of her plaid, and both Darrow's words and the bulge beneath it reminded her.
"Speakin' of the dawn of time..." Kirstin produced the book from where she'd hidden it in the folds of her Scots garment. "I've somethin' I wanna show ye."
"What's this?" Laina frowned at the leather-bound tome as Kirstin put it up on the table.
"I found it in t'first den," she confessed, flushing when Laina gave her a knowing smile. Did everyone know that she and Donal had been sneaking off to meet there? "Hidden in t'pack leader's room."
"Is that what I think 'tis?" Moira saw the book, her craggy gray eyebrows going up in surprise.
"Is it a witches book?" Gayle, the blonde maid, peered over Moira's shoulder at it, her eyes wide. "It looks like witchcraft t'me."
"It's the Book of the Moon Wives." Moira scoffed at the girl's assumption, retrieving the chair Raife had kicked and sitting upon it so she could look through the book in question. "I thought t'was jus' the stuff of legend..."
"I've ne'er heard of such a thing." Laina stood to go look over Moira's shoulder as well, watching the woman turn pages.
"I'd heard such a book existed," Moira told her. "But I thought t'was jus' a tale, or mayhaps that it'd once existed but it'd been lost long ago."
"T'was well concealed," Kirstin said, blushing at the memory of how they'd discovered the book, but no one noticed. They were all too interested in its contents-everyone except Darrow, who continued to pick meat off the chicken carcass with his fingers.
"What kinda book is't?" Gayle inquired, curious but at the same time looking as if she might bolt at any moment should the book do something untoward.
"It's said t'be a history of wulvers'n'men," Moira informed them. Then she chuckled. "Well, mayhaps a history of wulvers'n'women might be a better description. It's a sort of midwives'n'healer's guide."
Laina perked up at that. "Not many words..."
It was true, the guide was mostly pictures, although there were some words. Those words they saw were written mostly in Gaelic, and sometimes another, ancient language. The handwriting was mixed, making the assumption that the book had been written by more than one hand a good one.
"At the time, neither human women nor wulver women were allowed t'learn t'read or write," Moira said.
"Only ladies need to learn t'read." Gayle wrinkled her nose. "I can'na waste m'time learnin' nonsense."
"If we start teachin' women t'read, mankind is doomed," Darrow joked, ducking when Laina reached out to smack his head.
"I wish I'd learned." She stuck her tongue out at him.
"I can'na read the words..." Kirstin lamented with a sigh.
"Nor I..." Gayle shrugged.
"I can," Moira said, surprising them all. "But I do'na know all of the plants. Some, but n'all...
Laina and Kirstin looked at each other and they both said, "Sibyl."
"Aye," Laina nodded, her eyes shining. "She can read-and she knows all t'plants. Likely more than all of us combined."
"Mayhaps the cure lies within these pages..." Kirstin smiled at her sister.
"'Tis my greatest hope," Laina confessed. "For yer sake, and mine... and the sake of our daughters."
"Gayle, more mead!" Another servant girl stuck her head into the kitchen and the little blonde sighed, moving to get back to work.
Moira abandoned the book to fetch a pitcher for Gayle to take out to the guests.
Laina came over, standing beside Kirstin's chair, gently stroking her long, unbraided hair. Kirstin put her arms around her, resting her cheek against Laina's belly.
"I do'na like th' idea of ye stayin 'ere, sister." Laina sighed. "What'll we do fer a midwife? Who'll deliver the wulver heir?"
Darrow's head came up at that, distracted from his mission of debriding the chicken of all its meat. She had told Laina and Darrow, but had sworn them to secrecy.
"Shhh!" Kirstin urged her sister to be quiet, glancing around at the servants. They were all busy, but still, you never knew who was listening. "Do'na give 'way that secret a'fore our banrighinn's ready t'reveal it."
"'T'would bring Raife 'round in a heartbeat," Darrow said again, for the hundredth time. He'd been quick to suggest they just outright tell their pack leader about Sibyl's condition, but the women had talked him out of the idea. He kept pushing it though, saying it was the one sure thing that would be certain to endear Sibyl to him again.
"Aye, but I ken Sibyl's hesitation," Laina told her husband. "She'd ne'er know if Raife wanted 'er-or the bairn..."
"No man'd walk away from a woman carryin' his heir." Darrow licked his fingers noisily. "That woman's more precious than gold."
She knew he wasn't talking about her, but Kirstin couldn't help the tears that welled up at his words. She saw Gayle looking at her curiously as she carried a tray toward the door and Kirstin averted her eyes, not wanting her to see. She didn't want anyone to see.