Fiona blinked. “What hut do you mean, Cousin?”
“Why, the one to which your father will exile us.”
“I was being sardonic. Mostly. And truly, Isobel, no blame could possibly be attached to you, even by Father.”
“Well, I am preparing myself mentally, Fiona dear. I don’t wish to live in a hut, but I will do it for your sake.”
Recognizing this for the heroic sacrifice it was, Fiona was able to summon up a wan smile. “Thank you, Cousin,” she answered, sincerely, and then both ladies were silent, absorbed in their own, less than sunny reflections.
Letters had come for Fiona; a small pile had accumulated in only the few days since she had gone.
“Shall I send them along to the mistress’s—to Miss Fiona’s home in Wick Bay, laird?” asked Lister.
“Yes,” answered Alasdair shortly, but added hard upon: “No.” Then: “Yes, of course, send them on.”
“Very well, laird.” Lister looked a little puzzled, but continued, gesturing to a different stack upon his desk, “These invitations, laird, how am I to reply to them?”
“Say yes. To all of them.”
Another day of travel, another inn. Another night. After tossing and turning for several hours atop a mattress filled with —evidently—lumps of coal, Fiona finally fell asleep toward dawn. She dreamed of Alasdair. He was standing perfectly still on the deck of a boat, his arms at his side. The boat rocked wildly among the roiling waves of a storm-tossed loch. She watched him, helpless, from the distant shore. It was unclear whether he would survive, or sink. And then, underneath her feet, the ground abruptly gave way and she woke up, for several panicky seconds having no idea where she was and groping, futilely, in the empty space next to her for Alasdair.
It was at a glittering ball hosted by one of his neighbors that Alasdair realized that several of the young ladies in attendance —as well as their mothers—were eyeing him with hopeful speculation.
He was, after all, a single man again.
So he danced with all the young ladies. He smiled, he said all the right things, he laughed in all the right places. But he could not forget that he had never, not once, danced with Fiona.
In truth, Fiona hadn’t a particularly clear sense of how she would be greeted upon her return to the Douglass keep, but nothing could have prepared her for what she found upon entering the Great Hall.
Her mother, clad in black; weeping.
Father, also in black, looking just a little bit stooped.
A coffin.
And—
Logan Munro, in black as well.
A terrible fear clutched at Fiona.
Why must trouble come in threes?
“What has happened?” she demanded, more loudly than she had intended. They all swung around in surprise.
“Fiona!” Mother gasped. “How did you know? How did you get here so quickly?” She hurried to Fiona, hugging her tightly.
Fiona hugged her back, but a little absently, her eyes—in them an urgent question—meeting Father’s over Mother’s shoulder.
“Nairna is dead,” he said, his face a graven mask.
A blast of irrational anger now roared through Fiona as she pulled away from Mother and turned on Logan Munro, her hands clenched into fists. “I just had a letter from her,” she said fiercely. “She was well. The wisewoman had put her to bed, that’s all. She was well.”
“The wisewoman was wrong,” replied Logan, his voice heavy and somber. “She was a fool, an incompetent. There was no child. It was a tumor growing within her. It must have been just after Nairna wrote you that it all became clear.” His voice shook. “By then she knew she was dying. And she asked that I bring her home.”
“You’re the fool!” snarled Fiona. “You’re the incompetent one!”
“Fiona!” Mother exclaimed, horrified, but Logan Munro only shook his head.
“You don’t need to tell me that I failed her, Fiona. I know it.”
“Empty words from an empty man!” Fiona advanced toward him, hardly knowing in her rage what she intended, when Father intervened, catching her arm in a firm grip.
“Calm yourself, daughter. Munro is a guest in my house. I’ll not have him dishonored by your vitriol.”
Fiona looked up at Father with wild, blind eyes. He leaned close, and said with a softness she would never have expected:
“In all likelihood, there was nothing that anyone could have done. My own mother was taken the same way.”
“Oh, Father, she was so happy—”
“I know.”
And when Fiona couldn’t think of anything else to do, wearily she leaned her head upon his shoulder, just for a few moments. And just for a few moments, Father—the hardest and most undemonstrative of men—put his arm around her, their shared grief bringing them together in a way that was completely new.