The Laird Takes a Bride(51)

Proudly Sheila took up the little knife. “I try to be, Granny. Though it’s not always easy.”

The old lady rested a gnarled hand on her granddaughter’s head. “You’re more right than you know, sweeting. Now! I’ll wash the tatties, and we’ll have a lovely pottage for our dinner tonight.”





Chapter 8




As Alasdair confidently expected, the days ticked along smoothly, like a well-oiled clockwork, and a week swiftly passed. The usual rounds of work and play; and the nights alone with his wife had indeed fallen into a predictable pattern. He wandered in, greeted her, they had quick, uneventful congress, and he went to sleep.

On the eighth night, he came into their bedchamber very late.

“Are you awake, madam?”

The question had become a ritual, only now she said:

“Yes. But it’s my woman’s time.”

“Oh.”

“And I wish,” she added waspishly, “you would stop calling me ‘madam’ in that pompous way.”

“I wasn’t aware,” he said, offended, getting into bed, “that I was being pompous.”

“Well, you were.”

There was a silence. Alasdair settled himself comfortably. He had heard that during this monthly interval, women could be rather touchy. So, cautiously, he asked, “What shall I call you then?”

“Isn’t it obvious? My name is Fiona.”

“Very well—Fiona.”

She only gave a sniff. Huffily, he turned on his side with his back to her, and closed his eyes. Adjusted the bedcovers. Shifted his pillows around. After a while he said, over his shoulder and with a little growl in his voice:

“I can hear you being awake.”

“I’m just lying here. Minding my own business, I might add.”

“It’s practically the middle of the night. Why aren’t you asleep?”

“What do you care?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Fiona. Please just tell me.”

There was another silence. Finally, she answered, reluctantly, as if unwilling to share anything personal:

“I have insomnia.”

He remembered finding her in her morning-room, napping. He recalled the dark circles under her eyes. Now he wondered how many hours she had spent in this bed, awake in the darkness, while he had serenely slept, oblivious.

He rolled onto his back. Turned his head and looked at her. The fire in the hearth provided just enough light for him to see that she, too, lay on her back, her eyes fixed—as they often seemed to be—on the canopy above their heads.

He cleared his throat a little. “Why do you have insomnia?”

“I developed it as a child.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said grudgingly. “I suppose when I realized my father was often unkind to my mother.”

“Was he—unkind to you?”

“He was . . . is . . . volatile. Was he unkind? Well, he would sometimes threaten to beat us. So I began to lie awake at night, in case he did come into the room I shared with my sisters, in one of his rages.”

“Were you afraid?” He turned onto his side, facing her.

“Not really. I lay awake thinking about what I would do if he came in.”

“What you’d do?”

“Yes. I kept a fire iron next to me in bed.”

“Would you have used it on him?”

“I told myself I would. I couldn’t protect Mother, but I could at least try to protect my sisters.”

“That was brave of you.”

He saw her shoulders, covered by her prim white nightgown, lifting in a shrug. “I don’t know about that. He never hit us, never came into our room. Perhaps I overreacted. But the end result was insomnia.”

“Surely there are remedies. Maybe Dr. Colquhoun could help.”

“I doubt it. I’ve tried everything. Chamomile, hops, lady slipper, lavender, valerian. Hot baths, cold baths. Warm milk. Wool socks. More exercise, less exercise. Oils on my feet, oils on my forehead. Nothing has worked.”

How far apart in the bed they were, he thought. The space between them seemed vast; her face was a little ghostly in the dimness. He tried to think what it would feel like to be unable to sleep, night after night, year after year. Naturally he at once felt a tremendous desire to sleepily yawn. He repressed it. Out loud he said, sincerely, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your problem.”

Did he imagine it, or was there, beneath her level, dispassionate tone, a note of melancholy?

He said, on an impulse:

“Just so you know. I didn’t ride my horse through the castle.”

She didn’t respond for a few moments. Then: “I believe you. I’ve seen how you’re too good to your horses to do something like that.”