“She kent him, Uncle,” Ian said. He looked disturbed, but not afraid; excited, rather, in an unfamiliar way. “She’d seen him before—with Brianna.”
“Aye?” He tried to speak encouragingly, but the hair on the back of his neck was rising with premonition.
“At Wilmington,” Lizzie got out. “MacKenzie was his name; I heard a sailor call him so.”
Jamie glanced quickly at Ian, who shook his head.
“He didna give his place, but I dinna ken any from Leoch like him. I saw him and heard him speak; he’s maybe a Highlander, but schooled in the south, I’d say—an educated man.”
“And did this Mr. MacKenzie seem to know my daughter?” he asked. Lizzie nodded, frowning in concentration.
“Oh, aye, sir! And she kent him, too—she was afraid of him.”
“Afraid? Why?” He spoke sharply, and she blanched, but she was well started now, and the words came out, tripping and stumbling, but still coming.
“I dinna ken, sir. But she turned white when she saw him, sir, and let out a wee skelloch. Then she went red and white and red again—oh, she was fair upset, anyone could see it!”
“What did he do?”
“Why—why—nothing, then. He came close to her, and held her by the arms, and said to her that she must come awa’ with him. Everyone in the taproom was looking. She pulled herself away, white as my shift, but she said to me as it was all right, I was to wait, and she would come back. And—and then she went out with him.”
Lizzie drew in a quick breath and wiped the end of her nose, which had begun to drip.
“And ye let her go?”
The little bondmaid shrank back, cowering.
“Ooh, I should have gone after her, I ken weel I should, sir!” she cried, face twisted with misery. “But I was afraid, sir, and may God forgive me!”
With an effort, Jamie smoothed the frown from his face and spoke as patiently as he might.
“Aye, well. And what happened, then?”
“Oh, I went upstairs as she told me, and I lay in the bed, sir, prayin’ for all I was worth!”
“Well, that was verra helpful, I’m sure!”
“Uncle—” Ian’s voice was soft but not at all tentative, and his brown eyes were steady on Jamie’s. “She’s no but a wee lassie, Uncle; she did her best.”
Jamie rubbed his hand hard over his scalp.
“Aye,” he said. “Aye, I’m sorry, lass; I didna mean to bite your head off. But will ye no get on wi’ it?”
A hot pink spot had begun to burn on each of Lizzie’s cheeks.
“She—she didna come back till nearly dawn. And—and—”
Jamie had very little patience left, and no doubt it showed on his face.
“I could smell him on her,” she whispered, voice dropping almost to inaudibility. “His…seed.”
The surge of rage took him unaware, like a white-hot bolt of lightning through chest and belly. He felt half choked with it, but clamped it down tight, hoarding it like coals in a hearth.
“He bedded her, then; you’re sure of that?”
Thoroughly mortified at this bluntness, the little bondmaid could do no more than nod.
Lizzie was twisting her hands in the stuff of her gown, leaving her skirt all bunched and crumpled. Her paleness was replaced with a hot flush; she looked like one of Claire’s tomatoes. She couldn’t look at him, but hung her head, staring at the ground.
“Oh, sir. She’s wi’ child, can ye not see? It must be him—she was virgin when he took her. He’s come after her—and she’s afraid of him.”
Quite suddenly, he could see it, and felt the hairs rise all up his arms and shoulders. The autumn breeze struck cold through shirt and skin, and the rage turned to sickness. All the small things he had half seen and half thought, not allowing them to rise to the surface of his mind, came together at once in a logical pattern.
The look of her, and the way she acted; one moment lively and another lost in troubled thought. And the glow in her face that was not all from the sun. He knew the look of a woman breeding well enough; if he had known her before, he would have seen the change; but as it was…
Claire. Claire knew. The thought came to him, cold in its certainty. She knew her daughter, and she was a physician. She must know—and hadn’t told him.
“Are ye sure of this?” The coldness froze his rage. He could feel it stuck in his chest—a dangerous, jagged object that seemed to point in every direction.
Lizzie nodded, wordless, and blushed deeper, if such a thing were possible.
“I am her maid, sir,” she whispered, eyes on the ground.
“She means Brianna hasna had her courses in two months,” Ian provided matter-of-factly. The youngest of a family containing several older sisters, he was not constrained by Lizzie’s delicacy. “She’s sure.”
“I—I wouldna have said anything at all, sir,” the girl went on wretchedly. “Only, when I saw the man…”
“D’ye think he’s come to claim her, Uncle?” Ian interrupted. “We must stop him, aye?” The look of angry excitement was clear now, flushing the lad’s lean cheeks with feeling.
Jamie took a deep breath, only then realizing that he had been holding it.
“I dinna ken,” he said, surprised at the calmness of his own tone. He had barely had time to take in the news, let alone to draw conclusions, but the lad was right, there was a danger to be dealt with.
If this MacKenzie wished it, he might claim Brianna as his wife by right of common law, with the coming bairn as evidence of his claim. A court of law would not necessarily force a woman to wed a rapist, but any magistrate would uphold the right of a man to his wife and child—regardless of the wife’s feelings in the matter.
His own parents had wed by such device: fleeing and hiding among the Highland crags until his mother was well with child, so that her brothers were forced to accept the unwelcome marriage. A child was a permanent, undeniable bond between man and woman, and he had cause to know it.
He glanced toward the path that came up through the lower wood.
“Will he not be here on your heels? The Woolams will have told him the way.”
“Nooo,” said Ian thoughtfully. “I shouldna think so. We took his horse, aye?” He grinned suddenly at Lizzie, who giggled faintly in reply.
“Aye? And what’s to stop him taking the wagon, or one of the wagon mules?”
The grin widened substantially on Ian’s face.
“I left Rollo in the wagon bed,” he said. “I think he’ll walk it, Uncle Jamie.”
Jamie was forced to a grudging smile in return.
“That was quick of ye, Ian.”
Ian shrugged modestly.
“Well, I didna want the bastard to take us unawares. And though I’ve not heard Cousin Brianna talk about her laddie lately—yon Wakefield, aye?” He paused delicately. “I didna think she’d want to see this MacKenzie. Especially if—”
“I should say Mr. Wakefield has left his coming ower-long,” Jamie said. “Especially if.” It was no wonder she had stopped looking forward to Wakefield’s coming—once she’d realized. After all, how would a woman explain a swelling belly to a man who’d left her virgin?