“He must have been jestin’ when he said I was not deservin—” she immediately corrected herself. “Da was only jestin’. I actually have a dowry.”
There was not a person in the courtyard who had the cold-hearted ability to tell her otherwise.
Marisse read the expression on Richard’s face quite well. “Come, let us go inside and sew a bit while the men unload the wagon.”
Aeschene did not argue. “Ye must tell me what else there is,” she said as Marisse carefully led her up the stairs. “Did they send any tapestries or furniture?”
Richard remained silent as he watched his wife climb the stairs, happily chattering away about her dowry. Once the two women were inside he turned to the crowd that had assembled around the wagon. Each of them bore solemn expressions and a few appeared just as furious as Richard felt.
“Nae a word to her,” he bit out angrily. “Nae ever.”
“Nay, m’laird,” Gowry, the stable master said. “She be too sweet a lass.”
Richard looked at each of the people surrounding the wagon. Lachlan and Rory looked fighting mad. Raibeart’s face burned red with anger, his hands fisted at his sides. Colyne looked ready to weep on behalf of Aeschene.
“What kind of father sends a dowry like this?” Colyne asked woefully.
Lachlan shook his head. “I dunnae ken,” he said. “I dunnae ken if this is an insult to us or to Aeschene.”
Richard had been wondering that very thing. What kind of man does this?
As if he’d read Richard’s mind, Raibeart said, “The MacRay be a bloody son of a whore.”
Richard wasn’t about to chastise his younger brother for his harsh language for that was exactly the answer he’d come up with.
Aeschene and Marisse sat by the low burning fire in Marisse’s room. While Aeschene chatted happily away about what a wonderful man her father was to have changed his mind, Marisse quietly fumed.
For nearly an hour, she listened to her friend extol the virtues of a man who Marisse knew for a fact didn’t possess any. She sat, quietly fuming, as she pretended to mend one of Raibeart’s tunics. It grated, it truly did, to hear Aeschene go on and on about how her father had surprised her, about how kind it was for him to send the salt and flour they so desperately needed.
Marisse, however, knew the truth. Garrin MacRay was a ruthless, uncaring bastard.
“I wish I could see Hattie’s face when she is given the salt and flour,” Aeschene giggled happily. “That was so very thoughtful of my father.”
Aeschene, she was quite certain, was ready to put her father’s name to the church for sainthood, so thrilled and happy she was.
“I must write to father, of course, and thank him for his kindness.” She was holding a bit of fabric close to her eyes, working on an intricate stitch. “Will ye help me write it?’
Marisse would rather have her insides removed with a rusty pitchfork than write a letter of thanks to the MacRay. She was also growing quite weary of hearing Aeschene prattle on and on about her kind and generous father.
“Mayhap we should ask Richard if we could invite my family for a visit? Surely this dowry was meant to extend a hand in peace,” Aeschene said. “Can ye imagine? My parents and brothers at our table to sup? ’Tis what I used to dream about when I was a girl.”
Marisse realized then she wouldn’t be able to continue with this farce. Eventually, Aeschene would learn the truth, and it would hurt her far more to know she’d been lied to by those people who were supposed to love and protect her.
Tossing the tunic into the basket at her feet, she knelt before Aeschene. “We need to talk.”
Aeschene’s face burned red with humiliation and shame.
Marisse had held her hand while she told her the truth about the contents of the wagon. All the while her heart cracked a little bit more.
She knew she shouldn’t have been so surprised. Why would I put aside anything for a dowry for a blind woman? Her father had railed about that more than two years ago when her mother had made the mistake of asking about Aeschene’s dowry. That mistake had cost her mother more than a few slaps to her pretty face.
Aeschene felt her stomach tighten at the memory of that cold winter’s day. It tightened significantly more when she thought about the dowry he had sent.
“I be so sorry for lyin’ to ye,” Marisse said as she swiped a tear away. “But Richard, I think he did not want to see yer feelin’s hurt.”
“Oh, lord!” Aeschene exclaimed as she wept. “Richard must think me even more unworthy now!”
“Unworthy?” Marisse asked. “Richard does not think ye unworthy. I think he is quite fond of ye.”
She wasn’t going to believe it, not for a moment. “Nay, ye are wrong. Why would he hold me in any higher esteem after what da did?”
“What are ye goin’ on about?” Marisse asked as she handed her friend a linen square to wipe her eyes.
“The dowry should equal the value a father has for his daughter, do ye nae see that?”
Marisse sighed pitifully. “Aye, I see what ye mean. But Aeschene, yer da, he be a cruel man. Yer husband is not anything like yer da. Do ye nae see? Richard lied, made us all lie to protect yer feelins. If he were anythin’ at all like yer da, he would not have been carin’ about protectin’ yer heart.”
Aeschene thought on that for a long moment. Mayhap Marisse was right. The humiliation she felt, however, was only intensifying. “But when word spreads to the rest of the clan, think ye they will be so kind?”
Marisse knew there were still people who didn’t care for either one of them, simply because they were MacRays.
“I cannae bear the thought of how they will look upon me. ’Tis too humiliatin’ too bear,” Aeschene wept into her hands. “Why does he hate me so?”
That was a question Marisse had no good answer for. ’Twas a question she had been asking herself for the past two years.
Aeschene cried for a little while longer, her mind racing hither and yon, her worry intensifying. The clan will never hold me in high esteem, not after this.
“I will never be able to show my face again,” Aeschene said.
“Like hell!” Marisse bit out. “Ye will not hide in shame. Yer father did this, nae ye. Ye are goin’ to march right down those stairs and show yer husband and family and the rest of the clan that ye are much stronger and better than yer da gives ye credit for.”
Her words were firm and unyielding, and just what Aeschene needed to hear to bring her out of her current state of distress.
“If ye hide yer head in shame, what does that tell everyone?” Marisse asked.
Aeschene knew the answer. “That I be a coward.”
“Aye, and what is the one thing ye are nae?”
“I am not a coward.”
Admittedly, Aeschene began to feel better, although she doubted she would ever be able to entirely let go of her humiliation.
She washed and dried her face, changed into her pretty green wool gown, and even allowed Marisse to style her hair. All the while Marisse tried building up her confidence, reminding her repeatedly that she was not a coward, not by half, Aeschene was trying to come up with a plan to make up for the pitiful dowry her father had sent.