Page 26 of Captured by a Laird
When she first arrived as a new bride of thirteen, the servants tested their new mistress and took advantage of her inexperience. Blackadder turned a deaf ear to her complaints, and once the servants saw how little power she held, their lack of respect grew more blatant.
Alison was never sure which of them terrorized her with pranks and worse, safe in the knowledge that her husband would blame her for the loose hem that caused her to trip, the ring from her father that went missing, and the poor dead cat she found beneath her favorite gown in the chest. After that first terrible year, Alison was harder to frighten, and the malicious pranks were replaced by a lazy disregard.
Without a competent maid, an elaborate coif and headdress were a challenge, and Alison did not have enough time in any case. She decided to wear her hair simply, in a single braid with a silver ribbon woven through it. Blackadder had laughed at the makeshift headdress she had made from a piece of the leftover blue velvet and embroidered with silver thread, but it would have to do. She held it in place with a silver circlet.
“Ye look lovely,” Flora said, blinking her filmy eyes.
Not very reassuring, coming from a nearly blind woman. But why should she care? She did not want this marriage, and Wedderburn would wed her if she looked like old Flora.
“Why did ye change your gown and fix your hair?” Beatrix asked.
Alison sat on the bench and patted the smooth wood surface on either side of her. When the girls clambered up beside her, she put her arms around them. If she wanted to tell them before Wedderburn came pounding on the door, she must do it now.
“Unless your uncles arrive quite soon,” she said, glancing at the door, “I’ll be marrying the Laird of Wedderburn today.”
“Why?” Beatrix asked.
“’Tis a bit hard to explain.” She did not want to tell her daughters how little choice a woman had in this world and hoped Beatrix would not press her for a better answer.
“Does that mean Will and Robbie will be our brothers?” Margaret asked. “I’d like to have brothers.”
“No, sweetling.” Alison was about to add that they would share a household, until she realized she did not know if the two lads had come only for the wedding or if they would live at Blackadder Castle.
“Will our new laird make ye cry like Father did?” Beatrix asked, her sweet face clouded with worry.
Alison had tried to hide her misery from her daughters, but Beatrix was an observant child.
“I’m certain he will not,” she lied, and kissed Beatrix’s forehead before her smile faltered.
“Where will he sleep?” Beatrix persisted.
Beatrix must have been awake some of those nights when she returned from Blackadder’s bedchamber and cried herself to sleep. Alison should have been more careful.
“For now, you two and Flora will move to the Tower Room,” Alison said, combing her fingers through her daughter’s hair.
Wedderburn apparently had discovered that the laird’s chamber lacked a bed because he had sent a man to inform her that he would make this his bedchamber until it could be replaced.
“I’ll sleep here with Wedderburn tonight,” she said, fighting to keep her voice calm, “for at least a little while before I join ye in the Tower Room.”
Her body tensed with the urge to grab her daughters’ hands and blindly run as fast and far as she could. But with the castle filled with Hume warriors, they would not even reach the gate. They would not escape today, and tomorrow would be too late for her.
“I’m scared to sleep in the Tower Room without ye,” Margaret said, and leaned against her.
“Would ye feel less afraid if I let the puppy sleep with ye tonight?”
Her daughters jumped off the bench and shouted with joy.
If only it was so easy to resolve her own fears of the coming night.
Alison got to her feet and smoothed her gown with sweaty palms. The hour Wedderburn had given her was gone, and she intended to avoid being carried into the hall over his shoulder like a prize hog. That would only frighten her daughters and humiliate her, and it would not save her from this marriage.
She touched the black quartz pendant her mother had given her, though the only luck it had brought her so far was bad luck, and went to meet her fate.
***
Patrick Blackadder’s anger was cold and hard like a piece of ice lodged in his chest.
“I told ye it was a mistake to order half our men to desert Lady Alison and leave the castle vulnerable,” he said to his father. “Now Wedderburn has taken what belongs to us.”
