Page 35 of Hold Fast

The door behind Una flew open, and Cat exclaimed, “Ewan! Isnae she beautiful? The gown may as well have been made for her.”

Una noticed a slight flush around the collar of Ewan’s shirt. He lifted a big, tanned hand to the sleeve of her gown, rubbing the soft material between his thumb and forefinger.

Una opened her mouth to protest, but Ewan coughed and said, “It suits you. Do you like it?”

Una was dimly aware of Cat and Joan in the doorway behind her, but it felt as if they were leagues away at the same time. She had worn fur-trimmed silks as Malcolm Cameron’s handfasted betrothed. She had worn the finest of gowns at his command. She had liked them well enough. But she didn’t just like this gown. Soft and warm and so special for having belonged to such a beloved woman, it was the finest, loveliest thing she’d ever worn.

What was more, she didn’t deserve it. She didn’t deserve to wear the gown of a laird’s wife, a beloved mother, dearly missed. She was a healer. A common-born woman with a job to do. She deserved homespun in a sturdy, practical color that would show neither dirt nor blood.

But she didn’t know how to say that. Not with Cameron’s voice so fresh in her mind.“Ye always were such a beauty, Una.”

And so she didn’t answer. She didn’t say a word as she ducked around him and raced into the laird’s chamber, slamming the door behind her.

CHAPTER13

Later that night, Ewan came to sit watch by Connor’s bed. When he entered the chamber, he found a sleepy Fiona bathing his face with cool cloths. She held a finger to her lips and canted her head toward the fireplace where a pallet lay. Sleeping atop it, huddled under a blanket pulled up to her nose, was Una.

“I had to threaten her to rest,” Fiona whispered. “I told her that if she refused to sleep, then so would I.”

Ewan nodded. “She needed the sleep.”

“Aye. She has been through a great deal, I fear.”

“What has she told you?” Ewan asked, wanting to follow the breadcrumbs wherever they might lead.

“Nothing with words,” Fiona said carefully. “But she ran in here after her bath as if escaping a bear and begged me to find one of the servants to lend her a work dress. She couldnae get yer mother’s blue gown off fast enough. Nearly ripped a seam. When I asked her what was amiss, she got very quiet and said that she didnae feel comfortable attracting as much attention as such a fine gown would earn. She wore naught but her shift until Mary could bring a work dress for her.”

Ewan felt sick.

“I dinnae ken what happened to her before ye found her, but she’s as skittish as a colt and as prickly as a hedgehog. She didnae want to speak any more of it, so I left it alone.”

“She was handfasted to Cameron,” Ewan said through clenched teeth, his jaw so tight that he could hear his molars squeak together. He looked over at Una, half expecting her to fly off the pallet in a rage, but she only snored softly.

“God’s bones,” Fiona breathed.

“Aye.”

“He is a verra cruel man, is he nae?”

“He’s a tyrant,” Ewan agreed.

“What did he do to her?” Fiona asked, the mending clenched tightly between worried fingers.

“I dinnae ken. But I doubt verra much he was kind to her.”

Fiona nodded, her lips pressed into a tight line.

Ewan relieved Fiona of her post so that she could eat a meal in the kitchen and rest for a few hours herself. He bathed Connor’s face with cool water and stared broodily at the way the firelight made Una’s hair look like gleaming obsidian, thinking about the gown and wondering if he and Cat had overstepped horribly. It bothered him.

When she’d woken an hour or so later, she’d taken over the cool cloths with quiet thanks before turning her back on him and setting to work redressing Connor’s wound. He, the laird of this keep and clan, had been dismissed.

That had bothered him, too. So much so that he’d sparred with David late into the night in the torchlit bailey until he was bloodied and could barely lift a sword. It had been beyond stupid, but he’d been so full of restless, thrumming energy, the panic sitting on his chest like a bull, and he knew that the only way he would sleep was if he gave his body no other choice.

The next morning, he awoke aching from head to toe. Groaning, he rolled out of Connor’s bed, his for the time being, and dressed in the near darkness, with only embers to light the room. He strapped on his weapons and crept down the hall, easing open the door to the laird’s solar. Fiona sat in the chair beside the bed, but the pallet by the fire was empty.

“She went to the chapel, m’laird,” Fiona whispered, not missing the flare of panic he’d felt seeing her missing.

“Oh,” he said. “I didnae come to… that is, I came to see Connor.”