the day be fair. Ye even excused yer priest from this.”
She forced a smile. “Father Dennis is on his knees this very moment.”
“Well, at least he offers prayers. That’s something.”
Honor shook her head. “He’s shoeing his mule. He will say a mass for Tavish later today. This is a thing I must do and I thank you for coming with me. You are kind to bear with my groans. Truth told, embroidery wrings the same sounds as riding in a deluge would do. No comfort to be found anywhere, I fear. I want to go.”
“’Twill soon end,” he remarked as he swung up on his mount.
“This drizzling wet? It rarely stops, as you of all souls should know.”
“Nay, not that. I meant your...uh...” He gestured vaguely toward her lower body.
“Condition,” she finished for him. “Yes, I suppose it will end, though some days I do wonder.”
They sauntered out the gates and along the road through the village. Sir Alan’s huge roan frisked and tugged at the bit when they reached the open expanse of the valley. Honor could see mount and master quiver with eagerness for a wild run across the moor. Their barely suppressed energy roused her envy, irritated her. The long silence wore on her nerves. She wished she could gallop away some of the dreadful unease that stifled her breathing. Her backbone felt rigid, imprisoned by muscles drawn tight as fitted bowstrings.
This knight of hers, so at home in his saddle, appeared no knight at all this morning. He had forgone his silk and mail and donned the garment she had ordered her woman to dry for him last evening. Honor wondered how he had managed to pleat the long woven fabric so deftly with no stitches to hold it. A wide leathern belt with a tarnished buckle kept it in place over his well-worn saffron shirt. Several ells of the wool, secured with a huge round silver pin, draped his left shoulder and covered most of his back. Her gaze wandered down to muscular thighs, half-bared as he straddled his mount. Boots of brown hide encased his feet and legs to the knee. He had cross-gartered them with strips of thick sinew. So strange he looked. Almost savage.
Honor marveled at his donning of a purse. Attached to the wide belt by copper chains, the pouch hung to one side now, but had rested directly over his netherparts when he stood. Altogether, he presented a primitive picture. A highland savage, Father would have called him, a terrifying animal feared by all and sundry.
She hoped to God Sir Alan could live up to that image. They both might have need of that fearsome wildness one day. The broadsword slung from his saddle offered reassurance.
Honor rode on, enduring the discomfort, impatient to be done with this necessary farewell yet determined to carry it out. They traversed an almost nonexistent path betwixt the barren hills leading out of her valley and into the next.
“Ye’re angry,” Alan finally stated in a flat voice.
Stunned, Honor issued a short huff of denial.
“Aye, ye are. I know why. Tav left ye, didn’t he? Left ye alone when ye’ve need of him. ’Tis natural to feel so. I felt it myself right after he died.”
When she did not answer, he turned to rake her with those knowing green eyes. “’Twill pass.” He returned his gaze toward their destination and nodded toward the burn. “He lies just there.”
Honor watched Alan dismount when they neared the stream and allowed him to assist her off the palfrey. She stumbled once and felt the strength of his arm grasp her shoulders to right her. Neither said another word until they stood staring down at the poorly etched stone marking Tav’s grave.
Then Alan moved away several strides, bent down and gathered two stones. He walked back and handed one of them to her. She watched him close his eyes and kneel to place the rock next to the large one with the device chipped into it.
The crude rendering of the wolf’s head touched her somehow. Sir Alan could not make the letters to identify his friend. Neither could he make the design, but he had tried. “Tavish would laugh,” she whispered, voicing the thought. “He...he would have laughed.... Damn him! Damn!” She choked on sudden tears and threw the stone at the grave. At Tavish.
“I know,” Alan breathed against her ear. “Ah, Honor, I grieve for ye. I grieve for him. And for th’ child never knowin’ his da. I tried to make Tav live. I tried!”
She pummeled his chest with her fists as she had done before. Great sobs shook her body as he drew her closer and held her. Soft Gaelic phrases soothed her, as comforting to her as they were meaningless.
If this man only knew her heart, she thought with a deep shudder. He would shove her from him in disgust. Guilt racked her anew for the way she had used poor Tavish. The man had loved her, truly loved her, and she had encouraged that so shamelessly. She had tricked him into marriage, a marriage that probably was not even legal if anyone troubled to examine it. And her father would trouble to do just that if he ever found her. Tavish’s child might bear the shame of bastardy because of her foolishness. Because of her cursed fear.
Honor pushed away and dropped to her knees beside the cairn. “Forgive me,” she whispered repeatedly, a litany as futile as prayers for her soul. Her womb squeezed painfully as though the child sought retribution for the father. She gasped and leaned against the large stone, grasping it, feeling the cold, rough wetness against her cheek.
Strong hands tried to lift her but she moaned a plea for solitude. She deserved it, the soul-wringing misery. The grip on her shoulders lessened, but the warmth of his palms seeped right through her woolen cloak. She wept the tears of the damned and welcomed the keen knifing that twisted through her midsection. Her due. Her lot.
Something warm and liquid gushed from her, jerking her out of her self-absorbed guilt. “Nooo,” she moaned. Honor curled forward and surrounded the unborn babe with her hands. Another hand joined hers, exploring the tightness of her belly.
“Nay! ’Tis too soon!” he declared.
“Too late,” she groaned through her teeth, fresh grief already immobilizing her. “Oh God help me, too late.” She felt all the reason she had left slip away as she embraced the agony.
Alan hefted her into his arms, wincing at the pain in his damaged shoulder as he carried her to the waiting mounts. He lifted her up and swung up behind her before she could slide from the saddle. Lord, what was he to do now? Could she make it back to the keep? A good hour’s ride if he kept a pace that wouldn’t bounce her about.
He recalled passing a scorched bothy a half league back, but it would offer scant protection. A rough-made shepherd’s dwelling was certainly no place to pass a gentlewoman’s first confinement.
Jesu, his hands were shaking. He knew precious little of babes to begin with. He had taken lambs from the ewes, a troubling colt from its dam once, seen pups aborning. Was it the same? “Nay, nothing like that,” he mumbled to himself. He knew it was not the same at all. Human females needed more help, a great deal more than he knew how to give.
She stiffened in his arms and moaned again. The sound wrenched his heart. He dared not tell her how inept he was or he would scare her to death. With a deep breath to shore up his courage, he tried to foster hers. “Dinna fash, Honor. I may know naught of ‘em inside th’ womb or after they come inta th’ world, but I can bring a babe. Dinna fear, sweeting, for that I can do.” Please, God.
Alan set the beast to a slow
