Page 14 of Captured By the Highland Devil
Tonight of all nights, they needed to be vigilant. He was not sure if MacPherson would try some trickery, but if he did, he would be prepared for it.
Halfway there, he doubled back; he suddenly felt the need to speak with his father about the king’s edict.
Without a backward glance, he started toward the spiral staircase that led up to Niall Miller, his father, the former laird. Sixteen years ago a cruel malady had started to take his father’s knees from under him.
It would have crippled him if their wise healer Cassandra Gilmour had not devised a set of teas and salves to stay off the disease. One leg was lame but he could hobble on the other. Though Cassandra was a lady of the McDougal clan, she had never given up on her duty to heal the infirm.
He knocked, hoping his father was not asleep.
“Enter,” Niall said.
His father’s voice sounded stronger than most days, especially the wintery months when the cold air wreaked havoc on his frail body. Pushing the door in, he strode in to find his father sitting up in his bed.
The windows, opened wide, let in cool air. Lennox saw that the old man was sitting up in a chair, a warm plaid wrapped around his bony shoulders. Leaned on a wall to the left side of him were two of his crutches.
The simplest one was a handheld pole with a leather strap to hold the leg in place, while the other held a platform where his father could rest his knee and lower leg on it. He used the latter one in the winter months when his knee was seized up.
“Ah, son,” Niall closed the book on his lap, his spidery fingers tapped on the back cover. “How did it go?”
Pulling a chair to his father’s side, Ruben replied. “Without conflict, as I’d hoped.”
“Och lad,” Niall shook his head. “I’d hoped for a different solution to our troubles. Nay one wants to be married to one’s enemy.”
“I ken,” Ruben said. “But if it brings peace to the people, I will gladly accept it.”
Hunching over to cough into his hand, Ruben tried not to react to the unsettling rattle in Niall’s breastbone. Leaning back on his pillows, Niall said, “This lass, how is she?”
“Quiet but spirited,” Ruben admitted. “She is a naïve too, but I supposed a few months or years away from the sheltered seclusion she has been living in with her faither should cure her of that.”
A nostalgic smile curved his father’s lips as his eyes wistful. “Yer maither was like that. God above, she adored love stories, old myths and even present tales of unexpected love. T’was somethin’ she wanted for ye to experience as well, nae only this defend and protect mandate.”
Ruben cocked his head. “Did ye speak with Norah perchance?”
“Nay, why do ye ask?”
“Because she gave me the same spiel,” Ruben said, while getting to his feet. “And I will tell ye the same thing I told her, me duty is me duty. I will perform it to the end. As long as me people are safe and provided for, I am complete.”
His father’s head met the wall behind him. “I used to think so too until Miriam walked into me life,” Niall’s rheumy blue eyes held Ruben’s.
“When I would put pressure on meself about the poor harvest or the lochs breakin’ away and floodin’ the fields, she took me to see the middle of the wheatfield and forced me to look at the sky.”
Ruben’s brows lifted. “What? I never heard that before.”
“We never told ye,” he said. “She told me that nothin’ is stationary, that the seasons change and when they do change, we have to allow them to take their toll. Nay man can control the wind or the water or the sun. I had to learn to let the things I could nae control go.”
Leaning unto a wall, Ruben rubbed his face. “Things could have been prevented. If— if I had been with her that evening?—”
Sympathy marked his father’s face. “I ken, son.”
“And then there was the land issue with the MacPherson’s,” Ruben groaned.
“That too,” Niall nodded. “I ken it does nae make sense now, but I hope this will turn into something good one day.”
Shaking his head, Ruben said. “We’re have a feast tomorrow morning to welcome her. Are ye feeling well enough to join us, Faither?”
“I should be,” he said. “Let me get some rest and I will be down with ye.”
Leaning in to rest his hand on his father’s shoulder, Ruben nodded. “Get all the rest ye need.”
