Page 47 of Highland Crown
Thy hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright
As in that well-remembered night
When first thy mystic braid was wove,
And first my Agnes whispered love.
—Sir Walter Scott, “To a Lock of Hair”
As Cinaed seated her on the bed, expectation surged within her, and Isabella’s insides warmed and then liquefied. Although she’d been married for six years, her marriage to Archibald was one of convenience, not passion. He was twenty-six years her senior, but as a widower in perfect health, he wanted to enjoy the physical side of the marital relationship. She tolerated their occasional time in bed. It was her duty. But thinking back on it now, she recalled no anticipation. No excitement. No glowing aftermath. None.
Tonight, she had no idea what Cinaed intended to do when he eased himself down on his knees beside the bed, but she felt light-headed imagining the possibilities. The blanket had slipped from his shoulders, and the muscles of his back rippled in the flickering light of the candle. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself reaching out, boldly grasping the curls of his dark hair, and guiding his face to her…
“Candle. Would you kindly bring it closer? And hand me my knife?”
Isabella realized her daydreaming was for nothing when he turned to the bedding on the floor and tossed it to the side. She did as she was asked and crouched beside him.
“What are you looking for?”
He was running his hand over the wide floorboards until he found what he was looking for. Slipping the blade of his knife into a nearly invisible slot, he pried gently. The board popped up, and he reached into the dark space beneath.
A satisfied smile lit his face. Cinaed withdrew his hand and held up a small box, covered with dust. He must have concealed it there a long time ago.
He sat against the bed and patted the floor next to him. She sat beside him, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, their legs stretched before them. She put the candle on the floor as he wiped away the dust from the box.
“When did you hide this?”
“When I was nine years old.”
Cinaed and Searc were both Mackintoshes. And although they looked nothing alike, he’d called the older man kin.
“Were you visiting Searc then?”
“Not exactly a visit. I had nowhere else to go. I was essentially dumped on his doorstep. And he took me in.”
Surprised, she turned to him. Cinaed was studying the grain of the wood on the small box. He was in no hurry to open it. His beard was getting long, hiding much of his face and chin. His hair was wild as a lion’s mane. Despite the recent days of being bedridden with fever, he exuded strength and energy. But he’d not always been the man beside her. She thought of the boy that no one wanted.
As the silence settled around them, Isabella heard the mournful call of an owl. A moment later, a second one in the distance answered. Cinaed rubbed the box with his thumb, and she could see him traveling back in his mind over the years. She tried to recall her own life at nine years old. She and her father were living in Wurzburg. By then, her mother was a cherished memory she clung to. It would be three more years before her father married again.
Isabella had already become his shadow. When he’d met with his students at the university, she was there at his heels. When he’d traveled to visit his patients, she stood beside him. He’d allowed her into the operating theater, and she’d trailed after him when he went to consult with the anatomists in the dissection rooms. At nine years old, she could already read German and French as well as English, and she’d pored through his medical journals, devouring them like adventure novels. It was during those years that she decided to become a physician. She’d led a very different life from Cinaed.
She put her hand on top of his. “Why did no one want you?”
“I had no parents.”
“What happened to them?”
“I was told my father went to sea eight months before my mother gave birth to me and never came back. My mother passed away when I was six years old.”
Isabella tried to imagine this man beside her a forlorn orphan waif, and her heart began to ache. “Who raised you after your mother was gone?”
“Aunts. My uncle. The folk in my uncle’s castle and in the village brought up not only their own bairns, but all the clan children. This was the way of things in the Highlands then. I suppose it’s the same now.” He tapped the lid of the box but didn’t open it. “I lived at Dalmigavie Castle, and I was no distant relative of the laird. Lachlan Mackintosh was my uncle, the brother to my mother, but one day he decided I was no longer welcome there.”
Many boys were sent away at such a young age on the continent and in the south of Scotland to be educated. But this didn’t seem to be the reason for Cinaed’s expulsion.
“Were you trouble to them?”
“Not more than any other boy my age.”
