The Captive Heart

child with him and not be bothered. Then you can live your life as you will, and he will never be the wiser. Knowing what you know, there is always time to expose his bigamy. Wouldn't you gain more satisfaction exposing his bastards after his death? Then your child should inherit.'

'I want my daughter now!' Robena said. 'I do not want her calling another woman her mother. I am her mother. She belongs to me and not to this Englishwoman. He can have his whore, but I will have my bairn.'

'You haven't seen her since she was two years old,' Fyfa reminded her mistress. 'And the laird told me you rejected her from birth.'

'But she is mine,' Robena responded, 'and I want what is mine.'

Fyfa shook her head. There was no reasoning with her mistress when she got into a mood like this. Robena Ramsay was a woman who always needed something to do and now, bereft of her recent lover, she was looking about for that something. She will bring trouble down on us all, Fyfa thought unhappily, but there was nothing she could do. She was a servant. A favored servant to be sure, but a servant nonetheless. 'Sit down at the table,' she said. 'You need to eat.' And when she had finished cooking and serving Robena, Fyfa stepped outside of her kitchen to work in her little garden.

The day was fair and the air still held a hint of warmth. The trees and the hills were now bright with color. Fyfa watched with trepidation as her brother Rafe set off on Beinn's horse towards Dunglais. She had a very dark premonition about what was to come, but short of going to the laird herself there was nothing to be done. She couldn't risk losing their place. While Fyfa knew that she could always fend for herself, there was her poor lack- witted brother to consider. She saw how people treated folk like Rafe. Their own elder half brother had been cruel to him. Fyfa sighed. What was going to happen was going to happen.

At Dunglais the beautiful autumn weather and the knowledge that the church had lifted the threat of Sir Udolf from the laird and his wife brought about a happy change. Alix could no longer ride, but now that she was free to move outside of the keep's walls she would sometimes take her son in the pony cart while Fiona rode by her side. On other days Alix would walk with Fiona on the moors. They treasured these days, as winter was certain to set in sooner than later. One early November afternoon Alix and her stepdaughter walked out of sight of the keep picking late flowers that had escaped a recent frost and gathering small plants that had medicinal value which they carefully put in a willow basket.

'I have to stop a moment,' Alix said. She was breathing hard, and her belly was very big. 'I shall be glad to have his child born. I so dislike being encumbered.'

'Will you sit, Mam?' Fiona asked her.

Alix laughed wryly. 'Oh, Fi, if I sit I shall not be able to get up again unless someone comes to winch me onto my feet.'

Fiona giggled. 'He's going to be a big lad, Mam,' she said.

'You keep saying he,' his stepmother noted.

' 'Tis a lad, Mam. I just know it. And James will have a playmate,' Fiona said.

'You don't want a little sister?' Alix asked her.

'I am too big now to enjoy a little sister,' Fiona said. 'Remember, I am to be nine. But you must be sure my brother is not born on my birthday. I do not wish to share.'

'I have already told him, but we shall see if he is an obedient lad,' Alix replied, smiling at Fiona. How she loved her, Alix thought. Fiona was starting to look less like a young child and more like young girl. And with order and peace in her life now, Fiona was less and less prone to mood swings. She was learning self-control. 'I think I have walked far enough today,' Alix decided.

'I told you you should have taken the cart,' Fiona responded. 'Your burden is great now, and the bairn due to be born in another few weeks.'

'You sound like Fenella,' Alix teased the girl.

They turned together to walk back, Alix moving slowly, Fiona carrying the basket with their treasures. And then behind them they heard hoofbeats. A rider came up beside them and blocked their path. Alix moved to protect her stepdaughter. Then she realized that the horse's rider was a woman.

'Is this girl Fiona Scott?' the woman asked in a hard voice.

'Who wishes to know?' Alix said quietly. She was less frightened now that she saw the horse's rider was a woman.

'Who are you?' the woman now demanded.

'I am the Laird of Dunglais's wife,' Alix said.

'His whore, you mean,' the woman declared. 'Is this the laird's daughter?'

Fiona stepped forward. 'Do not dare speak to my mam like that!' she cried.

The woman laughed scornfully. 'Your mam?' she said derisively. 'She is not your mother. I am your mother, you little brat!'

'The mother who birthed me is dead,' Fiona said heatedly.

'I am not dead, brat! Your father imprisoned me in a cottage out on the moor with two servants when I refused to give him another child. 'Tis true you were a disappointment to us both, but there it was. When I wanted to go back to court your father refused to allow it unless I gave him a son. I tried to run away from him, and when he caught me he put me in that cottage.' She moved her horse between Alix and Fiona. Robena looked down at Alix. 'Did you give him a son, whore? And I see your belly is big again. But know that you are not his wife. I am! Your bastards will inherit nothing from their father.' She leaned down from her saddle, and gripping Fiona by her long black hair, so much like her own, she yanked her roughly up and over her saddle. 'Tell my husband that I have taken my daughter. No whore will raise her or be called her man whist I live.' Then, turning her horse about, she rode off with the girl, who had begun to scream and kick in an attempt to escape her captor.

Alix had teetered dangerously when Robena had drawn her mount around, for the creature's nose just brushed her. She struggled to remain on her feet, and when she had finally regained a firm footing she stood stock-still in shock for a moment or two. That the woman who had just stolen Fiona was who she said she was Alex had not even the slightest doubt. While Fiona did favor her handsome father, she also had some of her mother in her, and Alix had recognized it. Not just the silky black hair, but the bright blue eyes and the slight slant of those eyes. Robena Ramsay lived, and Alix Givet was indeed the laird's whore and her sons his bastards.

How could he have done this to her? Alix asked herself as she attempted to run back toward the keep. Did he really love her? Or was he just so desperate for sons that he did what he felt he had to do? Either way it didn't matter. She was shamed, and her children were stained with the mark of bastardy. She would never forgive him. But for now, alerting her hus-the laird-that Robena had kidnapped Fiona was more important than her outrage and her sense of betrayal. Her breath coming in short pants she gained the lowered drawbridge and stumbled across it, crying loudly, 'Fetch the laird! Saddle his horse! To horse, men of Dunglais! To horse!'

Beinn came running, and Alix collapsed against him. 'My lady, my lady! What is the matter?' He looked past her. 'Where is Mistress Fiona?'

'The laird's wife has her,' Alix gasped.

Beinn stiffened. 'My lady, you are the laird's wife,' he said.

Alix looked up into his big, honest face. 'Nay, I am his whore, and the wife who he married ten years ago has come out of whatever private hell she inhabits and stolen Fiona away. Get my-his daughter-back!'

Malcolm Scott ran from the house. 'What has happened?' he asked her.

Alix looked up at him with angry eyes. She wanted to slay him where he stood, but now was not the time to give way to her fury. Fiona must be rescued from that horrible woman and brought home to Dunglais. 'Your wife accosted us on the moor and took Fiona away,' she told him.

He didn't bother to deny or explain. Ignoring her, he said to Beinn, 'The bitch can't have gotten far on foot.'

'She was a-horse,' Alix said stonily. Then she turned on her heel and left them.

Beinn shrugged fatalistically. It was obviously his horse.

'We'll go alone,' Malcolm Scott said. 'We can't have this getting out of hand, or the Ramsays will be at my door spoiling for a fight. Damn!'

A stable boy ran up with the laird's big stallion and Beinn's new large gelding. The two men mounted. When they approached the gate, the laird gave instructions that the drawbridge should be drawn up after them and the