The Captive Heart

The priest crossed himself. 'Where is she?' he said.

'I'll take you,' Fenella said, and led Father Donald upstairs to the bedchamber where the young girl lay. As she could hear the laird still sobbing over his daughter, Fenella pointed to the door and retreated.

Father Donald entered the room. Without a word he took out his holy oil and anointed the Fiona with it. Then he knelt by her bedside and prayed. When he had finished he arose and went to the still-weeping laird. 'Come, my lord, we need to speak,' he said. 'Fiona will be taken care of by the women.' He led the laird from his daughter's chamber downstairs and into Malcolm Scott's own privy chamber. He seated his master, and pouring them both a dram cup of the laird's own smoky peat whiskey, he sat opposite him. 'Now, my lord, tell me what has happened.'

'I am responsible for my own daughter's death,' the laird said bleakly. 'I should have killed Robena when I first found her with my half brother.'

'But we settled this matter with Robena Ramsay years ago,' Father Donald said. 'Did you not send her away? Why was she still on your lands?'

'I sent her from the keep,' Malcolm Scott replied. 'If I had sent her back to her family it would have caused all manner of difficulty. Her behavior shamed them, and they would not have accepted her back. It would have made ill will between our clans. Are there not enough feuds in the borders that I would start another over a woman like that? And where would she have gone? I had not the heart despite all she did, despite her character, to send her into the world. She would have ended up God knows where.'

Father Donald sighed, shaking his head. 'Your heart is too good, my lord. So you isolated her in a cottage with two servants and only Beinn went with supplies several times a year. Did he know she was there?'

'Aye. I had to tell him, but he kept my secret.'

'Did he know that St. Andrew's had given you a bill of divorcement dissolving your marriage to Robena Ramsay?' the priest queried the laird.

'Aye, that too. He knew my marriage to Alix was true and not bigamous,' Malcolm Scott responded.

'Yet I am puzzled why Robena chose this moment to attempt to take Fiona from you,' Father Donald said.

'She has lived out on the moor peaceably for seven years. Why did she suddenly want the daughter she had always rejected? I am totally confused by it,' the laird admitted. 'I know she had learned of Alix, and Robena was always a jealous woman.'

'You will have to go and speak with Fyfa, for she may be able to shed light on this matter. What will you do with her and Rafe now?'

'They may have a lifetime tenancy in the cottage,' Malcolm Scott told the priest. 'They did their duty and cared for her. She was not an easy woman. But to kill Fiona…' He struggled to keep the tears pricking at his eyelids from falling. Men did not weep like women, but Blessed Mother! This was his child. He had lost his daughter and would never again see her laughing face, hear her giggle, receive her sweet kiss on his cheek.

'Where is Robena's body?' the priest asked. He felt like weeping too.

'Where she died,' the laird replied stonily. 'Let her rot where she fell!'

'Beinn and I will bury her,' Father Donald said. 'No one else should be involved. And tomorrow you will go to the cottage and speak with Fyfa and Rafe. It is possible they will know what happened to bring this mood upon her. Now go to your wife and comfort her, for Fiona was as much a daughter to her as she was to you. It must have been quite a shock to her to meet up with Robena.'

'More than you can know, Good Father. There never seemed to be a reason to tell Alix the whole truth.' He flushed guiltily. 'And I never told Robena about the bill of divorcement. She would not have accepted it. So she believed herself still my wife. I can but imagine what Robena said to Alix. Now she believes I have made a bigamous marriage with her, and that her children are stained with the shame of bastardy.'

'Jesu! Mother Mary and Joseph!' Father Donald swore, unable to contain himself. 'I cannot believe you were so imprudent as to not tell Robena that she was no longer your wife! Aye, I can well imagine what she said to Alix. You are a fool, Malcolm Scott,' the priest scolded. 'Go and find your wife at once so her mind may be put to rest! And when this matter is finally all over and done with you will come to me for a penance. Aye, I must think upon what God would want you to suffer in order to expunge your cruel thoughtlessness to that sweet faithful young woman who is your wife. Go now!'

Malcolm Scott arose, leaving his little privy chamber to seek out Alix. He found her in the hall where the body of his daughter had now been brought. His wife and Fenella were bathing the small corpse. Unable to help himself, he stood watching them, tears pouring down his face. And then he saw that they too wept as they cleanse and dressed Fiona in her finest gown. It was a new one of scarlet velvet that Alix had made to give to the girl on her ninth birthday, which she would now never see. He watched as the two women plaited Fiona's long black hair, weaving red ribbons into the braids as they worked. When they had finished, they made to lift the girl's body into a plain wood coffin Beinn had carried into the hall.

The laird stepped forward then, taking his daughter's broken body and gently setting it into the plain wooden box. Then he lifted it up and placed it on the high board. Wordlessly Fenella brought four brass candlesticks to set on either side of the coffin and at each end of it. Alix lay the late flowers they had been gathering earlier around the simple box. She looked upon the child she had come to love as her own and gently caressed her face.

'Lambkin,' he said softly to her.

Alix turned to look at him, and seeing his face so filled with sorrow, her own anger suddenly left her. She knew how much Colm loved his daughter, and when he held out his arms to her she went into them without hesitation. He had lied to her and bastardized their children, but they had both loved Fiona. It was time for mourning and not for recriminations.

'I have not betrayed you, lambkin, nor shamed our son, or the bairn now in your belly preparing to be born,' Malcolm Scott told his wife. 'Come and sit by the fire with me, and I will explain it all to you.' Taking her by the hand, he led her to the settle and they sat together. 'After Robena's betrayal of me I wanted to kill her, but I could not. I put her from the keep into an isolated cottage out on the moor. And then Father Donald applied to the bishop of St. Andrew's to obtain a bill of divorcement for me. And the late king, my friend, spoke up in my behalf. The divorce was granted. I did not tell Robena because I did not ever want to see her again. It took me two years before I could excise from my mind the picture of her and my brother together in each other's arms. I saw she was properly cared for and unable to leave her confinement. The horse she rode today she stole. I did not wed you under false pretenses, Alix. I was free to wed you. Did you truly believe that I could be so dishonorable, lambkin? You are my beloved wife, and our son is no bastard, nor will any of the bairns you give me be bastards.'

'I forgive you, Colm,' Alix sniffled softly.

'You forgive me?' Her words astonished him. 'For what am I being forgiven?'

'When you did not tell me all of this before we wed, you committed a sin of omission, my lord,' she told him. 'Did you think me so silly a creature that I could not bear to hear the truth from you?' When she looked up at him he saw her dark lashes, so in contrast with her honey-blond hair, had clumped with her weeping.

'I did not think it was necessary to burden you with the whole sordid tale,' he said feebly. 'I never thought you would meet up with Robena Ramsay. I saw her sequestered and cut off from decent folk. This should not have happened.'

'But it did happen,' Alix said. 'Now, is there anything else you have neglected to tell me about yourself and your life, my lord? Are there any other surprises you have for me that I must face? I am but a frail female after all.'

'You are the strongest woman I have ever known or am likely to know,' he told her. 'Do you truly forgive me, lambkin, for my sin of omission?' And he smiled down into her face, brushing her lips gently with his own.

'I do, Colm. I do!' Alix said to him, wrapping her arms about him and kissing him back. 'You are my love and my life.' And then she laughed softly as the child in her womb stirred strongly. Alix put her hand upon her belly. 'He is almost ready to be born,' she said to her husband.

'He? Until now you have not been certain,' the laird replied.

'Fiona said it was another son for you. I believe she somehow knew,' Alix said, kissing him again.

And Fiona's intuition indeed proved correct when her second brother, Andrew Donald, was born on the last day of November. A gentleman from the beginning, he had not taken his sister's birthday for his own.