Joan tore her gaze from Laird MacKay's strange stare and glanced curiously to his wife when she paused. Lady MacKay continued reading for a moment and then lowered the scroll and lifted her head to peer straight at her.
It was Laird MacKay who guessed, "And Maggie named the babe Joan and raised her as her own."
Chapter 8
"WHAT?" JOAN ACTUALLY LAUGHED AT THE SUGGESTION, a short nervous laugh, but a laugh just the same. The idea was just so ridiculous. She shook her head. "Nay. I am Maggie Chartres's daughter, not this Kate person's," she assured him.
"Ye remember I said ye put me in mind o' someone, do ye no'?" Laird MacKay asked quietly. "Well, I kenned who, the minute me wife mentioned Kate was with child when she got to the abbey. Ye're the spitting image o' yer mother."
Joan shook her head in denial, and then glanced up with a start when Annabel was suddenly behind her.
"My husband is right. You are a mirror image of Kate," the woman said solemnly.
Still shaking her head, Joan stood to avoid having to crane her head so far around and took a step back from the woman. "My mother was Maggie Chartres. She raised me."
"Aye, Maggie raised you and loved you as a daughter, but you were born from my sister," Annabel said quietly. "You are Kate's daughter with her husband Grant. My niece."
"Nay," Joan insisted, backing away another step as if distance would make her denial true. "She would have told me."
"She did not wish to see you hurt," Annabel said softly. "My parents had rejected you and she feared we would as well. She ended her letter saying that she had never planned to tell you, ever, but when she realized she was dying and that you would be left alone in this world, she decided to send you to us with this message. She asked that if we felt as my parents did and had no interest in claiming you, to please simply send you on your way so that you would never know that you were not wanted."
Joan simply stared at her blankly, her mind struggling to accept what she was being told. Her mother wasn't her mother? She was the child of Lady MacKay's sister, Kate? A woman who had apparently tried to kill the kind woman before her. Joan turned abruptly away to head for the keep doors. "I should go. I've delivered the message and should let you be now."
"Nay," Annabel protested, catching her hand and stopping her. "You cannot go."
Joan turned back and peered at her with bewilderment. "Why? If it's true that your sister was my mother, you can't want me here. Cam said she tried to kill you."
When Annabel turned to scowl at Cam at this news, he grimaced apologetically. "Sorry. I did no' ken she was her daughter when I said it."
Annabel sighed and then turned back to Joan and squeezed her hands gently. "That was a very long time ago, Joan, and your mother was just . . ." she hesitated briefly and then finished, "confused."
Ross snorted, but stood abruptly when his wife glared at him and moved to join them.
"I would no' say yer mother was confused exactly, but me wife's right, it was a long time ago. And it does no' matter anyway. We do no' hold ye responsible fer yer mother's actions. Ye're our niece. Family . . . and ye're welcome here."
"See." Annabel beamed at her husband, her smile just as wide when she turned to Joan. Squeezing her hands, she announced, "You will stay here. Your cousins will be so pleased to meet you and--" She paused abruptly, eyes widening. "Oh dear. We should see you bathed and changed before they--" Halting again, she turned to her husband, mouth opening.
"I'll ha'e the maids bring up the bath," Ross said before she could say anything.
"Thank you, husband." Annabel leaned up to kiss his cheek. Taking Joan's arm then, she began to usher her toward the stairs, adding, "Have them bring it to the empty room. Joan can have it for her own."
"Ye'd best put her in Kenna's room fer now," Ross countered. "Cam will be in the empty room."
"Oh." Annabel paused to turn back and Joan did as well, as surprised at this news as the older woman proved to be when she said, "I am sorry, Cam. I did not realize you were staying."
"I had no' realized either when I first arrived," Cam said quietly.
"Oh, I see," Lady Annabel said, but her expression made it clear she didn't understand. Neither did Joan. She really had thought he'd leave now and this was the last thing she'd expected. Well, no, not the last thing, she acknowledged. The last thing she could have expected was learning that her mother wasn't her mother and she was a niece to the MacKays.
Her mind still grappling with this knowledge, Joan let her worries about what Cam was or wasn't doing slip away for now and listened as Lady Annabel announced that she was about the same size as her daughter Annella and could borrow one of the girl's gowns until they could make her some of her own. And while she couldn't sleep in the empty room until Cam left, she could move into it then and it would be hers.
Family, expensive gowns, her very own room . . . it was enough to make a girl dizzy, at least a girl who had grown up in a hut that was simply one room with a fire in the corner, a rickety old table, two chairs and space to lay out pallets for herself and her mother at night. A hut that had stopped being her home when her mother, her last surviving family as far as she'd known, had died. Until moments ago Joan had been without family, possessing nothing but the clothes on her back and the herbs in her bag, and now . . .
She shook her head with bewilderment, overwhelmed by the changes taking place so swiftly in her life.
Cam watched Joan until she disappeared into one of the rooms on the upper landing with Lady Annabel, and then turned slowly to find Ross watching him.
"Ye ken why ye're staying?" the older man asked.
"Aye," Cam said simply.
Laird MacKay cocked his head and eyed him with interest. "Ye're no' going to protest that ye did no' ken she was me niece so should no' bear the consequences?"
"Nay," he answered and shrugged. "That matters little. She is yer niece. I took her innocence, and I shall marry her."
Ross relaxed and gestured to the trestle table. "Sit down and drink yer ale. I've no doubt ye need it about now. I'll jest order the bath fer Joan and warn the cook to prepare a feast and then join ye. I could do with an ale or ten after today's revelations meself." Shaking his head, he turned away and headed for the kitchens muttering, "Kate had a daughter. I hope to hell she's nothing like her."
Cam winced at those words, then moved to sit at the trestle table again. He didn't pick up his mug right away though. He was feeling a little peculiar at the moment and just sat waiting for his world to right itself. Cam had known the moment Ross guessed that Maggie Chartres had kept Kate's child, named her Joan, and rai
sed her as her own that he was right. He'd also known in that moment that he'd have to marry the lass. As he'd said, she was the MacKay's niece. He'd taken her innocence. Ergo, honor demanded he marry her. It was that simple.
What wasn't so simple was how he felt about that.
In truth, Cam wasn't at all sure how he felt. He supposed he should be happy. He had wanted to keep Joan with him and their having to marry certainly ensured that would happen. On the other hand, she'd rejected his request that she come to Sinclair with him, and hadn't just refused, but when he'd said he didn't want what they had to end, she had responded with, "But I do." Though Cam was loathe to admit it, more than his pride had been hurt by those words. Yet now they were to marry.
And how would she feel about that? he wondered. Cam suspected Joan didn't yet realize the plans her uncle had for them. She'd seemed so overwhelmed by everything she'd learned that he doubted it would occur to her that they would be expected to marry until someone told her. It left him wondering how she would react.
She might be pleased, he acknowledged. He was a wealthy man, the heir to a very powerful Scottish laird. Her life would be much different from now on. She would go from being a poor peasant to having riches, servants, and eventually, several castles . . .
Aye, she might be more willing to suffer his presence with all that on offer. Unfortunately, Cam wanted her to want him, not the wealth and comfort he could give her. However, neither of them had a choice now.
"OH MY," LADY ANNABEL BREATHED AS SHE stood back to look at her.
Joan peered at her uncertainly. She'd been bathed, perfumed and dressed, and had sat still while her hair was brushed dry and pinned up on top of her head in a fashion that was bloody uncomfortable. She only hoped it looked better than it felt because it felt like torture and it had all seemed to take forever. She didn't know how Lady Annabel could stand all the fuss let alone having her hair like this.
"You look so like your mother," Lady Annabel said softly.
Joan shifted uncomfortably. Lady Annabel meant her sister, Kate, but while they could insist that woman was her mother, in her mind, Joan would always be the daughter of Maggie Chartres.
"I think you may be a little lovelier though," Annabel said thoughtfully. "Perhaps 'tis because you have a natural kindness she lacked."