“I was just thinking that Sir Adam might nay have been as bad at plotting and planning as we thought,” she said. “He is why we have been allowed to believe ye were dead for years, aye?”
“Aye. ’Tis a long tale and I will tell it. I am eager to hear all that has happened to ye as weel.”
“Maman!” Benet rushed out to stop by Annys’s side with Roberta trotting behind him and Roban sitting on the lamb’s back. “Ye look like my fither,” said Benet as he stared at Nigel.
“I am your uncle,” said Nigel, glancing between Benet and Harcourt several times and then looking closely at Annys. “I believe there is a lot your mother has to tell me about what has happened while I was gone.” Smiling at Benet, he said, “’Tis a fine thing to meet ye at last, Benet. I did hear a whisper or two about David’s son as I traveled here and was eager to see him.”
“Sir,” murmured Nigel’s man who had kept his back covered every step of the way from France, “there is a cat sitting on a lamb.”
“I ken it, Andrew, but I was attempting to ignore it.” His lips twitched when he heard Kerr and his other men start to chuckle.
“This is Roberta,” said Benet as he patted the lamb and then he added in a fierce voice, “and she is not for the pot. That is Roban on her back. He likes to ride.”
“Ah, not for the pot. Understood.”
Before anything else could be said, Joan hurried up to them and began to instruct them on where they could go to bathe. Harcourt watched Nigel disappear with his men and turned to speak with Annys only to find her hurrying back inside the keep with Joan, both of them discussing how to quickly ready the hall for a meal, what that meal would be, and how to sort out enough beds for Nigel and all those men with him. There would be no time to talk to her until much later, he realized. He sighed and, with his own men, headed toward the bathing house that had been prepared for Nigel, his men, and any other who fought for Glencullaich and wanted to scrub the stench of battle off himself.
“He kens who fathered Benet,” Annys said to Joan as they spread a cloth over the newly scrubbed head table.
“Ye cannae be certain of that,” Joan argued as she smoothed down a few wrinkles in the cloth.
“I am certain. T’was there to see in the way he looked from Harcourt to Benet. Then he looked at me and I could see that knowledge in his eyes. He kens the truth.”
“Weel, I wouldnae fret o’er it. Nigel kenned what happened to David before he left, didnae he. Will ken that, with us thinking him dead, there was, and ne’er would be, an heir. Suspicion he now kens verra weel what David did and will nay give ye any trouble o’er it.” Joan looked at Annys. “And, doesnae this solve the problem that ye believed would mean ye and Sir Harcourt could ne’er be together?”
“Does it? If Nigel accepts Benet then Benet remains the heir.”
“Dinnae go borrowing trouble, lass. Wait. Stay calm and just wait a wee while. It will all be discussed, I am certain, and then, only then can ye truly ken what faces ye now.”
Annys knew that was the sensible thing to do but it was not easy to be sensible. Although it would indeed solve a lot of problems if Nigel stepped into place as the laird and pleasantly wished her weel in whatever she chose to do, there was still a chance that it would solve nothing at all. There would also be an extremely uncomfortable confrontation to come. Even though David had been immensely pleased with his plot to get an heir, as well as the results, that did not mean that Nigel would be. Far worse would be if Nigel did not believe that it had all been David’s idea, if he saw her as no more than an unfaithful wife who was trying to put her bastard child into a laird’s chair he had no right to.
She pushed all her concerns aside and forced herself to think only of getting a hearty meal set out for the men who would soon fill the hall. There was also a lot of work needed in order to put the keep back to rights, from getting the returning wounded brought back and on their way home, right up to and including preparing the dead for burial. She both grieved for their loss and rejoiced over the fact that there had been so few killed.