He wanted to reassure her he was fine. He'd been worse off before. But all that emerged from his lips was a gravelly moan.
A soothing shush came from overhead followed by the sweet powdery perfume. Freya. She pulled away the blanket with gentle hands and untwisted a cloth from around his hips. His cloak?
She hissed out a curse. “The wound has opened again.”
Something heavy fell to the floor, like a sack of grain dropped hard. Ewan lifted his head and squinted his eyes open to discover his mother had fainted dead away.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Freya's head drooped over her tea. Only a rim of pulpy leaves remained at the bottom of the fine cup. Still, she could barely keep her eyes open against the pull of exhaustion.
Most of the household was asleep, and she found herself wishing she could join them. Captain Crosby had retired to his room before she had emerged from her own. Ewan was resting comfortably with fresh bandages, the wound stanched. Lily had been easily roused within seconds of fainting and had been seen to her room with promises of an explanation later.
Lily had inadvertently kept her son’s cover by declaring herself a MacDonald instead of a Fraser with ‘that man’ billeting with the Campbells. That man of course being Captain Crosby. And so now it was Lily and Ewan MacDonald.
“Ewan is a soldier of the Black Watch.” Freya spoke in a quiet tone, nothing that could be heard over the crackle of the fireplace in the kitchen hearth. “After he found out what happened with Lily, he insisted I help him leave Edinburgh...and the Black Watch.”
“He's a deserter,” Ma said, her tone aghast. “Does Lily know?”
Freya looked up at the seat opposite her at the narrow wooden table. It was a servant's table, but it was the quietest room in the house, one that would afford them a more candid conversation than anywhere else.
Freya's back stiffened. “He's a man who realized the people he fought for were the ones killing his people. And Lily doesna know. I wasna sure if Ewan wanted her to, so I dinna say.”
Ma put her hands on the table, palms flat, fingers spread, as if she meant to reach for Freya but would not allow herself. Had she wanted to finally touch her daughter after all these years? A caress, a hug, a stroke on the cheek, something. But she pulled her hands away and clasped them to her chest. “They'll kill him if they catch him. They'll kill ye-”
“I think it was good of ye to help him escape.” Marian waddled toward the table, the kettle extended to avoid brushing her massive belly.
Freya glanced away, unable to allow herself to lay eyes on the swell of hate in her sister's stomach. “I couldna let him die,” she muttered.
Marian held the kettle aloft over Freya's cup, but Freya shook her head. “I canna have another. I need sleep. I need to think.”
Marian set the kettle down and gave her a smile. It was tender despite the fatigue lining her sweet face. Guilt locked its teeth into Freya's heart. Why, of all of them, was it Marian who had to be dragged away by that soldier? Why hadn't Freya been able to break free to stop it?
In her mind now, she saw so many possibilities which would have allowed her to get to Marian’s side. To help. To stop the rape. But then, at the time, she had been so damn powerless. Held in place, forced to bear witness to her greatest failure while Marian paid the price.
Anger flashed heat into Freya’s cheeks.
Why hadn't Marian taken the pennyroyal Freya had brought her to wash the child from her womb?
And why couldn't Freya forgive Marian for wanting to keep the bastard begotten by such hate and violence?
Freya's throat squeezed around the rush of emotion. An uncomfortable warmth prickled at her skin, making her as miserable outside as she felt inside. She should say something to Marian - the good sister, the gentle and kind sister with the purest heart, even after her ordeal.
But Freya could not bring herself to speak around the tightness of her throat.
She leaned forward and caught Marian in a careful embrace, keeping herself from touching that damned belly.
“When was the captain shot?” Ma asked abruptly.
Freya released her sister and stroked a hand down her silky blonde hair. Her sister, not only the good one, but also the beautiful one. And never had Freya begrudged her for it. Who could?
“He was shot when we were leaving Moll—when we were leaving my shop in Edinburgh.” Freya tried to cover her words, but it was too late. Her mother scowled at the slip.
“Inside?” Ma asked in a sharp tone.
“Outside, near the entrance.” Freya's stomach slid lower. She knew where this questioning was going - to a place she hadn't allowed herself to think of yet, to a conclusion she did not want to reach.
“Were ye seen?” Ma asked.
It played out in Freya's head as it had so many times through the long journey home. Only this time, she was forced to allow herself to remember all of it. Clemmons' rough voice, the pull of surprise, the way she'd... She winced at the memory. The way she'd turned and looked straight at him. And then the gun went off.
Freya sighed.
Ma nodded slowly. “And so ye canna go back.”
Freya tried to swallow away the sick swirl roiling in her stomach. “Nay, I canna go back. No’ until all this is somehow resolved.”
“Everything ye worked for at yer shop - gone for a note of goodwill.” Ma's lips pursed.
Freya's exhaustion coupled with the brutality of her mother’s stark questioning left everything in her wilting. She knew exactly what her mother was thinking. She'd already thought such things to herself. More, even.
To Freya, Molly's was not just a means to obtain coin to keep her mother and sister well and the servants paid. It was a ray of sunshine in a world gone dark with storms. She'd turned the business into a place women could be rescued from the fate of being a sixpenny whore on the streets, where they had the opportunity to be educated into something more – or at least be somewhere safe.
Molly's was a place where she knew every penny, every customer, and every woman who worked on her back, tended the bar, or cleaned the floorboards. The establishment moved and operated by her hand, her will. Molly's was a success.
And now she was back in Callander, a place where every act seemed to be met with bitter failure.
“Ye can stay here at home. With us.” Marian beamed a delighted smile at Freya and caught her hands in her delicate slender fingers. “Ye dinna have to go away again. Ye'll be here for when my baby is born and ye can love him the way I do.”
Freya forced herself to keep her gaze lifted from Marian's massive stomach. Love. The word coiled in her already-churning gut. “Aye.” It was all she could force herself to say. “I need to sleep.”
“With yer husband?” Ma took a sip of her coffee with feigned nonchalance.
Freya stilled. “Ye know he isna my husband. I think it's best for Lily's sake and that of the redcoat we pretend he is.”
“But ye canna sleep together,” Marian gasped.