Black Richard's Heart (The MacCulloughs #1) - Suzan Tisdale Page 0,8
gathering room and tell them just what she thought of each of them, for locking their poor daughter away and every other injustice thrown at her, she knew ’twould do no good. Chances were, they’d send her away and Aeschene needed her, now, more than ever.
Fearful, she left the quiet shadows and raced above stairs to tell her friend all she had learned. She would, of course, leave out Garrin’s insults. There was no sense in upsetting her even more.
Aeschene found it rather difficult to believe what Marisse had just told her. “Certainly ye jest,” she said in a low, stunned whisper.
Marisse pulled her to sit in the chair by the brazier and took Aeschene’s hands in hers. There was no mistaking the worry and sadness in the Marisse’s voice. “I heard it with me own ears,” she told her dear friend. “Yer father was right angry, and yer mum could not quit cryin’.”
Aeschene sat in stunned incredulity, her mind unable to make sense of what she was hearing. Had she somehow managed to displease her king so much that he was ready to hand her off to her father’s greatest enemy? Or was it something her father had done? If David thought to punish Garrin by forcing this marriage, he would be sadly mistaken. Garrin did not give one wit about his only daughter. Nay, if anything, he would be glad to be rid of her.
“What am I to do?” Aeschene asked aloud, not expecting any clear or decisive answers.
“We could run away,” Marisse suggested with an exceptionally hopeful tone.
While the thought of finally being free from this place — a place where she had once felt safe and protected — was enticing, she knew she could not take such action. No matter how much her father was ashamed of her she could not be so disrespectful. Nay, she could not behave so cowardly.
“Nay,” she said, swallowing back her dread and trepidation. “How far would we get? I am relatively blind and have not a coin to me name. We would not get far. And what would David do to me family then?”
She heard Marisse’s sigh of frustration. “And what has yer family done for ye?” she asked indignantly. “’Tis naught as if they have treated ye with much kindness these past few years.”
“I am in no mood to discuss that right now,” Aeschene told her. They’d had that conversation too many times over the years. Each time it ended with Aeschene in tears and Marisse filled with anger.
Marisse shook her head in disbelief. “But the MacCullough?”
The MacCullough. Aeschene had heard the awful stories her father and brothers told of how Black Richard MacCullough had come to be so scarred. Of how everyone referred to him as a demon, or the devil incarnate. Black Richard was a terrifying, monster of a man. Chances were, he would kill her and leave her for the scavengers before they were even off MacRay lands.
Why, oh, why would David give her to such a man as that? What had her father done to anger him so? Or, mayhap, David was furious with the MacCullough and this was his way of punishing him: To saddle him with a wife who could not see.
No matter who he was angry with or the reasons behind his edict, Aeschene was doomed.
David the second, King of Scotland, sat at Garrin MacRay’s table. David had been served refreshments, as had his scribe and advisors. Nine armed guards stood either behind him or at different points in the room. Fifty more guards were placed strategically around the courtyard, another hundred at different points outside the walls. The show of force was meant to prove his strength and importance.
Now that the pleasantries were over, David jumped to the heart of the matter.
“I have had enough of the border wars,” he told Garrin. “Especially the one betwixt ye and the MacCulloughs.”
Garrin sat across from him, his eyes slitted, his lips pursed. “Ye have only the MacCulloughs to blame, yer grace.”
“I care not who or when or even why ye are feudin’. I only care that is stops.”
Garrin grunted low. “I would be glad to stop this war betwixt us, but the MacCullough will not stop attackin’ our borders. He is set on revenge.”
“Would it surprise ye to learn he has said that verra thing about ye?” David asked in a calm and cool voice.
Outraged, Garrin shot to his feet. “Then I will tell ye, he is naught but a liar!”