Black Richard's Heart (The MacCulloughs #1) - Suzan Tisdale Page 0,93
Donald kept his salves in.
The only thing that the MacRay hadn’t skimped on were the laying hens. There were ten fat hens in cages. But if Richard’s instinct was correct, they were older than he was.
“Be there salt?” Aeschene asked hopefully. “Poor Hattie is lookin’ forward to that salt.”
Richard swallowed back his anger and lied right to his wife’s face. “Aye, there be salt.”
“Oh, good!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands. “What else?”
Richard named a few of the items but purposely left out the amounts of those items.
“Oh, Hattie is goin’ to be so happy!” Aeschene exclaimed. She squeezed Marisse’s hand. “Da actually gave me a dowry, Marisse!”
Marisse took Richard’s lead and lied as well. “Aye, he has at that.”
“He must have been jestin’ when he said I was not deservin—” she immediately corrected herself. “Da was only jestin’. I actually have a dowry.”
There was not a person in the courtyard who had the cold-hearted ability to tell her otherwise.
Marisse read the expression on Richard’s face quite well. “Come, let us go inside and sew a bit while the men unload the wagon.”
Aeschene did not argue. “Ye must tell me what else there is,” she said as Marisse carefully led her up the stairs. “Did they send any tapestries or furniture?”
Richard remained silent as he watched his wife climb the stairs, happily chattering away about her dowry. Once the two women were inside he turned to the crowd that had assembled around the wagon. Each of them bore solemn expressions and a few appeared just as furious as Richard felt.
“Nae a word to her,” he bit out angrily. “Nae ever.”
“Nay, m’laird,” Gowry, the stable master said. “She be too sweet a lass.”
Richard looked at each of the people surrounding the wagon. Lachlan and Rory looked fighting mad. Raibeart’s face burned red with anger, his hands fisted at his sides. Colyne looked ready to weep on behalf of Aeschene.
“What kind of father sends a dowry like this?” Colyne asked woefully.
Lachlan shook his head. “I dunnae ken,” he said. “I dunnae ken if this is an insult to us or to Aeschene.”
Richard had been wondering that very thing. What kind of man does this?
As if he’d read Richard’s mind, Raibeart said, “The MacRay be a bloody son of a whore.”
Richard wasn’t about to chastise his younger brother for his harsh language for that was exactly the answer he’d come up with.
Aeschene and Marisse sat by the low burning fire in Marisse’s room. While Aeschene chatted happily away about what a wonderful man her father was to have changed his mind, Marisse quietly fumed.
For nearly an hour, she listened to her friend extol the virtues of a man who Marisse knew for a fact didn’t possess any. She sat, quietly fuming, as she pretended to mend one of Raibeart’s tunics. It grated, it truly did, to hear Aeschene go on and on about how her father had surprised her, about how kind it was for him to send the salt and flour they so desperately needed.
Marisse, however, knew the truth. Garrin MacRay was a ruthless, uncaring bastard.
“I wish I could see Hattie’s face when she is given the salt and flour,” Aeschene giggled happily. “That was so very thoughtful of my father.”
Aeschene, she was quite certain, was ready to put her father’s name to the church for sainthood, so thrilled and happy she was.
“I must write to father, of course, and thank him for his kindness.” She was holding a bit of fabric close to her eyes, working on an intricate stitch. “Will ye help me write it?’
Marisse would rather have her insides removed with a rusty pitchfork than write a letter of thanks to the MacRay. She was also growing quite weary of hearing Aeschene prattle on and on about her kind and generous father.
“Mayhap we should ask Richard if we could invite my family for a visit? Surely this dowry was meant to extend a hand in peace,” Aeschene said. “Can ye imagine? My parents and brothers at our table to sup? ’Tis what I used to dream about when I was a girl.”
Marisse realized then she wouldn’t be able to continue with this farce. Eventually, Aeschene would learn the truth, and it would hurt her far more to know she’d been lied to by those people who were supposed to love and protect her.
Tossing the tunic into the basket at her feet, she knelt before Aeschene. “We need to talk.”
Aeschene’s face burned red with humiliation and shame.