Black Richard's Heart (The MacCulloughs #1) - Suzan Tisdale Page 0,97
he began questioning her again. “Will ye stay amongst us, or go back to the MacRays?”
“Go back? Nay, Rory, I will never go back.”
Thankfully, he was quiet for the remainder of their walk, for she wasn’t in the mood to think back to the past. All she wanted was to look toward her future.
Chapter Seventeen
After weeks of Colyne and Raibeart either cleaning up, repairing or helping to tear down cottages- depending on its state of disrepair - they had reached the very last cottage on the path.
’Twas a misty morn as Aeschene and Marisse were perplexed with the boys’ attitudes toward this last cottage.
“What do ye mean ye cannae help with this particular cottage?” Aeschene asked them. They were acting as if this house contained the portal to hell.
Raibeart kicked at a pebble with his booted foot. Colyne was shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “We just cannae help her,” Colyne said rather sheepishly.
Aeschene had reached the limits of her patience. “If ye do not tell me why ye cannae help the person within this cottage, I shall knock on the door myself,” she told them with a firm tone.
“Mayhap ye should ask Richard to explain it too ye,” Raibeart said.
She could hear the embarrassment in his voice, but for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why. He wasn’t generally so shy. “I am askin’ ye to explain it.”
The boys remained quiet, refusing to answer. Marisse was just as confounded as she was, but didn’t ask for explanation. Aeschene turned around to face the cottage. “I swear, ye boys are behaving as though the devil himself lives within,” she remarked. With Marisse’s help she was heading toward the door when it suddenly opened.
She heard Marisse’s sharp intake of breath a moment after hearing the door scrape against the stones. Instinctively, she froze in place, curious as to why Marisse had gasped.
The voice she heard next was soft and low, and sounded nothing at all like the auld witch she had conjured up in her imagination. “M’lady, ye should not be here.”
Puzzled, Aeschene took a step forward. “Why? Be there an illness within?”
“Nay,” came the soft reply. “But ye should not be here all the same.” The woman sounded truly worried.
Her curiosity was piqued, and lord help her, she just couldn’t leave without finding out what was the matter.
Marisse leaned in and whispered, “Lord above, the woman is beautiful.”
“How beautiful?” Aeschene asked.
Marisse whispered her quick reply. “Think Venus, with raven black hair and eyes as green as emeralds.”
Aeschene wasn’t sure what to think of that description. “What is yer name?” Aeschene asked as she took another tentative step toward her.
The woman let out a sigh, a heavy sigh, laced with a tremendous amount of sadness. Aeschene could feel it to her bones, a deep sense of sorrow.
“Lads, run along,” the woman said. “I shall explain the why of things to yer lady.”
The boys ran away like frightened rabbits.
“Again, I ask ye what is yer name?”
A brief silence rent the air before she replied. “They call me the auld whore.”
It would have taken a legion of roman soldiers to drag Aeschene and Marisse away after that statement.
“I could be wrong,” Aeschene began, “but I do nae think yer mum truly named ye that.”
Marisse could not help but to giggle at Aeschene.
The woman stared at each of them as if they had both lost their minds.
“Please, what is yer real name?” Aeschene asked.
“Keevah,” she replied softly.
“Well, Keevah, ’tis a pleasure to meet ye,” Aeschene said with a smile. “Might we come in and sit a spell? ’Tis growing awfully damp out here.”
Whispering, Keevah said, “But, m’lady, ye really should not come in. People will talk.”
Aeschene continued to smile. “Let them,” she said. “If I have learned anything in my life it is that people will talk regardless of what the truth of a matter might be.”
Marisse quickly added, “Aye, ’tis true. Please, may we come in?”
“I do not think ’twould be proper,” Keevah argued.
Aeschene was too eager to hear how the woman came to be called the auld whore to be swayed by convention or worry over wagging tongues. “Then might we all sit out here a spell? I truly would like to get to know ye better.”
Without a doubt, Keevah knew no good could come from allowing the women to come into her home. She’d rather die than have her less-than stellar reputation rub off on either of the two women. She was also quite certain ’twas