The Highlander Takes a Bride by Lynsay Sands Page B

expression was terribly sad, her voice soft as she admitted, “It tormented him terribly. He felt shame and confusion and was sure he was a failure as a son. But he assured me that he would do his duty and marry and present me with grandchildren as was expected.”
    “Oh,” Saidh repeated weakly.
    “And so, he set about finding a bride,” Lady MacDonnell continued quietly. “I told him he must be most careful in his choosing, that most brides would expect him to claim his marital rights on a regular basis and that he could wound their esteem with his lack of interest. So he set out in search of one who would not be wounded by his lack o’ interest.”
    “Fenella,” Saidh said with realization.
    “Aye,” Lady MacDonnell said solemnly. “Allen’s own betrothed had died while still a child, but there were a surprising number of women in the same position. He met with many o’ them to consider them as brides, but most were too eager and spoke o’ wanting babes right away, and many babes to boot. And then he met Fenella, who seemed to shrink from his touch and avoid his gaze, and so he tried to find out more about her.” Mouth tightening, she admitted, “There had been whispers when Hammish Kennedy lived, of his strange tastes and cruelties in the bedchamber, and there had been a great deal of talk and dismay at how much blood covered the bedsheets they hung in the hall the day after his wedding to Fenella.”
    Saidh swallowed and nodded as she recalled those sheets herself. She’d been rather horrified too. It had looked like they were the sheets of someone who had been dealt a mortal blow and bled out in their bed, and Fenella had been so pale the next morning.
    “Allen suspected Fenella feared the marital bed and would no’ trouble him o’er much for his presence in her bed,” Lady MacDonnell continued sadly, “And so he married her at once and brought her home.”
    Saidh sat back in her chair, her mending forgotten in her hands. “Well, that explains his kindness in no’ claiming his husbandly rights.” She smiled crookedly and admitted, “Allen was right, Fenella was terrified o’ the marital bed after her first marriage. Actually, I suppose they were perfect fer each other.”
    “Aye,” Lady MacDonnell agreed.
    Saidh tilted her head and asked, “And yet ye still suspect her o’ killing him. Why?”
    “Fer the most part, Fenella was fine. But sometimes she’d get this look in her eyes . . . a flatness, cold and empty,” Lady MacDonnell said slowly, almost as if she was trying to understand herself what made her suspect the woman had killed her son. “And then there is the feather.”
    Saidh didn’t hide her confusion. “The feather?”
    Lady MacDonnell set down her sewing, her gaze far away as she explained, “The senior MacIver was an old and dear friend o’ me husband’s when he lived, and so I attended his wedding to Fenella,” she explained. “I was still there in the morning when he was found dead in their bed. Fenella was . . .” She frowned and shook her head. “Well, she was crying, as usual. So meself and several of the other women still present offered to prepare the body fer burial.”
    Saidh nodded and simply waited for her to continue.
    “We were washing the body,” she said slowly. “I was working on his face and noted that his eyes were bloodshot.”
    “Oh?” Saidh didn’t have a clue what that might suggest.
    Lady MacDonnell seemed to realize that and explained, “Allen was no’ me only child. I had three sons ere him, and all o’ them died ere they reached a year in age, and all in their sleep. I thought it was me fault, that I was birthing weak babes, but then when Allen was a wee tot, just months old, I woke in the middle o’ the night, suddenly anxious o’er him and went to check on him. I caught the wet nurse trying to smother him with a pillow. She confessed she’d done the same to each of my other sons.”
    “I’m so sorry,” Saidh said