No Fury

Now: Forty Three

Mary settles on a fallen log beside me. We are not all that far from where Harry and I used to meet. It would be only another half mile walk deeper into the woods, and a shiver runs through me as I realize how easily we could have been discovered.

My sister takes my hand, twining her fingers with mine as Liam stands over us, looking down.

It feels the number of things we need to say could fill a canyon.

Finally, she whispers, "Catie, please tell me you are not cross with me. I couldn't bear it."

Quickly, I turn my face up to hers in surprise. "Me? Cross with you?"

She shrugs, pressing our joined hands to her cheek. "I did not relish lying to you."

The words of gratitude that I need to say die a garbled death in my thoughts. Everything inside me feels scrambled.

"Catie," Liam says gently as he crouches before us. "We did not want to keep this secret." His hand comes over ours, warm and big as a tree protecting a swath of wildflowers. "But we worried you would not agree to it otherwise."

My laugh is a bark of incredulity. "You are right! I would not have." I look between the two of them. "Keeping you from marrying? Allowing you to take me - not Mary - in your bed, simply to protect me? Aye, I would have refused." I look to my sister. "I don't understand how you can bear it."

She knew her beloved was lying with me at night. Would it not be forever strained between us?

I groan, putting my free hand to my eyes. "Mary. I am mortified."

"The village needs to believe this child is Liam's," she whispers, "not his Lordship's. I know it is only the act of your bodies." She leans in so I will meet her gaze, shaking her head. "It is not the confession of your hearts. Do you see, Catie? I could not be angry, because I asked him to do it. But please do not be angry with me," she pleads.

"Mary, I could never be angry with you. But I say again: I don't understand how you can bear it."

Mary scoots closer, close enough that we are pressed tightly together. "When Douglas came to our home to fetch you that first night, I panicked, thinking that Douglas meant to have you. Can you imagine my fear? I was up all night pacing until you returned, weeping." She squeezes my hand. "But the next day, you could not stop daydreaming. You would freeze, mid-stir at the mash tun. And then you would blush hotly." She smiles a little. "I knew then that it was the prince who claimed you, and that you would never be able to go back to being our Catie. You were, from that night forward, his."

I nod, wiping a stream of tears from my cheek. "Aye. I was."

Continuing, my sister confides, "When I went to Liam the next night, and told him what I suspected, that you and the prince were meeting in private . . . I worried." She glances up at Liam, who nods in agreement. "Catie, I've always known the prince loves you. But when I said this to Liam, he said of course he thought it, too. And if he knew, and I knew . . . then everyone knows."

I scoff. "I didn't know."

"Because you could not hope," she says gently. "And now, his heart bleeds for you. You carry his babe, yet he is married to another." My sister's voice grows tight with panic. "Do you have any idea the danger we are all in from the outside? But you, now, are precious: a diamond the size of the prince's beating heart. Hurting you is the only thing besides a sword that could weaken him."

I look up at her face, and she leans forward, pressing her forehead to mine. "And you are my sister. It is also the thing that could most weaken me. It was not a question that Liam should watch over you, that he should pretend to father your child. When you are with him, you are safe."

"You are," he agrees quietly, and we both look up at him. "I will take care of you, Catie." He looks to Mary. "I promise, Mare."

Back and forth, I look between them. I don't know how I didn't see it before: the love on Liam's face as he gazes at her.

I lived in the clouds, I did.

"You are happy, despite it all?" I whisper.

Mary gazes up at him fondly. "Liam does not require much. A kiss here and there behind the bakery. I brew his favorite stout and he thinks he has won the world."

This makes him laugh. "It's true. I have my Mary, and a second wife at that. What man would protest?" She reaches up, playfully smacking his arm.

Without thinking, he catches her hand and holds it. Bending, he gently places his mouth over hers.

After a tiny moment, where her lashes flutter closed and she leans into him, Mary gasps, pulling away to look at me. "Catie. Forgive me. We should not-"

A dam in me bursts in relief and I throw my arms around her.

~~

It is different at home now. Liam holds me at night, but it is the arms of a brother, not a lover. I worried it would be odd when we returned to the cottage, alone the two of us again, but it isn't. His loyalty is the easiest kind: given fully, given without expectation in return.

"Do you think Maria will harm him?" I ask that night, once we are safely tucked back in our bed.

He shakes his head, smiling over at me and lifting a hand to move a lock of hair from my forehead. "She will be angry. But this is his kingdom. More likely it will just be . . ." he trails off, searching for the right word.

"Uncomfortable?" I guess.

"Aye," he agrees, laughing. "The guards will ensure that she does not speak of what she's seen. She is loyal, or at least we have no reason to believe she would betray him."

I know without having to ask that we do not need to lie together again. I wonder how difficult it was for Liam to do it all those months, or if he's enough of a soldier that he saw it as a duty - and not even one of his most painful ones at that.

At least, I hope.

Early Saturday morning, Liam sweeps the kitchen as I dress. I can only hope Harry will join me at James' shed. I can only hope that nothing will change except that we will no longer meet in his rooms.

When I come out of the bedroom, I ask Liam, "Is Mary coming by?"

"Aye." He nods at the floor and then looks up at me. "You do not mind?"

"I do not." With a tiny grin at the absurdity of this, I ask him impishly, "Could you have her mend my torn skirt there, the one over the chair?"

Liam swats at me with the broom as I tear from the cabin and down the trail.

My shoes stomp on the dust, and plumes of it kick up behind me, tiny constellations in the sun. The grass seems greener, the trees sturdier as they narrow and create the shadows for our woods.

With air so fresh, it is easy to remember the joy of Liam's face as he waited for Mary. It is easy to anticipate the warmth of Harry's lips on mine. It is easy to feel the spiraling giddiness of seeing my child soon, of matching each of his tiny features to Harry's.

It is easy to be so lost in the relief of it all, that I do not notice the figure in the shadows until he is upon me, his hands around my throat.