The Highlander's Unexpected Bride
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Nicole Locke
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23
Chapter One
‘Get that from the top shelf,’ her mother said, in that clipped precise voice that made dread descend into Beileag of Clan Graham every time.
It didn’t matter if her mother was talking to someone else. All Beileag had to do was hear that particular tone and all the insecurities of her past, present and bleak future weighted her body, until everything she did for the rest of the day seemed like too much.
Her mother whirled. ‘Why are you still sitting there?’
Because she knew the moment she stood her mother’s derision would worsen. No hope for that though. It wasn’t as though she could do anything about the length of her legs and she was far too old to be wishing otherwise.
Setting down the knife she’d been sharpening, Beileag hunched her shoulders, stood and walked to her mother’s side.
She didn’t have far to go. Their three-room home was barely large enough for her parents, who shared one room while she shared the other side room with her three younger siblings. This room was the heart of the house. The area where they prepared food, ate, sat by the fire and sewed their clothes for winter.
It was also the room she avoided the most when she could and the reason was exactly these moments when the only occupants were herself and her mother.
‘What do you want down?’ she said.
‘The large linen chest.’
There were three identical chests on the top shelf which contained the carefully folded and stored linens. There was no identification of which would be housing the large linen.
Of course, her mother knew this and Beileag knew better than to ask. So she took the one on the far left and brought it to the table on the other side of the room.
‘That’s not the correct one,’ her mother said.
Keeping her expression neutral, Beileag put the closed chest away, and stretched for another. She did it slowly to give her mother enough time to offer assistance on which one she wanted. She needn’t have bothered.
‘Oh,’ her mother said. ‘It must be nice to be your height where you can waste other people’s time as you easily retrieve wrong item after wrong item. It’s the last one, which you should know since you put them up there last summer.’
She tried to forget any time she was with her mother. No doubt her putting away the chests was equally unpleasant last summer.
Beileag held her tongue as she slowly pushed back the second chest and pulled out the final one to place down on the table.
After a disgruntled breath from her mother, Beileag opened it, only to see contents that weren’t large linens.
‘It’s that one.’ Her mother pointed to the first chest on the shelf.
Beileag held her tongue. If she argued now, even in the tiniest of bits, it would be worse for her.
Still her palms drew damp and her heart raced as she thought of all the retorts she wanted to say burning just under her skin. If she stayed much longer, she wouldn’t be capable of holding them back.
Closing the chest with a resounding thud, she shoved the last chest back on the shelf and grabbed the first.
With a tight smile, she said, ‘It is good we’re not wasting anyone’s time, isn’t it?’
She flopped the lid open, grabbed the largest linen in a tight fist and turned. ‘Now where do you want this?’
Her mother turned that darker shade of anger and Beileag’s racing heart twisted and locked up tight.
For one flaming moment she was a child who wanted to flee again. No matter the years, her sense of worth crumpled under that familiar glare. She hated it.
Hated it more because her mother noticed.
Her mother always noticed her even when she tried to be as small as possible. But she was never as finely boned as her adventurous younger sister Oigrhirg, or her two brothers Roddy and Raibert, who wouldn’t be small much longer.
Her younger brothers looked as if they’d be as big as her father. If Beileag had any fortune at all, they’d be taller than her. Maybe then her mother would leave her alone.
But since her siblings were much younger than her—Oigrhirg being sixteen, Raibert being twelve and Roddy ten—it would be years before she’d have such peace.
When she was younger, she’d sought solace with her father, who would pat her and go on his way. He never seemed to know what was happening in his own house.
Day in and out, doing his carpentry work, helping others, dropping whatever he was doing...but never seeing how his wife, whom he adored, treated his eldest. He wasn’t evil, he wasn’t neglectful...he simply never noticed. And she...was long past asking for help.
Years of her father’s silence and her mother bemoaning that she’d never wed. Years as her friends were courted or kissed, whereas Beileag hadn’t even had a flirtatious smile sent her way. Was it truly because she was too tall? She wished someone would see her for who she was, or better yet, maybe not carry longing in her heart for marriage or a family of her own.
Might as well wish for herself not to be tall or her mother not to hate her.
And what care did her mother have if she married or not? They weren’t wealthy, she helped out in the home—for all she knew her father wanted her there.
With her hand out, palm up, her mother smirked as if she had one. ‘Hand it over.’
She didn’t want to, but she also didn’t want to continue this hostile argument that wouldn’t resolve anything. Slowly, carefully, Beileag held out the linen over her mother’s outstretched hand.
The gleam in her mother’s eyes should have warned her before the linen fell to the floor, but she was expecting more words, not the claw-like grip of her mother’s rough hands against her own.
Nor the yank as her mother brought her hand closer to peer at it.
Beileag knew immediately what she would see. Some callouses from chores, old scars and new cuts.
Her mother scraped her fingernail over a fresh cut, making it bleed again.
Beileag flinched and her mother gave a knowing smirk. ‘Still lagging around your father’s heels?’
Her father was the village artisan carpenter. He might be completely blind to the workings of his children, but Beileag hadn’t been blind to him. Completely rejected by her mother simply because her legs were too long, she sought attention from her father through his craft.
No such fortune there either, but she found solace none the less. She learnt his craft, then she learnt what more she could do with her father’s tools and skills. She worked hard on her craft, was proud of what she did...so she hid it.
‘Merely some cuts while picking herbs in the chapel gardens.’
‘Liar, too, when you’re sharpening a knife right at my table?’ her mother sneered. ‘Your disgraced friend is the one who wanders those weeds.’
Anna was heartbroken, not disgraced. ‘She is better at it than me, thus, her hands don’t suffer cuts.’
‘Too tall,’ her mother continued as if she hadn’t attempted to defend herself. ‘And it’s not weeds you cut. You wield tools as if you’re a man. You’ll never find a husband and leave the house. After everything your father and I have done, and continue to do, too!’
If only she could find a husband who’d love her! But it seemed all the men of the Graham clan agreed with her mother. She was either a friend or...not perhaps as unattractive as her mother lamented.
She wouldn’t care. She wouldn’t. Except, her mother could rail at her lack of beauty and her lamentable passion all she wanted and it would hurt.
But mentioning again that no one could love her pained her more than she ever wanted to say because out of everything, Beileag longed for a husband and children of her own. For a loving family, one that was utterly devoted to each other. One with a mother who was not dismissive or cruel and a father who didn’t avoid all his children. Was it too much to want a joyous home and to be truly wanted?
And she’d tried and failed over the years to flirt or to smile or even to suggest her openness to being wooed, but no one seemed to notice. A few nights ago, the scouts returned after six months away. For one fleeting moment, she thought she might gain someone’s notice.
But despite the absence, no man saw her any differently.
If it wasn’t for her siblings, and her friends, Anna and Murdag, she’d...run away, or something drastic. Maybe someone out in another clan wouldn’t care that her hands were scarred from learning to woodwork.
Wouldn’t care that she spent her hours with sharp knives and hard wood, making little creatures that no one would ever see because she was too broken inside to ever have the confidence to show anyone. A brokenness which was apparent to everyone including the woman who put it there.
‘If I found a husband, Mother, then who would get your baskets off the shelf?’ Yanking her hand free, Beileag marched out the opened door.
