Was there not an old adage that said Good things come to those who wait? Fergus was certain he had heard that saying before, but for the life of him he could not remember when or where. He supposed it didn’t matter at the moment, for the information he had just overheard was far more important.

While ’twas a frigid spring day, with gray, gloomy skies out of doors, the tavern was warm. Warmed more so by the pretty wenches who served him his food and drink. Silently, he had hoped none here would recognize him or ask for his name. He was sitting in a dark corner of the tavern in the fishing village of Camhanaich.

Fergus had come here in hopes of finding a new housemaid. One that he could use and one that his wife would find no objections to. Due to the reputation he’d garnered on Skye, most young women refused to work in his home. Deciding it best to leave the island in search of a suitable young woman, he had stopped here to eat and rest a bit before resuming his search.

But now? After eavesdropping on the conversation at the table next to his, he felt more than just warm. He was downright giddy as he reran it over and over in his head.

“I never thought I would see the day that Rodrick the Bold would dote after a lass nor a babe,” the older of the two men had said. “But see it I have, with me own eyes.”

“Ye jest,” came the reply of the younger man with long blonde hair and a scar running across his forehead. “It can no’ be the same Rodrick the Bold I ken from his days with Clan MacElroy.”

“I tell ye it is!” The old man argued before taking a long pull of his ale. “He walks around showin’ the bairn off to anyone and everyone.”

The younger man whistled and shook his head in disbelief. “She must be a fine woman, to make Rodrick hang up his sword.”

The older man laughed heartily. “She must be, fer the babe be no’ even his!”

“What?” The younger man asked as he leaned in closer. “How can that be?’

The older man shrugged his shoulders. “I do no’ ken who the babe belongs to, but it be no’ Rodrick’s. He came back last year, havin’ rescued the lass from some ship captain. Stole her right off the Isle of Skye, he did.”

That had been when Fergus’s ears perked up like a wolf hearing the scurrying feet of an unsuspecting rabbit. Ship captain?

“Aye,” the older man nodded when the young man whistled again. “Captain Wallace, I believe his name was. I was told,” he said, leaning across the table to share his secret, “that the captain bought the lass off Fergus MacDonald. Right angry, Wallace was, fer he had no’ had the time to enjoy her as he wanted.”

“Did Wallace go after them?”

The old man gave a nod and a wink. “Fer a few days. But he had to turn back, fer they could no’ delay any longer.”

Fergus downed his mug of ale and did his best not to smile. His gut told him Muriel’s babe was his.

Oh, how his father and brother were going to eat their pride!

His father’s edict said nothing about the legitimacy of an heir. Not one word. His mind raced with images of his father’s crestfallen face when Fergus would present his new grandchild to him. “I have sired a babe,” he would tell him. He would, of course, feign a great amount of fatherly pride toward the bastard babe. But he had to wonder if his wife would accept his cast off as her own? Of course she would, he mused. Anthara wanted a babe of her very own, more than she wanted anything else.

This babe would be all the proof they needed that their lack of children was her own fault, not his. She would have to accept the cold hard truth of it. And when she did, she would be so busy tending to her new child, so filled with joy that she would look the other way while he had his fun.

He tossed a few pieces of silver on the table and quit the tavern. He had to return to Skye and gather a few hardened men who would not balk at taking a babe from its screaming mother’s arms. As he all but skipped back to the ferry, it suddenly dawned on him that he did not know if the child was a boy or a girl. It did not matter. All that mattered was that he had in fact sired a child.

Och! Me da and brothers will rue the day.