"These are orders from the stablemaster, so don't try that," the groom snarled. "You take it up with Laird Cameron if you've a problem. But you and your kind aren't welcome here."
Utterly shocked by the confrontation, Carissa turned and headed for the castle, her heart pounding sickly in her stomach. She just hoped Hugh was inside, getting lunch, so she could find out what was going on… but she had an awful feeling that she wasn't going to like what she heard from him.
Chapter 21
Her heart was pounding when she finally found Hugh. He was sitting by himself at a table, his eyes fixed on his meal, and when he looked up at her she felt herself relax, waiting for that gorgeous smile to spread across his face, the one he wore whenever he saw her… but dread pooled in her stomach when his face went cold as ice at the sight of her. She stood, feeling stupid, a bowl of soup cooling in her hands as she waited for him to ask her to join him… and received nothing but stony silence in response. Anger flaring in her gut, she pulled out the bench and sat down — and he got to his feet immediately.
"Hugh! What –"
"Don't you speak my name," he said, his voice low and deadly. It was like being slapped in the face. Her eyes filled with tears as he shoved the bench back in, gathering his meal in his hands and pinning her with one final, withering look. "Stay away from me."
She opened her mouth to protest, but he was gone. Hurt — and feeling the rising tide of humiliation threatening to drown her as nearby servants exchanged glances with each other, already beginning to whisper about what they'd seen — she sat by herself at the table, hunkered around the bowl of soup that she began to spoon into her mouth automatically, barely tasting it. What the hell was going on? Had she done something terribly, terribly wrong? She raced back through her memory of the last few days, desperately searching for any evidence that she'd done something wrong… but she just couldn't find it. Why was he so angry? Why had Erin shut her out? She was even banished from the stables… what possible wrong could she have committed?
With her soup finished, she rose to her feet, desperate to find someone to talk to — but neither Edith nor Maria were anywhere to be found, and she didn't trust anyone else as far as she could throw them. Still soaked through from her ride and feeling miserable, she flagged down a servant and asked them to bring hot water to her room for a bath. The knowing look on the girl's face made her want to gag, and she moved away quickly, feeling the tears standing in her eyes about to spill over. She waited, at least, until she was alone in her room before she burst out crying — she threw herself down onto the bed that still smelled of horse and hay and Hugh and let the worst of her feelings run through her. What had she done? It had to be her fault, right?
Maybe this was fate, an ugly voice she'd almost forgotten about whispered, deep down in her mind. Maybe she wasn't the kind of person who actually deserved to be happy. This was much more the right kind of life for her… disliked and rejected. Or had she honestly let herself believe that Erin and the girls actually liked her? Had she kidded herself that she had anything at all to offer a man like Hugh? A worthless person like her? Barely even able to take care of herself… the audacity she must feel, to think that she would be a good wife to someone like Hugh…
"No," she whispered, anger flaring to life in her stomach. "I won't listen." She knew that voice all too well. That was the voice that whispered every time her poetry was rejected for publication, every time she'd had a fight with Jim, every time she'd come up against any kind of obstacle in her life… that was the voice of depression, trying to drag her down. It was tempting, to drift down into that darkness, to lie here in bed until she wasted away into oblivion.
But she wasn't going to let it win. Not now. Not when she was so close to having a life that she loved. Not when she had people who cared about her — not when she was so close to building a future here. Something was wrong. Something had gone terribly, terribly wrong — and she knew, no matter what her mental illness might want to tell her, that she hadn't done anything to justify the response she was getting. There was a miscommunication somewhere… and she was determined to find it.
A hot bath helped. With the chill and damp of the road banished and a fresh pair of clothes on her body, she felt — well, not better, but at least more composed. A good frame of mind to start trying to figure out what had gone wrong. She'd seen Hugh the night before and everything had been fine — better than fine, even. They'd been talking about their future, about committing to each other, about getting married in the not-too-distant future… she felt a great tearing ache in her chest as she thought of the cold way he'd looked at her in the dining hall…
Something had happened. But what? Maybe her diary held a clue. She ran to the bed where she kept it… then felt a strange jolt of fear. Where was it? It wasn't in its usual place — and her eyes flew to the desk, where two notebooks were lying, not one. One was her herbcraft book — but the second was her journal, lying open. Had she really been so careless? She shook her head, crossing to leaf through its pages, smiling a little at the excited tone of most of the entries. But there were no clues in the pages of what might have happened to turn Hugh and his whole family against her… no casual references to anything she might have said or done to make them so angry.
So, what was it? Frowning, she paced back and forth in her room, agitated. She hid the journal away again and put her herbalism notebook with it as well for good measure. Then she headed out of the room, shaking her head. This wasn't a mystery she was going to be able to solve on her own. She needed a little help from her friends.
To her relief, Edith was in her quarters, and her look of surprise quickly gave way to concern when she looked at Carissa's tear-streaked face.
"What on Earth has happened? Come in, come in," she said quickly, hurrying her into the cozy room where a fire was crackling in the gate. She settled her down in a chair by the fire and even dug out some shortbread cookies she'd been hiding for a special occasion — Carissa couldn't help but smile at the guilty look on her face when she revealed them.
"You're pregnant," she told her firmly. "You're allowed to have treats."
"And I'm allowed to share them with a friend in need," Edith said, just as firmly. "Eat a cookie and tell me what's wrong."
So, with a biscuit in her hand — helping a surprising amount — she told the whole sorry tale. Edith listened intently, her face full of shock and sympathy in all the right places, and when she'd finished telling the story she got up and pulled her into a hug. Carissa realized how much she'd needed it as she buried her face into her friend's shoulder and sobbed. She was incredibly grateful she'd come to her for help, for support — as much as she loved Maria, the woman had a habit of jumping directly to a solution. Edith was a bit better at the emotional support side of things, and that was what she needed right now.
"First of all, you haven't done a single thing wrong," Edith said firmly, moving back far enough to wipe a tear from her cheek. "So put that out of your mind."
"I don't know. What if I said something stupid? Or he doesn't respect me because I slept with him before –"
"Don't be silly," Edith said firmly. "People aren't like that around here. Premarital sex is just… sex, that's all. Plenty of people get pregnant before they get married. And besides, do you really think Hugh is that kind of guy?"
"I don't know," Carissa said miserably. "If you'd asked me that yesterday, I'd have known for sure, but now… I've only known him a little more than a month. What if –"
"Shh," Edith said firmly. "No. Something's happened, that's all. Something's up — some kind of miscommunication, that's all. You just need to talk to him."
"I tried!" she said plaintively, feeling tears well up in her eyes again. "I tried so hard — but he told me never to speak to him again. He meant it, too. All the guys at the stables hate me, too, and Erin told me never to come back to their house, and –"
"Okay, okay," Edith said soothingly, putting another cookie into her han
d. She nibbled at it, appreciating the gesture more than the taste… it was hard to appreciate even delicious shortbread when she was feeling this bad. "You can't talk to either of them. Okay. But I can."
"You can?" She blinked.
"Of course. I'm married to Hugh's cousin with a child on the way, I'm basically part of the family." Edith smiled. "Besides, I'm little and shy. People confide in me pretty easily, you know. I think I can find out what's happened."
"People underestimate you a lot, don't they?" Carissa said thoughtfully, studying the woman.
Edith batted her eyelashes, an uncharacteristically wicked grin dancing across her pretty face. "It's been known to happen," she said innocently. "I like to use it to my advantage. Don't worry, okay? We're going to fix this, whatever it is. We'll laugh about it someday. You just leave it up to me and Maria."
"Maria –"
"Is very good at getting information out of people, as you can imagine," Edith said with an amused quirk of her lips. "I'll talk to her and make sure she doesn't get too heavy-handed though, alright?"
"Thanks, Edith."
"You just get some rest, alright? Take care of yourself. We'll have all this sorted out in no time. Erin's a good woman, and Hugh's a good man. They're just… wrong about something."
She felt a lot better after sitting with Edith for a while. The girl was incredibly good at making people feel better, it seemed — she'd almost forgotten how miserable she was until she got back to her little room. She was so tired from the emotional exhaustion — and sufficiently full of the shortbread that Edith had plied her with that she didn't feel especially hungry for dinner. So, she climbed into bed, feeling the tears start again when she caught the scent of Hugh's hair on her pillow. This would be the first night she'd spent without him in weeks. Part of her couldn't help but hope that he'd come to her door in the night, apologizing for whatever misunderstanding it had been that had caused their rift, begging her to forgive him… but as she drifted in and out of a dejected half-sleep and the hours wore on, he didn't turn up.
He wasn't coming, she realized blearily in the wee small hours of the morning. This isolation she was feeling was going to last a lot longer than a few hours. And what was worse, there was nothing she could do about it — not without breaking the rule both Erin and Hugh had imposed on her, the instruction to leave them alone.
All she could do was wait for Edith to find something out… and hope and pray that whatever it was, the two of them could fix it. Because she didn't think she could live without Hugh. Not now that she'd finally found a love that made her feel so good.
Chapter 22
She woke midmorning, bleary-eyed and hoping that the whole thing had just been a dream… but a quick trip down to the dining hall proved that that wasn't the case. All of the grooms seemed to share Hugh's anger with her — she caught more than a few hateful glances as she made her way to breakfast, and it wasn't long before she'd given up completely on eating in the dining hall, fleeing back upstairs to a room that was already beginning to feel like a prison.
It was hard — incredibly hard — not to go running down to the stables to find Hugh when night fell again. She'd spent the whole day in bed, unable to come up with a good enough reason to get out of bed, to wander the halls of the castle, to risk overhearing gossip and snark from the servants… all while knowing that the one person she wanted to talk to had expressly forbidden her from coming anywhere near him. But she knew, deep in her bones, that it was important to respect his boundaries, to do what he'd told her to do and stay away. She just hoped and prayed that he was wrong about whatever it was that had made him angry with her — that he'd realize sooner rather than later and come rushing to find her.
But as the days wore on, her hope began to falter. She even began to doubt whether or not their time together really had been as magical as she'd thought it had been. Was it possible she'd read too much into what was really just a physical connection? Had Hugh tired of her and thrown her aside like a piece of fruit he'd tired of? No — that couldn't be true. Why would he have introduced her to his family if not because he was serious about her? Why would they have trusted her with such an important secret if they didn't take her seriously?
The days turned into weeks, and her misery only deepened. She was barely leaving her room by the end — Maria and Edith took it in turns to bring her meals, the worry on their faces clear even as they tried to joke and laugh with her, hoping to cheer her up. She could feel herself sinking deeper and deeper into the darkest, blackest depression she'd ever experienced… and though she knew she should do something to try to dig herself out of it, she just couldn't bring herself to try. What would be the point? Even if she got out of this depression, Hugh would still not want to talk to her, Erin would still be angry and disappointed… what was the point of feeling better when the world was determined to make her feel worse?
And Edith, for all that she was doing her best to find the source of Hugh's anger, didn't seem to be able to find anything. She reported regularly to Carissa, trying to keep her in the loop. The servants, it seemed, were abuzz with gossip about the breakup, about how angry Hugh was with her — but it was becoming clear that nobody understood exactly why. The reason was a closely guarded secret, and not even Hugh's closest friends among the guards knew. Edith even tried talking to a few of Hugh's sisters, but though all of them knew that the family had shut Carissa off entirely, they were unwilling to say why… and most of them claimed outright that they didn't know why in the first place.
But the worst news waited until last. It had been two weeks since she'd talked to Hugh — two long, awful weeks lying in bed and wishing she didn't exist. The more she slept, the better… when she was asleep, she wasn't aware of Hugh's absence, and she'd even occasionally have dreams that he was in her arms again. Nothing had ever hurt her this bad — no heartbreak, no disappointment or rejection had ever been this crushing. It wasn't just that someone she loved had rejected her — she'd have been able to cope with that if she only understood why. As it was, she felt like something wonderful had been snatched away from her for no reason — and that was what made it impossible to get through.
Edith came to her room late at night, a grim look on her face that was quite unlike the usual forced smile that she greeted Carissa with. She sat up in bed warily, reaching up to run a distracted hand through her tangled head of hair.
"I'm not going to pretend this is good news," Edith said softly. "But it's information."
"What?" she said blearily, trying to focus. She took a sip from the cup of water by her bed, aware that her throat was dry, that she hadn't been drinking enough… but what was a little bit of dehydration when compared to the enormous scope of her heartbreak? "What's information?"
"It's Hugh," Edith said softly, shaking her head as she took a seat next to Carissa's rumpled bed. "There's some news."
"Gossip?"
"No. An announcement, tonight at dinner. I wanted you to hear it from me. He's engaged."
She stared at Edith's face in the darkness, blinking in utter confusion. Engaged? How could he be engaged to anyone? They'd been talking about getting engaged… was it possible he'd been talking to some other woman the entire time? "To who?"
"I'm so sorry, Carissa," Edith whispered.
"Tell me."
"It's Niamh."
For a moment, she didn't recognize the name, so addled was she by grief … but then the girl's face flashed into her mind and her eyes widened. "What?"
"They got up at dinner and announced it to the hall. Well, she did. He didn't say anything," Edith explained, biting her lip. "But he didn't disagree with her. Stood by her side as she told everyone…"
"No," Carissa said blankly, utterly failing to comprehend what Edith was telling her. "He didn't — he didn't want her. Didn't feel anything for her. She pursued him for months, lied about it, told everyone she was pregnant … it's not true."
"I'm so sorry, Carissa."
"It's not —
it can't be." Her mind was racing, and she sat up in bed, feeling a curious sense of detachment from the situation. "Edith, listen. I'm not in denial. This literally — cannot be the case. He felt nothing but pity for Niamh. There's no way he wants to marry her."
"They announced it, Carissa. I'm so –"
"I'm not sad," she snapped. "Listen to me, Edith. I'm actually thinking straight for the first time in weeks. Don't you see? He wouldn't marry her of his own free will. That means she's — she's up to something. She's controlling him, somehow." Her eyes narrowed as her mind continued to race. It felt good, to be awake like this, to be actually thinking for the first time in weeks. "Was Erin there? What did she say?"
"I didn't see her."
"You have to talk to her. Find out what she thinks about Niamh. She always disliked her — hated the way she tried to manipulate her son." She thought back to the few choice words Erin had had about Niamh and felt the unfamiliar feeling of laughter bubbling up in her. "No way is Erin okay with this. Will you talk to her, Edith? For me?"
"Okay," Edith said hesitantly. "But I don't think –"
"Just talk to her. Please. As soon as you can."
Edith agreed, and then said goodnight, clearly very worried about her. But when Carissa settled in to sleep, she actually felt a lot better than she had. The fact that Hugh and Niamh were engaged… it was just too convenient. The girl was up to something. It had something to do with that strange meeting they'd had two weeks ago, the day before she'd ridden down to Erin's cottage and found the whole family had turned against her. It hadn't been a coincidence — it had been some kind of a scheme. All she had to do was figure out what was going on… then she could stop it. She just hoped she wouldn't be too late. She had to get to the bottom of it before they actually got married. An engagement was just an engagement — easy enough to call off.
Hold A Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance (A Highlander Across Time Book 3) Page 13