Forbidden Heart

by Quinn, Paula

  She didn’t hear the captain outside her door, poised to knock three separate times, or hear his footsteps when he walked away. Nor did she receive the answers she was looking for.

  She was almost fully certain of her decision, which she’d made on her own when the morning of the second day came. She dressed in her habit, with her wimple and veil. She was ready when Louise came to get her. She saw Matilda so happy for her that Silene had to keep her thoughts away from her uncle and his wife. They were part of the group to have her say her vows now. They had to secure her place so that John’s place in the church could be solidified. It had nothing to do with God.

  She didn’t see Galeren in the great hall for breakfast. Now that she hadn’t seen him for a full day, she missed him. Neither Will nor Morgann had seen him. She tried to sit with them, but they were called away.

  It was better this way, she told herself while she ate alone.

  As long as she obeyed, she was sure John wouldn’t force his dear friend to marry Cecilia Birchet.

  Everything would be well. She would go on with her life as planned, but where would she go? If her feeling was correct, not to St. Patrice’s.

  Would she stay here? Forced to be with the captain every day? Would she somehow die? She made the sign of the cross and didn’t realize she had until Father Nate and Bishop Graham slipped into the bench beside her and asked if she was well.

  She smiled but she felt anything but well, or in the mood to confess why. Rather than lie and tell them she was fine, she rose from her place. “If you would both excuse me, I would like to go pray.”

  They excused her with bows. She wanted to run, but it would be unseemly. Still, she lifted her skirts above her ankles and hurried out of the hall.

  She was suffocating and pulled off her veil to get to her wimple and pulled that off next.

  Quickening her pace, she turned one corner on the way to her chambers and crashed into a wall.

  A living, breathing wall, with strong arms that came around her to hold her steady.

  “Captain!” she breathed on his chin, tilting her face to see him.

  She didn’t want him to let go. She didn’t think about where they were or who might see. She forgot it all in his embrace, gazing into his warm, green eyes.

  “I have missed yer face, lass.”

  She smiled. He always made her feel beautiful just by the way he looked at her. “And I have missed yours, Captain.”

  She felt the muscles in his arms tremble before he reluctantly released her.

  “Come, please speak with me, Silene.”

  She agreed and hurried with him down two more halls, until they came to an outside balcony and stepped onto it.

  He looked out over Dundonald’s lands instead of at her. “When I found oot aboot the church and yer vows, I tried to see ye. Why did ye hide from me? Were ye goin’ to speak yer vows withoot even a word to me?”

  He still hadn’t looked at her. She wanted him to. She tugged on his shirt. He finally turned.

  “I’m not certain, Captain, but I think I’m in love with you.”

  He turned the rest of his body until he faced her fully and took her hands in his. “Then come! Let us leave now!”

  Could she? Could they get away? For how long? “If ye were killed, I would—”

  “Lass—” He drew his forehead close to hers. “Better is a moment with ye than a thousand years withoot ye.”

  “I want more than a moment, Galeren. But I…I cannot…”

  She watched tears pool above his lids.

  “Silene, if ye dinna come, I fear ye may be killed here. My grandsire told me to get ye away from these men. I intend to do that. Please, lass, if I am killed, ye can speak yer vows. Fer death would have parted us.”

  “Nay!” She tried to step away, but he held her by the arms and wouldn’t let her go.

  “I want to fight fer ye, Silene. But I canna fight against God. Tell me ye do this fer Him and not oot of fear of yer uncle and I will walk away.”

  They heard a sound inside. Silene looked around the balcony and saw Morgann. He appeared to be searching the halls.

  She called to him and the captain approached and waited at her side.

  “Ah, Captain. I was sent to look fer ye.”

  “By whom?”

  “The steward,” Morgann let him know. “He said to tell ye he awaits ye in the great hall.”

  “Thank ye, Morgann. Ye may go.”

  Morgann’s blue eyes met Silene’s. He smiled briefly and then looked away. She called out to him before he left the balcony.

  “’Tis good to see you, Morgann. Are you well?”

  “Aye, Sister,” he replied, and then was gone.

  She hadn’t expected his cool response. Aye, he was the stoic, serious one, but they had become friends. He had warmed to her on their journey. Now, it was all gone. She suddenly felt like weeping.

  She felt the captain’s gaze on her and turned to him.

  “What is it?” he was quick to ask.

  Everything was about to change. It had already begun. None of the men would treat her the same way when she became a nun. “I am sad.”

  His jaw tightened as he bit down on words he could not utter, save one. “Why?”

  There were too many reasons, so she chose one. “What is going to become of us?”

  The weight of his brow brought shadows to his eyes. “There is no us if ye say yer vows.”

  “Cap—Galeren, my uncle has vowed to destroy my life if I betray him.”

  “Then,” he said quietly, “ye are speakin yer vows fer the wrong reason.”

  She was quiet. He was correct, but it didn’t matter. “One of us must leave.”

  His gaze deepened on her. “Silene, is that what ye want? To be apart from me?”

  “I need you not to be where I am, and all will be well.”

  He shook his head and looked into her eyes. “I canna agree to that.”

  “We must part,” she cried on a hushed voice. “There is no other way.”

  She ran from him, crying all the way to her chambers. The more she told herself that living without the captain was not impossible, the less she believed it.

  She wanted to go to the church and wait for the leaders there, but she needed her white cloak.

  She met Louise in the hall.

  “Why are ye crying, Sister?”

  Because I’m about to lose a man who walks around with a kitten cuddled in the crook of his shoulder. “I am overwhelmed by everything going on.”

  “Aye, I heard ye were sayin’ yer vows today.”

  “Aye.”

  “And that makes ye weep?”

  “Nay,” Silene told her honestly. She understood that Louise was jealous of the captain and would likely turn on her, but she wanted a friend and, right now, Louise was here.

  “I weep because I would be sacrificed for anything. I thought I had time, but now I do not have any time at all.”

  Louise nodded, looking, for an instant, sympathetic to Silene’s plight. But then she stopped at the door to the chambers without going inside. “Sister,” she said, moving in closer, “I would advise ye to forget Captain MacPherson. I hear it could kill ye…or him.”

  Silene’s blood ran cold. Not Louise, too! “Are you threatening me?” she demanded, having had enough of this.

  Louise shook her head. “Not me.”

  “Then who? I wish to know! Is it my uncle?”

  “Sister, I canna tell ye.”

  Silene opened her mouth to say more but heard voices around the corridor.

  “I must go,” Louise said, taking the opportunity to hurry away without answering her question. She was gone without a sound.

  Silene quickly opened the door to her chambers and slipped inside. She felt too shaken up to talk to anyone.

  She heard men’s voices pass her door, and then it grew quiet again. She went to the hearth and stared into the flames.

  Forget the captain or die.

 
She could not get warm. Her head was spinning, making her feel ill. Too much was happening at once. Her vows were upon her. She could not make the wrong decision because of lack of time. What did her heart want her to do? If she said her vows to God, she could not, would not break them. If she did not say them, she could take a husband of flesh and blood—and possibly anger someone enough to see her dead.

  John surely knew that Galeren came from Invergarry. If he wanted her dead, he had men enough to do it. Her uncle had reason to hate her. She would have destroyed his connection to the powerful church.

  Perhaps it wasn’t someone as dangerous as her uncle who threatened her. Perhaps it came from one of Galeren’s many admirers. It didn’t matter—someone had threatened her to Louise. She should tell the captain.

  Oh, how would she ever forget him? He would always remain in her heart, her thoughts, there to haunt her. There to tempt her to regret her choice.

  “Cleanse my heart of him, Lord, I pray. Let it be that when I see him, I feel nothing. Nay. Let him repulse me.”

  Someone knocked softly on her door. Her heart thrashed against her ribs.

  “Sister Silene,” a child’s voice came through the door.

  Margaret!

  Silene hurried to the door and opened it. “Margaret,” she said, bending to level her gaze with the girl’s. “What are you doing here?”

  “Captain MacPherson asks that ye follow me.”

  Silene stepped out of the chambers without thinking about what she was doing. Could she ever resist him?

  “Where are we going?’

  “Ye will see when we get there.”

  Silene smiled for the first time so far that day. Perhaps she would fall down a hole on the way and never be seen again.

  She followed Margaret around the western wall of the castle to the small barn. She remembered being here once before, long ago. There were stalls, smaller than the ones in the stable, but none of the barn animals stayed in them. There were three ducks that clapped their wings and honked angrily at her intrusion. Three hens and a rooster sent feathers flying. There was a pig, and a goat—and a man with a kitten on his shoulder and a little boy at his side. It was Alex. He was crying. What was going on?

  “Captain?” she asked, looking up at him in the lantern’s light. She didn’t feel repulsed. She felt like she’d happened upon a mythical creature, golden and green and ready to offer his life to her.

  “I brought the children here to bid them farewell.”

  “Farewell?” she echoed, feeling the emptiness of it. “You are leaving, Captain?”

  He nodded. “’Tis time.”

  Well, that was it then. He was leaving. He wouldn’t be here to tempt her with the shape of his succulent lips when he spoke, the sultry green of his eyes when he smiled at her. She’d wanted him to leave. She also wanted to be unaffected by him—but she wasn’t. In fact, she felt so affected just by looking at him that she was unsteady on her feet, foggy in her head.

  He hurried forward when she swayed, overwhelmed with everything that was happening.

  “Are ye ill, Silene?”

  She shook her head. She didn’t believe it. She never felt so bad in her life.

  “Good,” he said with his arm beneath her, “because I want ye to come with me. The time fer waitin’ is over.”

  It was all too much, too fast. She tried to remember the reasons she couldn’t go with him. “Captain, do not ask this of me.”

  “Why not, Silene? Do ye not love me?” he whispered so only she could hear.

  Oh, aye, she did. She loved him enough to give up her vows. “Louise told me that I should forget you or it could get one of us killed. She said the threat was not from her, but she would not tell me anything else.”

  His brows dipped over his eyes, creating shadows like phantoms in a verdant forest. “All the more reason to go now. I have everythin’ worked oot with the men. They wish to come. ’Twill help to have them with us should the army come.”

  What was he saying? It was as if his words were jumbling around in her head.

  She touched her hand to her head and fainted in his arms.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Galeren wanted to run. He looked down at Silene and seriously considered running away with her. He could toss her over his saddle and flee to Invergarry. Let anyone come. No one would be able to breach the MacPherson stronghold. If they did, they would find themselves facing the most savage warriors that ever lived.

  But he wouldn’t take her away when she didn’t want to go. Whether because of fear for their lives, or because of her desire to belong only to God, she was staying. That meant he was staying, too.

  He’d thought when she saw how serious he was about leaving that she would go with him—not faint in his arms.

  “All is well, children,” he told them. “Sister Silene has fainted. She will awaken soon. Let me put her down. Alex, get my plaid and set it down here.”

  He waited, smiling down at Margaret. He shifted Silene’s weight and held her in one arm and plucked Daffodil off his shoulder. “Hold her fer now,” he told her while Daffodil meowed in protest.

  His gaze shifted to Silene’s face. He closed his eyes and swallowed.

  “Captain?”

  He opened his eyes to Alex spreading out his plaid.

  Galeren couldn’t lay her in the grass outside and risk someone seeing him carrying her. He’d already put her in enough jeopardy.

  “Why did she faint, Captain?” Alex asked him, finishing up.

  “She has many things to think aboot. Mayhap meetin’ the men of the church has been too overwhelmin’.”

  They looked at her and nodded as if they understood.

  “People will speak ill of her if they hear aboot this.”

  Margaret and Alex listened and nodded as he set her down on the plaid and remained on his haunches. He tapped her cheek, “Silene? Wake up, lass.”

  “Wake up, Sister Silene,” Margaret echoed.

  After another moment, her eyes fluttered open.

  Galeren’s heart quickened as his blood rushed through his veins. “Silene?”

  “What happened to me?” she asked, looking up at him with her wide, worried, blue-green gaze.

  “Ye fell faint,” he told her.

  “Ye are heavily burdened with decisions,” Alex added.

  Galeren and Silene turned to gape at him.

  “Alex,” Galeren said, resting back on his thighs. “How d’ye understand things meant fer adults?”

  The child blinked his stunning eyes, one green and one blue and shrugged his scrawny shoulders. “I feel it.”

  Silene sat up slowly, her gaze steady on the boy. “What do you mean? How do you feel it?”

  “I just think of everythin’ I know aboot somethin’. After a bit of deductions, I come to a conclusion. If ’tis correct, I feel it. ’Tis as if I found a piece to a puzzle.”

  So, his feeling wasn’t based entirely on emotion, but on the science of deduction. She still felt a kinship with him stronger than the blood they shared.

  “Come,” Galeren offered her his hand. “I will escort ye ootside fer some fresh air.”

  “Oh, Captain, your plaid,” she lamented when she saw his plaid on the barn floor.

  “’Tis nothin’. Can ye make it?” His smile vanished. “We shouldna stay in here any longer withoot a chaperone. I will take ye back to the castle.”

  She had less than an hour before she was to say her vows.

  “Will ye be able to get to the church when the time comes?”

  She nodded and smiled, and Galeren’s heart broke and fell in pieces at his feet.

  She was going through with it then. He saw her considering what she was doing and nod again. She’d chosen a different life. He wanted to change her mind, but he wouldn’t fight to take her from God. Very well then, he would let her go, but he wouldn’t leave her here alone. They would remain friends. The threat of him would be gone. If there was someone besides the steward who wo
uld hurt her, he would find out who it was and deal with him. He would stay here with the army until she left to wherever she would live. He would stay for John’s bairns, but he would keep his distance with John and Matilda Stewart.

  How was he going to see Silene? Speak with her and not desire her every day, in every way? How would he love her and never be with her? He almost groaned out loud.

  They left the barn and started back for the castle. Margaret held Daffodil but the kitten wanted to ride with Galeren and finally leaped from Margaret’s arms into his. He petted the kitten’s head while she snuggled into to crook of his neck. Since Matilda refused to let them keep Daffodil, he had decided to leave the kitten in the barn where other kittens her age grew up. The children promised to care for her and play with her every day.

  He wondered now, with tiny Daffodil purring near his ear, if she would have followed him all the way to Invergarry. She seemed quite attached to him, as he was to her.

  “When will you be leaving?” Silene asked him.

  He laughed a little. “I’m not leavin’ ye here with someone who would threaten ye, lass. When ’tis time to take ye back to St. Patrice’s, I will escort ye—and then I will go home.”

  “Captain,” she said as she turned to him. “I do not want to sever whatever is between us, but God has made it clear by our mountainous obstacles that our way is not together.”

  “Aye, we have obstacles, but why should such a treasure come withoot a fight? We can overcome the obstacles if we dinna give up.”

  “Not if we are dead,” she argued.

  “I will protect ye, Silene. D’ye not trust me?”

  “I do, but I also fear my uncle. You are the most adored man. These people do not follow John. They follow you, and still someone would threaten your life! They are not afraid. It has to be Uncle John.” She whispered so the children could not hear these things about their father.

  “Aye. I will keep my eyes on him. I have not fergotten that he has already betrayed me.”

  “You see? He is not to be trusted, Captain.”

  He knew what she was saying was important. But he didn’t want to waste any more time with her thinking about her uncle. He didn’t care about the steward. He only cared about her. He should have fought this sooner. The first time he saw her on the cliffs. He should have let her ride with Mac, but why put his friend through it? He should not have ridden with her until she could ride on her own. He’d allowed her to crawl under his skin while he watched her pray and when he fought others for her life and left ten dead. He should have pushed her away when his heart stirred for her, awakening when she refused to leave three hungry children in a village.