by Aileen Adams
She even turned her face toward his, and her brow lined with a concerned frown. “You’re in pain,” she murmured, her voice low and flat.
“Not too much to be borne,” he assured her.
“Do not lie to me, Rodric Anderson,” she warned. “I see it in your eyes. What pains you?”
It was better than discussing what they’d seen, what he had just buried.
“My shoulder,” he admitted, wincing as he moved his arm in a slow circle he couldn’t complete. The arm dropped to his side. “I injured it quite badly at the Battle of Largs, you see, and it never healed properly.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Eh, it could’ve been much worse.” He wouldn’t tell her how much. She didn’t need to hear how close he’d come to death, not after having witnessed so much death only hours earlier.
“Even so, to live with pain such as that. Every day, to bear up under it. I’m not surprised,” she observed with a slight smile.
“How is that?”
“You were always the type to ignore pain, or at least to pretend it didn’t exist. Do you recall your broken fingers?”
If anyone had told him he’d laugh so soon after performing such a grim task, he’d have thought them the worst sort of ghoul—but there he was. “Aye,” he chuckled. “I was a hardheaded sort, wasn’t I?”
“Aunt Sorcha warned you against jumping from the roof of the barn,” she reminded him. “As did I, though you never would’ve listened to a girl—a younger one, at that.”
“I wanted to prove that I was a man.”
“And you broke two fingers doing so. A wonder you didn’t break your neck.”
“A wonder my father didn’t break it for me when he found out what I’d done.”
“It wasn’t what you did,” she pointed out with a smile. “It was the way you kept it secret from him for three days, until the joints became inflamed and then infected.”
“You needn’t remind me,” he scowled.
“You’ve always been difficult in your fashion,” she murmured, shaking her head. “I suppose you do everything in your power to conceal your pain from others.”
“This is what men do,” he shrugged, wincing again when he did.
“What about admitting you’re in pain and allowing someone to take care of you?”
“It’s a lovely world you live in.” He smirked.
“Yes, I know. That would be too much to ask of you.” Her spirits seemed to sag before she turned her face back toward the Grampian Mountains, out in the distance. They were just as glorious a sight from far off as they’d been when he’d visited the Duncans.
The Duncans.
The seed of an idea began to take root in his mind. Why it hadn’t occurred to him before then, he couldn’t say. Perhaps the need to take immediate action on behalf of Caitlin’s cousin had left him unable to see the clearest solution.
“I know where you can go, where you’ll be absolutely safe,” he said, taking her still-folded hands in his. “You’ll have nothing to fear there.”
Instead of the relief he expected to find in her eyes, he saw nothing but bleak resignation. “I already know where it is I need to go. I’ve thought it through all this time, waiting for you to finish the burial.”
The certainty in her voice was what concerned him the most. The lack of feeling.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, dreading the answer he knew was coming.
The only answer she could have arrived at.
The worst possible answer.
“I’m going home, to your brother. Enough is enough. I won’t see any more people die because of me, either those I love or those in the service of the ones looking for me.”
Her smile was cold. “You see, it isn’t only men who bear up under pain and do what needs to be done, Rodric.”
18
Caitlin knew he wouldn’t agree with her.
She didn’t know how violently opposed he’d be.
“Absolutely not!” He pushed her hands aside, hands he had held so gently, before springing to his feet. “I won’t hear of it, lass!”
“Rodric, please.”
“No! No, you won’t do this. I won’t allow you to sacrifice yourself.”
She rose slowly, hands fisted at her sides. “You won’t allow it?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“You won’t allow it,” she muttered, shaking her head with her eyes never leaving his. “And to think, I was certain I’d heard every mindless thing you could possibly come up with. You always manage to remind me how daft you can be.”
“And you remind me how obstinate you are,” he snarled. “I won’t allow it, do you hear?”
“You don’t own me, Rodric Anderson. No man does. And you have no right to tell me what you will or won’t allow, as this is my life and my choice. I made a mistake in running away. I see that now. There was never any getting away from your brother, my stepfather, any of them. My course was set. I must see it through.”
“Lass, don’t do this.” His shoulders slumped, his face fell. “You don’t need to sacrifice yourself. There’s another way.”
“Do you believe your brother will ever give up without tasting some sort of satisfaction?” She searched his face, his eyes for the truth her question brought up in him.
He didn’t answer, which was really all she needed to hear. He knew she was right.
She shook her head. “I know he won’t. Just because he wasn’t responsible for this, today, doesn’t mean he won’t be responsible for something else. He might go to war with the McAllisters, and then what? Men on both sides will die. Other clans might be pressed to join in, and they’ll die as well. And for what?”
She was nearly screaming by the time she’d finished, all of the penned-up heartache and dismay threatening to burst free. Her chest heaved, her head throbbed. At that moment, if he’d tried to stop her, she would’ve pummeled him until she no longer had the strength to swing her arms.
He did not try to stop her. He merely shook his own head, his eyes dull and lifeless. “I simply cannot stand by and watch as something so dreadful happens.”
“Rodric, you have no say in the matter. I am legally your brother’s wife.”
“The marriage wasn’t—”
She held up a hand to silence him, far past the point of embarrassment at the question of whether her marriage had been consummated. “I know this. But I know I haven’t the resources to have the marriage annulled. A woman in my position has no power.”
The truth of her words struck a heavy blow to her heart. She sank to the tree trunk once again, the strength now drained from her.
“I don’t even have a stepfather willing to speak on my behalf. Do you realize I hadn’t counted on his searching for me? All this time, I assumed it was Alan who posed the greatest threat to my safety.”
“I suppose it makes sense, in a way,” he admitted.
“Aye, because Alan has turned on him in light of my abandonment. He’d counted on the Andersons becoming allies of his. He’d counted on them strengthening his position among the McAllisters, as well. The leader who brokered the marriage which led to lasting peace between the clans.”
Bile rose in her throat at the very thought of him. All along, he had been the one with the most to lose after she’d run away. She should have thought more clearly. She should have counted on Connor behaving as the snake he truly was.
Rodric crouched in front of her. He looked more frantic than she’d ever seen him, no matter how he tried to hide it. It almost seemed as if he truly cared for her, as more than just a childhood friend…
An impossibility, of course. He hadn’t spoken a single affectionate word to her since they were reunited.
“What do you believe will come of your return?” he asked.
She strained to understand what he was saying, as he spoke through clenched teeth.
“I believe your brother will get what he wants and Connor will
get what he wants as well. I believe this madness will end and life will go on the way it was meant to.”
His eyes darted back and forth over her face as though to discern her real meaning, some deeper message behind her words. There was nothing for him to find. He sighed.
“I believe you’re telling yourself that because it’s what you wish to believe, but you’re wrong,” he whispered. “Caitlin, lass, I’m telling ye. Alan would make every day of your life worse than the one before. I’ve seen him, I know what he’s become. A spoiled, arrogant, unchecked glutton who will more likely than not drink or eat himself into an early grave. But not early enough to spare you the brunt of his temper.”
“I know this. My eyes are well open to the truth of what will become of me.”
“Lass, you’re speaking madness. Don’t you know it won’t bring your cousin or her husband or any of the others back if you sacrifice yourself now?”
Emotion clogged her throat, making it impossible to speak or even breathe for one endless moment. The memory of falling from the back of the first full-grown mare she’d ever ridden came back. The fall, or rather the impact with the ground, had knocked the air from her lungs and for one terrifying instant, she’d been unable to breathe. The number of thoughts which could race through a person’s mind in such a brief amount of time was staggering, really, and every one of the hundreds of panicked thoughts which had raced through hers had revolved around the certainty that she would die.
Just as she was certain she’d die here on that tree stump, looking into the face of the person she’d loved before she even knew what love between a man and a woman was. She couldn’t draw a breath, was certain she’d never be able to again. She would simply cease to exist.
But then her lungs expanded, and she drew in air still laced with the stench of death. And that stench brought her back to the grim reality of the present.
“I know that,” she whispered. “It’s not them I’m doing it for. It’s for everyone else. Everyone who might suffer or even die because of those two men. If there is a way for me to avoid their suffering, I’ll do what needs to be done.”
The very tips of her shaking fingers traced the line of his stubbled, dirt-streaked jaw before pulling back as though he burned to touch.
His eyes widened in surprise at the brief, unexpected caress. “Caitlin…”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—I mean, I wouldn’t want to—”
“You needn’t apologize.”
They both fell silent, as though neither knew what to say next. What was there to say? She had so many things but was not at liberty to share them—after all, she was another man’s wife.
Someone cleared their throat over her shoulder. Rodric’s eyes shifted in that direction.
“Is there a stream or river nearby?”
She turned to find Fergus standing behind her.
“It isn’t far from here,” she explained, pointing in the direction of the stream in which she’d bathed since her arrival at the farm, just beyond the point where the ground dipped away from the hill on which she sat.
The memory of those times, not long since, brought more bile to her throat. She’d killed them. It was her fault.
“I suppose we’ll wash up there before setting up camp for the evening,” Rodric suggested. “The sun’s on the descent. No sense in setting out now.”
She shivered in spite of the warmth which still hung heavy in the air. “Can we… please move away from here a bit?” she asked, wringing her hands in her lap. The very idea of sleeping so close to the site of her cousin’s murder…
“Of course,” he was quick to reply. “To be sure, lass, we won’t bed down here for the night. We’ll move further upstream, out of sight of the farm.”
“Thank you.” It was the last thing she said for a long time, until after the sun had set behind the mountains and the men had set up camp for them.
That didn’t mean her mind had stopped moving, however. It didn’t mean she’d stopped accusing herself, either.
Or that she intended to spend the evening with the four of them.
19
She’s going to run.”
Brice’s head snapped around, his eyes wide with surprise when they met Rodric’s. “What?”
“I said, she’s going to run.” He looked over his shoulder to confirm she was still a safe distance away, upwind of where he and Brice watered and fed the horses.
She was watching as Quinn arranged saddles and blankets for them to use as bedding, asking idle questions for the sake of breaking the silence.
“What gives you that idea?”
“She knows I won’t allow her to go back to Alan,” he explained. “She must, unless she’s lost touch with her sanity. No, she’ll run tonight, while we’re sleeping. I would wager my life on it.”
“We’ll sleep in shifts, then.”
“Aye, and we’ll keep watch on her whenever she tends to nature’s call,” Rodric added.
Brice snorted. “She’ll take well to that.”
“It’s no longer a matter of what she’ll take well to,” he grumbled.
His friend eyed him up, silent for a long moment before reminding him, “She’s a grown woman who knows her mind. Perhaps she’s smarter than the lot of us and knows what’s best.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rodric warned.
“Don’t I?” Brice leaned against the largest of the horses, smiling sadly. “I’m the first to agree that this is madness, the entire thing from beginning to end. It’s unfair as well. The lass has been sold into marriage, put plainly, and I don’t agree with such practices.”
“Nor do I.”
“But it’s been done,” he continued, his voice firmer than before. “It’s been done, and the vows have been exchanged. The time for the lass to run was prior to the ceremony, not after. It’s a wonder your brother hasn’t brought the law into this, because he might have.”
Rodric spat on the ground, frustrated both at the truth of this and how much he wished for it to not be true. “Aye,” he grunted.
“And traveling with the lass, making it so he can’t catch up to her, might bring the law down on our heads as well. It was one thing entirely to escort her here, but it would be another to continue this madness.”
He was right about that as well, which only served to further frustrate Rodric.
“Then again,” Brice grinned, “we’ve never been much to care one way or another what the local magistrate had to say about our doings, have we?”
Rodric snorted. “You make a good point.”
“I know. I generally do.” He sighed, scrubbing both hands through his wet, tangled hair. “I wonder if I’m not half-mad for considering escorting the lass to safety.”
“If she doesn’t run away before we get the chance.”
“Aye. If. But she won’t. She’ll try, I grant ye, but she won’t get far.” He clapped Rodric on the back, grinning broadly. “And woe to he who tries to come for her. I caught the smell of that McAllister’s blood on my hands today, and I wouldn’t mind more of it.”
“There’s just one thing to consider,” Rodric muttered, his eyes still trained on the camp. Fergus was heating dried meat over a small fire which Caitlin seemed unable to look at.
Of course. What good had fire done her loved ones that day?
“What’s that?” Brice asked.
“What she wants.” He shook his head, banging the heel of one hand against his forehead. “I can’t stand the way she makes me think. I truly cannot. My conscience would never trouble me if she were any other lass in the world. I’m certain of it.”
“What difference does it make?” Brice sounded as though he was entirely aware of the difference and only pretending to be otherwise for the sake of raking his friend over the embers.
“Stop,” he warned.
“I was merely asking.”
“I know what you were merely asking, and I’m advising ye to stop now.”
He didn’t bother to deny it. He’d only sound ridiculous. “It wouldn’t make a difference. She’s doing it because she believes it will keep the rest of us safe. Including me.”
“Because she loves ye, too. Do I have to explain everything?” Brice grumbled, muttering to himself as he returned to the campfire. The sounds of quiet laughter rose up from the group, meaning he’d told a joke of some sort to lighten the mood.
There was little excuse for Rodric to stay away, but he took his time in joining them, his eyes fixed on her all the while. She pretended to be at ease, to only care about the meat warming over the flames, but the tension in her every muscle was evident even from a distance.
That she thought herself convincing was nearly enough to make him sad for her. She tried so hard to be brave, to do what she thought was right. She happened to be unpracticed at it, was all.
Though she had managed to escape Alan and any guards he’d posted about the house during the wedding feast. Perhaps she was a bit more slippery than he gave her credit for. Not only that, but she’d made it to Fiona’s on her own, in the dead of night.
Like as not, the lass was already plotting her escape. Her body might not have moved much, but her eyes certainly did. She studied the men, going over their every movement, most likely in the hopes of learning how she could get past them when the time was right. The whole thing would’ve been downright amusing if it weren’t so dangerous.
He accepted a portion of meat, which he guessed had been rabbit at one time, before sitting to Caitlin’s right. He wouldn’t crowd her. Not yet. If she felt he was aware of her scheme, she’d be even more likely to do something foolish, even more desperate to escape.