Marion nodded. That seemed like good advice, except she had spent so many years trying to show her father that he could not live without her and he had never grown to love her. The idea of torturing herself in that same way made her stomach knot, but she could not deny the longing she felt. She’d always dreamed of having love and a family, and Iain was her husband now. If they never loved each other, her dream would be dead.
“I’ll try,” she said.
Bridgette grinned. “When I fell in love with Lachlan it was as if lightning struck me. One day, he rescued me from a man trying to seize me, and I knew then that I loved him. How did ye and Iain come to be together?”
Marion quickly told Bridgette of King Edward’s decree, her attempt to escape marriage to Froste, and Iain rescuing her.
Bridgette sighed, a wistful smile tugging at her lips. “Did ye fall in love with him after he rescued ye, then, as I fell in love with Lachlan?”
“I don’t love him,” Marion asserted, her chest tightening. “I don’t plan on being that vulnerable and allowing him into my heart until I know he is willing to offer love in return.”
Bridgette snorted. “If ye ask me, ye already love the man.”
“I didn’t ask you,” Marion snapped.
Bridgette smirked at her. “Defensive people are usually trying to deny something.”
“I cannot possibly love him! I have only known the man for a few days!”
Bridgette moved around Marion and started climbing the hill toward the cave as she spoke. “I only knew Lachlan for two days afore I understood he was the one for me.” Bridgette swung around and looked down at Marion from the top of the hill. “My mum knew my da only four days afore she loved him. So dunnae try to tell me ye kinnae love him yet. Love is nae only for those who have known each other for a long while. If it is, then ye may as well give up hope because Iain knew Catriona all his life.”
Marion’s breath caught in her chest. That was exactly what she feared, that she was the biggest sort of fool to hope Iain could ever love her with the same depth he loved his first wife. That was the real problem, she realized. She didn’t simply want his love as she’d told Bridgette. She was greedy, and she’d waited all her life to be loved. She wanted him to love her fiercely and completely and with an intensity that rivaled, but was not the same as, what he had felt for Catriona. And then she could love him the same way in return.
Eleven
Marion stood at the opening of the cave, where Bridgette had instructed her to stay. A raspy, crackly voice that sounded as if it had been well used floated on the wind from within. She could hear that the seer was speaking, but she could not determine what she was saying. As Marion waited, she stared at the orange sun and watched it lower in the sky. Soon they’d be returning to the MacLean hold in the dark, and it would be much too late for someone to not have discovered they had left the castle.
“Bridgette,” she hissed into the cave. “Bridgette, we must go!”
When Bridgette suddenly appeared without a sound, Marion yelped. “You Scots must be taught at birth how to move without making a sound,” she grumbled.
Bridgette laughed. “Nay. They wait till we can walk,” she said with a wink. Then she looked up at the sky and frowned. “I’d nae known I was in there so long.”
“Well, you were,” Marion said, wrapping her arms around herself for warmth. “We need to depart. We’ll have to run back to the castle to get there before it’s black as pitch. I just pray that Iain doesn’t come for me before then. I don’t think trying to tempt a man who is angry with me will be very effective,” she finished, thinking of Bridgette’s earlier advice.
“Ye’re likely right,” Bridgette said with a giggle. “Let’s away, then.”
Just as they started to leave, the old seer called out from within the cave. “Wait! I’ve something to say to the MacLeod’s wife.”
Marion glared at Bridgette. “You told her my name was the MacLeod’s wife?”
Bridgette’s eyes were wide as she shook her head. “Nay. I did nae tell her who ye were. Just that I had a friend with me.”
The hairs on the back of Marion’s neck prickled, and her skin tingled with fear as the seer emerged from the cave. Weathered lines and crevices marked the woman’s face. Her hair was stark white, her eyes bright blue. She had high, sharp cheekbones and thin, cracked lips. She was very small and hunched, and appeared almost frail. The cape draped over her shoulders didn’t look as if it would keep her warm, either, and Marion was filled with the sudden desire to bring her back a warmer one.
The woman smiled, showing teeth darkened with age. “Come closer, Sassenach.”
Marion exchanged a nervous look with Bridgette. If her friend had not told the seer who Marion was, then the only explanation for the woman knowing these things was that she truly was a seer. But that was impossible! Yet, if it wasn’t…
Marion found herself moving toward the woman as she considered the possibilities of what she would want to ask if the woman really could see her future. When she was standing directly in front of the seer, she clutched Marion’s hand in her cold, bony one. And no wonder her hands were freezing!
As the seer’s fingers squeezed Marion’s harder, she wanted to tug her hand away, but she forced herself to stand still. The woman’s penetrating blue gaze held Marion’s.
“Ye’re nae sure ye believe in me,” the seer stated as a fact.
Marion wet her lips. “It does not seem possible that someone could tell the future.”
The woman tapped one of her long fingers against the back of Marion’s hand. “Ask me what ye wish. I could sense that ye did nae believe from inside my cave. Ye’ll see ye’re wrong.”
Marion’s mind raced with all she would love to know, but what if the woman told her something she didn’t want to hear? And how would Marion even know if it were going to truly happen or not? Still, she blurted out the thing she wanted to know the most. “Will my husband ever love me?”
Suddenly, the seer grasped Marion’s fingers so tightly that it felt as if her bones were being crushed. Marion gasped and tried to pull away, but the woman jerked her close with a surprising show of strength. Her blue eyes grew cloudy, and she stared through Marion rather than at her. “Thrice he’ll stare how he feels for ye in the face, and thrice he’ll deny it. But if the Fairy Flag flies again, then the love that is now but a seed in his gut will have found a way to his heart and will grow into a vine that stretches to the heavens. It will be a new love. Nae the same as any that grew afore it, but strong, true, and a blessing.”
“Old lady,” Bridgette hissed, “why must ye always speak in riddles that dunnae make sense? Will the man love her or nae? Will Lachlan love me or nae?”
The seer cackled. “Maybe, maybe nae. I ken the possibilities from what I read of yer actions up to the moment I hold yer hand. But after ye part with me, if ye change the course I saw, I kinnae say for certain that yer future will remain the same.”
Bridgette growled in response, grabbed Marion’s elbow, and pulled her away from the seer. “Waste of time coming here,” Bridgette snapped. “We must go.”
The seer reached out lightning-quick and clasped Bridgette by the hand. “The Sassenach will save yer life. For it, she’ll demand a favor, and ye must give it to her or ye’ll nae get the man ye desire.”
Marion was in a daze as she turned to follow Bridgette, but the seer grabbed her arm once more, stopping her departure. Marion looked over her shoulder to find the woman very close and staring up at her. “Find a warm cloak and bring it to me tomorrow.”
Marion sucked in a sharp, stunned breath but nodded. “I’ll try.”
“Nay. Ye must. It will bring about the first denial of his feelings for ye. There must be three denials afore he will accept how he feels.”
Bridgette tugged Marion away before she could reply. Once they were a few steps from the cave, Bridgette paused. “I’m sorry I brought ye there. The woman has gone mad, I think. As if ye’d ever save my
life! I’m much stronger than ye.”
Marion ignored Bridgette’s accidental affront. “She knew my thoughts,” Marion replied, her voice wobbly.
“What?” Bridgette gasped.
Marion could hardly see Bridgette’s face it had gotten so dark, but she could see the whites of Bridgette’s eyes, and she knew by how big they were that the woman was stunned by her words.
“The seer knew my thoughts,” Marion said again. “I thought about how thin her cloak looked and how I wished I could bring her another, and then she told me to bring her a warmer cloak tomorrow.”
“I dunnae ken,” Bridgette said. “Perchance she saw pity in your eyes when ye looked at her, or yer gaze lingered on the garment and she seized the opportunity to get a warmer one.”
“Yes, perchance,” Marion replied, not really believing that was what had happened. She wasn’t sure she believed what the seer had said, either, but she wasn’t sure she didn’t. But she knew without a doubt that she’d find a way to bring the woman a cloak tomorrow.
“We need to run,” Bridgette said, interrupting Marion’s thoughts. “We’re starting back much later than I intended. Do ye think ye can match pace with me?”
“Of course I can,” Marion boasted. “If I knew the way back, you’d be the one having to try to stay with me, and I daresay you’d fail.”
“Oh, a challenge!” Bridgette said with a laugh, and then, without warning, she turned sharply and took off down the hill. Marion burst into action after her.
It didn’t take long to realize what a hazard the dark was. Marion nearly lost her footing several times when she tripped on rocks and fallen branches, and more than once, a tree limb scraped her cheek when she failed to see it in her path and bat it away. After a few minutes of racing across the craggy terrain, her breaths were coming in gasps and there was a sharp stabbing pain in her right side. But she refused to slow down and let Bridgette pull too far ahead.
Marion could tell her new friend was still close because she could hear the pounding of her shoes against the ground, though she could not see her. Darkness had so swallowed the light of day that she would not have been able to see in front of her face at all if not for the bright moon. She wasn’t sure how long they’d been running, but sweat was dampening her brow and the back of her neck, rivulets running down her back. She knew the temperature was dropping from the cool wind against her face, though she was not cold. Around her, the night came alive with sounds of animals venturing out. Deep-throated croaking and shrill shrieking filled the air. Something buzzed very near her ear, and she swatted at it as she ran.
The path they were on narrowed and began to curve sharply. They must have been going along the mountain ledge they’d traversed on the way here. She’d not been afraid when she’d followed Bridgette around the ledge previously, not even when she’d looked down and realized how high up they were, but now, in the dark, unable to see where to place her feet, her heart raced and her body tensed. She held her left hand out as she ran, taking comfort from the branches against her skin and the fact that she had something to grab onto if she should take a wrong step.
“Be careful,” Bridgette called back to Marion. “There’s a log blocking the path, and—”
Bridgette’s high-pitched scream resounded in the night, and Marion halted, her heart slamming painfully against her ribs. “Bridgette?!”
When no answer came, awful dread filled Marion and made her shake. “Bridgette!” she yelled, a terrible feeling that Bridgette had fallen over the edge filling her. She stumbled forward in the dark, clinging now to the branches on her left as she called for Bridgette. She paused every second to stop and listen and peer into the blackness below.
“Bridgette!” she cried out again, kneeling on shaking legs. She dug her fingers into the dirt as if it could save her were she to lean too far over. “Bridgette!”
“Aye?”
The weak voice came from below, and Marion’s chest squeezed with relief as she tried to locate her friend. The moon shifted just enough that its light shone down to reveal Bridgette.
“Oh my God!” Marion gasped, as she stared in astonishment at Bridgette, who had one leg flung over a tree branch that was sticking out of the side of the cliff and was clinging to it. “Don’t move, Bridgette!”
“I did nae intend to,” Bridgette said, her words fearful, yet slightly amused.
“I’ll run back to the castle and fetch help.” She could see the castle ahead. It wasn’t far now.
“Nay!” Bridgette screeched. “Dunnae leave me! I fear this branch will nae hold me much longer. If ye can get on yer belly and stretch out yer arm”—Bridgette looked up at Marion—“maybe I can grasp yer hand and ye can pull me up?”
Marion’s gut clenched. The idea of Bridgette dangling in midair and Marion being the one with the woman’s life in her hands terrified Marion, but what choice was there?
“Don’t worry!” Marion dropped to her belly and slid as far as she could toward Bridgette, careful to keep most of her weight on solid ground. She stretched her hands as far as she could. “Can you reach me?”
Bridgette raised her head and one hand, but Marion could see that it was not going to be possible. Bridgette could not let go of the branch without falling, and the only way she would be able to grasp Marion’s hands was if she sat up. Dread curled in Marion’s belly, but when Bridgette started to softly cry, the dread turned to determination.
“Collect yourself, Bridgette!” Marion commanded, her tone stern. “I’ll get you off that branch!”
“How?” Bridgette wailed. “I kinnae reach ye, and we’ve nothing else for me to grab.”
Marion bit down on her lip, hard. If only they had rope, or cloth, or— She fisted the material of her skirts in her hands and stilled, her heart tripling its beat. “Bridgette! I’ve got it!” she shouted as she began to tug off her gown. “I’ll hang my gown down to you, and when ye see it, grab it!”
“Ye’re removing yer gown?! I dunnae think Iain will like that!”
Distraught laughter bubbled up from Marion. “I think he’ll understand in such circumstances.” Though she doubted he’d be too understanding about the fact that she’d disobeyed his order to stay in her chamber. She shook her head and kept her attention on her task. The rest was not important now.
Once her gown was off and she stood in her chemise, she sat on her bottom at the edge of the cliff, her legs bent to her chest and her heels digging into the dirt. This position would allow her to use the strength from her legs and back combined. The cold, wet grass made her shiver as she slid across it, or maybe it was her nerves. Whichever it was, she had to take a few deep breaths to still her shaking hands.
She carefully wrapped the material of the skirt around her hand, and then she clasped her hands together and called down. “Here it comes. Be ready.”
“I’m ready. I dunnae enjoy hanging on this branch.”
“Do you see it?” Marion asked.
“Aye,” Bridgette called, and Marion felt a sudden pull on the gown.
“I’m afeared to let go,” Bridgette wailed.
“Don’t be,” Marion replied in the most soothing voice she could muster. “I will not drop you.” They may both go over the ledge, but she’d not break her vow, even if it meant her own death.
With a low moan, Bridgette grabbed both sleeves of the gown very slowly, and Marion instantly felt the tug on the material. “Knot your hands in the gown and try to slide toward the edge. Perchance there is rock you can put your foot on to aid you.” She hoped there was.
The minute Bridgette started moving on the branch, Marion’s whole body was jerked forward. She bit down on her lip, and the taste of blood filled her mouth. Spitting it out, she leaned backward and pulled the material tight, praying to God that it would not rip.
“I see some rocks I can use!” Bridgette cried from below. “I’m going to let go with one hand and grip one of the rocks, and then I’ll pull as ye pull.”
“I’m re
ady,” Marion answered, her words a pant from the exertion. Sweat dripped down her brow and into her eyes, and suddenly the pull on the material increased, making Marion’s body physically move. She dug in her heels harder and pulled back. Her arms and legs burned, her lip stung where she had bitten it, and her head throbbed. She heard Bridgette’s grunts, and she knew every time the woman latched onto another stone because she could move a little farther away from the ledge. Finally, she saw Bridgette’s head crest over the edge of the cliff.
Marion gave a great tug, and suddenly Bridgette was lying on top of her and they were laughing, crying, and panting. After a few minutes, Bridgette pushed herself off Marion and rolled onto her back.
Marion turned her head to look at her friend. She frowned when she realized Bridgette’s forehead was cut. “You’re bleeding.”
“So are ye,” Bridgette said.
Marion raised a shaking hand to her sore lip and pressed a finger to it. “I suppose we better return to the castle.”
Bridgette snorted. “I suppose ye better put yer clothes back on, unless ye want to see what yer husband is like in a temper.”
“I’ve seen his temper,” Marion said, thinking of how he’d looked when he’d come toward the men who had held her captive at the river, “and I’d rather not see it again.” She shivered as she forced herself to stand and put on her gown. It had been filthy before but now the garment was a ripped, ragged mess. When she put her arm in the sleeve, she noticed only a few threads kept it attached to the dress.
“Dear God above,” she murmured, thinking about what could have happened and what Iain would say if he saw her before she managed to get to her appointed bedchamber and change into one of Bridgette’s gowns. “Iain cannot see me like this!”
When a Laird Loves a Lady (Highlander Vows: Entangled Hearts Book 1) Page 15