Chapter 46
Elizabeth sat with her new husband in the library at Auchinbreck. She was reading a book of poems by Robert Henryson while Archibald looked at a treatise on strategy. The silence they shared was comfortable. Now and then Elizabeth looked up to smile at the man beside her. Somehow the sight of her husband’s face always surprised her: so pleasant, so ordinary, so warmly familiar.
Archibald felt her gaze and glanced up, answering her smile. When a servant appeared in the doorway, he turned sharply; he had left orders they were not to be disturbed. "What is it?"
"Sir John Campbell's come from Kilchurn to see ye, m'lady."
Closing the book in her lap, Elizabeth glanced at her husband before asking, "Is aught amiss?"
"I don't know. But from the look on his face, I'll wager the whole Clan Campbell’s on the brink of ruin."
Elizabeth tensed, and when her husband took her hand, she gripped it tightly. "Bring him here," she said.
The servant hurried away as Elizabeth turned to Archibald. Before she could speak, he said, "I'll leave ye to talk to him alone. If there's any danger, I'll learn of it soon enough."
She smiled in gratitude. "Ye don't mind?"
Brushing a light kiss over her cheek, he rose. "No' at all. I'll be waiting in the hall if ye should need me."
She smiled as he left, but when her brother entered the room, the smile disappeared.
John stood on the threshold with his hair in wild disarray. Although his cheeks were flushed—from heavy riding, she guessed—beneath the color he was ghostly pale. For the first time in all the years she had known him, there were lines etched in his skin from his nose to his mouth, and deep furrows across his forehead. His eyes were a turbulent blue gray.
"Johnnie!" she said, "what ails ye?"
When he did not respond, she left her chair to move forward. Taking his arm, she drew him to her husband's chair. Then, while he sat staring at his hands, she poured him a goblet of wine. He drank it down without pause, clearly unaware he had done so. Elizabeth turned her chair to face his and waited, her fingers laced together in her lap.
"Muriella—" he began, then stopped. He seemed unable to form the thought.
Her sister felt a chill of foreboding run down her spine. "What is it?" When he still did not answer, her heart began to beat erratically. "Tell me what's happened, Johnnie, please!"
"Muriella tried—to take her life."
Elizabeth gaped at him in disbelief, but her brother would not meet her eyes. Finally she whispered, "Is she all right?"
John gazed down at his hands helplessly. "She still lives, if that's what ye mean."
"But she's been hurt?"
Her brother ran his hand through his hair in agitation. "I begin to think the inner wounds are greater than the outer."
Elizabeth felt a sinking in her stomach. "Don't speak in riddles, Johnnie, not about this. Is yer wife hurt?"
"She has a cut on the forehead, mayhap a chill, but no more."
"Thank God." Weak with relief, his sister sank back into her chair. She watched in concern as John rose and began to pace up and down, glaring at the rushes beneath his feet as if they were enemies to be conquered. For a long time she did not have the courage to break the silence, but then, at last, she murmured, "How?"
John stopped with his back to her. "She threw herself in the river."
"No!" The color drained from Elizabeth's face. She had thought the horror was behind her, but John's toneless statement had brought it rushing back. Struggling for breath, she fought the memory of those crawling, endless hours chained to the rock while the water rose in fury all around her. "Muriella couldn't have done such a thing!" she gasped.
"So I thought too. But it seems we didn't know her as well as we thought."
Elizabeth clutched the arms of her chair until her hands ached. She was afraid if she let go, she would fall. She saw John move toward the wide embrasure. Placing one booted foot on a low chest, he gazed blindly out at the courtyard below. She realized he was not aware of her distress.
Unable to find her voice, she rose and went to the shelf where Archibald had left a flagon of wine. Holding a pewter goblet in her shaking hand, she filled it with the dark liquid and drank it down. As the wine began to affect her, the mists of memory receded and the shock dimmed a little. Her heartbeat slowed to normal while the silence stretched between brother and sister—thin as a single thread, and as fragile. Elizabeth closed her eyes, wondering why John had come to her at all. When at last she turned toward him, her face was expressionless.
"So," she said calmly, "what have ye done with her?"
John turned in surprise, as if he'd forgotten his sister was in the room. "Done with her? I left her at Kilchurn."
"Just that? Nothing more?"
Her brother gazed at her, perplexed. "What would ye have me do?"
"'Tis a terrible sin to try to take yer life," she said, moving toward him, her gown rustling about her ankles. "The Church will surely excommunicate her if they hear of this. Will ye tell them?"
"No!"
Elizabeth was unmoved by the single explosive word. "But after what she's done, no one would blame ye."
"I wouldn't be caring if they did. I won't do it, that's all."
"Why?"
Eyes narrowed, John regarded his sister intently. "Elizabeth—"
"Then will ye lock her in a tower?"
"No, by God!" He moved toward her menacingly, but she did not retreat.
Raising her chin, she said coolly, "Our father would have done so, after he beat her bloody, no doubt."
John clenched his fists and fought the urge to strike her. "Damn our father! She's my wife!"
"But surely ye'll punish her."
"Elizabeth, I warn ye—"
He was so close she could reach out to touch his face, distorted by anger, but still she did not quaver. "Ye don't seem to realize, 'tis a sin, Johnnie!"
"I don't care."
"But—"
"She's my wife, damn ye, and I love her!"
Brows drawn together, Elizabeth repeated stubbornly, "But if she tried to take her life—"
She broke off abruptly when John grasped her by the shoulders. "Stop this madness, Elizabeth, before ye push me too far. I love Muriella, do ye hear? Whatever she's done!"
His sister's eyes glittered, but she spoke without inflection. "I see."
He noticed then the odd expression on her face. She was smiling knowingly and seemed to be waiting. But for what? Then, all at once, he heard a distant echo—the sound of his sister's voice weeping, I love him! He wouldn't—I love him!
He released her and his hands fell to his sides. "Dear God," he murmured. "Elizabeth, forgive me. I thought—"
"Ye thought I was a fool and weak besides. But now ye see, don't ye? I was just as ye are."
He sank back into the chair. "Aye, just as I am," he muttered in despair.
His sister smiled a little. "Tis a curse on our family, don't ye think? This compulsion to love someone to the point of madness? Muriella once said she admired it in me, but I didn't believe her."
"Muriella," John repeated. The sound of the name brought his anguish rushing back. He stared at the floor in silence.
Elizabeth watched her brother slump forward, defeat in every line of his body. She was surprised to find she pitied him. Never had she seen him so helpless. Kneeling beside him with her hand on his arm, she said, "I think this has affected ye more deeply than ye realize. Mayhap ye don't want to admit it, but ye're horrified by what she's done."
"Doesn't she even fear the wrath of God?" John demanded.
Unable to bear the sight of his confusion, Elizabeth looked away. "How can she, when she's already lived in hell?"
John closed his eyes but could not disguise the pain that transformed his face. "Hasn't she ever been happy, even for a moment?"
Elizabeth gripped his arm. "I didn't mean that, Johnnie. Of course she's been happy."
He met her compassi
onate gaze fiercely. "When?" he demanded. "Name me one day when she wasn't haunted by her demons."
"There were many, as ye'd know if ye asked her. But I don't think I've ever seen her as happy as she was the morning after my wedding and the battle that followed. She was so full of joy that day her face shone with it and her body could barely contain it all."
"Oh, God!"
Elizabeth drew away. "I'm sorry. That only makes it more difficult for ye, doesn't it?"
He could not answer. His despair was choking him. Elizabeth rose to pace before the empty fireplace, conjuring Muriella's face before her, trying to understand the hopeless tangle of her friend's feelings. "Did she tell ye why she did it?"
It was a long time before John answered. "She said she'd had a vision, that she was afraid I would—" He could not bring himself to say the words. "That I would harm her someday."
Elizabeth paused as a strange stillness descended upon her. "Can ye really blame her for thinking that?"
John looked up sharply at the bitterness in his sister's voice. She was staring at him, her gray eyes wide with unsettling memories. Those eyes carried him back to that moment when the madness had overtaken him as he stood above Elizabeth while she lay ill, calling for her husband. "Ye knew," he whispered hoarsely.
"Ye thought I was delirious, but I knew."
Her steady, unblinking gaze was more than he could stand. Rising abruptly, he moved toward the window. "I don't know what to say to ye. I don't know how to explain—"
"No, Johnnie," his sister interrupted. "Ye don't need to explain. 'Tis past now."
John shook his head. "I don't think 'twill ever be past."
Elizabeth crossed the room until she faced her brother. "I've tried to leave those days behind—I had to. Mayhap ye should do so too. 'Tis Muriella who matters now. What are ye going to do about her?"
Her brother looked away, rubbing his fingers over his brow as if to ease the pain within. "I don't know."
Elizabeth's heart contracted in compassion. "Do ye think ye can live without her?" she asked softly.
John turned, his face haggard with care in the soft evening light. "'Tis hard to know."
"I'll tell ye something ye may not believe, but 'tis true just the same. I doubt Muriella can live without ye."
John's eyes widened. How could he believe it? "Ye don't seem to understand. She fears me too much. She thinks I'll hurt her."
"Then go back to Kilchurn and show her she's wrong."
John gaped at his sister in astonishment.
With a sigh, Elizabeth put her hands on his shoulders.
"Listen to me, Johnnie. I know ye've killed many men in battle, mayhap more than I can count. 'Tis the way ye survive. But murder—I don't think ye're capable of that."
John struggled to find his voice. "Ye can say that?"
Her gaze did not waver. "Aye."
"But ye saw me—"
"I saw what ye wanted to do. 'Tis no' the same as what ye would have done. Stubborn ye may be, passionate in yer rages and desires, mayhap even cruel sometimes, but ye simply aren't the kind of man to hurt someone ye love."
"Ye really believe that?"
"I do."
John felt a constriction in his throat. For the first time in his life, he wanted to weep. "Why? After all I've done?"
"Because on the day when Lachlan Maclean last came to Kilchurn, ye let him live." Her brother started to interrupt, but she stopped him with a wave of her hand. "Ye had far more reason to want his life than ye did mine. He'd long been an enemy to me, to ye, to our father and the clan and the King. All he'd ever given the Campbells was years of trouble and betrayal. Yet when I asked ye to, ye set him free."
"But I killed him in the end."
When he would have turned away, Elizabeth held him with the touch of her hands on his shoulders. "I spoke to Megan the day after ye left Kilchurn. I know why ye did it. I know too that Lachlan had to die. He'd pushed us all too far too often. I knew that even in the beginning. 'Twas just that I couldn't bear to watch it happen."
John stared at his sister as if he had never seen her before. Ye take her for a fool, Maclean had said, but she's a great deal wiser than ye. Strange that in the end, the husband who had mistreated and despised her should have known Elizabeth so well. And yet, John himself must have trusted his sister more than he realized, or he would not have come to her now. "Ye're Muriella's friend. Ye understand her best. Do ye really think I should go back to her?"
"'Twill break her heart if ye don't." Elizabeth gazed thoughtfully into her brother's eyes. "But I wonder.... 'Twill no' be easy to win yer wife if ye can't forgive her for all the pain she's caused ye."
"That doesn't matter now."
"Doesn't it?" Elizabeth said softly. "Are ye certain?"
When John moved away from her, she did not follow. He turned once more to stare out the window at the languid movements of the men in the courtyard below. Though he tried to close his mind against it, the memory of Duncan's words rang in his head: I don't know why she threw herself in, but I do know that she let me save her. It was that knowledge which had gnawed at John's insides since the moment he left Kilchurn. He knew with a certainty that appalled him if it had been he waiting on the riverbank to pull Muriella from the water, she would have drowned rather than reach for his hand. She had made a choice, in that moment, to give Duncan something she could never give her husband—her trust. And for that John could not forgive her.
Chapter 47
Muriella leaned against the windowsill in the library, staring out at the loch below. The clouds had crept around the sun, and the light had the strange silver cast that always came before a storm. She did not turn when she heard the door open; she knew without looking that Alex had come into the room.
"I'd begun to worry," the Gypsy said. "Ye didn't make a sound for so long."
"I was thinking." She concentrated more intently on the forming patterns of rain clouds in the graying sky.
"Did ye learn what ye needed to know?"
He was coming closer—she could hear his soft footsteps on the thick rug—but still she did not leave the window. "Aye. I learned much more than that," she murmured.
The Gypsy paused a few feet away from her. "Why won't ye look at me, lass?"
Releasing her painful grip on the stone, she turned to find him watching. His weathered face was lined and careworn, his gray green eyes full of concern. Those eyes. With an effort of will, she met his gaze.
"What is it?" Alex asked. "What's troublin' ye?"
His gaze was not holding her now. She could have looked away if she wanted to, but she did not. She wondered if she could draw the truth from him as he had drawn it from her a few minutes before. When she did not speak, he took another step forward. "What?"
My child, he had once called her. Her heart was beating too slowly; the blood was hardly moving through her veins. His eyes, she thought. His strange, compelling eyes. "Are ye my father?" she said at last.
Alex gasped as if she had struck him in the chest. The color drained from his face and faded from his eyes, leaving them pale and lifeless. For a long time she thought he would not answer.
Finally, he said stiffly, "No. I met yer mother when she'd just begun to carry ye." He forced himself to meet her doubtful gaze. "Ye must try to understand what was between us and no' think badly of her. Isabel needed a friend, and I was there for her. What we shared was rare in this cold, heartless world."
Muriella was surprised to realize she was not disappointed in her mother. Perhaps it was because she had never known Isabel's husband, had never seen John Calder's face, except once in a painting. Her father had given her Cawdor, but that had never been cause for gratitude. But Alex had shared so much with her. He had given her understanding, compassion, consolation. He was the only one who had told her truths she did not wish to hear. And he had given her music. She understood too well what his friendship must have meant to the lonely Isabel, because Muriella herself had so often felt alone s
ince her arrival at Kilchurn. "Please tell me about it," she asked softly as she drew him toward the chairs in front of the empty fireplace.
The Gypsy sat down and spread his hands before him, examining the palms in the shifting gray light. "I don't remember the day or even the year we met," he said wistfully. "To me 'twas as if I'd always known Isabel Calder. Ye could say 'twas she who brought me the Sight when I was a boy."
Muriella frowned, seeking a distant memory. I was standin' above a river, Alex had told her the first time they met, starin' into a pool of clear water, and I saw the face of a woman I didn't know. When I leaned down to fetch her out, 'twas no one there. "Hers was the face in the water then?"
Alex nodded. "She followed me in dreams, ye see, even before I met her in the flesh. And then—" He hesitated. "I couldn't have changed what happened between us, even had I wanted to. She was an extraordinary woman, yer mother." He gazed beyond Muriella to the bright, remembered image of the woman he had lost. "Every year when the Gypsies moved south, I had to leave her behind," he continued, unable now to stop the flow of painful memories. "And every time the partin' was more difficult to bear. But I couldn't stay away. I didn't have that kind of strength."
"Is that why ye came to me? Because of what ye felt for her?"
"No' entirely," the Gypsy replied. "Ye see, we were much together in those days while ye rested in her womb. We used to talk like ye were my bairn. 'Twas her wish that 'twas so, and mine as well. With yer father dead and unable to defend ye I swore to Isabel I'd protect ye as if ye were my own. 'Tis what I’ve tried to do."
Muriella nodded and touched his hand in answer to the question he had not asked. "Did ye see her again after my wedding?"
Pushing the hair back from his face, Alex gathered his thoughts carefully. "Aye, I was with her soon before she died. We'd been travelin' far from home, south through England. By the time we came north again, she was very ill." He did not try to hide the grief that ravaged his face. "I was a fool, ye ken. I waited too long. I thought since ye were finally married and grown up safe among the Campbells, that she might have come away with me then."
Highland Charm: First Fantasies Page 42