Leah’s throat tightened as she listened to the words. As if she’d taken a punch to the stomach, a wave of nausea washed over her.
He’d found his miracle cure. Her. No wonder he was so kind, so accommodating. No wonder he’d insisted that they should marry. It had nothing to do with loving her. Nothing to do with thinking she was his Soulmate.
He only wanted to be healed and thanks to one careless moment, he knew she had the ability to make that healing happen.
Twenty-seven
No more excuses. Time to face doing what needed to be done.
Drew gathered his dirty shirt and plaid into a bundle and left the bathhouse, headed for the bedchamber he shared with Leah.
His wife.
He’d done everything in his power to avoid the conversation he must have with her, even going so far as to borrow a change of clothing from Caden.
But now, as the sun sank low in the horizon, it was time to put aside the actions of a coward and tell her.
If only it wouldn’t hurt her so much to hear that Blane had decided against helping her family. He’d give anything to avoid being the one to cause her pain.
Liar! His guilty conscience pounded in his brain, over and over as it had all day.
If her pain means so much, why didn’t you fight your laird’s decision? Why didn’t you throw the full force of your support back in his face when he said no? Why did you agree he’d chosen the right path, like some pathetic bootlicking vermin?
Across the garden and into the kitchens, he listened to the accusations he was unable to shut out. Up the stairs and to his own doorway they followed, their indictment beating at him.
“No more,” he whispered, his hand pressing on the door.
He hardened his mind to the argument. Steeled his heart for the confrontation to come. Refused to even consider at what point the voice of his conscience ringing in his head had become Leah’s voice.
She sat quietly staring into the fire, her hands clasped in her lap. Nary a single candle was lit against the growing gloom of evening.
“Good evening, dearling.” He forced the cheerful greeting in advance of the conversation to come. “Did you no want the candlelight to chase away the dark?”
He busied his hands, touching a twig to the fire to carry to the candles.
Stalling. Be a man for a change. Tell her the truth.
Her eyes bore into him when he turned. His traitorous imagination tried to convince him disappointment and accusation already swam in those depths. But that couldn’t be. There was no way she could have learned the truth already. Blane had assured him he would be the one to break the news to her in his own good time.
The time that lay heavily upon him now.
“Our laird has advised me of his decision regarding yer request for aid to MacQuarrie Keep.”
She didn’t move, nor did her expression change. He wondered briefly if she even blinked.
“And?” she asked quietly when a time had passed uncomfortably long between them.
“Our laird has fully considered yer request but regrets he canna offer his help. Any attempt to save yer grandparents would result in a battle with the English who hold yer family keep and he canna justify exchanging the lives of our people for yers.”
He waited. Waited for her response; waited for her eyes to soften.
Neither came.
“I ken yer upset, dearling, but yer bound to respect the decision of yer laird.”
“Your laird, not mine.” Slowly she pushed up out of the chair, her arms crossed over her breast. “All these days of waiting, for nothing. You’ve wasted my time. Wasted what little time my grandparents have.”
“He’s yer laird as well since we’ve married.” He moved close to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve no a need to worry over what’s to happen to you. As my wife, this is yer home now.”
He babbled, carrying on like some serving wench with good gossip, unable to stop his own blether, until she ducked her shoulder away from his touch. Backing away, she stepped behind her chair, placing it between them like a shield in battle, her hands clutching the wood.
“I didn’t marry you to find a home for myself. I married you to get rid of Moreland so that I could get help to go to my grandparents. I was clear about that from the beginning.”
As if her reason for marriage was important to him. “It’s of no matter why we wed. We’re wed. That’s all that matters now.”
“It’s not all that matters. I was honest with you. You knew I agreed to the marriage because it was the only way you’d take me to the people who could save my grandparents. But you?” She shook her head, her fingers tightening on the chair back until he thought the blood might cease to flow. “You were only interested in what would benefit you.”
She blamed him for Blane’s refusal? “I took yer request to our laird. I’m the one who spoke on yer behalf.” At least until Blane refused to help. Then, when it might have done some good, he’d been silent.
“That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it. Why’d you agree to marry me?”
Did her disappointment make her daft?
“You ken the reason well enough. If we’d no wed it would have brought the wrath of Moreland down on my people. Him and the soldiers who amassed at our gates.”
“You lie!” she yelled, her eyes flashing with what could only be anger.
Daft or no, he’d had enough.
With one arm, he swept the chair from between them, sending it toppling out of his way to land on its side. He grabbed her wrist and dragged her close. He wouldn’t be accused of something he hadn’t done.
“We’ve covered this ground before, you and I. I told you then, I’m no a man given to falsehoods. I’ve no ever lied to you.”
“Why did you marry me?” she demanded again, as if she’d never heard his answer the first time.
“Because Moreland—” he began, stopping in surprise when she slammed the side of her fist into his chest.
“Lies! You married me to use me. You said yourself you knew what I was. I should have paid more attention, but I didn’t. I was too stupid. I’d been careless enough to heal that damn cut on your arm and you wanted me to heal all that afflicts your body.” She jerked her hand from his hold, rubbing at her wrist as she backed away from him. “You married me to use me. Deny that if you can.”
Of course he couldn’t deny it. They both knew that well enough. So he stood there staring at her, his face a hardened, emotionless mask that might as well have belonged to a stone carving.
It hurt. She’d known it was true before he’d ever opened his mouth. Confirming it as he did with his silence cut her to the bone. She wanted only to have it over with. To end this miserable episode and move on.
“Moreland is gone. We should speak to your laird immediately and start proceedings to have our marriage annulled.”
“There can be no annulment for us.” He turned his back to her, leaning one hand against the mantle as he stared into the fire.
That’s what he thought. Of course there could be. “You married me for something I have absolutely no intention of ever giving you so there’s no point in hanging on. The whole thing is a farce. It has been from the beginning. We fill out papers or something and it’ll all be over.”
“There can be no annulment,” he insisted stubbornly, turning his head to capture her with his eyes. “We presented ourselves as married to all we encountered, which on its own is enough to make it so. We said our vows on the steps of the church in full view of all, sealing our fate. We are husband and wife.”
“No,” she denied. She wouldn’t accept it. She couldn’t. Spending her life married to a man who only wanted to use her? Whether it was using her to breed babies or using her for her Faerie gift, it was still using her. No. She wouldn’t be used. That was what she’d risked everything, everything, to run from before. “There has to be a way to end this.”
His eyes, dark and sad, bore into her. “The marriage
has been consummated. There can be no possibility of annulment.”
Yes it had been. But that had been when she’d imagined he might love her. “No one has to know about that.” She wouldn’t tell.
“I’ll know.” He shook his head, taking another step closer. “You’ll know. You are my wife, Leah. I warned you it would be forever once we set foot in Dun Ard. You accepted those terms. You agreed to pay that price.”
He reached a hand to her shoulder but she slapped it away, backing up another step.
“A price I agreed to pay to save my grandparents, which isn’t going to happen now. Not to mention that I agreed before I knew what the price really was. Before I knew that all you really wanted me for was to use me as the magic cure you’ve been hunting for years.”
“You’d refuse to use yer gift to help yer own husband?”
Oh, but he had that incredulous tone down just perfect.
“I won’t use that damned, blighted Faerie curse for anyone, least of all someone who thought to trick me into it.” She paused at the hitch in her voice, but only long enough to gather her control. “You’ve no idea what you ask of me. You don’t know anything.”
Without another word, he walked away, stopping only when he reached the door.
“I may ken little, my lady. But one thing I do ken is that I’d do all in my power to aid my own wife. My honor would demand it.”
“You and your honor can just get the hell out!” she yelled, though in truth, her words were lost to him in the slamming of the door. He’d gone before she’d had the chance to demand he leave.
She’d wanted so much for it not to be true. Prayed it would all be some big mistake he would explain away when she confronted him.
Instead, he’d acted as if he were the injured party when she’d refused to heal him.
“Honor, my ass,” she seethed, squatting down in front of the fire, her head in her hands.
Just last night he’d said he loved her. How could it turn out like this?
Because he’d never said any such thing.
He’d never said those words. She realized now it was only that she wanted so badly to hear the words, she’d accepted what he had said.
He’d said he needed her. About that he absolutely had not lied. He wanted to use her as much as Lord Moreland had. He wanted her for her gift. Just like the Nuadians had.
And using her against her will was something she’d determined long ago no one would ever do again.
Twenty-eight
A stray moonbeam washed across the floor. It shone through the shutters Leah had neglected to close against the night. She watched unmoving as it slowly crept closer to where she sat.
Sooner or later, she’d need to get up off her miserable butt and get started if she were really going to do this thing.
“Sooner,” she whispered, the sound seeming to echo off the walls of her empty room.
Drew hadn’t returned after their fight. Not that she expected he would. Not that she wanted him to. It would be more than fine with her if she never saw the sneaky, selfish bastard again as long as she lived.
Now if she could just get to a point where the thought of never seeing him again didn’t hurt more than the knowledge that he was a sneaky, selfish bastard, she’d be just fine.
“I’ll be fine anyway. I don’t need him.”
She would be. It wasn’t like she didn’t have a purpose to keep her going. Hugh and Margery were depending on her. She might have been sidetracked for a bit, but she was back on the job now. They needed her help and she wouldn’t fail them, no matter what it might cost her.
With the MacKiernan laird’s refusal to send men to the aid of MacQuarrie Keep, their rescue fell squarely on her shoulders. She’d had the whole of the evening to think on what she could do and though her plan was little more than a half-jelled worm of a thing, it was the best she could come up with on her own.
She pushed to her feet, then crossed to the bed and picked up the small bundle she’d prepared earlier. It consisted of the things she’d originally brought with her, along with the rolls, meat, and cheese the cook had sent up for her and Drew to share for their evening meal.
He could damn well find his own food or do without, for all she cared. She would need this.
Since her cloak had been lost, she decided taking one of his plaids would be no great loss. She’d figure out a way to return it later, just as Drew had returned the horse he’d borrowed from the priory. What was good for him was good for her. Granted, he’d asked permission, but it wasn’t like that was an option available to her.
Oh, by the way, I’ve decided to go back to MacQuarrie Keep to offer myself in marriage to Lord Moreland in exchange for control of the keep being returned to Grandpa Hugh.
Yeah. That was likely to go over well with this crowd. Likely they’d get all ruffled up about the fact that she was already married.
A minor detail she wasn’t going to let ruin her plan, such as it was.
It wasn’t like anyone had a really efficient way to look things up. Lord Moreland would drag her back to England, so it wasn’t as if she’d ever run into any of these MacKiernans. And if she eventually had to face Sir Peter again? It should be easy enough to convince him she’d obtained the annulment she had wanted.
Not a perfect plan by any means. She’d still end up getting used.
But it would be at her choice. Her choice. Something she’d willingly offer up to save Grandpa Hugh and Grandma Mac, not something someone had forced her into doing. Or worse, tricked her into doing.
Her breath caught in her throat and she clenched her teeth until she thought they might crack.
She was done with tears. Done. And even if she wasn’t, she wouldn’t spill another single drop over Drew MacAlister.
Stepping into the darkened hallway, she pulled the door quietly shut behind her.
Her plan would work. It had to. It was all she had left.
The only thing that could hold her back was if she couldn’t find that hole under the bathhouse Ellie had spoken of in the story she’d told at the wedding feast.
Accuse him of lying, would she? What about her? It was she who’d refused all along to even admit she had the power to heal.
Drew felt beside him in the dark, dragging his hand through the hay littering the stable floor for the flask of whisky he’d taken from Blane’s solar.
And what kind of a wife would refuse to heal her own husband? The man she’d vowed before God and everyone to honor for all her days.
He should put it out of his mind and end the pain but he couldn’t. Instead he dredged up every memory of every conversation he’d had with Leah, every moment he’d spent in her presence, every touch, every word, much as a child might pick at a scab on his knee.
Tipping back his head, he drained the last drop of amber liquid from the flask.
Too bad it would do no more than slake his thirst.
“Damned Faerie blood.”
What he needed was a good blanketing of his mind. He wanted to be so arse-faced he’d not be able to find a coherent thought with both hands.
Because the coherent thoughts he was finding at the moment were not his friends. And no matter how he might attempt to skew them, they didn’t point to his being the good guy here.
Deny as he might, he had lied. To Leah and to himself. Not about the healing. He wouldn’t deny he still wanted that from her.
No, his lie went much deeper.
Last night she’d asked if he’d loved her. She’d wanted to know, as any with Fae blood might, if she’d tied herself to her Soulmate.
And him, like the lying coward he was, he’d used every excuse he could find to avoid the obvious answer.
It couldn’t be true or he never would have let Blane come to any decision other than the one she wanted, not without a good fight.
It couldn’t be true because.
“Because, because, because,” he whispered. Because why? Because it terrified the hell out of him, that
’s why.
How could he claim his one true love, his Soulmate, when he was but half a man? When he feared one day the pain would send him to his bed and he wouldn’t get up again? When he feared any woman he loved would be forced to spend her days nursing him as she might an overgrown babe.
He’d lied to them both because it frightened him too much to tell the truth. Because he wasn’t man enough to tell the truth.
He loved her. She was his Soulmate.
And it was naught more than foolish pride and hurt feelings that kept them both from embracing that truth.
First thing tomorrow morning, he’d march into the keep and up to their room and tell her so. Come tomorrow, the worries that plagued him now would be but a memory.
Exactly as Ellie had described, the tunnel was there.
Leah crawled out from under the bathhouse and looked down the slope. Not much light to travel by, but it was good enough. If she put a serious foot to it, she could be well away from Dun Ard by morning.
She more or less remembered the map Mairi had drawn for her; she only had to backtrack to the beginning. It helped that this time she didn’t need to worry about avoiding roads. Sir Peter and his men had gone on to search out the rebels they hunted, so he was no longer a problem.
And if her uncle had sent more men to search for her? That wouldn’t be a problem either since their intent would be to take her back to MacQuarrie Keep and that was exactly where she wanted to go.
She was on her way. Nothing would stop her now.
“You’re certain it was her?”
Peter Moreland slapped his glove against the mail covering his leg. What the hell could she be up to?
“Yes, sir. I watched from the trees as she scrambled down the hillside and headed onto the road.”
Withdrawing his men had simply been a ploy to allow those inside Dun Ard to make their next move. He’d stationed men all around the perimeter of the castle to watch for anything unusual until such time as he could lay his hands on Leah MacQuarrie.
Healing the Highlander Page 21
