She prayed to God that he did as she bade him.
Lagan turned to her. “I dinna see what ye hope to gain wi’ that,” he told her. “Twill be a simple matter to toss him o’er once I’m finished wi’ you.”
“Aye?” Page taunted. Boldness had gained her much in her life. She sensed this was one time she needed the advantage it would give her. Even knowing where it would lead her, she turned her back toward the ledge. She knew it was there, knew he knew it was there. She only hoped it wasn’t obvious to him that she was aware of it, hoped he would think it his own bright notion to walk her to the cliff edge. Praying with all her might that she was doing the right thing—at least for Malcom’s sake—she took a step backward, hoping he would follow. If he followed, then it would place much-needed distance between him and Malcom. And that, ultimately, was her primary goal—to see Malcom safely away.
She wasn’t certain whether to cry out in fear or sigh in relief when Lagan responded by taking a step toward her. She crossed herself, and began to pray aloud. “Holy Mary, Mother of Christ,” she whispered beneath her breath. “Pray for us sinners...” She took another step backward, and did cry out when he responded with another step forward. “Now and at the hour of our death,” she intoned.
Her heart pounded against her ribs.
He merely chuckled, and continued to urge her backward toward the cliff. “’Tis just like a Sassenach,” he scorned. “Turn to God when ye canna fight your battles like a mon.”
Despite her predicament, Page’s brows knit in outrage. “Aye, well, I am a woman,” she reminded him easily, and wondered if she would ever learn to curb her tongue. What did it matter what she was, man or woman, when she was going to be a dead one soon enough?
Well, she vowed, at least she would die knowing Malcom was safe, because if she went over that cliff, she fully intended to take Lagan down with her—villain that he was.
She continued to retreat while Lagan followed, until she neared the edge of the cliff and could scarce move back any farther without tumbling downward. She pretended surprise at the place of her arrival, though her gasp of fear was not at all feigned.
She could barely discern Lagan’s features now, but his smile was evident by the moon’s reflection. She stilled at the cliff edge, her heart tripping painfully as he continued forward, stalking her... closer… closer… until his features were once again discernible and he was within arm’s reach, and then she screamed at the top of her lungs, “Run, Malcom! Run!”
Lagan turned at once to stop him. He lifted his bow, and Page hurled herself against him. Cursing fiercely, he shoved her backward, and attempted once more to aim for the distant fleeing shadow. Page tried to stop him, but she stumbled and lost her footing. She reached out to grasp something of substance and found only Lagan’s hair, seizing a handful as she toppled backward. With a yelp of pain and a cry of surprise, Lagan dropped the bow and pitched after her.
For an instant and an eternity they tottered together on the bluff’s edge.
Page gasped, her grip tightening desperately upon Lagan’s hair. He struggled to free himself, but he was all that was solid and real, and then there was nothingness behind her as she fell backward.
* * *
“And so the dream...”
“Was no dream a’tall,” Glenna revealed. “What ye describe to me is exactly the way it was the night your minnie died.”
“Nay.” It was Iain’s turn to bury his face within his hands. His jaw tautened against the new tide of emotions. The voice in his dreams. The eyes. They had all been memories... not fanciful wisps of his imagination. His mother’s beautiful lilting voice.
And that dream... the scared little boy awakened within his darkened bedchamber by a mother’s agonized screams. While Iain had lain within his bed clutching the bedsheets, afeared to move, and yet wanting to run to her as much as he wanted to hide beneath the bed, it was Lagan she had been bearing into the world... Lagan and not him.
But how could it be? How was it possible that everyone could keep such a secret—so brilliantly that Iain had never once perceived it?
And yet he somehow knew it for truth, for with Glenna’s shocking revelation, the memory seemed to grow in clarity.
He clenched his jaw. “Curse and rot you all!”
“Iain...”
“Why did no one e’er tell me?” he asked, without lifting his face to look at her. He wasn’t certain he could—not without betraying his incredible fury.
“It was your Da’s wish ye not be told,” Glenna revealed. “He dinna want for ye to know.”
“Evidently. Who else knew of this?”
“’Twas for your own guid, Iain.”
Iain lifted his gaze to her face. “Who else knew of this, Glenna?”
“The MacLeans, o’course.”
Iain sat abruptly, slamming a fist atop the table. “Nay! I mean to say... amongst my own kinsmen... who else knew of this?”
“Angus, o’ course. He was your Da’s closet fellow.”
“Who else?” he demanded of her.
“Ach, Iain, there were many! But we dinna tell our wee ones because your Da forbade it.”
Iain shook his head, disbelieving his own ears. “So everyone knows?”
“Nay... only those of us who are of an age… Most do not know. Your Da never meant to hurt ye, Iain, my love...”
“Nay? So tell me... how did Lagan learn the truth?”
Glenna lowered her eyes. “I told him.” She shook her head lamentably. “When he returned so aggrieved after tryin’ to woo MacLean’s youngest daughter, he wanted to know why auld mon MacLean wadna listen to reason, why he seemed to condemn him e’en before he listened to a single word.”
“And why would that be?” Iain asked her, his tone controlled, his body restrained, lest he destroy all that he saw within sight in his temper. This very moment, he felt near as violent in his anger as he had the day when he’d returned to find Malcom gone.
“Because... Iain... it had been his brother your mother loved... his brother your father killed. It was an accident, o’course. The two had long been friends... but they fought... and there was too much rage between them to stop it.” Her voice softened. “And ye dinna realize, Iain, lad, but Lagan is the verra image o’ your minnie... while ye are the likeness o’ your Da.”
Iain closed his eyes and tried to hear his father’s reason. He imagined the anger his brother—yes, his brother—must feel.
“Lagan never had a chance with MacLean’s daughter, Iain. I thought he should know why. It was surprising enough that auld MacLean had been willin’ to entrust his eldest into your hands. I swear Iain... I wish I hadna told him now.”
“Why did he let me wed his daughter Mairi?”
“MacLean?” Glenna shook her head. “I dunno, though I wish he had not. Were the choice between you and Lagan, I wish it had been Lagan,” she told him honestly, “and ye know I dinna mean to wish ye ill. ’Tis merely that for ye and for Mairi there was ne’er any love. While Lagan loved Mairi’s sister, of a certain—and he’s envied ye all his life. He never cared for me, Iain,” she lamented. “It was you and your Da he always envied.”
Iain shook his head, benumbed. “I cannot believe ye dinna tell me, Glenna.”
“It was your Da’s wish... to protect ye, love.”
“Nay, Glenna,” Iain countered with conviction, his tone curt with pain and fury. For the first time in his life, he understood so much. “It was my Da’s wish to hide from the truth,” he argued. “He simply dinna wish to face the fact that his wife was in love wi’ another man. Just as it was his wish to raise a perfect son—a son without weaknesses—a legacy for himself. ’Tis no wonder Lagan resents me so much! Who could blame him?”
There was an instant of silence. Glenna hung her head, unable to respond.
“And why should ye choose now... this instant to unburden yourself to me, Glenna?”
Her chin lifted. Her eyes welled again with tears. “’Tis Lagan,” sh
e began. “I dinna—”
The door burst open.
“Iain,” Broc called. “I think ye’d better come!”
Iain’s nerves were near to snapping. He doubted there was one more problem he could deal with on this day. “What now, Broc?” he asked without turning, his fist clenching upon the table before him.
“’Tis David,” Broc said.
Iain stiffened. “David?”
“Aye... he rides wi’ FitzSimon to reclaim FitzSimon’s daughter.”
Chapter 32
To his credit, David, King of Scotia—or so he claimed—sat his mount in thoughtful silence, listening. Iain was aware of him, his easy demeanor, although his own thoughts were racing with all the possible reasons for Page’s disappearance. He’d summoned her at once upon her father’s arrival, only to learn she had vanished.
She couldn’t possibly have known of her father’s approach, and it didn’t make any sense to Iain that she would wander away so late. Nor had it been overly long since he’d left her in their bed. She couldn’t have gone far.
Her Da, however, had long since dismounted and paced before him like a rabid beast.
“I cannot believe ye would lose her!” FitzSimon shouted at him, and it was all Iain could do not to murder the man right where he stood.
“I entrust my daughter to your hands!” he spat. “And this is how you care for her?”
Iain restrained his temper, telling himself that there would be plenty of time to kill him once he resolved the situation here at hand. But he couldn’t keep his tongue stilled, because FitzSimon was a lying cur. “Entrust? Is that what ye call it when ye Sassenachs cast away your own kin?”
FitzSimon had the decency to stutter at his question. “I—I was angry,” he reasoned. “I did not realize what I was saying—or what I was doing.”
“Lyin’ blackguard. Ye seemed to know just fine,” Angus interjected.
Iain cast Angus a quelling glance, and then returned his attention to FitzSimon. “You sounded to me like a mon who knew his mind well enough,” Iain proposed. “I gave ye plenty o’ opportunity to change your mind and ye dinna. Ye wadna.”
“I was angry,” FitzSimon reasoned once more.
“And do ye think I’m no’ angry now?” Iain returned. “Simply because I’m standin’ here listenin’ to ye doesna mean to say I dinna take pleasure in the thought o’ carvin’ the heart from your feckless body.”
FitzSimon visibly flinched.
“A mon is no’ a mon, but a beast, if he canna use his reason,” Iain said.
FitzSimon said nothing, and Iain decided he hadn’t spoken clearly enough.
“You are worse than any beast I know, for e’en a beast doesna sacrifice his young.”
“I did not know she was my daughter,” FitzSimon admitted, shocking Iain with the disclosure. Of all the things he might have said, it was the one thing to which Iain could not respond. His own revelations were too freshly revealed.
He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Dougal came running from the tower, breathless. “I canna find Malcom, either,” he said, between pants. “I looked everywhere, and I canna! Nor Lagan!”
Murmurs filled the air. Iain’s heart began to pound all the more fiercely. “Neither Malcom, Lagan, nor Page?” The hairs of his nape stood on end.
“Nary a one!”
Iain tried not to give in to panic. Panic would gain him naught, he knew. “Did no one see them go?”
It seemed a thousand murmurs responded, none of them yes.
And then he heard his son’s shouts, distant, but unmistakable, and his heart jolted. He tore through the crowd at once, shoving his way through to follow the sound. “Malcom!” he called out.
“Da!” his son cried, running through the night toward them, his voice full of fear. “Da!”
Iain began to run.
“Da!” Malcom wailed.
Iain reached him and swept him up into his arms, embracing him desperately. “What is it, Malcom?”
“Lagan!” Malcom sobbed. “Page!” And then he began to cry hysterically, uncontrollably.
Iain’s heart tripped painfully. He shook his son in a moment of desperation. “Malcom, tell me!”
“Lagan was g-gain’ t-to k-kill me, Da,” he cried, choking on his sobs. “P-Page p-pushed him.” He sobbed, clutching Iain’s neck, and Iain felt his legs go weak beneath him. His mind raced.
“Pushed him? Where?”
He gripped his son beneath the arms, pulling him away, his arms trembling.
Malcom held on all the tighter. “I dinna want to leave her, Da. She told me to run!”
“Where is she?” Iain demanded, and his heartbeat stilled for the answer.
“O’er the bluff side,” Malcom cried. “She went o’er the bluff, Da!”
Praying to God he wasn’t too late, he thrust Malcom away and into waiting arms.
God above! he prayed. Do not let it be too late!
* * *
Page had fallen, her body scraping over rock and brush, onto a ledge in the cliffside where the rock jutted outward. Somehow, though the impact drove the air from her lungs, she managed to hold on to the small platform.
Groping blindly with her feet for a better hold than the tentative one she had, she found a place in the craggy cliffside where she could snuggle her toes. And then she held on for her life.
It seemed an eternity passed before she heard the voices above.
She didn’t wait to be called upon; she shouted at the top of her lungs. And still it was another terrible eternity before they followed her voice to where she hung so precariously along the cliffside.
“Are ye hurt, lass?” Page heard Iain ask.
It was about time. “Well, if I am,” she returned somewhat caustically, “I certainly have no wish to know this minute. Rather ask me when I’m safe above.”
His answering chuckle, uneasy though it sounded, reassured her somehow. “Verra well,” he said, his tone clearly filled with relief. “Hold fast now,” he said, “I’m comin’ after ye, lass.”
“Ach!” Page mocked him. “Ye dinna have to tell me so, I think. I’m holding! By the grace of God, I’m holding!”
Once again nervous laughter drifted down from above, and Page tried to ignore the fact that her fingers were growing weary and raw from gripping the jagged rock. She was not going to die. Not now. She refused.
“Hurry!” she urged him, and she knew she sounded afeared.
“Keep talking to me, dearling!” he directed, his voice calm, though she could scarce mistake the urgency in his command. “I’ll be coming for ye anon.”
Keep talking? What in creation was she supposed to talk about now?
She asked him as much, and he said, “Anything, lass... just so I know where to find ye.”
“Let me talk to her,” she heard a familiar voice say, and her heart leapt. Nay! But it could not be!
“You will not,” she heard Iain bark. “Ye’ve done enough harm as it is. Get oot o’ my way, and leave her be.”
Page was so staggered by the discovery that her father had come, after all, that she nearly lost her tenuous grip on the ledge.
She screeched as she slipped a little. “Father?” she called out. Her heart began to pound all the faster, and her vision threatened to turn black. “Is it truly you?”
“Aye, Page,” he answered. “’Tis me, child.”
She heard Iain’s curse, but was too dazed to comprehend its cause.
“You’ve come!” she cried, and squealed as her fingers slipped a little more. In desperation, she released one hand and grasped out, thanking God above for the bush he’d placed within her reach. She used it to support her weight while her other hand searched and found a more tangible foothold. She found one just in time, for the bush began to uproot.
“Sweet Mary,” she began praying again.
“Aye, Page,” he shouted down to her. “I’ve much to tell you, daughter mine.”
He’d picked a fine time,
Page thought.
“No’ now, ye willna,” she heard Iain argue with him. “Now isna the time to unburden yourself, old man. Get out of my way!”
“In the meantime,” Page shouted a little frantically, “whilst you two argue, my hands are aching, and my feet are slipping, and I do not wish to end like Lagan, if you please.”
There was a long interval of silence, too long, Page thought, and then Iain said, “Dinna worry, love. I’m coming now.” And sure enough, she heard him making his way down the cliffside. “Page?” he called out once more.
Page squeezed her eyes shut and prayed that he would reach her soon. The pebbles at her toes were beginning to loosen and roll free.
“Are ye certain Lagan went down?”
Page swallowed at the memory of his screams as he’d fallen. He’d fallen so far and so long that his bellow had continued for what had seemed an eternity.
“Aye,” she answered. “He’s gone.”
She heard the scuffing of his boots as he came nearer.
“We fell together,” she told him, groaning, and opened her eyes to search for his descending shadow against the cliffside. “Only I somehow ended here, and he down there.” And she added silently, thanks be to God!
“Thank God!” he said, and his voice was nearer now. “Malcom told me what ye did—and… I thought we’d lost ye too, lass.”
“Aye, well...” She whimpered as her toe lost its footing. She heard the loose rocks cascade downward, dragging the cliffside, until they descended into stony silence, and swallowed convulsively as she searched out another toehold. “I... I did tell you I was stubborn and canny,” she warned him, trying to make merry.
“That ye did, lass,” he told her, chuckling softly, much closer now. “That ye did.”
And then suddenly she could see him, and her heart leapt with joy. When his face came into view, the moonlight reflecting within his wonderful golden eyes, she thought she would weep with delight.
And then suddenly he was there at her side. Page might have cast herself into his arms, but she was so afeared to move that he had to pry her free from the rock.
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