Page 24 of For a Wild Woman’s Heart (Ancient Songs #3)

D eathan eyed the woman beside him, who looked not at him but continued to gaze out to sea, as if she had not just spoken the last words he expected to hear.

Her profile was strong, strong. That stubborn, pointed chin and the nose that was perhaps a bit too robust to grace the countenance of a woman.

She looked deadly serious.

“What?” he asked, hushed. “I think I canna ha’ heard ye right.”

“You did.”

She drew a breath, trying to master her emotions or perhaps seeking words. His was not her mother tongue, after all.

“Last evening after supper I heard Rohr talking to a young woman, in the corridor outside your mother’s small solar. They did not know I was there.”

Oh. Deathan blinked rapidly in an effort to assimilate it. This could not be good. “Wha’ did ye hear?”

She moved closer to him, her arm brushing his, still staring out to sea as if she did no more than admire the view to the horizon.

“He is in love with someone else—the girl to whom he was speaking. She is carrying his child.”

When Deathan did not speak, she shot him a glance. “You do not look surprised. You knew?”

“Aye.” His mind struggled with it. “Wha’ has that to do wi’ him wanting to—to murder ye?”

“I should say, it is the young woman in question who wishes me dead. She beseeched him to forsake our betrothal and marry her instead. When he said he must obey the king’s orders, she—” Darlei stopped abruptly.

“Aye?”

“She told him to go ahead and wed wi’ me, and then he could make sure I did no’ survive long. As a widower, he could then wed wi’ her, and their child would be the heir to—to all this.”

“Caragh said that?” Deathan could not quite warrant it. Aye, he too had overheard Rohr and Caragh arguing. But the lass seemed far too sweet to make any such suggestion.

“So she did.” When he did not speak, Darlei shot him another sharp glance. “Do you not believe me?”

“I do no’ suppose ye would lie to me about such a thing.”

“I would not. I would not lie to you at all, Deathan MacMurtray.”

The significance of the statement did not escape him. “Is there a chance ye heard awrong? Or are mistaken—”

“Nay.”

“My brother would no’—”

“Oh, he argued against it. Said there is no honor in murder. I have no doubt she will persuade him.”

“Ye—ye did no’ tak’ this to yer father? Or mine?”

“Nay. Not yet. I am not sure they will believe me. He has only to deny it, and…it is such an unbelievable thing, withal.”

“Aye.”

“But someone has to know. In case he acts upon the deed. I thought on that all night. Knew I had to tell you.”

He almost wished she had not. He would rather not know. And yet all his protective instincts rose. To be sure, he would defend her as he would his own life.

“My brother’s situation is desperate,” he said in a low tone. Down along the shore from them, a group of men—fishers—put out in a small boat, the sounds covering his words. “And will become more so. They cannot keep their secret forever.”

“Indeed not. Should my father discover my bridegroom has fathered a child on another woman, well—I do not know if it would be enough to make him approach King Kenneth.”

“Ask him to withdraw his insistence on the marriage, ye mean?”

“Yes. Then I could go home.”

She withdrew her gaze at last from the sea and directed it at Deathan. He looked back at her steadily, ignoring the fishers and their activities, as his heart began to pound.

He might lose her. If the betrothal were dissolved, she might go from his life before whatever had taken root between them could flower.

Yet…if he had to choose between losing her and seeing her wed to his brother, which would be more unbearable?

The answer came to him swiftly. Losing her.

“If ye want my advice,” he said, “ye should confide wha’ ye ha’ heard in your father. He will go to mine, who will question Rohr. Rohr will then no doubt confess. I admit, ’twould be better if Rohr was the one to step up and tell Da that he would rather ye dead than married to him.”

If Rohr was man enough to lie with a maid and beget a child, he should be man enough to take responsibility—no matter how tangled and ugly the situation.

“I will speak wi’ Rohr,” Deathan decided. “Try to make him see his correct path.”

“Will you tell him I overheard him?”

“Mayhap no’.” The last thing Deathan wanted was to increase Rohr’s anger against her. “Meanwhile, I want ye to ha’ a care, princess. Do no’ go out and about wi’out your woman for company. Spend time wi’ my mother, or among your own folk.”

“You think, then, she might yet persuade him to this act she desires?”

“Nay.” And yet…Deathan’s eyes moved over the scene. The water and the rocks. So many ways to prompt a fall or other dire “accident”.

The very thought of any ill befalling this woman made the breath seize in his lungs.

“I am surely safe in your company.”

Their eyes met. Deathan had a sudden vision of her in his company . The two of them alone together somewhere. Dim light and the soft rugs of a sleeping place. Neither of them clad, and all her glorious hair loosed to his touch. Time for the two of them to taste, to explore, to cherish.

“Aye.”

“You could mayhap show me the sights o’ the settlement. Between your other duties, I mean.”

In the narrow gap between their bodies, where his arm hung beside hers, he reached for her fingers. No more than a passing grasp and release it was, yet it felt almost painfully intimate.

“I might do that.” His voice sounded husky to his own ears. “Let me speak wi’ Rohr first. See if I can persuade him wha’ is right. Meanwhile, ye must no’ put yoursel’ out here like this, or go anywhere alone at night. Will ye promise me so?”

“I so promise.”

“I will find a way to speak wi’ Rohr.”

“He is over in that field admiring the ponies.” Darlei turned and pointed south.

“Is he? I shall go there, then, after seeing ye back safe to yer quarters.”

Did she sigh under her breath as they turned away from the sea? Not easy for a woman such as she—one with a wild heart —to face confinement. To keep a halter on her behavior and her impulses.

“Trust me,” he bade her as they started back up the slope.

And, gazing full into his eyes, she replied, “Oh, I do.”

*

Whence came such trust? he wondered after he left her in her woman’s company and started off toward the broad field where the ponies were stabled and trained.

Aye, he could see a group of men gathered there, standing in a dark knot.

The animals had been led out, and not, as he saw when he drew near, their own, but those of the Caledonians being housed there.

An argument was in progress.

It may well have started as a friendly discussion of the differences between their animals and the Caledonians’. A rehash of the pony race. Now, though, Deathan could hear raised voices even before he reached the gathering.

Rohr was there, aye, along with their fellows who trained and cared for their stock. All the men of the Caledonian party save King Caerdoc. He and Father must be off somewhere else.

Deathan increased his pace to a lope and was in time to hear his brother declare, “There is no need to be boastful about it. I ha’ nay patience, me, for arrogance.”

That almost made Deathan snort. Rohr could at times be the personification of arrogance. Like now when he stood with his head back, color high, and eyes ablaze, facing…

Aye so, it would be Urfet, who held himself with such assurance and pride.

At the moment, Urfet looked slightly amused. Confident. Almost as if he needled Rohr on purpose just to get a reaction.

Did he want to provoke a fight? Aye, mayhap he did.

Eyeing the group of men, Deathan could not be sure. The Caledonian party had already been here longer than they had expected and likely grew bored. And Urfet appeared to be a man who would make his own sport, if none offered.

Swiftly, Deathan turned his gaze on his brother. Given his internal tensions, he could well explode.

Urfet turned his head and gave Deathan an assessing look when he jogged up. “All I said was, our animals are more agile than your own. You can tell by their build. A fact, that. How can you call it arrogance?”

“’Tis no’ a fact—” Rohr began, and Deathan jostled him.

“Brother, a moment.” If he could distract Rohr, perhaps he could keep this from going awry.

But Urfet kept goading Rohr. “Why do we not put it to the test”—he grinned—“as we did in the pony race? An informal contest here in your field.” He took an exaggerated look around. “A pity the princess is not here to put you in your place—again.”

“There is no’ woman can put me in my place.”

Urfet lifted scornful brows.

“That pony o’ yours is half wild,” Rohr declared. “It but ran awa’ wi’ her during that race.”

“You think so? Let us put it to the test here and now.”

Do not take the bait , Deathan beseeched his brother silently. It could not end well—he felt that in his bones.

Too late. Urfet had Rohr’s measure and then some. “Aye so, we will do just that.”

Desperate now, Deathan said, “Brother, Father needs ye. He is looking—”

Rohr turned on him. “Father bade me entertain our guests.” His tone made of the word an epithet. “And that I will do.”