Page 27 of For a Wild Woman’s Heart (Ancient Songs #3)
O nce again, the argument could be heard all over the keep. No storm rumbled overheard to provide cover for the hard words, Da’s shouting at Rohr to “stop wi’ all the nonsense and put that lass in her place.”
The servants heard, and the guards. The guests in their chambers may well have heard—that Princess Darlei not only knew the truth about Rohr’s unfortunate position, but had overheard his pregnant lover demand he remove her from their way. Take her life.
Deathan heard as he crossed the hall toward his father’s quarters, and a savage kind of satisfaction touched his heart. Did Rohr at last get what he deserved? Could he, Deathan, possibly be glad of it?
Nay, for it would not be a good day at Murtray.
Deathan went on to Ma’s room, to find Darlei there before him. Both women, who sat close with Darlei beside the bed, looked up at him, startled, when he entered.
“Goodness, Deathan!” Ma said. “Wha’ is all that about? Are we under attack?”
She knew very well what it must be. She would recognize the voices.
He tried to sound bland when he said, “Merely Father and Rohr speaking together.”
“They do no’ always shout when they speak. Wha’ is amiss?”
“I canna imagine,” Deathan lied. All night he had wondered whether Rohr would go to Da with what Darlei had overheard.
In truth, Rohr had little choice, if he believed Darlei would turn to her own father for protection.
Would Da put his foot down once and for all, perhaps again bring forward the wedding to put Caragh and her threats behind them?
Darlei gave him an assessing look, and Mam, catching something in that look, patted Darlei’s hand.
“Do no’ worry, my dear. Rohr is no’ always so ill-tempered and should no’ mak’ ye an angry husband.
He would ne’er shout so at his wife. Though”—she appeared to consider—“Deathan has always been the more even-tempered o’ my twa sons. ”
To be sure, Deathan thought, at the moment it seemed Da did most of the shouting.
“No doubt,” Mam went on, her cheeks flushed, “Rohr is out o’ sorts at the moment because o’ his broken arm. Deathan, how does he do wi’ that?”
“I do no’ ken, Mam. I ha’ not seen him this morning.”
“Aye, well, if he will go headlong into these competitions, there will be accidents. Deathan, do ye recall the time—”
Mam chatted on, bringing up old memories, and the argument they could all hear eventually died down. By the time Deathan and Darlei left Mam’s chamber together, silence reigned, though there did seem to be a large number of people milling around.
The two of them stood in the corridor outside the great hall, watching for a moment.
“Something is afoot,” Darlei said.
“Aye.”
“Do you suppose Rohr confessed to your father that this woman—Caragh—threatened me? And if so, why?”
“I told him he should, before ye brought the matter to yer own father, and if he did no’, I would tell Da the truth.”
“Ah. Will Rohr ever forgive you?”
“Likely not. That does no’ matter.” Only she mattered to him.
Swiftly, so fleetingly he nearly missed it, her fingers brushed his. He felt the thrill of it all through him.
“What will happen now?”
Deathan frowned. “A question that occupied me all night.”
“Will I still have to marry him? Oh,” Darlei interrupted herself, “here comes Father.”
Indeed, here King Caerdoc did come, sweeping down from his guest chamber with his holy man at his back. He entered the hall, and, peering in, Deathan saw Da there also, taking up a place at the head of the room. Not Rohr. Where was Rohr?
Da did not come and summon Deathan in. Certainly not. Nor, though his gaze swept over her, did King Caerdoc summon Darlei.
When the door of the hall closed, Darlei said, “So, it will be decided without me once again—my future and my life. Unbearable, it is.”
“Come,” Deathan told her softly, “we will walk the shore.” Even though he was due up on the walls.
He did not know that he could make the waiting easier for her, but he was willing to try. A soft day, it was, the sea nearly calm, in contrast with what had just taken place inside. The white foam curled upon the stones of the shingle, and far out, light clouds sailed like white boats.
The people they passed gave curious glances, but no doubt supposed he was helping to entertain a guest. The woman who was to be his sister.
“How long do you think it will take,” she asked, “for them to determine my future? Do you suppose this will be enough to make Father withdraw from the marriage? He must have heard enough to know my intended husband has a lover who carries his child.”
Deathan did not suppose even that would be enough to put an end to the betrothal. He felt reluctant to admit it.
She looked angry and desperate and, aye, frightened. “It is not fair. I tell you, Deathan, I am tired of it. Why should I be denied a say in what is to befall me?”
No reason, save that she was a woman.
“I do not know what to hope for. I cannot live under Rohr’s thumb. Told what to do, how to act. It will take the very heart out of me. On the other hand—”
She stopped speaking and ceased walking. They were not yet far up the shore. Deathan could still hear the bustle of the settlement behind him.
But when she turned and faced him, all he could see were the emotions in her eyes.
Beyond desperate.
“If they decide this is cause for the wedding to be forfeit, if my father takes me away home, I may never see you again.”
Protest rose in Deathan’s heart, so powerful it took him a moment to speak. “I will no’ let that happen, Darlei. If ye leave here, I will follow ye. I will find ye.”
Her eyes widened. “Give up your life here?”
“If that is wha’ it takes.”
“Live with strangers?”
“Anywhere, so long as I am wi’ ye.”
The expression in her eyes softened, going from hard agony to something else he could not name.
Because he could not help it, he touched her cheek. Soft as a flower petal, it was. Soft was his wild woman, her beauty covering the strength of iron.
She caught his wrist and turned her head to drop a kiss in the palm of his hand. Swift was the gesture, so swift, before she released him and resumed walking.
“As I say, I scarcely know what I should hope for. All night, I thought on it. I…I confess, I never thought ye would be willing to leave here. To be with me.”
All women everywhere, Deathan supposed, asked for assurances. She did not yet know—or believe—that his heart was her own.
“I promise it to ye, Darlei—we shall be together. I do no’ ken quite how. Or when such a thing may come about. I do know I will no’ rest till ye be mine.”
She stopped walking again. This time she gazed out to sea, fighting, perhaps, to master her emotions.
“Your father,” he said softly, paused beside her, “will no’ be easy to convince. I am naught but a second son and scarcely worthy o’ a Caledonian princess, MacAlpin’s order no’withstanding.”
“I shall have to make Father understand.”
“If ye can. He is a proud man and gey proud o’ his daughter. I am…naught at all.”
“You are everything, everything to me. If Father will not give his permission, we will run away together. Live wild on Caledonia’s breast. Or—or we will sail away in one of those wee boats, begin a life in a new land.” She cast a look at him. “So long as you come to me. Find me.”
He repeated it, a vow: “I will always, always find ye. If I ha’ to search a lifetime.”
Her lips trembled in a smile. Amazing, Deathan thought—he had not yet kissed those lips. And yet he’d sworn his future to her.
“Then it is agreed,” she said. “Ye will come to me.”
But it was not to happen that way. By the time they walked back to the settlement, the meeting between chief and king had ended. Things had apparently been decided as they usually were, without Deathan’s input.
Indeed, one of King Caerdoc’s men was looking for Darlei and summoned her hastily.
“Princess, your father is looking for you. Come, please, to his chamber.”
Darlei cast one look at Deathan, as tactile as a touch. She could not touch him here, nay, but as she moved off with her father’s man, Deathan felt the ties that had formed between them pull and tighten.
Nay, though, those ties had not so recently formed. In some way Deathan could not explain, they had existed even before she and he met. Anchored in his heart. He’d felt them the first time he laid eyes on her. The first time she’d looked at him.
His life had always been hers. He merely had not known it.
He went in search of his brother, figuring Rohr, having been released from the meeting in the hall, would be his best source of information. He could not find him. Not in the guards’ warming room, not up on the walls. Not even, when he peeked in, with Mam.
Had Rohr gone to Caragh? Indeed, if he truly loved the woman, he would, if only to share the trouble her wild words had caused.
It was exactly what Deathan would do, were their positions reversed.
To be sure, though, were their positions reversed, he could ask no more from life than to wed the Caledonian wild woman with the valiant heart.