Page 45 of For a Wild Woman’s Heart (Ancient Songs #3)

D eathan, hidden by the trees and well back from the heavily trodden trail that led to MacNabh’s holding, studied the place through narrowed eyes.

A fortified dwelling it was, built of stone on two levels, the ground floor no doubt being used for storage and for billeting animals and perhaps the guard, with an attached wall.

The residents would live above, behind the sheer expanse of stone.

A grim sort of place, it made Da’s holding look like a palace, which for certain it was not. He could scarce stand to think of Darlei here. He could scarce stand .

Yet he’d watched her enter yesterday afternoon. He’d watched her. Riding in the wagon with her woman through the rain.

He, himself, had been soaked to the skin. Hidden, invisible.

Now the rain had ceased—thank all the powers—and a chill struck him as he thought of her inside that place. Trapped. Frightened. He could feel her heart beating, sense her agitation.

“Please.” He spoke to the air and the trees and the land itself. He did not know to whom else, save God. “Please.”

He knew not what to do. How to make this terrible thing come right. He could not go riding in. They would not admit him. He could not challenge this MacNabh for her hand.

She had sent him away.

The morning light grew stronger around him. A gray sort of day it was, yesterday’s clouds lingering. He could feel autumn in the air, the year beginning to die.

As must his heart, if Darlei was lost to him. He had followed her as always he must. He did not know how to win her free.

All the same, he did not, could not accept she had passed beyond his reach. If all he’d been imagining were true, if he had known her, loved her before in other lives, did that not mean they were meant to be together again in this one?

Mayhap not. They had met. Loved. He had possessed her for those fleeting, magical moments in his room and later, while his father’s harper played.

Mayhap that was all. A kind of solace, as she’d claimed, meant to last the rest of his life.

For, eyeing the grim edifice of the house, he did not know—he did not know how to win her free.

His pony stirred behind him and snorted, as miserable as he. The poor beast wanted to go home. Deathan did not know if he could.

Yet he could not remain here forever, watching a stranger’s dwelling while Darlei sought to take up a new life.

The trees around him dripped moisture. It sounded like a heartbeat. Hers, perhaps.

A spear of alarm went through him as the gates of the house opened and men began to spill through. Darlei’s father, it was, emerging first, and was that MacNabh also, come after him? All King Caerdoc’s men. Was Darlei with them? Had the plan changed? His own heart began to hammer double time.

With hope.

But nay. He did not see Darlei. Or her woman.

The Caledonians were leaving. The ponies were led out, and the wagon. King Caerdoc spoke with the dark-haired man who could only be MacNabh, and who after a few words stepped back.

The Caledonians rode out in fine order, moving in that fluid, almost magical way they did, heading east.

Without Darlei.

She had stayed. Stayed with the man Deathan could now see reentering the house.

Her new husband.

Aye. Aye, it must be over and done, that wedding.

Grief swamped him. Grief and loss and despair so black that for several moments he could not see beyond it. Could not think, could not breathe.

How cruel, that the turning of the wheel had brought her to him, only to take her from his reach once more.

*

“Get out,” MacNabh said to Orle as he came through the chamber door. He had not knocked or otherwise requested leave before he entered. He owned the place. Darlei supposed he believed he owned her.

Orle clung to Darlei, bless her, until MacNabh fixed those pale eyes on her and again snarled, “Get out.”

Orle went with a terrified, regretful look for Darlei. Where, Darlei could not begin to guess.

MacNabh turned his gaze on her. Eyed her up and down slowly.

“I suppose ye will do. Yer father says ye be un-breached. In fact, he was quite indignant about me askin’. As if a princess could no’ be other than a virgin. I told him, and I’ll tell ye, I will be certain ye do no’ come to me wi’ another man’s brat in yer belly.”

Another man’s child. Deathan’s. Could it be?

Not waiting to hear her answer, MacNabh began unfastening his cloak. His belt.

“There will ha’ to be a child. Among other reasons, I need an heir and Roisin is past it, even if I am no’. My bitch o’ a wife never gave me sons. There were daughters—long married and gone now. Though ye would no’ warrant it likely, I am nearly sixty years old.”

He laid aside the belt that held his knife and other weapons Darlei did not pause to identify.

“Mayhap ye’ll do better, eh?” He flipped up the folds of his kilt. He wore nothing beneath.

“Oh—” Darlei began on a gasp of air.

“On the bed. Let us get this o’er with. No’ that way.” She scuttled on her bum atop the counterpane, away from him. “On yer face, so that I do no’ ha’ to look at ye.”

He tossed Darlei face down on the bed. Hauled her so her legs hung halfway off. When he tossed her skirts over her head, he found the long knife she’d stolen from the wagon, seized it with a grunt, and flung it away, toward the door.

Leaving her defenseless.

“Brace yersel’, lass.” Her undergarments tore.

Darlei did not have to feign the discomfort of a maidenhead breached. What he did to her hurt. Pain, outrage, terror, and violation all chased the numbness away. She kept silent only because her face, buried in the counterpane, did not afford her the breath to scream.

Once he finished grunting, he fell silent. Darlei lay where she was with tears trickling down her cheeks.

When he spoke again, it was in another tone—angry.

“So, yer father lied to me.”

She drew herself up and away, limbs under her, onto the bed, and stole a look at him. He examined the counterpane.

“Ye are no’ un-breached.”

“My father did not know.” From somewhere she summoned the dignity to speak. “I—”

“Filthy savage.” To her complete astonishment, he struck her across the face, knocking her sideways across the bed.

The sting of it broke through the last of her numbness and set her senses screaming.

“No’ bad enough I am forced to wed wi’ an accursed blue wench, to keep the king’s favor.

Now I’ll ha’ to wait till ye bleed, to be sure whatever babe I get upon ye be mine. ”

He put his belt back on around his portly waist and snatched up his cloak, fixing Darlei with a stern eye.

“Ye will let me know.”

Let him know? As if she might be eager ever to have him touch her again. The breath left her body in a hiss.

“Meanwhile,” he tossed at her, “stay here in yer room unless I send for ye. We do no’ wish to lay eyes on ye.” He caught up the long knife from the stone floor and slammed out of the chamber.

Orle ran in, eyed Darlei crouched on the bed, and opened her arms. “Oh, Darlei, are you all right?”

Was she? Physically, no. A welt rose on her cheek where MacNabh had struck her, and she felt battered inside, as she never had at Deathan’s hands.

Deathan.

Spiritually, she was near shattered. Broken. She wanted naught so much as to hide—here in this terrible little chamber, if possible.

No one was coming to save her. If she survived this, she would have to save herself. Become the wild woman the Gaels thought her.

How? How might she drag herself up from this abject misery?

“Darlei.” Orle smoothed the tangled hair back from Darlei’s face and asked again, “Are you all right?”

“I will be.” As soon as she stopped shaking. She was a princess, was she not? A Caledonian. The woman Deathan loved.

Out of the fear and dread, another emotion came stealing.

MacNabh might be her husband. But he would never do that to her again.