Page 19 of For an Exile’s Heart (Ancient Songs #2)

A dair found no rest for the remainder of the night. At first light he washed, dressed himself neatly, and walked to the main door of the hall, where Mistress Tavia’s woman let him in.

“Master Adair,” the woman complained, “’tis gey early yet. My mistress is scarce up from her bed.”

“’Tis your master I wish to see.”

The woman led him in to the hearth, where she’d just been laying the fire, and hurried off to inform Kendrick who came still fastening the ties on his tunic and with his hair tumbled, looking displeased.

“Uncle, forgive me for calling upon ye so early. I am aware ye have guests and important matters to which ye must attend today, but what I need to discuss is of equal importance.”

Adair had practiced the words there in his quarters after Bradana left, taking the hound with her. Despite the emotions surging through him, he must remain calm and winsome.

Kendrick waved a dismissive hand. “If ’tis about your father’s claim, I have no time for it now. We have a wedding tomorrow and my wife is unwell. Besides, have ye not spent all your words already in that regard?”

“Not quite. If ye will only hear me out now, before the day begins…”

Kendrick gave a tremendous sigh. “Verra well. Sit down. Genna, bring some ale and then leave us.”

When the woman had complied and gone, Kendrick took up the flask with a grimace. “I do no’ usually tak’ ale before breakfast, but I do no’ doubt this day will call for it. Will ye have some?”

“Aye.” Adair waited till the drink splashed into his cup before he said, “Uncle, I am willing to return to my father and argue to him that his claim upon your lands holds little value. Convince him to hold to his own lands and quit suing ye for a portion.”

Kendrick lifted a shaggy brow. “And why should ye do such a thing? Ah—having seen wha’ we own here, the beauty o’ it, ye want a share for yer own, is that it? Ye would ask me to grant ye a portion.”

Adair had seen the beauty of what was here, aye. “That is not it.” Here came the hard part. “I am willing to sail away—today—back to Erin. But not alone.”

Kendrick’s eyes narrowed.

“Uncle, your stepdaughter Bradana has come to mean a great deal to me, as I have to her in turn. I would spare her this marriage that looms over her head and take her back with me to my own land.”

“Ye be jesting wi’ me, aye? I am no’ amused.”

“’Tis no jest. I am in deadly earnest. Bradana is in earnest. She wishes to come wi’ me. To be wi’ me.”

“Well, she cannot. Her union wi’ Earrach enforces an important alliance.”

“I am aware of that.”

“If I am attacked in future, Mican will come to my aid, and I likewise to his. ’Tis my belief that only if we Celtic tribes hold together can we keep our toehold on this land. But why should he spill blood for me unless we share grandchildren? And in the future, how strong might not our grandchildren’s holding become, if united?”

“Bradana is not your blood daughter.”

“As good as! I raised that lass. I love her. Can ye say the same, who have scarce known her a day?”

“I can.”

Kendrick got to his feet with a snort. “I would ne’er do aught to harm her.”

“Then, Uncle, why send her awa’ to a man she does no’ want?”

Kendrick fixed Adair with a hard stare. “She has no’ told me she does not want the match.”

“She feels she owes ye far too much.”

“In fact,” Kendrick continued angrily, “she was fine wi’ it before ye showed up. Ha’ ye used pretty words on her, trying to charm her awa’?”

“I have not.” Words had not been necessary.

“I ken fine Mican and his son seem a rough lot. But they are sound allies and will mak’ good protectors for the lass. I would not send her otherwise.”

“What I can offer ye, freedom from my father’s demands—”

“Wha’ good to me if they are lands I cannot hold? I need Mican as an ally, no’ an enemy. Nay”—he waved his hand again—“the marriage alliance maun stand. And I believe it best that ye do no’ see my daughter again.”

Adair’s heart sank beneath the weight of dismay so great he could scarcely breathe. He had failed. He had failed Bradana. He had made things worse.

“Pray, Uncle,” he said, getting to his feet also, “talk to Bradana. Dismiss me if ye will, but ask her of her true feelings about this match.”

“Unfortunately, her feelings no longer matter. It is too late and things ha’ moved too far. A refusal now would be a slap in Mican’s face, an insult from which he might no’ recover. There is naught to be done.”

“So ye will send her against her will? Sell her for an alliance?”

“’Tis the way o’ the world, is it not?”

Angry now, and crushed beyond expressing, Adair turned to the door. How could he ever tell Bradana, after asking her to trust him, that he had failed?

“Nephew, if I were ye, I would head at once back to Erin. In fact, I would board that boat now, this very morning, and begone before ye come to Earrach MacGillean’s attention.”

“Uncle, is that a threat?”

Kendrick gave him a long look. “I should hope it does no’ ha’ to be.”

*

Bradana waited far up the shore, in the place where she and Adair had so often sat together with the sea at their feet. Here could she watch for him, and here would he find her after winning his case with Kendrick. If he could.

Another murky sort of day. The early sun shone upon the water, but far off, in the direction of Erin, a bank of clouds gathered.

Bradana, who had lived here all her life, girl and woman, knew that meant they would have rain before long. Here on this coast, rain came and went swiftly, as frequent as a grieving woman’s tears.

Wen sat beside her, his great tail sweeping the shingle each time she so much as glanced at him. He watched her get up repeatedly to pace. Wet her toes in the foam.

Today would be busy. She was supposed to take Earrach on a walking tour of the settlement—a chance, as her mother suggested, for them to grow better acquainted. After, Toren and Kerr would take him out hunting. It was to be hoped they would not treat him as shabbily as they had their cousin.

Adair. Where was he, by all the gods?

Later there would be a grand feast. And tomorrow…

Tomorrow she would be bathed and brushed and dressed in her remaining new gown, the blue one, and would wed Earrach MacGillean.

Unless Adair came to her with a miracle in his hands. A reprieve.

She gazed out to sea once again, peering past the clouds to the distance where lay Erin. Could she imagine that place, from whence her ancestors had come? Could she imagine a life lived there? A life with Adair.

Despite the feelings she harbored for him, her heart rebelled at it. Alba was her blood and her bone. It had a grip upon her soul.

As did Adair. If she were forced to become an exile in order to be with him…

Och, by the gods, could she?

Turning once again, swamped by impatience, she gazed back up the shore. Why did he not come?

Could she live if she never saw him again? Could she live without Adair MacMurtray’s kisses?

His kisses.

Another emotion swayed her then, one she identified as lust. But nay, that was not entirely true, not all of what she felt for Adair. She desired him, aye, most powerfully. She needed his presence far more.

Upon the thought, she caught movement far up the shore. A gleam of red in the hazy sunlight that proved to be highlights picked from a brown mane. He came at last.

She could not keep still and hurried to meet him, so eager was she to hear what he had to say. But she knew by the look in his eyes even before she reached him that the news was not what she’d hoped.

“Adair? Ye were overlong.”

He searched her face before bending to greet the hound.

“Adair?”

“Bradana.” Straightening, he captured her elbows in his hands, but said nothing.

“Ye spoke wi’ Kendrick?”

“I did. Bradana, I ha’ failed ye. I was unable to convince him to dismiss the marriage agreement.”

All her hopes came crashing down. So violent were the emotions, she drew away from him and bent double, her hands on her knees.

“Forgive me,” he whispered. “I asked ye to trust me, and I was unable to persuade him.”

“’Tis no’ your fault. Not a bit of it.” Swiftly she turned back to him and searched his face in turn. If aught could deepen her sorrow, it was beholding the stark grief in his eyes. “I should have known. The marriage alliance has been arranged for a long time. And once Kendrick’s mind is set, he is near impossible to talk round. But och, Adair, what are we to do now?”

“I believe ye should talk to Kendrick in turn. He needs to hear from your lips that you do not want the marriage. He says ye did not object to it till I came.”

“I did object to it. Not to his face, mayhap, but only because in my mind I put it off again and again. I did no’ dream you existed.”

“Ye must tell him this is not what ye want.”

“I will. I will.” It would not be easy. For much of Bradana’s life, Kendrick had let her be. Left her care to her mother. Bradana did not fear him. Neither did she have an entirely easy relationship with him.

Yet if she wanted to be a woman who chose her own fate, she must step up and do just that.

“Adair”—she caught his hands in hers—“ye will wait for me? Ye will no’ leave Alba before this thing is done?”

He hesitated a moment, a swirl of trouble in his eyes before he nodded.

“Then kiss me once for luck.”

“And twice,” he murmured as their lips met, “for love.”