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Chapter Twenty – Colin

When tears slid down Freya’s face, I feared I had hurt her with the truth of my words, but before I could ask her she said, “Do ye want to ken now why I stole the goblet?”

“Aye. This is what I heard ye say the day ye were found by Donald. Ye said ye stole it so that yer wish to have visions to control yer future would come true. Ye said ye wished to see the future, so yer da would defeat his enemies—me.”

“I wanted my da to defeat his enemies, so that he would nae have to use me in marriage to protect our clan,” she said, her words shaking. She sat all the way up, pulling her knees to her chest, and wrapping her arms around her legs to hold them tight. “I desired to wed for love. To be wanted only for me and nae what I could bring a man. So, I wished to have visions to manipulate my future. I have been wed four times now,” she said. Her fragile shaking voice made my chest hurt. “Never for love. I see now,” she said, each word a broken whisper, “that my fate is to never be loved as I wanted to be.”

I feared asking her how she wanted to be loved, and I feared not asking. I felt either way, I would face a problem, but I could not ignore her words. We had come too far for that. “How did ye want to be loved?”

“Like ye loved Magy,” she cried out, burying her face down into her knees so that I could not see it. “I wanted to be loved so greatly that my husband would give his life for me, and I would for him.”

“I would give my life for ye,” I said, because it was true.

She jerked her head up, and her gaze impaled me. “Out of duty,” she accused.

“Nae simply duty,” I responded. I did nae want to think too long on that. She was not mere duty anymore for me. Where did that leave my vow to Magy? How could I even reconcile this?

“Ye have taken away my fear and given me hope.”

Her words sounded accusatory. “And that is bad?”

She nodded. “Aye. And nae. In doing these things, ye reopened a door I closed. I had resigned myself to a loveless marriage, a life of despair. But now, well now, I want more. I do nae want to be resigned.”

“Freya,” I said, the weight of my vow heavy in my mind and upon my chest. “I do nae ken if I can give ye that.”

She nodded as the tears continued to roll down her cheeks.

“I am giving ye my protection, my honesty, my passion—”

“’Tis nae enough,” she said, laying on her side and curling herself into a ball. “I want to give my heart, and how am I to do that to a man who will nae give me his?”

“I do nae ken,” I replied. I felt torn as she stared at me with longing. I felt myself needing her. Caring for her. And I certainly wanted her. But more? “Can we nae just go along like this?”

“Well, we will have to, won’t we,” she said, her words terse. She turned from me, giving me her back. “Ye stole me!” she flung out, her voice rising. “Ye wed me!” said, her voice even louder now. “And then ye built this desire in me, so now we are good and truly wed. I’m stuck with ye!” she bellowed .

She scrambled suddenly to her knees. “I am stuck in marriage with ye. I want to be loved completely, and ye do nae think ye can give me that ever.” She shook her fists at me. “I have no choice but to resign myself to this fate, now do I? Where am I to go?” She poked me in the chest. “To my da?” she laughed at that. “He threw me to the wolves for this castle. I believed in him! I trusted him! I gave my future for him! I gave my body to protect our clan, but it was his greed, his need for power that I gave it all for!” She shot up and off the bed, yanking the coverlet with her. She stomped over to the fireplace and faced me. The dancing flames threw shadows across her naked, magnificent body. “If ye can nae give yer heart to me,” she seethed, “then, I will nae give my heart to ye.” With that, she plopped onto the ground in front of the fire grate. Her labored angry breathing joined the crackling fire to fill the room.

I lay on my side, fighting the urge to go to her. She was a tempest rising. A woman on the verge of discovering truly her own strength. My desire for her had made me step on a slippery path that experience had shown me led to pain. I was torn. The emotion she invoked in me was not welcome. It was a tide that I was struggling to outrun.

I awoke with a plan in my head to avoid further attachment to the lass, more unwanted emotional ties, but keep the passion between us. I would avoid Freya during the days, but at night I would give her my full tender attention and passion. I smiled at my cunningness, sat up, looked to the fireplace, and frowned. She was gone. Fear jolted through me, and I scrambled out of bed, yanking on my braies, and snatching up my plaid, as I headed for the door .

Moments later, I burst into the great hall and found it nearly empty. Where the hell were all my clansmen and women? I stormed toward the dais where Katherine was sitting. “Where is everyone?”

“Good morning to ye too, brother,” she said, with a smirk. “Ye should break yer fast. Mayhap it will improve yer mood.”

“My mood is just fine,” I growled. “I—”

“I would have thought,” she said, interrupting me, “that ye would have been so pleasant this morning. After all,” she said, giving me a knowing look, “ye did sleep past sunrise.”

“Did I?” I had been too preoccupied by Freya being gone from the bedchamber to look out the window and take note of where the sun was in the sky.

“Aye, ye did,” Katherine replied, licking her fingers and then standing. “And I can nae recall ye sleeping past sunrise since, well, you were married to Magy—”

“Cease this, Katherine,” I said, aware of what she was trying to do.

“Cease what?” she asked, her tone and face innocent, despite the fact that she was anything but.

“Ye ken what. Have ye seen Freya?”

“Aye,” Katherine replied, but annoyingly offered no further information.

“Well, where is she?” I demanded, having to work not to snap at her.

“She’s with Connor helping to plant crops. Her mood was fouler than yers is.”

I thought immediately of our conversation last night. She was vexed at me for not being able to give her the words she wanted, but I’d soothe her tonight with my touches. Katherine moved down the dais past me. “Where are ye going?” I asked her .

“To aid Freya and Connor,” she replied.

“I’ll come with ye,” I said.

“I’d nae if I were ye. When I told Freya I’d let ye ken where she was when I saw ye, she said nae to bother. That ye were the verra last person she wished to see.”

“Fine,” I said and nodded. That suited my plan anyway. In her anger, the lass had just done me a favor. My instinct had been to go to her, but my plan had been to keep a distance in the day. I needed to remember that.

Despite my resolve to stay away, I found myself looking for Freya at every moment. But I explained it away, again and again, with a thin urgency to make sure she was safe, and that she was not suffering because of me. I kept my distance. I didn’t speak to her or move near. I just waited until I could tell she was well, until the hammering of my blood grew less wild, until my worry eased its grip on my mind. When the sun was high in the sky, I lingered behind the half-cracked kitchen door, where I caught glimpses of her preparing a stew for supper, her sleeves rolled up, her hair tied back, her brow shining with sweat.

In the late afternoon, while the sun spread its golden cloak over the damp hills, I stood unseen on the seagate stairs and watched from afar as she waded in the loch, surrounded by children and adults who gathered close to learn the same swimming lessons I’d once given her. At night, I made a pretense of shunning her still, sitting far away at the other end of the dais, but I took comfort in her merry laughter, in the sound of her voice soaring above the drift of conversation, in knowing that she was joyful and untroubled .

After the meal, she departed the Great Hall, yet I sat, determined to keep up the ruse. The torches burned low, and the hall echoed with the din of chairs being pulled back from the long tables. Tired from my pretense, I rose heavily from my seat and slipped quickly out, into the drafty corridor, avoiding eyes, passing those who lingered, whose cheerful voices followed me like shadows.

Once I was out of sight, I slowed my pace, and my footsteps clattered on the stone floor as I headed toward my bedchamber and tried to outrun the noise of my own thoughts of Freya. I climbed the stairs, running my fingers through my hair as the echoes of the day teased in my head.

I had decided to stay away, yet I could not stop seeking her out, tracing the sound of her laughter, wanting to breathe in the air she stirred. I felt the threads of my resolve unravelling, and my chest ached with what I could not name.

I paused in front of our bedchamber, shoring up my resolve one more. I knew what I wanted—her. I would seduce her with passion and gentle touches. When I opened the chamber door, the sound of her deep breathing filled the room. I frowned. Surely, the lass wasn’t asleep yet? I’d not been far behind her. “Freya?” When she didn’t answer, I walked to the bed and bent to peer closely at her. Her eyes were closed, and her chest rose with the steady measured rhythm of sleep. “Poor, lass,” I said. “Ye’re wore yerself out today.” This was best. This would give me the night to strengthen myself against weakening. I smiled to myself as I climbed into bed. My plan was not so ridiculous. It was working, albeit not perfectly.

She turned over with a soft murmur and tossed off the coverlet to reveal her long slender leg and her gown tugged low over one of her perfect breasts. Desire so hot gripped me, I grunted. The night part of my plan needed some adjustments. Tomorrow night, I would come to the bedchamber with her.

The next day went along the same with Freya somehow rising before me, and it seemed she had thrown herself wholeheartedly into our clan life. That was good, though. That boded well for the division of our lives into separate days but passionate nights. Except that night, she went to the healing room with Katherine after supper, and by the time she came to our bedchamber, I had fallen asleep.

On the fourth night, she retired from supper not feeling well, and when I finished supper and went to check on her, she was asleep. On the fifth night, she did not appear for supper and neither did Katherine. It was Connor who let me know they were both helping to birth a bairn. When I awoke that morning, and she was already gone, I realized, we had not actually spoken more than five words in five days. My plan was working too well and seemed to need some extreme adjustments. I determined that night to sit by her at supper, talk with her, and walk her to our bedchamber to retire, so when I arrived in the Great Hall to find her seat empty, my irritation rose. “Have either of ye seen Freya?” I demanded of Katherine and Connor.

“I lunched with her,” Connor offered.

“Aye. I gardened with her today, worked in the healing room, and then I aided her in swim lessons.”

“Well, where is she now?” I demanded, hearing the surliness of my tone.

Katherine’s smirk did nothing to improve my mood. “I imagine she’s avoiding ye as she’s done all week.”

I frowned. “Avoiding me?” Realization clicked in my mind and as my sister stared at me with a knowing look, it only increased. “I thought I was avoiding her. ”

Katherine chuckled at that. “Mayhap ye were, but it was made easier by the fact that she was avoiding ye as well.” Katherine gave a long hard stare that reminded me of one our mama would have given me before a lecture. “I see what ye are doing,” she said.

“I do nae ken what ye are talking about,” I lied.

“Ye do. Mayhap ye do nae ken why, so I’ll tell ye. Ye like her. Ye more than like her, I suspect. And ye do nae want to. Ye fear it. Ye fear the strong feelings she invokes in ye, because ye had them once for Magy, ye lost her, and ye fear that same pain.”

“Nay,” I said, unwilling to discuss how I felt with Katherine.

“Ye can say nay all ye want, but the truth is aye. Mayhap ye do nae even realize it yet, but I do. Ye stare at her with intense longing, brother.”

“That’s desire,” I snapped.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “That’s a lie ye are trying to tell yerself to avoid facing what ye fear the most—loving and losing again. But I tell ye this, ye will lose Freya anyway, if ye refuse to give yer heart to her. She will be here, living amongst us, but lost to ye.”

“Ye dunnae ken what ye speak of,” I bit out.

“I ken what I speak of because I’ve watched ye. And I ken a woman’s heart, because I am one. And I will tell ye one more thing. Magy would nae have wanted ye to live out the rest of yer life nae ever really loving again. She would nae have wanted it, because that way is loneliness, and she loved ye and would nae have wished ye to be lonely. She would have wanted ye to have children. And love.”

“I made a vow,” I said, my temples pounding with Katherine’s speech .

“I ken yer vow. But ye will nae forget Magy or stop loving her by loving Freya. Ye carry Magy in yer heart, and yer heart is big enough to make room to love Freya.”

I did see images in my head then. And they were of Magy dying. The pain sliced through me as if it had just happened. It shredded my insides and left a hollow ache. It engulfed my body in a tide of weariness so strong that I could imagine it drowning me. “Ye are wrong,” I snapped at my sister. “Freya and I will rub along fine as soon as she settles into how things will be.” Even as I made my way down the dais and stalked away, I heard Katherine’s derisive sound. I didn’t turn around. I strode out of the great hall, through the passage, up the stairs, and to my bedchamber, determined to wait there awake until Freya returned and then bring her to pleasure.

When I threw open the door, I stopped short at the site of her, standing up in a washbasin with steam rising around her. She had her hair piled on top her head, and water ran in rivulets down her breasts, belly, and hips as she sung a loud bawdy tune while washing her arms. Desire hardened every part of my body. I kicked the door closed, and her head snapped up from ministrations. Our gazes collided, and I blurted, “I need to touch ye. To feel ye. I—” God’s blood, I didn’t know what I was, but I knew one thing for certain. “I can nae go another breath without touching ye.”

“Come to me then, husband,” she whispered. “Let me love ye.”