Home. But Leithdid not want to return home. At least not if Rhian remained here at MacBeith.
His gaze moved from the faces of the guards, filled with menace, to Farlan’s, which urged caution. To Rhian’s, where he beheld emotions such as he’d never seen.
Rhian rarely betrayed her feelings. She was a woman who concealed any inner turmoil beneath a composed and serene demeanor. Aye, he had seen her features alive with passion when she lay beneath him. Those circumstances were extreme.
As, it seemed, were these. Desperate agony stared at him from her eyes, and her lips had parted before words she could not say.
He heard them, though, in his mind.
He has Saerla.
He understood at once, and he felt the outrage and sorrow that filled her in equal measures, as if they were his own.
Rory had seized her sister. He would want to trade her for Leith.
Everything in him rose in wild protest. Because he did not want to leave her. Something inside him might well die if he did.
But he must do this. He would do this for her. Because Rhian loved her sister, and he loved Rhian.
’Twas as simple as that, in the end. Anything he could do for this woman, he would.
But he wanted—needed—a moment with her first. He wanted to kiss her. To make promises. To assure her of his love.
They would not have that. In front of these others, they could not so much as touch hands. To the guards, he was no more than her patient.
He looked away from her terrible agony, glanced at Farlan again, and nodded. “I will go.”
Farlan took charge of him, hustling him from the chamber. He could feel Rhian as he stepped past her, feel her throughout his body, and he tried to come up with something he could think at her, to provide her comfort. There was nothing. This wound surpassed any he had ever borne.
She followed him and Farlan, and the guards came after.
As they went, Farlan spoke to him in a low tone. “Rory seized Saerla in the battle. He is willing to trade her only for ye. Once he has ye, both forces will withdraw. The war chief, Alasdair, is badly injured, so they want to end the fighting.”
For now. Because the fight, as Leith well knew, would not truly end till Rory had his satisfaction.
“He badly wants ye back,” Farlan said.
“I understand.” The ache inside Leith had grown so intense, it shook him with each footstep. Worse, he could feel its echo in Rhian behind him. He could not endure this. She could not.
They met Moira at the gate. She appeared frantic. Her gaze swept both Leith and Farlan.
“Ye ha’ him. Let us go. I will no’ rest till we ha’ her back in our hands.”
Just like that. Just like that, he was to walk out, without so much as another word for the woman he loved more than his life.
“Wait.” The cry came from behind him and spun him around. Rhian stood there, her eyes wide and burning with desperation. “Ye will tak’ care o’ yoursel’, Leith MacLeod? Of—of that wound.”
“I will, mistress. Thank ye for your care o’ me.”Take care o’ our bairn, who lies beneath your heart.
I will.
“Come,” said Moira, beyond impatient, and she seized him by the arm. He went out through the gate, an act that should offer relief and freedom, but did not, and into a beautiful day. He walked between the two of them, Moira and Farlan, with the guards coming after. But his heart remained behind.
*
As soon ashe laid eyes on Rory, he saw how unwell the man looked. Even more than himself, his cousin customarily boasted a profound vitality. It marked everything he did, from the performance of his duties to the planning of his campaigns. It went hand in hand with a steel-hard stubbornness that Leith suspected sustained him now.
As for Leith himself, he went sustained by another power. It uplifted him even as his own strength began to flag. He had not walked so far in many days, and all the endurance he’d built up in Rhian’s arms swiftly waned. Yet he did not flag. He acted for her sake, even as each step away from her opened wider the wound inside.
