She could not. She would not.
“Tell me what to do, how best to deny him.”
“Ye came to me for advice? One who has failed at the task?” Moira drew away far enough to gaze into Rhian’s face. “How does he feel for ye? Can ye tell? Because his feelings figure into it as much as your own.” Slowly she shook her head. “Farlan has given up so much for me. He lives here surrounded every day by hatred. Ye canna imagine the guilt I suffer over it.”
Rhian could.
“Sister.” Moira caught Rhian’s face between her hands. “There are but two ways ye and Leith MacLeod might be together. He would ha’ to give up his life at MacLeod, as Farlan has done, or ye would ha’ to give up your life here, leave home, and go with him.”
Give up her life here? But how could she? Was she not the fire at the heart of this place?
Nay, rather than that, she would have to abandon the small flame that began to burn between her and Leith. Deny whatever this was she felt for him. Tell herself it was just a passing fancy.
If she could.
Looking into her sister’s face, she said, “I could no’ do that. I could no’ leave MacBeith.”
“Well then.” Moira mopped tears from Rhian’s face, tears she hadn’t realized she shed. “’Tis the heart of it, Rhian, much as I hate to say. He is a MacLeod and ye a MacBeith.”
“Aye.” Rhian made herself nod. “Ye ha’ the right o’ it. I do no’ need a man. I do no’ even want one. I do no’ want him.”
Only she did.
Moira’s expression showed she heard the lie. “Perhaps ’twould be best, Rhian, if we send him back to Rory MacLeod soon, as soon as possible.”
“It would.” Rhian mopped at her own face now. “He is no’ fit to travel yet, though. He was on his feet when I saw him earlier and had opened up the wound something terrible.”
“How long before he can make the journey?”
“I canna say.”
“We can have him littered, rowed across the loch in a boat.”
“Aye. Even so, I believe the journey could kill him.” Resolutely, Rhian got to her feet. “I will send one o’ the regular healers to tend him. I will no’ see him again before he recovers enough to leave.”
Moira rose also. Heartbreak looked at Rhian from her eyes. “Sister, I am that sorry.”
“Do no’ be. I asked ye to talk me out o’ my feelings, and so ye ha’ done.”
“It scarcely seems fair,” Moira whispered.
“Nor would it be fair to begin somewhat that could only serve to try the man, as Farlan has been tried. Sister, ye will tell no one? Not even him, Farlan.”
“Your secret is safe wi’ me, Rhian.” Moira’s lips tightened. “Though Saerla, being Saerla, may guess.”
“I hope not.” If she might hide her feelings away in her heart, Rhian hoped she might more easily deny them.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Though Leith waitedfor what felt like an interminable amount of time, Rhian did not come. He slept when he could, a refuge against the pain that ravaged him. He spoke to himself when he could not sleep. He relived a thousand times the kiss they had shared.
He lived off the feelings Rhian aroused in him. Not lust—well, not all lust, by any road. He was far too ill for that. But off the tenderness, the sense of rightness, the sure and steady bonds that seemed to have formed between them.
Those bonds tugged at him relentlessly. He’d never felt the like. A constant pull it was, and no relief to be found until he was with her again.
But she did not come.
He kept up hope, somehow, through that night and part of the following morning. When the healer arrived—a man, and a stranger—it felt as if his world came crashing down.
