“’Tis best.” As had Fiona’s yesterday, Moira’s gaze slid over Saerla, probing gently. “Stay back and oversee the defense o’ the walls.”
It was a reasonable request, and a duty Saerla had fulfilled in the past. If things went badly—very badly—in the field, the men on the walls would make a last stand.
“Sister, I pray ye let me accompany ye.”
Moira stepped closer, even though the clamor all around assured them no one could hear, and grief flooded her eyes. “Fiona says—” She stopped abruptly.
Saerla said nothing.
“Tell me but one thing, Saerla. Did he force ye? For if he did, I swear I will slice him from stem to stern.”
“Moira, nay.” Saerla seized her sister’s arm. “Do no’ get too close to him. I ha’ Seen—”
“All the more reason for ye to stay behind.”
“Nay! I maun be there if—”
“There will be a reckoning this day for all the past hurts and the harm he has done.”
“Moira, nay! I wanted it. I desired to lie wi’ him. I love him—”
Only then, belatedly, did Saerla realize Farlan had come to stand beside Moira. He leaned forward and eyed Saerla with compassion.
Moira, though, recoiled. How could she? Should not she, of all women, understand? Yet she spat, “Him, Saerla? Ye be deluded.”
“Let her come,” Farlan said. “Else she will worry hersel’ sick.”
Saerla shot him a grateful glance before she tightened her grip on her sister’s arm.
“Moira, if we be separated in the battle, promise me ye will be careful out there. And—and ye will bid Alasdair to be careful also.”
A glint in Moira’s eyes showed she took Saerla’s meaning. She turned and looked at the man at her side.
“Farlan, if this is to be a parting, remember that knowing ye has been worth every moment o’ trouble and strife. I will love ye forever, and beyond forever.”
And there, in the midst of the hubbub and confusion, they shared a searing kiss.
Out over the glen, the soaring bird cried again—a sound of sorrow.
Chapter Fifty-Four
It would bea glorious morning for a triumphant victory. Rory and his warriors had set out well before sunrise when the dark offered them cover, and had gained a lot of distance before dawn broke over the eastern mountains. The air, though, already felt soft. Not so much as a breeze stirred, and no hint of mist or cloud clung to the brae sides. The dome of the sky arched in achingly clear azure, brightening, it seemed, with every footstep.
The only clouds were those that darkened Rory’s heart.
So much was wrong with this campaign that should—would—bring him all he’d ever wanted. He never went to battle while filled with uncertainty. It was a fatally poor sort of undertaking. Yet now he worried—worried he would meet Saerla on the field. That in the heat of the fight he might not know her in time. That his sword, driven by a kind of battle madness, might injure the woman he loved.
What a cruel irony that would be. A grief from which he might never recover.
Did he do the right thing in marching out? A man should never ask that either, when he went with scores of warriors at his back and a sword in his hand.
With his cousin at his side. Aye, Leith had taken that place. He was tangibly and vitally unhappy about it, but he was there.
What Leith had said to his woman, Rory could not guess. She had been there at the leave taking and given Leith the kind of kiss he must have felt to his toes.
Rory remembered such kisses. Given open-mouthed. A claiming and a surrender.
Bright tears had stood in Rhian MacBeith’s eyes when Leith walked away from her, but she had not shed them. A strong woman.
