She said a curious thing then. “My Dairmid followed ye, Chief Rory, and trusted ye also. I maun then trust ye to do what is right for my sons.”
Rory felt the weight of that descend upon him like a cloak of iron. He stood there staring at his warrior’s widow, thinking—though he needed to spend himself on a woman, it could not be this one. Not now. Not yet. Mayhap not ever.
He gave her a hard nod. “I am honored by yer faith in me, mistress, as well as Dairmid’s.”
They parted ways as simply as they’d met, and he walked on through the rain, pacing away the afternoon, looking for peace that would not come.
Gloom filled the glen, with billowing rain clouds and driving rain, long before dark came. Rory figured he should get something to eat. The fumes of the ale he’d taken with Leith had long since worn off. He felt raw and hollow.
If he went to see Saerla MacBeith…
Would Rhian be there still? Nay, surely she had long since returned to her man. Saerla would be alone. He could spend a few minutes in her company. Make an excuse to—
What? Speak to her? Touch her?
Aye, both those things.
He needed to keep clear away. He needed to call on his good sense. Keep his eye on his goal, that toward which he’d yearned for so long.
His feet had their own intentions, and carried him on through the gloom.
*
Saerla’s head hadindeed stopped aching, even though it seemed far too crammed with thoughts, with considerations. After Rhian left her, she spent time trying to decide which of those thoughts stemmed from her fear, and which flowed from her Vision. Again and again she prayed for guidance. The magic she so often found back home must remain with her, or so she reasoned, yet it felt so very far away.
When she tired of staring out the slit of a window at the rain, she sat by the fire. A young man had brought her a load of wood earlier, having been admitted by the guard who remained outside. She had plenty of fuel to warm the chamber. But dread, like a chill, crept through her.
She knew he would come even before she heard his voice outside the door, speaking to the guard. She’d felt him growingcloser all afternoon. Now, when a preternatural dark dominated the sky, a rap came at the door.
“Mistress Saerla, I wish to come in.”
Ah, and was this fate, presenting her with the opportunity she needed? The chance to end the life of this man who threatened everything she loved.
Was this to be the path, the destiny, she chose?
She scrambled up from her place by the fire and onto her feet before she replied. “Aye, come awa’ in.”
Did the man spend all his time out in the rain? For he came in once more dripping wet. He brought the bar from the outside of the door in with him and paused to bar it again from the inside, his hands glittering with moisture as he performed the task.
Shut in. She was shut in with him. Alone. Helpless.
Only, not helpless.
Her hand crept to the pocket of her gown where lay the weight of Leith’s knife.
After she let Rory’s blood, once he lay dead, she could lift the bar. She could escape out into the corridor, for he had no doubt dismissed the guard. Rhian had tried to tell her how to reach Leith’s quarters, but Saerla had no doubt she would lose her way in this foreign place.
Might she hope to escape? Find her way home?Home. Her very spirit yearned for it.
All this she ran through her head, imagining it, as she stared at the man who faced her. He looked overlarge and threatening. She could not let her fear deter her. She had to steel herself and kill him.
Yet—yet he looked so alive. His green eyes studied her, considering, and she could see the vitality flowing through him. Almost as if she could See his spirit.
“Saerla,” he said. Just her name, but she could not describe the emotions she heard in that single word. A twisted wealth of them. “Will ye welcome me here?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rory MacLeod hadnot moved from the door and continued to watch Saerla with those canny, bright green eyes between narrowed, wet black lashes. The resolve within her wavered. She commanded it to hold strong.
