If she thought he would stay here meekly to pick up the pieces and go on without her, she did not know him.
Or she did not remember everything about him. Not yet.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
So great wasDarlei’s sorrow when she rode away from the keep at Murtray, she felt sick from it. He had lifted her onto her pony, touching her once more, for the last time. She had looked into his blue-green eyes and beheld the weight of his grief, backed by another emotion that terrified her.
Determination.
Please, my love, please do not risk yourself for me. I am lost.
The morning was crisp, and all around her Caledonian voices filled the air. She had grown accustomed to the sound of Gaelic in her ears. His voice, like music.
Like the music that had played for them last night.
She had no doubt old Coll had played for them, woven his magic for them as they joined flesh to flesh and spirit to spirit for the last time.
She was doomed, and Deathan MacMurtray was better forgetting her, if he could.
He would not.
He’d best try, because she rode to a fate from which no one could rescue her. Headstrong and willful all her life, a princess most often granted her way, she’d run up against the stone wall of the high king’s decree. She saw no escape, and the knowledge made her want to lose her hastily consumed breakfast in the heather.
The rest of their party seemed so happy, giddy with escaping the keep beside the sea. She alone contemplated disaster. Sheclosed her eyes and recalled the day they’d had out upon the sea in the wee boat. The first time they had kissed.
If only she could have sailed away with him forever.
Now she rode in silence, and no one noticed. Or if they did, they left her alone. Spoke around her, leaving her wrapped in misery. Father knew how she felt about all this. But Father had taken his fill of it. He wanted only to go home and resume his life. A Caledonian king in a new Scotland.
Darlei choked down the sickness inside. Better, better she be sacrificed to an old man, a stranger, than endanger Deathan. She would live for that now.
She would live for him.
*
Deathan went toRohr, since he could not approach Da and he had not the heart to tell Mam. And anyway, Rohr had a part in this, whether or not he acknowledged it.
After a search, he found his brother on the shore. Not in the stone hut where he’d spent so much time hiding after his lover threatened Darlei, but bareheaded beneath the morning sun, working at repairing one of the boats there.
Excepting himself from clan life, Deathan could not help but think. From the gossip and the staring eyes, as was his way. Fool. Did his brother not know he would be chief here someday?
“Wha’ d’ye want?” Rohr asked with scant respect and no welcome. He straightened from his task of scraping at the hull of the craft overturned at his feet. “Are they gone? The accursed Caledonians?”
Deathan had to bite back his ire. Ignoring the query, he said, “I want ye to do something for me.”
“What?”
“Gi’ Da a message.”
Rohr snorted. “I am going nowhere near Da for the time being. He—”
“I am leaving.”
“Wha’?” If Deathan had drawn asgian-dubhand attacked his brother, Rohr could not look more surprised. His gaze moved over Deathan with more attention. “Going? Where?”
“Where does no’ matter.”
“If ye are goin’ off hunting, I will go wi’ ye. I could use some time awa’.”
