He closed his eyes, fought back the image of her face when she had awakened to see his sword gleaming above her neck. He clung instead to visions of sea spray and laughter, water the color of mermaid's hair twining blue ribbons through her black curls as she slipped into the sea's embrace.
He saw again the earnest crease between her brows, the soft uncertainty in her face as she had spoken about her parents, her elation when she believed he was taking her to them.
She must hate him now, fear him, Niall thought, wincing. Why should it matter? He had been hated and feared most of his life, had always known that many in Glenfluirse thought him evil's spawn.
But somehow the knowledge that this one woman he had barely met thought ill of him was unbearable. Caitlin of the Lilies would believe forever that Niall had smiled at her, indulged her curiosity about the sea, shared bread with her and the warmth of his cloak, when all the while he intended to kill her.
Death would settle the matter, Niall thought, closing his eyes with an odd feeling of detachment.He would never have the chance to explain it to her, or to decide whether his blood debt to the chieftain was worth the life of Caitlin of the Lilies.
A sudden scraping sound startled Niall. He opened his eyes, half expecting the ledge to be crumbling beneath his weight. What he saw shocked him so badly he nearly fell off the jagged protrusion of rock. The moon cast a silver halo about a figure peeking over the lip of earth high above. A long tangle of black hair, the pale oval of a face.
Caitlin! She should have been far away from this place by now! By the sword of Lugh, had the woman gone mad? Or was she merely making certain he could not give chase?
"Niall?" Her voice quavered. Hellfire, she should be afraid of him!
Should he answer? Nay, better to let her go off on her way thinking he was dead. That way, she would feel no guilt. Guilt? Why should she feel the slightest twinge of it? He had tried to murder her in her sleep. If she had pushed him from the cliff with her own hands and danced upon his grave, no sane person could blame her.
She disappeared, and he heard the thud of hooves—the horse. Thank her saints she had had the sense to go back for the animal. He swallowedhard, waiting for the sound of her riding away, was stunned at how hollow the prospect made him feel.
Strange, a man who had always been solitary, suddenly feeling utterly alone. Why? Because for one afternoon, a woman had included him in her laughter? Confided her most secret pain to him? Acted as if his father's legacy and the sullied name Niall bore did not matter?
However unwisely Caitlin had trusted him in those few precious hours, she would never trust him now. Nay! It should not matter, he thought. He would not let it matter.
Suddenly, there was a soft rasping sound, something tumbling toward him over the ledge.
He cried out as it struck him in the face, coiling upon his chest. Some night creature falling to Niall's own fate? He grasped it with battered hands. It was a rope! Blood of Lugh, it was the rope he had all but forgotten in the bottom of the leather bag he always kept affixed to the saddle!
"Stay still," a small voice called from the ledge. "I am coming down to—to help you."
"Are... you mad?" he croaked, struggling to find his voice. "You cannot. Too dangerous."
"There is no other way."
"That does not matter! I... am not worth the... risk. I almost killed you!"
"It was a most unpleasant way to awaken, I admit, but—we can sort it out after you are safe on solid ground."
A rain of dirt spattered his face. Blast! She was teetering on the edge of the cliff, fully intending to attempt this insane feat.
"Get back!" he roared, his whole body screaming with pain as he levered himself up on one elbow. Demons pounded in his head. "You will... get us both killed!"
"A thousand pardons!" she cried, haughty as a queen. "Perhaps warriors are trained to sit by idly and watch people rot to death on ledges, but it is a part of our education sadly neglected at the abbey. Patience. That is what we are taught. I am climbing down to help you, no matter how much your arguing tempts me to knock you off that ledge myself."
She was trying to brace her own courage. Like a lad blustering before his first battle. Damnation, she was stubborn. Not half of Conn's army could deter her from her path.
His head was still swimming, his muscles weak from the fall, but he struggled until he was sitting upright, back against the rough stone wall,legs dangling over the perilous ledge. "The rope... cannot hold both your weight and mine. Let me... bind it about my waist. The horse can drag me up."
She hesitated. "You can never make the knots tight enough, battered as you are."
"Nay! Caitlin!" he protested. But it was too late. She was over the ledge of earth, her leinewhite against the black cliff, the loose tunic rippling about her as she edged down, hands clinging to the rope. Feet scrabbling for purchase on the rugged wall of stone.
Twice, her foot slipped, and she dangled, suspended for a moment between the rope and death. Niall cursed, raged at the saints the abbey so cherished, charging them to protect her. Yet the pain was closing its fist about him again, the mist swirling in his head.
He closed his eyes, willing the darkness away, fearing that if he succumbed to it now, he would carry Caitlin with him when he fell to his death. Then he felt it. The brush of her foot against his thigh as she tried to find space to stand. The touch of her hands upon his waist.
She was tying the rope around him, and there was little he could do to help her. Then she was climbing again, upward until it seemed to Niall'sreeling senses she was ascending to the moon. He blinked, and in that instant she was gone.
He felt a jerk as the rope tautened, strained against his weight.
