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Chapter Fifteen
Chrisdean awoke in a room that wasn’t his own. When he turned his head, he saw Nimue next to him, sleeping soundly. The sun was already high up in the sky, but she was in a deep sleep, her breath slow and steady, and Chrisdean didn’t try to wake her.
He didn’t want to wake her. He wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear.
He could hardly remember anything from the previous night, other than the fact that he had been ridiculously drunk, so drunk that he was bound to have done something stupid. He vaguely remembered Nimue telling him that she didn’t want to consummate their marriage when he was drunk, but it seemed that he had gone ahead and done so regardless of what she wanted.
Even her nightdress was ripped. Chrisdean recoiled with horror at the sight, wondering how he could have treated her like that.
He had to leave. He had to leave before Nimue awakened because he didn’t know what to say to her.
Standing up and gathering his clothes as quietly as he could, Chrisdean tiptoed his way to his own chambers, closing and locking the door behind him. He didn’t want to face anyone else either, as they were all bound to have questions for him that he didn’t want to answer.
His stomach was pulled into a tight knot, his hands trembling when he held them up to look at them. What had those hands done, he wondered? Had he hurt Nimue? Had he broken the one promise that he had made to her?
She’ll never trust me again noo. And why would she? How could I possibly apologize for this?
Perhaps he couldn’t, he thought. Perhaps they would spend the rest of their marriage in cold silence, with Nimue never speaking to him again. Perhaps she would demand to go back to her father, and Chrisdean would have no option but to oblige. They wouldn’t be the first Lady and Laird to live separately, far from it, in fact, but that wasn’t the kind of marriage that Chrisdean had wanted for the two of them when he had proposed to her.
Pacing in his chambers, Chrisdean concluded that he couldn’t stay in the castle that day. He dreaded running into Nimue. He wanted to clear his head, so he decided to ride to the neighboring villages. After all, it was his duty as a Laird to visit them every now and then, and it had been a long time since he had last done so.
But he didn’t want to be all alone with his thoughts. That would only make things worse, he thought, and so he dressed and rushed out of his room in search of Brock. He found the man with some of his other clansmen, the younger men he was training, and walked up to him, slamming a hand onto his shoulder.
Brock had him in a headlock in seconds, making Chrisdean lose his footing. He flailed, hands trying to get the other man off him as he spoke. “Brock, it’s me!” he said, his voice strained from the way Brock was holding him. “It’s Chrisdean.”
“Ach, lad, what do ye think ye’re doin’, scarin’ an old man like that?” Brock asked, letting out a sigh of relief as he let Chrisdean go. “Ye almost scared me to death.”
“And ye almost choked me to death, so I’d say that makes us even,” Chrisdean pointed out, his hand rubbing his neck. “How was that a rational reaction?”
“Ye ken that I dinna like people sneakin’ up on me,” Brock said. “What do ye want? We’re trainin’.”
“It’s almost as if I’m na the Laird of this clan,” Chrisdean said, though his tone was teasing. The thought of Brock treating him more like a Laird than a son was ridiculous to him. “I’m goin’ to ride around the villages. I want ye to come with me.”
“Noo?” Brock asked. “What about yer new wife? Shouldna ye be spendin’ some time with her?”
“She’s sleepin’.”
“Aye? Will she sleep all day?”
Chrisdean rolled his eyes at the other man. He laced and unlaced his fingers behind his back, again and again, his brain scrambling to come up with a way to convince him without alerting him to the fact that something was wrong.
“The duties of the Laird never stop,” he said. “And noo, we have a good reason to go and visit them, Brock. War is comin’. We must ensure their safety.”
Brock hesitated, glancing back at the men who were still training. With a sigh, he waved Domnall over, the best of them all. Chrisdean had seen him in action, and he would have sworn that the man could take half the English army all on his own.
“Ye’ll have to take over,” Brock told him. “The Laird and I have business to attend to.”
“Aye,” was all Domnall said, nodding his head so low that it looked like a bow to Chrisdean. He couldn’t help but smirk; Brock sure knew how to keep those men in line.
Soon after, the two of them were riding out of the castle walls. The moment they were outside, Chrisdean could suddenly breathe with more ease, and he took a deep breath, enjoying the crisp morning air. He could tell that Brock was staring at him, but he didn’t dare meet his gaze.
“Is there trouble with Nimue?” Brock asked, perceptive as always. “Whatever it is, I am sure that leavin’ her all alone the day after yer wedding willna help.”
“It’s nothin’,” Chrisdean said. “I told ye, we need to visit the villages. It’s been much too long since we last did.”
Brock hummed in agreement, but he didn’t sound convinced. Chrisdean couldn’t blame him; he could hardly convince himself that war was the only reason he wanted to go to the villages.
“Did ye write to Laird MacLellan?” Brock asked, and Chrisdean was grateful that he had changed the subject.
