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Morna took a deep breath. ‘So, how do you fare Drostan? Does your health still plague you?’
‘No, on the contrary, I find the air in Glencoe much fresher than on Skye, for all kinds of reasons. It suits me well here.’
‘It suits you because you do nothing save chase every low-born girl in Beharra into your bed, or so Ravenna tells me. Do I hear wrong?’
‘Aye, you do, for I chase the high-born ones as well,’ he replied mutinously.
Morna sighed. ‘Come Drostan, we are related now, since my marriage, we should make friends.’
He turned to her, his dark eyes suddenly full of sadness, which, of course, was all artifice, Morna now realised. Drostan was as wily as Will and, with his Bain blood, the young man knew how to lie. ‘How could you do it, Morna? How could you wed my whoring, back-stabbing cousin?’
‘Because I love him.’
‘Love him, bah! A fool’s errand. Will loves no one, save himself, and he will make you unhappy. That one over there would have made you a much better husband. Look at him - all fine looks and courtly manners. It is a shame you are wed and cannot tempt him now,’ he muttered, with stinging bitterness.
‘That would leave you free to seduce the lovely Beigis with your big eyes and sad sighs, would it not, Drostan, just as you tried to do with me?’
‘At least she doesn’t have a venomous tongue in her head.’
‘Oh, don’t sulk, Drostan. Let us try to be friends. Trust me, where Beigis is concerned, your cause is lost. You should give up and go home to Fitheach, before you outstay your welcome here, with all your idleness and lechery.’
‘I can never go home.’
‘That makes two of us, then,’ she said, watching Beigis lock eyes with Owen, so warm, so tender together. Why on earth had she said that, to Drostan of all people?
Drostan gave her a searching look and Morna suddenly wanted to be gone to spare herself his questions and to avoid trying to voice aloud what she had said and done to Will. Shame burned her cheeks when she thought of it, and of how Drostan would love to hear of his cousin being hurt.
Will had gone off to fight with harsh words ringing in his ears when she should have spent every last second with him telling him how much she loved him. They had damaged each other, him by wanting to go and her by being angry about it. Now, just the mention of his name and the thought of him out there in the world, alone, was too much to bear.
Morna got up to go.
‘What is going on Morna, did you and the perfect William quarrel?’ asked Drostan, his jealousy and resentment fuelling a need for her to condemn his cousin in some way.
Morna regarded him steadily. ‘Drostan, take my advice. Try to find some honesty and some nobility in your soul to drive out the bitterness.’
‘What about my heart? What is to be done with that,’ he spat, gazing at Beigis longingly.
‘As to your heart, I would advise you to guard it well. Do not let love into it, for to love someone is to open your heart and let a world of pain inside.’
‘What?’
‘I am going tomorrow, and we may not see each other for some time. Farewell Drostan, and be safe.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
Will watched her walk along the edge of the water, hair flying out behind her in the stiff wind coming up the loch from the sea in the distance. She cut a lonely figure as she headed back to Corryvreckan Castle. What a forbidding place it was, not unlike Fitheach, with its staunch dark walls and windswept towers. Somehow he would have expected her to live somewhere gentler than this. He kicked his horse forward to intercept her before she got to the castle.
The clatter of his horse’s hooves on the shingle alerted her to his presence, and she turned and went wide-eyed with shock.
‘Do not be afraid of me. I am come to see Morna, but I wanted to talk to you first.’
Her eyes flicked to the castle and back to him as he dismounted and led his horse towards her.
Giselle Buchanan was fuller and softer than he remembered, and that red hair, so striking it would put a fire in any man’s belly. How beautiful she was, in a gentle kind of way, yet she did not stir him. She was the kind of woman bred to grace a Lord’s bed and be a trophy on his arm. There was a haunted vulnerability to her and men like Lyall would yearn to protect her. But Giselle was not one to challenge a man, and he needed that, far more than beauty and grace. He needed Morna, for she was his match in stubbornness and pride.
‘What are you doing here, William Bain?’
‘Come to beg forgiveness for my lack of manners at our last meeting.’
