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‘Please don’t go away from me like this Duncan.’
‘I have to.’
Ailsa could only stand helplessly and watch him walk away. She felt as though her world was turning on this one moment. ‘Come back to me…please come back to me,’ she whispered, a sob rising in her throat. But he did not.
She grabbed the stall as a wave of dizziness took hold of her. She needed him more than ever. She wanted so much to feel his strong arms around her. It had finally dawned on her this last week why she had been feeling so wretched. She thought it had been her misery and loneliness as he had rejected her but it was not. Even as Duncan’s love slipped away from her another part of him was growing inside her.
If she had never had soft feelings for him, if she had never started to fall in love with him she could have faced a marriage of convenience. But she had loved him and as he had withdrawn his affection she felt as a prisoner who is let out into the sunlight and warmed by it, only to be plunged cruelly back into a dank dungeon of despair. She had to do something, anything to end this misery.
Chapter Twenty-One
Ailsa watched Duncan ride away from Cailleach. There had been no goodbyes and perhaps that was for the best. She put on her warmest clothes and sat quietly for a moment in her chamber hardening her resolve. Taking a long look around she said goodbye to her old life and the foolish hopes nurtured there. The pain of leaving behind her childhood home was awful but nothing compared to the pain of staying with a man who despised her as a traitor.
Duncan would still treat her kindly in his way but there was a gulf opening up between them and any love he had shown her now felt unreal, like a fantasy she had conjured up to bear her situation. Whatever Duncan might have felt for her, it was long gone now. Hamish’s casual attempt at seduction, carelessly done as was his nature, had cost her dear.
When their bairn came Duncan would love and care for it, Ailsa was absolutely certain of that. As for her, well, he may throw kindness and tolerance her way but never again would he give her that passionate, elemental love that had made her feel at one with him. They would have a pale imitation of the life she had begun to imagine for them.
Tears had streamed down her face at saying her farewells to her mother but there had been no recognition in those dull eyes and when Ailsa had taken Hesther’s hand it had hung soft and limp in hers. Once clear of Duncan’s grasp she would instruct Morag to send for her mother. Duncan would treat Hesther kindly and let her go to her daughter as he was not the kind of man who would take his anger out on a helpless, unhinged, old woman. But Ailsa knew he would never let her go once he knew about the child growing in her belly. So she had to do this awful thing, take this one chance now, while she still had the strength to go through with it. Her mind was made up. She would leave him.
As many of the men were out on the hunt she slipped away on Fingal unnoticed. She did not take the fine horse he had given her; she would only take that which was hers. Heading south to Strathairn lands, she estimated it would take two days ride to get to the safety of Morag. From there, her sister could help her get to the lowlands and beyond Duncan’s reach. Ailsa fervently hoped that she had given herself enough time to slip away before her husband caught up with her.
Riding for some hours along quiet, deserted pathways so as to be unseen by other travellers, eventually, she reached the edge of her knowledge. Morag’s husband William had described his journey to her once as she had pressed him to tell her about the lands outside MacLeod territory and about his home. But that recollection was hazy and she regarded with dismay the rock-strewn, wet moorland fanning out before her to two distant mountain peaks, standing like jagged teeth against the pale sky. She would have to go beyond them, find pockets of shelter in the patches of trees as the weather had begun to turn. A spiteful rain was starting to turn to sleet and pick at her face, like a thousand cold little nails being driven in. She must keep going to stay warm.
Ailsa rode for what seemed like hours until the wind got too fierce forcing her to drive Fingal into a dense stand of trees deep into the valley. Her hands and face were aching with cold and it was darker now as black clouds swept in over the mountains and the horizon suddenly brightened with a flash of lightning. Fingal pranced nervously and Ailsa tried to steady him but to no avail. He had always been skittish of storms and now being so far from home in unfamiliar territory he was frightened. As she pulled hard on the reins a colossal clap of thunder sounded right overhead and he reared up. Ailsa clawed at the saddle desperately as she slid off and hit the ground hard. Her hand went to her stomach fearful for the baby and looking up she saw Fingal running blindly off into the wind, leaving her unhurt but shaken on the wet ground. Her carefully stored provisions and furs had gone with him and she could not be more wretched, cold and alone in a godless place. Surviving the night depended on finding some shelter.
Some exhausting hours later the tears started to come. As she walked endlessly on and on, her mind turned to Duncan. Her plan and her resolve were starting to unravel. How could she have left him when he had in his way been kind to her, made her feel safe and, for one brief perfect moment, loved beyond anything? How could she take his child from him? There could never be another man who would match him and no matter how much distance she put between them she realised she could never wash him out of her mind and her heart. His child, God willing, when it was born, would be a replica of them both, a constant reminder of what they shared together and lost. She would always suffer this yearning for him to the end of days.
It was with her mind full of Duncan that she first heard it, high and keening, carried on the wind, chilling her to the bone. Ailsa stopped dead, heart pounding, holding her breath, as another answering sound came eerily from the opposite direction. She strained her ears and desperately hoped she was mistaken, but it came again, seemingly closer now that she was so acutely aware of it, the cry of a wolf, haunting and terrifying. The hairs stood up on the back of her neck, a rumble of thunder drowned out everything and then quiet. She stumbled on, rushing, nerves screaming. The howling came again, eerie, sickening. She was at the edge of the trees now and ran blindly out into the storm. Looking wildly around, she saw something solid and grey in the distance, a bothan once, but now a ruin of tumbledown stone and rotted wood. If she could just reach it…
Ailsa ran for her life, stumbling over slippery rocks, pushing through icy streams, hampered by her skirts which snagged on the thick undergrowth and which were heavy with absorbed rain. It was not too far now, just where the ground rose up, standing like a bleak sentinel above the moorland. Behind her, the howls had become a chorus as the wolves pulled together for the hunt. She risked a glance back and saw them, shadowy phantoms emerging from the trees, diverging from each other and racing to overtake her at an alarming speed. The light was dying in the sky as the storm consumed it and a terrible death was closing in on her. She would not make it, they were too fast. Her lungs were screaming for air and she ran blindly, stumbling over.
A rattling growl, rising above the noise of the storm, had her spinning around. A grey wolf crouched within striking distance, its pale fangs vivid in the fading light, ears flat and eyes a cold merciless yellow. It slunk toward her low on the ground, shoulders hunched and muscles taut ready to attack. Ailsa tried to swallow but her throat tightened. She clutched around for a stick, a rock, anything with which to fight. There was a terrible pounding noise then it pounced.
There was a sudden flash of black and a high yelping sound and Ailsa looked up to see Duncan above her on Ares, his sword bloody in his hand and a face wild with rage. Then he was off his horse and reaching a bloody hand toward her. The world turned dark as she fell back into the mud.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Duncan paced up and down outside the inn struggling with exhaustion and frustration. The acrid smoke from the chimney combined with old manure from the stables was pungent but he was oblivious to it. Having ridden furiously all day to reach Ailsa he had been horrified to find her in dire straits. A few moments later and he would have been standing over a corpse rather than cutting down the beast that threatened her. He felt sick to his stomach at what could have happened.
She had wanted to run from him, run into the teeth of the wolves rather than remain with him. Could her hate be so fierce that it would drive her to her own destruction? Guilt gnawed at his conscience relentlessly and would give him no rest. The fault for all this misery was his alone. Jealousy and wounded pride had consumed the love he had for her and his anger at the thought of Ailsa with another man had swept away all they had started to build together. As her husband, he had sworn to protect her, in that he had failed miserably.
Worst of all, what ravaged his thoughts and kept him from his sleep last night was the look of horror on her face when he had reached out for her. She had been terrified of him.
Rory interrupted his dark thoughts, his voice concerned. ‘You must take some rest, Duncan.’
‘I cannot.’
‘She is sleeping peacefully man. She is safe now, thanks to you.’
‘Not safe from me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing, nothing at all.’ He stopped pacing and looked into the cold dawn which was turning the sky to a watery red and yellow on the horizon. It was so peaceful compared to the turmoil in his head. What on earth could he do now? For once in his life, he had no idea how to proceed. Rory stayed silent beside him; they had been friends long enough for him to know when to hold his tongue.
‘You and the men must return to Cailleach at once, she’s undefended and I would not have her so.’
‘Can we not stay a day and get some rest? One of the inn keep’s daughters is uncommonly pretty and has taken quite a shine to me. She has breasts a man could lose himself in and a lusty look in her eye…’
