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‘I’m still angry. I should have killed that man for what he said to you.’
‘Well, we have his boat, so I’m glad you didn’t, and besides, I’ve heard much worse insults. Why did you say wife, Conall?’
‘What?’
‘Why did you say I was your wife? Surely sister would have done, and he may not have been so rude?’
‘It was the first lie that came into my head, and besides, I can’t think of you as my sister.’
‘Why not?’
‘Oh, I think you know very well.’
She didn’t, and again he had confused her, but Kenna didn’t want to ask him to elaborate, for she could not match the way Conall seemed to play with words, say one thing but mean another. Another wave of nausea took her, and she struggled not to retch over the side.
‘You do know that here, out in the light, under the sun, when you are not puking, you are a sight to behold, Kenna Moncur?’
‘Stop teasing me.’
‘I am not. I am in earnest. You have that quiet sort of beauty that grows on a man and gets under his skin.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘No, I suppose you don’t. Has no one ever told you how lovely you are, especially when your face goes all pink as it is now?’
Kenna turned and looked out to sea, but that made her stomach feel like it was fighting to get out of her throat. Why did Conall have to embarrass her so, make her talk about such things when she knew they weren’t true? He was just playing with her. She was sure of it. Perhaps he sensed her discomfort, for he turned and fiddled with the ropes, which was just as well for suddenly she was vomiting in earnest. She could only look down at her feet and the water sloshing around the bottom of the boat, hoping he would not look at her again but feeling a sort of pride, heavy in her chest, at his compliment.
***
Saddling his horse in the stable, Rory felt a stab of sadness when Erebus pushed out his nose and nuzzled him from the next stall. Would he ever find Conall? Would this frantic searching ever end? He missed him so much, and it was wearing him down, the hoping, and the waiting.
Father Boyle bustled in, all a-flutter.
‘Laird, a messenger has come with news.’
‘Conall!’
‘Sadly no, Laird, ‘tis Monnine’s father.’
‘What the hell does he want?’
‘Well, he wants her back. Says he has a right.’
‘He has no more right than that pig of a husband of hers.’
‘Ah well, that’s the thing. He is her husband no more.’
‘How so?’
‘Logan Blythe is dead, Laird. A fall from his horse, as I understand it, landed badly, broke his neck. God rest his soul.’
The priest made the sign of the cross, and Rory dearly felt like doing the same. What was it she had said, ‘I pray my husband will be the one to fall off his horse and break his fat neck.’ An innocent jest at the time but now he was not so sure. How could this be a coincidence? What if Monnine was a witch? What if she had cast this spell on him, stirring this obsession of his, making her his slave?
Now he was as bad as her dead husband, branding her evil when it was just his own lust whispering to him. Married, she was beyond his reach. These pathetic fantasies of her caring for him were just that, the musings of a sad, lonely fool. But now Monnine was a free woman, he could indulge them. Did that make him despicable, laughable even?
‘Laird, Laird,’ Father Boyle’s voice intruded into his dilemma. ‘Are you alright, Laird? You look as white as chalk.’
‘It’s nothing, just all this worry and a lack of sleep.’ He turned back to his horse. ‘And I’ll be getting a lot less of it now,’ he muttered to himself.
