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And understood.
But Sabrina had to have known when he’d sent her away, and still she said nothing of it. Did she really want him, or did the Earl of Kilronan merely want a husband for his sister and an avoidance of scandal when the babe was born?
“Did Sabrina send you?”
A flicker of something passed within the well of Kilronan’s gaze, giving Daigh his answer. “She doesn’t know. I didn’t want to lift her hopes in case I failed.” His fingers tapped impatiently upon the table. “I’ve wasted weeks searching for you. But if we leave tonight and ride fast, we can be at Belfoyle within a few days.”
A child changed everything. And nothing. Daigh remained what he had been when he’d left the bandraoi. A man without anything of value to bring to a marriage but his love. Cheap goods, to be sure. “Surely there are men of status who would welcome an alliance with your family,” he said, rubbing at a stain upon the table. “Despite the cuckoo in their nest.”
Aidan took a moment to answer. Or perhaps it was a moment to control his temper, for when he spoke, his voice rasped hard and bitter. “So you won’t come? Not even for your own child?” He pushed himself up with a snort of disgust. “I should have known this was a fool’s errand.”
Daigh matched anger for anger. “If you tell me you’d welcome my presence as Sabrina’s husband, you’d be lying, and we both know it.” His heart beat like a galloping horse, his fingers so tight about his tankard it must crumple beneath his grip. “Knowing what I was? What I’ve done in the name of evil? You’d be right to deny me her hand. Mad to do aught else.”
Aidan shook his head, his expression grave. “No, for those crimes, you’re right, I could never lay my hatred aside. But for those things you did that saved my family. For those I could easily call you brother.”
The sea shone dull and heavy as lead beneath a sky littered with low, gray clouds. They reminded Sabrina of plunging horses as they rolled landward, their edges streaked with flashes of lightning like sparks from their hooves.
Her hike down to the beach had been met with doubt by both Cat and Jane. But then the pair of them had been watching her with varying shades of concern for weeks now. She was almost sorry Ard-siúr had allowed Jane to leave Glenlorgan to attend Sabrina’s lying-in. Double the support, but double the worry.
At least she was spared Aidan’s hovering, solicitous presence.
His response to her condition had surprised her. She’d feared discovery, afraid of both his anger and his disappointment. But upon her confession, he’d neither raged over her ruin nor threatened to abandon her to her fate, and she’d left the interview dazed and contrite. She’d been wrong about so much. But in one thing, she had sorely misjudged. Aidan’s love for her was real. Strong. And unbreakable. He had proved it to her then, and in the months following.
It was only three weeks ago that he’d departed Belfoyle without explanation, though he sent regular letters to Cat, who folded and tucked them away whenever Sabrina entered the room. No doubt it had to do with Brendan and Máelodor and the Amhas-draoi. Matters she’d sought to dismiss from her mind even if she couldn’t ignore her changing body. That was a constant reminder of what else she’d been wrong about. Whom else she’d misjudged.
Rain flashed upon the waves, speckled the beach, pattered against her hood. It would be a long climb up the cliff path back to Belfoyle. And she wasn’t yet ready to return to the house. Even after almost three long months here, surprises still leapt from corners, memories springing fresh with every room she entered. She’d yet to exorcize all her ghosts, nonetheless what she’d once told Daigh held true. Though much had changed in seven years, the sea and the sky and the land remained constant. And that was indeed a comfort.
What began as a light drizzle intensified as if a curtain had been drawn across the sky. Rain sheeted in torrents, scooping channels through the sand and stone on its way back to the ocean. Dimming the long afternoon light to dusk.
Ducking beneath an outcropping of rock, she waited for an easing of the deluge. At least it was a warm April shower and not the icy lash of winter.
The child moved within her womb, its tiny fists and feet rippling across her belly. Running a hand over the bulge of her ungainly abdomen, she whispered. “Shhh, my sweet.” Sent her love out upon a soft ribbon of thought. “Mother is here. Mother loves you. It won’t be long, my darling. Soon, I shall hold you in my arms.”
But what came back to her burst against her mind like the pounding surf.
Joy. Fear. Remorse. Loneliness. Excitement. Uncertainty. Heartbreak.
They staggered her back against the sharp face of the veined granite, breath trapped in her throat, knees weak.
A fog-wrapped figure leapt the last few feet from the path to the beach, boots crunching against the rocks, greatcoat sweeping out behind him, the rugged angles of his face sharper, the hollows deeper. He approached her out of the storm like a spirit from the grave.
Or a man from her past. Both her pasts.
She braced herself against the rock face, using it both to hold her steady and to assure her she didn’t dream. But it was as solid and real as he was.
Hair plastered to his head, coat sodden through, he stopped a few feet away. His gaze traveling over her, the black of his eyes as unreadable as ever.
“What are you doing here?” She crossed her hands over her stomach as if she might protect it from that soul-stripping stare.
“I once promised you we’d welcome our child together. I’m back to honor that promise, albeit six hundred years late.”
“Aidan brought you, didn’t he?” she asked through a mouth gone dry.
“Aye. He found me to tell me of the child.”
She struggled to wrap herself in the familiar bitterness and anger of the last months. “So now that you know, you can leave again.”
His expression remained inscrutable, though shadows flickered and died in his eyes and his hands fisted closed at his sides. “If that’s what you wish, Sabrina, I’ll go.”
