An odd whistle sounded from outside the front entrance to the hall. Diarmid’s arms dropped from her waist, and he stepped away. Beside them, Dallan opened the back door. “Diarmid, out! Hurry!”
Cara didn’t feel up to a conversation with Sitric, particularly if he were as deep in his cups as she suspected. She scurried to her room, happily the nearest one, and quickly shut the door behind her. Melancholy crept over her as she settled into bed, realizing that while she had enjoyed her meeting with Diarmid and would even look forward to hugging him again, the thought of being in Sitric’s arms settled in the pit of her stomach like a meal gone sour. And though Sitric was kind and good-humored, he looked at her with either lust or disinterest, occasionally amusement or irritation.
Diarmid looked at her like she was his whole world. Every time.
Chapter Fifteen
After he’d cleanedup from a vicious training session, Diarmid wandered to the main hall in search of Sitric. There was still an hour or more before the servants would start getting the hall ready for dinner, and Diarmid hoped to ask him if his thoughts on Cara had changed at all.
He hoped, quite selfishly, that they hadn’t.
When he got to the hall, he was greeted by a wall of silence—a sure sign Sitric was nowhere to be found. He nearly walked straight back out, when he caught movement in the small seating area to his left.
Cara sat curled up on a bench, a blanket draped over her, a book open in her lap. She wore her hair down every day now that she’d started taking Diarmid’s advice. It cascaded over her shoulders as she leaned over the book, as black as the sky at midnight, and with the same hint of blue. His fingers twitched at the memory of it beneath them. It had been but a brief moment when he’d hugged her, but it had been long enough to confirm that those gorgeous locks were just as soft as they looked.
“I wondered what was in that sack of yours,” Diarmid said, sitting down in the chair across from Cara. “So, what magnificent tale did you haul across Éire?”
Her tempting lips thinned at his intrusion, but he wasn’t about to pass up a rare opportunity alone with her. Or a rare opportunity to actually learn something about her. “The Aeneid.”
“I’ve not read that since I was learning Latin,” Diarmid mused, “but I remember that I rather enjoyed it. Why did you choose to bring that one?”
Cara sighed. “You’re not going to let me keep reading until you’ve gotten some answers from me, am I correct?”
“I’ll leave you to your story soon enough,” he promised. “It’s not every day I catch you being interested in something.”
“I chose this one because I couldn’t findThe History of the Trojan War. This was the next best choice.”
“I’m surprised you don’t like the Aeneid better,” he thought aloud, straining to remember the characters and events that he’d read about when he was a lad. “There was rather a remarkable queen in it, wasn’t there?”
Cara snorted. “Are you speaking of Dido?”
“That’s the one!” Diarmid agreed with a grin. “She fled danger and founded her own city. That seems remarkable to me.”
“She also killed herself when Aeneas left her,” Cara reminded him, “in an absurdly dramatic manner.”
“And that,” Diarmid ventured, “doesn’t—resonate—with you at all?”
Cara furrowed her brows, her adorable nose wrinkling at his suggestion. “Why should it?”
“I don’t know the full story, but you sort of did the same thing when that bastard left you.”
“That is not the same at all,” she replied, vehemently. “He didn’t live with me for years as my husband. He left me after one night. And I didnotburn myself on a pyre of his belongings.”
Diarmid managed not to overreact when she finally told him what had happened. Or more of it, anyway. “Dido stopped living her life after her heartbreak, in her way,” he said softly, “and you stopped living yours in another.”
Her glare broke as she digested his words. “You have no idea what happened.”
“I don’t,” Diarmid agreed. “But I’d be happy to listen if you’d like to tell me.” He had the ulterior motive of being unbearably curious, as well.
“You swear you won’t go blathering it to everyone else?”
Diarmid scoffed. “I’m offended, princess, that you think I can’t keep a secret.”
“I liked a boy when I was young, fourteen, I think. Old enough to be thinking of marriage in the near future, young enough to find the entire process an adventure. When I asked him if he would court me, he said yes and almost instantly tried to get me into his bed. I refused, of course, since I hardly knew him. And he decided maybe he wasn’t that interested in courting me after all.
“So the next year, my parents arrange a betrothal with Torna. He was handsome, charming, fun. Made my silly little heart flutter. And I didn’t want to lose him like I had the last one. So when he inevitably mentioned that when you’re betrothed, you share a bed, I agreed.” She paused, clearly distraught with the memory.
“And you lost him anyway,” Diarmid finished for her.
