Before he’d even made it to the guest hall, Cara descended upon him.
“Sitric told me I had to speak with you,” she muttered, clearly as excited at the prospect as Diarmid.
He should have kept walking. He was in no state to have this conversation. He should just accept his loss for what it was and start moving on, returning to his old life. “Why?” he asked, his lips betraying him. “Why did you choose him?” His chest ached as he spoke the horrible words aloud.
“Why did you leave?” She turned the question on him so quickly it felt like a slap.
He shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep. I took a walk.”
“Was it easier to sleep after you bedded the serving maid?”
That got his attention. “What?” he asked, incredulous.
“I asked where you’d gone,” Cara told him, fury blazing in her every word. “I was told you spent the night with a woman named Maeve who works at the alehouse. They saw you walking down there. They saw you walk into a building with her.”
Of course she would think the worst. She had every other time. Why would this be different? Diarmid realized then that he was tired of fighting to change her opinion of him. If she didn’t want to love him, he certainly couldn’t make her.
He closed the distance between them, as he used to when he was about to kiss her. But instead of taking her into his arms, he leaned in and whispered his final words to her.
“Always you search for reasons to doubt me, to push me away, to build your walls,” Diarmid told her softly. “But it’s only an excuse not to let yourself be vulnerable. The problem is not me,” he breathed, “though I’m certainly far from perfect. Theproblem is that you are more worried about being hurt than about being loved.”
Her mouth fell open, and he forced himself not to look at those lips. They were his no longer.
They had never really been his at all.
*
The stricken lookon his face tore at her heart. But he’d left her, Cara reminded herself. For another woman. She ignored the stabbing pain she felt through every part of her body. Ignored the ring of truth his words had held. Ignored the urge to fall right back into his arms.
No, she knew where that path led. Her body may desire it, her heart may ache for it, but her mind knew better.
More irritated than she’d thought possible, Cara spun on her heels back toward the hall. She didn’t stop until she sat on her bed, didn’t stop even when Sitric and Niamh and Astrid all greeted her. She muttered a feeble reply before disappearing into her chamber.
Why did she still care for a man who’d gone straight from her bed to another woman’s? Diarmid’s whispered words threaded their way through her mind as she carefully laid the cloth-wrapped book on her bed furs. Cara disregarded them. It couldn’t all be some fabrication of her own mind. People hadseenhim.
She’d known the sack held a book by the weight of it, but she’d not had time to open it until now. With gentle hands, she peeled back the leather strip, a small piece of parchment, torn and tattered, lay atop the book.
For my princess.
Scribbled in what could only be Diarmid’s writing, by the messy, uneven strokes. Cara swore an oath. Why did the manhave to be so charming? He wasn’t even here and he was winning her over, making her question what should be a simple decision.
If it were so simple, Cara wondered, then why did she still wonder at all?
Chapter Thirty-Four
She read theentire damned book that night. Devoured the illuminated pages as she saw the story she so loved brought to life before her eyes. Achilles’ hair shimmered gold, the shields and armor a brilliant bronze. When she looked at the deep blue of the water as the Greek ships sailed to Troy, she could almost feel it lapping at her skin, the warm sun on her face. Every character could be found somewhere within those magical pages.
When she read, Cara disappeared. She forgot all about betrothals and marriages and princes and kings—herprinces and kings, anyway. It was just her and the story.
So when she turned the final page, closing the cover with a sigh, disappointment crept through her at the prospect of returning to her actual life. Yet, it must be done. She stood, placing the book back in its wrappings and storing it safely in the chest by her bed, her heart aching as she thought of the man who’d gifted it to her.
Directly following the morning meal, Cara, Sitric, Illadan, Cormac, Broccan, and Gormla met in the great hall, sitting at one end of a long trestle table. Illadan, Cormac, and Broccan represented Brian in the contract; Gormla sat in to aid Sitric. For the first time since he’d left on the raid, Diarmid’s absence was palpable, following her even when he was nowhere to be found.
She wondered what would have happened, had she chosen him. Would they have sat here today, she and Diarmid and allthe rest of them, negotiating some alternate contract? Would they have needed to send word to Brian first? Whatever they discussed, she knew Diarmid would be grinning at her. Just like he always had.
She was being ridiculous, she reminded herself again.
“Cara?” Cormac’s voice intruded on her outrageous stream of thoughts.
