That made those shaggy brows rise. “Is he, now?” MacNabh’s gaze returned to Deathan. “And why should a young, strong fellow do such a thing, lest he’s hiding fro’ something? Nay, he canna be here when the king comes.”
Deathan’s heart fell. If he were sent away now without even setting eyes on Darlei…
“Pray, Chief MacNabh.” It was Tighe who stepped up from somewhere in the crowd of men. “If I may speak—”
Some unidentified emotion flickered in MacNabh’s eyes when he looked at Tighe. Aye, he knew right enough who the lad was.
“Wha’ is it?” he barked.
“I ask ye let him stay. He is training me at arms. He says I ha’ the makings o’ a fine warrior.”
MacNabh looked his bastard son up and down with a new expression. “Have ye, then?”
“He does, Chief MacNabh,” Deathan put in. “An inborn talent, I should say.”
“Chief MacNabh,” Tighe beseeched, “if ye would allow him to stay but a wee while yet—”
“Perhaps just till the king’s visit,” Ardroch added.
“And if the stranger be an assassin? If he aims to tak’ the life o’ the king?”
“I would ne’er do that.” Deathan stared the man in the eye. “No’ the life o’ the king.”
“Och, verra well. He can stay a few days. But nay more than that.”
Chapter Fifty-One
No one hadheard from the king, though as Darlei learned during her forced suppers with MacNabh and his two dreadful female companions, the chief had sent out a man to try to locate His Majesty’s party and estimate his arrival. That man had not yet returned.
Darlei chafed. But nay, that did not describe her state of mind. She felt fairly sure she’d gone at least three parts mad.
She endured rather than lived through the days, dreading—always dreading—every nightfall that MacNabh would come to her. Orle endured with her. They had both lost weight and near suffocated for want of a breath of air.
Though Darlei argued for it often, when she saw MacNabh at supper, he had not agreed to let them out into the yard.
“No’ while the repairs are ongoing,” he replied again and again. “’Tis nay place for women.”
Once, when she lost control and cried that she was naught more than a prisoner, he’d struck her across the face, knocking her right out of her chair.
“Ye’ll be silent till I need ye. Do I no’ ha’ enough women chirping at me?”
He did. Roisin complained endlessly, and the old woman delivered garbled words to his ear.
Darlei returned to her chamber after that meal with a livid bruise on her cheek, and Orle wept over her.
Darlei had not wept. She was too desperate and far too angry.
She’d not caught another glimpse of the man she’d seen out the window, pushing the barrow. But she remained convinced he was Deathan. That somehow, despite every wish of her heart to keep him safe, he was here.
Terrible, it was, to be so conflicted. To long so hard for him while wanting him far away. Back at Murtray.
Safe.
For she was not safe here. She lived her every moment in peril. Her only hope of withstanding her fate lay in trying to believe no danger threatened the man she loved.
So she needed to get out into the yard, to make certain he was not there, even though every part of her heart wished he was.
No wonder she felt mad. No woman could withstand this. No woman who loved as she did.
