“Caragh said that?” Deathan could not quite warrant it. Aye, he too had overheard Rohr and Caragh arguing. But the lass seemed far too sweet to make any such suggestion.
“So she did.” When he did not speak, Darlei shot him another sharp glance. “Do you not believe me?”
“I do no’ suppose ye would lie to me about such a thing.”
“I would not. I would not lie to you at all, Deathan MacMurtray.”
The significance of the statement did not escape him. “Is there a chance ye heard awrong? Or are mistaken—”
“Nay.”
“My brother would no’—”
“Oh, he argued against it. Said there is no honor in murder. I have no doubt she will persuade him.”
“Ye—ye did no’ tak’ this to yer father? Or mine?”
“Nay. Not yet. I am not sure they will believe me. He has only to deny it, and…it is such an unbelievable thing, withal.”
“Aye.”
“But someone has to know. In case he acts upon the deed. I thought on that all night. Knew I had to tell you.”
He almost wished she had not. He would rather not know. And yet all his protective instincts rose. To be sure, he would defend her as he would his own life.
“My brother’s situation is desperate,” he said in a low tone. Down along the shore from them, a group of men—fishers—put out in a small boat, the sounds covering his words. “And will become more so. They cannot keep their secret forever.”
“Indeed not. Should my father discover my bridegroom has fathered a child on another woman, well—I do not know if it would be enough to make him approach King Kenneth.”
“Ask him to withdraw his insistence on the marriage, ye mean?”
“Yes. Then I could go home.”
She withdrew her gaze at last from the sea and directed it at Deathan. He looked back at her steadily, ignoring the fishers and their activities, as his heart began to pound.
He might lose her. If the betrothal were dissolved, she might go from his life before whatever had taken root between them could flower.
Yet…if he had to choose between losing her and seeing her wed to his brother, which would be more unbearable?
The answer came to him swiftly.Losing her.
“If ye want my advice,” he said, “ye should confide wha’ ye ha’ heard in your father. He will go to mine, who will question Rohr. Rohr will then no doubt confess. I admit, ’twould be better if Rohr was the one to step up and tell Da that he would rather ye dead than married to him.”
If Rohr was man enough to lie with a maid and beget a child, he should be man enough to take responsibility—no matter how tangled and ugly the situation.
“I will speak wi’ Rohr,” Deathan decided. “Try to make him see his correct path.”
“Will you tell him I overheard him?”
“Mayhap no’.” The last thing Deathan wanted was to increase Rohr’s anger against her. “Meanwhile, I want ye to ha’ a care,princess. Do no’ go out and about wi’out your woman for company. Spend time wi’ my mother, or among your own folk.”
“You think, then, she might yet persuade him to this act she desires?”
“Nay.” And yet…Deathan’s eyes moved over the scene. The water and the rocks. So many ways to prompt a fall or other dire “accident”.
The very thought of any ill befalling this woman made the breath seize in his lungs.
“I am surely safe in your company.”
