“I ha’ not seen Rohr, nay. He must be hiding himself awa’. I ha’ no idea where.”
“He will be feeling the disapproval, aye, and the condemnation. But I must speak wi’ him concerning this lass, Caragh, and the child.” Mistress MacMurtray blinked rapidly. “My first grandchild. ’Tis my duty as Rohr’s mother to speak wi’ him. He must do what is right by the girl.”
Darlei’s heart rose in a bound. If Mistress MacMurtray urged Rohr to wed with Caragh, would that not open a path for her and Deathan?
She cast a look at him and he returned it, a cautionary flash between long brown lashes.
Yes, as Orle had said, she needed to be careful.
“Mam, all must wait upon what the king decides.”
“Aye so, and King Caerdoc has gone to consult wi’ him. I understand all that. But wha’ will become o’ my grandchild? I so want to see it born before—” Mistress MacMurtray paused abruptly.
“Mam.” Deathan brushed by Darlei’s skirts to take a place on the side of the bed and capture his mother’s hands. “Ye ha’ been growing stronger. Are ye no’ working at getting out o’ this bed? Ye will soon be well.”
Doubt clouded Mistress MacMurtray’s pale eyes. “I ha’ been working at it, aye. I do no’ ken if I will ever leave this bed.”
Deathan touched his mother’s hair with the gentleness that characterized him. As much a part of him, Darlei decided, as his strength. “So ye will.”
“Perhaps, if ye carry me.”
“Nay, Mam, ye must believe.”
“Deathan, ye be a fine son. Will ye tell Rohr that I need to see him?”
“I will.” Deathan leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I go now to lead the men at practice, since Rohr is no’ there to do it. I wanted to see ye first.”
He rose from the edge of the bed, brushing past Darlei again. Unable to help herself, she followed him to the door.
“I need to see you,” she whispered under the guise of opening it for him.
A check in his step betrayed his reaction. “How?”
“I do not know. Or care—”
For the briefest instant, his gaze touched hers. It said,I will find a way.
Too brief a time together, she thought as she regained her seat beside Mistress MacMurtray. Too few moments with him. She looked up and encountered Mistress MacMurtray’s gaze.
“Darlei, ye ha’ become gey friendly wi’ my son. Wi’ Deathan.”
I cannot live without him.Suddenly, Darlei wanted to confess it all to this kind woman, even as she had to Orle. But how could she? Mistress MacMurtray was sorely ill and as bound by the restraints of their society as she.
Gazing into Mistress MacMurtray’s pale-blue eyes, she wondered if she needed to confess, and what this woman suspected.
Orle was right. She needed to be far more careful. If not for her own sake, then for Deathan’s.
But how to balance her desire for him—what had become more than desire—with caution?
She was not the woman to answer that.
*
A morning spentsweating on the training field did not help relieve Deathan’s feelings as much as he’d hoped. Anger kept assailing him, and frustration. His brother should be here in hisplace. What was Rohr about? Where was he? Though Deathan had asked around as discreetly as possible, no one seemed to know.
The men just rolled their eyes. Everyone, to be sure, had heard the tale of Rohr and Caragh by now. Deathan supposed he could not blame Rohr for wishing to avoid the gossip and Da’s condemnation. But he’d expected his brother to have more backbone.
So he worked beneath the autumn sun, and he tried without success to discipline the emotions that swamped him. Anger at Rohr, aye. Frustration at the wishes of kings who knew nothing of the lives they affected.
