Abi shook her head, trying to take this in. “Hang on a minute. Reid said Irene wasn’t human, that she was a Fae.”
Cinead suddenly pushed himself off the wall. “Reid?” he asked. “Reid Campbell? What do ye know of my brother?”
Abi felt tears gathering in her eyes again and dashed them away irritably. “He rescued me,” she said. “When I first came to this time. And then he brought me here after what happened with Laird Campbell.”
“Laird Campbell?” Cinead exclaimed. “Ye know him too?” His voice was strong and deep, the kind of voice used to giving commands. “Abigail, I think ye had better start from the beginning.”
So she did. She told them everything that had happened to her since the moment she’d found herself in the cell beneath Kalmack Castle to the moment on the hill when Reid had left her. She left nothing out, not how Reid had terrified her at first, not how she’d desperately tried to find a way home, not how she’d gradually made friends at Dun Treve and begun helping to run the keep, not how Laird Campbell had turned up and ruined everything.
As her story progressed Cinead began pacing up and down by the window, his hands clasped behind his back. When Abi finally fell silent, he turned to face her.
“What did my brother tell ye of his plans? When will Laird Campbell attack? How many men did he bring to Dun Treve?”
“Cinead!” Layla said sharply. “Leave her be! Can’t you see she’s distraught?”
Cinead took a deep breath and then ran a hand over his face. He was as handsome as his brother although they looked nothing alike, of course. Cinead had hair the color of earth and his eyes were dark, not pale blue. But like his stepbrother, he could be slightly intimidating.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a softer voice. “But we are at war. We know that Campbell will attack any day now. Any advantage Abigail could give us could save lives.”
“I don’t know anything,” Abi said. “I never saw how many men Laird Campbell brought to the castle because he threw me in jail before I had the chance. Reid never told me the laird’s plans. I’m not sure he knew himself.”
Cinead snorted. “I find that hard to believe. Reid is Campbell’s right-hand man, his faithful hound. How do I know this isnae some ploy of his to get a spy into my household?”
Layla rounded on her husband angrily. “Does this look like a ploy to you? Abi is my oldest friend and we’ve already heard that Irene MacAskill is involved! Whatever this is, Abi is no spy!”
“Aye, ye are right,” Cinead said. “My apologies, Lady Abigail. I can be a little...sensitive where my brother is concerned.”
Abi snorted. “Really? Then that’s something you both have in common. Reid is pretty sensitive about you too.” She looked at Layla. “Tell me everything, Layla. Tell me what happened to you.”
Layla blew out a breath then looked up at her husband. “Cinead, could you ask cook to send up some breakfast and a pot of camomile tea?” She transferred her gaze to Abi. “Get yourself comfortable. This is going to take some time.”
***
IT WAS THROWING DOWNagain. Almost from the moment Reid had left Abigail on that hill, the weather seemed determined to punish him for it. Clouds blanketed the sky from end to end, gray and threatening, and the rain sheeted down with enough force to drench Reid to the skin, despite the oiled over-cloak he wore. At his sides, Bo and Whitefoot padded along with their tails and heads drooping, looking as miserable as Reid felt.
He’d tried to go north, into the wilder, uninhabited lands in that direction, but the rain had turned the moors into a boggy, sodden morass almost impossible to cross. He’d been forced to turn west, towards the coast, and now he could see the sea in the distance, a slightly lighter gray ribbon against the darker gray of the sky.
He wasn’t sure where he was heading. After leaving Abigail he’d just walked, no clear destination in mind, walking because there was nothing else he could do. Eventually either Cinead or Laird Campbell’s hunters would find him, no matter how far he went. He was only marking time until that happened.
Yer choice is coming. Carry on this road or choose another. The choice is yers.
He laughed shrilly, causing the dogs to look at him in alarm.
“Is this what ye meant, Irene?” he shouted into the rain. “Is this the great destiny ye had planned for me?”
The anger faded as abruptly as it had come. He had made his choices and now he had to live with them. He could rail at the unfairness of it all, he could blame his brother for the betrayal that had sent him down this path, he could blame his mother for setting it all in motion all those years ago. But the truth was, he had made the choices that led him here. Him and no other. And how could he regret any of them, really? He’d made so many mistakes, had so many regrets. Yet without those mistakes, without those regrets, would he have ever met Abigail? Would he ever have had that short, precious time with her? He didn’t know. All he did know was that he would do it all again in a heartbeat if it meant being with her. She was worth any cost.
He stepped into a puddle and his boot sank almost up to the knee. With a curse, he yanked his leg free and fell onto his backside with a thump.
“Damn it!” he yelled, pounding his fist into the sodden turf. He climbed to his feet and did his best to wipe off the stinking mud that caked his leg.
He was standing on the edge of another bog. Thick layers of peat poked through the turf in great swathes, made sticky and cloying from the rain. If he wanted to go north, he would have to fight his way through them, a thought he did not relish.
The only clear path lay to his left, skirting the peat bog and dropping down towards the coast. Reid cursed. It seemed he was being herded further and further west. If this carried on much longer he’d end up in the sea.
The wind picked up, blowing cold air in off the ocean and sending Reid’s hair streaming out behind him. And driving the rain right into his face.
He growled under his breath, annoyed at God, the world and everything, and pulled his oiled cloak as tight against his body as he could. Head bowed against the weather, he trudged on. Eventually, his path took him down through a series of gorse and heather choked gullies where he lost sight of the sea only to see it again as he climbed the other side, until finally, he reached the sheer cliffs of the coast. Here the granite plunged down in a series of sea-cliffs to the churning white waves below, unscalable for all but the seabirds that made these cliffs their home by the thousands. Even on a foul day like this they wheeled through the air crying raucously and skimming the churning waves in their search for food.
