Her face was wet with real tears. She was playing at nothing.
He shouted at the sentry standing outside the doorway. “Fetch the healer!”
The woman moaned again. “Fetch a witch, or run me through. I care not.”
He suspected his guts twisted as painfully as hers while they waited, but he wasn’t fool enough to say it aloud. Nor could heshout and rail without upsetting her all the more. The strangling would have to wait.
“There’s nothin’ a mon can do to help in a woman’s time,” said Mrs. Beattie when she finally blew into the room like a feather on the wind. “Best ye leave her to the women, and she’ll be right as rain come the mornin’.”
Tearloch tucked his rage aside and nodded. But he had to know. He had to know now!
He crouched beside the bed so he could look directly into her eyes, then patted her cheek to gain her attention. “I shall leave ye in peace if ye answer a question, lass. Do ye understand?”
She hissed in a breath between her teeth. “What is it that cannot wait?”
“What is yer name?”
A cannon exploded somewhere.It must have. The silence that followed the question was deafening. He no longer believed she was Kenna Carlisle? Why?
She would be leaving him, so why would her name matter? Why not make him doubt everything that had happened between them—as she now did?
“Fia,” she whispered. “Fia Carlisle. Now get out.”
Much to her surprise, Tearloch reached out and stroked her face. His eyes were moist as he blessed her with one last crooked smile…then left her.
Outside the chamber,Duncan waited. When he saw the look on Tearloch’s face, he knew what the man had asked and that he had not liked the answer.
“Duncan,” he pleaded and looked away.
Duncan reached out and grabbed his young leader by the arms to steady him. “Come. We need a drink.”
Mrs. Allistair, his chatelain, came down the hall just then. She nodded to Duncan and said, “We’ll be needin’ some o’ yer strongest spirits as weel.”
He nodded to Jamie, waiting at the end of the hall. The lad hustled away. Then Duncan turned Tearloch toward the other end of the keep, toward his own meager chambers. His laird need not face the clan until he had his wits back again. And judging by the king’s missive, it might take a wee while.
Jamie sat on the floor with his back in the corner of Duncan’s bedchamber. For the first time in a sennight, he witnessed Duncan refuse a drink even while he fairly poured it down their commander’s throat.
He read the missive again, hoping he’d misread, knowing that he hadn’t.
My Dear Friend,
I regret that I never received your first message, but
all is well. You will be surprised to learn, however, that the
woman we sought is at this moment here under the protection
of my own roof. I expect you will find her as beautiful as I do.
Apparently, the woman you found was but a decoy,
sent to appease Gowry. My sister told me that the woman had
died in the skirmish, but she must have been misinformed.
Gair Balloch, who first told us of her existence, recovered
her from her aunt. And since he is the one to have met her those
