Sitting inside the cottage like this made her a prisoner, a prisoner of her past and his. She could not and would not go back to the person she’d been—one who waited on her husband’s pleasure, one who turned herself into a nothing more than a serving woman to pay back some debt she thought she owed. She’d lost so much of her life before she’d met Aidan, but she’d sworn she would not go back to a time when a man made her decisions for her.
So, when the day was fully awake, she realised that in order to make her decision, she must listen to his explanation and judge it. Opening the shutters, she let the light flood inside the cottage. Seeing no one outside, she lifted the bar and latch and opened the door.
She expected to find him there. She expected that he had followed her back and would press his case. Instead, she found herself standing alone as the village around her began to wake to the new day.
* * *
Aidan wanted to run after her, but did not. Afraid she might fall or hurt herself, he watched until she was just a shadow moving away from him down the road.
This was not how he expected it would go once he’d found her. Nothing about Catriona went as he expected it to. Never.
‘Alastair?’ Ronald said, stepping up next to him. ‘You are mistaken. Her name is not Catriona. That is Coira MacCallum.’
‘Ah. Just so,’ he said, nodding at Ronald. She was hiding in plain sight by using another name. His mother’s family name. ‘She looked like someone I used to know. My error. I hope I have not frightened her?’
‘Seonag!’ Ronald called out to one of the women in the group there. ‘Is she well? Coira?’
‘Oh, aye,’ this Seonag said. ‘She’s a bit tired from all the work preparing. And from the bairn.’ Cat must have been helping with the children there amongst the women.
‘Is she married, then?’ he asked, trying to keep his voice even as he found out more about the story she used here.
Ronald slapped him on the shoulder and laughed. ‘She’s a widow, though a bit old for ye, dinna ye think?’ he asked. ‘And she’s carrying.’
Everything stopped around him for just a moment as the words sank into his mind. Every sound, every movement, every person around him seemed to stop.
She’s carrying.
Catriona was pregnant with his bairn. He stumbled then and Ronald reached out for him.
‘I warned ye about the ale,’ Ronald said, holding him until he steadied. ‘’Tis stronger than most.’
‘I will see you on the morrow,’ Aidan mumbled out.
He walked down the road, towards the keep, but his heart wanted to follow her. How was it possible she was pregnant? She was barren. She could not have children.
He laughed harshly at the truths before him.
She knew that she carried his babe when she left him. His father must have known—for there was little or nothing the Beast did not know about those under his protection. She lived here and made no secret of it.
Confused and unable to sort through it all, he made his way back to the keep and to his chamber.
He thought he would ride in, find her, make her listen to his explanation and then she would forgive him.
If, knowing she was pregnant, his father sent her away and she made no attempt to contact him, it spoke of a reason he did not wish to consider.
She would never forgive him for what he’d done.
His mighty plan of making her see reason in his role in Gowan’s death would accomplish nothing. It might make him feel better, but she had already turned away from him.
And even while she carried a babe she thought she could never have. The pain struck him then as all of his hopes and dreams came crashing down around him. This could not end well for him.
Lairig Dubh, Scotland
Jocelyn waited for her husband in the solar. His mood and the mood of everyone here deteriorated more with each day that passed since Aidan rode out of the gates. Oh, she’d witnessed tests of will between her eldest son and his father since the first time Aidan could say the word ‘nay’ and more recently there had been some serious ones. But nothing came close to the stupidity of both of them in this matter.
She now had no choice left but to step in and meddle as Connor liked to call it. Jocelyn thought of it as taking steps to prevent catastrophe and disaster. And to save those whom she loved the most from self-destruction. Pacing around the chamber, she realised that she was part of the problem, too.
All good reasons for her to take some action of her own before it was too late—if it was not already.
