Her conviction wore thin as the hours ticked away, the keep growing quieter and quieter around her. Eventually, the silence prickled at the anxious energy that filled Eilidh’s body, and she began pacing. She would rather not leave the room in case he appeared after all—it wasn’t unreasonable, she reminded herself, that something might have delayed him—but she couldn’t sit still any longer.
It was on one of the countless passes between her bed and the window overlooking the courtyard—seven paces in one direction, then seven back again—that she caught a glimpse of something out the window that made her pause and look more closely.
There was a lone figure moving toward the stables. The moonlight glinted off the burnished strands in his hair, making his identity clear—not that she could have mistaken him, not when her whole being had felt attuned to him from the first.
Ciaran.
She didn’t even pause to think. She raced from her rooms, her feet slapping the stone floor of the keep too noisily as she raced after him. Nobody stopped her.
Thank ye, Christ, she thought feverishly as she hurried.
When she reached the stables, Ciaran was securing the last few straps on Shadowbane’s saddle.
A sharp flash of betrayal went through her as he turned in her direction, a stricken look on his face.
“Ye were going to leave?” she asked, her words coming out in gasps. Mere moments later and she might have missed him. “Without a word? Without even a goodbye?”
His fingers tightened on Shadowbane’s reins, but then he turned back to continue his work, checking straps and buckles.
“It’s better this way,” he said curtly.
Mayhap a different woman would have been put off by this sudden iciness. Eilidh suspected that she wasmeantto be put off by it.
But it only made her quite properly furious.
“Nay,” she said, stamping her foot in the hay that littered the stable floor. Perhaps it was a bit childish, but so was running away in the night, damn it all! “Nay, ye cannae justleave. Ye owe me an explanation, at least.”
His hands paused in his work, and Eilidh could see where old scars on his knuckles stood out in relief against his tanned skin.
“Just let me go, Eilidh,” he said. “I’m no hero; I’m nae even a good man.”
“You saved my life!” she insisted, the words shrill enough that Shadowbane let out a nervous huff, and, off in his stable, Grian stomped a hoof. “Ye cannae convince me that that isnae heroic.”
“I put ye in danger!” he shouted, finally rounding to face her. His eyes were wide, wild and desperate in the dim lighting. “I was the one who took ye out there in the first place; I was the one who put ye at risk. And ye will alwaysbeat risk so long as I am near ye.”
His voice cracked as though something inside him, something he’d held onto for a long time, finally broke.
She took a step closer to him, slowly, like he was a startled horse that might bolt. The setting was appropriate for it, after all.
“Ciaran,” she said gently, laying a hand on his arm. “Tell me what’s going on.”
He sighed, the breath shuddering out of him.
“After the rebellion,” he said, looking at the ground, a flop of his bronze hair falling over his brow and casting his face in shadow. “The Gunns were forbidden from distilling, under punishment by the King. But we didnae stop. We just waited until his back was turned. It was the only thing that kept our clan alive, ye ken.”
Eilidh paused, taking this in. Even if she didn’t remember much of it herself, she knew that the time after the rebellion had been particularly hard in the Highlands, as the English had swept through the countryside, carrying vengeance in their wake.
“Ye were trying to protect your people,” she said softly.
His head jerked up.
“I put my people indanger,” he said. “I was a young, ambitious fool who clung to my family’s pride, who knowingly broke the law—even though I knew that such a secret was destined to fall apart, was destined to bring doom to our doorstep. And now…” He shook his head sharply. “Now, I have brought it to ye as well. I cannot abide it.”
He looked so devastated that it broke her heart.
“Mayhap it was a mistake,” she allowed. “But ye can fix it—we can fix it together. The Buchanans are still permitted to distill; perhaps there is a way to forge ahead together?—“
“Nay.” He cut her off. “Nay, Eilidh. The best thing I can do is leave ye behind to protect ye all from this mess that I’ve brought down upon ye.”
