“Gone? All of them? They all died?” Christ, this century was mean.
He drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “My sister abides down near the border, wed with bairns. I have nae seen her in years. But aye, my father and mam succumbed to age—like as nae, my da’ went by way of past injuries, ones that haunted and enfeebled him. My brother, Artur, fell at Falkirk, and Colla was killed near Haddington.”
Claire hesitated, chewing the inside of her lip. “I’m so sorry,” she said finally, unable to comprehend the magnitude of that, nearly his entire family gone from this earth. “Were your brothers older or younger?”
“Younger, both of them.”
She would have been surprised if he’d said otherwise. Everything about him carried the air of an eldest son—the set of his jaw, the way authority seemed to cling to him like another garment. He had the bearing of a man reared to lead, to take responsibility before he was ready, to shoulder burdens that might have bent a gentler spirit. Perhaps he might once have been softer, kinder, if he’d not been born the heir. But the role likely had demanded severity, and the man beside her was the result.
She ought to let the quiet return, but curiosity needled at her. “And...were you ever married?”
He gave a sharp shake of his head. “Nae. Nae time for it, with war chewing at my heels since I could lift a blade.”
He paused and Claire considered what more she wanted to know about him—aside from everything.
To her surprise, he added after a moment, “I’ll have to wed eventually. Caeravorn must have an heir. A laird canna leave his folk with naught but uncertainty.”
Her head turned, eyes flicking to his face, searching. “I guess I thought in this century, people married young, like maybe you would have been married before the war started.”
“Like as nae, I should have been,” he admitted. “But my father passed when I’d just turned seventeen, and my mam followed him within six months. I had my hands full trying to outwit an uncle with ideas of his own about Caeravorn.”
“What? Like he was trying to take over, even though you were the heir?”
“Waged a bit of war,” Ciaran informed her, shrugging a bit. “He had nae the support or the coin to launch a proper takeover, but aye, he tried.”
“Did you...where is he now?”
“Dead.”
“Oh.” And a full ten seconds later, “Did you kill him?”
“Nae. But then I dinna have to. He went crying to the mormaer on Skye, to whom we owe allegiance, was killed by a northerner for being mouthy.”
“Just like that?”
“Aye, just like that.”
A mean century, indeed.
Claire pondered all this, and then froze inwardly, hoping Ciaran wouldn’t turn the question back on her, wouldn’t ask about her family, or if she were married. She wouldn’t lie, but God help her, she would want to. The thought itself wasshameful, a treachery against vows spoken in another world, another life, and with another man.
The guilt of it sat heavy in her chest. Even as she knew she and Jason were likely heading for divorce, that she certainly believed there was no hope for them, how could she even think such a thing?
Her guilt waned, abetted by the fact that Ciaran Kerr did not inquire about her or her family. Apparently, he was not rife with the same curiosity about her as she was about him. A good reminder, she decided: she was nothing to him, nothing but a burden he’d been ordered to track down.
She sighed, quiet and resigned, and let the silence fold in around them.
Chapter Eleven
Fire and Fury
––––––––
The night stretched long, heavy, and damp. Above them the ragged circle of sky had long since darkened to black, rain still dripping in a steady rhythm through the torn earth. Every time Claire shifted, the wool plaid tugged or bunched, scratchy and suffocatingly warm in one spot, threadbare in another. She hugged her knees tight, trying to fold herself into the smallest shape possible, but the chill crept in anyway, persistent as the rain itself.
Sleep came in fits, never more than a few minutes at a time before some ache or shiver snapped her back awake. She tried not to move too much, tried not to disturb him. Beside her, Ciaran leaned back against the wall, head tipped slightly forward, his breathing uneven—too shallow to be proper sleep. Every so often a rough sound escaped him, whether from pain or dream she couldn’t tell.
The guilt gnawed at her afresh each time. This was her fault. His arm, his ankle, the fact that they were sitting like half-buried corpses in this godforsaken pit—every bit of it traced back to her. She pressed her forehead to her knees and blinked hard, wishing she could will herself into warmth, or into courage, or maybe into any century but this one.
