Nodding stiffly at his decision, Claire murmured her thanks and left him, not releasing her breath until she stepped outside.
***
Ciaran urged his horse down the muddy slope, the gray light of morning filtering through the mist that hung heavy over the river. Days of rain had swelled the burn into a fast-moving torrent, and he’d wanted to see with his own eyes whether the ford still held or if it was too dangerous to cross. Though he’d advised Seoras to hold off sending Claire’s letter bound for Braalach, he still thought he should test the roads himself to see if they were passable or not.
She was no prisoner. If she wanted to depart Caeravorn and take up at Braalach, he could not and would not stop her. He leaned forward in the saddle, studying where the water lapped at the stones, higher than he liked with travel in mind.
Her request had caught him off guard, truth be told. He imagined he should be relieved to put distance between him and this enigmatic woman who’d upended his keep, his temper, his very peace. Instead—God’s teeth—he was angry. Angry at her for wanting to go, angry at himself for caring, angrier still for how she had shifted his thoughts away from what mattered. Before Claire, he’d lived in straight lines: the war ahead, the feeding of his people through the winter, the irrigation channels they meant to dig come spring—practical things, necessary things. He should be pleased to see the back of her.
And yet, he scowled at the river, though it was not the river that plagued him. The thought of her leaving carved a hole in his chest. It disturbed him, the very idea, left him restless and sour, as though she’d taken something with her already simply by wanting to go.
He steered his destrier down along the banks, and revisited her dramatic turmoil of last night. He’d only meant to steal a quick moment of privacy in the chapel, to say a quiet prayer for young Callum, but he’d paused at the door, realizing her presence within, listening to her heartfelt prayer.
She’d been pleading, not initially for herself but for the lad lost.I tried... but it wasn’t enough.The words had rooted him there—he understood that kind of guilt. He’d thought of the men he’d lost in fields and raids, the ones he couldn’t bring home no matter how well he planned or how violently he fought. There was kinship in that grief, and it surprised him to find sympathy catching under his ribs.
And yet, what had unsettled him most was what she’d said next,Show me a way back.It landed oddly, like a stone in still water. Aye, it had been said, and he was expected to believe that she—and Ivy as well—had come from some other time. Even as Alaric had seemed willing to accept it as truth, Ciaran never had, never would. But to hear Claire say it plainly, as a prayer, in private with no idea that she had an audience, had given him pause.
Jesu,could it possibly be true? Or, at the very least, did Claire believe it to be true?
He’d thought of turning and stepping quietly away, of sparing them both the shame of her knowing he’d overheard. But then her sobs had broken loose, a sound that cut straight through him. It hadn’t been the quiet weeping of a woman hiding her grief, but a keening cry, raw and wretched, as if something inside her had torn, not pain of the body but pain of the heart, and it had shaken him. He’d hesitated, torn, but then knew he couldn’t leave her alone to drown in it. So he’d gone to her, sat beside her, caught her hand when it flailed, held it until the storm spent itself. And in doing so, he’d felt something shift in him, something he couldn’t put words to, but which had seemed to have been cleaved with the knife she’d wielded today, announcing her want to leave.
Further along the ford, he found a place where the water didn’t roar so dangerously. Aye, in a day or two, barring anymore rain, it would be safe to cross here. He could see that Claire was brought to Braalach.
He was about to turn his mount back when a voice, light as a reed, slipped out of the fog.
“But ye dinna truly want her to leave, do ye?”
Ciaran jerked, his destrier snorting and sidestepping beneath him. The great beast stamped at the stones, ears flicking back, uneasy in a way no charge of arrows had ever made him. Ciaran pulled the reins tight, steadying the horse with a sharp word, but his gaze cut into the mist.
A woman stood on the far bank, no horse, no cloak, her black and gray hair loose about her shoulders. She was no one he knew from Caeravorn—and he knew every soul within a day’s ride.
But what chilled him more than her sudden appearance was the words she’d spoken. They had reached straight into the marrow of his own thoughts, the very ones he had been battling only moments ago. He scowled, his chest tightening, for how could she know what he had not said aloud?
Ciaran shifted in the saddle, every muscle taut. His next thought was not of strange women inexplicably speaking his thoughts but of ambush. His gaze swept the trees, the ridges above the ford, the churn of water able to mask any number of enemies. Yet there was only the woman, standing light-footed on the stones, her dark hair drifting as if the mist itself breathed through it.
His hand went to the hilt of his sword. “Who are ye, and what business brings ye to Caeravorn?”
The woman smiled, not at all alarmed by the fury of his tone, and stepped onto the slick stones as though the swollen river would part for her. “Och, it’s nae yer land I’m after. It’s her—the lass ye’d send away.”
He stiffened. “Claire.”
“Aye, Claire. She’s nae meant to be parted from ye, Ciaran Kerr. D’ye nae recall? Ye thought ye lost her once already.”
What the bluidy hell!“How in God’s name do ye ken my name?” His thumb nudged the guard of his sword, ready.
Her smile was innocent, almost childlike. “Och, I’ve kent it longer than ye’ve had breath.”
A chill, unlike anything he’d ever known, ran through him. Madness, surely. Or trickery. He’d heard tales of women feigning witless speech to lure men close before steel came from the shadows. His horse stamped again, uneasy, and Ciaran tightened his fist on the reins.
“Enough,” he bit out, scanning again over the fog-draped banks, certain eyes watched him still. “State yer business.”
“And have I nae?”
“Be gone from here,” he said flatly. “Whatever game ye play, I’ll nae have it.”
But the woman only cocked her head, eyes bright with mischief. “I dinna play games, Laird. I weave threads. I set paths to cross. I went to nae a little trouble to see ye find each other again, to bring her to ye, and I’ll nae watch ye squander it. Hold fast to her, will ye nae?”
While he tried to comprehend her words, while his horse danced still with agitation beneath him, she winked, and the mist curled around her, and then she was gone.
