He was still gazing at Alice and Margaret. “I love you so.” He suddenly looked at Alana. “I love you. I always have.”
The tears streamed down her cheeks. Alana somehow nodded. But his eyes were closed. “Oh, God,” she gasped, terrified that he was dead.
Alice laid her ear upon his chest. She looked up. “He lives.”
Still clasping both of his hands, Joan said, “Try to give him some water.”
Alice took a mug from the side table. She sniffed it then tried to entice Sir Alexander to drink. But he lay unmoving and unconscious.
Alana realized they would keep vigil now, until he died.
She glanced around the small chamber for the first time. She retrieved a small stool and brought it over for Alice to sit upon. As Alice sat, their gazes briefly met.
She then rolled up a rug and gave it to Margaret as a makeshift seat. Margaret smiled weakly at her, her blue eyes bright with tears.
Alana stood at the side of his bed, with Joan and her sisters, and she thought,I do love you.But she wished he would explain to her, so she could understand, why he had left her to be raised by Eleanor, why he had chosen his other daughters over her.
* * *
THEFIREBEGANto go out, some hours later. The room felt terribly cold. No one wept anymore. Outside, a dull light stained the night.
Alana got up and went to the fire and poked it with the iron. Flames hissed.
“Elisabeth.”
Alana whirled at the sound of her father’s voice. His eyes were wide-open and so very blue and he smiled, the smile of someone happy and surprised. She did not know who or what he was looking at.
And then the light was gone.
Joan cried out, collapsing upon him, weeping.
“No!” Alice and Margaret cried as one.
Alana stared at her father’s sightless, lifeless eyes. He was gone.
She hugged herself, fighting not to cry, wondering if he had actually called out her mother’s name with his last dying breath. And as she stood there, shaking and shaken, the night sky blushed pink. The shadows inside the chamber lightened.
The sun was about to rise, and when it did, Iain would renew his siege.
She wanted to hug her father as her two sisters and Joan were doing. But she was afraid to insert herself amongst them. And time was running out. She had to leave.
Alana wet her lips and managed to speak. “It is dawn. The siege will soon begin. Sir Alexander wanted you safely out of harm’s way.... Joan? We should go.”
Joan was sobbing softly, clasping her husband’s lifeless hands to her breast. She could not respond, but Alice whirled, her arm around her weeping sister. “We cannot leave him!”
Alana blinked back tears. “I am afraid for you if you stay here.”
“What difference will it make?” Alice said. “Iain took us prisoner, if we stay here, he will do so again.”
She had never been in a siege, Alana thought. “Or you might suffer injury or death during this battle.”
Alice’s eyes widened.
There was a sound at the door, and Alana turned, expecting Godfrey.
The Earl of Buchan smiled coldly at her.
Her heart seemed to plummet through her entire body. She cried out, backing up into the bed.
