Conall ignored Cameron and took another draft of ale, though he did feel remorse for pushing himself and his men—and Lisette—so relentlessly since leaving Dumbarton yesterday morning.
Now it was late afternoon.The great hall of Campbell Castle, his brother’s fortress, empty but for a few servants wiping down trestle tables and arranging wooden benches in preparation for the evening meal.
A smoldering log fell through the iron grate in the fireplace, which was massive to warm the cavernous hall.Conall stared at the glowing sparks spiraling upward that reminded him of the lustrous red glints in Lisette’s hair, and then thrust the thought away as he sank deeper into the chair next to his brother’s.
Weariness overwhelmed him, too, but he wasn’t ready to retire to the bedchamber where Cameron’s Irish bride of only a few weeks, Aislinn, had escorted Lisette.Conall had said he would carry her up into the tower, but his flame-haired sister-in-law had insisted brusquely that a manservant would help her, her vivid blue eyes flashing fire at Conall.
Aye, she’d been angry to see Lisette’s exhausted state, while Cameron had held his tongue as Conall had apprised him of the last week’s events.Och, had it been only a week since King Robert had told him he must ride to Dumfries to steal Euan MacCulloch’s intended bride, Isabeau, from under his nose?
Conall had stolen her all right, the wrong woman who was now his wife!Not Isabeau at all, but Lisette Mathilde Charpentier.
Calling herselfLisette Isabeauhad only been a ruse she had concocted right there in the very church where they had wed, lying to him through her teeth.Had it been a lie as well when she told the king that she hadn’t known such gladness as when she and Conall had married?She had certainly seemed giddy with joy, which probably angered him the most.
Even more than her half-hearted attempt to run into the woods—another ruse!—that had brought wolves down upon them.
Even more than lying to him, as he suspected, about Euan MacCulloch giving her a vial of lilac perfume, which must be her half-sister’s favorite scent for how the room at the convent had reeked of it.
Och, Lisette had been giddy because her plan to deceive him had worked, so why wouldn’t she be elated?
Yet he could have avoided a wedding altogether if she had only told him the truth.He would never have left her in the woods—though he might have returned her to Dumfries and tried to abduct therealIsabeau a second time.Foolhardy, most likely, for by then the element of surprise was long gone and MacCulloch’s guards no doubt encircling the convent, but at least, again, Conall wouldn’t have been wed.
To the most beautiful, sweet-tempered woman he had ever known, his conflicting thoughts held captive by Lisette.
“You’re scowling, brother.”
Conall met Cameron’s gaze, blurting in frustration, “How can I not?Whenever I think of all her lies, I should despise Lisette for her trickery.I dinna want a bride—”
“So you’ve said many times.”
“Aye, and I could have avoided the plague of it all if she’d only told me the truth.”
“What then?You would have returned her tae a life of misery and a half-sister’s cruelty?That’s not the brother I know—but mayhap, I dinna really know you after all.I always believed us as close as two brothers can be, yet I dinna recognize this Conall.Aye, fierceness upon the battlefield is one thing, but all of this scowling?Your good humor fled?No laughter?No lighthearted jests?”
“Marriage is no lighthearted matter, at least not for me.You’re right, you dinna know me, Cameron.”
Conall turned back to the fire and took another draught of ale, but the brew was tasteless in his mouth.
Aye, something was wrong with him.
His life turned upside down by a king’s command and deceit from a lass who looked as innocent as a fawn and had the sweetest voice he’d ever heard.
Yet it was her eyes…her soft brown eyes looking at him with such trust and tenderness in spite of how brusquely he had treated her since they left Dumbarton Castle, making him feel disgusted with himself.With a vehement curse he flung the rest of his ale into the flames, which hissed and sputtered and flared higher, causing Cameron to utter a low whistle.
A low whistle much like Conall had done when he had seen his painfully shy brother at Aislinn’s bedside after she’d been found barely alive in the fortress prison—aye, tending to her so carefully and never taking his eyes from her.
“What?”Bristling, Conall glared at Cameron for he knew exactly what his brother was thinking.
That he, too, might have finally met a woman that moved him to act unlike he ever had before…but Cameron didn’t know anything about Lorna.Conall had loved her and yet she had left him, though strangely, the memory now didn’t cut him quite as deep—
“Did you bother tae ask Lisette about her life in France, Conall?”
He bristled again, shaking his head.“We hardly spoke.How could we when surrounded by my own men and the twenty-odd warriors King Robert sent with me tae train with your fighters before we make our way tae my estate?We were never alone.”
“Ah, then, you’ll have much tae talk about with your bride.I would think you curious tae learn why she was so desperate tae escape her half-sister that she would wed a stranger.The very man who forced a sleeping elixir upon her and ruthlessly abducted her.You may see it as deceit—but I see it as brave beyond measure.She knows as little about you as you know about her.Mayhap this week when you’re not training your new men and she’s had a chance tae rest and regain her strength, you might spend some time with her.Aye, make her laugh and chase away those dark smudges under her eyes—”
“Are you done, Cameron?”
Conall had thrust himself up from his chair and stared down at his brother, who didn’t appear perturbed at all by his angry roar.
