“The garden’s right through the gate!See how green and pretty?We have herbs and roses and vegetables—though I dinna care for many of them, well, except carrots.I do love tae eat carrots and sometimes a wee bit of turnip.Isn’t that a funny word, turnip?”
Sorcha chattered on as she flew through the open gate and into what appeared a small Garden of Eden within the fortress walls, which astonished Lisette for all she’d heard about Earl Seoras and his penchant only for battle and bloodshed.
“Cora’s garden,” Conall said as if surmising her thoughts.He still held Lisette’s hand, though she had no idea why.He didn’t love her after all, so why be so solicitous of her?
For all she had sworn to herself that she would be a good and faithful wife, right now she didn’t feel very good at all and pulled her hand away.Conall appeared surprised for an instant, but before he could reach for her again, Lisette hurried to where Sorcha was bending over a rose bush laden with crimson blooms.
“Aislinn told me these were Cora’s favorite.Smell them, Lisette…mmm, so sweet.”
She obliged her, the heady fragrance wonderful indeed, while Conall stood to one side and watched them.Or he did, until a rumble of thunder made him glance up at the darkening sky.The light breeze had grown stronger, too, whipping Lisette’s gown around her legs.
“I think the chickens will have tae wait,” he called out to them as a flash of lightning blinded Lisette and made Sorcha shriek, a flaming tree limb crashing to the ground at one corner of the garden.
Before she knew it, Conall had grabbed her hand and Sorcha’s, too, and pulled both of them with him back toward the gate as the wind began to whistle around them.
A deafening crack of thunder made Sorcha scream again, and she burst into tears.“I dinna like storms!I dinna like storms!”
Lisette didn’t like them, either, not when she was outside with nowhere to duck for shelter.
More lightning flashed too near for comfort and this time, she felt the fine hairs lifting on her arms.The same thing must have happened to Conall.His vehement curse was drowned out by another boom of thunder and now Sorcha began to sob in earnest.
“Take her!”Lisette cried out against the wind that had heightened to a bluster.“I’ll follow you!”
He did, sweeping up Sorcha and running with her across the bailey as the sky opened up into a torrential downpour.
Lisette scurried after them only to stumble and fall to her knees, crying out at a sharp pain in her ankle.She managed to stand up, but the storm had become a raging tempest with deafening thunder that shook the ground.
She could barely see for the lashing rain that stung her face like nettles, the dirt becoming mud that sucked at her slippers.
Another blinding flash of lightning made her scream and limp back to the wall surrounding the garden, where she huddled and pressed her cheek against the cold stones.
“Conall…God help me!Conall!”
Chapter 12
“Lisette!”
For a heart-stopping moment, Conall didn’t see her for the cold rain stinging his eyes, until Cameron, running alongside him, shouted in his ear.
“There, by the wall!”
Conall breathed a prayer of thanks, but she looked so small and helpless crouching near the ground with her sodden lavender gown blending into the gray stones.
He called her name again, but she clearly couldn’t hear him over the howling wind.She didn’t lift her head until he stood over her and reached down to pull her into his arms, Lisette blinking against the driving rain.
“Oh, Conall…I couldn’t follow you, my ankle—”
“Shh, lass, I’ve got you.”Conall swept her up and held her close, Cameron clapping him on the back and then sprinting alongside him as they splashed through rivulets of water and mud to reach the keep.
Aislinn awaited them at the entranceway, Sorcha still hiccoughing with tears and holding onto her while serving women rushed forward with armloads of towels.
“Take her into the hall where the fire is stoked and blazing!”Aislinn shouted over another clap of thunder, but Conall shook his head.Lisette shivered so fiercely against him that he feared for her, a glance at her ashen pallor and bluish lips, her wet hair plastered to her head, making him move instead for the tower steps.
“Follow him,go!”came Cameron’s roared command, Conall glancing over his shoulder to see three maidservants hurrying after him while his brother shook water from himself and took a towel from his wife.
Cameron would be fine, and Sorcha, too, with Aislinn tending after them—but Lisette?As Conall raced up the steps, nearly slipping for the water dripping from him, his concern for her only mounted when she began to shiver even more violently.
“We’re almost there, lass—almost there,” he murmured against her wet hair.
