He glanced at the tower again where he had seen Lisette, but the window was still empty.
Cursing under his breath, Conall knew there was no time to go to her.
He turned from the keep and strode away to organize his men, the noise and commotion building around him.
Chapter17
“You’ve a fine warm cloak, Lady Campbell—a good thing now that we’re closer tae the sea and with the wind picking up.”
Lisette heaved a small sigh at Father Philip once again drawing his horse near to her own mount to converse with her, the young man more gregarious than any priest she’d ever known.Yet mayhap it was because he looked no more than a youth with his smooth face and pale blue eyes, his duties as a cleric of listening daylong to penitents’ transgressions not yet weighing upon him.
She murmured a soft “Oui,” but truly that was all she could muster.She gazed ahead to where Conall rode at the front of a long column of warriors, some marching while others rode two by two.Behind her rumbled a half dozen wagons and then more warriors armed to the teeth with weapons.
Swords and knives and spears and wicked-looking axes, as if they marched straight toward battle, which made her shiver though not from lack of warmth.
Aislinn had told her of the MacDougall clan’s folly—for what else could it be than foolhardiness with such an impressive force to reckon with if they dared to attack?Cameron and a host of his warriors had accompanied them for a good distance and then had veered off to ride back through the countryside, their whoops and bloodcurdling bellowing enough to discourage any enemies that might be lurking along the way.
Conall’s men, though, were silent and ever watchful, Conall turning every now and then to look in her direction though mayhap he was simply checking the progress of their cavalcade.
He did so now, which made Lisette’s cheeks grow hot at the somber look he gave her, but then he turned around in the saddle, his back stiff and straight.She doubted that she had ever seen him appear more fearsome with his thick leather armor and a chain mail coif that covered his head and shoulders.Many of his men wore the same battle garb, which only heightened the air of danger surrounding them.
She could sense the tension emanating from him that all of his warriors seemed to share from their grim faces, while in the wagon directly behind her slept Colin in his nursemaid’s arms as if he didn’t know a care in the world.
His sobbing at the tower window had ceased almost as soon as Sorcha had taken him from her, which had been a good thing because Lisette had lost all strength to hold him.
Such a terrible pang struck her again at the image in her mind of Lorna rushing into Conall’s embrace, the two of them kissing.Mon Dieu, would she ever be free of the wretched memory?
Everything afterward had happened in a blur…Aislinn rushing into the room to share what had happened and helping to pack.Then the sorrowful goodbyes to her and Sorcha while Conall had come near only once to bring a gentle brown mare for Lisette to ride instead of joining Colin and his nursemaid and the servants in the wagon.Conall had helped her to mount, his strong hands lifting her with ease, but he had said nothing, as if focused upon the perilous journey that lay ahead of them.
Oddly enough, Father Philip had his own horse, an older gelding that still plodded beside her horse though Lisette kept her eyes forward so as not to encourage the priest in further discourse.She felt too heartsick to say another word.Her gaze once again flew to Conall, who had looked behind him again and gestured toward something in the distance.
Had he done so to her or to all of them?Lisette guessed the latter when the warriors around her began to pick up their pace, and the creaking wagons, too.
She saw it then as her mare trotted past a copse of trees.A great edifice of stone rising from a promontory that jutted out over the sea, which appeared a vast expanse as gray as the overcast sky.
A second Campbell Castle…her new home.If not for what she had seen in the bailey earlier that afternoon when Lorna pressed her lips to Conall’s, Lisette might have felt great excitement and joy.Instead, sadness and disbelief rippled through her as fresh as when she had stood in shock at the window.
To think the woman would be visiting her son at this place for years to come after what she had done, kissing Conall for all to see.
For Lisette to see, too.Lorna had glanced up and spied her before Conall had strode out into the bailey, and cast her a smug smile as if to remind Lisette of what she’d claimed earlier.
You think you know the man you’ve married—but you dinna know him!
Not for the first time, Lisette berated herself for deceiving Conall into a marriage he hadn’t wanted.He had said that he thought her kind and good, but how could she be?She had lied to him and brought this misery down upon herself!
Of course a man who had known such a free existence would not be content with one woman to love for his lifetime…if he even loved her.They had known each other only days after all, just as Lorna had said.
I knew him for weeks longer and look what he did tae me!
The shrill words echoed in Lisette’s mind as the wind buffeted her…smelling of the sea and whipping up white-capped waves that crashed against the rocks at the base of the promontory.
Now her teeth chattered and she drew the cloak closer around her, then glanced behind her to see that the nursemaid had thankfully bundled Colin into a blanket.
The little boy had awoken and stared around him, a sweet smile lighting his face when he spied Lisette.She smiled back, though her heart was breaking—Colin’s blue eyes so like his father’s.
His smile so like his father’s, too, though she had glimpsed it so rarely from Conall.She thought of the night before when he had been so boyish and playful, not long after he had said he loved her.
He had said, too, that everything he’d done had been to forget Lorna—but clearly, for her to kiss him so passionately, they must still mean something to each other, Lisette was certain of it.How was she to bear it?What was she to do?
