He could hear the clash of swords outside and knew Gavin’s men were training in the bailey—as they had done every day since their laird had admonished them to prepare for the battle ahead with the English.
Aye, well, he needed to train, too, for what else was left to him if Tira no longer loved him? A hardened warrior’s life of fighting and killing and trying to forget her—ah, God, as if he ever could!
Roaring in impotent fury, Errol burst outside and unsheathed his sword to run to the nearest man, who spun around in surprise and barely had time to lift his weapon to counter Errol’s blow.
Their clashing swords rang out across the bailey…every slash, every violent thrust making Errol wish Thorgren Sigurdson was facing him for what he had done to Tira, damn that accursed raider to hell!
When the man he fought collapsed to the ground in exhaustion, Errol went after another and another until all around him sprawled a half dozen warriors too spent from his fierce onslaught to lift their weapons.
Still Errol taunted more men to fight him, all of his frustration and anguish from the past year overwhelming him as sweat ran down his face and soaked his tunic, his muscles screaming. With a wild bellow he attacked another man—only to feel something hard strike him on the back of his head that felled him to his knees.
“By God, Sutherland,enoughbefore you kill someone!”
His chest heaving, Errol gazed up through blurred vision at Gavin’s head captain, Lorne MacSween, who lowered the wooden shield he had used to fell Errol.
The man’s black-bearded face grim as he glanced around him at the warriors groaning upon the ground, and then gestured for two others to come forward.
“Take him tae the barracks—och, looks like I hit him a wee bit too hard.”
Errol had crumpled onto his side, the back of his head pounding as blackness descended upon him…an exasperated curse from Lorne and an outcry to fetch the healer the last thing he heard.
CHAPTER 8
Tira glanced at the high window, the afternoon light waning, and wondered anew if Errol still intended to speak with her.
Mayhap he had changed his mind given her heartbreak over her father’s death—och, what did it matter if he came to see her or not?
Reminding herself that nothing could ever be the same between them, she pushed aside the blanket Cora had thrown over her and sat up in the bed.
She had spent hours weeping and sometimes dozing fitfully as the shock of hearing about her father had become a numbing realization that the home she had known was gone.
A new chieftain of Clan Cheyne would have been named and his wife and family moved into the lodgings Tira had once shared with her parents—ah, God, both dead now!—so what was she to do?
She could return to her clan, but how would she bear the whispers and sideways glances from her kinsmen that her bairns had been sired by a hated Orkney raider? Only her father could have shielded her from such censure, but he couldn’t protect her now.
She had also desperately considered retiring to a convent, but she couldn’t abandon Monroe and Isobel, Tira’s heart aching at the thought. Mayhap if she had never looked upon their sweet faces or held them in her arms—och, her refusal to acknowledge them until this morning made her feel wretched enough.
Only one other possibility had tormented her, but she could never wed Errol, even if he still might wish it. She could never fully be a wife to him after…after?—
Tira groaned as she shoved away the memory of Thorgren groping her, kissing her, and rose from the bed on trembling legs. Tears blurred her vision, too, fresh panic overwhelming her, but she had cried enough for one day, one week—no, an entire year.
“You will think of something surely!” she tried to bolster herself, blinking away the wetness. She smoothed the wrinkles from her gown and then reached for the comb on the table beside the bed, her stomach grumbling noisily.
Aye, she was hungry, which amazed her because up until now, she’d had no appetite for food, though she had forced herself to eat to please Cora.
She felt stronger of body, too, her trembling fading, and drew the comb through her tousled hair with some surprise that she cared enough to do so.
Childbirth had been fierce and yet mercifully swift, and she couldn’t deny that with each day she had felt better—at least until the unhappy news this morning that had sent her into a spiral of grief.
She had wondered why Cora had said nothing about her father or a messenger being sent to the northern Highlands to let him know she had been rescued, yet she hadn’t asked about him, either, a broken sigh escaping Tira.
Keen regret swept her anew that she could have ever thought to blame him for anything…or Errol for that matter, another pang gripping her heart.
She owed him a debt of gratitude for rescuing her—aye, for saving her life when Brinda had sought to kill her.
“You can at least allow him that much,” Tira whispered, glancing again at the window where daylight was growing ever dimmer.
No one had come to her room for hours, she imagined because Cora had instructed the servants to leave her alone for a while—ah, God!
