He didn’t even know what love was.
***
That night, Gwendolen waited hours for Angus to come to her bed, but he chose to stay away.
A part of her wondered if he had gone to Raonaid’s bed instead, but she could not let herself imagine such a thing. She had to believe that he would not be unfaithful, not after what occurred in the steward’s chamber that afternoon. He’d vowed that he wanted no woman but her, and he seemed to take her threat of running him through with his own sword seriously enough.
It was not love, he had said—but his sexual desire for her was something at least.
Alas, when she finally drifted into a deep but uneasy slumber, she tossed and turned in her bed, moaning softly into her pillow, as disturbing images of a distant land troubled her mind…
She woke with a start. Dawn was creeping across the sky, and the fire had gone out.
Sitting up, she gasped for air. She choked on a scream that would not escape her tight, burning throat.
She had dreamed of her brother, Murdoch, floating down a long, winding river that drained into the stormy waters of the English Channel. His body rested on a funeral pyre, and there was a noose around his neck. When he plunged beneath the surface, he called out her name.
But there was nothing she could do. She reached out, but could not save him, for he was gone—sinking alone into the cold, dark depths below.
At that moment she knew. She had lost her brother forever.
Chapter Twenty-one
Angus stood on the tower rooftop, watching the rising sun splash bright patterns of color across the horizon. The eyes of the world would soon flutter open, and he would begin another day with no idea how to navigate through the muddy terrain of his life and emotions. He was someone’s husband now—he was Gwendolen’s husband—and imagining the loss of her was like imagining the loss of his own soul.
Angus had never put much stock in the fate of his soul before, nor had he feared death. He had witnessed his own mother’s tragic passing as a child, and not even that had made him anxious about his own. All his life he had charged fearlessly into battle without the slightest hesitation. If he died, so be it. It was enough to know that he would die with honor, for outside of that, he’d never had much to live for.
Everything was different now. Raonaid’s prophecy forced him to look at his life and all that he had yet to experience and achieve. He and Gwendolen had created a child together, and for that reason he needed to live. He needed to protect his family and care for them, and prove that he could be something other than the ruthless brute that everyone believed him to be.
Perhaps he knew what love was after all. Or at the very least, he was discovering it, one day at a time.
The sound of footsteps up the tower stairs caused him to turn, and he found himself staring, speechless, at his wife. She wore a white shift and lace-trimmed dressing gown and looked like an angel in the breezy pink radiance of the morning.
His gaze fell to her bare toes peeking out from under the hem. “You ought to be wearing shoes, lass. The stones are cold.”
“Why are you always concerned with my feet,” she asked, “when you should be wondering what I’m doing here in the first place? Is it not worth noting that I am on a tower rooftop at dawn searching for you, when the last time we spoke, I stormed out of the room and slammed a door in your face?”
He approached her. “Aye, it’s definitely worth noting, and I’m pleased to see you.” He swallowed hard. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to your bed last night.”
There. See? He could be gentle when he tried. He could offer his wife an apology.
She pulled the wrapper more tightly closed to ward off the morning chill. “I wasn’t surprised when you didn’t come,” she said. “We were angry with each other yesterday.”
“Nay, lass—you were angry withme,and for good reason. I was wrong not to believe you about the child.”
“And what about the other thing?” she asked, shivering slightly. “The fact that Raonaid said I would betray you? Do you still believe her about that?”
For a long moment, he considered it. “I don’t know.”
Her shoulders rose and fell with a resigned sigh. “Well, I can’t force you to believe it, can I? All I can do is ask that you follow your heart, and hope that over time you’ll learn to trust me.”
He inclined his head at her. “There was a time you didn’t believe I had a heart.”
“There was also a time when I was a virgin and knew nothing about what went on between a man and a woman in the marriage bed. I am not the same person I once was, Angus. Everything is different now. I hope it is different for you, too.”
He laid a hand on the small of her back and led her toward the tower battlements, where they could look out over the distant fields and forests of Kinloch.
“Why are you here, lass?” he asked, admiring her profile and her shiny black hair, blowing lightly in the breeze. “Why are you not sleeping, warm in your bed?”
