“Why?”
“I’ll explain later. I kenned if that was what kept ye from me, I might be the only one who could stop him. ’Twas all I could offer.”
He took her hand, turned his head aside and kissed it. “Ye stun me with yer bravery, Wife, and yer selflessness.”
Fiona took his hand in both of hers. “I made a vow in the kirk today. I plan to keep it. I will wait for ye.”
His gaze, when she looked from his hand back to his eyes, shocked her. Tears glinted in them.
“I dinna deserve ye.”
Heart breaking for the pain he was in, she told him, “Come for me.”
“I will come for ye as fast as I can, though I ken ye will think on what I have gotten ye into while I am gone.”
She shook her head, but he stopped her by gently grasping her chin.
“If ye decide ye must, ye will admit ye lied about the blood, and I will return home yet again without ye. But I hope ye dinna. There is something between us. Something that I hope will grow stronger and closer. Yearethe lass I remember from Inverness. Yer beauty, yer sweetness, and yer strength are all things I need. I want ye, Fiona, by my side. As my wife and mother to my bairns. We will accomplish much together.”
Fiona’s heart pounded at his words. Sweet words. Tender words of the Erik she’d come to know, not the frightening Ross laird with fury in his eyes as he faced off against the Rose.
CHAPTER 5
Erik escorted Fiona to their chamber. He’d said all he dared say to her already. Any more and he would not be able to resist taking her with him. Her silence told him she, too, was beyond words.
At the door, she paused and looked up to him, sorrow in her gaze, her brow furrowed and her eyes glassy with tears.
He opened the door, then cupped her cheek and kissed her. Her lips were warm and seasoned with her tears, salty and yet, still flavored with her sweetness. If he never saw her again, he would never forget the taste of her on this night. The pain and yes, fear, of their leave-taking. Her breath hitched as he stepped away and she reached for him.
He shook his head, but gazed at her, trying to let her see all that he could not say. Then he turned and walked away.
Leaving her there was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. Though he knew it was foolishly dangerous, he wanted her to travel with him. But he would not give in to that wish. Instead, he focused on his duty, found his men and after telling them what had been decided, put three of them to gathering their belongings and readying their mounts. The other two he took with him to the dungeon, hoping the Rose had sent word torelease the Ross in their custody. He had. “Stay with him while he gets his gear,” he ordered one of the pair, “then take him to the stable, mount up and wait for meoutsideRose’s gates. I dinna want any more trouble with the Rose. Better we leave quietly, starting with him.”
Both men nodded, subdued by the import of the fight and its aftermath, or by the weight of disappointment and grief that bowed their laird’s shoulders. They had come here to become allies and were leaving, if not as enemies, certainly in some disgrace. The idea of it infuriated Erik once again, and he decided that the best thing he could do, despite Mary’s words, was to go to the herbal to speak to the healer about the injured man. Earlier, when he saw the damage done, his heart sank. No wonder the Rose had been so infuriated. Now, the healer continued to work on the man’s injury, but Erik could see he might lose his arm. Or, given the amount of blood on the floor around the table where he lay, his life. The man was in no condition to speak to him, or to hear his apology. He left the healer’s doorway without saying a word, and headed to the stable.
After what he’d just seen, Erik was glad he’d sent Kester away because he’d likely kill him.Pishedand belligerent, he’d risked everything they’d come here to do, the agreement between clans, Erik and Fiona’s wedding, everything, in a drunken brawl over a serving wench. When he saw that Kester was still there, still drunk and lounging on a hay bale while Donnan tried to argue him into mounting and leaving, Erik had enough. Furious, he picked Kester up by the front of his jerkin.
“Damned fool, ye are lucky to be alive. Rose was within his rights to take yer cods, no’ just throw ye in his dungeon. And here ye sit after I ordered ye removed from this keep.”
Eyes wide, the man opened his mouth to protest.
Erik slammed his fist into his jaw, silencing him. As Kester staggered back, Erik warned, “Ye will never—never—disobey my orders again. No’ if ye want to remain at Ross.” Fury mounting to a boil in his blood, Erik dragged Kester to the Rose gate, picked him up, and tossed him outside, where he lay, stunned.
Not satisfied, but aware he needed to get the rest of his men to their ship and leave before Rose decided to hold them all in the dungeon he’d saved Kester from, he left the man on the ground.
Donnan met Erik outside the stable, mounted, and leading Erik’s and Kester’s horses. Erik fought for calm, aware that, in addition to the guards up on the walls, several Rose men had gathered to watch them leave. The last thing he wanted to do was encourage another brawl. He mounted and rode to the gate, satisfied to see Kester staggering down the hill toward the beach and theirbirlinn. Erik rode past him, leaving Donnan to herd him along. Erik’s fury was settling, and despair was replacing it over sailing into what would be a long, cold night on the firth, when he could have been warm and well-loved in Fiona’s arms.
When Fiona arrivedto break her fast in the great hall the next morning, the rumble of voices stilled as soon as she appeared. So, they had heard about the sudden departure in the night of all the Rosses. Including her husband. All save her, she supposed, since she was now Lady Ross, no longer a Rose. She nearly turned around to go back to her chamber, but saw Mary and Cat beckoning her, so she stiffened her spine and walked to their table. Mary and Cat waved their companions to silence as Fiona approached to take a seat.
“Good morning,” Mary greeted her. “Did ye sleep well?”
Fiona shook her head, unable to talk about Erik’s departure and how she’d paced for hours in her, and for a few precious minutes,theirchamber, before exhaustion had her tumbling onto the bed. Even then, sleep eluded her. How had everything gone so wrong?
“No’ the wedding night ye expected, aye?” One of the other lasses, a friend of Cat’s, she thought, whose name she’d yet to learn, chimed in and was rewarded with snickers from her other friends.
Mary frowned. “There is nay need for that, Donella. ’Tis a tragedy, what happened last eve. No’ fit for one of yer jests.”
Tragedy? Fiona grasped Mary’s arm. “Who died?”
