Anger was the only emotion that kept him from breaking down. Whether Sir Darren had intended the poison for the High King or for Carice didn’t matter. If she died, Raine wouldn’t hesitate to kill Darren for this.
Rage flooded through him, but he could not leave Carice. There would be time to enact vengeance against the Norman knight.
The healer brought over the tea to Carice, and Raine helped to hold her up. He caught the sharp tang of vinegar, and realized that she had steeped the herbs with vinegar and hot water. Most of it dribbled from Carice’s mouth, but there was nothing else they could do.
“You must save her,” he commanded the healer. “She cannot die.”
The older woman’s face turned sympathetic. “If she drinks this, there is a chance it might stop the poison. But I cannot force her to take it.”
“Give it to me.” He took the cup and coaxed Carice’s lips open, slowly pouring it into her mouth. The strong potion made his eyes water, and he questioned whether this would work at all. Her color had gone gray, and she was hardly responsive. But he continued talking to her, trying to get her to drink.
Never in his life had he felt so helpless. This woman meant everything to him, and if she died, there would be nothing left of his miserable soul.
“Stay with me,” he whispered to Carice, setting down the cup when it was empty. He pressed his face against hers, cradling her body in his arms.
Before long, several guards entered, along with the High King. Though Raine was well aware of how compromising it appeared, he wasn’t about to let go of Carice. His pulse tightened within him, and when one of the men seized him, he swung out, his fist colliding with the man’s jaw.
“Let go of the king’s bride,” another insisted.
He ignored the command, shielding Carice’s body with his own. Another tried to pull him off, but he twisted, shoving the man away. He fought like a man possessed, and none of the men succeeded in separating him from Carice.
Rory Ó Connor strode into the room behind them, and his face turned purple as he surveyed Raine holding her. “What have you done to my bride?”
“I tried to save her,” he shot back. He tried to bring out the right Irish words, but despair tangled them up in his mind.
It was the healer who spoke to the High King and explained, “Someone tried to poison both of you.”
“Sir Darren de Carleigh,” Raine added, hoping they would find the man and imprison him.
“That does not explain why you were holding my bride in such an intimate way,” the Ard-Righ said quietly. “Or were you the reason why she tried to delay our wedding?”
Before he could answer, Brodie Faoilin stormed in. “What has happened to my daughter?” When he spied Carice, his face went white with fear. “Let her go.”
Raine ignored the command, tightening his grip. At his refusal, Brodie turned back to the High King. “This man is not Irish. He tried to hide himself among my men, but he is one of the Normans.”
It didn’t surprise him that Brodie would cast blame upon him. But right now, Raine’s mind was blurred with his own fear that Carice would not survive. He switched into his own language. “I would die before harming your daughter. This was not my doing.”
The High King’s men closed in on him, and this time, he could not fight them off. They dragged him away from Carice, and the Ard-Righ commanded, “Question him. Find out what he knows.”
If he allowed them to take him captive, they would torture him for information. But if he ran, it would make him appear guilty. He could slip away and save his own life...but he would never see Carice again.
He couldn’t leave Tara—not for any reason. Even if she died, he wanted to be the last man who held her. Carice had given him a reason to fight, and in her arms, he’d found the missing piece of himself. No longer would he punish himself, believing himself unworthy of love or happiness. She deserved better than this, and he would do whatever he could to bring her back to freedom. Even if it meant sacrificing his own life.
Raine struggled hard against the men who held him, using every last ounce of strength he possessed. He slipped free of their grasp, but at the last moment, one of the soldiers struck a blow across his back. The agonizing pain against his lash wounds was enough to bring him to his knees.
His last thought before they took him was a prayer for Carice:Please, let her live.
They chained him inside a prison built upon a hillside. Surrounded by earth and darkness, it felt like a grave. Every hour, Raine sank deeper into despondency. He wondered if Carice was still alive, and if the healer had managed to save her.
If she died, he no longer cared. He would not raise weapons against the High King, nor would he obey any orders at all. And if somehow, by the Grace of God, he managed to escape Tara, he would go back to England and find his sisters.
He had been in Ireland for two years, unable to leave these shores. The only leave he’d ever been granted was when he’d buried the monks. And now he realized that the Norman soldiers had followed him even then. His life had never been his own because he’d been imprisoned by empty promises.
No longer.
Raine steeled himself against a future he didn’t want to face, but one truth was stronger than grief—he would break free of the Norman army or die in the effort.
He leaned against the cold dirt, drawing his knees up as he grieved for Carice. Her beauty haunted him, as did the memory of her smile. He gave himself over to the visions, letting them pull him back from the horrors of the present.
