Chapter Twenty-Five #2
With that, he bowed his head, dismissing her as if she were no more than a passing acquaintance.
A wild rushing sound filled her head as the trees spun around her, and she sucked in a sharp breath, agonizingly aware of how silent the clearing was and how everyone had just witnessed her humiliating snub.
Freyja appeared by her side and wrapped her arm around her shoulders, guiding her back to their mares. The earl was speaking to Hugh, perhaps, but she couldn’t make out the words and didn’t object when Freyja and Alasdair, along with several warriors, surrounded her as they left the clearing.
They returned to the glen where Grear and Ecne waited, and she nodded dutifully when Freyja told her they were staying at the earl’s manor until the morning. She didn’t care where they stayed. All she wanted was to hide away where no one would talk to her.
But most of all, she wanted Hugh’s final words to stop echoing around her head in an endless, pitiless, refrain.
*
Later that afternoon, after Freyja’s insistence that she bathe and change into one of her sister’s gowns, Roisin sat on the bed in the small chamber the earl had allocated for her, with Ecne asleep on her lap.
It felt strange and oddly wrong to be resting on a bed in the middle of the day, and whenever she wasn’t picking apart Hugh’s last comment, she was worrying about Innis and the rest of the women and bairns.
But at least they’d had the foresight to leave Darragh, before the earl’s men had come upon them. She shivered at what their fate might have been otherwise. If only she could be certain that they would one day arrive safely in Eire and be able to build a new life.
She kissed the top of Ecne’s head and tried to quell the restlessness that wouldn’t leave her.
How she longed to escape this chamber and take Ecne for a walk in the grounds.
But Hugh had accompanied the earl and his men back here and the last thing she wanted was to accidentally come face to face with him.
Not yet. Not until his polite, distant, dismissal stopped haunting her mind with every beat of her heart.
And maybe not even then.
There was a knock on the door and instantly her foolish thoughts flew to Hugh. Had he come to her to explain he hadn’t meant his cold farewell? Instinctively, she straightened her shawl and patted her hair as Grear, who had been dozing on the other side of the bed, jumped up and opened the door.
Freyja came inside and Roisin told herself she was relieved it wasn’t Hugh. Unfortunately, she didn’t quite believe herself.
Her sister smiled at Grear. “Could ye allow me some privacy with Lady Roisin, Grear?”
Grear bobbed a curtsey and after a quick glance at Roisin, left the chamber.
“Ye’re looking better already.” Freyja nodded in approval before settling herself beside Roisin on the bed and scratching Ecne behind his ears. His entire body rippled with pleasure. “How are ye feeling?”
Heartsore.
“I’m fine, Frey. Truly.”
“That’s good.” Freyja appeared inordinately focused on Ecne. “Now then, I hope ye know ye can tell me anything. There’s nothing ye can say that will shock me, ye understand?”
Roisin understood only too well what her sister was saying. She was only surprised Freyja was being so coy about things. Frey always said what she thought and damn the consequences.
That didn’t mean she had any intention of telling her sister what she and Hugh had shared in that cave.
Distress churned through her, but she refused to let her feelings show on her face.
She didn’t regret what had happened between them.
But how she wished Hugh hadn’t mortified her so when she’d gone to him in the clearing.
“The MacGregor men did not abuse me if that’s what ye’re asking.”
Freyja finally stopped petting Ecne and patted Roisin’s arm, instead. “That is good to know, indeed. But if anything did happen, ’twas not yer fault.”
Roisin sighed. “The men were rough, but who wouldn’t be after a life on the run for five years?”
“Hmm.” Freyja gave her a doubtful look, but Roisin hadn’t finished yet.
“And the women and bairns. Ye have no idea how they live, Frey. ’Tis heartbreaking.”
“There were women and bairns?”
“Aye. Thank God they left the camp before the earl found Darragh.”
Freyja patted her arm again and Roisin wasn’t sure whether her sister was trying to comfort her or herself.
“Ye know the earl would treat the women and bairns kindly, don’t ye? He is a fair man, Roisin.”
“He’s yer half-brother through marriage, Frey. Of course ye must see the good in him.”
Freyja cocked her head and frowned. “Ye know me better than that, surely? If I thought he was a monster, I’d tell ye so.”
Roisin had to concede her sister was right. But regardless, Alasdair was related to the earl through blood, and Freyja hadn’t seen how the women and bairns had scrabbled to survive.
She shook her head. This was likely something they would never agree upon, but she wasn’t going to fight her sister over it.
“I glimpsed a life I’d never imagined before, and it’s not something I’ll ever forget.
But I’ll tell ye this. There is not so much difference between MacDonalds and MacGregors. ”
Freyja’s hand dropped to her lap, and she gazed at Roisin as though she had never seen her before.
“Ye’ve changed.” There was a note of awe in her voice.
“’Tis not a criticism,” she added hastily.
“Truly, Isolde and I were terrified that ye wouldn’t survive such a dreadful ordeal, but it seems ye didn’t merely survive. Ye thrived.”
“Ye are giving me far too much credit. ’Twas Hugh Campbell who rescued me from the brigands, remember, and he took his oath to protect me most seriously, I can assure ye.”
“I’m relieved to hear it.” Freyja’s gaze turned curious, and Roisin silently sighed.
Why had she brought Hugh’s name into the conversation?
Yet she’d had no choice because without Hugh the brigands would have taken her to Fergus, and she didn’t want to think about her fate had that happened.
“At least we know why none of us heard from Hugh after he left Eigg. Although it doesn’t explain why he became an outlaw. ”
“’Tis no good asking me. I don’t know why he did, either.”
Freyja looked thoughtful. “Ye know I don’t believe in such fanciful things as destiny and soulmates.
But I cannot help thinking that, if I did, there seems to be a strange connection between ye and Hugh, after all.
’Tis quite something that he was the one to find ye after the brigands attacked ye, don’t ye think? ”
She had once been so certain Hugh was her soulmate. And after they had made love, she was convinced of it. But after his dismissal earlier today, she didn’t know what to think.
“It could all be pure coincidence and nothing more.”
Freyja looked pensive. “I cannot believe I’m seeing a connection when ye are not. Did something happen between ye and Hugh, Roisin?”
She wasn’t ready to talk about what had happened between them.
Maybe she never would. “Ye know I always wanted Hugh. And I still do. But I don’t think it’s ever meant to be.
Even Amma, who arranged for Isolde to wed William because of dreams she had and who knew Alasdair was yer destiny from the moment she saw him, never believed Hugh Campbell was the man for me.
Even when she shared my dream of the Highlands, she never saw me with him. So what do ye make of that?”
“I don’t believe in dreams foretelling the future.” Despite her words, Freyja sounded a little shaken by Roisin’s revelations. “I believe in what I can see and what I can understand. And whatever ye may think, Hugh did not want ye to leave when we were in the forest earlier.”
Roisin stared at her sister in disbelief. Freyja was the practical one, and yet here she was, imagining things that, if their positions were reversed, she would be chiding Roisin for harboring.
“I think I know what I heard him say, Freyja.”
Freyja made a dismissive gesture with her hand.
“Aye. And when people are sick, they say all kinds of things. But it’s the way they hold their body, the look in their eyes, even how they breathe—that’s what tells ye the truth of the matter.
And the last thing Hugh Campbell wants is to never see ye again. ”
Hugh wasn’t sick. They both knew that. And Roisin knew that wasn’t the point her sister was making.
She desperately wanted Freyja to be right. But with all that had happened during the last two weeks, she couldn’t help fearing that Amma not having a vision of her and Hugh sharing a future together was an omen.
And then one of her grandmother’s favorite sayings whispered in her mind.
One must keep perspective in all matters to be a fair judge of the truth.
How many times had she heard Amma tell Isolde that, and Freyja, too? But although Amma had never said it to her, it seemed her memory was replaying the message with purpose.
She had never been able to keep her perspective when it came to Hugh. From the day she’d met him in Eigg, and then when he had caught her fleeing in the forest, she had been blinded by her feelings for him.
To see the truth, she needed to let go of her wounded sensibilities. Yet what of Amma’s visions?
“But the dreams,” she began, but Freyja interrupted her.
“Ye speak of dreams I know nothing about. But what if the reason Amma didn’t see ye and Hugh in the Highlands isn’t because ye aren’t meant to be with him, but because his destiny is with ye at Sgur Castle?”
Dumbstruck, Roisin gazed at Freyja as the revelation spun around her mind. It had never occurred to her before, although Freyja could certainly be right. But that wasn’t why eerie shivers scuttled along her arms.
It was the uncanny certainty that her future did not lie on the isle of her foremothers.