Chapter 21
Stunned by Robina’s declaration but well aware of where they were, Dev gestured toward the open door. “Inside,” he said. “Now.”
She gave him a defiant look but evidently saw that he was in no mood for it, because she remained silent as she walked stiffly into the bedchamber.
When she turned to face him, she looked ready for a fight.
He did not want one, but he did mean to discover why she had sounded so angry and who had stirred that anger.
“Tell me the truth now,” he said, shutting the door.
“First you said you were talking to yourself, but you spoke as you would to someone else. It is not customary to shout at oneself, Robby. Last night, you described your dream at first as if it were real, and you have several times spoken of Rab as if he were still alive. That is common when someone is grieving, but now you tell me that Rab—”
“He does talk to me, Dev. I hear him as if he is standing right beside or right behind me. I’m not saying I can see him there, but his voice is as audible to me as yours is, and the direction it comes from is just as clear.”
“Is he talking to you now?”
“No, but he was. He warns me of things before they happen. That first night… Easter night, he told me the Turnbulls had lifted our kine. He… he told me to send our lads to get them back or to lift some of theirs in return. When I led them myself, he laughed and said he should have known that I would.”
“If that were even possible, your twin should think himself lucky to be dead. Because if I got my hands on him…” He stopped, because she was just watching him, not arguing. “Robina, you know that the dead cannot speak.”
Her lips thinned as if she would debate that fact.
Instead, she said with a calm that sent an eerie chill up his spine, “I did believe that, Dev. But I know Rab speaks to me. It is his voice, and it is not in my head. I do know the difference, because we always knew each other’s thoughts.
Sometimes, it was as if we shared one mind.
But, at such times, I did not hear his voice; I just knew what he was thinking as if my thoughts were his.
He warned me that night that you were after us.
That’s why I ran upstairs, because he was behind me, shouting at me to hurry.
It was just bad luck that you’d recognized me in the yard. ”
“I didn’t,” he admitted. “I followed the lad who ran in through the postern door because I thought he should not have done so. It was only when I heard ‘his’ footsteps running upstairs and your bedchamber door shut that I realized who the ‘lad’ must be. However, the plain fact is that, whatever you are hearing, it is not Rab talking from his grave. I suspect that your conscience is shouting at you and you’re imagining that it speaks with his voice.
It may be some odd element of your grief.
I cannot explain it, but I do know that the dead do not speak to us. ”
“Rab does,” she said stubbornly.
“Now, look, Robby, you cannot believe that, and you certainly cannot expect me to believe it. You’re too sensible for such… such—”
“Such madness? Is that what you think, Dev? You fear that I’m daft and that others will fear that you’ve married a madwoman?”
“I never said that,” he replied, struggling to keep from shouting at her.
“Well, I’m not daft!” Tears welled in her eyes, and when one spilled down her cheek, she dashed it away.
“Robby,” he said quietly but nonetheless grimly, “I do not think you are crazy. I just think that—”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she retorted.
“I don’t want to ride with you or to stand here and try to explain myself to you.
I know what I hear, Dev. Nobody’s imagination could produce a voice that sounds as if the person is standing right beside her or behind her.
It could much more easily be a special connection that twins have and naught to do with imagination.
Imagination takes place in one’s thoughts, inside one’s head. It doesn’t float about on the air.”
Striving to keep his own flaming temper in check, well aware that shouting at her would make things worse, he said with forced calm, “Dead is dead, lass.”
“Blethers,” she snapped. “The priests all say that our souls live on, and you don’t know how they do that any more than I do.
But since they do, when they do, why should they not be able to speak to those who were closest to them and are still closest to them.
When I tell you that Rab does speak to me, and frequently, you might at least do me the courtesy of believing me. ”
With that, she stormed past him, flinging the door open hard enough that it banged against the wall and nearly shut again behind her before he caught it.
But she had already run down the stairs.
His inclination was to go after her, give her a good shake to bring her to her senses, and force her to talk sensibly with him. However, experience with his sisters, as well as with Robby, warned him that such tactics would be unwise.
Granting her solitude to calm down would be wiser.
Since she’d gone downstairs, rather than up to the solar or to her old bedchamber, he decided he’d give her time to walk outside the wall to her tree, which seemed the likeliest place for her to go in such a temper.
Accordingly, he waited a few minutes before going downstairs, only to meet Coll coming in through the main doorway as he approached it.
“Sir,” Coll said with a wary look, “her ladyship came out to the yard, and when she saw us with the horses at the stable entrance, she requested a leg up, mounted Corby, and rode out through the gateway at a gallop, heading southwest.”
Cursing, Dev said, “Where’s Auld Nick?”
“I’ve got him at the steps, sir. I thought you might want him close by. Um… my horse is also there. Do you want me—?”
“No,” Dev snapped. “You’d be very much in my way.”
On the landing above the master bedchamber, Benjy sat hugging himself as tears streamed down his face.
“Why d’ye talk to Beany, Rab, and no to me?” he muttered.
He’d barely collected himself enough to scramble back up to his own landing after he’d heard Beany say she wouldn’t talk anymore to Dev and before she flung open the door.
When he’d heard them on the stairs before then, her declaration that Rab talked to her had stunned him so much that he’d wanted only to hear more about Rab’s talking. Was he still alive, or what?
Benjy overheard most of what they’d said next through the bedchamber door.
When he realized that Beany would storm out in anger, he’d fled to his own room. Had she or Dev caught him at the door, listening… He shivered at the thought.
But now, he just wanted to know why Rab talked to Beany and not to him.
Hearing Dev go downstairs at last, he followed quietly and heard Coll tell him that she had galloped Corby outside the wall.
“Good, then,” Benjy muttered, wiping his sleeve across his wet cheeks so no one else would detect his distress. “I’ll just go talk to our Rab, m’self.”
Heading southwest to the drove road that led to Leg o’ Mutton Cut, Robina urged Corby to his fastest pace on the flat part alongside the bubbling stream. Giving the big horse his head, she felt the breeze against her face begin to ease her fury.
By the time she slowed him to a safer speed, she was able to enjoy the warmth of the sun and the beauty of the new spring growth around her. Wildflowers bloomed in profusion, and the stream chuckled merrily along, lifting her spirits with its own.
“You should not have snapped at Dev. Nor will he like your riding alone and so madly into what may now be dangerous territory. Sakes, I’d have taken a switch to you for such, myself, and so would our da.”
“I know,” she muttered. “But Dev does not believe you’re real, Rab. How can I persuade him?”
“You can’t.”
“But you said to tell him that you’ve been talking to me.”
“Even so, you should have agreed when he said that the dead can’t speak. You should have agreed, too, that you just imagine hearing me.”
“Then you should have told me to say all that,” she retorted. “You know I don’t tell lies well. Or are you saying that he’s right and I’m just imagining you?”
“I’m talking to you, lass, but being angry with me does you nae good. You’d be wiser to look back and vow to control that wicked temper of yours before Dev does just what Da or I would have done, or what Dev did before.”
Startled, she realized that the increasing, rhythmic sound she’d thought was a new note in the stream’s bubbling was really hoofbeats fast approaching behind her.
Looking back, she saw Auld Nick closing the distance.
She did not need to see the expression on Dev’s face.
His hunched posture and Nick’s fiery pace told her that he was furious.
Panic stirred, and every fiber of her body shouted at her to spur Corby on.
Instead, knowing that even if he could outrun Auld Nick, she’d have to face Dev in the end, she reined in near the stream and waited for him, wondering if he’d punish her then and there and if Corby might try to protect her from him.
After all, Corby had once briefly attempted to defend her from Rab’s fury, when she had ridden him without asking Rab first.
That painful memory and the fury on Dev’s face, which she saw clearly now, made her sphincter muscles contract.
Having expected Robby to ride faster when she saw him in pursuit, Dev watched with grim satisfaction when she reined in at the stream’s side instead. He was glad to see that Corby had not, as he had feared, run away with her but was still under her control.
The woman could ride, no question, but he yearned to take leather to her.
Her rueful smile nearly undid him.
When he was close enough to hear her, she said lightly, “Will you beat me here or wait until we get back to Coklaw?”