Chapter Forty
T he night did not prove long enough, at least not in Liadan’s estimation. Even though she had her mouth all over Ardahl, kissed him from head to toe. Even though she begged him—begged—to give all of himself to her, that she might keep part of him. Even when she had him more than once inside her, filling her in a way she could not begin to understand, satisfying spirit as well as flesh.
Even though the scent of him became part of her. Morning would come. It was not enough. Especially if—
If this were to be their last night ever. For Liadan did not know what would happen. And she had learned that terrible things might come at any time.
They lay twined together, naked beside the hearth, when dawn came creeping under the door curtain, for they had never made it any distance from the fire. Ardahl dozed with her cradled against his chest, and she lay listening to his heart while the morning stole in.
Such a strong and yet fragile thing to keep a man alive, a heartbeat. So easy to stop. His, so essential to her world.
“Ardahl.” She spoke just to say his name.
“Um?”
“Your mam will be coming home soon. We should arise.”
“Aye. And I do not doubt I will be assigned to a place in the guard.”
“Away from me.”
“Away.” He ran his fingers through her hair. “Yet no’ away.”
She raised her head and looked into his face. His beloved face. His glorious face, so perfect, so dear to her with its sculpted planes and the sad, sweet smile hovering in his eyes.
“Tell me, how am I to behave when I meet ye beyond these walls? As if ye do not matter? As if I canna still taste ye on my lips? As if ye be no more than a brother to me?”
“Och, lass.” He brushed her cheek with his thumb. “Ye will because ye must.”
“If I act indifferent to ye, if I turn away and behave coldly, ’tis only because I am afraid that if I look at ye, what I feel will show.”
“I understand.” A rueful smile quirked his lips. “I will remember.”
“Remember,” she urged. “Remember every part of this night.”
“Until I am dead, and beyond.”
“Do no’ speak that word.”
“Forgive me, lass. Death and a final parting do not exist between us.”
“So they do not! We have agreed. I belong to ye, Ardahl MacCormac, in a way I never imagined belonging to any man. My body does, as ye ha’ been assured this night. My life. My very spirit.”
“Och, Liadan, lass.” He closed his eyes for an instant as if absorbing the beauty of it. “Then wha’ have we to fear?”
Plenty, as Liadan discovered when she was up on her feet. When they were washed and dressed and she had braided his hair for him, her fingers lingering over the task. When she tied back the leather door curtain and the world came rushing back in.
Voices, calls across the settlement, the whinny of a pony, the wail of a small child. Soon, aye, Maeve would come. Her presence would change everything, dispel the magic woven last night.
“Cathair went with us yesterday,” Ardahl said in a low voice as he drank the broth she gave him.
“Aye?”
“When we reached home again, he made a threat. I should rather say, he warned me. To watch my back.” He lifted his gaze to Liadan’s face. “Liadan, I am convinced, more than ever, he had somewhat to do wi’ Conall’s death.”
“As am I. Him and Brasha.”
“Aye, but how?”
“I do not know. Brasha had been working her wiles on Conall.”
“Had him in the palm o’ her hand.”
“Aye. D’ye think—” Liadan hesitated, tentative in her words and her thoughts. “D’ye think she somehow turned Conall against ye? Spoke in his ear, perhaps. Whispered—I do not know. Lies.”
Ardahl’s eyes—clear hazel in the morning light—met hers. “’Tis possible, aye. The same has been in the back o’ my mind. But why—”
“Cathair. If Brasha is under his thumb even as my brother was under hers—and if Cathair wanted rid o’ ye…”
Ardahl drew himself up. Before he could speak to accept or refute the idea, his mother appeared outside the door, her basket over her arm. She shot a quick look from one to the other of them, bright and perceptive, before sweeping the inside of the hut with a glance.
“Is all well here?”
“Aye, Mam.” Quickly, Ardahl gathered up his weapons. “I must off to the practice or whatever other duty Dornach assigns me.”
“Ye ha’ had no breakfast but that broth,” Liadan protested.
“I ha’ all I need.” For an instant his gaze seared her, blessed her, before he ducked away into the morning.
A marked silence fell once he’d gone. Maeve put down her basket and unwound the shawl from her head.
“Liadan, I am thinking ye and I need to speak together.”
“Och, aye?”
Maeve, avoiding Liadan’s gaze, gave a frown. “Ye are without a mother o’ your own, and as I ha’ more or less stepped into the place—well. Ardahl is my son and I adore him, but when a young lass begins lying down wi’ a man, there are things that should be said.”
“Are there?”
“Yes.”
Liadan turned to face her. “Ye adore him. As do I. I do no’ believe there is more to be said.”
Maeve’s expression softened. “But Liadan, the situation—”
“The situation is, aye, unfortunate. Dire and desperate. Each time he walks away from me, I canna be sure I will see him again. If an attack will come. If Fearghal will take it into his head to ride out and beard Dacha once more. If he will come back in the bottom o’ his chariot.”
“Aye, so. That is why I left the two o’ ye alone last night, exactly why. That ye might ha’ some time, at least.”
“Precious time.”
“But then while away, I got to thinking. I should no’ ha’ left ye. What if there is a child? What would ye do then?”
“There will not be.” Liadan flushed scarlet. “He was careful.”
Maeve gusted out a breath. “Aye, so, for I can scarcely think o’ a worse disaster.”
Liadan could. Quite easily, she could. Truth be known, she ached to bear Ardahl’s child, a miraculous and physical proof of the ties that existed between them. It would be the most natural of things.
Bitterly, she said, “In the old days before—before Conall’s death, it would have been well accepted for me to wed with my brother’s closest friend. Accepted and approved. Ardahl did no’ so much as look at me then.”
“I do no’ doubt he thought o’ ye as a wee girl. Growing up around ye as he did.”
“I never thought o’ him as a brother. I admired him always and thought him the best man this clan had to offer. Is that not a cruel thing? For now he is my brother. And forbidden to me.”
“He is the best this clan has to offer,” Maeve insisted quietly. “He shall prove himself so, the first among Fearghal’s warriors despite any disgrace heaped upon him.”
Aye, and Cathair had not counted on that. Liadan had no doubt that Cathair and Brasha together had schemed to bring Ardahl down.
She had only to prove it.
If Ardahl gave his life for this clan—and well he might—if the unbearable happened and she lost him for good, it should not be in disgrace.
There could be no child. Theirs was not a world, by any means, into which a babe should be born. She’d just better accept that fact and be done.