Chapter 20
Ciaran was getting properly bloody weary of waking up like this. He felt wakefulness greet him in a thousand tiny pricks of pain. His body ached everywhere. Breathing deeply—ow. Oh, breathing deeply was not a good idea. He probably had at least one broken rib. He knew this pain.
It likely made him a coward, but for a moment, he refused to open his eyes. Physical pain was an old friend. He knew how to withstand it. He could already tell that his current injuries wouldn’t kill him, which meant that the pain would pass.
But there was other pain that was certain to greet him as soon as he admitted to himself that he was truly awake.
Eventually, though, there was nothing else to do but pry his lids open and wince as the light pierced his brain like a lance.
When he was finished blinking away the spots in his vision, he saw her, beautiful and perfect, even in her disarray.
Eilidh. His Eilidh. Not because he deserved her or because he would get to keep her, but because there would never be any other woman in his heart.
She paced back and forth like a caged storm as he watched her.
Her fair hair was tangled as though she hadn’t touched it since the battle.
Her eyes were rimmed with red, and he ached at the thought that she had been crying over him.
Her mouth was etched in a grim line that seemed to have been there for quite some time, judging by how it was carved deeply into her expression.
He needed to be near her, even if he didn’t deserve it.
It was this thought that drove him from his bed, even as his aches and pains urged him to remain where he was. She gave a startled gasp at his sudden movement, and he lunged toward her, his legs carrying him only a step before collapsing beneath him.
That was just fine, though, because he ended up on his knees before her. It was only fitting.
He spoke quickly because he needed to say this before she delivered whatever judgment she wished. He would merit whatever punishment she could imagine, but he had to say this first.
“Eilidh,” he gasped, feeling greedy for daring to speak her name.
“I am the worst of men. I am a liar. A traitor. I swear to ye that I did not wish ye harm—but it doesnae matter, because my treachery hurt ye anyway. I ken how ye must despise me. All I ask is one chance—just one—to beg ye for your forgiveness. I dinnae expect ye to grant it, but I must tell ye how dreadfully I regret hurting ye. And then I will go. I’ll vanish from your sight forever. I swear it.”
She regarded him for a long moment, the redness of her eyes making the sea green in them gleam all the brighter. Then, she reached out slowly to a side table and grabbed Ciaran’s own sword. Without a word, she pressed the blade to his throat.
He closed his eyes, not attempting to move, remaining there on his knees for her. If she wished to kill him, he would not quarrel.
“How dare ye,” she asked eventually. Her voice sounded as rough and broken as his had. “After all we’ve suffered—after all that ye have done—and ye still speak of leaving me?”
Ciaran’s eyes flew open. He looked up into her hard expression, into the rigid determination that showed in her features. He could not dare to hope.
“Ye… do not want me gone?”
He had to ask the question. The edge of the blade rasped lightly against his throat as he spoke, but he paid it no mind.
She held the sword there for one moment more and then, with a cry of anger and frustration, threw the blade to the side, where it clattered noisily against the stone.
“Ye are a traitor,” she said. “And a liar. And a fool.” He made no move to defend himself. What defense could he give her, after all? “But ye are also a thief.”
He blinked, confused. “I… dinnae understand.”
She let out a bitter laugh. “Ye have stolen my mind and my heart, Ciaran Gunn,” she said, the words sounding as though they were rent from her throat with force. “And I cannae let ye go.”
Ciaran sighed as her words flowed over him like a benediction.
Then, unsteadily but with all the determination he possessed, he rose to his feet.
He pulled her into his arms. She fell into him, and he realized that, battered and bruised though he might be, he had never felt as whole as he did in this moment.
“I vow to ye,” he said, all his heart in the words, “that I will never give ye cause to doubt me again, Eilidh Donaghey. My life is yours; my sword is yours. My mind and my heart—they are all yours.”
Her breath hitched in a sob, and she pressed her face into his neck.
He held her tighter, suddenly filled with purpose.
He would do whatever it took to heal any wounds she had suffered—in her body, mind, or heart—and he would spend every breath until his last ensuring that she never took such an injury again.
“I will tell ye every truth that I ken,” he promised. “I will never hide from ye nor lie to ye.” A trickle of wetness against his throat told him that she was weeping. He would fix that, too. Whatever it took.
“And, Eilidh, mo chridhe, I swear that I will love ye with all that I am, for the rest of this life and in whatever life lies beyond. I will never love anyone but ye.”
Tears coursed down her face as she pulled back to look at him, but there was hope in her eyes, a light that mirrored the sunrise dawning in Ciaran’s heart.
“I love ye too,” she said, and he could have died happily after hearing those words, if not for his new duty to live to make her the happiest woman on earth. “I am furious with ye, but I love ye. And we will make it all right. Together.”
“Together,” he agreed.
And then there was nothing left to be said and nothing left to do except to draw her close to him and kiss her with all the passion in his heart. She returned the kiss, and he could feel the fire of her soul reaching out to him in turn.
There were many more things to be settled. There were more trials left to face.
But for now, all he needed was Eilidh in his arms and the determination in his heart to love her with all his might. With her at his side, there was nothing that he could not overcome.
Vaila looked as though she was ready to stab someone. Since Eilidh could only assume that the someone in question would be Ciaran, she was poised and ready to defend him as needed.
She’d only just convinced him to admit his feelings—and to tell her the damned truth—after all. She wasn’t about to lose him to her sister’s blades.
James didn’t appear to be in any better mood than his wife, but Eilidh thought that this might be due to the fact that he felt ill at ease being at Castle Dubh-Gheal.
Not only was it a place where he had been held prisoner by Gordon and nearly killed, but he wouldn’t like being so far from Buchanan lands and the Laird he’d sworn to protect.
But Ewan was unwilling and unable to leave his wife, his son, and his people. So James had been sent here in his stead.
Eidilh knew that Ciaran was ill at ease, facing the two—as well as Graham, who was looking on impassively—but even she would never have been able to tell from the straight-backed way he absorbed their hostile stares.
“So,” Vaila drawled, her hands teasing at the hilt of her dirk. “Tell us why we shouldn’t kill you here and now.”
“Vaila!” Eilidh protested.
She inched closer to Ciaran, both out of a show of support and because she figured that her sister was less likely to be free with her blades if Eilidh could get caught in the fray.
Vaila just gave her a mulish stare. Eilidh glared back. Vaila didn’t scare her.
Ciaran showed no sign that he’d seen this display of sisterly conflict. Even with his bruised face still bearing the marks of the beating he’d taken at the mercenaries’ hands, he was as steady as a statue as he faced the judgmental gazes of Vaila, Graham, and James.
“I will tell ye everything,” he said levelly. “And if, after hearing it, ye decide that I still deserve death, I willnae quarrel with ye. Though I will plead my case, at Eilidh’s request.”
“I will quarrel,” she warned the others. “I will do anything to stop ye from hurting him.”
At this, Ciaran turned briefly from the others to offer Eilidh a small smile. She reached out and squeezed his hand. When they both turned back to face the other three, Eilidh noticed that both her siblings were watching this interaction closely.
“I was confronted by one of Gordon’s emissaries, a man named Ruairidh Black, earlier this year,” he began with the air of a military man giving a report to a superior.
“Gordon knew that Clan Gunn had defied the King’s order to give up distilling.
He said that if we—if I—didnae do as he said, he would write of our misdeeds and have the might of the English brought down on my people. ”
Ciaran’s tone was even; he spoke without pleas for pity in his voice. But Eilidh could see that it was not lost on James, Vaila, and Graham that this threat was dire, indeed.
“Though I loathed Gordon and all he stood for,” Ciaran continued.
“I couldnae see a clear way forward. So I agreed, hoping that a way out would reveal itself to me. I was instructed to use my position as a former Donaghey ally to spy—but I resisted the orders, and Black and his men beat me. I escaped with my life and made it to Buchanan Keep.”
“That’s when we first encountered ye,” James supplied quietly.
Ciaran nodded. “I hoped to leave before Gordon could learn that I survived, but Black found me. He issued a new command: I was to abduct Eilidh and surrender her to Gordon, or else my clan would suffer.”
Vaila sucked in a breath and turned to Eilidh, as if expecting this to be the moment that the youngest Donaghey shrank away from Ciaran. But Eilidh kept her expression impassive. She might not know every detail of the story but she knew enough. She knew Ciaran. She would not shrink from him.