Chapter 21 #2
He said nothing in reply to this, but he took the chair his mother had abandoned, and then he was right there, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his broad shoulders and muscular bulk overflowing the confines of the small chair.
He was close enough now she could make out his features. Lines of exhaustion were etched into his brow and there were dark circles under his eyes. “There’s no need for you to wait here with me until your mother returns. I’ll be quite all right for a few—”
“No. I’m not leaving you alone, Freya.”
The words weren’t spoken in a tone that encouraged a debate, so she didn’t attempt to argue, but settled back against her pillows, instinctively reaching for her throbbing head.
“Does it hurt?” Callum was on his feet in an instant, leaning over her, his gray eyes lost in the shadows. “Here, let me take a look at it.”
With an exquisite gentleness completely at odds with his big, rough hands he lifted one corner of her bandage and peered underneath it. “It’s a nasty cut. I won’t pretend otherwise.”
Despite the pain in her head, a smile twitched at her lips. No, he wouldn’t, would he? He never pretended anything. “I want to see it.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you certain of that? I don’t think it will make you feel any better.”
“I’m certain.” She nodded toward the dressing table. “There’s a hand mirror, just there.”
It looked as if he was going to refuse, but then he rose to his feet, fetched the mirror, and brought it to her. “It looks as bad now as it’s ever going to look.”
She let out a choked laugh. “Er, yes. That’s … very reassuring.” It wasn’t at all, but it was so utterly Callum she couldn’t find it in herself to hold it against him.
He held out the mirror to her, and she held it up to her face.
It was worse than she’d anticipated. Her left eye was black, and the cut on her temple, was … well, there was no sense in indulging in squeamishness, was there?
It was a bloody, swollen mess. Her temple was a patchwork of raw, lacerated skin from the corner of her left eye to her hairline, or perhaps farther, if the caked blood in her hair was any indication.
She studied her reflection, taking care to keep her expression neutral, then handed the mirror back to Callum. “Well, that’s going to leave a scar, isn’t it?”
“It might, yes.” He took the mirror from her and set it aside. “Hamish is going to have my head.”
“And Cat’s going to have mine.”
She grinned at him, and amazingly, he grinned back. They sat there grinning at each other like utter bedlamites for far longer than they should have, and they might have kept it up if Aila hadn’t bustled into the bedchamber just then, a tray rattling in her hands.
“Now, Callum. I insist you go bathe and have a rest while I give Freya some of this broth. Go on, now.”
Callum didn’t move. “I’m not tired.”
“Nonsense. You’re dead on your feet. You need to eat something, and it’s been days since you slept.”
Days? Had Callum been by her bedside all this time?
“I don’t need to—”
“Callum Andrew Malcolm Ross. Not another word.” Aila pointed her finger at the door. “Go.”
Freya choked back a laugh. Callum hadn’t inherited his bossiness from his father, then.
Callum glared at his mother, but he knew a lost cause when he saw one and rose to his feet. “Very well, Mother, but I’ll be back before the sun rises.”
“Yes, yes.” Aila set the tray on the side table, then waved him toward the door. “We’ll be pleased to have you back in a few hours, but not a moment sooner. Freya’s bedchamber door will be closed to you until six o’clock.”
Good God, his mother was a tyrant in a sickroom. All those poor newborn babies she’d ushered into the world must have been terrified of her.
But they’d been lucky to have her, and despite her highhandedness, he was, too.
He’d lied to her, just now. He was tired, weary down to his bones. He hadn’t been near his bed in the four days since he’d found Freya lying unconscious in the mud.
There’d been no point in it. He wouldn’t have slept.
But she’d woken, at last. After four torturous days, a brief but worrying fever, and endless hours of tossing, turning, and fretful muttering, those lovely green eyes had opened, and all was now right again with the world.
Now he could sleep.
“Wait, Callum.” His mother emerged from Freya’s bedchamber, closing the door behind her. “A word, please.”
“A word, now? You just ordered me to bed, if you recall.”
“Of course I recall it, Callum. It just happened. But before you go, I need a word with you, out of Freya’s hearing.”
This didn’t bode well. He’d just as soon keep his secrets to himself for a while longer, but his mother had an uncanny knack for squeezing the truth out of him.
She regarded him in silence for a long moment, then seemed to make up her mind. “You’re in love with Freya, aren’t you?”
And there it was. He might have known it would come to this. His mother never missed anything, and he’d felt those searching blue eyes on him more than once over the long days they’d sat together by Freya’s bedside.
Of course he was in love with Freya. Any doubt he might have had about the state of his own feelings had fled. He’d been a bloody fool not to see it sooner.
He was madly, hopelessly, and entirely besotted with her, and had been nearly from the start, since his second day at Castle Cairncross.
She’d sent that tea tray sailing into the air, then scolded him about breaching her hems, and his heart had fallen right into her hands, though he’d been too dimwitted to realize it then.
But when he first declared himself, it would be to Freya, not his mother. “I never said I was in—”
“You didn’t have to say it. A mother knows her son, Callum. I saw your face when you brought her back to the castle four days ago, and I’ve seen it every day since. You’re in love with her.”
What was the point in denying it? His mother had always been able to read him. “I’m in love with her, yes. But you look troubled, Mother. Do you have some objection to Freya?”
“Goodness, no! On the contrary. She’s lovely, Callum. I can’t conceive of another lady as perfectly suited to you as Freya is.”
“No, neither can I.” Freya was the calm to his storm, and the light to his darkness. She was everything he’d never realized he wanted, until he found it.
Found her.
“But you didn’t chase me down the hallway to tell me how much you approve of Freya, did you, Mother?”
“No. I chased you down the hallway because there’s something you’re not telling me. Something is holding you back from confessing your feelings to Freya.” Her blue eyes softened as she studied his face. “You can tell me anything. You know that, Callum.”
He did know it. He’d always known it, and he’d never made a habit of keeping secrets from his mother. For a long time, she’d been all he had, and she’d never made him regret confiding in her.
But the promise he’d made to Alistair wasn’t just his secret. It was Lorna’s, too.
Still, he’d told James. It didn’t make much sense to withhold the truth from his mother now. “I … there was … before Alistair died, he …”
Good Lord, it was harder than he’d thought it would be, to get the words out.
“I made Alistair a promise before he died,” he managed at last. “A deathbed promise. He made me laird on the condition that I marry Lorna and make her lady of Balnagown Castle.”
Just like that, his secret was out. He’d been carrying it for months, but like most secrets, it lost some of its power once it was told. He sagged against the wall as the weight of it dropped from his shoulders.
His mother caught her breath, her eyes closing. “I begged him not to ask it of you.”
“What?” He stared at her. “You mean you knew about it, all this time?”
“No. I didn’t know. Alistair mentioned it to me once, a few weeks before he died. I thought I’d persuaded him to give up the idea, but after seeing your reserve with Freya, I began to wonder if he’d gone ahead, after all.”
“He did.” He hadn’t hesitated to agree to it, either. It hadn’t seemed as if Alistair were asking too much of him, but at the time he hadn’t understood that with a few careless words, he was giving away his future.
“It was wrong of him to ask it of you, Callum. He loved you as your own father did and would never have wanted to make you unhappy, but he grew fearful for Lorna, near the end.”
“I know he didn’t wish to make me unhappy.” He’d never suspected otherwise. “But I’m the laird now, Mother. I made the man a deathbed promise. That’s not something I take lightly.”
“Of course not, Callum. If you did, you wouldn’t be the man you are. I only meant to make you aware of the circumstances of Alistair exacting that promise from you.”
“I’m not sure Alistair’s intentions make any difference. In the end, I made the promise. Regardless of the reasons, to go back on it now feels like a betrayal of Alistair, Lorna, and the clan.”
His mother was quiet for a moment, then she murmured, “What of your promises to yourself, Callum?”
Himself? What promises had he made to himself? “I don’t understand.”
“As laird, you do owe your loyalty to the clan. I don’t dispute that. But you owe something to yourself, as well. Lorna is a wonderful young woman, and I’m very fond of her, but you don’t love her. Not in the way you should love the lady you marry.”
No, he didn’t. He’d hoped he would fall in love with her over time. But his heart, it seemed, was as stubborn as the rest of him, and it wanted Freya.
Freya, with her wild red hair and green eyes, her sweetness and her bravery, and her way of loving those around her with her whole heart. No other lady would ever do for him, but her.
“You love Freya. Keeping your promise to Alistair means giving up Freya and giving up your own happiness. It’s not fair to you, Callum, and not what Alistair would have wanted.”
“I don’t think it ever occurred to him I wouldn’t fall in love with Lorna.” Why should it have done? Everyone loved Lorna. There wasn’t a single member of the clan who didn’t look up to her. It only made sense he’d fall in love with her, too.
But hearts were awkward, delicate things, and love was unpredictable.
“No, I daresay it didn’t. Alistair was as fond a father as I’ve ever known.” His mother gave him a sad smile. “But I’m a fond mother, and I don’t wish to see my son unhappy.”
“I know.” He took her hand, but what else was there to say?
It was an impossible situation. If he went back on his promise to Alistair, then he would no longer be the man he’d always believed himself to be.
But if he didn’t, if he gave up Freya …
Then he would never become the man he was meant to be.
“I can’t think on it now. My head is too muddled. Perhaps it will all become clear after I’ve slept.” It wouldn’t, but he attempted a reassuring smile.
His mother wasn’t fooled, but it seemed they were both pretending now, because she forced a smile in return. “Perhaps it will.”
“I’ll return at six.” He made his way down the stairs, his mother’s gaze following him until he reached the landing and turned the corner, but halfway down the corridor that led to his bedchamber, he stopped.
There was only one other door in this corridor. It was the one that led into Lorna’s bedchamber. He raised his hand without making a conscious decision to do so and his knuckles met the wood in a sharp rap.
This was a mistake. It was far too early in the morning to appear at her door. She’d be fast asleep still, hours from waking—
“Callum?” The door opened at once, as if she’d been expecting his knock, and had been hovering on the other side of it, waiting for him.
“Lorna. I beg your pardon. I shouldn’t have disturbed—”
“It’s all right. I wasn’t asleep. Is something amiss?” Her hand went to her throat. “It’s not Miss MacLeod, is it?”
“No. That is, yes, but it’s good news. She’s awake at last and appears likely to make a complete recovery.”
Lorna sagged against the doorframe, the relief plain on her face. “Thank goodness.”
“Yes. I—I don’t know what I would have done if she …” He broke off, clearing his throat. “But that’s not why I’m here.”
“No? Why are you here then, Callum?”
Was he imagining that twitch of her lips, the touch of humor in her dark eyes?
He drew in a breath. This was it. Once he said the words, there would be no going back.
“I came to ask you a question.”