Chapter 27
Nora found herself propelled forward into the herb-scented room, a warm hand resting in between her shoulder blades. She was too taken aback to resist, and perhaps she wouldn’t have resisted even if she hadn’t been taken by surprise.
The healers’ chambers were empty, with the exception of Donal hunched over a pestle and mortar. He blinked up at them, eyes wide.
“What…” he began feebly, but Creighton cut him off with a sharp wave of his hand.
“Give us the room,” he ordered.
Donal opened his mouth as if to argue, but Creighton fixed him with a long, unblinking stare. Donal paled and wisely rose to his feet.
“I’ll just go and finish this in another room,” he mumbled, grabbing the pestle and mortar along with a handful of herbs. He scuttled out of the room, clearly relieved to get away from them.
Creighton smoothly pushed the door shut behind him and slid the bolt into place. Prickles ran up and down Nora’s spine.
The main room of the healers’ chambers was rather small, at least in comparison to Bryden Keep.
They stood in a circular room with doors opening like the spokes of a wheel, leading to medicine rooms, alcoves for patients to lie in, storage rooms, and so on.
The rich, fresh scent of herbs pervaded the whole space, hanging heavy and savory in the air.
The ceiling, which was rather low compared to other rooms in the keep, carried strings of herbs, both dried and fresh, hanging down for easy access.
A huge wooden table, well-scrubbed but stained green in places, dominated the room. Various mortars and mismatched pestles were scattered over the table, some still half full of ground-up herbs, roots, and seeds. When Nora moved past a mortar, she could smell the greenery inside it.
Nora backed up a few paces, putting the edge of the table between herself and Creighton.
“What is it that ye want, then?” she managed, pleased at how level and cool her voice sounded. Only an illusion, but at least it was a decent one.
“I want to ken what ye are thinkin’,” Creighton responded, his voice just as even as hers. “Are ye tryin’ to make me jealous?”
“Jealous? What is this about? Surely it’s… surely it is nae about Andrew!”
“Ye tell me. Is it about Andrew?” Creighton took a step forward, eyes narrowed. Nora backed up half a pace.
“Ye think that I am flirtin’ with him? With Andrew?”
“I daenae ken. Ye spend all of yer time with him, with yer sister, and with Laurie. Why is he so special, eh? Do ye want me to kill him, then, is that it? Ye want me to go mad with jealousy and shove him off the top of the keep? Or would ye prefer that I just tore me heart out of me chest, to avoid the pain of seein’ him touch ye? ”
“Touch me?” Nora echoed, gasping. “I… When?”
“He touched yer shoulder just now, before ye parted ways. I saw him take yer hand at supper yesterday.”
“He did nae take me hand, he handed me a knife for me meat. Ye cannae be serious, Creighton, ye just cannae!”
Creighton held his arms out to his sides. “I am close to doin’ both, lass. Either, both, it does nae matter.”
She gave an incredulous bark of laughter. “Ye are mad. He’s just a friend. He reminds me of Margaret, in a way.”
“Now I ken that ye are makin’ this up.”
“I’m nae! And even if I were flirtin’ with Andrew—which I am nae—it shouldnae matter. It’s none of yer concern, is it?”
Creighton closed his jaw with a snap, teeth clicking together. He stared down at her, a muscle drumming in his cheek. Nora made herself hold her ground, even when he took another step toward her, lifting an absent hand to push aside a string of dried herbs from in front of his face.
“Perhaps I should nae care,” he murmured, almost to himself. “But I do. Damn me, but I do.”
Nora’s throat worked as she swallowed. He was closer now, closer than she should have allowed him to get. That was a mistake, wasn’t it?
I could back away now. I could scream, demand that he let me go. The door is only bolted, after all. I could open it meself and walk out.
I could tell him that if he doesnae leave me alone, I’ll return to Bryden Keep. Then the treaty would be over. It would all be over.
She didn’t say any of these things. Didn’t even open her mouth to try. She only stared at him, waiting.
She didn’t have to wait long.
Creighton’s eyes fluttered shut briefly. He half-turned his head away, and for a moment, she feared he wouldn’t speak at all—that the moment would pass, he’d leave, and that would be that.
But that’s what I want, is it nae? To be left alone. For him to leave me alone. That would be better for us all. It would. It would.
It was no use. The words were just that, words. They didn’t mean anything. She couldn’t make herself believe them.
Placing her hand on the table beside her to steady herself, Nora swallowed hard and waited.
Beneath her fingertips, she could feel where the wood of the table had been scored by countless clumsy knives, with blades digging into the wood.
Sometimes shallow, sometimes deep. Despite all those cuts, the table still stood, as sturdy as ever.
Licking her lips, she found Creighton’s gaze and held it.
“If ye are goin’ to tell me somethin’,” she whispered at last, voice cracking just a little despite her best efforts.
“Then ye should do it now. Tell me now, or else I will leave, and this time I will work harder to stay away from ye. This is how it must be, Creighton. If Ye willnae let anybody in, nobody will get in. Walls can keep out invaders and friends alike. A person can starve inside a locked room if the door stays closed.”
His tongue flickered out over his lower lip, a flash of pink. She followed the movement with her eyes, despite herself.
“Me father was a difficult man,” Creighton said at last, the words coming out with visible effort.
“A fool, sometimes. He made a good laird, in that he tolerated no disloyalty, no insubordination, no plots. He never forgave and worked hard nae to forget. That was the kind of man he was. He had his followers here in the keep, but mostly it was assumed that he had to be obeyed simply because he was the Laird, and because it would be worse if we revolted against him. Unseatin’ a laird is always bad for a clan.
Always. They ken it, we ken it, and that’s how it is. ”
“And yer father wasnae bad enough to be unseated?” she hazarded.
Creighton shook his head tightly. “Nay. Me father was nae a good man, but me mother was a fine woman. I loved her, and she loved me. Aunt Helena is her sister. When I began to grow up, I saw that me father was ruinin’ the clan.
He made bad choices. He made people suffer.
Punished them too harshly, taxed them too highly.
He always craved war, because—and these are his words, nae mine—war was the only way a laird could truly make himself remembered.
Only blood earned glory, he said. And I began to realize that he was a liar and a fool. ”
Nora bit her lower lip. “Well, ye arenae the sort of man to see an injustice and let it slide by, so I imagine that ye did somethin’. What did ye do?”
He smiled narrowly. “I just tried to make things better, at first. Tried to override me father’s worst orders, tried to help those who needed it.
And me father noticed. Quickly. He flew into a rage, warned me to keep to me place.
But me, I thought I was safe. After all, I was the heir.
So, I kept goin’. And at last, me father had me arrested and thrown into the dungeons. ”
He spoke evenly and coolly, almost disinterested. Nora sucked in a breath, eyes widening.
“He arrested ye? His own son?”
He nodded, shrugging. “Me father told me that if I didnae behave meself, he would kill me and make his man-at-arms the next laird. I believed him. There was nobody to save me. He packed me off to university to get me out of the way. I studied Law, logic, astronomy, geometry, things like that. I want Laurie to learn those things, too. When me studies finished, I came home and found that two things had changed. Firstly, there were changes in the clan. Changes for the worse. Famine, raids, discontent, crime… I’m sure ye can imagine.
Secondly, me mother was dead. Dead,” he added, voice cracking a little.
“And I was never told. Dead, but leavin’ a baby behind her.
We’d ken for years that Mother’s health was poor, and that another baby would kill her, but me father cared little for that. At any rate, I had a sister.”
“Laurie.”
He nodded again. “I had nae expected a sibling, nae after all these years. I made up me mind then and there to avenge me mother and make a better life for me sister. I challenged me father to a duel. A duel for the lairdship, the sort of challenge that only an heir can make. I challenged him, and I won.”
A shiver rolled down Nora’s spine. “Ye killed him.”
Creighton gave a tight nod. “This was five years ago. We kept it quiet. Most of Clan MacColl have no idea how their laird died. He was an old man, and they assumed he just died of natural causes. We let them think that. But I swore that if I took me own father’s life for this lairdship, I would make it worthwhile.
Nay risks, nothing to gain for meself. I’d already decided that me father’s line would end with me.
Laurie would be only Mother’s daughter.”
“Ye ken that’s nae how it works.”
He turned away from her with a snort. “How would ye ken about how any of this works? I swore, when I killed me father, that I would nae wed or produce heirs. I did it for Laurie, so she must become laird after me.”
“And ye think that Laurie wants to be a laird?”
“That’s nae the point.”
“Is it nae? Ye say ye avoid marriage because the lairdship is for Laurie. So many excuses. Yer father was a cruel man, to be sure. But ye ken in yer heart, I think, that what ye did was the right thing. And yet ye use it as an excuse to punish yerself, over and over. Ye are afraid of reaching out for what ye want, in case ye cannae get to it, but the truth is that ye are nothin’ but a coward, Creighton. ”
The words spilled out of Nora’s mouth almost without her consciously choosing to say them. Harsh words, hardly thought through. Creighton turned to face her, bewildered.
“Ye call me a coward?”
She took a step toward him, tilting up her chin. “What else should I call a man who refuses to go after what he wants? And ye want me, Creighton, daenae ye?”
“It does nae matter what I want.”
“Of course it matters!” she gasped, letting out a mirthless laugh. “How could it nae matter? Do ye mean to say that I daenae matter?”
“Daenae put words in me mouth, woman,” he growled, taking a step closer, moving into her space. Something sparked in Nora’s chest, a feeling she recognized now as the insistent thrum of desire. Her mouth dried out, and without thinking, she let her tongue slip out over her lower lip, moistening it.
Creighton watched the gesture, his eyes darkening.
“If ye daenae want me to put words in yer mouth, then put them there yerself. I’ll go first. I am in love with ye, Creighton.
I tried nae to be, but here we are. But I cannae, I will nae, spend me life beggin’ a man to notice me.
So if ye cannae speak yer own words, Creighton, I’ll take meself to a tower and hide there until the year is up, the treaty signed, and I can leave. So, what will it be?”