Chapter 21 #3
But for so long, she had considered David to be her enemy.
It was by his command her father was butchered.
And yet… if the king had sensed she’d been lying about Keane, he had nevertheless shown her a kindness by not returning her to the Earl—a judgment he might have found justified, for William fitz Duncan was not a man anyone wished to cross.
Instead he’d given her to a man who, Lianae had since learned, was not entirely David’s ally.
According to Keane’s sister Cailin, who claimed to know Keane best, her husband had donned the king’s livery as a matter of circumstance.
Cailin was equally as certain he would never have accepted a gift of land and title—unless he believed there to be a greater cause.
It was that greater cause that had Lianae thinking now, although she didn’t fool herself to believe it could be love. She was so deep in thought, considering what it could have been that motivated Keane to wed her, that she didn’t hear anyone approach.
She started at the sound of a female voice. “There are so many,” Aidan’s wife said and Lianae had no need to ask what she meant… it was the king’s men she referred to—the endless campfires winking amidst the dark night.
Lianae turned to smile at the woman who’d wed Keane’s elder brother. She was childless at the instant, though it was the first time since their arrival at Dubhtolargg that Lianae had seen her without her newborn babe in her arms.
“The babe is sleeping?”
She was lovely, with dark chestnut hair and stark violet eyes that seemed to peer straight into Lianae’s soul. “Aye, at last. The hour has grown late.”
Lianae turned to look over the hillside. “I was… waiting,” she confessed, but she didn’t wish to say for what.
For her husband to forgive her, in truth.
“Of course,” the woman said. “You are newly wed.”
Lianae blushed hotly. “Oh, nay,” she protested. “It isna like that.”
But it was. Whether her husband would bed her or nay, she had no desire to spend the night alone in the little cottage they had been assigned. She was driven to seek him, even if she didn’t know why. He was her touchstone now—her center.
Keane was all that remained to make sense of her world. She had no one but him, and as angry as he was with her, she still trusted him to keep her safe.
The woman’s eyes twinkled as she studied Lianae, as though she knew something Lianae did not. But then she couldn’t know that Keane wanted naught to do with her, and rightly so, for Lianae had bungled everything so very thoroughly.
But what would she have done differently if she could?
Certainly not return to the Earl.
Never that.
Naught, Lianae realized sadly. She would do naught differently, for if she had played her hand any differently at all, the king may have well returned her to the Earl. She swallowed her grief over the truth and stood, hugging herself against the chill of the night, staring out into the hills.
“He is quite pleased with your marriage,” the laird’s wife remarked.
Lianae’s gaze snapped to the woman’s face. At first, she thought it must be a question, because it certainly couldn’t be true. “Keane?” she asked, thinking she must be mistaken.
She nodded, and long moments passed where Lianae simply didn’t know how or what to respond. She opened her mouth to speak and closed it again.
“I ken what ’tis like to be torn between worlds,” the woman said, surprising Lianae with the insight.
There was an air of familiarity between them already, though it wasn’t an affiliation Lianae could readily explain. She’d felt the same kinship with Kenna, and a little bit from Lael. But not a one of them must realize what Lianae had done… or they, too, would despise her as surely as Keane did.
“When I first came to Dubhtolargg,” she confessed. “I wondered how the fates would allow that I should wed the man whose people cursed my very existence.”
“Aidan?” Lianae asked with surprise.
She smiled. “Aye, ’tis true. My husband’s people loathed me once upon a time. In fact, it was Una herself who cast me the evil eye. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Caimbeul’s curse?”
Lianae’s eyes widened. Even in the north, they’d heard the stories of how the mountain folk cursed the Caimbeul’s daughter for his sins. This, then, was Lìleas MacLaren.
Lianae’s gaze slid to the bier. “Una was the one?”
Lìleas’s throat constricted visibly. “The very one.”
“And still you mourn her loss?”
Lìleas’s eyes filled with unshed tears. “More than words can say. You are a daughter of óengus, so they say?”
Lianae nodded. “Aye, but he is now gone… along with my mother and my sister… I am alone.”
“Nay,” Lìleas contended. “Not so long as you have us. We are your family now, Lianae. The dún Scoti men are loyal to a fault and I tell you now that if Keane loves you truly, you will want for naught as long as he remains at your side.”
Lianae said naught to that, unable to reveal the things she’d already done to put their marriage asunder. Feeling glum, she turned to stare out over the hillside, at the dozens and dozens of twinkling fires… like stars that fell to earth.
Both women stood in perfect silence. After a time, Lìleas spoke again. “I will share with you what Una once told me when I needed to hear it most. She said, ‘Trust your instincts, and whatever ye do, do it with all your soul.’ I sense you will need this advice in the days to come, Lianae.”
Willing away tears, Lianae turned to blink at her.
“Be true to your heart, not so much your head,” Lìleas offered with a smile, and there was something about her violet eyes that made Lianae want to believe.
And then she turned to find Keane standing behind her, and her heart ceased to beat…