Chapter Two Murieall
Buchannan Stronghold
Highlands, Scotland
I closed the door to my da’s solar behind me, expecting both my parents to turn at my entry, but neither of them moved.
Whatever I’d been summoned for, I had the feeling it wasn’t good.
Not only had they not turned at my entering the room, but they huddled together, Mama with her shoulders hunched and Da with his head bowed, as if they were preparing for battle. Worry niggled at me.
“Mama?” I called.
She turned, eyes blazing, and crossed the room to take my hand.
Then she ran a smoothing hand over my head in the same reassuring gesture she’d used when I was a child and trembling in fear from a storm, or the dark, or howling wind, or I’d woken from the constantly recurring nightmare when Lisette had fallen through the ice in the loch and died.
I flinched, even now at the memory of my baby sister, whom I’d led to her death with my foolishness.
“’Tis for the best,” Mama murmured, more to herself than me, it seemed.
“What is?” I demanded, my heart doubling its beat.
Da straightened slowly and met my gaze. “Bruce brought a missive to me from Liam this morning.”
“Bruce has returned without Liam?” I asked, confused, because that had not been the plan at all.
My brother and Liam were to have ridden here from the king’s court together.
They were both to have arrived today. On Da’s nod, I said, “I do nae understand. Liam was to come a sennight before our wedding with Bruce. That was the plan.”
I had every single detail of every single day mapped out from today until our wedding. Plans kept one safe. It was when you deviated from them that trouble occurred. “Has something happened?”
Mama made a derisive sound, and Da nodded.
Dread settled deep in my chest, and my hands curled reflexively into fists as a voice in my head stirred. The dead loved to strike at me with their pleas for help when I was trying to concentrate on something else.
Tell my mama the priest poisoned me.
I forced a noisy exhalation through my nose to dull the ghost’s voice. Once it had faded to the background, I asked, “What?”
Mama squeezed my hand hard, as if she could anchor me. “Sit, Murieall.”
I moved to do her bidding, but trepidation followed each step I took.
Da drew a long breath. “Liam has broken the betrothal.”
My breath hitched. “That can nae be. Liam loves me, and he’s honorable and does nae waver from duty or plans.” That was one of my favorite qualities about him.
Mama snorted. “Yer description of him is exactly why I did nae think him a good choice of husband for ye and exactly why I made the two of ye wait.”
I scowled at her, and she returned it. “What have ye done, Mama?” I demanded, the worry in me going from a niggle to a tug.
“I’ve nae done a thing,” she replied.
Except make Liam and me wait three years to wed, I thought in a spurt of anger. Had he met someone else? But no, he did truly love me. I believed this to my core. And I, well, my affection for him was deep and safe.
“Mama,” I said, the word ringing with the accusation bubbling in my gut. “Ye must have done something. Written to his parents? Convinced them we were nae a good match.”
I knew well she believed it. She’d hoped that by forcing me to wait to wed him, I’d change my mind and meet someone I had a great passion for, as she did Da, but I didn’t need a great passion.
I liked calm predictability, and since the day I’d met Liam seven summers ago when he’d come to our home with Bruce on a break from their apprenticeship at the king’s court, he’d been a steadfast, calm presence in my life.
I’d planned our life together shortly after that very first day we met, and I’d been working my way through the steps to wedded bliss ever since then.
Mama patted my shoulder. “I vow to ye, lass, I’m nae the reason the betrothal has been broken.”
“There must be some misunderstanding,” I said, trying to rise, so I could go write Liam a missive and make a plan to set to rights whatever was wrong, but Mama caught my wrist. I glanced up, and the sorrow and regret in her gaze made my stomach tangle into knots.
“There’s nae a mistake, Murieall,” Mama whispered and tugged on my wrist gently to get me to sit back down.
The room seemed to grow very still, and the ghost’s voices in my head suddenly rose, overlapping one another.
My betrothed murdered me. Ye must help me.
Get a message to my grieving husband for me.
Tell my betrothed I did nae lie to him.
I pulled up the walls around my mind as best I could to shut the voices out, but it came with a price.
It always did. Sometimes the price was steep, and I became ill or blacked out.
Other times, it was stomach pain or an ache in my head like the sharp one that I had now.
I swallowed, trying to concentrate on my parents, not on the voices that always beseeched me to help them, and that I secretly feared would one day drive me mad if I never learned to silence them completely.
But that fear was something I never uttered out loud.
“What did his missive say?”
“Whispers of yer curse have reached his parents. They’ve forbidden him to wed ye,” Da said, anger making his words come out sharp.
“But I ignore the voices,” I protested, wincing at how feeble the words sounded. I did try, as best I could. Sometimes I talked back, snapping at a ghost to cease talking or leave me alone.
Da gave me a helpless look before clearing his throat. “Laird Kerr says Liam can nae wed a woman other clans will think mad.”
“This is ridiculous! I grow better all the time at repressing the voices, and I will conquer them eventually.” I simply had to, somehow, someway.
“Ye loose the threads of conversation ye’re part of all the time,” Da said unhelpfully. I scowled at him. I’d like to see if he could pay attention to the conversation occurring around him when a ghost was in his head, making demands.
“He’s nae for ye,” Mama said, shooting Da a warning look. I suppose she’d found his comment unhelpful as well. “I told ye that from the very beginning. Ye will meet someone else. Someone who will stir yer blood, as—”
I snatched my hand out of hers and stood. “I want Liam,” I said, “and besides, who will want me if everyone thinks I’m mad!”
My parents exchanged a swift look. That was why they’d been huddled together when I’d walked in.
They had the fear I’d just voiced. My plans flashed in my mind.
I wanted four children. Two lasses and two lads.
I wanted peace—a quiet existence. I was determined to learn to block the voices of the dead totally.
I wanted a safe husband and a safe life. “Da, ye must write to Laird Kerr.”
“It will nae do any good, lass,” Da said gently. “They need to strengthen their clan. They can nae take a chance on wedding their only heir to a lass who would prevent other alliances that could help them.”
I flinched at the truth of his words and pressed my lips together.
Mama pulled me into her arms then, clinging to me as though she could shield me with her body. “I am sorry,” Mama said. “I ken ye likely think I’m nae, but I am. I ken ye hear the ghost because of what ye did for me.”
It was true. Stealing the witch Morgana’s magical goblet two years ago with my three best friends, so I could make a wish to save my dying mama, had been the second most impulsive decision of my life, and it had cost me my quiet when that witch Morgana had cursed me to hear the dead.
The first most impulsive decision I’d ever made to take a shortcut across the frozen loch to return home with Lisette had cost me my sister when she’d fallen through and drowned.
But I didn’t want Mama to think I regretted my decision to save her.
“I would do it again to save yer life once more,” I assured her, though I would do it with a plan, such as plead my case to Morgana first.
I sucked in a sharp breath as an idea struck.
It was impulsive now, but if I thought it through, if I took the time to plan it, mayhap I could return order and peace to my life.
“I want to go speak to Bruce, and hear exactly what Liam told him,” I said, already moving toward the door. I was pushing it open when Mama spoke.
“Perhaps, if ye tried to listen to what the ghost said, tried to aid them,” Mama said, “then they would be quiet.”
I swung toward her. “Oh, aye!” I cried, sounding as hysterical as I was beginning to feel. My plans were slipping through my fingers. “I’m certain Liam’s parents will want to wed him to a lass who is running around righting wrongs to the dead, Mama!”
“I was nae talking about Liam,” she said, giving me a pointed look. “Nae everything in life is meant to be planned, Murieall.’
“Plans keep one safe, and ye ken verra well I do nae like risks,” I said, stepping through the door.
“Ye are living to survive, and that is nae living at all. Ye deserve a life of happiness.” Her response followed me as I shut the door and strode off to convince Bruce to take me to the MacLeod land and to the Dark Woods to see Morgana.
I was going to plead my case of why I’d stolen the goblet the night of Samhain, ask for forgiveness, and beg her to lift the curse.
It would take a day to get there, a day to travel to the Kerr Stronghold, and hopefully, Liam and I would be returning to my home together in two days’ time, to spend the sennight before our wedding hunting and feasting, exactly as planned.
“Why the devil would I take ye to the Dark Woods and put myself in the line of Mama and Da’s anger?” Bruce demanded, turning to mount his horse, dismissing my request.
I ground my teeth as I glared at the back of my brother’s head. I’d already explained why, but clearly helping me simply so I wouldn’t lose Liam was not appealing enough for Bruce to risk whatever punishment Da might dole out for his aiding me.