Chapter 2
“What?”
“It’s true. We wed shortly after the last Leanan Festival. Ye have been missing for almost as long,” he said carefully.
It was a joke, of course. It had to be a joke. A silly jest to put her at ease during their first meeting, a trick gone wrong. Or perhaps he knew he’d gone too far with calling her his wife and attempting to touch her, and was trying to regain ground.
A quick glance around showed Skye that she was surrounded by anxious-looking Bryden men. Soldiers, mostly. If she tried to make a run for it, they’d catch her easily. So, she turned back to Laird Bryden and offered a thin smile.
“Ye are funny, me Laird.”
He rubbed a hand over his face. Had his eyes been so heavy with exhaustion before?
“This is no joke, I’m afraid,” he stated quietly. “We wed about a month after the Leanan Festival. Last year’s festival was when the bride swap happened. I took ye home, and yer cousin Creighton took Nora, a lass from me keep. That was a twelvemonth ago.”
She let out a shaky breath. “Impossible. The last thing I remember is preparing for this day, for the bride swap. Lass swap, as most people call it behind our backs. Do ye think that I simply lost a whole year of me life? Do ye think I wouldnae remember coming home with ye? And choosing to wed ye, ha! What a joke! I’d never marry a beast like ye,” she spat out.
A soldier standing in her peripheral vision flinched. Evander, however, did not even blink.
“Ye are tired,” he stated. “Ye are hungry and thirsty, I wager. Ye need rest, and ye need food.”
Skye swallowed, noticing how dry her throat felt. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, and now that he’d mentioned food, her stomach seemed to curl into a ball and scream.
Hungry? That was an understatement.
A year? A whole year has gone by?
Nay, impossible. Either I’m mad, or he is.
Her thoughts whirled round and round in her head, threatening to make her skull explode. She shook her head dizzily.
“Creighton… me braither…”
“Both Laird MacColl and Laird MacCrimmon have been sent for,” Evander assured her. He gently placed a hand on her shoulder, steering her toward the tent behind him. “Ye must rest. Ye are swaying on yer feet, and I daenae want ye to collapse. Come with me.”
She let him nudge her toward the tent and gently push her inside.
The tent was cool and dark, easing an ache in her temples that she’d only just noticed. Inside, a mat had been unrolled to cover the floor. A pallet bed lay in the corner, along with a low stool and a long mirror beside it.
There was also a woman, a dirty, dishevelled creature, with tangled hair hanging down her back, and—
Nay.
Skye shook her head and looked twice, staring at her own reflection in horror.
She stared at herself for a long, taut moment. Those were her eyes, wide and blue as a summer’s day. That was her hair, thick and black and in dire need of a brush and a good wash. And her dress! When had she ever worn a dress so stained and dirty?
Swallowing, she ran a shaking hand down the curve of her hip.
This is me dress. Me green one, me good one. I daenae remember choosing to wear it this morning. Did I nae want to wear me best gown? The new gray one?
But if she were to believe Evander, the morning she could remember had taken place a year ago.
Staring at herself, dirty and tired and wild-eyed, she was beginning to fear that it was true.
Evander murmured something to someone at the entrance, then ducked inside after her.
“Sit down, lass. Ye look ready to faint,” he ordered brusquely, moving over to a low table laden with a jug and a couple of goblets. He poured a crisp, glittering goblet of water and handed it to her.
Skye’s body reacted before her mind could. She snatched the goblet, gulping it down in three large mouthfuls. The water sloshed down inside her, a weight in her stomach.
“Thirsty,” Evander remarked thoughtfully. She held out her goblet for a refill, but he shook his head. “I daenae ken how long ye have gone without water. Too much might make ye ill. Wait a few moments, then I’ll give ye some more. Sip it this time.”
The thirst remained, but he was right.
Skye nodded slowly, frowning down at the goblet.
“Food is coming,” he added. “Now, ye look hungry, but of course ye must have been eating and drinking over the past year. Tell me, what is the last thing ye remember?”
She closed her eyes. “I was coming here. To meet ye, today, for the bride swap. Then I woke up in a tent, just now.”
“Alone?”
“Aye. I… I remember thinking that someone must have put something in me wine.”
His jaw tightened. “Do ye remember drinking wine?”
“I suppose,” she murmured. “I remember… I remember dressing this morning. I chose me gray dress.”
They both glanced down at her plain green wool dress.
“Do ye have other injuries? Cuts, bruises, soreness?” Evander continued, his voice brisk.
Skye shook her head, lifting her hand gingerly to the spot on her cheek he had touched. Glancing at the mirror, she saw that there was indeed a scratch there, nothing more than a graze, as if she’d stumbled against a tree with rough bark.
“Have I really been gone for a whole year?” she whispered, her voice catching.
Evander eyed her for a long moment. He kept his distance, as if allowing her to breathe.
“I told ye, we wed a month after yer came to stay with me at Keep Bryden,” he said, his voice tight.
She got the sense that he was trying to keep as calm as he could.
“Ye disappeared on our wedding night. Do ye truly remember nothing since then?”
She swallowed. “I daenae even remember meeting ye.”
A flash of something like pain crossed his eyes, hastily blinked away.
“We searched for ye,” he said brusquely. “All of us. Yer braither and cousin didnae believe that I had done something to ye, but there was no other explanation for why ye were missing. We are on the brink of war, I believe.”
“The thing I have trouble believing,” Skye burst out, “is that I would marry ye in the first place. I only agreed to this exchange for two reasons. First, to allow peace between our clans. And second, because I ken that yer faither killed mine. No justice was ever served, and I was determined to discover whether or nae ye had a part in it. I didnae view ye as an ally. I… I thought of killing ye!”
Evander gave a tight smile, folding brawny arms across his wide chest. “Aye, I ken that. Ye told me.”
“I would never have done that.”
“Nae at first.” He laughed, shaking his head. “Any fool with eyes could see that ye didnae trust me. But ye decided nae to take revenge on me when ye learned the truth.”
“Truth? What truth?”
He shrugged. “The truth that I was the one who killed me faither.”
Skye rocked back on her heels. “What?”
He gave a wry smile. “Aye, that was yer reaction the first time.”
“So I…” She paused, dragging a hand over her face. “I chose to stay with ye?”
He moved over to the stool and lowered himself onto it. Leaning forward, he braced his elbows on his knees. In this new position, he had to look up at her, his eyes dark in the gloomy tent.
An image suddenly flashed through her mind, of Evander looking up at her like that, kneeling down to pick something from the floor. In the memory—if it was a memory, of course—he was smiling, a wry, tentative smile that made her chest ache.
Enough, she scolded herself.
“If today marks one year since the last Leanan Festival,” she said slowly, “then I should be going home today. Me maither and braither are waiting for me. I wouldnae have left them behind. Unless…” She sucked in a breath, her eyes widening.
“Did ye try to prevent me from leaving? Were ye trying to force me into marriage? Was that why I ran away?”
Evander heaved a sigh, dropping his face into his hands. “Nay, lass, that’s nae it.”
“Well, of course ye would say that.”
“Perhaps. But we have a wedding contract, lass.” His mouth quirked wryly. “Ye wrote most of it yerself. I have a copy with me, and yer braither and cousin both have copies. Yer braither didnae believe ye at first when ye said ye were marrying me. Yer maither seemed happy enough.”
Skye swallowed, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. It was in character for Hunter to doubt her like that. He hadn’t wanted her to go at all. Her mother, however, wanted to see her wed. She could imagine her mother meeting Evander and liking him a good deal.
“I daenae understand,” she whispered hoarsely. “None of this makes sense.”
“Aye, lass, ye are telling me,” Evander responded grimly. “I am trying to understand how an entire year could be wiped from a person’s memory. More to the point, I am wondering why.”
Why.
That awful word echoed.
Skye flinched, blinking.
Why.
She didn’t believe that her disappearance and memory loss could be an accident. Why didn’t she remember a thing? Would her memories return? And if somebody was behind it, how had they done it? Why had they done it?
Will they do it again?
Her knees threatened to jackknife underneath her, and she dropped down to the ground, breathing in and out. There wasn’t enough air in her lungs. She wasn’t breathing, even though she could feel the air rushing into her lungs. There wasn’t enough. There wasn’t—
“Hey, hey, lassie.” Evander’s knees appeared in her line of vision. He slowly lowered himself beside her. A large hand rested on her shoulder, the warmth of his palm seeping in.
Glancing up, she met his eyes, fixed worriedly on her. He smiled faintly, tilting his head.
“Everything will be fine. Just breathe.”
“I… I cannae.”
“Ye can. Just relax. Concentrate on yer lungs, aye? Feel them expanding. How does that feel?”
She closed her eyes, letting out a long, shaky breath. Her lungs did feel as though they were filling once more. After a few moments, her shoulders relaxed.
“Now,” he continued, sitting back on his heels, “let’s discuss what we should do next.”
He removed his hand, carefully putting space between them. Skye rolled her shoulders back. She could feel where his palm had been.
I daenae understand. Why do I feel like this? Why am I so… so unsettled?