Chapter 16
Moira awoke with a yawn. She looked around the cold, empty room, and sighed despondently. The morning sun peeked in through the shutters, creating dancing shadows.
The walls were bare aside from a wreath that hung above the bed.
Moira smiled wryly and wondered how Niall could entertain Grizel while also mocking her behind her back.
She wondered if it was something similar to what he had been doing with her.
He had asked for her hand in marriage, had actually insisted on it if Marcas’s account was anything to go by.
He had been charming He had spent time with her. They had made love, and a whole world had been opened up to her, and yet that had not been enough to win his heart or his trust apparently. There seemed to be a cold stone where his heart should have been, and Moira just wanted to break down and cry.
She wiped an errant sob away from her eyes, but in truth, she had cried enough through the night to last a hundred lifetimes.
Niall hadn’t come to her. She thought he would want to salvage some of their feelings; she had hoped that her words were have drawn some compassion from him or tugged at his heartstrings. Instead, they had only brought about a silence as cold and inexorable as the walls that surrounded her.
As Moira’s gaze drifted around the room, she sighed again and thought how much this place was like a prison.
Was this how Kirsten had felt when Uncle Roderick had condemned her as a murderer and thrown her in the dank dungeon?
Moira’s thoughts turned to home, to Marcas, Kirsten, Gregor, and Lileas.
A smile tugged at her cheeks at the thought of her niece and nephew running around, causing mischief, with the loyal hound Max circling them like a dutiful maid.
It was such a happy thought, and vivid emotion burst in Moira’s heart, which was followed by sorrow that was as sharp as a knife, as she knew that it was all happening without her.
In that moment, she hated Marcas for ever agreeing to this marriage, even though she knew he was just doing what was right for peace.
But the end result was that she had been torn from her home with barely a chance to say goodbye and taken to this world where her husband saw her as the enemy.
When they had been making love, Moira had not seen any trace of deception or suspicion in Niall’s eyes.
Had he hid it well or had she simply deluded herself into believing that this marriage was going to end like one of the happy stories she told to Gregor and Lileas to get them to sleep?
Well, nothing was ever like the stories.
Monsters were never obvious and gruesome.
Sometimes they could appear to be the most charming creatures in the land, and sometimes they could promise happiness, which was a far more tempting commodity than gold.
This place was supposed to be her home. The old building surrounded by the forest was going to be her fortress.
The beautiful shoreline was going to be her horizon.
The small villages dotted around were going to be hers to mold into a new, prosperous clan.
These people were supposed to be her people, but instead, they were strangers to her, and Moira was left forlorn.
She was Lady Calbraith in name only. When even her own husband did not trust her, how could she expect other people to?
She had to allow herself a dry laugh at the thought that the only person who had actually shown her genuine kindness was the old hag who everyone said was crazy. Well, she and Isobel, Moira supposed.
But she might never get the chance to call Isobel a true friend, and Moira worried deep in her heart for Isobel and Jamie. Despite the way Niall had treated her, Moira was still concerned about them and all the other people who had fallen ill.
Her thoughts turned to the words the healer had told her, and she furrowed her brow.
She had been certain that she would have found something near the well, but nothing had revealed itself.
All she wanted to do was help, but Niall was standing in her way.
The man was like a huge boulder standing in a mountain pass, and there was nothing she could do but stand in its shadow, shrug, and walk away.
She had tried to talk to him, to appeal to his heart, but each time, her words bounced off him as surely as a thin sword would bounce off a giant boulder.
It was hopeless, and the only way she could preserve her dignity now was by being allowed to return home. It may well mean that the alliance would be broken, but with such suspicion emanating from Niall’s mind, it was never going to last very long anyway.
The Calbraith and Monroe alliance would be but a footnote in history, a blip where the fighting ceased, and it would be clear to anyone who studied history that the two clans were made to be enemies and there was nothing they could do to prevent wars between each other.
It was a sad, sorrowful thought to think that Niall wasn’t only condemning her to these feelings, but that he was condemning future generations to this same fate. Moira spared a thought for the children she had assumed she was going to have.
They were going to be the symbol of a new future for the historic enemies, but now they would never be born. She would never feel Niall’s touch again. She would never descend into his arms and sink into his sweet warmth. She would never…
Moira drew her knees into her body and bowed her head. Her shoulders shook with a shudder, and she resigned herself to her fate.
But then something flourished inside her, some instinct that had been buried deep inside her heart.
She was not going to be the kind of person who stood by and did nothing.
She was going to be brave, like her father.
He was the example by which she and Marcas tried to live their lives, and there was nothing to say that she could not be as brave as him just because she was a woman.
She could not be a warrior, but her father had always taught them that the ability to wield a sword did not mean you were the strongest warrior.
It was all about wits, which was the real way to win a battle, he used to say, to be able to see things the enemy couldn’t see, and to do things they thought you would never be capable of.
That’s what Moira had to do now. She knew that Niall would expect her to stay in her chambers and either apologize to him or meekly sneak away, and in so doing confirm her guilt.
He was the laird, and it was her place to throw herself upon her pride and beg for forgiveness, or accept that he was right.
But Moira could do neither of those things. There was too much at stake for this. If she didn’t act, then Niall was liable to believe his paranoid delusions and declare war on the Monroe clan, which she was certain he would do if either Jamie or Isobel died by the malevolent hand of this sickness.
Moira wasn’t ready to give up on peace yet.
While she remained Lady Calbraith and had access to the lands, she was going to make use of them and try to unravel this mystery.
But first, she wanted to pay a visit to Isobel and Jamie, as she wanted them to know that she cared, even if Niall believed otherwise.
Moira pulled on a thick dress to protect her from the cold and wrapped a shawl around her shoulders.
Her face was pale and her eyes were haunted by fatigue.
As she passed various servants, she noticed how they glanced at her, and she wondered how many of them had heard the fiery argument between laird and lady the previous night.
However, each of them were discreet enough to not say anything, and Moira was grateful for this.
As daylight poured in through the windows, Moira started to feel foolish about believing in spirits and dark phantoms that had cursed the clan.
They were things from children’s stories, and she thought that perhaps Niall was right to dismiss them as the cause of this sickness.
In the night, though, with the darkness swirling around her, spirits seemed the most natural thing to happen.
However, as she thought about it rationally, she realized that all the bad things that had happened in her life had been the result of men rather than spirits, and that she knew how to deal with people.
Spirits on the other hand, were as elusive as the wind, and Moira hoped that mortals were responsible.
She made her way to Jamie’s room and half expected Niall to be there, but Jamie was alone, save for a rosy-cheeked maid who smiled at Moira as she entered. The maid fussed about quickly and then took a tray of food away from Jamie.
Surprisingly Jamie hadn’t eaten everything that was on the tray, so Moira plucked a few pieces of fruit and whetted her appetite, which had returned after the sorrow had consumed everything inside her.
Jamie was pale, looking like a shadow of himself.
He had propped himself up on the bed, and offered a weak smile.
“How are ye daeing, Moira?” he asked.
“A wee bit better than ye, it seems,” Moira said, moving closer to him. She took his hand. “I’m sae glad tae see ye with yer eyes open again. Everyone was sae worried.”
“I was tae. It’s been nice, hearing how everyone was sad for me.”
“We all care about ye, especially yer brother and sister. As soon as Isobel heard that something was wrong with ye, she rushed tae yer side and wouldnae leave—well, until she had tae.” Moira’s face fell as she thought of how Isobel was still a victim of the sickness, but at least if Jamie had survived, then there was hope for others.
Jamie smiled again. “It is touching,” he said. “And thank ye for coming as well.”