Chapter Thirty-Three
Diarmid stood, knee deep in the rising tide, wondering what he’d just witnessed. For several breaths, he was too stunned to do anything. Then it hit him, harder and sharper than the icy waters roiling at his feet.
She’d chosen Sitric.
What hurt even more was that she’d not hesitated, not paused or considered at all. She hadn’t looked for him as he jumped ashore. And when her gaze had finally found him, all he saw was solid ice. A look that froze his heart and then shattered it.
In one look, he knew she wasn’t going to give him a chance to explain anything. No matter how many times he proved himself, it would never be enough.
She’d chosen Sitric.
He strode through the thick tangles of seaweed, until he reached her. She watched his every move with that frigid glare. When he reached her, Diarmid thrust the sack he was carrying into her arms, the one he’d filled with a book, wrapped in a strip of leather—as safe as he could keep it from the salty sea.
Then he walked away.
“What just happened?”Cormac sat down across from him at the alehouse, where he’d been drowning his sorrows since he left the harbor.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Diarmid grumbled. He knew he owed Cormac an explanation, but he needed time first. He wasn’t ready yet.
Cormac politely waved off Maeve when she came to set down an ale for him. “I’m afraid we must.” His gaze bored into Diarmid’s, forcing him to catch his eye. “Why did Sitric offer to let her marry you?”
“Because I told him I was in love with her.” The words forced him to take another swig.
Cormac took away his tankard. “You’re going to trip all the way up the hill at this rate.”
“Can’t think of a better way to get there.”
“Diarmid.” Cormac’s sharp tone sobered him. “Are you telling me that you seriously contemplated letting our mission fail so that you could marry the bride sent from one king to another? To further peace between kingdoms?”
Diarmid blew out a breath, running a hand through his sea-soaked hair. “Well, when you put it that way, it sounds a lot worse.”
“That’s because it is a lot worse,” Cormac grumbled. “I thought you’d changed, brother. I thought you’d finally grown from a child to a man, who stands by his oaths and friends.”
He hadn’t thought it possible, but Diarmid felt even worse as he listened to his brother speak naught but the truth.
Cormac rose, his lips taut. “I know you’re unhappy with the lady’s choice,” he said under his breath, “but she just did you a favor. If you had actually prevented that marriage, Illadan would’ve made certain you were no longer counted among the Fianna.”
For the first time in his life, Diarmid felt too depressed to drink. Once Cormac was far enough away that he wouldn’t risk running into him, Diarmid trudged back down the road toward Sitric’s holding, wondering how this day could possibly get any worse.
He didn’t have to wonder long.
Before he’d even made it to the guest hall, Cara descended upon him.
“Sitric told me I had to speak with you,” she muttered, clearly as excited at the prospect as Diarmid.
He should have kept walking. He was in no state to have this conversation. He should just accept his loss for what it was and start moving on, returning to his old life. “Why?” he asked, his lips betraying him. “Why did you choose him?” His chest ached as he spoke the horrible words aloud.
“Why did you leave?” She turned the question on him so quickly it felt like a slap.
He shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep. I took a walk.”
“Was it easier to sleep after you bedded the serving maid?”
That got his attention. “What?” he asked, incredulous.
“I asked where you’d gone,” Cara told him, fury blazing in her every word. “I was told you spent the night with a woman named Maeve who works at the alehouse. They saw you walking down there. They saw you walk into a building with her.”
Of course she would think the worst. She had every other time. Why would this be different? Diarmid realized then that he was tired of fighting to change her opinion of him. If she didn’t want to love him, he certainly couldn’t make her.
He closed the distance between them, as he used to when he was about to kiss her. But instead of taking her into his arms, he leaned in and whispered his final words to her.
“Always you search for reasons to doubt me, to push me away, to build your walls,” Diarmid told her softly. “But it’s only an excuse not to let yourself be vulnerable. The problem is not me,” he breathed, “though I’m certainly far from perfect. The problem is that you are more worried about being hurt than about being loved.”
Her mouth fell open, and he forced himself not to look at those lips. They were his no longer.
They had never really been his at all.
*
The stricken lookon his face tore at her heart. But he’d left her, Cara reminded herself. For another woman. She ignored the stabbing pain she felt through every part of her body. Ignored the ring of truth his words had held. Ignored the urge to fall right back into his arms.
No, she knew where that path led. Her body may desire it, her heart may ache for it, but her mind knew better.
More irritated than she’d thought possible, Cara spun on her heels back toward the hall. She didn’t stop until she sat on her bed, didn’t stop even when Sitric and Niamh and Astrid all greeted her. She muttered a feeble reply before disappearing into her chamber.
Why did she still care for a man who’d gone straight from her bed to another woman’s? Diarmid’s whispered words threaded their way through her mind as she carefully laid the cloth-wrapped book on her bed furs. Cara disregarded them. It couldn’t all be some fabrication of her own mind. People had seen him.
She’d known the sack held a book by the weight of it, but she’d not had time to open it until now. With gentle hands, she peeled back the leather strip, a small piece of parchment, torn and tattered, lay atop the book.
For my princess.
Scribbled in what could only be Diarmid’s writing, by the messy, uneven strokes. Cara swore an oath. Why did the man have to be so charming? He wasn’t even here and he was winning her over, making her question what should be a simple decision.
If it were so simple, Cara wondered, then why did she still wonder at all?