Chapter Ten
On the night that followed Raonaid’s strange awakening from the dream, Lachlan could not sleep.
Throughout the day, he had watched her with silent, broody fascination, becoming less consumed by his physical desire for her and more curious about her peculiar state of mind.
She had mentioned on more than one occasion that she felt as if she were going mad, and had even referred to herself as a lunatic.
He’d always known Raonaid to be deranged and lacking in what he would call a normal human conscience, but somehow the woman before him—wrapped in a heavy blanket and sleeping in the grass—no longer fit that description.
After two full days of riding with her, he no longer felt that she was the embodiment of pure evil.
He felt quite the opposite, in fact, and far less certain that she was lying to him about her memory loss.
All he wanted to do now, as he sat awake by the fire and watched over her while she slept, was help her, and it confused the hell out of him.
How could he possibly feel this way about Raonaid, the oracle, after loathing her for years, hunting her down with an obsession that bordered on madness, and giving up everything—everything—to achieve some sort of vengeance against her?
Suddenly she stirred and whimpered softly in the night. The sound of her voice was velvety and erotic.
Lachlan sat forward, resting an elbow on a knee, watching as she rolled gracefully onto her back.
A light breeze whispered through the grasses and fluttered the bottom of her blanket.
He felt a shiver of need rush through him, though he didn’t want to bed her.
Not exactly. He just wanted to lie with her and hold her as he had the night before.
To feel her soft, lush body against his own, to smell her hair.
To experience the intimacy and closeness.
It all seemed like a dream to him now. He had not known anything like it in such a long time.
Raonaid lay very still and quiet in the dark chill of the night; then suddenly, without warning, she sat up—her back straight as a spear.
Lachlan did not speak. He remained utterly still, though his heart began to pound like a wild thing in his chest.
Tossing the blanket aside, she rose to her feet, gathered her skirts in her fists, and started walking away from the camp.
“Wait!” he quickly said, shaking himself out of his stupor and rising to follow. “Where are you off to? It’s dark, lass. You’ll get lost.”
Ignoring the warning, she trudged with purpose through the damp, tangled grass, straight ahead, as if she knew exactly where she was going.
Lachlan hurried to catch up. He walked briskly beside her. “Raonaid…”
She continued to ignore him.
“Are you dreaming?” He studied her profile in the bluish light from the moon. “You need to wake up. You’re walking in your sleep.”
He hurried a few steps ahead of her, then turned to walk backwards in front, keeping a steady pace.
Though her eyes were open, she did not see him. There was a strange barrenness in those bottomless pupils. It was as if she were not even present in her body. He waved a hand in front of her face. She showed no awareness of him.
Curious as to where they were heading, he followed until she began to run. He stopped for a moment and spotted the striking silhouette of a single standing stone at the crest of a hill, with the full moon behind it.
Raonaid ran faster, as if drawn to it by some invisible force. When she reached it, she fell to her knees and sat back on her heels.
Lachlan was out of breath when he caught up. He bent forward and rested his hands on his knees, watching her. He glanced at the stone, then sat down in the grass beside it.
Raonaid stared blankly at the standing stone for a full hour. Soon it became increasingly difficult for Lachlan to keep his eyes open. He wanted to sleep, his lids felt heavy, but he could not rest. Not yet.
At last, she reached out and touched the rough gray ridges of the rock, running her fingertips lightly across the surface, picking at the grooves with her thumbnail.
Sitting forward, Lachlan studied her vacant eyes more closely, then turned to the stone. Was she trying to spell a word?
She began to slap her open palm against it, as if it were a locked door and she needed to escape through it, but no one would come and open it.
She smacked it hard with all her might, over and over, then sat back on her heels again and stared at it, frozen in silence like a statue, for another hour.
Lachlan did not wake her.
When the first light of dawn brightened the sky, she gathered her skirts and stood up, then made her way back to the camp. Without uttering a word, he walked beside her and stood over her as she climbed back into her bedroll and calmly went back to sleep.
* * *
Catherine woke to the smell of salt pork sizzling in a frying pan.
Groggily she sat up, and within seconds became aware of a terrible stinging sensation on the palm of her hand. She held it up in front of her face and frowned when she noticed that it was chafed and red. “Did I burn myself?”
Lachlan set the frying pan down on a rock. Without answering right away, he picked up the coffeepot and poured her a cup, walked around the fire, and handed it to her.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, squinting up at him in the bright morning sunshine. She tossed the blanket aside and accepted the hot coffee, careful not to wrap her sore hand around it. “Now you’re scaring me.”
“Well, you deserve it, lass. You gave me a bit of a scare last night.”
“How?”
He returned to the other side of the fire, but remained standing. “Do you not remember anything?”
She looked down at the coffee and searched her memory, which was usually a futile exercise. This morning, unfortunately, was no different.
“No,” she replied, “but I hope you will be able to tell me something. I cannot cope with any more mysteries about my actions or whereabouts.”
He poured a cup of coffee for himself. “You walked in your sleep. I couldn’t wake you, so I just followed you.”
A slow surge of apprehension made its way through all her nerve endings. “What did I do?”
“You walked to a standing stone on that hill”—he pointed—“and sat in front of it, staring at it for most of the night. You scratched at it with your fingers and smacked it with your whole hand, which is why you’re sore this morning.”
She stared up at him in disbelief. “That is very disturbing.” Her stomach began to roll with nausea. “To think that I was out there, wandering around in the dark, pounding on a stone…”
He grimly shook his head. “You weren’t just wandering. You knew exactly where you were going. You were drawn to that stone.”
Catherine frowned. “But how? Why?”
He looked at her squarely. “I cannot answer that. It’s not something I ever understood, but I can tell you this: Raonaid always had her most powerful visions at the stone circle at Callanais.
Angus said she was drawn to it, and he would follow her there.
That’s where she saw his triumph at Kinloch, and sure enough, he later reclaimed his castle from the enemy invaders who took it from his clan. ”
“What are you saying? That I was having some sort of vision? But I don’t remember anything. I didn’t see the future.…”
“Nay, I don’t think you did,” he agreed. “It’s why you were pounding on it. You seemed frustrated.”
Catherine stared at him mutely. “So this is proof … that I really am her.”
She should have felt some relief to know the truth at last, but all she could feel was a wretched loneliness and a terrible grief, as if someone had died.
“You look disappointed,” Lachlan said.
“I suppose I am. Perhaps I have been holding on to some sliver of hope that I was not that vengeful person who put curses on people, and that my family truly was my family, and they were not using me for their own unscrupulous gain.” She looked across him.
“I didn’t want to be her,” she admitted. “I wanted to be Catherine.”
There was a spark of some indefinable emotion in Lachlan’s eyes as he regarded her in the morning light. “I’m sorry.”
Catherine lowered her gaze and finished her coffee.
“What will happen when we meet Angus?” she asked. “He will identify me, that is certain now, but will he ever forgive me for all the things I did to him?”
“I cannot answer that, either.”
“Maybe we should turn around,” she said, looking up hastily. “I’m not sure it’s in my best interest to go there.”
Lachlan drained his coffee cup and shook the last few drops into the fire.
When he spoke, there was a resurgence of hostility in his voice, and his eyes clouded over with something almost threatening.
“You’ll not change your mind now, Raonaid.
You gave me your word, and you must get your memories back. ”
“So that I can lift the curse.”
“Aye.”
Of course, that was why he had come to Drumloch in the first place. It was why he had taken her with him. He wasn’t here to rescue her. Like the Montgomerys, he wanted something from her.
Either way, she still needed her memories back, and for some reason she could not explain, she was certain she would find them at Kinloch. Or at least find something …
“I cannot deny that you have helped me,” she confessed, remembering also the promise that she had made. “You’ve solved one mystery at least. I now know that I must be the oracle. So I suppose I owe you this in return: I will do my best to find a way to lift the curse.”
There was a tingling in the pit of her stomach while his steady gaze bored into her with scorching, impatient resolve.
“Pack up,” he said. “It’s time to leave.”