Highlanders Collection. Ann Lethbridge

started to answer, but what good would it do? So she shook her head. She began to sit up and he helped her this time.

      Ciara knew she was not done here yet, even if Tavis did not. She’d come here with two purposes in mind and only one was accomplished. Accomplished well and wonderfully and now she would never have to wonder what it would be like to find pleasure in his bed. But the more serious task lay ahead.

      They dressed in silence and he poured her a cup of ale before she left. Ciara knew he would follow her back to make certain she made it safely and without being recognised—he could not help himself. She turned to him before lifting the latch and stopped.

      ‘I have one more request of you, Tavis.’

      ‘Do not ask me to watch you marry him, Ciara. I cannot do that, even for you.’

      She smiled, her eyes filling with tears. She shook her head and glanced away for a moment. ‘Nay, not that.’

      ‘Then what do you ask?’ he said quietly.

      ‘Tell me of Saraid’s death at your hands. I would know why she haunts you even these years later.’

      ‘Ciara,’ he said, his voice pleading with only that word for her to stop.

      ‘I would know why the woman you loved above all keeps your heart and soul bound to her, even in death. You owe me at least that.’

      He grimaced at her, but it did not put her off.

      ‘Do you know that I plotted to trip her on her way to the church for your wedding? To keep her from marrying so that you would wait for me?’ Tears gathered once more, but she smiled through them. ‘Elizabeth and I were ready to lunge and bring her down.’ She nodded then. ‘Now when I look back, I realise it was a grievous error on my part not to have done it.’

      ‘You did not?’ He narrowed his gaze and laughed then. ‘You did? What stopped you?’

      ‘I saw the way you looked at her from your place by the door.’ She took in and released a breath. ‘I knew then that that was what love looked like.’

      ‘I did love her,’ he admitted the obvious.

      ‘You looked at me that way on our journey to Perthshire. I saw it then.’

      ‘I cannot deny the love I feel for you. I just cannot put you in the same position I did Saraid.’

      ‘Tell me, Tavis. Explain how you killed her.’ She dropped her shawl around her shoulders and sat down in his chair. ‘I am not leaving, not giving myself to another man instead of the one I love, until I understand what keeps your heart imprisoned.’

      ‘She was carrying our bairn,’ he said, rubbing his hands through his hair and turning away from her to stare into the fire that now burned low in the hearth. ‘And she had terrible fears about it. Terrible. She would beg me every night not to leave her alone. Not to let her die.’ He glanced at her with bleak eyes and then continued. ‘God forgive me, but I tired of it. She became too scared to leave the cottage. Too frightened to do most anything. She would not travel with me. Would not ride a horse. Would not …’

      Ciara did not remember this at all. Too young to realise the true intimacy between a man and his wife. ‘What happened?’

      ‘I swore to keep her safe. I swore she would not die, I would not let her die.’ He shook his head again, but did not meet her gaze then. ‘Connor asked me to see to a task for him that would take me from the village for a day, maybe two, and I accepted the assignment. I could have assigned someone else, knowing how frightened Saraid was—I should have. But, sweet Christ, I needed to be away from her for a short time. I could not breathe, I could not …’

      He walked over and splashed more ale in a cup for himself and drank it down. She could feel the pain pouring out of him with each passing moment. He was reliving this dark time in the telling of it.

      ‘We argued. We argued badly and I left her behind. Told her I would be back whenever I got back,’ he admitted in a tortured voice. ‘I did not know … I had no idea …’ He ran his hand through his hair and stared at her with bleak eyes. ‘I goaded her into something she should not have done.’

      Ciara went to him, kneeling before him and taking his hand in hers. He needed to tell this and release the pain he carried deep, deep inside.

      ‘I carried out my duty. It was a day’s ride away. I was returning when I found her.’

      ‘You found her? Where was she?’

      ‘Her pains began after our argument. Instead of calling for the midwife or one of the women, she got on a horse and followed me. She caught up with me a few hours from here and I was still angry. I ordered her off, demanded she return here without hearing her out and then I rode off full of my own bluster and rage.

      ‘By the time I returned and found her there on the ground the next day, she’d bled so much there was nothing I could do for her.’

      ‘Tavis, it was not your fault,’ she said firmly. ‘You did not cause her death.’

      ‘But I did, Ciara. If I’d been more attentive. If I’d listened. If I had stayed. If I’d ridden back with her and saw to her safety, she might be alive today.’

      ‘That is something that only the Almighty decides, Tavis. Not us. She could have died in childbirth, too. Would that have been your fault?’

      ‘I gave her my word! Do you not understand? I swore an oath to keep her safe and I rode away.’ His hands shook as much as his voice did. ‘She would have had a chance if not for me and my anger. If not for me …’

      He had played a part in Saraid’s death, if he’d acted as he’d just described, but Ciara thought the ending might have been the same no matter what help he offered or what he did. Tavis was too controlled by his guilt and pain to accept any truth that might include his own vindication, but mayhap he would when he thought on it.

      Later.

      Later, when he considered the error in his decision not to put the past behind him and ignore a future he, they, could share. Or later when he learned how to forgive himself for his failings.

      She stood and put her shawl up to cover her head for the walk back to Elizabeth’s cottage. Well, not really to her cottage, for Elizabeth did not know of her plans this night. No one did. She would sleep in the small barn next to Elizabeth’s and then return to her parents’ house in the morning—none the wiser of what she’d done or where she’d been.

      ‘I know it is too late for us, but I beg you to speak to the midwife, Gunna. She saw Saraid frequently and has a different view of things. It might help you forgive yourself.’

      He was too steeped in the pain of dragged-up memories to hear anything else. ’Twas only then that she noticed the small piece of wood on the hearth’s shelf. Picking it up, she recognised the shape—a heart. Instead of a horse, he’d carved something of himself for her to keep with her always. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she shook her head and walked to the doorway.

      ‘Farewell, Tavis,’ she whispered as she closed her fingers around the precious keepsake. Ciara opened the door and pulled it closed behind her and ran off down the path.

      She found the barn and sneaked inside to hide for the rest of the night. Pressing herself against one wall, she wrapped the shawl around her and waited for the tears to flow.

      But they did not. Instead memories of the wondrous passion they’d shared flooded back and she knew she’d done the right thing. Now, at least she could have those memories and this treasured reminder from him while she lived the life of the contented wife of James Murray.

       Chapter Nineteen

      The next day dawned cloudy