Moon Craving

Chapter 14

Talorc dropped her onto the pile of furs in their bedchamber. “If you value your safety, you will stay here.”

She could think of nothing to say to such a threat being issued from the lips of the man she had come to equate with her safety.

He turned and only then did she realize Guaire had followed them up the stairs. “Stay with her. Allow no one in this room until I return.”

Guaire nodded without a word.

Then Talorc left. Guaire locked the door.

“Am I prisoner?” she asked, making no effort to modulate her voice.

But Guaire heard. He frowned. “Nay. Talorc does not want you hurt. The clan will need time to adjust to the knowledge that you have been hiding the truth about yourself. If you want my opinion, most of the Sinclairs will understand, even the Chrechte. Only those who saw how much you hurt our laird with your deception will hold it against you.”

“I did not mean to hurt him.”

Guaire sighed and leaned against the door. “I believe you.”

“He won’t.”

“I have never seen him so happy.” Guaire looked away from her, though she could still read his lips. “I did not believe he would ever grow to trust an Englishwoman. Not even if she was his wife.”

“I destroyed that trust.” Desolation blanketed her. Would he ever call her his angel again?

“Aye.”

“I did not want to be sent away.”

“He would not send you away, no matter what. You are his true mate.”

“I do not think Talorc considers me his friend any longer.”

“Unfortunately, I think you are right.”

Talorc’s fury was only a thin mask for pain so deep it would buckle his knees if he let it. His wife, the paragon of virtue he claimed as his sacred mate, the woman he had come so close to admitting love to, was a liar. A coward.

Osgard made a sound of disgust echoed among the other warriors at the table. “I guess you canna expect anything better from an Englishwoman.”

“I expected better,” Talorc gritted out.

Just as his father had with Tamara. Talorc had spent years proving himself to his clan, protecting them and being so careful not to share in his father’s act of criminal stupidity.

To discover he had been deceived just as neatly by a woman he had grown to trust hurt more than Talorc would ever admit out loud.

Without a word, Niall pressed a cup of mead in front of Talorc and without another word, Talorc drank it.

Osgard left the table and returned several minutes later with a small cask filled with drink much stronger than mead. Talorc proceeded to imbibe in more than his share over the following hours and through dinner. At some point he called for one of his soldiers to take a message to Scotland’s king, telling him of Sir Hamilton’s treachery and demanding redress.

He was deep in his cups when Barr said, “You’ve got to admire her ingenuity.”

Talorc turned on his second-in-command with a glare.

Barr merely shrugged, not appearing nearly as drunk as his laird. “She didn’t just fool you, she fooled everyone at her father’s keep and within our holding as well. Tamara hoodwinked only your father, and that was only because he was thinking with his little head, not the big one. Our lady is a clever one, not just a woman used to manipulating men with her pretty face.”

“She’s a sight more than pretty,” Earc said, slurring his words. “Our lady is beautiful.”

Osgard probably would have argued, but he was slumped over the table, snoring. He’d never been able to hold his whiskey as well as Talorc’s dad.

“Aye, beautiful and smart,” Fionn intoned drunkenly. “Just like an angel.”

Talorc frowned at his soldiers, Fionn’s words stinging in a way he would never admit. “She lied to us all.”

“She hid a frailty. Like a good soldier,” Barr said. “We do not reveal our weaknesses to others.”

“She is no soldier,” Talorc roared, though perhaps not as impressively as he would have before that last cup of rotgut. “She is my mate.”

“Aye, she is that.”

Airril looked at Talorc blearily. “Did you ask her why she hid her affliction?”

“’Tis not an affliction. She is deaf, not diseased,” Talorc responded angrily.

“He didn’t ask. We were all right here when he tested her.” Earc was looking distinctly green.

If he was smart, and all Talorc’s Chrechte elite were intelligent, Earc would not drink any more tonight.

“Nay, I did not ask. What could it matter her why’s of lying to me?”

Barr guided Earc to the floor as the man lurched alarmingly. “You won’t know until you learn what they are.”

“She said she was afraid,” Fionn slurred.

“There. She’s a coward.” Though the words felt hollow as he said them.

“She’s your mate. ’Tis your responsibility to find out what had her so feared.” Barr’s tone left no room for argument.

And that was one of the reasons Talorc valued him so as his second: the other warrior was not afraid to speak his mind when it was needed. Not that he always agreed.

Right now, he wasn’t sure what he thought. Except that the table looked damn comfortable as he slumped forward to rest against it.

After a sleepless night in which Talorc did not return to their bedchamber and Guaire did not leave it, Abigail returned to the great hall just after sunrise. She’d left Guaire sleeping on the pallet she’d insisted making with some of the furs from her and Talorc’s bed.

She had a feeling her husband wasn’t going to like that, but then he could have come back and told Guaire the man could go to his own chamber for the night. As it was, no matter how many times Abigail assured the seneschal she would be all right on her own, he refused to leave her.

His presence had stopped her from collapsing in sobs. As much as she might have wanted to do so, she was grateful to him for inadvertently helping her keep her strength up. Then again, considering how astute the man was, his help might have been entirely deliberate.

At least she still had one true friend among the Sinclairs.

The stench of stale whiskey assaulted her nose when she was halfway down the stairs, so she was not wholly unprepared for the sight that met her eyes as she looked up after reaching the bottom. The soldiers from the night before, every one of them members of the elite Chrechte, were passed out in various poses of drunken disarray.

Talorc slept slumped over the table, but at least he was not passed out on the floor like Osgard. And Niall.

The big, scarred warrior’s eyes opened as Abigail stood staring, contemplating her next move.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he turned away with clear intent to ignore her presence. He rolled to his feet and left the hall without once looking back or speaking to her. So, that was it then. His attitude had not softened with the passage of a night, or drinking a great deal of whiskey apparently.

His twin brother, Barr, woke next. His eyes looked clearer than Niall’s had, his expression more open as well. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” she whispered, not sure she wanted to wake the others.

“I do not see Guaire.”

“I left him sleeping.”

Barr nodded. “Talorc is going to have kittens when he realizes you descended the steps without escort again.”

“I believe that is the least of my worries this morning.”

“You deceived him and he feels stupid because of it.”

“He’s not stupid.”

“Aye, I ken. And he knows it, too, but what he knows and what he feels are not always the same. ’Tis the same for all of us, don’t you think?”

“I suppose.” She wrapped her arms around herself and surveyed the sleeping warriors. “It looks to me as if they are all feeling drunk at the moment.”

“Or not feeling anything at all.”

“Sometimes I wish I could achieve that,” she admitted, barely giving sound to her voice.

But Barr heard. These Chrechte had the hearing of a predator. “Dinna try it with rotgut. The headache the next morning is not worth it.”

“Perhaps it would be best to speak to Talorc later, then.”

Her husband’s head came up from the table then, his blue gaze bloodshot but still piercing. “What is there to talk about?”

She could not believe he had asked such a foolish question. “The revelations of yesterday.”

“You mean my discovery that you have been lying to me since the moment we met?”

“I never told you I could hear.”

“You never told me you couldn’t.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why?”

“I would prefer to discuss this in private.” Once again, she let her eyes skim the passed-out warriors around them. “Enough of this drama has been played out in the great hall for your soldiers to enjoy.”

“I see no need to discuss this at all.”

She crossed her arms. “I have a right to know what my future holds.” She’d spent most of last night thinking and had come to several conclusions. The most important being, if she could convince Talorc to let her stay, she wanted to remain a Sinclair.

She knew it would not be easy, but nothing in her life had been since the fever that had nearly killed her as a child.

She had also decided she would not hide from the truth, whatever it might be. So, her husband would talk to her. And that was that.

Talorc did not reply, but he got up from the table, said something to Barr she could not see and headed up the stairs. Abigail followed, unaccountably disheartened by the fact that he had not insisted on her taking his arm for the ascent.

She’d taken two steps when he stopped and spun around, stomping back to her and grabbing her hand. “I’m probably less steady than you.” But he did not let her hand go.

“I do not know where you get this idea that I am clumsy,” she said to his back.

If he replied, Talorc did not bother to turn his head so she could see it.

When they reached their bedchamber, Guaire had left. Relief was quickly replaced by disappointment as Talorc released her hand and stepped away. His body jerked when he spied the pallet the soldier had slept on. Talorc glared at Abigail.

“Don’t look at me like that is my fault.” She waved her hand at the makeshift bed. “You are the one that ordered him to stay with me. When you did not come to our chamber last night, he was forced to sleep here. I tried to convince him to leave, but he refused to do so.”

“As he should have done.” But Talorc gave the smaller pile of furs a less-than-pleasant look.

Hoping out of sight would result in out of mind, Abigail gathered the furs and made to put them back on her and Talorc’s bed.

Talorc grabbed her arm. “Don’t.”

“Why not?”

“I will not sleep in a bed with another man’s scent.”

Oh, brother. “Are you trying to tell me you think you can smell Guaire on our blankets?” Superior warrior or not, that was just plain crazy.

“I can. I will provide more furs for our bed. Until then, we will do without.”

“Why not? It is not as if we make do without a real bed to begin with. What is a little more discomfort?” she grumbled under her breath as she squatted to roll the furs in a neatened bundle on the floor.

When she straightened, Talorc was frowning even more fiercely at her. “You do not find our bed adequate?”

“It’s not a bed. It’s a pile of furs,” she insisted stubbornly, and then realized how irrational she was being. Right now was not the time to discuss their sleeping accommodations.

“Never mind. As long as we share them, the furs are more than adequate.”

A flash of something like regret showed in his eyes. “I did not intend to sleep in the great hall last night.”

That was good to know anyway, though she was not sure what it meant in light of what he had said the night before.

Focusing on the mundane rather than issues with the power to shred her newfound happiness, she lifted the bed-roll. “What do you want me to do with these?”

“I do not care.”

She set it in the corner. “Fine.” She would give the furs to Guaire later. No doubt he could make use of the soft, luxurious pelts.

“Why did you deceive me?” The smell of whiskey still clinging to him and his plaid showing evidence that he had slept in it, Talorc leaned back against the door.

For all that, he was still the most handsome man she had ever seen. It was a wonder she ever had any breath in her the way it escaped at the very sight of him. But now was not the time to dwell on how attractive she found her laird husband.

She opened her mouth but did not speak. She had to tell him the whole truth. She would never again lie to him, through word or deed. Only she was pretty sure the truth would not help her case.

“You are the one who said you wanted to talk.” Back to belligerence, he glared accusingly at her.

And she was sure it was only going to get worse.

“In the beginning, I knew that if I told you of my affliction, you would refuse to marry me.”

“You knew this how?”

“No man wants a flawed bride.”

“Everyone has flaws.”

“Are you trying to imply you would have married me regardless of my infirmity?”

He shrugged. “To perpetuate your deception, you had to want to marry me. Why?”

Funny how he did not simply assume it was because every woman was supposed to aspire to the married state. The abbess would approve of Talorc’s intelligence, Abigail thought. “Marriage to you would bring me to the Highlands. I hoped that once you discovered my secret, you would send me to live with Emily, rather than back to England.”

“You married me to be reunited with your sister.”

He was smart. She’d always known that.

“Yes.”

“Why not simply go to live with her? Your mother did not seem enamored of your presence.”

That was putting it mildly. “Sybil wanted a more permanent solution to my presence in her home.”

“Bitch.”

Abigail flinched, not sure if he meant Sybil or her.

“I told you I would not apologize for saying such. Your mother has stone for a heart.”

“Only when it comes to me.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?”

“If I knew I would not ask.”

“Because I am damaged. There is no place for me in her life.” Just as Talorc had said there was no place for Abigail among his clan now.

Even now, hours later, those words sliced through her like a dagger.

He said a word she did not know. She didn’t ask him to translate because she was fairly certain she didn’t want to know it either.

“If your plan was to get me to bring you to the Highlands and then reject you for your weakness so I would send you to live with your sister—which was a hopelessly flawed plan, by the by—why did you not tell me the truth once we reached my fortress?”

This discussion had gone better than she could have hoped and the fact that he was still asking questions gave Abigail a sliver of hope. Just enough to prick at her though, not enough to truly lift her spirits. “By the time we had reached the Sinclair holding, I knew I did not want to leave you.”

“You continued to deceive me with the hopes of staying with me?” he asked as if to clarify. “You were so certain that revealing your secret would result in my rejection of you?”

“Yes.” To both.

He did not react to that admission in any way.

When the silence between them had stretched the point of pain, she asked, “What will you do with me now?”

“Are you still hoping to be sent to live among the Balmoral?”

“No.” Hadn’t she just confirmed she wanted to stay with him?

He looked at her with bad-tempered demand.

If he wanted it spelled out, then spell it out she would. “I want to stay here, as your wife, if you will have me.”

“Why?”

“I love you. I told you that yesterday.”

“You could have been lying.”

Her broken heart shattered a little more. “I wasn’t.”

“Have you lied to me about anything else?”

“No, but I have hidden something from you.”

“What?”

“I began hearing a voice in my head. I like to think it is you, but it can’t be anything except my imagination. I do not hear anything else. Well, besides the one night I heard the howl of a wolf.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

He nodded and then turned to go, as if all had been settled between them.

“Doesn’t that worry you?” she asked desperately. “The voices in my head?”

“No.”

Was that because he intended to get rid of her? “Are you going to send me away?”

“You are my wife.”

She had no reply for that, and before she could conjure one up, he had gone.

Talorc ran through the forest in his wolf form. He had swum in the loch to clear his whiskey-addled head, but it had done nothing to dispel his confusion in light of his wife’s revelations.

She had deceived him just as Tamara had deceived his father. Only his father had realized his wife’s true nature too late. Talorc was now all too aware of Abigail’s clever manipulations, but he had no desire to banish her.

The problem was that, like his soldiers, he admired his wife’s ability to hide her weakness. He could not help feeling proud that she was so talented at reading lips and speaking, no one had guessed at the fact she could not hear. The admiration he felt was at odds with the sense of betrayal choking his insides, and yet he could not rid himself of it.

No more than he could rid himself of the desire, no—the need—to keep his wife. Not that he had much of a choice. Were he to banish Abigail from the Sinclair holding, he banished any hope of children to carry his Chrechte lineage along with her. As a true-mated Chrechte, he was not physically capable of engaging in the mating act with anyone but Abigail. At least, until that mating was severed through death, or a betrayal so great, even his wolf spirit would reject her.

Apparently, his wolf was not bothered by Abigail’s perfidy. He felt as possessive and protective toward her as ever. He still craved her approval and the opportunity to scent her in his wolf form. It was a craving that grew stronger each day, becoming acute when the least incident indicated another man’s encroachment on what he considered his territory.

The wolf had howled in displeasure at the sight of the furs Guaire had slept on in Talorc and Abigail’s bedchamber. Talorc had wanted to throw the damn things out the window. He hadn’t, showing remarkable restraint in his opinion. Particularly when his mate had rolled them up so carefully, her scent mixing with Guaire’s on the fur.

His angel had much to learn about the Chrechte nature.

And him.

She claimed to love Talorc, but in the same breath, Abigail had indicated she thought him capable of throwing away his wife for something so insignificant as an inability to hear. Surely that was a grief she had to bear, not him. Her deafness did not impact him except that he had to be more diligent in his protection, knowing she was less aware of her surroundings than he had believed.

It also explained the times he thought she ignored him when in fact she simply had not realized he’d been speaking.

How could that be a bad thing?

Yet she had hidden the truth with a diligence that both worried and impressed him. No Chrechte had ever hidden their nature with more talent and ingenuity than his wife hid her deafness. When the time came for him to trust her with the secrets of his people, he could not doubt her ability to maintain his confidences.

But he could not help his concern at the knowledge she had deceived him so well and so easily. She had assured him she had not lied about anything else, but could he believe her?

She had married him with the intention of using him to gain access to her sister. She had spoken her marriage vows and the ancient Chrechte pledge of troth without meaning the words at all. That truth twisted something deep inside him, hurting in a way he had not done since losing each of his parents. His sacred mate had spoken her Chrechte promises like a child with her fingers crossed.

That, at least, caused his wolf to grieve.

Despite the fact that she was English and human, he had given his oath in good faith, both before the Lowlander priest and in the cave before his Chrechte brethren. From the very beginning, he had made no plans to find a way out of the unwanted covenant. The fact that his angel had approached their marriage with such spurious intentions acted like a spear right through his gut.

He hated discovering she had the power to hurt him thus. It made him angry to have his emotions at anyone’s mercy, even his mate’s, but particularly a mate whom he could not trust. It was a state he had convinced himself he would never experience. Talorc had been so sure he would never make the mistakes of his father.

Yet here he found himself vulnerable to an English human woman. ’Twas an anathema to be sure.

She claimed to have changed her mind about using him, as if he should now believe she wanted to be with him. As if that should make her actions acceptable.

It did not. It only showed she was capable of betrayal for the sake of her own agenda, just as Tamara had been. Even if Abigail had come to love him as she claimed, she had started out with the intention of using him, of throwing away their marriage and their Chrechte mating.

Just how much like his dead stepmother was Abigail?

It was that question that kept him in wolf form running through the woods rather than returning to the fortress, to his wife.