Bound by Wish and Mistletoe (Highland Legends #1.5)(40)
Iain sighed and gave his wife a heavy look but said no more. She kissed Iain’s cheek and went off down a darkened corridor.
“I’m goin’, too,” Susanna whispered to Robert. She needed to see Brigid, to prove to herself the fiery woman hadn’t suffered physical harm.
Robert grasped her forearm as she stepped away. “Susanna...”
“Robert, I must. Brigid’s now my friend too.” She stared down the corridor as Isobel disappeared from view, desperately needing the comfort only another woman could give her.
He released her arm, and she didn’t look back; the rising panic in her chest commanding her very effort to breathe.
As she rushed after them, fragments of statements and events crisscrossed through her mind until everything tangled together. Her pulse raced as she ran, heartrending memories of Mama’s distress at the hands of her father flooding her mind.
Along the dark corridor, a pool of yellow light shimmered, cast from a torch in an iron fitting. She pressed into the unknown darkness from the small comfort of the light, alarmed by the confusing thoughts spinning in her head: Iain mentioned her being imprisoned here; Brigid had been upset by the angel, who wasn’t a man, but was clearly male—and had hurt Brigid; and Robert had been possessive with her from the moment they’d met, took her body as if it had been fated, and authoritatively claimed that she belonged to him. Now she did belong. In marrying him, she’d become another man’s possession. Yet they’d not truly argued about anything of consequence. Would he show his true colors, proving himself to be like all other men, if they vehemently disagreed?
She paused in the middle of the hall in the darkness, willing herself to breathe as pins and needles spread through her chest and the floor tilted. After a few moments, the nauseous feeling passed, and she continued, spurred onward by the quiet conversation drifting down the corridor.
“I’m happy he’s gone.” Brigid’s tortured sob echoed off the stone walls. “Vanished into thin air like Fingall. Like the children.”
“I know, Brigid. I’ve no idea why any of those things happened. The rules of his world make no sense in ours, yet we suffer the price of their puzzling actions, regardless.”
A heavy sigh was followed by a stuttered hiccup. Brigid murmured a string of unintelligible words.
“I wish I could do something to make your pain go away,” Isobel replied softly.
Pain? Is Brigid injured? Susanna’s lungs knotted again.
When she rounded the next corner, Isobel and Brigid were huddled in each other’s arms in another golden pool of torchlight. They glanced up as she approached. Tracks of tears ran down Brigid’s face, but she made no move to wipe them away. A quick glance over her body showed no visible marks. But experience told Susanna clothing hid many things.
Oh, sweet heavens, she needed to make peace with her mind. Needed to know how to discover the truth, and once and for all, put her fears to rest if they were truly unfounded.
“Are you hurt, Brigid? I couldn’t bear it if he’d harmed you.” She stepped closer.
“Nay,” Brigid said, resignation coloring her voice. “I’m sorry I’ve upset you, Susanna. He dinna harm me physically. And he dinna abuse me emotionally. Not directly anyway.”
No matter what Brigid said, Susanna’s heart refused to stop thundering. Her hands shook so badly, she buried them into the folds of her dress and focused on a seam in the stone floor while she tried to slow her breaths.
“Susanna, talk to us,” Brigid said, standing taller. “I dinna think about how my uproar would distress you. Please forgive me.”
Susanna exhaled slowly, steadying her riotous nerves in small measure while her heart hurt for her friend. “I...Brigid I’m verra sorry for whatever he’s done. ’Tis the wrong time, I know...but—”
Nervous, she clasped her hands, wringing them. She’d never asked anyone for anything before. The proper way to go about it escaped her knowledge, and she felt suddenly inadequate.
Isobel placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.
Brigid shook her head and gave her a weak smile. “Go on, Susanna. Please. I need a distraction to calm down.”
Distraction. Susanna looked at the gray stone floor of the corridor and took a fortifying breath. She glanced back up at her two friends, focusing beyond the frightening thoughts in her mind and the thunderous pulse in her ears.
Although trust was new and fleeting for her, she had to believe these women would trust what she was about to tell them, and she had to convince Robert that she felt fine when she returned to him for their wedding night. Despite the real-life threats to her person and their clan, with the inescapable demons haunting her mind, her very sanity depended on it.
“I need your help.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Robert remained where he stood when Susanna last left him, his gaze locked onto the dark corridor down which she’d disappeared. The concern on her face had been understandable, but it was the panic in her eyes that distressed him. He hoped that Brigid and Isobel would soothe Susanna’s fears about those things most unbelievable within his clan. Things he’d intended to explain tonight, before fate once again commanded otherwise.
With events happening on pace like the very winds of the blizzard that had blown her here, he still hadn’t had the time to explain to her about the magick Brodie Castle held—or the fantastical events often occurring because of it—but he would. Perhaps in support of what Brigid and Isobel might reveal.