Wild Highland Magic (The Celtic Legends Series Book 3)(65)
It came back to her, then, the whole crashing weight of the memory. The jolt of force from the stones. The rush of images and thoughts, the sense that her very life force was being drained from her body even as she experienced the whole world with a clarity she’d never known. She remembered the ease with which she singled out the lady MacGilchrist, who watched them from a shadowy corner, willing Lachlan to drink from the poisoned ale. She remembered the ale splashing against her hand and across the floor just before her the world winked out.
Now she blinked against the brightness seeping through the weave of a canvas tent. She opened her mouth to attempt speech, but her lips were dry. Her throat was sore as well, though she remembered, vaguely, the taste of cool water sometime during the night. Along with that memory came the feel of Lachlan’s hand cradling her head, his soft voice in her ear, and his lips on her forehead.
She turned her head toward the scratching sound. It came from the tip of a feathered quill being drawn across a surface by the man she loved. He sat upon a stool on the other side of the tent, wielding that quill upon a plank across his knees. As she watched, he lifted something pale and limp off the plank—a lambskin, such as her father sometimes used to write his recipes for salves. His cheeks bellowed—cheeks clear of beard—as he blew upon the surface.
Tears came to her eyes to see him sitting there, looking so well and strong and at ease, his strong knees poking out.
She must have made a sound, for he raised his head. Then he was all motion, setting aside the board, grabbing a cup, and slipping his arm under her pillow to lift her up. The cool liquid was a balm upon her throat. The honey-mead swept through her with tingling swiftness.
When she finished, their gazes touched, and locked. Without effort she sank into that bright place they shared until she was surrounded by the pillowy warmth of his love, edged with a dose of concern.
She whispered, “How long have I been…?”
“Two days.” He put the cup aside and pushed her hair off her brow. “You slept most of it, rousing now and again just when I was convinced you were dead.”
A flash of memory came to her, of Lachlan sleeping in her father’s sickroom while she tried to penetrate his impenetrable mind, also convinced he was dead.
“I hope,” she murmured, “that I’ve been a better patient than you ever were.”
His lips tilted in a wry smile. “Surely I was full of patience and virtue in your father’s house.”
She tried to laugh but it was a dry, husky thing. His shadow fell over her as he placed a hungry spark of a kiss upon her lips.
He pulled away before the tingling faded. “I feared I might never hear your laughter again.”
She was about to say nor I yours but she could already see in his midnight-sky eyes that he knew. So she did what she wished she could spend a lifetime doing: She looked at him. With her gaze she traced the fall of his blue-black hair across his brow, the faintest of lines on his forehead, a blood-scarred nick that crossed the line of his beardless jaw, and the way his cheeks swelled as a slow smile stretched the corners of his lips.
“We caught the murderer,” he said, as he trailed his fingers across her brow. “All because of you.”
She lifted her hand to press against his heart and she felt a pleating of thick, fine wool beneath her palm. He wore clothes she’d never seen before, a plaid of many colors, made of wool frieze that was wrapped many times around him. It was held in place below his shoulder with a large, circular brooch. A nobleman’s clothing, rich and fine. She traced the gold scrollwork on the metal as she absorbed the implications.
“Much has changed,” she murmured.
“I have so much to tell you, Cairenn …”
As he told the story, her mind vaulted out to the world so she saw what had happened even as he spoke it. She saw the Lady MacGilchrist brought into the tent, heard her defend her bloody ambitions. Cairenn sensed her now, pacing and unrepentant in one of the castle’s storerooms.
“She paid some of her Campbell cousins to commit murder,” she said, startling Lachlan in the middle of his recounting. “But not even her own husband knew what she was about.”
Lachlan’s gaze rested on her with new intensity. “Your gift is back.”
His words gave her pause. Her gift had responded with such alacrity that she hadn’t really noticed it, just as one wouldn’t notice how one’s legs moved when walking. She started to probe the range of her abilities when she mind-stumbled upon unexpected news.
“You are not chieftain,” she gasped. “You are not The MacEgan.”
His eyes twinkled. “Disappointed?”
“You stood upon the council heights today.” She saw him through the eyes of other men, straight and strong and speaking with authority as he raised the white rod. “You had the white rod in your grasp.”
“My father desired above all things for the clan to be unified under one lineage, so I took the white rod this day, as I knew I must. Then I passed it to Fingal.”
Cairenn tried to read the easy smile that hovered around his lips. His shoulders stretched strong and light, as though the burden of a hundred thousand stones had been shaken off them. “You gave up becoming chieftain of the MacEgans,” she whispered. “Overlord of the entire clan.”
“I handed the white rod off to a half-brother who stood as an example of wise, patient governance in the midst of bloody turmoil. A half-brother eager to lead, if his enthusiasm is any measure.” He raised his brows. “The rod belongs with the true chieftain.”