The Chief (Highland Guard #1)(115)

Father Stephen was right. She deserved someone who could see what she had to give and would love her for it. Who wouldn’t turn away from her every time she made a mistake. She wanted to be important to someone. Perhaps it was unrealistic, but the alternative was far worse. What Tor offered would not only break her heart, but her spirit. She could live with a broken heart, but not at the expense of her soul.

She took a deep breath and wiped the tears from her eyes. There was only one thing to do.

Twenty-Four

As Christina sat huddled in the birlinn and watched the menacing stone walls of Dunvegan Castle fade into the haunting morning mist, her broken heart crumbled a little more. Over the past few months she’d come to love the old pile of rocks that made up the forbidding castle and the taciturn occupants that filled its Hall. She would miss them desperately.

She would miss him desperately. Eyes that she thought incapable of any more tears filled again, but she wiped away the dampness determinedly. She’d made her decision, and now she had to live with it.

It was over. She was leaving him. The man she loved. She would hold her husband to his vow to let her retire to the nunnery on Iona, a vow she knew he’d never thought to honor. She hated running off like this, but she wasn’t completely sure he would keep his vow if she gave him the chance to object.

When she’d discovered that there was already a birlinn preparing to go to the Isle of Mull, she’d asked for them to take her to Iona first. It was a little out of their way but easier than arranging a separate boat. There had been no time to pack. She’d boarded with little more than a change of clothes and a few personal items. Mhairi would pack the remainder of her belongings and send them to Iona before returning to her family in Touch Fraser. Her precious folio she left behind. The story only gave young girls false hopes and dreams.

She’d told the guardsmen who accompanied her that she was going to visit her sister, but she knew that they did not fully believe her. Unlike them, she didn’t have a steel helm to hide her swollen eyes and tear-stained face.

The journey was a rough one across choppy seas. Christina sat alone on a bench near the prow, wrapped in a cloak and furs, more miserable than she’d ever felt in her life—and it wasn’t from the wind and cold.

More than once she thought about telling the guardsmen to turn around, but she quieted any qualms she had in leaving by telling herself that severing the bond between them would be best for Tor as well. The marriage he hadn’t wanted had caused him nothing but problems. Perhaps her leaving would help him work his way out of the mess she’d brought down upon his head.

But knowing she was doing the right thing didn’t make it any easier. Part of her wished that she could be satisfied by half a life, but she knew she could never be content with what he could give her and wouldn’t stop pressing him for more. And he would grow colder and colder until eventually she hated him—and herself.

Nay, it was better this way. Her misery and despair would eventually fade. Though it certainly hadn’t dulled any so far, growing worse as the day progressed, as she sailed farther and farther away from the place that had become more of a home than she’d ever known.

They’d been at sea for a few hours, reversing the journey she’d made only a few short months ago. She recognized some of the small islands that had been pointed out to her on the journey north: Rum, Eigg, and Muck. Although the skies were cloudy and gray, the fog had rolled back and she could catch glimpses of the Scottish coast on her left. Soon they would be sailing between Coll and Mull, and just to the south of that lay Iona. Assuming the wind held, it wouldn’t be long before she was safely ensconced in the walls of Iona’s famous nunnery with Beatrix. The safety and security she’d sought, without the illusions.

Lost in her own misery, it took her a while to notice that something was wrong. Murdoch’s, Tor’s henchman and captain of the guardsmen, brusque commands rang out with increasing urgency.

“What is it?” she asked the young warrior on the bench opposite her.

“I’m sure it’s nothing, my lady.” He pointed behind them, and she could just make out the striped sails of two boats in the distance. “Those galleys have been following us for an hour or so. The captain is going to make a quick jog around the Isle of Staffa and we should lose them.”

“They look to be rather large galleys,” she said cautiously.

“Attacks at sea are rare, my lady. We travel this route all the time and rarely encounter trouble.”

Attacks? Despite his assurance that it was probably nothing, Christina felt her heartbeat quicken, stirring from its lethargy. A few minutes later, Murdoch shouted to hold on, and the boat made a sharp turn left to swing around the small island with its strange rock formations. She’d never seen anything like the hexagonal columns of black rock, but she didn’t take the time to study them, instead watching anxiously, hoping to see the sail behind them continue on and trying not to panic when it did not.

She knew that the warrior beside her was occupied rowing, but she had to observe, “It seems they’re still following us.”

He hadn’t missed the apprehension in her tone. She could see that he didn’t want to scare her, but neither would he minimize the seriousness of what was happening. “We’ll try to outrun them.”

Try. But she knew as well as he that it was only a matter of time before the larger boats caught up to them. In a strong wind the smaller boat was faster, but the galley had nearly double the oars of the birlinn.