Forget the captain or die.
She could not get warm. Her head was spinning, making her feel ill. Too much was happening at once. Her vows were upon her. She could not make the wrong decision because of lack of time. What did her heart want her to do? If she said her vows to God, she could not,would notbreak them. If she did not say them, she could take a husband of flesh and blood—and possibly anger someone enough to see her dead.
John surely knew that Galeren came from Invergarry. If he wanted her dead, he had men enough to do it. Her uncle had reason to hate her. She would have destroyed his connection to the powerful church.
Perhaps it wasn’t someone as dangerous as her uncle who threatened her. Perhaps it came from one of Galeren’s many admirers. It didn’t matter—someone had threatened her to Louise. She should tell the captain.
Oh, how would she ever forget him? He would always remain in her heart, her thoughts, there to haunt her. There to tempt her to regret her choice.
“Cleanse my heart of him, Lord, I pray. Let it be that when I see him, I feel nothing. Nay. Let him repulse me.”
Someone knocked softly on her door. Her heart thrashed against her ribs.
“Sister Silene,” a child’s voice came through the door.
Margaret!
Silene hurried to the door and opened it. “Margaret,” she said, bending to level her gaze with the girl’s. “What are you doing here?”
“Captain MacPherson asks that ye follow me.”
Silene stepped out of the chambers without thinking about what she was doing. Could she ever resist him?
“Where are we going?’
“Ye will see when we get there.”
Silene smiled for the first time so far that day. Perhaps she would fall down a hole on the way and never be seen again.
She followed Margaret around the western wall of the castle to the small barn. She remembered being here once before, long ago. There were stalls, smaller than the ones in the stable, but none of the barn animals stayed in them. There were three ducks that clapped their wings and honked angrily at her intrusion. Three hens and a rooster sent feathers flying. There was a pig, and a goat—and a man with a kitten on his shoulder and a little boy at his side. It was Alex. He was crying. What was going on?
“Captain?” she asked, looking up at him in the lantern’s light. She didn’t feel repulsed. She felt like she’d happened upon a mythical creature, golden and green and ready to offer his life to her.
“I brought the children here to bid them farewell.”
“Farewell?” she echoed, feeling the emptiness of it. “You are leaving, Captain?”
He nodded. “’Tis time.”
Well, that was it then. He was leaving. He wouldn’t be here to tempt her with the shape of his succulent lips when he spoke, the sultry green of his eyes when he smiled at her. She’d wanted him to leave. She also wanted to be unaffected by him—but she wasn’t. In fact, she felt so affected just by looking at him that she was unsteady on her feet, foggy in her head.
He hurried forward when she swayed, overwhelmed with everything that was happening.
“Are ye ill, Silene?”
She shook her head. She didn’t believe it. She never felt so bad in her life.
“Good,” he said with his arm beneath her, “because I want ye to come with me. The time fer waitin’ is over.”
It was all too much, too fast. She tried to remember the reasons she couldn’t go with him. “Captain, do not ask this of me.”
“Why not, Silene? Do ye not love me?” he whispered so only she could hear.
Oh, aye, she did. She loved him enough to give up her vows. “Louise told me that I should forget you or it could get one of us killed. She said the threat was not from her, but she would not tell me anything else.”
His brows dipped over his eyes, creating shadows like phantoms in a verdant forest. “All the more reason to go now. I have everythin’ worked oot with the men. They wish to come. ’Twill help to have them with us should the army come.”
What was he saying? It was as if his words were jumbling around in her head.