Brie blinked several times, trying to focus her eyes and her thoughts. Marked up her face?
Her face! She’d all but forgotten. Little wonder he drew away from her in revulsion.
There was nothing to be gained in pointing out that in actuality it was Orabilis who’d done the marking. It had been her choice, her decision.
“It was necessary. These are the symbols of—”
“I know well enough what they are,” he cut in, his voice harsh with emotion. “More like symbols of impulsive and irresponsible behavior.”
Like hell they were! If he thought she was going to stand here and listen to him lecture her for something she’d done in the course of trying to save his sorry ass, he was more than mistaken.
Besides, it wasn’t his concern. What she did was her own business, not his. He had his life to attend to, and she had hers.
“It’s of no matter now,” she said, pulling her arms from his grip and backing away. “What’s done is done. I’m pleased to see the witch’s cures worked upon you. And now that yer well, and yer here, we’re only wasting time when we speak of any of this. If we’re to find the sword and the scrolls, we’d best be on our way.”
“We?” Hall’s face colored a deep, blotchy red and he actually sputtered as if he’d momentarily forgotten how to speak. “You’re going no farther in this hunt. I’ve worried my last over you. Have you no concept, no realization, of how much danger you’ve repeatedly put yourself in?”
He sounded enough like her brother to be his twin. And the last thing she needed in her life was two of Jamesy. Did neither of them listen to the words that came out of their mouths?
Did he honestly expect her to believe that she was somehow at more risk in this quest than he? Ridiculous men! All of them thought they were somehow more impervious to danger than she.
“No farther, you say? What would you have of me, then, O wise one? Am I to wait here in this clearing for you to return once you’d completed yer task? It’s no been such a safe place so far, now, has it? No safe at all, between getting captured and whateverthatwas.”
She flicked her hand toward the smoking, blackened lump lying next to the trees where she’d stood a short time ago and wrapped her arms around herself in an attempt to forestall the shivers that assaulted her. That lump was all that remained of Hamish. Had she not moved as quickly as she had, it might well have been all that was left of her.
“That’s not what I meant,” Hall began.
“No? You’ve something safer in mind, have you? Am I to return to the witch, then? Riding through Torquil’s territory again, tempting fate once more?”
“Of course not! Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Ah, then I can only suppose you’d have me go back to Castle MacGahan. Journeying on my own, is it? With who knows how many more of Torquil’s men scouring the countryside, looking to find what we should be after ourselves, right this very minute? Am I so much safer doing that than riding along with you?”
They glared at one another across the emotion-charged distance separating them.
“You’re impossible,” he said at last, turning from her and stalking back toward his horse. “Impossible!”
As perfect a word to describe her situation as if she’d chosen it herself.
Impossible.
As impossible as the dream she realized she still harbored deep in her heart that somehow, in spite of his wealth and her poverty, something might work out between them. She was a fool for not having accepted the truth when she’d first learned that he was a laird, with his own land holdings and responsibilities.
If she’d hoped to overcome the obstacle of their different stations in life, the new one she’d created on her own was the absolute end to any dream she might have clung to for a long, romantic life with Hall O’Donar.
Lairds did not take penniless women as their wives. And they most certainly did not take to wife any woman whose face and body was adorned with the ancient blue markings that were now a part of who she was.
“Impossible,” she echoed in a whisper, heading toward her own horse at the edge of the clearing.
She might not be destined for the life she’d dreamed of, but in whatever life she had, she vowed that she would do her best to be bold and in control. Unlike the girl who had left Castle MacGahan with no thought but revenge in her heart, Brie was a new woman now. Determined. Strong.
Destiny might have snatched her dreams away from her, but not even Destiny could force her to live the timid life of an ordinary woman.
Twenty-three
HE SHOULD HAVEtaken his brother’s advice. He should have trusted his instincts.
Mathew had felt uneasy and suspicious every time Dobbie had suggested they take a different path, but in spite of every warning Hugo had shared about the dangers of trusting people, he’d allowed himself to trust Dobbie anyway. He hadwantedto trust the boy. Had wanted Dobbie to need his friendship as much as he had needed Dobbie’s.