The Highlander's Stolen Touch (18 page)

She found the barn and sneaked inside to hide for the rest of
the night. Pressing herself against one wall, she wrapped the shawl around her
and waited for the tears to flow.

But they did not. Instead memories of the wondrous passion
they’d shared flooded back and she knew she’d done the right thing. Now, at
least she could have those memories and this treasured reminder from him while
she lived the life of the contented wife of James Murray.

Chapter Nineteen

T
he next day dawned cloudy and grey and
Tavis thought it appropriate, for it matched his mood. She’d left and he sat in
the chair the rest of the night, thinking about Saraid.

Not what he wanted to be thinking about.

He wanted to relive the memories of bringing Ciara to life
under his mouth and with the touch of his hands. He wanted to remember the sighs
and the moans and the breathless way she said his name as she found repletion.
He wanted to think about the way she learned what pleased him so quickly and how
she managed to bring him to climax with little more than a touch of her mouth or
her hands.

Instead, every single mistake he’d made with Saraid, every mean
word and thought, repeated in his head all night long. Her fears that swallowed
up the woman he’d fallen in love with. Her incessant demands that drove him mad.
Her desperation that increased day by day and that he could not seem to resolve.
No amount of reassurance had helped. And no matter what Ciara thought, he was
the cause of it.

His selfishness in needing to get away from her.

His negligence in taking her fears seriously.

His inability to care for her and to protect her from the one
thing she feared most: dying.

He’d failed as a husband and as a man and Saraid had died as a
result of it. Would it happen again if he allowed himself to love another? Was
it a terrible flaw in his character or had he simply failed once?

He moved through the day barely aware of the goings-on around
him. He finished the tasks he needed to see to and decided it was as good a time
as any to speak to Connor about leaving Lairig Dubh. Connor agreed to meet him
after the midday meal and invited him to join them. There would be no elaborate
evening meal this night since preparations were going on for the marriage feast
on the morrow.

Connor grimaced after saying it, but Tavis simply nodded and
agreed to come back later. He filled the time with training even though the
skies opened and it rained for several hours. He did not really feel it and did
not feel much of anything this day. The only thing in his favour was that he did
not see
her
at all this day.

He climbed the stairs to Connor’s chamber and found him in the
middle of an argument with his wife. He could not make out the words and was
waiting for things to calm inside before making his presence known, but Rurik
walked up behind him and knocked.

‘That could go on for some time, lad. We do not want to wait
here forever,’ Rurik advised.

Since he reported to Rurik and worked with him, it made sense
that Connor had asked him to be part of this discussion.

When the voices did not cease, Rurik opened the door and yelled
inside, ‘Should we wait out here for you two to finish or can we come
inside?’

Tavis shook his head. Only Rurik could, and did, get away with
such behaviour. He’d shown up in Lairig Dubh with their uncle, a hulking,
half-Scots, half-Norse warrior, bigger than anyone had ever seen, and pledged to
Connor’s service. He was the fiercest fighter and most loyal friend Connor had
and could count on in any situation. Rurik had even given up his right to the
earldom of Orkney to return here when he married Margriet.

So, Tavis understood why Connor allowed him such
impertinence.

‘We are finished,’ Jocelyn shouted back, as she walked by them
and slammed the door shut behind her.

Rurik knew better than to joke at this moment, so Tavis just
remained silent and waited on Connor. He was pacing back and forth and cursing
under his breath, clearly still carrying on the conversation with Jocelyn even
though she had left in the middle of it.

‘Wives!’ he yelled as he slammed a cup down and filled it with
ale. Rurik walked over to him, poured another cup for himself and handed one to
Tavis.

‘Wives!’ he said, raising the cup and then emptying it in one
swallow.

Tavis drank it all down without a word about wives...anyone’s
wife. Connor sat at his table and motioned for them to sit. Rurik remained
standing, as he always did, and Tavis sat.

‘You asked about a new assignment?’

‘I would like to move from Lairig Dubh and thought I could
serve your needs better on one of your other holdings.’

The words were out, easier to say than he thought they’d be. He
watched as Connor exchanged several glances with Rurik and waited for the
reaction.

‘Does this have anything to do with Ciara and James Murray?’
Connor did not lack directness.

‘It matters not, Connor. They will marry on the morrow and
return to Perthshire. This is about me.’

‘And moving will do what for you, Tavis?’ Rurik asked. ‘You
have been my commander for some time now and I think it’s the best place for
you.’

‘Young Dougal would be good. He is a good fighter and ready for
more responsibility.’

‘Why do you want this?’ Connor asked again.

‘I need to be away from here. I need to find a place where I am
not haunted by my past every day from when I open my eyes until I close
them.’

Sweet Christ! He never meant to say any of that. Not to anyone,
but especially not to Connor.

‘Once the wedding is done and the Murrays leave, we will speak
again on this matter, Tavis. I cannot make a decision until I speak to the
stewards and commanders at the other holdings.’

He stood. He did not truly expect Connor to simply approve his
request, but he did not expect to be put off for so long.

‘Soon, Connor,’ he said. ‘Make it soon,’ he challenged as he
nodded to Connor and Rurik as he walked towards the doorway.

‘Tavis,’ Connor called to him just before he opened it, ‘is
there anything else you need to discuss with me?’

Tavis looked from one to the other and tried to work out what
they thought he needed to talk about with Connor.

‘Nay, Connor. That was all.’

Connor nodded, dismissing him, and he made his way back down
the stairs, only to find Jocelyn waiting for him. Still full of fire and fight
from whatever she was speaking, or shouting, with Connor about, she started to
ask him several questions at once and then stopped. He’d never seen her so
angry. She gave up trying and climbed the stairs to their chambers.

Everyone seemed to be on edge here. Were the plans for the
wedding at fault? Or the new agreement with the Murrays? Or was something else
at play that he was not privy to? No matter, he still had duties to see to until
Connor made his decision.

Leaving the keep, he decided to try to get some rest tonight
since he’d got none last night. Walking back to his cottage, one of the boys
from the village stopped him with a message. Gunna the midwife wanted to speak
to him. Since she had to leave to tend to a woman on one of the farms, could he
come as soon as possible?

Had Ciara done this? She said she’d spoken to the woman. If the
thought of losing her had not relieved him of his guilt in Saraid’s death, why
would the words of a stranger persuade him?

Tavis thanked the boy for carrying the message and almost
ignored it. Did he really want to dredge up more of the pain? What did she think
to accomplish by this?

I know it is too late for us, but I beg
you to speak to the midwife, Gunna. She saw Saraid frequently and has a
different view of things.

He did not know that Saraid had sought out the old woman. She
was only months into carrying and long before she would need a midwife. She had
been healthy and had no problems. Why would she seek out Gunna?

Standing there, debating this in his own thoughts, would get
him nowhere. If nothing else, speaking with the old woman would simply confirm
that he was right about Saraid’s health.

Tavis walked through the village, past Elizabeth’s cottage and
down the lane to almost the edge where the old woman lived with her daughter.
Knocking on the door and identifying himself, he was welcomed in. Gunna’s
daughter was feeding a babe and Gunna was packing supplies for the birth she was
going off to attend to.

‘Tavis, ’tis good to see you,’ her daughter, Fia, said. Fia’s
husband was one of Tavis’s warriors, a good man.

‘Fia, you look well. The bairn?’ All he could see was a small
head with thick black hair pressed up against her chest.

She rubbed the bairn’s head and nodded. ‘Young Alpin is well,’
she said. He smiled at the name chosen.

‘Do you need a ride, Gunna?’ Tavis asked. ‘I could get a
wagon,’ he offered. The nearest of the farms was some distance and it would take
her a goodly amount of time to walk there.

‘Nay,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Nessa’s husband is sending
his wagon shortly. Walk with me, Tavis. I meet him at the river’s edge.’

Bidding Fia farewell, he walked outside with Gunna, taking the
sack from her and carrying it. They walked a few paces before he asked her, ‘Why
did you summon me? Is there something you need?’

‘Oh, you’re a good lad,’ she said, patting him on the back.
‘Nay, I need nothing. But speaking to Ciara the other day reminded me that we
never spoke after your sweet wife passed.’

‘I did not know she sought your care, Gunna. She was only about
five months carrying.’

‘Oh, aye,’ she said, pointing in the direction they needed to
walk, her body waddling from side to side as they did. ‘She had some fears about
carrying. After all, her mam lost four bairns before delivering the three girls.
And two of them died giving birth.’

Saraid had never explained her fears. He’d not known about
losing sisters in childbirth.

‘She never told me,’ he said.

‘She didna want you to ken, but she wanted me to.’ She paused
for a moment, staring at him. ‘Did she fall from the horse? Is that how she
passed?’ Gunna asked.

‘I found her on my way from Dalmally on the laird’s business.
She was bleeding heavily and said her pains had begun the day before.’ He did
not speak of the rest of it or expose his role in the debacle.

‘I told her she might lose it. Told her not to strain or
carry.’

‘I did not know,’ he whispered.

‘You’re a good lad,’ Gunna said. ‘But some women are not built
to birth bairns. Your Saraid was one of them. She knew it, but wanted to try for
you.’

‘Was there anything I could have done?’

‘Oh, nay,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘’Twas in God’s hands to
decide. Even if I was next to her when the pains started, I couldna saved her.
The bairn would not have lived that early born.’

It was just as Ciara had told him. Nothing would have mattered.
Nothing could have saved Saraid.

That did not lessen his guilt in her death and in the manner of
her death, for she’d died alone, in terror and pain, while he rode off in anger.
He’d spent years regretting what he’d done. Spent years with guilt weighing down
his soul for killing her. His heart locked away in fear and pain.

Tavis would rather have been at her side, soothing the fears
and holding her than to know she lay by the road for hours by herself. She was
incoherent by the time they arrived back here. The healer had visited and given
her a potion for the pain, but nothing could stop the bleeding that eventually
took her life.

If anything happens to me, you must go
on.

Saraid’s words from his dream, from early in their marriage,
came back to him then. She knew. Somehow she knew. And she’d warned him, but
when the time came, he did not recognise it.

Stunned, he stopped walking. He stopped thinking. When he
realised he was not moving, he glanced around and found that Gunna was gone.
Shaking his head, he looked in the distance and saw her on a wagon many yards
away—he never even realised she’d left.

He needed to think about all this and he did not know where to
go. The one person he most wanted to speak to was the one he could not. She had
known. And she pointed him in the right direction to find out and accept it for
himself, freeing himself from the past.

I know it is too late for us...

Even knowing it would not benefit her, she’d protected him in a
way he’d never been able to do for her. She’d been a better friend to him, in
spite of his efforts to hold her away, than he’d been to her, even in the early
years.

And she loved him enough to free him from his past and to let
him go. To make him understand that his failure to one woman did not mean he
would fail everyone, even while he failed her.

Tavis went back to his cottage where the echoes and ghosts of
the past still haunted and tried to figure out how to right a life that had gone
so wrong. But he feared that he was indeed too late to correct all his mistakes
and to learn from his past ones. Only when he noticed that his latest
carving—the one he’d promised to make for her—was gone, did he dare allow
himself to have any hope at all.

* * *

Ciara had had no idea that pleasure could ache so
much.

Or mayhap it was from sleeping up against a wall, wrapped in
only a plaid shawl? As she’d uncurled herself, her body had let her know that,
whatever caused the aches, she would suffer for it.

Waking to find only darkness outside, she’d wondered if she’d
awoken before dawn, but after stumbling to the door on legs that were numb from
being under her all night, she’d discovered the sun had risen after all. Thick
clouds covered the sky and rumbles of thunder rolled within them.

Her stomach had added a few more, reminding her that she had
not eaten since yesterday. And she’d had some quite strenuous exercise since
then.

That had made her smile, regardless of the aches and pains.

There were places on her body that she had never known could
feel the way he made them feel. The rapture that women had talked about,
whispering amongst themselves, was no longer a mystery to her. Tavis had
awakened her body and those senses and overwhelmed them. As she walked, the
place between her legs actually throbbed as memories of his intimate caresses
there returned. Her breasts tingled and in her mind she could still see his
mouth on her.