Angel of Skye Page 17

  Perhaps most puzzling, though, had been Father Jack’s appearance at Dunvegan the same evening that Fiona was attacked. The priest had been looking for Adrian, for it appeared that the lad had last been seen heading for the castle. By morning, Adrian still had not returned.

  Fiona had steadily wept in Alec’s arms for the entire ride back to the Priory. As they rode north through the wild and windswept countryside, she had talked in incoherent snatches about her mother, about an attack. It seemed to Alec that she was remembering a nightmare. A terrible nightmare, vicious and painful to recall. And then the tears had stopped.

  He had come every day to her side, but it was heartrending to watch her lying in despair, pale and drawn, vacant, dry-eyed. But Alec knew the attack had made her remember something. And whatever it was, the memory was tormenting Fiona, so Alec remained at her side, desperately hoping for a chance to help her. For a week he had come, holding her hand, willing his strength into her.

  Finally, Fiona’s tears had come, and Alec had held her long and fierce.

  During those hours, after fighting down his guilt, since three of these outlaws were the same ones he had turned loose in the forest, Alec had come to grips with his own feelings about Fiona. In his mind he had relived over and over the terror and the rage he had felt seeing the filthy brutes attacking her. How she must have felt, thinking no one was there to protect her from their vicious desires. It tore at him to think he had almost been too late to save her. All he knew now was that he wanted to keep her safe. To remain by her side. To cherish her as she deserved to be cherished.

  And, if need be, to help her forget.

  But for the past two days she had refused to see him, and that made him crazy. Then, news from the prioress drove a shaft deep into his heart.

  Fiona wanted to become a nun.

  “I need to talk to her,” Alec said. “But she won’t see me.”

  “I know. Right now she is out in the orchard with Sister Beatrice. Go to her, anyway,” the prioress suggested.

  Alec paused, then nodded gratefully at the nun as he headed for the door.

  “Lord Alec,” the prioress stopped him, smiling. “Please tell Sister Beatrice I’d like to see her.”

  “Aye, Prioress. I will.”

  “Oh, one more thing. Whatever the outcome of your little chat, I want to speak with both of you when you’re done.” The prioress knew it was time.

  The afternoon sun was warm on Fiona’s face as she held one side of the iron pot full of the honeycombs they’d been gathering.

  “Let’s sit a moment, Fiona,” Sister Beatrice pleaded. “This is your first day out of that little room of yours. The sun is so lovely, and the fresh air would do you a world of good.”

  At first she had been against coming out. But Sister Beatrice had insisted. The nun had gently suggested to Fiona that the sooner she was up and around, the sooner her wounds would heal. The younger woman had acquiesced, but inwardly she wondered how that could be true.

  Fiona sat silently in the grass, stretching her legs in front of her. She leaned back on her hands and looked up. The rays of the sun shimmered on the leafy branches overhead. The young birds hopped from branch to branch in excitement. She closed her eyes, giving herself up to the lazy murmur of the nearby spring, to the sound of nature all around her. She had made up her mind. It was time to clear away all that had happened to her, to close the doors to her past—to her feelings—and to move on.

  But it was difficult to forget him. For the past week she had longed for his presence. Every time she had awakened, Alec had been there. And every time she had seen him beside her, Fiona’s heart had ached to hold him, to tell him all that he meant to her. All she had locked inside of her. Of her past and of the present. Of the love.

  Fiona wondered if the way she was feeling now was the way her mother had felt about the man who had fathered her. About the man who had never come back. About the man her mother had never married.

  I can’t, Alec, she thought sadly. I’ll not be my mother.

  Sister Beatrice was first to spot Alec approaching. She stood quietly and moved toward him. She was hoping he would come back, even after Fiona’s insistence on not seeing him. Lord Alec cared for Fiona, the nun could see that. And Fiona cared for him, as well. Even if she didn’t want to admit it. During those first days after the attack, Fiona had only rested when he had been there with her. Clearly, the young woman needed and depended on him. Clearly, she felt safe with him.

  “Fiona.”

  She had heard the sound of the approaching footsteps. But as she opened her eyes, Fiona thought she had conjured him. His massive frame blocked the sun. My God, he is the sun. No, she thought, shaking her head in denial. This was all a dream, a vision, a part of what she was trying to put behind, forever. But then his voice reached her. He was real. He was here. She got quickly to her feet, looking about her in a vain attempt to avoid his eyes.

  Alec drank in the sight of her. He had missed her. Two days of emptiness had torn at him. Two restless, dream-tossed nights had filled him with weariness. Fiona’s startled eyes opened, and she looked at him before rising to her feet. But then she paused, quickly glancing away, looking like a bird about to take flight. He stood before her, hardly breathing for fear she would run.

  “Fiona, why?”

  She looked down at her hands and hid them in the folds of her skirt. It would have been so much easier if he’d just stayed away.

  Alec moved closer. He had to control the overwhelming urge to draw her into his arms. She looked so somber, so fragile.

  Fiona watched his hands move up and caress the skin of her face. Uncontrollably, she leaned into his touch. He lifted her chin and their eyes locked. Her heart pounded, and she silently damned herself for her weakness.

  Weakness? she thought. I love this man.

  A tear rolled down her cheek. He wiped it away gently.

  “Why you have been avoiding me?” His voice was husky with emotion.

  How could she tell him of the torment it was for her to be so close to him and to know she could never be his?

  “It’s better this way for both of us.”

  “But why?” Alec pressed, holding her shoulders, forcing her to face him, to answer him. “Make me understand.”

  “I can’t see you anymore.” Fiona looked into the deep blue of his eyes. “I’ve talked to the prioress; I will enter the order.”

  “No, Fiona. You won’t.”

  “You cannot stop me,” she argued, looking away. “This has nothing to do with you.”

  “That decision has everything to do with me...with us.” Alec tightened his hold on her shoulders. He wanted to shake some sense into her. “Look at me, Fiona.”

  Her gaze traveled up to his face again. She wanted him to pull her into his arms. To make everything well. To make the past go away.

  “Fiona, something incredible has happened between us. Something that neither you nor I can deny.” Alec paused, trying to contain the feelings that were racing through him. “These past few days, I’ve had time to think. I...we can’t stop. And I can’t let you run away, not to take a vow. Not to make a mistake...for life. Not when I know how you feel.”

  “It’s wrong, Alec. It’s wrong.”

  He started to respond and then he stopped. This was the first time he’d ever heard his name escape her lips, and his heart slammed in his chest at the sound of it.

  “What can be wrong, Fiona?” His hands traveled down her arms, and he took hold of her hands. Her fingers were ice-cold. Pressing them together, he warmed them with his own. “How can it be wrong for me to feel the way I do about you? To want to hold you, to care for you, to be always near you? Fiona, when I first saw you, I felt as though I had always known you. Now I realize my whole life has just been a series of steps that have led me to you. Without knowing it, I have been searching for you all my life. I can’t put it into words because I thought I was in love once before, but this...this feeling with you is so much mor
e than anything I have felt in the past. Ever.”

  Alec raised her hands to his lips. Fiona’s body came alive at his touch, at his words. She traced his full lips with her fingers, her eyes fixed on the sensual mouth.

  She decided.

  She had to explain to him. He needed to know what she remembered, the reasons behind her actions, the decisions she was making for both of them. But she couldn’t do it standing so close to him, touching him. She softly pulled her fingers from his grasp and stepped away from him.

  Alec watched as she wrapped her arms about her waist and moved under the branches of an apple tree. She turned and leaned against its trunk, her eyes coming back to his.

  “That day at the bluffs.” Her voice cracked as the words left her mouth. Alec stiffened and looked quickly away. “The fear...”

  “I know,” Alec interrupted, pain evident in his voice. “I left you. But you must forgive me for leaving you, for what those men—”

  “Nay! That’s not it!” She silenced him with her words. “Please, Alec. Please listen to what I have to say.”

  Fiona paused, and Alec looked at her, his gaze steady. She was clearly searching for just the right words. He reached down and picked up a leafy branch that had broken from the tree. He looked at the soft white wood enclosed in the green inner bark. There were three small apples forming at the end of the branch, clusters of green leaves around them. When she began to speak again, he turned his gaze back to her.

  “Those men. The way they threatened Malcolm. The way they smelled as they came at me. They forced me to remember.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, and Alec could feel her pain. He took a step toward her, but stopped when she held up her hand. A helpless feeling swept through him, and he half turned, leaning his broad back against a thick, low-hanging bough.

  “The way they moved. His rough hand on my wrist.” She shuddered involuntarily. “It all opened a door to my past. A door that I’ve kept shut a long time. Since I was a little girl. A door to memories that have become nightmares for me. Things I can neither understand... nor forget.”

  Alec paled, and then found himself growing angry. He would not allow anything that had happened to Fiona in the past stop her from living her life the way it should be lived now. He would do everything he could to make sure those ugly nightmares were replaced by what she deserved...by dreams of hope and happiness. He would make it happen. He tore a cluster of leaves from the branch in his hand.

  “Alec,” she said softly, drawing his attention back to her words. “You asked me once about my people. About the time before I arrived here. And I told the truth then when I said that I couldn’t remember. I could not recall my childhood. But, last week...the incident on the bluffs. Many things have come back to me. Things about my past.”

  She took a deep breath and tried to smooth the tremble in her voice. “I was raised in a castle far away from here. I remember gardens and open spaces. I was young, full of mischief.”

  “Not much has changed,” Alec whispered, seeing a half smile break out on her lips at his words. “Do you remember your people, your family?”

  Fiona shook her head in response. “It was always just my mother and I. I don’t remember ever seeing my father, and to this day I don’t even know who he was. We had a quiet life, almost hidden. I had a nanny. There were lots of servants, but I was lonely. My mother and I only had each other. And then, all of the sudden, everything seemed to be changing. It was fall. I was told my father was supposedly on his way to us. I was to meet him at last.”

  She remembered her room, an old woman waiting with her, the excitement of the anticipated visit. How quickly it all changed. “And then the men came. My mother told me they were bad people, that my father was innocent of this. I didn’t know what she was talking about. And then I was torn right out of my mother’s arms. For years, that was all I could remember. Her cries...her desperate, frantic cries.”

  Fiona took a deep breath and bit her lip, recalling the dreadful events.

  “I’d never seen those men before. They killed my mother’s knight. They carried me out into the night air. It was cold and wet and we rode for what seemed forever. We only traveled at night. Then one night we were fording a river. It was during a storm—the river was wild—the horses were swept away. The men were swept away with them. A large branch, it seemed like a tree, raced by and I grabbed for it. I held on for a long, long time. Even after it became entangled with the other debris floating in the river, I held on. Until Walter found me.”

  Alec stared at her.

  “I don’t know why those men took me, but I know that for a long time before they came, my mother was alone. She had people around her, but she...” Fiona placed both of her hands on the bough Alec was leaning against. “She had no husband. He was supposed to come to us that night. But he never did.”

  Fiona turned toward Alec, her face set determinedly. “I didn’t understand it as a child, but it is clear to me now. I am a love-child, Alec. Illegitimate. A bastard. My mother never married. I know that. And that castle, where we were, I don’t know if it was ours. I think we were hidden away there, because nobody ever came to visit. There was never any family. No one. We were alone, and there was no one to protect us. I won’t let that happen again.”

  Alec could not keep himself from her any longer. Reaching for her, he drew her into his arms, and she came. Holding her close, he cursed himself for letting her see any similarity between himself and some neglectful, philandering nobleman.

  “No, Fiona. I won’t let that happen.” Alec pressed her to him. A wave of possessiveness swept through him. He would never let her go. He wanted her by his side forever. He was sure of that. More than ever. And he would earn her love. “Please give me a chance. Trust me. A relationship like the one your parents had will not make me happy. That is not for me. That is not for us, Fiona. I want you forever at my side.”

  “No, can’t you see? I’m no one. I have no name.” She pulled back from his embrace, stepping away from him. “What kind of a life would that be? We belong to different classes. You are a nobleman; I am a nun. I was raised for the convent, and that is where I belong. You were born to govern, and that is what you will do.”

  Alec’s protest was stilled by the sound of Sister Beatrice’s humming as she came into the orchard after them.

  “We are not finished with this discussion, Fiona. We have much more to say.”

  “Do you remember this, Fiona?”

  The young woman eyed the jeweled cross that the prioress was dangling from an intricately wrought gold chain. It was beautiful in its workmanship, encrusted with the sparkling red and green of rubies and emeralds. Even in the dim light of the prioress’s workroom, the brilliance of the gems was dazzling.

  Fiona’s heart skipped a beat, but not over the worldly value of the cross. In her mind she saw it hanging from the ivory neck of a loving and lonely woman.

  “It…it is my mother’s,” she stammered, half rising from her chair. “She gave it to me. My father gave it to her.”

  “Aye, lass.” The prioress nodded. “You were wearing the cross and a leather purse. They were tucked snug inside your clothes the night you came to us.”

  Alec looked from one woman to the other. He was glad to be included in this meeting, even though he was not certain of the prioress’ reason for having him here. The nun had asked him to stay. She had said that what they were going to talk about would concern them both. The prioress had seen him here every day. His attentions, his interest in Fiona were clear, and Alec did not have any intention of letting her think otherwise.

  This was a very private moment, and Alec knew it. But he wanted to know all about Fiona, all about her past. If it was a matter of staying at her side for every waking moment, he was prepared to do that. He would stay by her until she could see they belonged together. He would not let her go with the belief that class differences could keep them apart. Damn nobility and every other class difference! he cursed sile
ntly. He would be here for his woman.

  When they’d been ushered into the workroom by Sister Beatrice, Fiona had headed for a chair on the far side of the room. But Alec’s long legs had covered the distance quicker, and before Fiona could sit down, he’d made a gracious show of carrying the chair to where two others sat before the fireplace. She was stubborn, but he was persistent. Wordlessly, Fiona had followed him and seated herself by the prioress.

  The older woman gently laid the cross in Fiona’s hands, and Fiona felt a knot tighten in her chest. As she looked down at it, a tear traced a path on her cheek, and the knot grew, threatening to choke her. Then she felt Alec’s great hand on her arm, and she felt his strength flow into her. She looked at him quickly and felt the warmth of his blue eyes supporting her.

  “There was a letter in that purse, Fiona,” the prioress said, going back to her work table. She picked up a tattered and smeared scrap of parchment, and held it up for the two to see. “A letter from your mother.”

  Fiona stared at the sheet as the prioress came back to her. She looked from the yellowed message to the older woman’s face and then back to the parchment. She could see where the folded edges were dark with stains—the purse had not kept all the water out. She wanted to ask. She wanted to grab the letter out of the prioress’ hand, but she could not. Her arms felt as if a terrible weight lay on them. She felt as if her tongue were swollen and incapable of speech. Her chest heaved with the effort to even breathe.

  Inexplicably, her hand rose from her lap. She watched it as if it didn’t belong to her. She saw it take the paper, but it was someone else’s hand, and the fingers conveyed no sense of touch. The parchment traveled to a place where she could read it, but Fiona could see no words, only a tear that fell, splashing with extraordinary clarity and definition on a empty space at the bottom of the page.

  And then she simply held them--her mother’s words--in a pale and shaking hand.

  And then she read: