He watched until she made it safely down the steps before he went into the room where Arianna slept. His first sight of Arianna since giving her over into Jolene’s care made his heart clench with sorrow. She looked so small in the large bed, the bruises on her face and her bandaged hands an abomination in his eyes. After changing the wet cloth draped over her eyes for a cooler one, Brian sat in the chair that had been pulled up to her bedside.
Brian knew he loved her. The emotions that had torn through him when he had thought her lost to him had made that clear, too clear for him to continue to try and deny it. It changed nothing, however, if only because he did not have any idea of how she felt about him. Worse, the fact that he had given her her first taste of passion could easily confuse her. He had thought himself in love with the first woman he had bedded down with. It was far too easy to think passion was born of something deeper, richer, and longer lasting, especially if it burned as hot as what he and Arianna shared.
Neither did his love for her change the fact that she was far above his reach. She deserved more than he could give her. He had seen enough mismatched marriages to know how discontent and bitterness could grow to turn the union into a living hell. Lady Arianna deserved a man equal to her in birth, wealth, and breeding, a man who could make her happy and content in all ways. Brian doubted she would stay unwed for long after he let her go and was sure that her family would be far more cautious in choosing her a husband this time. She would soon have all a lady like her deserved. It was only honorable to let her go, to not try to bind her to him with passion. Brian just wished he could be happier about doing the honorable thing.
Chapter 14
Arianna sat on the stone bench beneath a tree and smiled faintly as she watched the Cameron children playing in the garden. Her pleasure in the sight was mingled with sadness for she desperately missed Michel and Adelar. Although she had enjoyed, and badly needed, the four days of rest she had taken at Dubheidland, she was anxious to resume the journey to Scarglas. It was time to put an end to Amiel’s game.
“Are ye certain ye are healed enough to be out of bed?”
Startled out of her thoughts by Brian’s voice, Arianna turned to look up at him scowling down at her. “Aye, I am verra certain. As Jolene told you when she first viewed my injuries, naught was broken and naught was bleeding inside me. There remain a lot of bruises but they will continue to fade.” She had no intention of telling him that she still ached a little or how tender a few of those bruises still were in certain places.
Brian grunted and sat down beside her. “Ye are nay completely healed, lass, and ye dinnae fool me. That mongrel was intent upon beating ye to death from what little I saw.”
She shivered as the memory of Amiel’s brutality flooded her mind. “I wasnae doing as he wanted me to, wasnae telling him exactly where the lads were, and I refused very crudely to help him use me to get them. His temper rose beyond reasoning, beyond even recalling that the DeVeaux wanted me alive. The fact that I kenned his plans, kenned that he was already certain of where the boys were, only made him angrier. The odd thing is, when the men reminded him of what Lord Ignace wanted, Amiel should have been terrified. Any sane person would be. But he wasnae deterred from beating me at all.” Arianna took a deep breath and let it out slowly, pushing away the fear and the helplessness of that time when it threatened to return. “I was just thinking that ’tis past time we continued our journey to Scarglas.”
“I dinnae think ye are healed enough for that.”
“How long a journey is it?”
“It depends upon how fast a pace we can keep. Three days. Mayhap more. Mayhap less.”
“As long as we are nay taking the whole journey at a full gallop, I will be fine.” When his scowl did not lighten at all at her assurances, she said, “We ken that Lucette and his men are joining the others. We need to be inside Scarglas when they come to its walls.”
“They will have little chance of breeching those walls.”
“And I would prefer to be inside those walls when they try, nay outside trying to find a way in without being killed.”
As would he, Brian decided. The number of men Lucette and the DeVeaux had brought had been reduced but they could hire more. Word was drifting their way that they were doing just that. There was no telling if they would give up and flee back to France when finally faced with the high, impregnable walls of Scarglas, or if, with an army of hirelings at their backs, they would risk attacking. They could easily decide that what they would gain if they won was worth the risk.
“We will leave on the morrow,” he said, and sighed when she hugged him. “I dinnae think ye will be so verra pleased to have resumed the journey after ye have been in the saddle for a wee while.”