The Devil of Jedburgh (36 page)

“I was just thinking of you.” He scraped his chair back and came around the desk.

“I—I’m with child,” Breghan blurted out. “I’m pregnant with your child.”

The blood drained from Arran’s face. He stumbled backward, hit the desk and put his hands out to support him. His gaze dropped a few inches and then stuck.

“It’s a shock, too much, I should have—I should have prepared you first somehow. I didn’t know how to tell you… It isn’t that terrible, is it? Women give birth every day, children are born all the time.” Breghan curled her fingers at her side. She was rambling, she knew, but why wasn’t he saying anything? Why couldn’t he look at her? “You need time, but please, Arran, don’t give up on me. Don’t give up on us. Everything will be fine, I promise.”

“I should never have brought you here.” He raised his eyes to hers, and then she wished he hadn’t. There was no emotion there, no joy, no anger, no life at all. The tear that gathered at one corner might as well have leaked from the black void of hell. “I should never have succumbed to this handfasting.”

Her throat constricted. “Is that truly—you don’t—this needn’t change anything for you, if you don’t want it to.” The words came out as a strangled whisper. “I’ll go…I don’t have to stay here…if you don’t want me, I return home to Donague.”

“This is my fault.” His voice was hoarse, strained with the effort to speak.

“Nothing is your fault, Arran. Nothing is anyone’s fault. Making a baby is as natural as the sun rising in the morning.”

But Arran wasn’t listening. “I grew complacent. I allowed lust and love to feed on common sense.” He brought his hands up to plunge through his hair, then held them out to her in supplication. “God forgive me, I had no right to trust anything this important to a witch’s weeds.”

Breghan wasn’t getting through to him. And she couldn’t allow him to take this blame. “You had every right. Magellan’s herbs worked just fine, when I took them.”

His hands fell to hang loosely at his thighs. His brows gathered into a dark scowl.

“I stopped taking Magellan’s herbs,” Breghan said quietly.

“You promised you’d never forget.”

“I didn’t forget to take the herbs, Arran.” Dear God, this was even harder than she’d feared. “I didn’t take them on purpose.”

“Jesu, Bree, did you no stop to think—”

“Of course I did. Every hour of every day I’ve done nothing but think, think, think about what I’m doing, whether it was fair or right or wrong. I want your child, I wanted us to have a chance. I need you to believe our destiny is in God’s hands and I couldn’t—I couldn’t just give up. I couldn’t walk away because you were too afraid to give me a child and refused to let me stay without one.”

“You don’t know what you’ve done.” Arran pushed away from the table with such force, she couldn’t help but cower backward. His voice was black ice, sharp and laced with danger. “You’ve sentenced yourself to death.” His stare sliced downward to her stomach. “You’ve condemned that babe and you’ve made a murderer out of me. Again.”

“You are not a murderer.” Breghan took a step toward him, pleading, “You’re not responsible for your mother, for Elizabeth, for—”

“You said you knew.” His eyes shot up to torch her. “You said you understood.”

“I did.” Another tentative step. “I do.” She was no longer afraid for herself. She was afraid for Arran. “You didn’t kill Elizabeth. You didn’t kill your babe.”

He splayed his hands up in front of him. His face contorted with disgust and anguish, as if he were watching blood drip from his fingers.

She was close enough to grab his hands, but he was rigid, she couldn’t lower them. “Arran, look at me,” she cried desperately.

His face was white, his jaw haggard. His dull, lifeless eyes were frozen on his hands.

“It isn’t real. Whatever you think happened that night, it isn’t real.” Breghan was no longer sure how much was real or not, how much was the Crawley woman’s horrific imagination, but she knew what Arran was capable of and what he wasn’t. “You didn’t cut the babe from Elizabeth’s womb. You did
not
strangle the life from your babe. Look at me, Arran, look at me and tell me.”

Somehow she had to break down the wall of ice encasing him, force him to re-examine the events of that long past night. She had to force him to admit there was nothing he could have done, nothing he was to blame for, because he’d never admit it willingly, not to or for himself.

His hands went limp and slipped heavily from her grasp.

“Arran, look at me.” She pummelled his chest, trying to pound the truth from him. Still, he couldn’t meet her eyes. “What happened was tragic. Elizabeth and your child died. But you didn’t kill them and I—I need you to look me in the eye and deny it.” She pounded harder, swallowing back tears. “Damn you, Arran, deny it. Do you hear me? Tell me it isn’t true!”

“Dear God, I would give all I have, all I am, to do as you ask,” he said hoarsely. His gaze came up and his voice went hard again. Hard, empty and as cold as his eyes. “How am I supposed to do that? How does one look into the face of truth and lie? I canna deny a thing, for every word is true.”

Dread furled around the edges of Breghan’s sanity.

Arran wasn’t even done yet. “I am damned, again and again and here, now, you have damned us all. There is no end. There is no beginning. You!” He pushed away from the table, forcing Breghan to stagger backward. “You have damned every soul in this room today. Get out! Get out of my sight.”

Breghan turned and fled. The walls of the castle were shifting, closing in on her as she stumbled down the stairway and raced through the hall. A few surprised eyes followed, but no one and nothing stopped her until she reached the stables. And then only long enough to order Angel saddled.

The stable lad hesitated but quickly complied after she snapped, “I’m fine!”

She used the time it took him to saddle Angel to gulp down desperate breaths and then jumped on her mare and managed to pull herself together and walk Angel through the bailey. The guard at the gatehouse still called down to her. She waved at him, leaned down low over Angel’s long neck and spurred the mare into a hell-bound gallop along the main road to Hightown. On both sides, furs and pines of Jed Forest blurred in her side vision. When the blur on her right snapped from green to nothing as the road curved toward Jed Water, she realised her mistake and pulled gently at the reins. To her left, the thick forest spread all the way up Dunmon Hill and along the northern ridge. She slowed Angel right down to a walk and veered off the road and deep into the canopy.

She wasn’t ready to be found. Her thoughts were as tangled as the ancient vines strung from tree to tree and climbing up the trunks. Any direct path was impossible, and before long Breghan had been turned around so many times, she didn’t know north from south. The forest wasn’t vast, she only had to navigate toward the road again, but for now she could be travelling toward Donague or straight back to Ferniehirst. She dismounted and wrapped the reins on an overhanging bough. The damp of rotten leaves chilled her feet. She hadn’t paused to exchange her slippers for riding boots or grab a cloak.

She didn’t know what she was going to do. She had no idea how to make this right. Her heart was thumping, her head felt as if it were exploding and she couldn’t breathe.

Breghan dropped to the ground and pulled her legs in tight. There was nothing left to do but tuck her chin in and give way to the sobs. Once she started, she couldn’t stop. She cried until there were no tears left in her body, and then she choked on dry sobs that racked her aching chest. When that was done, she stared at the forest floor of mud and rot until the pattern glazed her vision.

Whatever Arran believed he’d done, he hadn’t. Whatever monster he thought himself to be, he wasn’t. That was the only certainty she could still hold on to. She couldn’t go back to him now. She needed time to clear his abrasive order from her head, to erase the memory of those empty eyes looking straight through her. She needed time, just a few days, just until she didn’t have to fight for every breath.

She found the road easily enough. The position of the sun told her it was late afternoon; she’d been huddled in the forest for a good few hours. Anyone pursuing her would have reached the confluence of Jed Water and the Tiviot River by now. Which was fine by her. She wasn’t going that far. The direction she’d chosen had been instinctive, but her gut wasn’t leading her to the comfort of her home and family. She knew that now. She wasn’t that reckless, or stubborn, not even when she wasn’t thinking straight. She wasn’t leaving Arran. She was looking for answers and she knew exactly where to find them.

She was still partially hidden in the roadside canopy when she heard the thunder of pounding hooves. Breghan pulled her mare in deeper and peered between the mesh of leaves. She recognised Broderick at once by his massive form. The man riding with him was smaller, too short and slender to be Arran. She hadn’t expected Arran to come after her, not in the state she’d left him. If the stable lad or guard had gone first to Broderick, Arran might not even know she’d left. And if he did, she doubted he’d care much at this moment.

Breghan danced her mare out into clear sight. Now that the opportunity had presented itself, she had a message to convey.

Broderick didn’t give her the chance. He was almost upon her before he came to an abrupt halt and issued, “I’m no’ interested in explanations or excuses, you’re coming with me.”

The other man hung back to look on with wide eyes.

“Where is Arran?” she asked. “How is he?”

“The laird is halfway between hell and Donague Castle.”

“He’s chasing after me to Donague?” she gasped.

“In addition to the search parties spread out in every direction. I don’t know what you did or said to him and I don’t want to know. You can deal with the devil you’ve unleashed in your own good time.” He turned to his companion. “Ride after the laird. He’ll be scouring the countryside as he goes. There’s a chance you could catch up to him before he reaches Castle Donague and that half of the parish is turned upside down as well.”

Breghan waited until the man had ridden off before informing Broderick, “I’m not returning to Ferniehirst quite yet.”

“We’ll see about that.” He reached across to grab her reins.

Breghan dug her heels in and Angel shied to the side. “You’re frightening my mare.”

“I don’t give a rat’s arse about your mare or your female sensitivities.” He reached again, trapped the leather in his fingers and slowly reeled her in. “We can do this the easy way or my way.”

Angel skittered at the scent of stallion and reared. “Broderick! I’m pregnant.”

“Sweet Mary, you’re with child?” His fingers dropped away from her reins, his face parched white. “You’re racing about the countryside with the laird’s bairn in your belly. Have you lost your bleeding mind!”

She had, actually, but only for a short while. Breghan urged her mare to a safe distance. “I won’t return to Ferniehirst willingly,” she warned him, “and not even you’re such a boar as to manhandle a pregnant woman.”

“The laird will have me strung and quartered if I don’t bring you home.”

“Arran will be relieved to hear you escorted me to Jedburgh Abbey and personally delivered me through the gates.” She flicked the reins and prodded Angel into a steady gait toward Jedburgh.

A moment later, Broderick was riding at her side, fuming and muttering beneath his breath, “A woman will stop at nothing to get her own damn way.”

Breghan bit down on her tongue.

But Broderick didn’t stop there. He went on and on, and when he got to, “…turning the whole damn country inside out on a bloody whim,” she could no longer keep her silence.

“I was frightened, angry, scared and confused,” she ground out, her temper heating beneath his rash and unfair judgement. “I imagine the concept of such emotions are beyond you, but at least try to appreciate that it was a little more than a whim that’s causing you so much inconvenience.”

“Deliberately putting yourself in danger and assuming there’ll always be one or two men rushing after you in case something goes wrong isn’t an inconvenience,” he said in a blistering voice. “It’s bloody insanity.”

“You know nothing of the circumstances that chased—” Breghan cut herself off, suddenly understanding. “This isn’t even about me, is it? You’re still angry that Janet ignored you in Edinburgh and slipped into the palace.”

Broderick snorted and grunted, then set his eyes on the road ahead without another word.

At least I shut him up.

She should leave it alone. Broderick was far too angry with her right now to consider anything she had to say. But Janet had tried blasé, brash and bold; the only thing left was blunt.

The road forked just before entering the town of Jedburgh, winding up the north bank of Jed Water through dense woodland. The abbey was a short distance further up the slope, the cluster of pale stone ranges rising above the tree line to preside over the town.

Breghan slowed to a clopping walk on the ascending path and called out, “Janet only wanted to do something heroic, so you’d forget she was a mere woman long enough to notice she existed.”

“She has the attention of every man from here to Edinburgh and back, what the hell would she need with one more?” He flung over his shoulder.

“Yours is the only one that interests her.”

“Not from where I’m usually looking.”

Breghan could scarce believe it. The bear of a man was actually capable of an emotion other than anger. “You’re jealous!”

“You’ve gone mad and this conversation is over.”

Breghan smiled at his rigid back. “This conversation’s long overdue, but Janet’s the one you should be having it with. She’s in love with you, completely and utterly besotted, and if you don’t feel the same way, have the guts to say it to her face so she can get over you.”

“I’ve better ways to waste my time,” he growled. “You brought Janet to Ferniehirst and she’ll go as soon as you do,
m’lady.
” He frowned over his shoulder at her, a frown that slowly receded as his thoughts apparently caught up to current events.