Page 55 of Connal

Only I was wrong, Wife. I didnae see the signs of your despair, because you hid them from me, like the clothes you made for the bairn you’d never birth.

The Joana he imagined bowed her head so that the brim of her hat covered her face. When she looked at him again she was Valerie Baker, her flowery eyes sparkling in the sunlight, her lovely pout of a mouth tight with temper.

What have you done to yourself since your wife died, Laird MacMar?

He had turned himself like the lost melia of the stone forest, Connal realized, hard and cold and alone. Valerie had been the only one brave enough to tell him. Yet she had deceived him, too.

Don’t keep anything back. Do anything you want. I want this. I want you.

If he knew anything about women, it was that they acted on emotion, not reason. Valerie would not have given him leave to love her so generously without loving him as well.

Take me to the mainland, and then you can come back here and mourn your wife the way you want to.

At the time she’d said that he’d thought her being only cruel, but now he wondered if she had been jealous. His grief for Joana had stood between them, an unseen wall he had built to keep everyone at a distance. Perhaps Valerie had her own, built to protect herself after her husband had died.

We’re the same. Trapped by our own hurt.

Connal stopped walking, and discovered he’d reached the center of the labyrinth. Night had fallen, and the light of the waxing moon bathed the stones in silvery light. He glanced over at the place his second would stand, and saw Shaw there watching him. The chieftain stood with his arms folded, his expression mulish. If Connal chose to stand in the labyrinth’s heart for the rest of the night, Shaw would stand with him.

“I’m no’ haunting my bed chamber, you see,” he called out to him.

His brother shrugged. “You’re yet alone again, and sulking as ever. What difference makes the location?”

“Merrick shall come on the morrow.” Connal gazed out at the bay. “I must persuade him give me more time. Another moon, and she shall accept me.”

Shaw stepped over the outer stone wall, and then another, pausing only to unsheathe his sword and ram the tip into the ground. When he reached him, the chieftain had his hands fisted and ready to strike.

“You dinnae agree?” Connal asked mildly.

“I’ve been held captive by a tribe no’ my own,” Shaw said through his teeth. “I did their bidding, because refusing meant they’d beat me unconscious. I worked until I dropped in their fields, and slept on cold ground. I ate whatever they fed me, even if I suspected ’twould make me boak. I learned their ways, even those repulsive to me.” He lifted his arm. “And then I became one of them.”

“Brother.” He reached out to him, only to drop his hand when Shaw flinched away.

“I wished every night for you and the clan come for me,” the chieftain admitted. “As a lad I reckoned if only I endured, surely you would. I stopped wishing the first time they took me on a raid. By then the Pritani, they’d learned I couldnae easily die, and so used me as a shield.” His dark eyes met Connal’s gaze. “Dinnae do the same to Mistress Baker, I beg you.”

Shaw left him there to retrieve his sword and follow the path back to Dun Ard. His steps lagging, Connal walked out of the labyrinth and down to the shore. There he saw one of the Finfolk’s ghost boats crossing the bay. It had sailed too far away for him to see who was taking a haul to the mainland, but he envied their freedom to leave behind their troubles.

“Take me with you,” Connal murmured, growing wistful as he watched the boat disappear in the mist.

Valerie had expected to become a little seasick, but thanks to calm waters she never once became nauseated. Jamaran stayed busy adjusting the sails to catch the breeze, but now and then he would come over to check on her. It seemed odd to see him dressed in a tunic, trousers and boots like one of the clan, but she guessed he couldn’t show up on the mainland in his Finfolk clothing. In the same vein she’d dressed in one of the maid’s gowns Fletcher had brought to her, and brought along the hooded cloak Shaw had given her.

“How do you know we’re heading in the right direction?” she asked, which made him smile a little. “I know you’ve made the trip a lot, but how can you see anything at night?”

“Even mortals who sail ken how to find their course in the dark,” the commander assured her, and gestured at the sky. “The stars guide them. As for me, I well ken the ocean currents, and which to follow to the mainland.”

Despite the light construction of the boat, which had been made from some sort of dark gray hides stretched over a frame of fitted whale bones, it appeared very sturdy. The sail had been stitched together out of the same hide material. That Fletcher had referred to the Finfolk’s vessels as “ghost boats” seemed an apt description, as she imagined it would be almost impossible to spot them on the water.

She wanted to look back at the island, too many times. She forced herself to watch Jamaran instead.

They made good time from what Valerie could see, and yet the faster they sailed away, the more doubts piled on her. Connal would be furious that she had escaped Caladh. Nyall would probably be punished for helping her, as would Jamaran when he returned. Her running away might even make things between the Finfolk and the MacMar worse.

If the druids really did send her back to the future, what would happen once she arrived? Hopefully she wouldn’t end up back in her car and finish drowning in the lake. Candace was still there, too, and Dale’s lover could try to kill her again. Even if she somehow dodged all the problems in her time, she had no one waiting for her, or even missing her.

Stop making excuses to go back to the island, she told herself. Even if you loved Connal, he’s not over Joana. There’s nothing for you there, either.

When they finally came within the sight of land Jamaran did something to slow down the boat, and changed direction to head for what appeared to be a deserted rocky beach. There he used a paddle to guide the boat into the shallows, and hefted a long rusted iron pole with two barbed arms attached to a thick-linked chain. Valerie realized it was an anchor when he dropped it over the side.

“Welcome to Aberdeen, my lady,” he said.