A Dangerous Damsel (The Countess Scandals) (21 page)

Ewan dressed with little regard for his wounds. At the bottom of the stairs, instead of heading out toward the courtyard and the cliffs, he turned toward the store rooms. He knew exactly where he was headed, but it was still unnerving to arrive at the doorless archway atop the basement stairs. The old dread welled up inside him as he stepped past it.

He fought the panic, making his way down into the dark room one laborious step at a time. Ewan followed the walls until he was as far in as he could go. Sliding down with his back to the wall, he sat and let the memories come.

They arrived in fragments. Rats skittering in the darkness. Her voice, strained, telling him not to be frightened. The metallic smell. The rattling, sucking sound as she struggled to breathe. Her hand under his, weak and clinging. Finally being taken by exhaustion. He’d thought the crackling sound of her breathing was the worst of it, but waking up to silence and her body cold next to him . . . Parts of him had broken in that moment and he’d never recovered.

This was what could happen—what would happen. He couldn’t keep himself from hurting her. No matter how much he loved her, he wasn’t good for her. Ewan had to let her go.

Chapter 24

“There’s nothing wrong with his manhood,” Deidre snapped when Tristan walked in on her shoving clothes into a bag.

“So you two . . .”

She slammed the bag down. “No, we didn’t.”

“Then how do you—”

“I know.”

“Oh,” Tristan said quietly, but he never had known when to stay quiet. “He turned you down? Truly?”

Deidre glared at him so hard it should have left a mark.

“I’m sorry, Dee.”

“You ought to be.”

Tristan’s brow furrowed. “Why are you acting like this is my fault?”

“Because it is!”

Ewan had actually run from her. She had resigned herself to the idea that he didn’t want her before Tristan opened his mouth. She had been prepared to leave quietly, with a small amount of dignity, and start a new life somewhere else. Now, she would forever remember his horrified expression at the thought of making love to her.

It was so much worse than she’d imagined. If she hadn’t tried, at least she could have kept some small lie in the back of her mind, that maybe it was some big misunderstanding. Instead, she was always going to have the memory of him literally fleeing from her advances.

“Whatever the trouble is between you two, it’s got nothing to do with me.”

“If you hadn’t been caught, Ewan wouldn’t have been tortured. He wouldn’t have seen me”—no matter how angry she was, Deidre would not subject her brother to details—“do what I had to do. He wouldn’t see it now anytime he looks at me and be repulsed.”

Tristan wasn’t having any of it. “Forgive me for being held hostage by the former lover you got us involved with.”

Deidre ignored him. She grabbed her belongings from tables, tossing them into the bag at random. “And if you hadn’t convinced me he’d been unmanned, I never would have made a fool of myself trying to seduce him.”

“I didn’t say he had been! I suggested it might be a possibility.”

“Why would you say it at all?”

“I didn’t realize you would irrationally latch on to it as a fact.” Tristan’s voice turned cutting. “But I guess you’re one of
those women
now.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” she challenged, barely above a whisper.

“You know what it means. Crying all the time, pining over some man who doesn’t want you anymore. I’m surprised you haven’t taken up swooning.”

Some man who doesn’t want you anymore.
The candlestick left her hand before she’d even realized she picked it up.

Tristan dodged, metal crashing against stone as it struck the wall with full force. “Your aim isn’t what it used to be, either.”

Deidre screamed at him. She started throwing everything she could get her hands on. Tristan responded in kind, sending books and trinkets sailing through the air as he shouted his own frustrations.

“. . . wasted my whole life taking care of your sorry . . .”

“. . . ruin everything. Why do we have to leave just because you . . .”

“. . . should have just left you in an orphanage . . .”

“. . . think you’re this irresistible goddess but what you really are . . .”

They switched to Romani, yelling every horrible thing they knew to be true about each other.

“Enough!” Angus yelled, silencing them with his roar.

They were both breathing heavily. Deidre felt a stabbing pain in her stomach and pressed her hand to it. It came away sticky.

Rose rushed in from behind Angus, putting her arms around Deidre and ushering her to the bed. “Ye’ve pulled your stitches.”

“Serves her right,” Tristan muttered.

Angus pointed at him. “I said enough. Christ on the cross, what the devil is wrong with the both of ye?”

“Nothing,” they said at the same time.

Tristan glared at her from across the room. She glared back.

“This,” Angus said, waving his hand at the wreckage of broken items littering the room, “is madness.”

“She started it,” Tristan grumbled.

Deidre pulled off her shoe and threw it at him.

Angus caught Tristan around the chest as he lunged for more ammunition, dragging him toward the door. “Outside.”

“She always—”

“I dinnae care. Outside, before I thrash the both of ye for acting like children.” He tossed Tristan out the door, watching to make sure he didn’t come back.

Deidre scowled on the bed as Rose tended to her. She knew she was being ridiculous, but her blood was up, and for the first time in a week she’d had something to do about being upset other than cry.

“That one’s still a lad,” Angus said, advancing on her with his stern scowl. “But ye ought to ken better.”

“You don’t know us.”

“The hell ye say. We’ve been through quite a bit now, lassie. I ken ye just fine.” Angus sat down on the edge of the bed. His tone softened. “I ken it’s my idiot godson and his fool notions that have ye all mixed up.”

She couldn’t look at him. Deidre needed Angus to be gruff and insensitive. She couldn’t take his compassion. She would not cry anymore.

“Dinnae go mucking it up with yer only living kin just because Ewan doesnae have the sense God gave a groundhog. It’ll sort out.”

Damn it all. She wiped her hand across damp cheeks. It was so much easier when she was throwing things.

***

Breakfast was an awkward affair.

Ewan hadn’t thought Deidre was well enough to risk the stairs, so he hadn’t expected to see her. Now he could see nothing else. She sat across from him, cloaked in icy formality. Tristan was similarly sullen and Angus was glaring daggers at Ewan anytime their eyes met. Even Rose and Darrow were pushing food around their plates and frowning.

“Have ye heard from yer fur merchant?” Ewan asked Deidre, attempting to break the silence.

“If I had, you would know about it.” Pure frost.

“I did,” Tristan said with a sideways glare at his sister. To Ewan, he said, “Not all of us have been sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves.”

Ouch. Ewan couldn’t disagree with Tristan—he’d done a fair amount of moping these last few days—and he deserved every ounce of ridicule they wanted to throw at him.

Silverware clattered as Deidre’s hand closed around a fork. Ewan followed the look she was shooting at her brother and realized he hadn’t been the intended target of Tristan’s dig. Tristan’s smile back at her was smug.

Angus cleared his throat at the end of the table.

Tristan went back to dissecting ham on his plate. Deidre relaxed her grip on the cutlery.

“Seems like you’re feeling much better,” Darrow said to Ewan. “Saw you down by the cliffs earlier.”

“Oh yes,” Deidre responded for him. “He’s healthy as a horse.”

Christ. There it was, right out there in the open. Did everyone know? Did they all hate him? They ought to.

Tristan’s response immediately followed. “Unlike—”

“Darrow, have ye had any luck finding more goods to smuggle?” Angus interrupted.

Tom coughed, swallowing his toast too quickly. “Erm, no, not as yet. We were waiting for, ah—”

“Waiting for Deidre to quit moping and do her job,” Tristan cut in.

What in the hell was going on between the two of them? Ewan tried to intervene. “Yer sister was wounded. Ye should—”

“I can speak for myself just fine. I don’t need you to defend me, Ewan.”

No, she certainly didn’t—not that he’d even been able to. He hadn’t been able to defend any of them. Even Rose had done more in Deidre’s service. If Ewan had been better at taking care of any of them, Rose wouldn’t be a murderess twice over, Deidre wouldn’t have been laid up with a bullet hole, and she wouldn’t be fighting with Tristan now.

“I’m sorry,” he told her. It wasn’t nearly enough.

“At any rate,” she said, avoiding his eyes. “I am feeling much better now, so it’s high time I moved on.”

The air left his lungs, and for a moment he couldn’t convince them to take any back in. She was leaving. He’d wanted her to be able to get away from him if she wanted to, he just . . . hadn’t realized it would be immediately.

“Moved on?” Rose asked.

“I thought you were—” Darrow looked between her and Tristan.

Tristan’s shrugged, pushing away his plate.

Angus’s expression was ominous, all of its menace directed at Ewan.

“When?” Ewan asked.

“As soon as we’re finished with breakfast, actually.” Deidre put her napkin down and pushed back from the table. “Tristan, if you still mean to come with me, you should pack.”

She stood and left. Ewan shouldn’t have followed her, but his days of being a fool were apparently only reaching their middle.

“Deidre,” he said when he caught up to her. “Ye dinnae have to go.”

“No?” Her expression was impassive.

“I’ll go. We’d planned for ye to stay on without me, before . . .” Before they’d spent every waking hour exploring each other’s bodies. Before they’d fallen in love with each other. Before he’d let her get shot trying to save him.

Indifference dropped over her face like a mask. “Do as you please. I’m leaving either way.”

“Why? Ye’ve the run of the castle, and—”

“No good prospects,” she interrupted. “I should have realized it sooner, but staying here would be dreadfully boring. I’d go mad.”

She wouldn’t even let him give her this. He’d hoped he could offer her the security of a place to call her own, but she didn’t want it. There was nothing left for him to do but nod, and watch her walk away down the hall.

***

The dusty side room Deidre ducked into was the closest privacy she could find in time. She closed the door and leaned against it, sucking in great big gulps of air to stave off the tears.

Ye dinnae have to go
. Idiot. For a second she’d thought he would tell her he’d been a fool, that he still loved her and he didn’t want her to go. Or even that he was still a fool, but he was willing to try to fix what was between them. She should have known he’d just throw more meaningless chivalry at her. Deidre didn’t want his damn castle, or his kindness. She wanted him.

She clenched her teeth against the emotions that were trying to overwhelm her. He hadn’t even tried to pretend he could stand to be near her. There had been no argument about one of them needing to leave—just which one. The man would rather give her a castle than sit across a table from her at supper or see her in the hallway.

It was time for her to face facts—Ewan didn’t love her anymore. Maybe he had never loved her. The ridiculous hope she kept resurrecting wasn’t doing her any good. It was making her weak, and it was time to put an end to it. She would pack up her belongings, get on her horse, and leave him and his memory behind. She would do it today, before some new theory diverted her from the truth.

She could do it. She just needed to stop crying, and start moving. When her father had died, it had seemed impossible to take that first step and get their lives moving again. This would not be harder than that. She’d lived without Ewan for twenty-five years. She could live without him again.

Chapter 25

He’d stopped sleeping. Ewan was used to not being able to sleep in the evening—those few nights with Deidre had been a pleasant surprise, though he hadn’t really believed they were permanent—but he’d always been able to find a few hours rest during the day. That was no longer true. Eight days had passed since she left, and for eight days he hadn’t slept.

Every time he closed his eyes, no matter the time of day, the nightmares came. Dreams of Deidre being shot. Dreams of Deidre slipping on the edge of the cliff, and not being strong enough to grab her. Dreams of Alastair with his hands on her body, choking her. Ewan dreamed of her mocking him, blaming him, shouting at him. He wished she would do it while he was awake.

If she’d still cared for him, they would have fought. Deidre would have called him names, probably thrown a few things, and told him exactly how he’d fouled up the entire rescue. Instead, she’d been silent. She’d stayed away. And then she’d left. She and Tristan had packed up their horses and ridden out of the front gates without looking back.

Every day, he came to the cliffs and stared into the ocean. He did it so he wouldn’t spend his days staring down the drive, hoping she would come riding back through the gates. Knowing he would miss her had not prepared him for the reality of her being gone. No more hearing her voice drift through the halls. Her scent didn’t linger in rooms she’d just left.

Ewan tortured himself wondering where she was and what she was doing. Was she safe? Was she happy? What if she ended up in trouble? He didn’t get to know anymore. He wasn’t in her life anymore.

Every day, he came to the cliffs and felt a little less whole.

***

The traveling was slow. Deidre’s wound was mostly healed, but they took their time to make sure she didn’t reinjure herself. Mostly. If a certain part of her secretly hoped Ewan would come racing after them and tell her he couldn’t live without her, well, she never claimed to be perfect. She’d managed to get on the road and away from Castle Broch Murdo. That, and not turning back, was all she was prepared to expect from herself at the moment.

“What’s the plan?” Tristan had asked after the second day. He’d come with her, but he hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words since they’d left.

Deidre was ashamed to admit how glad she was he’d come. Life would be more certain for him with Ewan. She should have made him stay, but it was nice to have him with her. Losing them both would have been too much.

“I thought I might try some honest work for a while.”

That raised his eyebrows. “Like what?”

“Tavern maybe? Perhaps work for some kind of merchant. I don’t know.”

“Dee, I’m not going to—”

Deidre laughed. “I’m not asking you to quit the life. This is something I’m doing for me.”

Knowing it would be just her calmed him down significantly. “You’re going to hate it. You know that, right?”

“Likely, but I need to try.”

“Why?” Tristan asked.

Deidre wasn’t sure how to explain what she’d been feeling, but she was willing to make the attempt if it would keep him talking to her.

“You cannot walk straight when the road is bent,” she said, using a saying their mother had been fond of. “I’m tired, Tris.”

“And you think going straight is going to help with that?” Tristan laughed.

“I’m just—” She struggled for the right words. “I’m tired of deceiving people.”

She didn’t want to lie anymore. It used to be fun, pretending to be someone new, getting away with things no one else could, but after a while never truly being known took a toll. She’d kept playing her roles, but she was just going through the motions to keep them fed. With Ewan, she’d let her guard down for the first time in a long time. Deidre hadn’t realized how much she’d needed to relax. How much she’d needed to be understood.

Then again, he couldn’t bear to be near her now. Maybe she was better off deceiving people.

“All right then. It’s a waste of your talents, but I’m game.” Tristan smiled at her with the grin that reminded her of their father. “You don’t mind if I run a bit of action on the side?”

“Be my guest. I just won’t be part of it.”

He nodded. “I wouldn’t mind seeing what I can put together on my own for a change.”

Deidre had a feeling he’d do just fine. “Exactly right. A bit of a change for both of us.”

Tristan laughed, stoking the fire and laying back to look at the stars. “Lady Dee, mild-mannered shop girl. I can see it now.”

“Who said anything about mild-mannered?” Deidre laughed.

“That’s the thing about going straight,” Travis told her. “You’ve got to put up with people, else you lose the job.”

Patience was not Deidre’s virture, but hopefully she could manage. “We’ll see.”

“I give it a week before you’ve brained somebody with a trencher.”

“If I do,” she said, lying back to watch the starts with him, “I will be fortunate enough to have my degenerate brother’s criminal exploits to keep me afloat.”

Tristan laughed again. “Oh, so that’s how it is, is it?”

“It’s a whole new world, Tristan,” she said. “You’ll get to take care of me for a change.”

There was silence from his side of the fire for a moment before he said, “It’s certainly my turn, isn’t it?”

She hadn’t meant to make him melancholy. “Tris—”

“You were right about Alastair,” he interrupted. “About most things, really, and maybe if I’d listened more, you and Ewan—”

It was her turn to interrupt. “If you’d listened more, Ewan and I would never have met.”

More silence. “Do you wish you hadn’t met him?”

Did she? It would certainly be easier if she’d never known what might have been. Castle Broch Murdo would always be there, like a beacon, tempting her with the future she could have had.

“No,” she said, and meant it. “Good moments are few and far between. I’ll take the ones that come my way, even knowing they won’t last.”

The stars twinkled above while the fire crackled beside them. Deidre felt a small bit of peace settle into place within her. She would keep the good moments, and leave the rest.

“Shame, though,” Tristan said, his tone joking. “We almost had a castle.”

Deidre laughed. “We almost did.”

***

Angus found him in the armory. There weren’t any weapons or armor in it now, just some chairs and a table where Deidre’s men liked to play cards.
Darrow’s men
, Ewan corrected. They weren’t Deidre’s anymore. She was gone.

The whiskey bottle sitting in the center of the table earned Ewan a raised eyebrow. “What are ye doing with that?”

“What do ye think?”

“Dinnae ken. It’s an odd thing for a man who’s never touched a drop to be staring at.”

“I’m considering broadening my horizons.”

Angus sat down in the chair opposite him. Silence stretched between them.

“What?” Ewan demanded.

Angus shrugged. “Nae a damn thing.”

More silence. Ewan stared at him. “Whatever yer going to say, just say it.”

“I’ll wait.”

“For?”

“My godson. He’s around here somewhere.”

Ewan didn’t want to play games with Angus. He just wanted to be left alone.

“Good lad, my godson,” Angus said. “Good head on his shoulders, which is a bloody miracle, all things considered. Sometimes, though—”

“I’m nae going to go after her. She deserves better than the likes of me.”

Deidre deserved someone who could keep her safe.

“Deserves? See, that’s the kind of softheaded notion my godson wouldnae stand for.”

“Angus—” Ewan warned.

“My godson, he went out and found the bonniest, meanest lass in all of Scotland and won her heart. He kenned well enough that no man deserves a woman worth having. The trick is to keep her from realizing it.”

“Well, he failed. She realized it and now she’s gone.”

“She dinnae leave him.” Angus glared at him across the table. “She left the daft bastard that took his place after my godson nearly killed himself saving her brother’s life.”

“It wouldnae have needed saving if he’d done a better job of taking care of things.” Losing patience, Ewan pulled the cork from the bottle.

Angus stopped speaking about him in the third person. “If ye drink that, the lass willnae be the only one leaving yer fool hide to rot here.”

“Never asked ye to come in the first place.” Ewan splashed amber liquid into his cup, willing himself to feel anything other than indifferent about it. He waited to see if Angus’s other Ewan would come rushing back with hope and a plan to redeem himself in Deidre’s eyes. There was nothing—just a gray void where the things he cared about used to be. He tipped the glass back and drank.

It burned. Ewan coughed as fire seared a path down his throat. His eyes watered. For a few, tenuous moments, he didn’t think about Deidre at all. He swallowed again.

“So be it.” Angus stood up, his chair scraping across the stones. “The devil can have ye, Ewan MacMurdo, because I’ll nae sit here and watch ye become yer father’s son.”

Ewan let him go. Angus didn’t understand. None of them did. If he didn’t let her go, he would be like his father. He couldn’t let her be hurt again because of him. A man was supposed to protect his woman and provide for her. Instead, he’d let her put herself in danger—not just with Alastair. He never should have agreed to the smuggling operation. Any manner of things could have happened to her. That would have been his fault as well.

It was inevitable that he would have failed her. Alastair was just the first to come to pass.

The door scraped again. Ewan didn’t bother looking up. “I’ll gladly take the devil over more of yer harping, Angus.”

“I’m nae here to lecture ye.”

Rose
. Ewan clamped his teeth shut on the apology that tried to leave his lips. He’d failed her, too, perhaps more. Twice he’d left her behind, left her in danger, and twice she had to take a man’s life. It would be safer for her to leave him as well.

“What do ye want?” he growled.

“I thought ye might be hungry.”

“No.”

Her slippers rustled against the stone. “I also thought ye might like some company?”

“If I did, I certainly wouldnae want it to be ye.”

She went still and silent.

Ewan hardened his heart, forcing himself to do what had to be done. “A man never knows when he might find the bottom of a cliff or the wrong end of a fire poker when yer around.”

When he could trust himself to look up, he wished he hadn’t. Tears gathered in her eyes, threatening to fall. Hurt and confusion stared back at him. Ewan held his face impassive until she turned on her heel and fled. Once she was gone, he set his head down on the table and gave in to the misery.

***

Deidre delivered a trencher and two pints to the scarred oak table. Its occupant helped himself to a handful of her backside. Her elbow clipped him on the chin on her way past.

“Oi!” he shouted.

The innkeeper laughed. “I told ye, Danny. She doesnae like to be touched.”

It was a better place than most. The innkeeper’s wife wasn’t a jealous woman, likely due to the fact that her husband wasn’t the type to let his hands wander. He also didn’t mind if Deidre put those whose hands did in their place now and then, as long as she didn’t cause any permanent damage. In return, Deidre worked fast and well. She smiled at the patrons and used her talents to keep the pints flowing. It was a profitable relationship for them both.

Word had spread, and men had started coming from miles around to see if they could tame the wild, black-haired beauty working at the Drowning Duck. Deidre dropped a pint by Tristan’s table, where he had set up a healthy side business taking bets on who she might succumb to, and when.

“Don’t suppose you want to let hatchet-faced Harold have a go at you Tuesday next, do you?”

She cuffed him, lightly, upside the back of his head.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Tristan said. “I’m just saying—we’d make a killing.”

“You would make a killing,” Deidre corrected. “I would have to drown myself in the river.”

Tristan’s undoubtedly insolent reply was cut short as surprise lit his face. “Darrow?”

Deidre’s heart stopped. She turned, hoping and fearing at the same time.

Darrow was alone. He smiled, sliding into a seat next to Tris. “’Lo, Tris. ’Lo, Dee. Thought you might be the one I heard about. Is it all right that I’m here?”

Deidre didn’t miss the question under his words. “It’s not a job.”

“She’s gone straight.” Tristan still had a hard time believing it.

“I’m trying a different way,” she explained.

Tom seemed to understand. He nodded, before eyeballing the stack of coins and scribbled notes at Tris’s elbow.

“I’m sticking to what I know,” Tristan said with a grin.

Tom and Tristan devolved into a volley of jests and insults. Deidre took the opportunity to draw more pints and bring them around. While she poured, questions nagged at her. She tried to shove them down—how things were at Broch Murdo was no longer her concern. Neither was Ewan.

When she returned to their table, she asked the only question she had a right to. “What brings you down this way, Tom?”

“Just seemed like time to move on.” He shared a look with Tristan. It seemed they’d managed more than banter while she was gone.

“Tell me.”

Tom looked away. Tristan tried.

She pinned him with her stare. “
Kaski san, Lasho?
”

Whose are you?

He sighed. “Ewan’s scared everyone off. He’s drinking, being mean to Rose. They’ve all left him.”

Ewan was mean to Rose? Why would he do that? This whole time, Deidre had been feeling guilty, feeling like she’d gotten what she deserved for a lifetime of rottenness. She’d never been good enough for Ewan, and he’d finally realized it, that was all. Rose, though—Rose was his friend. She was Deidre’s friend, and she’d saved Deidre’s life. Ewan had no right to blame Rose for what she’d had to do, nor Tom. All they’d done was help solve a problem that wasn’t theirs to begin with.

Something fundamental inside Deidre shifted.

Tristan recognized it immediately. “Stand clear, Darrow. I think she’s done feeling sorry for herself.”