Devil's Angel (33 page)

Light beckoned, promising solace. She knew it for a lie. Only the darkness could contain and conceal the pain, the grief and the terrible, terrible emptiness.

Pain flailed at her relentlessly, and that alone forced her eyes open. Aine’s face swam into view, Múireann’s beside her and weeping silently. She rolled her head in slow agonizing movements on the pillow. Her brother sat at her bedside, not her husband.

Conor’s absence scoured her. She saw the grief on her brother’s face, knew he must have felt indirectly some of what she endured. Knew the answer to her question but had to ask it anyway. “I lost the babe, didn’t I?”

Múireann’s sobs grew louder as tears spiked her brother’s lashes. “I am sorry, Rika.”

She closed her eyes, wanting nothing more than to will the blackness to return, to capitulate to the darkness and void. She could not, not until she knew… “Conor?”

“He is not here.”

Conor was gone. Olan’s presence washed over her, his hands attempting to draw some of her pain away as they had done since she was a child. “Where?”

“You must rest, my lady,” Aine admonished her, tilting her head for a sip of something too bitter to be water. Even that small movement left her gasping, the gasping leaving her blinded with agony. Olan’s hands tightened on hers, and the physical anguish abated slightly.

“Fighting broke out in the east, near Dun Lief,” he informed her. “Conor rode out two days ago.”

Two days. He had been gone two days. She had been in darkness at least that long. Was the fighting truly so fierce, or was that merely a reason to escape? “What befell the door?”

Olan turned to the heavy oak, now pitted with deep gouges. “Conor did, after you—after Aine—” He broke off, his hand trembling in hers. “You have not stirred for three days. Three days have I sat beside you, praying that you would not die. Conor should have been here.”

She struggled to make sense of her lost time. Conor had been there, the first day. Then the call to arms from Dun Lief had arrived. As Ardan had yet to recover fully, he could have sent Padraig to lead Dunlough’s men, but she understood that he would need to go. His demons had come back, and the heavy door was not catalyst enough to help him battle them.

Images and sounds filtered through her mind, wordless pleas and curses, and a piercing roar of denial. “You must go to him, Olan.” She reached out, her hand clasping the sleeve of his tunic. “He will surely blame himself.”

“And well he should—”

“No, the fault does not lie with him,” she interrupted, her whisper halting the beginning of his tirade. “It is mine.”

Aine rested her hand on Erika’s forehead. “My lady, do not say it—”

“I must have done something wrong. You told me it was still much too soon, but I wanted to give him what he wanted most of all.”

She turned back to her brother, feeling fatigue battling the pain and the grief. “He will blame himself for this, as he blamed himself for Ardan’s injury, and his brother and nephews. Promise me that you will go to him, Olan, that you will stand with him.”

Olan’s face remained flushed with his anger. “Because you ask it, and only because you ask it, will I go. When you are rested, you will be taken to Glentane.”

“Glentane? Why?”

“Do you think I can allow you to remain here? After all that has happened?”

“But Dunlough is my home…” Her voice faded as she saw the look in her brother’s eyes. “H-he didn’t—didn’t—”

“No.” Olan leaned close to her, his free hand cupping her cheek. “He did not suggest it. In truth, he seemed to think you asked him to leave.”

She moved her head restlessly on the pillow. “Leave? Why would I ask him to leave? This is my home. He is my home.”

“Ah, you’ve fallen in love with him, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” She felt tears gather behind her eyes. Truly, she loved Conor, and it hurt all the more that she had failed him. “Bring him back to me, brother.”

“May I hurt him first?”

Erika tried to smile, even though she knew Olan was serious. “What is between Conor and me will be dealt with between Conor and me. Just bring him back.”

“I will.” He stood, bending to brush his lips against her forehead. “Recover swiftly, sister. I want you on your feet when I drag your worthless husband home to you.”

Erika awaited her brother’s departure before succumbing to tears. She wept bitterly for what she had lost: her babe, her husband, her hope.

“What did I do amiss, Good-mother?” she asked through her tears. “I did all that you instructed to keep the babe safe. Why did this happen?”

“Hush, child,” the healer whispered. “It will not do to overset yourself. Do you remember what happened?”

She tried, but memories eluded her. “Everything is blurred, like half-remembered dreams. All I can remember is feeling tired and…” She paused, about to say
alone
. “D-does Conor blame me?”

“Of course not. It is as you say, that he blames himself. Neither of you are at fault. Nature does this at times, for reasons we do not know. Though I must tell you, there were moments I feared I would lose you as well.”

Erika rested her hands on the bedclothes above her empty womb. She felt as if she had indeed died. There was one more question she had to ask, one she had to know the answer to. “Good-mother, I will be able to give Conor a child, will I not?”

Moss green eyes regarded her solemnly. “Time will show the truth of it, my lady. We near lost you and your body will need much time to recover from that.”

Numbness pulled at her as she took hope from the healer’s words. She had no other choice. If Aine did not believe she could still be a true wife for Conor, there would be no hope for them.

With that despairing thought still in her mind, she tumbled into sleep.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“If there is someone else here who needs killing, let us do and be done with it. I for one wish to return to my wife.”

The goad found its mark. Conor whirled and struck the Viking such a blow as would have felled another man. Olan did not even sway.

“Hit me!”

The younger man folded his arms across the metal links covering his chest. “No.”

Infuriated, Conor moved through their uneasy men until they were toe to toe. He had endured more than a month of Olan’s censure, then Niall’s when the ruler of Dun Lief discovered what had befallen Erika. His emotions were strung tighter than a harp’s strings, and the routing of raiders had failed to appease them. “Hit me, damn you!”

Blue eyes flashed with a searing rage before the pale lashes swept down, smothering Olan’s fury with calm. “There is nothing I would enjoy more at this moment than to beat you senseless. For the blow you just gave me I should kill you. That you treat my sister as less than a servant, I should kill you. That she could ask me to protect you even while she believes you have spurned her, I should kill you. Yet I cannot.”

“Why?”

“Because my sister, despite you, despite herself, has fallen in love with you.”

Breath left Conor in a rush, leaving him light of head. “What do you say?”

“Are you deaf as well as stubborn? My sister loves you.”

Conor thought that his knees would give way. While he’d hoped for Erika’s heart, he never believed it would be given to him. “Are you certain? How do you know?”

Olan folded his arms across his chest, his eyes still hard with anger. “She refused my offer to move her to Glentane. When I asked her why, that is the reason she gave.”

Erika loved him. The news warmed the dark recesses of his heart with hope. She loved him and didn’t want to leave him.

Conor strode to his horse, then stopped to face the Viking again. “Why did you not tell me this before now?”

“You were not ready to listen, and I needed the bloodletting as much as you. I wanted you to hurt as Erika hurt. And your guilt hurts you worse than my fists ever could.”

It was midafternoon of a brilliant fall day when Dunlough came into view. In the month that he’d been gone the harvest had begun and the herds brought back from the summer fields. Life continued, and the thought renewed his hope as he dismounted and headed for the dun.

But it wasn’t his wife who greeted him at the door. It was Magda. “Conor! Welcome home. I have much to discuss with you—”

“It can wait. Where is my wife?”

“She’s gone.”

“Gone?” The word swept into his soul like a winter squall, driving out all else. “When?”

“As soon as she recovered from the babe.” Magda sidled next to him. “’Tis right sorry I am about the bairn. A pity it is, knowing how Erika worried herself so.”

Words took their time sinking into the coldness that surrounded him. “She was worried?”

“And sure she was, over the wee bairn. I heard herself on more than one occasion, wondering what could befall the little one. ’Tis no wonder she fretted herself until she fell ill. After she recovered, she took herself to the old woman’s hut. She has not returned to the dun in days, at least a week.”

Conor spun away from her, not wanting to hear another word. Erika was gone. Olan was wrong. She had wanted to leave all along, and left as soon as she was able.

What reason did she have to stay?

Ardan greeted him as he rode toward the gate. “Did you kill everyone that needed killing?”

The censure in his captain’s eyes was obvious and unforgiving. Conor could accept it, had censured himself often enough in the last six weeks. He wanted to set things a-right, but to do that he had to find his wife.

“Where is my lady? Magda says she has been gone a week. Did she—did she go to Glentane or Dun Lief?”

“Lady Erika is at neither of those holdings.”

Hands fisted at his sides, Conor forced his emotions into the void that had served him so well in the last two years. “Where is she?”

Ardan’s expression was accusatory. “She took your leaving hard, believing you abandoned her. Blames weighs heavy on her, and she believes you blame her as well.” He paused. “Do you blame her?”

“No!” The denial was quick to his lips. She had been so joy-full when she’d first told him of her condition.

Then he remembered the pleas, the pain-filled, weak pleas that he save their child. Pleas that still echoed in his soul and would forever more. He needed to see her.

“Ardan.” He clenched his jaw. “Tell me.”

“She is at the village.”

“The village?” It took a moment to realize that she hadn’t gone, that she remained on Dunlough land. Then he turned to the gate, calling for a fresh horse.

He spent the time it took to reach the village proper making decisions. They would start anew, he and his wife. They would put the past behind them, concentrate on living each day as it dawned.

The salt-laden breeze intensified, heralding his arrival at the village. At this time of day the village should have been bursting with activity, men coming in from the sea with their catch, children scampering about in play or work, women dressing the catch or sitting before their huts doing their chores.

Now, a lone sentry served as guard, and the single lane was empty. Where was everyone?

“
Tigerna
.” The guard greeted him with a proper bow. “Welcome home. The mistress will be glad to see you returned.”

Would she? Conor held the question back by pressing his lips into a frown. “Where is my lady wife?”

“At the overlook.”

He kneed his horse in the direction of the cliffs, wondering how many others he would have to question on the whereabouts of his wife, and how many more censorious replies he would receive before he saw her.

Topping the rise, he saw Erika sitting at the base of a spreading yew in the dip of the land. Gathered around her, their faces bright with rapt attention, sat the children of the tribe. On her lap was what appeared to be a cloth bundle until a tiny pale fist and arm flailed at her hair. Erika captured the little fist in her hand, leaning forward to kiss it before tucking it back into the blanket.

The image near felled him. The Angel of Death as a mother. In less than half a year’s time it would have been his bairn in her arms.

His fingers tightened on the reins as he fought to dampen the tumult of emotions that churned within him. She seemed well recovered since he’d seen her last. She looked happy. Had she even grieved the loss of their child?

The question shamed him. He wouldn’t have these doubts if he’d been here, with her as he should. He would have noticed something amiss. He would have gotten to her in time. He would have saved their child.

Would she forgive him for that? Would her love for him redeem him in her regard? Or was all lost?

There was but one way to find out.

Erika felt him before she saw him, a disturbing ripple on the wind. Over the heads of the children she watched her husband riding up the rise like an approaching thunderstorm. Her heart leapt, as it always did to see him returning to her. It quickly fluttered still as his features became more distinct. He didn’t look happy. He looked irritated.

Smiling had never been easy for Conor. She reminded herself that of late, she had given him nothing to smile about. If he had grieved the deaths of his men, surely he had grieved over the loss of their child? Surely that was why he had left, and stayed away. The alternative—that he had hoped she would leave, that he couldn’t bear the sight of her—had her lungs constricting painfully.