Page 28 of Unforgotten
Cait’s grip on her hand tightened once more. “And I ye, lass. I wish …” Cait Fraser broke off there, gasping for breath. “I wish …”
She never finished her sentence. A heartbeat passed, and then Ella saw the life fade from her mother’s face. She’d witnessed such before, the slackening of the muscles and flesh, as the spirit left its mortal shell.
Cait’s hand went limp in her daughter’s, and she left her last words unsaid.
For a long moment, Ella merely stared down at the woman who’d given her life, the woman she’d resented for so long. One moment Cait had been there with her, the next she’d departed. The suddenness of death was a shocking thing.
A shuddering sob rose up within Ella, a rising wave of grief that had long been held back, like a spring tide behind a seawall. But now that wall was starting to crumble.
Bowing low over the hand she still clasped, Ella began to weep.
13
Laid Bare
ONCE THE GRIEF broke free, it couldn’t be stemmed.
For a while Ella couldn’t move. She could only cling to the side of the bed, still clutching her mother’s hand as sobs wracked her body.
Years of pain, anger, frustration, and grief broke free with an intensity that felt as if she’d just been physically struck.
It hurt to breathe, to think, to exist.
She wept for all of them. For Innis, who’d never spoken a cross word to her, but whom she’d shunned all those years. For her mother, who had been eaten up with regret for too long. For Gavin, who had done his duty and realized too late what it would cost him—and for herself.
She’d run away to Kilbride, and although she’d found solace and peace there, the fact still remained that she’d used it as a hiding place.
But one couldn’t hide forever. Sooner or later the past chased you down. Eighteen years of pain and regret toppled down upon Ella.
Gasping, she released her mother’s hand and pushed herself to her feet. Her body trembled from the force of her grief, and the tears that still coursed down her cheeks blinded her.
She needed to be alone, she needed to find a sanctuary where she could let grief consume her.
Ella stumbled to the door, ripped it open, and staggered out into the hallway. Her father was waiting there, his eyes widening in shock at the sight of her.
He took a step forward, reaching for his daughter. “Ella?”
“She’s dead,” Ella gasped out the words, pain ripping through her chest. “Go to her.”
She side-stepped her father’s embrace and pushed past him, hurrying down the hallway. Her first instinct was to return to her bed-chamber. Yet that wasn’t far enough away. She needed the sanctuary of the chapel. And even if she wasn’t dressed, she would go there.
Bare feet slapping on stone, she picked up the skirts of her night-rail and robe, and hurried to the spiral stairwell that led down to the bottom level of the keep. It was a foolish thing to do, for tears blinded her, and the heavy material around her legs risked tripping her. But she was too upset to care.
Ella was halfway down the stairwell when she stumbled on the worn stone steps and plunged headlong into the darkness.
A scream ripped from her throat, panic slicing through the blind grief that had sent her running down these steps. In a sickening moment, she realized she was doomed.
And then strong arms caught her.
Gavin had been climbing the steps, on the way to visit Lady Fraser’s sickroom, when he’d heard the whisper of bare feet on stone above him. Someone was descending the stairwell—rapidly.
He’d told his nephews off numerous times for sprinting on the stairs. One of the servants had fallen and broken her neck three years earlier, and that had scared all the lads into being more cautious.
But someone wasn’t being careful tonight.
A ragged sob reached him and then a long shadow appeared above.
A heartbeat later a frightened cry filled the stairwell, and a woman, encased in flowing white, light copper hair flying behind her, hurtled toward him.
