Page 6 of Unforgotten
That was another difference to the amiable young man she had left behind. There was a hardness to Gavin that had been absent nearly two decades earlier. Ella wasn’t surprised. The years had a way of shaping folk, wearing at them like waves upon a cliff. One couldn’t go through life without being changed by it—even in a place like Kilbride Abbey, where contact with the outside world was minimal.
“I appreciate ye informing me, but I cannot leave here,” Ella said after a pause, dropping her gaze to the flagstone floor. “Ye will have to return home and deliver my apologies. May the merciful Lord watch over my mother.”
“As God-fearing as yer mother is, I think she’d preferyedid,” Gavin replied. “Why can’t ye leave the abbey?”
Ella glanced up, her brow furrowing. She didn’t have to explain herself to this man. “The Sisters of Kilbride don’t travel,” she replied, her tone developing a frosty edge.
“But ye are not cloistered?”
“It doesn’t matter. We do God’s work best here. The farthest I’ve traveled in years is Torrin. I can’t go to Scorrybreac with ye.”
“But the abbess has given her blessing.”
Alarm fluttered through Ella. What was Mother Shona doing meddling in her affairs? “She should have asked me first.”
Gavin raised his dark-blond eyebrows. “So it was just an excuse,” he replied softly. “Ye can come with me, but ye don’t want to.”
They stared at each other for a few long moments. Tension crackled in the air between them with the weight of so many things unsaid.
After that fateful day of their last meeting in the clearing, events had moved quickly at Scorrybreac Castle. Plans had gotten underway for Gavin and Innis’s wedding, while Ella had sent word to Kilbride Abbey, requesting admission as a postulant. As soon as she’d heard back from the abbess, who welcomed her to the abbey, Ella had announced the news to her family. She’d left without saying a word of her plans to Gavin.
“If I don’t wish to return to Scorrybreac, ye can hardly blame me.” Ella didn’t like how sharp her voice now sounded. It wasn’t her at all. All the nuns here at Kilbride knew her for her gentleness, soft-spoken ways, and ready laugh. But being in the presence of this man gave Ella a sharpness she didn’t usually possess. Every nerve in her body stretched taut.
Those warm blue eyes shadowed. “I understand why ye don’t wish to return,” Gavin admitted finally. “And that’s why I came here in person … to advise ye that no matter what happened in the past, there are times when ye need to see beyond it. Yer mother is seriously ill, Sister Ella. She was in tears when I left. Would ye deny a dying woman the chance to see her only surviving daughter one last time?”
Ella’s hand went to the crucifix that hung at her belt, her fingers clasping around it and squeezing hard.Lord give me strength.
He was making her feel like some heartless shrew.
He knew the truth of things when it came to her family. She’d confided in him once, telling him of how Innis had always been the favorite daughter. Her father was a kind but weak man, who easily let himself be ruled by his dominant, blade-tongued wife. Ella’s mother had always found fault with her youngest daughter. In fact, ironically, the only thing that Ella had ever done right was to take the veil. Ella had saved her parents having to pay a dowry. A relief indeed. Their eldest daughter had found the match they desired; Ella didn’t matter.
“Ye know how things are between my mother and me,” Ella finally managed. “Please don’t paint her out to be saintly.”
His mouth curved, although there was no humor in his eyes. “I’m not,” he replied, his tone clipped. “I’m well aware that ye were always the best of them. If ye return home, don’t do it for yer mother. Do it for yerself.”
Sister Ella and MacNichol emerged from the chapter house into the soft late afternoon sun.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
“What’s that?” Gavin asked.
Shifting her gaze right to the training yard, Ella’s body went taut. Archery practice had ended, but a group of nuns were now sparring with quarter-staffs. Sister Coira, who was the best of them save the abbess at wielding the quarter-staff, was taking a group of younger nuns through some drills.
Ella couldn’t believe they were being so indiscreet. She’d thought they would have finished their training by now. They rarely had visitors here at the abbey, and as such, the nuns had gone about their daily routines without worrying that an outsider might see their strange ways.
Hadn’t the abbess warned them all not to let strangers see them at practice?
Folk fear what they don’t understand, the abbess had told Ella once.It’s better that we appear harmless nuns … that way no one will ever be threatened by us.
“Nothing,” Ella replied lightly, hoping he wouldn’t pursue the subject. “There are harvest games in Torrin every year … perhaps some of the sisters wish to take part.”
It was a weak excuse, but the best she could make at short notice.
A small figure swathed in black and white approached them then, preventing Gavin from questioning her further; Mother Shona had mercifully come looking for them. Relief filtered through Ella. She’d begun to think that the abbess had deliberately abandoned her with this man. She still hadn’t forgiven the abbess for telling him that she had permission to travel to Scorrybreac. It had made it impossible ultimately to refuse him.
“Is it agreed then?” Mother Shona greeted them briskly. She had a no-nonsense approach to human relations. Often Ella appreciated her directness, but this afternoon it grated on her nerves. The abbess knew about her past, although Ella had never told her the name of the man who’d broken her heart.
Perhaps if she had, Mother Shona would have sent him away.
