Page 30 of Claimed
“But this has only hurt ye,” she whispered. “I don’t want that.”
He shook his head. “Leaving ye at Inishail would still have hurt,” he said, his voice clipped now. “But this way, ye know how I feel.”
The boulder in Drew’s belly grew heavier then. “It doesn’t change anything, Carr,” she whispered, her voice barely audible now. “It just makes our farewell harder … for us both.”
His mouth pinched. He then turned away from her and resumed saddling the horse. “Aye … it does.”
Carr wasn’t proud of himself.
He kept his gaze on the buckle he was fastening as he listened to Drew walk away. He’d been cold and harsh—something he never was with her. But her apology—even well meant as it was—was like a dirk blade to the gut.
Didn’t the woman realize? He didn’t want her to say sorry, he wanted her to acknowledge that what lay between them was rare and beautiful, and that she’d be a fool to turn her back upon it.
Drew MacKinnon wasn’t as hard as the world believed. He didn’t like how pale and frail she looked this morning. The tremor in her voice made him ache to reach for her. Standing a few feet from Drew and not being able to touch her was torture. Her grey eyes were red-rimmed.
Had she been crying?
He’d never seen the woman he served weep. Surely, he’d been mistaken.
And yet the ache under his breastbone intensified as he let her walk away. She’d wanted to mend things between them. She’d wanted them to be friends again, before he dropped her at Inishail Priory, and part of him wanted that too. But the baser part of him wanted to lash out at her.
Dolt, he chided himself.She told ye she doesn’t feel for ye, as ye do for her. Ye must accept it.
Misery churned in his gut, and for an instant, Carr’s eyes flickered shut. He’d always been stoic; he’d always been strong. He’d never been one to fight against fate, or against the hand life had dealt him.
But that was until today.
Despite that Drew had made the nature of their relationship clear the morning before, part of him still fought it.
I can’t give up … I won’t give up.
Carr reached up and dragged a hand down his face. It seemed he was intent on wounding his heart beyond repair, on driving that dirk blade in to the hilt.
At the day’s end they’d reach Inishail, and there he’d watch Drew ride through the gates and out of his life forever.
But before she did, he had to try to change her mind—one last time.
The day that followed sped by with frightening speed. Despite the cloak of low cloud that obscured the mountains, and the light veil of rain that settled over everything, the company made excellent time.
This last stretch of the journey to Inishail was upon a surprisingly well-kept road. As noon approached, they forded a river and rode alongside a dark loch framed by lush green mountains wreathed in mist.
Loch Awe. Drew’s mother, in her rare missives, had mentioned that the priory sat near the shores of a long, thin loch that stretched for leagues north-east and south-west.
If she hadn’t felt so wretched, Drew would have found the landscape pretty; even with the bad weather, she could see that it was a lovely spot. Forest stretched down to the loch-edge in places, and the air was rich with the scent of pine. Two red deer sprinted across the road ahead of them before disappearing like wraiths into the trees.
But Drew could feel nothing except a hard kernel of unhappiness in her gut—a sensation that seemed to grow tighter with every furlong they traveled toward their destination.
They rested briefly at noon, and Drew made sure she avoided looking at Carr. Instead, she forced down cold oatcakes and cheese, and listened to the rumble of male conversation around her.
After the morning’s humiliation, she couldn’t bear to look at him.
She’d tried to apologize, and he’d thrown her words back in her face. Not that she could entirely blame him. As Drew ate her noon meal, she tried not to relive those last few moments.
How bleak his gaze had looked.
They finished their meal quickly and were soon on the road again. Drew rode next to Aidan, while Carr and another took the lead.
“Ye have been quiet today, milady,” the warrior observed, and when Drew glanced his way, she saw that the young man was observing her. “Is something amiss?”
