Page 5 of Claimed
“I will lead it, if I may.” A low voice interrupted.
Drew’s attention shifted to Broderick. The surprise she’d glimpsed upon his face had gone, and now he wore a somber expression as if they were organizing a burial.
“Thank ye, Broderick,” Craeg replied with a nod, before Drew had the chance to speak up. “Gather a party of six warriors. My sister must be well-guarded on her journey.”
“Are ye sure ye have thought this through?”
Drew had been awaiting Coira’s question. The silence in the women’s solar had grown deafening as the morning stretched on. The pair of them sat near the hearth. Drew was embroidering the hem of a summer kirtle, while Coira wound wool onto a spindle.
Glancing up, Drew saw that her sister-by-marriage was frowning, her fine dark brows knitted together.
“Aye, I have,” Drew replied. “Why? Do ye question my choice?”
“Taking the veil isn’t a decision to be taken lightly,” Coira replied, her voice low and firm. “It’s not an easy life for many. I’ve known women who’ve regretted it.”
Drew shrugged. “Ye enjoyed the life of a nun well enough, didn’t ye?”
Coira sighed and lowered the spindle to her lap. “Aye … although for me it was an escape. At Kilbride I was free of male attention, free from brutality.”
The words hung between them, and Drew tensed. Her initial reaction to Coira’s concerns had been flippant, yet she couldn’t continue to act that way now. Not when she knew that the brutality Coira spoke of had been suffered at the hands of Duncan MacKinnon.
Drew had so much to thank Coira for. Months earlier, she’d appeared at Drew’s bedside like an angel of mercy at her darkest hour. She’d brought her back from the edge. In the moons that had passed since Drew had recovered from the sickness, Coira had treated her like a sister.
“I remember ye telling me that ye weren’t pious before going to Kilbride,” Drew said after a pause. “Yer life at the abbey gave ye purpose. I want to find such meaning for my own life.”
Coira held her gaze, her expression shadowed. “Ye don’t need to take the veil to find purpose.”
Drew frowned, her irritation rising. “Ye think I’m ill-suited, don’t ye?”
Coira’s mouth quirked. “Aye. Ye are strong-willed to a fault. I hope the prioress knows what she’s in for.”
“Well then,” Drew sniffed. “Perhaps Inishail will be good for me.”
A heavy silence fell between them. When Coira broke it, her gaze was probing. “All those times I’ve asked ye to join me in prayer at the kirk, and ye refused. Ye can understand why I’m surprised by yer decision to become a nun. It’s seems so … out of character.”
Drew stuck her needle into her embroidery and leaned back in her chair. Of course Coira found her behavior odd; her sister-by-marriage deserved an explanation she supposed. “Dunan kirk holds ill memories for me,” Drew admitted after a pause. “When I was a lass, Ma used to make me kneel for hours there before the altar after I’d misbehaved. I grew to hate the place. And these days, whenever I enter the kirk, all I can see is Father Athol crumpled before the altar, after Duncan stabbed him.”
Coira’s violet eyes shadowed at these words, and when she replied, she deliberately avoided speaking of the man who’d driven her to taking the veil many years earlier. “Do ye really want to live under the same roof as yer mother again?” she asked.
A sigh escaped Drew. She hadn’t missed Lorna MacKinnon in the time since she’d departed Dunan, yet she decided against admitting that to Coira. She wasn’t going to Inishail for her mother’s sake anyway, but for her own. “Folk can change,” she said crisply, picking up her embroidery once more. “Perhaps all the years at Inishail have softened her.”
3
I’ll Never Know Now
THEY RODE OUT of Dunan on a grey, wet dawn, headed south-east toward the coastal village of Kyleakin. The journey would take them the better part of the day, and so Broderick had insisted upon an early start.
The good-byes were awkward, difficult, as Drew knew they would be.
Craeg and Coira came out into the bailey to see her off. Their faces were pale with sleep and drawn from the chill damp that rose off the slick cobblestones. Wrapped in fur cloaks, the couple watched Drew lead her palfrey from the stables, before Craeg stepped forward and approached her.
“There’s still time to change yer mind,” he murmured. “No one will think less of ye for it, Drew.”
Throat constricting, Drew shook her head. She should have known her brother would make this hard for her.
My brother.
Aye, although she’d never set eyes on the man before last summer, Craeg MacKinnon was the brother she’d always wanted, the brother she’d wished Duncan could have been. He was younger than her by nearly three winters, her baby brother, yet he towered over her now as he reached out and took her hands with his.
