Page 43 of Highlander's Lady of the Lake

Chapter Twenty-One

When the first rays of sunlight shone through the camp, Nimue blinked awake from a short, fitful sleep. The first thing she saw was her father, curled up in the other corner of the tent, seeking some warmth in his own embrace. He was still asleep, though his brow was furrowed, and his mouth twisted unpleasantly, reminding Nimue of a scolded child.

Despite their fight the previous night, she couldn’t help but feel pity for him. She did not agree with any of his views or plans, and she opposed him at every turn, but she knew that all he wanted was the best for his people.

Even if he doesna ken what’s best for his people.

Not for the first time, Nimue wished that her mother was there. She was the only one who could temper her father’s stubbornness, and without her there, Nimue couldn’t imagine how she would stop him from bringing not only her marriage to Chrisdean but also all of Scotland to ruin.

And she missed her mother dearly, even after all those years since her death. She didn’t like to dwell on what could have been, had her mother not died that fateful day, but in her desperation, she could do little other than imagine how everything might be resolved much more easily if she were there.

“What are ye thinkin’ about?”

The question came from the other side of the tent, and when Nimue turned her head to look, she saw that her father was awake, watching her. She rolled her eyes at him, not in the mood to speak to him after their fight.

Her father stayed silent for a few moments, but Nimue could hear the frustration in the way he breathed, one sharp inhale after every long, drawn-out exhale. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, quickly getting as frustrated as he was, and she wished that she could leave the tent without seeing any Englishmen.

Especially the Earl. The last thing she wanted was to be forced to be cordial to him.

“Will ye never speak to me again, then?” her father asked. “Is that what ye’ll do from noo on?”

“I wish I could,” Nimue said bitterly, her gaze fixed on her knees which she had drawn up to her chest. “I canna reason with ye, so I dinna wish to talk to ye. I dinna wish to argue, and ye dinna wish to change yer mind.”

“Neither do ye,” her father pointed out. “Ye willna listen to me at all, Nimue. How can ye think that ye ken what’s better for our clan than I do?”

Nimue couldn’t find the words to speak to her father, her fury drowning out everything she could think of to say to him. She hated him at that moment, hated how easily he could dismiss her, how he thought that he knew best, even when the evidence pointed to the contrary.

Most of all, she hated that he was willing to destroy the bond between them to help the Earl. Nimue knew that her father wasn’t an evil man, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t working for one.

“If ye must ken,” she said, her voice full of anger and bitterness, “I was thinkin’ about me maither. I was thinkin’ that if she were here, ye wouldna be actin’ like this.”

At the mention of her mother, her father softened, as he always did. Perhaps it wasn’t fair of her to bring her mother up while they were arguing, she thought, but she had no remorse, not when her memory was the only thing that could possibly change his mind.

“What about yer maither?” he asked her, the softness and the fondness suddenly gone, reeled back inside him. “What about yer maither, Nimue?”

“She wouldna have liked this, and ye ken it,” Nimue reminded him. “Think of her, Faither, please! I beg ye. Think of her and what she would have wanted.” Her father fell silent then, and he seemed to withdraw into himself, as he tended to do when the memories of the woman he loved so dearly rushed back to him, drowning him in grief and sorrow. It always served to soften Nimue, seeing him like that, so vulnerable and so unlike the man that she knew, the man who usually refused to show any kind of weakness, and it gave her pause once more. She wondered if there was a different way to bridge the gap between them, if there was a way to do it at all or if she was just torturing both her father and herself for no reason.

“Yer maither isna here,” her father said before she could offer him any comfort. “And if she kent how dangerous this war will be, she wouldna be on Scotland’s side.”

“That’s a lie, and ye ken it,” Nimue said, without missing a beat. “She would always be on Scotland’s side, na matter what. And so will I. I’d rather die fightin’ for Scotland than in the Earl’s hands.”

The Laird let out a long-suffering sigh before he pushed himself off the ground. Nimue could see that he was in pain, and she wondered what wounds the Earl had inflicted, what wounds she couldn’t see, hidden as they were by his clothes.

She wondered how her father could bear to be around him.

As the other man approached her, walking slowly, with a limp in his left leg, Nimue’s anger bubbled deep inside of her, threatening to spill over. Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to confront the Earl, though she didn’t want to do so with words. She wanted to fight him, with a sword or with her bare fists, eager to give him a taste of his own medicine. Once again, she wished that she had the strength for it, but her father had never allowed her to train with a sword.

With a pained groan, the Laird sat down by her side, his hand reaching for his ribs. From up close, Nimue could hear just how labored his breathing was, and she realized that he was in more pain than he showed.

“What did he do to ye?” Nimue asked him. “Ye’re clearly hurt. I dinna ken what else to say to ye, how else to convince ye that the Earl is na the kind of man that ye should trust. How can ye na see it?”

“Nimue . . . I dinna trust the Earl,” her father admitted with a shake of his head. “I never trusted him. Weel . . . perhaps I did at first, but he’s shown me who he is noo.”

Nimue blinked in surprise a few times, turning to look at her father in the eye. Once again, she felt the pull of her anger deep in her chest, an anger that had been simmering slowly but was now ready to explode.

“Ye dinna trust him,” she said, more of a statement than a question. “Ye dinna trust him, and yet ye wish for me to marry him.”

Nimue was baffled. She couldn’t understand how her father, who had always claimed to love her and her siblings so much, who had convinced her that he loved the three of them more than anything in the world, was willing to hand her over to such a cruel man as the Earl, knowing that he couldn’t trust him.

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