Page 64 of Beyond Dreams

“He’ll have questions,” Graeme had presumed, his voice tight, pushing her ahead of him into the bedchamber, “and thus, you might have another chance to plead your case.”

That was all he’d said before closing the door on her.

She’d winced when the bolt on the outside of the door was slid into place.

That had been more than an hour ago. Since then, she’d managed to terrify herself with what might come next. What would be the punishment for having deceived the laird of Thallane? She could find little hope in any of the possibilities that assailed her. Even the tamest of them all, banishing her from Thallane, sending her off on her own, was imagined with dread. How the hell could she survive alone in this wild land, among so many ruthless people?

And so much for her most recent musings, that she would eventually tell the truth, but that she and Duncan’s fledgling relationship could withstand the dishonest beginning, having since forged a bond borne of mutual attraction and fascination, respect, and a genuine, growing fondness for each other. How ignorant she’d been! Possibly, Duncan’s attentive nature of late was only a means to have a willing wife in his bed, rather at his beck and call. Possibly, he wasn’t capable of any emotion greater than that.

She wasn’t sure how she’d been so wrong about him. They were not going to be all right. He would not let them be. The way Duncan had looked at her just before and certainly after he’d read her short note to Sidheag had been horrifying. His emerald eyes had been so alive with revulsion, the reversal from the twinkle he’d shown her moments before a shocking thing to behold.

After a while, Holly sat down on the side of the bed, falling backwards with a groan, her arms flung over her head in surrender. For so many reasons, she’d been a fool to think that she and Duncan had any chance at a future together. Not least of all, her own want to be swept forward in time, home. It didn’t make his present unmistakable loathing of her any more palatable, knowing that given the chance at any time over the past week, she would have jumped at the opportunity to return to the twenty-first century. Odious time-travel business aside, she’d been living in her own fantasy land, wearing blinders to everything that was wrong, how precarious was her situation and their budding union, all built on the shifting sands of lies.

She would have gone back home in a heartbeat, given the chance. Wouldn’t she have? Hard to say now, with so much of her own animosity brewing. Duncan’s treatment of her, while not wholly unwarranted, had been so much more severe than she could have ever imagined. There was no genuine feeling there, she guessed—there couldn’t be, not with the way he’d turned on her.

While an idea floated around in her head—if only he’d listen to me, let me explain—Holly realized the chances of the truth swaying him toward forgiveness, toward anything even close, was remote. The truth would certainly not set her free.

And yet, as unbelievable as it was, it was all she had.

Frankly, at this point, she had nothing to lose.

No tray was delivered to her around the supper hour, which came as no surprise. She imagined the hall teeming with people, tongues wagging, and accusations flying. She pictured Doirin sitting proudly, gleefully beside Duncan, having no care that her little plot to expose Holly likely didn’t benefit her at all; she only wanted to be right, to see Holly evicted from whatever tiny claim she’d staked inside hearts and minds over the past week. Doirin might believe she would be looked upon with favor, but Holly had a suspicion that Duncan’s dislike of his stepmother would not be positively altered for having revealed him as the dupe of the MacHeths.

After a while, Holly lit her own fire, something she’d learned over the last week, using the flint and steel that always sat upon the mantle, and for a while sat crossed legged on the floor there near the hearth. Sadly, the warmth of the blaze did little to remedy the icy chill inside her. Eventually, with night falling, she crawled into bed and cried herself to sleep.

She was awakened by the thud of the door closing and bolted upright to find that Duncan had come, had shut the door behind him. She froze, the fogginess of sleep dissipating instantly.

He didn’t only look angry still, he looked merciless. None of the fleeting vulnerability she’d glimpsed inside his shock earlier was evident now. His gaze was returned to what it had been when first they’d met—little of which she’d seen over the last week—to that perpetually narrowed glare, judging, looking to find fault. The green of his eyes was black now, enveloped in a merciless indifference that advised he hadn’t come to understand, or with any want to fix anything. His presence here had nothing to do with them, with him and her. If he had felt anything at all for her, it was gone. He’d stricken her from the record of his mind.

A mournfulness clenched at Holly’s chest. She hadn’t meant anything to him, nothing at all.

He stood with his back to the door, in fact with one hand behind his back as if he held the handle and might exit at any time. He said only one word.

“Why?”

Holly moved her legs over the side of the bed, meaning to stand up and face him squarely, to be less vulnerable.

“Do nae come near me,” he said to her.

Honestly, his quiet fury was so much more frightening than his earlier, furious eruption.

So she sat on the edge of the bed, her bare feet on the cold wood floor, her shoulders slumped with some belief that it didn’t matter what she said. He would forever hate her as he did now.

She began with a solemn sigh and what was most pressing in her mind. “I wanted to tell you, Duncan. I was going to tell you—and soon—but I didn’t know—”

“Why did you pretend to be Ceri MacHeth?” He cut her off, his voice a hammer, pounding out one word at a time.

Staring at his chest and not his callous gaze, she told him the tale as she understood it. “Apparently, Ceri MacHeth died. She had an accident, I guess,” she said, her voice flat, emotionless. “I think it was very recently, shortly before the wedding.”

“And what did Black Hugh hope to gain? What is he planning?”

“Planning?” She repeated, confused. Until she recalled that the entire reason behind the MacQuillan/MacHeth wedding was to promote peace. “Duncan, I don’t think they have anything planned. Hugh just wanted to uphold his end of the contract.” She scrunched her shoulders briefly. “But I don’t know that for sure. It wasn’t like I was privy to all that went on there at Hewgill House. But that was my impression.” Regrettably, she didn’t think she’d gain any ground with him for telling the absolute truth. Still, she would lie no more.

“You are kin to MacHeth?”

“No. I’d never met them...any of them, until a few days before the wedding.” She curled her fingers around the bed rail beside her legs, her knuckles white.

“What did they promise you? How much coin did you earn for playing their game?”

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