Chapter 25
He’d stopped sleeping. Ewan was used to not being able to sleep in the evening—those few nights with Deidre had been a pleasant surprise, though he hadn’t really believed they were permanent—but he’d always been able to find a few hours rest during the day. That was no longer true. Eight days had passed since she left, and for eight days he hadn’t slept.
Every time he closed his eyes, no matter the time of day, the nightmares came. Dreams of Deidre being shot. Dreams of Deidre slipping on the edge of the cliff, and not being strong enough to grab her. Dreams of Alastair with his hands on her body, choking her. Ewan dreamed of her mocking him, blaming him, shouting at him. He wished she would do it while he was awake.
If she’d still cared for him, they would have fought. Deidre would have called him names, probably thrown a few things, and told him exactly how he’d fouled up the entire rescue. Instead, she’d been silent. She’d stayed away. And then she’d left. She and Tristan had packed up their horses and ridden out of the front gates without looking back.
Every day, he came to the cliffs and stared into the ocean. He did it so he wouldn’t spend his days staring down the drive, hoping she would come riding back through the gates. Knowing he would miss her had not prepared him for the reality of her being gone. No more hearing her voice drift through the halls. Her scent didn’t linger in rooms she’d just left.
Ewan tortured himself wondering where she was and what she was doing. Was she safe? Was she happy? What if she ended up in trouble? He didn’t get to know anymore. He wasn’t in her life anymore.
Every day, he came to the cliffs and felt a little less whole.
***
The traveling was slow. Deidre’s wound was mostly healed, but they took their time to make sure she didn’t reinjure herself. Mostly. If a certain part of her secretly hoped Ewan would come racing after them and tell her he couldn’t live without her, well, she never claimed to be perfect. She’d managed to get on the road and away from Castle Broch Murdo. That, and not turning back, was all she was prepared to expect from herself at the moment.
“What’s the plan?” Tristan had asked after the second day. He’d come with her, but he hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words since they’d left.
Deidre was ashamed to admit how glad she was he’d come. Life would be more certain for him with Ewan. She should have made him stay, but it was nice to have him with her. Losing them both would have been too much.
“I thought I might try some honest work for a while.”
That raised his eyebrows. “Like what?”
“Tavern maybe? Perhaps work for some kind of merchant. I don’t know.”
“Dee, I’m not going to—”
Deidre laughed. “I’m not asking you to quit the life. This is something I’m doing for me.”
Knowing it would be just her calmed him down significantly. “You’re going to hate it. You know that, right?”
“Likely, but I need to try.”
“Why?” Tristan asked.
Deidre wasn’t sure how to explain what she’d been feeling, but she was willing to make the attempt if it would keep him talking to her.
“You cannot walk straight when the road is bent,” she said, using a saying their mother had been fond of. “I’m tired, Tris.”
“And you think going straight is going to help with that?” Tristan laughed.
“I’m just—” She struggled for the right words. “I’m tired of deceiving people.”
She didn’t want to lie anymore. It used to be fun, pretending to be someone new, getting away with things no one else could, but after a while never truly being known took a toll. She’d kept playing her roles, but she was just going through the motions to keep them fed. With Ewan, she’d let her guard down for the first time in a long time. Deidre hadn’t realized how much she’d needed to relax. How much she’d needed to be understood.
Then again, he couldn’t bear to be near her now. Maybe she was better off deceiving people.
“All right then. It’s a waste of your talents, but I’m game.” Tristan smiled at her with the grin that reminded her of their father. “You don’t mind if I run a bit of action on the side?”
“Be my guest. I just won’t be part of it.”
He nodded. “I wouldn’t mind seeing what I can put together on my own for a change.”
Deidre had a feeling he’d do just fine. “Exactly right. A bit of a change for both of us.”
Tristan laughed, stoking the fire and laying back to look at the stars. “Lady Dee, mild-mannered shop girl. I can see it now.”
“Who said anything about mild-mannered?” Deidre laughed.
“That’s the thing about going straight,” Travis told her. “You’ve got to put up with people, else you lose the job.”
Patience was not Deidre’s virture, but hopefully she could manage. “We’ll see.”
“I give it a week before you’ve brained somebody with a trencher.”
“If I do,” she said, lying back to watch the starts with him, “I will be fortunate enough to have my degenerate brother’s criminal exploits to keep me afloat.”
Tristan laughed again. “Oh, so that’s how it is, is it?”
“It’s a whole new world, Tristan,” she said. “You’ll get to take care of me for a change.”
There was silence from his side of the fire for a moment before he said, “It’s certainly my turn, isn’t it?”
She hadn’t meant to make him melancholy. “Tris—”
“You were right about Alastair,” he interrupted. “About most things, really, and maybe if I’d listened more, you and Ewan—”
It was her turn to interrupt. “If you’d listened more, Ewan and I would never have met.”
More silence. “Do you wish you hadn’t met him?”
Did she? It would certainly be easier if she’d never known what might have been. Castle Broch Murdo would always be there, like a beacon, tempting her with the future she could have had.
“No,” she said, and meant it. “Good moments are few and far between. I’ll take the ones that come my way, even knowing they won’t last.”
The stars twinkled above while the fire crackled beside them. Deidre felt a small bit of peace settle into place within her. She would keep the good moments, and leave the rest.
“Shame, though,” Tristan said, his tone joking. “We almost had a castle.”
Deidre laughed. “We almost did.”
***
Angus found him in the armory. There weren’t any weapons or armor in it now, just some chairs and a table where Deidre’s men liked to play cards. Darrow’s men, Ewan corrected. They weren’t Deidre’s anymore. She was gone.
The whiskey bottle sitting in the center of the table earned Ewan a raised eyebrow. “What are ye doing with that?”
“What do ye think?”
“Dinnae ken. It’s an odd thing for a man who’s never touched a drop to be staring at.”
“I’m considering broadening my horizons.”
Angus sat down in the chair opposite him. Silence stretched between them.
“What?” Ewan demanded.
Angus shrugged. “Nae a damn thing.”
More silence. Ewan stared at him. “Whatever yer going to say, just say it.”
“I’ll wait.”
“For?”
“My godson. He’s around here somewhere.”
Ewan didn’t want to play games with Angus. He just wanted to be left alone.
“Good lad, my godson,” Angus said. “Good head on his shoulders, which is a bloody miracle, all things considered. Sometimes, though—”
“I’m nae going to go after her. She deserves better than the likes of me.”
Deidre deserved someone who could keep her safe.
“Deserves? See, that’s the kind of softheaded notion my godson wouldnae stand for.”
“Angus—” Ewan warned.
“My godson, he went out and found the bonniest, meanest lass in all of Scotland and won her heart. He kenned well enough that no man deserves a woman worth having. The trick is to keep her from realizing it.”
“Well, he failed. She realized it and now she’s gone.”
“She dinnae leave him.” Angus glared at him across the table. “She left the daft bastard that took his place after my godson nearly killed himself saving her brother’s life.”
“It wouldnae have needed saving if he’d done a better job of taking care of things.” Losing patience, Ewan pulled the cork from the bottle.
Angus stopped speaking about him in the third person. “If ye drink that, the lass willnae be the only one leaving yer fool hide to rot here.”
“Never asked ye to come in the first place.” Ewan splashed amber liquid into his cup, willing himself to feel anything other than indifferent about it. He waited to see if Angus’s other Ewan would come rushing back with hope and a plan to redeem himself in Deidre’s eyes. There was nothing—just a gray void where the things he cared about used to be. He tipped the glass back and drank.
It burned. Ewan coughed as fire seared a path down his throat. His eyes watered. For a few, tenuous moments, he didn’t think about Deidre at all. He swallowed again.
“So be it.” Angus stood up, his chair scraping across the stones. “The devil can have ye, Ewan MacMurdo, because I’ll nae sit here and watch ye become yer father’s son.”
Ewan let him go. Angus didn’t understand. None of them did. If he didn’t let her go, he would be like his father. He couldn’t let her be hurt again because of him. A man was supposed to protect his woman and provide for her. Instead, he’d let her put herself in danger—not just with Alastair. He never should have agreed to the smuggling operation. Any manner of things could have happened to her. That would have been his fault as well.
It was inevitable that he would have failed her. Alastair was just the first to come to pass.
The door scraped again. Ewan didn’t bother looking up. “I’ll gladly take the devil over more of yer harping, Angus.”
“I’m nae here to lecture ye.”
Rose. Ewan clamped his teeth shut on the apology that tried to leave his lips. He’d failed her, too, perhaps more. Twice he’d left her behind, left her in danger, and twice she had to take a man’s life. It would be safer for her to leave him as well.
“What do ye want?” he growled.
“I thought ye might be hungry.”
“No.”
Her slippers rustled against the stone. “I also thought ye might like some company?”
“If I did, I certainly wouldnae want it to be ye.”
She went still and silent.
Ewan hardened his heart, forcing himself to do what had to be done. “A man never knows when he might find the bottom of a cliff or the wrong end of a fire poker when yer around.”
When he could trust himself to look up, he wished he hadn’t. Tears gathered in her eyes, threatening to fall. Hurt and confusion stared back at him. Ewan held his face impassive until she turned on her heel and fled. Once she was gone, he set his head down on the table and gave in to the misery.
***
Deidre delivered a trencher and two pints to the scarred oak table. Its occupant helped himself to a handful of her backside. Her elbow clipped him on the chin on her way past.
“Oi!” he shouted.
The innkeeper laughed. “I told ye, Danny. She doesnae like to be touched.”
It was a better place than most. The innkeeper’s wife wasn’t a jealous woman, likely due to the fact that her husband wasn’t the type to let his hands wander. He also didn’t mind if Deidre put those whose hands did in their place now and then, as long as she didn’t cause any permanent damage. In return, Deidre worked fast and well. She smiled at the patrons and used her talents to keep the pints flowing. It was a profitable relationship for them both.
Word had spread, and men had started coming from miles around to see if they could tame the wild, black-haired beauty working at the Drowning Duck. Deidre dropped a pint by Tristan’s table, where he had set up a healthy side business taking bets on who she might succumb to, and when.
“Don’t suppose you want to let hatchet-faced Harold have a go at you Tuesday next, do you?”
She cuffed him, lightly, upside the back of his head.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Tristan said. “I’m just saying—we’d make a killing.”
“You would make a killing,” Deidre corrected. “I would have to drown myself in the river.”
Tristan’s undoubtedly insolent reply was cut short as surprise lit his face. “Darrow?”
Deidre’s heart stopped. She turned, hoping and fearing at the same time.
Darrow was alone. He smiled, sliding into a seat next to Tris. “’Lo, Tris. ’Lo, Dee. Thought you might be the one I heard about. Is it all right that I’m here?”
Deidre didn’t miss the question under his words. “It’s not a job.”
“She’s gone straight.” Tristan still had a hard time believing it.
“I’m trying a different way,” she explained.
Tom seemed to understand. He nodded, before eyeballing the stack of coins and scribbled notes at Tris’s elbow.
“I’m sticking to what I know,” Tristan said with a grin.
Tom and Tristan devolved into a volley of jests and insults. Deidre took the opportunity to draw more pints and bring them around. While she poured, questions nagged at her. She tried to shove them down—how things were at Broch Murdo was no longer her concern. Neither was Ewan.
When she returned to their table, she asked the only question she had a right to. “What brings you down this way, Tom?”
“Just seemed like time to move on.” He shared a look with Tristan. It seemed they’d managed more than banter while she was gone.
“Tell me.”
Tom looked away. Tristan tried.
She pinned him with her stare. “Kaski san, Lasho?”
Whose are you?
He sighed. “Ewan’s scared everyone off. He’s drinking, being mean to Rose. They’ve all left him.”
Ewan was mean to Rose? Why would he do that? This whole time, Deidre had been feeling guilty, feeling like she’d gotten what she deserved for a lifetime of rottenness. She’d never been good enough for Ewan, and he’d finally realized it, that was all. Rose, though—Rose was his friend. She was Deidre’s friend, and she’d saved Deidre’s life. Ewan had no right to blame Rose for what she’d had to do, nor Tom. All they’d done was help solve a problem that wasn’t theirs to begin with.
Something fundamental inside Deidre shifted.
Tristan recognized it immediately. “Stand clear, Darrow. I think she’s done feeling sorry for herself.”
She most certainly was. In its absence, she discovered she was very, very angry.
***
Ewan stared into the fire, the now ever-present whiskey bottle in his hand. How long had it been? A fortnight? Two? He’d lost track. Ewan owed his cousin Gavan an apology. All these years, he’d never understood the lure of being drunk all the time. He knew now, though. When his mind wouldn’t quiet, when it wouldn’t stop running over things he couldn’t change, regrets he would never outrun, alcohol was remarkably effective at numbing the pain.
It couldn’t remove it and heaven forbid he let himself become sober—there’d been a day when he’d run out of whiskey, and that would never happen again—but numb was better than nothing. As long as it was all muffled behind the fog of intoxication, it wouldn’t consume him. That’s what he told himself anyway.
Breaking things had become a pastime of his. The room was littered with broken chairs and shattered crockery. He wasn’t proud of it, but there was no one here anymore to witness it. No one to judge. He could slip the leash off his temper, become exactly the sort of man he hated, and no one would get hurt. No one except himself.
He picked up a frame from the pile stacked on the floor. Darrow’s men had stripped the portrait galleries on Ewan’s orders, so he didn’t have to look at his illustrious ancestors as he walked the halls. Ewan’s grandfather and grandmother stared out from the canvas, about the age Ewan was now, with their hands on the shoulders of the boy who would become his father. All three stared joylessly out from the canvas. Ewan stared back at them.
Monsters, all of them. Generations upon generations of Broch Murdo monsters. Violent, cruel, weak. It was quite the legacy. Ewan held each canvas high, bringing it down against the fireplace mantel. The wood broke apart with a satisfying crack. He smashed them again and again, until the canvases hung in tatters with shards of frame dangling from the edges. When they were nothing more than heaps of battered cloth, he tossed them on the fire. The faces of the Broch Murdo line were distorted one by one as the paint bubbled and caught.
The last portrait in the stack stopped Ewan cold. It was the same as all the rest—a formal pose of two parents with their hands resting on the shoulder of a child sitting on a chair. The child was Ewan. He couldn’t have been more than three or four years old. The painter had been talented. He’d captured the deep shadows under his mother’s eyes, and her haunted look.
He hadn’t been able to save her. Ewan drained the rest of the bottle, trying to drown the thought under heavy swallows of whiskey. It refused to be quelled, resurfacing twice as strong. He hadn’t been able to save her. It was his fault she had died. If he hadn’t made his father angry, if he had just done as he was told . . . If he could have stopped the bleeding, set her ribs. He’d only been six years old, but it didn’t matter.
He was all she’d had, and he hadn’t been enough. Just like he hadn’t been enough for Deidre.
The stone room echoed with his shout as he tore the picture down the middle. It landed on top of the fire, feeding the image to the flames. Two monsters, and one innocent woman who had deserved so much better.