Twenty-Three
Near midmorning, they rode onto MacLean land. Bridgette had expected to feel a great sense of safety and urgency leaving her, but all she felt was empty and filthy in mind and body. She was aware that Marion kept eyeing her, and that fear that Marion could sense what had been done to Bridgette sprang up in her mind like a fast-growing weed and tangled around her heart, her throat, and her body until she felt the shame would kill her. She kicked her horse hard in the sides, leaving Marion behind and flying past Lachlan, noting his shocked, open-mouthed expression as she raced by. Ahead around the bend was a loch, and all she could think about was getting there and cleaning away the grime.
“Bridgette!” Lachlan called from behind her. But instead of making her want to stop and turn to him, it drove her to a panic that blanketed her.
She dismounted the horse with such haste she nearly fell, and then she ran, stumbling toward the water. At the edge, her legs gave and she dropped to her knees to wash her face, neck, hands, and arms. When she brought her hands to her face to splash the cold water on herself, she smelled Colin. She gagged, doubled over, and her stomach clenched and unclenched as it tried to rid itself of nothing. She hadn’t eaten in what felt like days.
She heard Lachlan approaching, knew it was him instinctively, but she did not turn around. She could feel his desire to touch her, soothe her, be with her, and it frightened her. How could she explain to him that she did not think she could ever let him touch her again? She stared down at the dark water as pain pulsed within her and threatened to consume her. How could she make him understand that the woman she had been was gone? She’d thought herself strong, but she’d been proven weak. She’d thought herself brave, but she knew now she was a coward because fear was all she now felt.
“Bridgette?” Lachlan’s voice was gentle, but instead of calming her it was like a dagger to her heart. She could no longer turn to the one man she loved, the man she had always wanted, because she was filthy. Perchance if she was not so filthy? She grasped at the hope, her mind swirling and careening with thoughts that did not make sense. She jerked to her feet, only just seeing that Marion and Neil had paused to wait for them. They had their backs to her, and Bridgette suddenly had the notion that they could not look upon her because of the wretched filth Colin had left.
“I must get clean,” she muttered, her heart seizing the truth even as her mind doubted. Yet she rose and divested herself of her tattered gown until she stood in only her léine, all the while ignoring Lachlan’s pleas to talk to her.
She entered the loch, and the icy water stole her breath and made her teeth immediately clank together. She welcomed the numbing cold and the inability to think that it provided. For a short spell, she stared at the gooseflesh on her arms, but the bumps faded and she saw Colin’s hands on her body. She started to scrub at her skin with desperation, half-aware that Lachlan had entered the loch, as well, and stood nearby watching her.
She could not look at him or acknowledge him until she was clean. The things Colin had done filled her mind and made her scrub harder. She looked down at her arms. Would she ever rid herself of the memories of his smell and touch? If she did, would she feel different then? Would she feel less cowardly? Less defeated? Would it enable her to allow Lachlan to touch her again?
She scrubbed until her skin burned, but every time she sniffed her arm or her hands, she still smelled him. She reached down into the water, brought up a handful of rocks and sand, and intended to use those to scrub herself, but Lachlan’s hands clamped around her wrist like a vise.
Bridgette glanced at Lachlan and blinked. She knew it was him she was looking at, but she saw Colin instead. She squeezed her eyes shut, shook her head, and opened them again, letting out a relieved cry when she saw Lachlan’s face and the concern in his eyes.
Lachlan had been uncertain if he should stop Bridgette, but he sensed she had to do this. Yet when she gathered the rocks to scrub at her already-raw skin, fear seized his heart. He grabbed her by the wrist, careful to avoid her wound, and shook the rocks out of her hands. When she struggled against him, he brought her flush against his chest, her freezing skin making him suck in a breath. He secured her hands behind her back where he held them firmly while trying not to hurt her.
“Ye must nae scrub anymore. Yer skin is raw.”
“Release me!” she howled, her terror-filled cry like a thousand fatal gashes to his heart.
Tears stung his eyes as he looked down at her fearful face. “I will,” he said in a gentle voice. “But ye must give me yer vow to come out of the loch and cease yer scrubbing.”
“I’m nae clean!” she wailed. “I’m nae clean! I kinnae get his smell off my skin!”
There were a hundred ways he was going to torture Colin. Lachlan inhaled a ragged breath. “Ye will scrape off yer skin. Do ye wish for that?”
For a long moment, she said nothing, and then a sob escaped her lips and she crumpled into him, all her weight coming into his hands as her head fell against his chest. Her hot tears wet his skin and made the tears in his own eyes roll down his face. He released her arms and gathered her up as he lifted her out of the water and carried her to the embankment.
When he set her on her feet, she stood there looking through him, teeth chattering, skin prickled with gooseflesh. He wanted to put a soothing hand to her, but he feared he would make things worse. Finally, her eyes locked with his and the complete desolation in them seared his heart.
“I have been shattered into a thousand pieces,” she said in a choked voice. “I dunnae ken that I can find them all to make myself whole again.”
“I will find them for ye,” he vowed. “I will help ye become yerself once more. Together we will make ye whole.”
“I dunnae think I can let ye.”
He took great comfort in the fact that she had not simply refused him. “In time ye will. And I will wait. I will wait as long as it takes.”
She looked at him with those bleak eyes that nearly sent him to his knees. “What choices could I have made differently? I tried to stop the seer’s prophecy, but it all came true anyway.”
He wanted to howl his agony and anger. “Be damned the seer,” he hissed. He would never heed a seer again as long as he lived. The seer could only see the future in the moment she touched a person, and their future had changed in a way the seer had never predicted. Damn her to Hell. And damn him for not demanding Bridgette marry him as he had wanted. He had let her convince him to wait out of guilt over Graham. But they loved each other. They had not done wrong by loving each other. What they had done wrong was trying to deny a thing so true and so pure.
Bridgette’s eyes widened and her mouth parted. Slowly, she leaned down, grasped her gown, and tugged it on. When she was dressed, she faced him. She was so near, yet she could have been a thousand miles gone for how far away she seemed. He didn’t want to leave her, but he had to go now and try to save Graham and Lena.
“Now that we are on MacLean land, I must away to rescue Graham and Lena.” He tried to swallow the fear that clenched his gut. “If they still live…”
She nodded. “As ye should.”
He sighed at the lack of emotion in her tone. It worried him more than the outburst. “Neil will take ye to yer brother’s home”—he was careful not to call it hers, as he wanted to let her know in a gentle way that he still intended for his home to be hers—“at Duart Castle, and I’ll come for ye after I have Graham and Lena, and then we will go together to Dunvegan…back to our home.”
When she opened her mouth, he prepared himself for her to refute his words, but instead, she quickly told him where Colin’s bedchamber was—as best she could remember—and where Lena’s bedchamber was, too. Then she told him that his uncle Jamie and the Campbell had left for a meeting directly after Colin had married her. That explained why the castle had not been heavily guarded.
She swallowed audibly. “Colin was to make haste to the meeting, as well, so he may be away.” She bit her lip hard before speaking again. “Lena seemed to have good knowledge of the castle and can likely help ye locate Graham if he lives and was taken. Godspeed, Lachlan. My love is with ye. Always.”
Relief poured through him that she would speak of her love to him. “And ye take mine with ye, Bridgette. It will nae ever falter.”
With that, he forced himself to turn and go speak to Neil, who he quickly instructed to see Bridgette and Marion to safety and then ride straight to Dunvegan with the Fairy Flag and the news of what had occured. When Lachlan mounted his horse and rode away, he looked back over his shoulder and lifted his hand in parting to Bridgette, Neil, and Marion, who all stood watching him.
He set a fast pace back toward Arthorn Castle, formulating a plan of rescue, attack, and revenge. Once he was satisfied, he turned his thoughts first to Lena. A dull ache spread in his chest. Lena was alive? He could hardly believe it. He was not sure he would truly accept it until he saw her for himself. He then allowed himself to contemplate what had happened to Bridgette. He could not lose her. He would not. She had stolen his heart and taken his soul. There was no living without her. Whatever came, whatever wounds left scars that changed her, he would gladly accept them all if he could just be with her.
Tears filled her eyes and her throat tightened with the need to cry as she stood by Marion and Neil and watched Lachlan leave. He stopped mid-stride and glanced back at where she stood. Her heart raced when their eyes met and locked, even at this distance. She should turn away, not give him hope that was not there, yet her feet would not budge. She drank in the sight of him. He had his sword and bow and arrows strapped to his back, and she could see a multitude of daggers in different sheaths upon his body.
He was truly a formidable warrior. His broad shoulders bespoke of strength, along with his powerful arms and legs. Her heart swelled with love but then wrenched with fear at the thought of his touch. He mounted his destrier and started away, but then he turned and raised his hand in farewell. She had thought she could not long to be out of her own skin more than she had the moment Colin had touched her, but now she longed to be out of her body and mind with a desperation that grew with every beat of her heart. Marion and Neil returned Lachlan’s farewell by raising their hands, but Bridgette simply stood there. She thought she saw Lachlan tense, and she bit down on her lip at the pain she knew she was causing him and at the certainty that she would cause him more.
As he disappeared, a shudder passed through her, and a sudden overwhelming need to inhale his scent and feel the heat that wafted from his body rose within her. Yet cold fear edged the need and won. She turned away and found Marion staring at her with sad eyes. Neil had moved ahead, and Bridgette realized with a start that she had not even noticed.
“Lachlan loves you,” Marion said simply.
Bridgette nodded. “And I love him…but love is nae always enough. I am nae the woman he fell in love with.”
“Give yourself time,” Marion pleaded, tears pooling in her eyes.
“I dunnae think time will heal me, Marion.”
Marion shook her head. “You cannot know yet. And even if it didn’t, it would not matter to Lachlan!”
Bridgette stared at Marion. Her friend’s refusal to accept what Bridgette was telling her made Bridgette aware she was going to have to flee her new home and the people who loved her—including Lachlan—because he would never be able to release her. He loved her that much.
A desperate look came to Marion’s face, as if she knew Bridgette was slipping away. “Would it matter to you if Lachlan had been so grievously hurt that it greatly changed him? Would you love him less?”
“Ye ken well I’d nae love him less. But the way in which I’ve been changed does matter! I kinnae stand his touch! What sort of marriage would that make, even if there could be a marriage? I may carry another man’s bairn! I kinnae, I will nae ask Lachlan to accept that.”
Marion opened her mouth to argue, and Bridgette shook her head. “Cease this, Marion, I beg of ye. I dunnae wish to part angry after we arrive at Duart.”
“Part? I’ll stay with ye there until Lachlan and Graham return. Ye heard what Lachlan said.”
“I am leaving Duart,” Bridgette said quietly.
“What?” Marion gasped. “Where are you going? You cannot depart! Lachlan will come here for you!”
“I ken it, but what if Colin escapes Lachlan? I kinnae ever be Lachlan’s wife when I am the wife of another, even if there was nae something wrong with me now. Nay, I must away to somewhere he will nae ever find me.”
“Where?” Marion demanded.
“I ken a place, but I’ll nae say,” Bridgette said gently. “Ye’d tell him, and he’d come for me if he kenned where to go. I fear it would kill me to turn him away. ’Tis better ye dunnae ken where I’m going.”
Marion clucked her tongue. “How do you think he’ll feel when he returns to find you gone?”
Bridgette’s stomach clenched. “Astounded. Angry. Hurt. But ’tis for the best.” She paused. “I want ye to do me a favor.”
Marion nodded as she sniffed. “Anything.”
“Tell him I’m sorry, aye? Tell him I’ll always remember the day in the forest when he first kissed me and I fell in love with him.”
“Oh, Bridgette!” Marion sobbed, but Bridgette turned away from Marion and did not embrace her as she normally would have.
They made their way, the three of them, through the afternoon across MacLean land and finally arrived at Duart Castle near nightfall. After greeting her clansmen and women, ensuring that Marion was cared for, and seeing Neil off with five of her brother’s men to ride for Dunvegan with the Fairy Flag, Bridgette called five of Alex’s most trusted guardsmen to her and told them of her wishes to have them accompany her to Culdrich Castle.
It was the perfect place to live her life in seclusion. They rarely used the remote castle, though it had been in their family for ages, and now it would be her home. She was not so brave anymore to make the journey alone, however, and she feared her brother would never stop looking for her if she simply disappeared. She feared the same of Lachlan, of course, so once she had finished speaking to her clansmen, she sat and wrote a note to Alex, telling him what had happened—without giving all the horrible details—and beseeching him on their mother’s grave not to tell Lachlan where she had gone. She made it perfectly clear that her choice was now to remain alone, even if Colin was killed and Lachlan wished to marry her. She didn’t doubt Alex would come to try to talk her into returning, but she felt sure she could make him understand. And if she could not, she would simply have to find somewhere else to flee. She hoped it did not come to that, though.
She folded the note carefully and then took it to one of the servant boys, Alfred, and gave him specific instructions to give it to no one but Alex, no matter what may occur. Alfred adored her so she felt certain he would do as she said.
Then very late that night when she was sure most of the castle inhabitants were slumbering—particularly Marion, who Bridgette suspected would refuse to let Bridgette go—she met her brother’s guardsmen where she had instructed them to wait for her and she fled into the night, leaving all her hopes and dreams behind her.