WAKING AGAIN
Darkness. Black water. Blissful numbness.
Can I stay here?
The dark was so inviting. Here, there were no questions, no pain. Here she did not have to think about the future. No worries about marriage. No ache in her heart as it twisted with love for Dougal and the thoughts of its denial. No duty. No convention. Only black.
I want to stay.
No.
The voice came from the darkness. Joanna, hearing it, blinked.
Why not? Her mind asked. I want to. I feel safe here.
The darkness answered. Strangely, it spoke with Alina's voice.
You have much yet to do, daughter. Your life does not end here. Not in darkness. Rise. Go up to the light.
Joanna blinked. There was light there. It shone through the water, just above her head. Blinding and white, striking rainbows off the surface.
She paused. Out there, in the blinding light, were questions. There were demands. There was worry.
“Joanna?”
There was also love. Hearing that voice – his voice – reminded her. The light changed. Softened, became a beacon of love.
I'm coming back.
Whether she said it, or thought it, Joanna could not know. All she knew was that, the instant the intention rose in her, she shot upwards. Moving from the darkness, the numbing grip of the waters, the clinging blackness that sought to hold her, thick as tar against her skin, and up. Up. Towards the light.
She surfaced, gasping.
Her head hurt. A blinding, searing pain that made her close her eyes, tight shut. She could not feel her toes. She could smell the coppery wet scent of blood. Her arm was agonizing. She winced. She did not want to move.
“Joanna?”
Joanna opened her eyes.
She was looking into dark eyes and blue-green ones. She blinked. The eyes separated, became two pairs. One was Dougal. He was closer. His eyes, she noticed, were red-rimmed. He was exhausted. She thought he had new lines on his face. She reached out a hand to him. He took it.
“Thank Heavens.”
She squinted at the other eyes, feeling strength flow through her from his touch. They resolved, mistily, before her eyes, turning into another face that she knew well.
“Mother!”
She smiled. Amabel smiled back. Her delicate features rearranged, composing themselves into a damp-eyed picture of wonder.
“Daughter. You have returned to us.”
Joanna laughed. It hurt, and so she stopped. “Mother,” she said happily. “How are you here? How did you get to be here? When...”
“I fetched her from the inn,” a voice said. Dougal. It was raw, rusty, cracked with feeling. Joanna raised her eyes to his face and saw a face that was bleak and racked with pain. She drew in a shuddering breath as he continued.
“When you...when it seemed like...as if you were dying...I rode to the inn. I brought your mother back. She nursed you.”
“Though not so well without the help of a certain Father,” Amabel said. Joanna looked, blinking, to her left, where she could just make out the haze of Father Mallory's pale features, outlined with white light from the window behind him.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Not at all, daughter,” the priest's soft voice said. “The least I could do. Least any of us could do.”
“You are brave in a way that I have never seen,” Dougal said quietly. He sat down heavily by her bed, his hand stroking hers. “I cannot...I...”
He was weeping. Joanna stared, aghast, as she watched tears, gold in candlelight, slide down his weathered face.
She saw the two forms behind him slowly withdraw. Feet almost silent on the flagging, they walked out.
“Dougal,” she whispered, lifting her hand to stroke his hair. She recalled, too quickly, the reason her right arm was immobile. Clenched teeth holding back a sound of pain, she stopped it.
“Joanna. Don't,” he said softly. “I don't...I don't deserve it.”
“What?” Joanna was horrified. She sat up, heedless of the pain in her head, the red circles that suddenly appeared on the edge of her vision, blurring it. “Dougal? What in Heaven's name do you mean?”
“I mean it,” Dougal said, his voice miserable. “I let you...let you almost die. To save me. When I shouldn't have even been doing what I did. I could have killed you. For my stupid pride. I am wicked.”
“No,” Joanna said softly. “No, Dougal. You did the right thing. How else could you show Alexander he was wrong, and we knew it? If you had refused his challenge, he would have...” she felt herself grow tired, and drew in a great, shuddering breath, “would have said we lied. It would all have carried on. As it is,” she paused. “We may have stopped the troubles at Lochlann.”
She lay back against the headrest, feeling suddenly exhausted. She looked around the room, trying to work out where she was. Somewhere in the castle of Buccleigh, she knew. Her body was covered with a sheet of finest linen, her head pillowed on soft down. The room was whitewashed and tranquil, a fire burning in a distant hearth. It was the most beautiful room she had seen.
“We have,” Dougal said softly. “Alexander has left Scotland.”
“What?” Joanna covered her mouth with her left hand. It seemed almost too impossible to believe. “When? How...”
“He set sail last night. Or so his companion said. Alric. He tried to ride after him, make him see reason. However, Alexander would not return. Said he'd seek his fortunes abroad. He let him go.”
Joanna stared at him. Of all the endings to this part of the story, it was the most unexpected. It was also, if she thought about it, the best that could have happened. If Dougal had drawn first blood, Alexander might have walked away from this battle, but his hatred would have grown. He would never have stopped trying to hit back at Dougal to regain his standing. Nevertheless, Dougal could not have killed his own brother. He would not betray someone he loved. A legal solution would be as bad – bloody and ruthless. They would not have chosen to do that, either.
Joanna sighed. She knew this was the best thing that could have happened. And it had. She recalled Father Mallory's voice, heard it saying trust.
She had trusted. He was right.
All had worked out as it should do.
She sighed. Reached for Dougal's hand.
Everything was seamlessly resolved. So neat, as if the holes were stitched up, now, by an unseen hand. The villain was removed, the victor able to return to his place in peace. Lochlann would have its ruler. Everything would go back to as it should do.
Except one thing.
She bit her lip.
She might be healing on the surface, her arm no longer draining blood. However, she would leave her heart here. She would leave it in Buccleigh when she rode away, and that was a wound that would never heal. Unseen and silent, it would drain her blood a little every day, leaving her cold and lifeless within, even though without she was yet living.
“Dougal,” she whispered. She lifted her left hand, ran it down his fine dark hair. Looked into his eyes, her own eyes tight with her pain.
“What?”
“I...” she sighed. How could she put this into words? She did not want to add to his worry. “I...”
“What, dear?” Dougal asked. He lifted her hand to his lips. Kissed it. She winced.
She withdrew her hand, feeling the sob start to rise in her throat. She knew it was going to break inside her, spill out like a wave on the shore, that she could no longer hold this pain inside.
“You...” she whispered. “I...how can I leave here, Dougal?” she asked, voice cracked and weeping. “How can I leave here, ride away, go back to life as it was? I can't walk away. I love you too much.”
Dougal stared at her. His eyes were wide. He touched her hand and his own had a tremor, shaking with some deep feeling. He lifted her hand and kissed it. She did not move.
“Joanna,” he said. “My love. You do not have to leave. You never have to leave. You can stay here as long as you wish.”
“But...” she said, her heart aching. He didn't understand! She didn't want to stay here! That wasn't it. She wanted to marry him! To be his wife. “You don't understand.”
“What don't I understand?” he asked gently.
“Your...your father! Your responsibility. Your inheritance. You can't just...can't...won't walk away?”
Dougal smiled. The expression was so sweet, his eyes seemed alive, radiant with light. He kissed her hand again, and reached out, covering both her hands with his own. He looked at her.
“I do, Joanna,” he said softly. “I understand many things now. One of them is that life is too short. When you lay there, bleeding, I realized that...that there is nothing on this earth that can demand your heart. There is no worth, no price, no convention, that can give you what it takes, in taking that.” he let out a shuddering breath. “There is nothing that would dissuade me, now, from what I ask. Joanna, lady of Dunkeld, great-great niece of the late earl of Lochlann, would you take me?”
Joanna stared at him. She felt something melt inside her chest, a great thawing there, as if spring came to a land of frozen wastes.
She felt the sunlight fill her, growing, building, and flowing in her body. She laughed.
“Yes, Dougal, Lord of Buccleigh and earl of Lochlann. I will take you. For now and for always. Forever and ever. My hand in yours until my life is dust.”
He covered her hand with his own. Raised it to his lips.
“I think I am the luckiest man alive.”
She laughed.
He laughed.
The sun rose beyond the gauze-covered window and the room filled with light.