A Storm of Passion (19 page)

An t-Eilean Muile (Isle of Mull), five months later

T
he voyage around past Skye and the lands of Lorn was much different from the last one she took to reach Mull. That one was carried out in secret, as she hid her intentions and her identity, and this one was in a well-made boat sailed by experienced men hired to see her…home.

When Connor had died, she’d thought her life was over. Waking from the concoction given to her by Breac, she found herself well away from Diarmid’s keep and his lands. His last orders to Breac, before giving him his freedom, were to take Moira to safety and give her her life back. Breac gave her Connor’s last words and a chest of his gold to ease her way.

And it had.

For the first time, she controlled her life.

It took weeks for the grief to lessen enough for her to think about a future. Then it took more to figure out how to find out if his last vision had been true. Her heart ached when she tracked down the truth and found she’d been wrong to doubt him or his love in the end.

The sun came out from behind the clouds now, and the sea breezes carried the boat along the coast, south toward Mull and Connor’s farm. Well, as Breac had explained, it was Pol and Dara’s farm now, given to them on his death. He’d told her that there would always be a place for her there if she did not find what she was seeking in the north of Scotland.

The wind tugged her hood, and she let it drop to her shoulders so she could enjoy the warm weather of this spring day. No one would know her now, for she’d used the juice of some berries to darken her hair and she used her real name once more.

Moira of Quinag.

One of the sailors called out to her, and she turned to watch them approach the small, wooden dock. If she closed her eyes, she could remember leaving this place to go back to Diarmid’s keep, to face her certain death and the wrath of the Seer. Instead she’d discovered a man imprisoned by the terrible power that controlled him.

And now she’d found a reason to live in spite of his death.

The boat bumped up against the dock, and one of the men climbed out, tying the boat to a spike there. When it was secured, he helped her out of the boat. Walking onto the shore, she watched as the cart came over the hill to fetch her.

Standing there, she tried not to think too much, but memories flooded back at her. Somehow she’d thought it would be easier than this to return to his lands. Wiping away the tears, she walked up to greet Pol as he pulled the cart to a stop before her. He jumped down and came around to greet her.

“Dara is glad that you decided to visit,” he said, nodding to the men who stood waiting at the boat. “Secure the boat and use the horses to come to the farm,” he called out to them.

Several horses and another cart were always kept here for use in traveling back and forth to the farm some miles away through the coastal hills. She had already explained it to the men when she hired them, asking them to stay at the farm for a few days while she made her decision. Pol helped her into the cart, her bags were tossed in the back, and soon they had crossed through the first line of hills along the path that would take her…home.

She’d known she made the right decision when she stepped off the boat, but she wanted to speak to Dara first and make certain of her plans. Somehow bearing Connor’s child and raising him or her among the people he loved seemed the right thing to do. They would keep his name and memory alive and teach her son or daughter about the father he would never know, just as she would teach him about her family.

They would remain alive in the memories and hearts of those who loved them forever. Her only regret was never having the chance to recognize that she loved Connor or to tell him of her love before he died. If only she had realized what he was doing and the price he would pay. If only…

She wiped more tears away. It seemed all she did lately was cry, but according to one midwife she’d spoken to, that was to be expected in a woman carrying.

Moira did not speak much along the way, and Pol must have realized there was little she could say then. They rode in companionable silence, the miles flowing by quickly. By midmorning, the farm came into view, and she straightened on the seat, watching it grow closer and closer. When they reached the house, several people stood waiting for her.

Breac and Agnes and Dara.

Pol helped her down, and Dara reached her first, throwing her arms around her and hugging her. The thickening waist and stomach between them was noticed quickly.

“It cannot be,” Dara exclaimed. “Yer carrying?” Dara looked at her closely, rubbing her hand over Moira’s stomach as though she could tell something by the size or shape of the growing bump there. “’Tis Connor’s?” she asked in a whisper, before the others came close.

“Aye,” she said with a teary smile. “’Twould appear that neither of us was barren after all.”

From the symptoms and what she remembered, she could only think that it had happened that last, magical time that they made love. It had been different from every other time they joined, in some way she could not say and she was sure that this bairn was the result of it. She’d not known for some months, and then she’d refused to believe it for she’d never been caught before in all those times and all those years.

But, that last time they loved…it had been a true joining of bodies and souls, and somehow the fates, or the Fae—she knew not which—had granted her this piece of Connor to keep with her. She rubbed her hand there and was gifted with a flutter of movement beneath her palm.

Breac and Agnes reached them, and Dara shared the news with them. Agnes stood quietly at her side, touching Moira’s belly and smiling at her as though she always knew it would happen. Breac, well, he tried to say something, but would end up just shaking his head at her, stunned into silence by the news.

“Are ye feeling well, Moira?” Dara asked as they walked toward the house. “Any of the sickness or dizziness?”

“I am well, Dara. Strong as an ox and just as stubborn, I think,” she said.

“Will ye be staying here then?”

They reached the gate to the house, but Moira was not ready to go inside yet. Now that she was here, more than anything she wanted to visit a place Connor had spoken of those months ago. A meadow where he’d promised her he would perform every sort of wicked delight for her pleasure. She smiled even now, just thinking about the place.

“I think so,” she said, with a nod. “I think it would please him to have his child born here.”

Dara turned away then, as though unable to speak of Connor, but she grabbed Moira’s hand and squeezed it tightly.

“Connor told me of a meadow near the sea. Is it close enough for a walk?” she asked.

Dara looked past her to Breac and Agnes before answering her. “’Tis a fine day for a walk and ’tis not too far or hard to find.”

Within a few minutes, with a skin of watered wine and a sack filled with bread and cheese, Moira headed up the path toward the place Connor had promised to bring her on a fine spring day. She did not fight the tears then, but let them flow as they seemed wont to do. The mile or so along the path took little time, and she followed Dara’s directions off the path, through the trees to the meadow.

She held her breath as she passed the stand of trees that separated the path from her destination, and the view of it was well worth the effort to get here. Already the warming temperatures hastened the growing season here and covered the field with a mix of soft grass and spring flowers. Turning to see if he’d told her the truth, she spied the hill that he had claimed was an entrance to the land of the Sith.

The small rise was just as he’d described, and she began walking toward it. He’d claimed that much as he would like to tup her here on the soft meadow grass, with the flowers all around them and the sun shining down to warm her naked skin, he could not, for fear that the Sith would come out of their burrow and steal her away to their lands.

They had driven each other to madness with words that day, but now seeing it as he’d said it would be made her heart heal a bit. She thought she heard soft laughter as she passed on her way to look out at the sea, but she could see no one around in the meadow. She was walking toward the sea when she saw someone, a man, sitting nearer the edge of the cliff.

Dara had not spoken of anyone else being here, so Moira called out to the man, who sat on a rock with his face turned toward the sun, much as she liked to do on such a day.

“Sir?” she called as she walked closer. “I do not mean to disturb you. Dara did not…” She stopped then, as he lowered his head.

With the distance still between them and his face yet turned away, Moira had the feeling she’d met him before. Mayhap another unfortunate victim of Diarmid’s cruelty taken in by Connor? She stopped and spoke again.

“My name is…”

“Moira.”

Her body reacted before her mind did, for how could someone explain speaking to the dead except that her mind had fled? Her hands trembled, and her body shook as it recognized the voice.

“Moira? Speak to me,” the man said.

It could not be. It could not…be.

She was running before she knew it, and she screamed out his name. “Connor! Connor!”

He turned then, and she saw the face of the man she loved, the father of her bairn. She reached him and stopped directly before him, waiting for him to look at her. But when he did look in her direction, it was with eyes that were empty and unseeing.

He was blind.

The air around her felt heavy upon her, and her senses began to spin until she could feel herself falling. Grabbing his cloak, she tried to stay on her feet, but the shock of seeing him, seeing him alive, overwhelmed her and she lost the battle, sinking into a faint at his feet.

The first thing she noticed was the sound of the ocean pounding against a nearby shore. Then she felt the strong arms around her, holding her tightly against an even stronger body.

A body that breathed and a heart that beat.

Moira opened her eyes and found herself on Connor’s lap and in his embrace. She reached up and cupped his cheek in her hand.

“You are alive? How can that be?”

If she was dreaming, she did not want to wake from it, for there were words that needed saying between them. In the moment when he died and she was overwhelmed by the truth of her father’s treachery, she’d hated him for revealing it to her. And that bitter moment had haunted her these last months when the depth of her love became so clear.

“You were dead—I felt your chest. Your heart stopped beating.” And she cried. The tears came out in a torrent, and the questions also, flooded out in a stream as she tried to understand. “How did you live? How did you escape from Diarmid?”

He reached up and put his finger to her lips, shushing her. His lips warmed her skin as he touched them to her forehead, and she fought the urge to simply lie back in his arms and forget the last time she’d seen him. Pushing against his chest, she leaned back and searched his face. She spoke his name softly now, still not believing that he was real and not imaginary.

“Connor,” she whispered, clutching his shoulders and breathing in his scent. “They announced your death. They blamed it on me. If you lived, why did you not summon me to your side?”

He took her face in his hands, drew her close, and kissed her until she stopped trying to talk. When he lifted his mouth from hers, he explained the plans he’d set in place in case his worst fear was realized.

“I told you of my fears, Moira. I knew the power would end in my death and made arrangements to get you out safely,” he whispered, never pausing in kissing her face as he spoke. “I gave you my word that you would be safe and swore Breac to the task.” He leaned away then. “I could not risk telling you about it. Diarmid shows no mercy to those who defy him.”

Moira trembled then, her body and soul remembering the cost of her own defiance against Diarmid’s plans. Connor held her closer.

“I know how Breac got me away—he told me the whole of it when I woke miles and hours away from Mull. But tell me how you survived that vision. How is it that you still live?” she asked, letting the strength of his arms surround her. “How can it be?”

“Breac returned once he had smuggled you out and got Diarmid’s permission to bury me here on my lands. As he was wrapping a tarp around me, I woke.” A sad smile touched his face. “I could not explain how I lived; I only knew that my sight was gone. My eyes,” he rubbed them then, “see nothing.”

“Maybe in time?” she asked, thinking on how his sight would return after his visions. “Do they pain you?”

Moira reached up to touch his eyes then, but stopped. They were open, but never focused on her. The green coloring was gone, replaced by a white, hazy layer that showed no sign of changing back to what it was.

“Nay, no pain now. Only a piercing cold and darkness,” he said. “I did not send for you because I did not want to tie you to a blind man. Your life had been stolen away from you because of me, and I wanted you to have a chance at a new one without the burden of my care.”

“You are alive, Connor—that is all I could ever have wanted. Alive! Power or not, sight or not, alive.” She shook her head at his words, but realized he could not see her gesture.

“Do you remember the time after your heart stopped? How did you make it begin anew?” she asked, sliding from his embrace to stand before him. Laying her hand on his chest, she felt the strong pulsing of his heart, pushing blood through his veins and giving him life. “How is it that you live?”

Connor smiled then and shook his head. “I know not, Moira. I only know that I felt the last beat and fell into the darkness and then later my heart beat again and I woke. I know not if it was part of the Fae gift or curse or something else.” He reached out his hand, and she guided it to her face. “I wonder if I was really dead or simply deeply unconscious.”

“Nay,” she said, shaking her head. “I felt your chest. There was no breath there and no heart beating. I watched you die…”

She could not help the way her own breathing hitched as she spoke of it. The terror and horror of witnessing it flowed once more through her. And the regrets with it.