Moon Craving (24 page)

"As he should have done." But Talorc gave the smaller pile of furs a less-than-pleasant look.

Hoping out of sight would result in out of mind, Abigail gathered the furs and made to put them back on her and Talorc's bed.

Talorc grabbed her arm. "Don't."

"Why not?"

"I will not sleep in a bed with another man's scent."

Oh, brother. "Are you trying to tell me you think you can smell Guaire on our blankets?" Superior warrior or not, that was just plain crazy.

"I can. I will provide more furs for our bed. Until then, we will do without."

"Why not? It is not as if we make do without a real bed to begin with. What is a little more discomfort?" she grumbled under her breath as she squatted to roll the furs in a neatened bundle on the floor.

When she straightened, Talorc was frowning even more fiercely at her. "You do not find our bed adequate?"

"It's not a bed. It's a pile of furs," she insisted stubbornly, and then realized how irrational she was being. Right now was not the time to discuss their sleeping accommodations.

"Never mind. As long as we share them, the furs are more than adequate."

A flash of something like regret showed in his eyes. "I did not intend to sleep in the great hall last night."

That was good to know anyway, though she was not sure what it meant in light of what he had said the night before.

Focusing on the mundane rather than issues with the power to shred her newfound happiness, she lifted the bed-roll. "What do you want me to do with these?"

"I do not care."

She set it in the corner. "Fine." She would give the furs to Guaire later. No doubt he could make use of the soft, luxurious pelts.

"Why did you deceive me?" The smell of whiskey still clinging to him and his plaid showing evidence that he had slept in it, Talorc leaned back against the door.

For all that, he was still the most handsome man she had ever seen. It was a wonder she ever had any breath in her the way it escaped at the very sight of him. But now was not the time to dwell on how attractive she found her laird husband.

She opened her mouth but did not speak. She had to tell him the whole truth. She would never again lie to him, through word or deed. Only she was pretty sure the truth would not help her case.

"You are the one who said you wanted to talk." Back to belligerence, he glared accusingly at her.

And she was sure it was only going to get worse.

"In the beginning, I knew that if I told you of my affliction, you would refuse to marry me."

"You knew this how?"

"No man wants a flawed bride."

"Everyone has flaws."

"Are you trying to imply you would have married me regardless of my infirmity?"

He shrugged. "To perpetuate your deception, you had to want to marry me. Why?"

Funny how he did not simply assume it was because every woman was supposed to aspire to the married state. The abbess would approve of Talorc's intelligence, Abigail thought. "Marriage to you would bring me to the Highlands. I hoped that once you discovered my secret, you would send me to live with Emily, rather than back to England."

"You married me to be reunited with your sister."

He was smart. She'd always known that.

"Yes."

"Why not simply go to live with her? Your mother did not seem enamored of your presence."

That was putting it mildly. "Sybil wanted a more permanent solution to my presence in her home."

"Bitch."

Abigail flinched, not sure if he meant Sybil or her.

"I told you I would not apologize for saying such. Your mother has stone for a heart."

"Only when it comes to me."

"Why?"

"Why do you think?"

"If I knew I would not ask."

"Because I am damaged. There is no place for me in her life." Just as Talorc had said there was no place for Abigail among his clan now.

Even now, hours later, those words sliced through her like a dagger.

He said a word she did not know. She didn't ask him to translate because she was fairly certain she didn't want to know it either.

"If your plan was to get me to bring you to the Highlands and then reject you for your weakness so I would send you to live with your sister—which was a hopelessly flawed plan, by the by—why did you not tell me the truth once we reached my fortress?"

This discussion had gone better than she could have hoped and the fact that he was still asking questions gave Abigail a sliver of hope. Just enough to prick at her though, not enough to truly lift her spirits. "By the time we had reached the Sinclair holding, I knew I did not want to leave you."

"You continued to deceive me with the hopes of staying with me?" he asked as if to clarify. "You were so certain that revealing your secret would result in my rejection of you?"

"Yes." To both.

He did not react to that admission in any way.

When the silence between them had stretched the point of pain, she asked, "What will you do with me now?"

"Are you still hoping to be sent to live among the Balmoral?"

"No." Hadn't she just confirmed she wanted to stay with him?

He looked at her with bad-tempered demand.

If he wanted it spelled out, then spell it out she would. "I want to stay here, as your wife, if you will have me."

"Why?"

"I love you. I told you that yesterday."

"You could have been lying."

Her broken heart shattered a little more. "I wasn't."

"Have you lied to me about anything else?"

"No, but I have hidden something from you."

"What?"

"I began hearing a voice in my head. I like to think it is you, but it can't be anything except my imagination. I do not hear anything else. Well, besides the one night I heard the howl of a wolf."

"Is that all?"

"Yes."

He nodded and then turned to go, as if all had been settled between them.

"Doesn't that worry you?" she asked desperately. "The voices in my head?"

"No."

Was that because he intended to get rid of her? "Are you going to send me away?"

"You are my wife."

She had no reply for that, and before she could conjure one up, he had gone.

Talorc ran through the forest in his wolf form. He had swum in the loch to clear his whiskey-addled head, but it had done nothing to dispel his confusion in light of his wife's revelations.

She had deceived him just as Tamara had deceived his father. Only his father had realized his wife's true nature too late. Talorc was now all too aware of Abigail's clever manipulations, but he had no desire to banish her.

The problem was that, like his soldiers, he admired his wife's ability to hide her weakness. He could not help feeling proud that she was so talented at reading lips and speaking, no one had guessed at the fact she could not hear. The admiration he felt was at odds with the sense of betrayal choking his insides, and yet he could not rid himself of it.

No more than he could rid himself of the desire, no—
the need
—to keep his wife. Not that he had much of a choice. Were he to banish Abigail from the Sinclair holding, he banished any hope of children to carry his Chrechte lineage along with her. As a true-mated Chrechte, he was not physically capable of engaging in the mating act with anyone but Abigail. At least, until that mating was severed through death, or a betrayal so great, even his wolf spirit would reject her.

Apparently, his wolf was not bothered by Abigail's perfidy. He felt as possessive and protective toward her as ever. He still craved her approval and the opportunity to scent her in his wolf form. It was a craving that grew stronger each day, becoming acute when the least incident indicated another man's encroachment on what he considered his territory.

The wolf had howled in displeasure at the sight of the furs Guaire had slept on in Talorc and Abigail's bedchamber. Talorc had wanted to throw the damn things out the window. He hadn't, showing remarkable restraint in his opinion. Particularly when his mate had rolled them up so carefully, her scent mixing with Guaire's on the fur.

His angel had much to learn about the Chrechte nature.

And him.

She claimed to love Talorc, but in the same breath, Abigail had indicated she thought him capable of throwing away his wife for something so insignificant as an inability to hear. Surely that was a grief she had to bear, not him. Her deafness did not impact
him
except that he had to be more diligent in his protection, knowing she was less aware of her surroundings than he had believed.

It also explained the times he thought she ignored him when in fact she simply had not realized he'd been speaking.

How could that be a bad thing?

Yet she had hidden the truth with a diligence that both worried and impressed him.

No Chrechte had ever hidden their nature with more talent and ingenuity than his wife hid her deafness. When the time came for him to trust her with the secrets of his people, he could not doubt her ability to maintain his confidences.

But he could not help his concern at the knowledge she had deceived him so well and so easily. She had assured him she had not lied about anything else, but could he believe her?

She had married him with the intention of using him to gain access to her sister.

She had spoken her marriage vows and the ancient Chrechte pledge of troth without
meaning the words at all
. That truth twisted something deep inside him, hurting in a way he had not done since losing each of his parents. His sacred mate had spoken her Chrechte promises like a child with her fingers crossed.

That, at least, caused his wolf to grieve.

Despite the fact that she was English and human, he had given his oath in good faith, both before the Lowlander priest and in the cave before his Chrechte brethren. From the very beginning, he had made no plans to find a way out of the unwanted covenant.

The fact that his angel had approached their marriage with such spurious intentions acted like a spear right through his gut.

He hated discovering she had the power to hurt him thus. It made him angry to have his emotions at anyone's mercy, even his mate's, but particularly a mate whom he could not trust. It was a state he had convinced himself he would never experience. Talorc had been so sure he would never make the mistakes of his father.

Yet here he found himself vulnerable to an English human woman. 'Twas an anathema to be sure.

She claimed to have changed her mind about using him, as if he should now believe she wanted to be with him. As if that should make her actions acceptable.

It did not. It only showed she was capable of betrayal for the sake of her own agenda, just as Tamara had been. Even if Abigail had come to love him as she claimed, she had started out with the intention of using him, of throwing away their marriage and their Chrechte mating.

Just how much like his dead stepmother was Abigail?

It was that question that kept him in wolf form running through the woods rather than returning to the fortress, to his wife.

Talorc did not send Abigail away. At least not that day.

Of course, he wasn't around to order her banishment. He'd disappeared after their discussion early that morning and had not returned to the fortress since.

He wasn't training the soldiers. Barr was doing that today. Without the help of his twin, Abigail noted when she walked by the training ground in the lower bailey on her way to the smithy. She wanted to ask Magnus if he could make her a three-pronged, handheld digging tool for her herb garden.

She approached the blacksmith with some trepidation, unsure what her reception would be. However, not only was he as respectful and helpful as always, but he even smiled when she described what she wanted.

"Aye, I can make that right enough. It's a clever idea, it is."

"Thank you." He must not have heard of her deception.

But his next words dispelled that thought. "Is it true, then, that you canna hear?"

"Yes."

"You're a sly one, you are."

She opened her mouth to defend herself, but the look of approval on his face forestalled her.

He nodded. "You're a fitting mate to our laird."

"Um . . . thank you."

"A Chrechte has to be stealthy and good at keeping a secret."

"But I'm not a Chrechte."

"Nay, you are not, but you've got the heart and the smarts of one." From the way his chest puffed out and his eyes gleamed, it seemed that was highest praise coming from the blacksmith.

And that was only the first of several such strange conversations Abigail had that day with members of her clan. Far from making them hate her, learning of her affliction and how well she had hidden the weakness increased her stature in their eyes.

She only wished the same was true of her husband, but then no one else knew she had planned to use him to get to her sister.

As incomprehensible as she found it, the fact was her husband seemed far more offended by her deception than her deafness. The clan admired her deception and appeared to have no qualms about her deafness. Indeed, they showed awe at her ability to discern their presence since she could not hear their approach.