“I did,” Quinn confessed. “My wife and I grew up together. She was always following me around. As a lad she was an annoyance. When I got older we became friends.”
“She must have loved you very much.”
“I thought so.” And that had been his downfall. His mother had cautioned him on marrying Elspeth before looking around at other women, but Quinn hadn’t listened. He had paid dearly for his mistake.
“Were you married long?”
“Nearly four years.” It had felt like four lifetimes.
Marcail sighed, her hands still wrapped around his. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
Quinn didn’t want to do any such thing. But his mouth opened, and the words spilled out. “Elspeth became pregnant almost immediately. I was so happy, and she seemed to be as well. She had a difficult time, though. She was sick most of her term and could rarely leave the bed. Any time I got near her she asked me to leave.”
“Some women’s bodies don’t have an easy time of it. None of that was your fault.”
He knew that now, but at the time he hadn’t. “When my son finally came I thought everything would be all right, but he was turned. She was in labor for hours. At one point, the midwife didna believe Elspeth would live. It was nearly two days after she went into labor that our son was born.”
“A joyous moment to be sure.”
Quinn smiled, recalling how Lucan, Fallon, and their parents had celebrated. “Oh, aye. It was a grand celebration, I was told later. I didn’t join in because I wanted to be with Elspeth.”
Marcail’s lips lifted in a smile. “As you should have been.”
“The midwife told Elspeth that she shouldna chance having any more children. She gave Elspeth some herbs to take daily so she wouldn’t swell with my child again.”
Marcail inwardly cringed. She knew what Quinn would say next, but she didn’t stop him. He needed to share this.
“Elspeth refused to take the herbs for fear they wouldn’t work, and I didn’t want to risk her life again. She wouldn’t even allow me to sleep in the bed with her because she thought I would force her.”
Marcail couldn’t believe Quinn’s wife had been so selfish. If she had really known Quinn, Elspeth would have realized he would never harm her.
“Did you never speak to her about it?” she asked.
Quinn shook his head. “I tried a few times in the beginning, but she wouldn’t listen to reason. I stopped trying after that.”
“No one knew, did they? Your family? They thought you were happy?”
The way Quinn looked at her, as if it was strange that she understood him, made her heart catch. The stories she had heard about the MacLeods didn’t tell much about the brothers. They certainly never told her how handsome Quinn was or how he would make her wish she had the magic to give him all the happiness he wanted.
“Nay,” he answered after a long stretch of silence. “My family never knew. I wanted it that way. And yours? Did your grandmother know you were unhappy?”
Marcail released his hand and turned her head away. It was always easier listening to others than revealing anything about herself, especially a part she wished had never existed.
To her surprise, Quinn took her hand in one of his large ones. A finger from his other gently turned her face back to his.
“Is it too painful?”
“Only because I wish it had never happened. Rory wasn’t abusive, but he feared the magic that ran in my family’s blood.”
Quinn’s brows drew together at her words. “How powerful?”
“Powerful enough that my grandmother can hide the spell somewhere in my mind.”
“And your magic?”
She swallowed and lowered her eyes. “My mother and grandmother did not have an easy relationship. My mother thought we should forget the Druid ways. Because of that, I was not taught the spells, and my mother refused to allow my grandmother near me so I could be taught.”
“You don’t know magic?”
“I do, just not as I should. When my father was killed defending our village from wyrran, I think my mother realized how wrong she had been. Yet the grief she felt for my father’s death made her forget me and my brother. It wasn’t long afterward that she died. When my grandmother came, she began teaching me as much as she could, but too many years had gone by already.”
Quinn’s thumb rubbed over the back of her hand. “You know how to heal yourself.”
“Aye, and I can sense people’s moods. My grandmother said that was my greatest power that could have been much more had my mother done as she should have. You see, not every Druid has special magic.”
“Why is that?” He leaned back against the rocks and brought a knee up to place his arm on.
“My grandmother says it’s because they have either begun to drift from the Druid way or their magic wasn’t very strong to begin with.”
Quinn shook his head. “I doona understand. Either you have power or you doona. Cara, my brother’s woman, had no idea she was a Druid. We all discovered it by chance when she was trying to grow the garden.”
“Ah. It is a part of every
“As we discovered with Cara. It was when she got angry and the plant took it into itself and began to die that we realized the magic she had.”
“Is she learning of her magic? Is there a Druid to teach her?”
Quinn lifted a shoulder. “When I left, Lucan was talking about trying to search out a Druid for Cara, but I don’t know what has happened since I was taken.”
“If there isn’t a Druid to help Cara, then I will.”
“You are a good woman, Marcail.”
She smiled, at ease once more.
“Now, tell me of Rory.”
Nine
Quinn hated to say her husband’s name, to know that another man had tasted her lips and felt her skin on his. It made Quinn’s rage bubble forth all too quickly from unwanted jealousy. He fought to keep his god under control, praying Marcail didn’t notice how stiff he had become.
“There’s nothing to tell. I didn’t want to be married. It’s as simple as that.”
“Nothing is that straightforward,” Quinn said. “You might not have loved him, but you two could have been friends.”
“I don’t think that was ever a possibility,” she whispered. “He didn’t want to marry me any more than I wanted to marry him. Neither of us had a choice. We did what was best for the village.”
“What was best?” Quinn knew what it was like being married to someone he wished he weren’t. But at least he and Elspeth had been friends once upon a time. Marcail and Rory apparently couldn’t even say that.
Marcail leaned her head against the rocks and sighed. “I wasn’t happy when he died, but I was pleased to be free. He made me question everything about myself. He didn’t like my hair, he didn’t like my magic but hated when I didn’t know everything a Druid should know.”
“He might have been the best fighter your village had, but he was the wrong man for you.”
She chuckled. “Thank you. No one would admit that in the village.”
“They’re idiots.”
Her smile was infectious as she turned it on him. “You’ve made me laugh despite my situation.”
Just as he had earlier, he found himself drowning in her turquoise eyes, his body demanding he pull her against him and kiss her. To claim her lips and her body as his. He wanted nothing more than to have her arms wrap around his neck and hear her sigh as her body sank into his.
