Forbidden Heart (Hearts of the Highlands #6) - Paula Quinn Page 0,62
through the door.
Margaret!
Silene hurried to the door and opened it. “Margaret,” she said, bending to level her gaze with the girl’s. “What are you doing here?”
“Captain MacPherson asks that ye follow me.”
Silene stepped out of the chambers without thinking about what she was doing. Could she ever resist him?
“Where are we going?’
“Ye will see when we get there.”
Silene smiled for the first time so far that day. Perhaps she would fall down a hole on the way and never be seen again.
She followed Margaret around the western wall of the castle to the small barn. She remembered being here once before, long ago. There were stalls, smaller than the ones in the stable, but none of the barn animals stayed in them. There were three ducks that clapped their wings and honked angrily at her intrusion. Three hens and a rooster sent feathers flying. There was a pig, and a goat—and a man with a kitten on his shoulder and a little boy at his side. It was Alex. He was crying. What was going on?
“Captain?” she asked, looking up at him in the lantern’s light. She didn’t feel repulsed. She felt like she’d happened upon a mythical creature, golden and green and ready to offer his life to her.
“I brought the children here to bid them farewell.”
“Farewell?” she echoed, feeling the emptiness of it. “You are leaving, Captain?”
He nodded. “’Tis time.”
Well, that was it then. He was leaving. He wouldn’t be here to tempt her with the shape of his succulent lips when he spoke, the sultry green of his eyes when he smiled at her. She’d wanted him to leave. She also wanted to be unaffected by him—but she wasn’t. In fact, she felt so affected just by looking at him that she was unsteady on her feet, foggy in her head.
He hurried forward when she swayed, overwhelmed with everything that was happening.
“Are ye ill, Silene?”
She shook her head. She didn’t believe it. She never felt so bad in her life.
“Good,” he said with his arm beneath her, “because I want ye to come with me. The time fer waitin’ is over.”
It was all too much, too fast. She tried to remember the reasons she couldn’t go with him. “Captain, do not ask this of me.”
“Why not, Silene? Do ye not love me?” he whispered so only she could hear.
Oh, aye, she did. She loved him enough to give up her vows. “Louise told me that I should forget you or it could get one of us killed. She said the threat was not from her, but she would not tell me anything else.”
His brows dipped over his eyes, creating shadows like phantoms in a verdant forest. “All the more reason to go now. I have everythin’ worked oot with the men. They wish to come. ’Twill help to have them with us should the army come.”
What was he saying? It was as if his words were jumbling around in her head.
She touched her hand to her head and fainted in his arms.
Chapter Fifteen
Galeren wanted to run. He looked down at Silene and seriously considered running away with her. He could toss her over his saddle and flee to Invergarry. Let anyone come. No one would be able to breach the MacPherson stronghold. If they did, they would find themselves facing the most savage warriors that ever lived.
But he wouldn’t take her away when she didn’t want to go. Whether because of fear for their lives, or because of her desire to belong only to God, she was staying. That meant he was staying, too.
He’d thought when she saw how serious he was about leaving that she would go with him—not faint in his arms.
“All is well, children,” he told them. “Sister Silene has fainted. She will awaken soon. Let me put her down. Alex, get my plaid and set it down here.”
He waited, smiling down at Margaret. He shifted Silene’s weight and held her in one arm and plucked Daffodil off his shoulder. “Hold her fer now,” he told her while Daffodil meowed in protest.
His gaze shifted to Silene’s face. He closed his eyes and swallowed.
“Captain?”
He opened his eyes to Alex spreading out his plaid.
Galeren couldn’t lay her in the grass outside and risk someone seeing him carrying her. He’d already put her in enough jeopardy.
“Why did she faint, Captain?” Alex asked him, finishing up.
“She has many things to think aboot. Mayhap meetin’ the men of the church has been too overwhelmin’.”