Page 125 of Highlanders for the Holidays
He hadn’t loved her. Of course, he hadn’t said he had. But he said he wanted to marry her… No, he hadn’t said that exactly.I think I want to marry ye,had been his exact words. She knew, because she had them burned into her memory.
’Twas all a lie. One big jest.
She stumbled twice, hurting both knees, the cold morning air burning her cheeks. By the time she reached her croft, her tear-streaked face was covered in sweat, her hair out of her braid, and her best dress had a tear in it. Pushing past the fur that acted as a door, she saw her father lying on his bed, still sleeping off last night’s drunk.
Swiping away tears, she looked around the space. Nothing more than one room with dirt floors. Her father’s bed sat against the wall to her right, her palette on the left. An ages old, uneven table and two tree trunks for chairs sat in the middle, the cold brazier in front of it. The few pots she owned were stacked neatly on a shelf.
This was all she had ever known. This tiny hut, built into the side of a hill.
For a brief while, eleven days to be exact, she had dared to hope for more than this. Dared to believe that someone wanted her as a wife. Allowed herself to believe the pretty words and kind gestures had been real.
Turning, she left the hut and headed to the small copse of trees behind it. ’Twas there, on her knees behind a fallen tree, that she let all the tears, frustration and anger out. Her grief came in great waves and wracking sobs.
She cursed Darwud to the devil, cursed men in general, as well as her own stupidity.
How could anyone be so cruel?How could a man lie like he had? Why? Why would he do such a thing?
A long while later, her tears shed but her shame still burning within, she took several deep breaths. The sun had burned away the morning frost, but not the dead, cold chill that lingered in her heart. She had searched and searched her mind and her heart for some memory of something awful she must have done at some point in her life. Some horrific, terrible act, that would explain why she had deserved to be used and thrown away. But she found nothing.
“Onnleigh!” her father’s voice came booming through the trees. “Onnleigh!”
’Twould do no good to pretend she hadn’t heard him. Wiping her tears on the hem of her dress, she took a deep breath and started back to the hut. She was halfway home when her father popped through a patch of overgrown brush. Bloodshot eyes stared angrily when he caught sight of her. “Where the bloody hell have ye been?” he shouted harshly. “I been waitin’ all day to eat!”
“I be sorry, da,” she told him half-heartedly, fully aware he’d been asleep all morn.
“Are ye tryin’ to starve me to death?” he asked as she approached.
“Nay, da,” she said, standing on shaky legs. She was in no mood for one of his tirades. Her heart was shattered, but there’d be no sharing that with Grueber, for he could not have cared any less.
He stared at her as he yawned and scratched his belly with a dirty hand. “Well, quit standin’ there and go fix me somethin’ to eat!”
Oh, how she wished she had the courage to tell him to go fix his own bloody food! She rushed back to the croft and set about making him a fish soup.Fish. Blasted, ugly fish. When she lopped off the head of the trout, she imagined ’twas Darwud’s head staring back at her.
Mayhap the problem didn’t lie with her, but with Darwud. Mayhap he was nothing but a lying, flea-infested cur and coward.
She decided he was not worth shedding more tears over. Still, she did not feel any better. No one had loved her, not since her mum died. ’Twas the plain and simple truth. Though why it was impossible for anyone to love her, she didn’t know. Her da didn’t love anyone or anything other than his brew. Her clanspeople, the people she should have been able to trust and go to in an hour of need, couldn’t abide the sight of her, let alone find a shred of love or decency in their hearts. She was nothing more than the daughter of a thief, layabout and drunkard. She would never be anything more than that to anyone. Not ever.
’Twas a painful thing to realize, to try to live with. But what could she do? Not a bloody thing.
There would be no husband, no nice cottage with rushes to cover the floors, or flowers or gardens to plant. No children to love or tend to. No rich stews or sweet cakes to make for them. No friends and family who would come to visit.
There was nothing but the hovel she shared with her drunken father. Two old dresses, a pair of boots with holes in the toes, and naught else.
The tears returned, but not with the same vengeance as before. They were melancholy tears. Tears shed out of deep sorrow of realizing, with finality, that there would be nothing else for her in this life but what she already had.
* * *
The dayafter she managed the courage to go to the keep, Darwud MacCallen showed up on her doorstep.
And he was angry.
“Why did ye go to me cottage?” he demanded as he pulled her out of her croft by the arm. His grip was tight, his fingers digging into her tender flesh.
Onnleigh didn’t think he had the right to be angry with her. She hadn’t lied to him. She hadn’t been the one to whisper false words into his ears. “Why? Did I upset yerwife?”
He continued to pull her away from the croft. “Ye fool! Ye had no right to do that! To go to me home!”
She yanked her arm out of his grasp and stopped in her tracks. “No right?”
