Page 54 of Highland Sword
Morrigan had heard the Highland folk believed that time lost all meaning at Samhain. Past, present, and future became one. Now, living among these people, Morrigan knew it to be true.
She’d run from her past, ignored and hidden from it. But the past had caught up to her here, weighing on the present, and threatening all of her tomorrows.
For the three days since talking to Aidan on the tower roof, she’d walked past that door. Morning, midday, and evening. The words he’d spoken tormented her. If she rejected his plea and Edmund and George Chattan died because of her, Morrigan would not be able to live with herself.
Every time she approached, she broke out in a cold sweat. Bile rose up in her throat. And each time, an inner rage rose in response, fierce and hot. She couldn’t trust herself to go through that door. Morrigan didn’t know if she trusted herself to be alone with him. She didn’t know if she could see him, talk to him, and not put her dagger in his shriveled heart.
By Sunday, guilt and exhaustion threatened to drive her insane. Morrigan had heard that Aidan and his brother were going to Inverness the following day. If she was going to help him, if Wemys was going to give Aidan the name, then now was the time. But she still couldn’t bring herself to face him.
Knowing that Isabella visited Wemys twice every day, Morrigan went to her infirmary room around noon. She was dressing the burned arm of a young boy who was stubbornly holding in tears while his worried mother looked on.
When they were finally alone, Isabella turned to her. “I see nothing bruised or swollen. But from your mood of late, one would think you’d been kicked by a horse.”
Morrigan had been rolling a strip of linen, but Isabella took it out of her hand and put it on the table.
“What has he done? Or rather, what has he said to you?”
She knew who Isabella was talking about. Everyone had gotten the wrongheaded notion that some sort of attraction existed between her and Aidan. From Sebastian, most likely.
“Mr. Grant has done nothing wrong.”
“You always say that.”
“It’s the truth.” She heard the quaver in her own voice.
Isabella noticed, as well, and took hold of her hands. “Morrigan, you can tell me what’s wrong.”
For years she’d hidden the truth from Isabella andeveryone else. Remembering her past was painful. In that moment, however, with Samhain nearly upon them, Morrigan realized she no longer wanted to carry the weight of that past in her heart.
“It’s Wemys. He has information for Mr. Grant that will aid in the defense of the Chattan brothers. But he refuses to help unless I agree to see him.”
“He’s said nothing to me about the trial, but he has asked me repeatedly to use my influence with you. He desperately wants to speak with you.”
Morrigan turned her face toward the window and forced down the lump rising into her throat.
“I’ve never been much of a mother to you, never mind a good one.”
If there was one person who carried no blame, it was Isabella.
“I was always pressed for time because of my patients, and you were a capable and mature fifteen-year-old when your father and I married. I let Archibald keep his past, your past, and your family’s past as private.”
Perhaps this was where everything had gone wrong. Morrigan was suffocated while her father pretended all was well.
“But I knew something was wrong because of the way he treated you. He was worried about you when I could see no cause. He watched you constantly. He wanted to shield you from the dangers of the outside world, it seemed.”
Too late. Far too late.
“So he kept you close at hand. He had his students, of course, but he always wanted you at his side, in the clinic and when he went to visit a patient. He needed to know where you were at every hour of the day.”
Morrigan thought back over those years. Maisie cameand went as she pleased. Unbeknownst to the rest of the family, she was living the life of a radical reform activist, but no one ever noticed. Morrigan, on the other hand, was always under the watchful eye of her father.
“At first, I assumed it was because of your interest in becoming a doctor. That pleased me, to be honest. But that wasn’t the reason, was it?”
She shook her head. Isabella took hold of her hands. Morrigan welcomed the connection.
“As the years passed, I came to realize that Archibald was watching you in the same way that a doctor looks for symptoms. At night, he often had nightmares, calling out your name. In his dreams, you were always lost, and he was searching for you.”
Morrigan tried to steady her breath, but there was no hope. She tried to hold back the tears, but her eyes burned. When they began to fall, the droplets scorched her cheek. The last image that she had of her father was on the day the soldiers attacked the house. His eyes were fixed on her. He tried to speak, to get the words out, but it was too late. And then he was gone.
