Page 42 of Abducted By the Highlander
He had the oddest sensation Roisin had been about to say something quite different and had inexplicably changed her mind at the last moment. “About not leaving the isle?”
She shrugged and focused on their clasped hands. “Amma is certain that once I return to Eigg, the edict will continue to be fulfilled. We only need one daughter to remain, after all.”
Something in her tone alerted him and he frowned. “Do ye not want to remain on Eigg, Roisin?”
She lifted her head, and their gazes meshed. “’Tis not that.” Her voice was soft. “I love Eigg and Sgur Castle. ’Tis the only home I’ve known. I know, in the end, that is my destiny.”
Ecne raised his head from her satchel and gave a little whine. She lay down her quill and stroked him, and he edged onto her lap, heedless of her writing case. With a grin, Hugh released her hand and picked up her writing case so the dog had more room, and a sheet of paper slid out.
“Oh.” Roisin sounded mortified and reached for the paper at the same time as he, and their fingers collided. But his gaze was fixed on the exquisitely crafted image on the paper. Was thathim?
Hastily he released his grip, and Roisin pushed the paper back inside her writing case. For a few awkward moments silence reigned, and he didn’t know how to break it. Then Ecne pawed Roisin’s arm, and she expelled a ragged breath and finally caught his gaze.
“’Tis merely a sketch I did of ye when ye visited Sgur.”
“Do ye have any objection if I have a closer look?”
She scratched Ecne’s throat, and he had the feeling she was trying to think of an excuse to say no. Eventually she gave a great sigh and pulled the sketch from her writing case. “If ye must.”
He stared at the portrait, since calling this a sketch was scarcely short of slanderous. And while he had always known of her talent and had admired her drawing of Rhona a short while ago, it was completely different to be confronted with something so unexpected. The likeness was frankly uncanny.
“I’m sorry ye don’t like it.” Roisin attempted to take it from him, but he shook his head and lowered the portrait, so it rested on her knee.
“I do like it.” His voice was hushed. “I’m merely stunned into silence at yer brilliance, Roisin. I’ve never had my portrait done before.”
A delightful blush stained her cheeks, and she gave him a shy smile. “Brilliant, am I? Well, I’m gratified ye think so.”
He glanced at it again and noticed her signature rosebud in the corner, with her name encircling it. “If things were different, I should commission a portrait in oils from ye, and that’s a fact.”
She gave a soft laugh. “I’ve never painted in oils before, although I should very much like to. But ye can have that one, if ye really want it. I have plenty of others. Oh.” She slapped her hand across her mouth before shaking her head. “I said that out loud, didn’t I?”
He grinned, inordinately pleased by her confession. “Aye, and ye cannot take it back.”
“I shouldn’t wish to, although I never meant to tell ye.”
His mirth faded. Didn’t she deserve to hear the truth, now he had indisputable proof that the fleeting time they’d spent together on her isle had meant as much to her as it had to him? “Roisin, I always intended to return to Eigg to see ye. I wasn’t simply spinning ye a pretty line to see ye smile. But—” He couldn’t tell her the earl had summoned him and sent him into this life, no matter how much he wished he could. “It wasn’t to be.”
“I should so dearly like to know why ye’re living like this.” Her voice was scarcely above a whisper. The way she laid her hand on top of his was almost his undoing.
“Maybe ye’ll know one day,” he lied. Because there wasn’t any way she’d learn the truth from him, and who else could tell her? No one. Because, apart from the earl, no one else knew the truth.
Chapter Sixteen
It had beenten days since the brigands had attacked, and Roisin had ended up in the MacGregor camp. Sometimes it seemed she’d lived this way forever, and her life on Eigg was nothing more than a dream, and then she had to battle the clawing abyss of panic that tried to swamp her.
She wouldn’t let anyone see how every now and then she was so close to falling apart it frightened her. Because all she had left was her pride, and when she compared her lot to those of these women and their bairns, at least she knew there was an end to her plight. And not once had she witnessed any of the women come close to cracking.
If they could be brave, then so could she.
They had stopped for the night beside a river and as the men pitched the tents she’d joined the women and was doing some mending with Grear, with Ecne dozing at her side, while Elspeth oversaw the preparations for supper. A couple of times over the last few days, one of the men had detoured to villages or towns and sold a horse, so the camp’s supplies were well-stocked.
Which meant the bairns were well-fed.
She stole a glance at Hugh, where he was pitching his tent a short distance from the others and as always whenever she looked at him, her heart melted. It wasn’t just the women’s stoicism that helped her get through the days. It was Hugh.
Who was she trying to fool? It was mainly Hugh who had managed to keep the terror of being ripped from everything she knew atbay. It wasn’t only that he was a link to her real life or that she had known him before.
He was the reason she was safe. The alternative of being captured by the brigands would have been infinitely worse, and a shudder inched along her spine at how easily that fate could have been hers and Grear’s.
