Page 60 of Highlander’s Claim

Because even if she were an enemy, he could breathe easier knowing she was somewhere in the same world as he was.

She took a step back, and the distance between them felt like a chasm miles deep, impossible to cross.

“I didn’t hide it from you,” she said. “I didn’t think anything of it at first. Then I kept it to possibly buy me a passage back to Achleith.”

“Ye kent I was looking for the shipwreck this whole time.”

“How would I know the shipwreck had anything to do with the coin?”

He scoffed and shook his head. “Lies.”

One word, and the chasm between them just got wider.

“I had suspected all this time if I fell in love again, I’d be hurt. Never did I imagine someone would nae just hurt me, but first gain my trust and then betray me.”

He felt himself pulling away, closing his heart off to her and anyone else.

“I congratulate ye on fooling me and making me fall in love with ye, break my resolve for ye. Making me open up and hope, imagine finding happiness once again. My people warned me about ye all this time. They were right.”

CHAPTER 25

“The incision is looking well,” said Jenny as she covered Mhairi’s belly with the dressing the next morning. Then pulled down Mhairi’s undertunic and pulled up the blanket over her. “How’s the pain?”

A faint frown crossed Mhairi’s face. “It hurts a wee bit, I wilna lie. But Bhatair’s mixture is helping. The pain is like a shadow.”

As Jenny had asked, the servants had cleaned the bedchamber and changed the bedsheets. The room now smelled faintly of vinegar because that’s what Jenny had asked them to wash the floors and the surfaces with. Seoras stood with Sìomon by the slit window and gently rocked him from side to side.

Jenny squeezed Mhairi’s hand. “You’re a hero. You’ve gone through an enormous ordeal.”

“Anything for that bairn.” She threw a loving look at her husband and her baby.

“Here’s more of willow bark and mandrake root mixture.” Bhatair poured a liquid from a dull glass bottle and put it on the chest next to Mhairi’s bed. “Take this at noon.”

“Aye,” Mhairi said.

Jenny and Bhatair looked at Sìomon. His cord stump had started to darken and wasn’t infected. He looked a little bit yellow but not to an alarming degree. Slight jaundice was normal in newborns and would likely clear up on its own. He was getting enough milk based on his quantity of urine and stool. Jenny was happy with his condition.

Soon they left Mhairi’s bedchamber to let her rest and went down the stairs of the main keep. When they were walking down the slope of the inner bailey, Bhatair asked her, “Is anything the matter, Lady Jennifer?”

Last night, Aulay had proposed to her, and she had rejected him. He had found the gold coin. And now he thought she was an enemy and a liar.

And her heart was shattered into pieces.

Losing him, his trust, his affection felt worse than her divorce. Felt even worse than the day she’d found out she may never have a child of her own.

Jenny looked up at Bhatair, realizing distantly he’d asked her a question.

“Everything is fine.”

Except that her heart was a goddamn wreck, and how could that be when around her in the bailey it was business as usual? Warriors trained, children ran around, servants cleaned, and farmers brought produce to the castle. Horses neighed, metal banged against metal, there were cries and shouts as people worked. The breeze coming from the sea was cool on her cheeks, but Leitis’s dress protected her from the chill. Thinking of the woman, and how Aulay had mourned her, reminded Jenny that she’d rejected a great man. She hadn’t seen Aulay yet today, but she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him even as she examined Mhairi.

“Ye dinna look fine, lass,” Bhatair said.

She frowned and studied him. His blue eyes were on her, carefully looking her over. Did he care about her? What had happened to him that he wondered about her well-being? Had she really won him over?

Even him…but not Aulay.

The goddamn coin. She’d had no idea it was connected to the shipwreck he was after. And he didn’t believe her. Was it because she’d rejected his marriage proposal?