Once Upon a Highland Christmas(38)

He caught a glimpse of her flame-bright hair as she dashed into the great hall, and then she disappeared into the throng. Grim drew a deep breath, a sinking sensation in his gut. Never would he have wittingly kept Breena’s uncle from her side when they’d wed.

Not knowing how much the man meant to her.

He wouldn’t cause her distress for anything under the heavens. Not even if his gods asked it of him. He’d sooner lay down his life than hurt her.

Glancing at Archie, he pulled a hand down over his beard.

“By Thor, I’ll sort this for the lass. Come now, and we’ll speak with her uncle. He’ll understand.”

“Say you!” Archie kept pace with Grim as he and Greer followed Breena into the crowded hall. “He’s a gloomy one, he is. Hasn’t said much to a soul since he’s been here, just stalks about, brooding.”

“I know from Breena that he was like a father to her, more so than the one she had.” Grim glanced at Archie, noting how he walked straighter, chin up and shoulders back, as they wound their way past the hall’s jostling celebrants. With the agility of a much younger man, he maneuvered through the maze of evergreen bowers and dangling mistletoe balls. “Her uncle was surely disappointed to find her at last and then learn she was away.”

She was gone now, too.

Leaving Archie and Greer, Grim looked everywhere, but Breena was nowhere to be seen.

She’d surely slipped away to be alone with her uncle.

Yet…

For a moment, his heart lurched. It scarce mattered that he knew the man had every right to speak with her. Something wasn’t right. The hall even dimmed, as if someone had doused the torches, stealing the light from his world, his life. Surely her uncle wouldn’t expect to take her back to Ireland with him?

If so, it was too late.

Grim wouldn’t let her go, not under any circumstances. And he knew she’d never leave him. So he pushed the thought from his mind.

Unfortunately, another replaced it. A notion equally troubling. Breena might stay with him, but it could sadden her to know that while her uncle lived, he was in distant Ireland, far from her reach.

Homesickness might break her heart.

And seeing her unhappy would pierce his, her sorrow perhaps even dampening her love for him.

It was a terrible prospect. Especially now, at the beginning of their marriage.





Chapter Eight


“Breena, lass, I am so relieved to see you, and looking so well.” Dermot O’Doherty, a huge, bearlike man with rust-gray hair and light blue eyes, pushed away from the rampart wall and opened his arms to Breena. “There were times I feared ne’er to gaze on you again.”

“I thought you were gone to me forever.” Breena leaned into him, a lump rising in her throat, her heart beating fast. Her eyes stung, tears welling so swiftly she knew they were about to spill over. “You, Aunt Mell, my parents, everyone I ever loved. For weeks, I cried rivers. Then I just tried to forget, putting the images from my mind because thinking of them was too painful.

“I can’t believe you’re here.” She clung to him, dug her fingers into his great shoulders. “I have missed you so, every day since—”

“No more than I missed you, lassie.” He held her close, then set her from him and just looked at her. “Praise the saints, no worse ill has befallen you than what I’ve heard.”

“That is over and done. I am well.” Breena didn’t tell him she was also married.

Not yet.

But she would, and soon.

For now, she reached to touch her beloved uncle’s face, brushed the falling snow from his gray-streaked hair, off the broad shoulders that had carried her so often as a child. “I wish the hall wasn’t so crowded. We’d have been warm and comfortable there. But it is Yule and so many people have come to celebrate.”

“I’d not thought to find guests here.” Uncle Dermot looked out into the night, not seeing much, for the clouds had lowered to hide the mountains, and whirling mist blurred what glimpses of them might remain.

It was dark and bitter cold on the battlements, the wind carrying fine, spitting snow. But the ramparts were the only place they could talk, with all the feasting and dancing in the hall. Along with their pipers, the Gregorach had even brought a troupe of tumblers, and a clansman with a pack of small trick-performing terriers. Strains of the music and revelry could be heard even here, the din carrying on the wind.

Duncreag’s great hall wasn’t the place for a reunion   with a long-lost uncle.

“I’ve been searching for you ever since the raid, looking everywhere.” Her uncle turned back to her, his face solemn. “I even journeyed to Dublin and London. When I learned you were here, I heard the tales of Archibald’s travails, the tragedies that have befallen this house. I am sorry.”