The Highlander's Forbidden Bride(36)

“That sounds as ridiculous as my claiming that I am truly more like Hope than Carissa, that somehow I felt safe enough with you to be my true self, a kind and thoughtful woman.”

He gave a robust laugh and instantly regretted it. The sharp pain struck like lightning, at the side of his head, then down along his neck. He gasped as he said, “That’s a tall tale if I ever heard one. Mordrac’s daughter kindhearted and thoughtful. Please spare me the absurdity.”

“Your tale may not be tall, but it is ridiculous,” she said. “It makes not an ounce of sense for me to have posed as a slave and pretended to love you.”

He cringed, though it wasn’t from the pain in his head. It was from the pain in his heart. Had Carissa truly played him for a fool? Had he laid bare his love to his enemy?

“And why would I sell you to the mercenaries?”

“To keep me imprisoned,” he said, as if just realizing it himself. “You knew I wouldn’t go anywhere until I rescued Hope.”

“And what would be the point of keeping you imprisoned?”

“I would make good fodder for barter.”

She shook her head. “If that were my intentions, I would have used you to save my father’s life. But I was wise enough to realize that my father’s fate was inevitable.”

“Just like yours.”

“Spare me your repetitive threats,” she said. “They are as meaningless to me as what you now suggest.”

“Why? Because I’ve caught you at your little game?”

She sauntered over to him, her slim hand resting provocatively along her hip. “If it is a game, what makes you think that I don’t have you right where I want you?”

He jumped up; the intense pain slamming his eyes shut, and he grabbed hold of the mantel to stop from collapsing.

“Sit.”

Her anxious order sounded just as Hope had when she worried over him, and it made him angrier to realize that more than likely the woman he loved had never existed.

“Sit,” she urged again, and took hold of his arm, tugging him down.

Her hand never left his arm after he sat, and her warmth poured into him just as Hope’s had always done. He had teased her about it once, and she responded by telling him that it was her love for him that radiated the warmth.

He glanced down at the hand resting on his tan shirt. Even the linen couldn’t stop him from feeling her heat, or was it her love? Damn, but he didn’t want to believe that Hope had never existed. He wanted her to have been a real warm, loving woman. He wanted everything he had shared with her to have been real; most of all, he wanted their love to have been real. He could endure loving a woman who had died, but not loving a woman who had never lived.

She removed her hand from his arm, and a bleak emptiness descended over him. Could it be true? Could Hope have never existed? Had he been merely chasing a dream?

He grabbed his head with his hand, not knowing if the pain came from his wound or his troubled thoughts.

“I’ll fix you something to eat,” she said.

Her voice was sharp like Carissa’s, or was he merely trying to find reason not to believe what he suspected?

“I’m not hungry,” he said, and moved from the chair, climbing into bed slowly.

“Rest,” she said, pulling the blankets over him. “I’ll set a fresh broth to brewing for when you wake.”

Now she sounded like Hope, considerate, and his head began to spin as he prayed for the blessedness of sleep.



Carissa collapsed in one of the chairs at the table. All hope was gone, but what had she expected, Ronan to embrace her and be grateful that Hope was alive? Hope wasn’t alive in any sense. He reacted as she had suspected he would. He had rejected her. Not for a moment had he believed, or even considered, that she could be more like Hope than Carissa.

If he hated her before, this would make him hate her even more.

So had her father been right? Hate endures while love doesn’t last.

Ronan believed the worst of her. To hear him say that she had sold him to the mercenaries to imprison him couldn’t have been further from the truth. She had sold him to free him. She had assumed he would contact his family, pay the money the mercenaries had paid for him, and return home, intending eventually to rescue Hope. Instead, he had remained with the mercenaries and begun plans to rescue Hope.

When she had realized he wouldn’t give up, she had no other choice but to make him believe Hope had died. That was why it had been so easy to answer him when he had asked why she had killed Hope.

It really had been necessary.

Foolishly, she had not given thought to Ronan possibly wanting revenge. She thought he would be so heartbroken that he would return home to his family to grieve.