Haunting Embrace (37 page)

Come to me and I will answer your prayers.

“Go to hell,” she shouted at the wind.

She’d barely calmed down from the scare of seeing Jamie and then everyone else . . . now her adrenaline spiked, and Meaghan hurried toward the castle ruins. She was shaking when she reached the place where the path split, one side snaking past the ruins and down to the cliffs that loomed above the cavern. The other trailed lazily to the front door of the house that crouched in the shadow of the desecrated turrets and walls.

She hesitated, unsure which way to go. Logic turned her to the front door of the big house, but instinct urged her toward the ruins. The instinct won, and before she knew it, she was running down the path. She opened her mouth to call Colleen’s name as she rounded a blind turn and plowed straight into Marga MacGrath. Knocked breathless, Meaghan staggered back, dazed and confused. Marga let out a shriek and fell on her butt at Meaghan’s feet. The billowing maternity top she wore flew up, and Meaghan stared with disbelief at what she saw beneath.

A strange, flesh-colored girdle bulged over Marga MacGrath’s torso, listing off to the side where the baby should be. But there wasn’t a baby inside it—no, Meaghan could see the stitched fabric, the sphere-shaped object that had been slipped into the pocket of the girdle to make it look like she was pregnant.

Marga yanked her maternity top down to cover the fake belly and glared at Meaghan with a combination of rage and horror. Even after it was hidden again, Meaghan found she couldn’t tear her gaze from the swollen abdomen as her brain struggled to understand what she’d just seen. Then slowly Meaghan raised her eyes and stared at Brion MacGrath’s wife. In her head, she heard Brion’s desperate voice whispering to Colleen,
The child cannot be mine.. . .

A burst of air escaped her in a strangled laugh. Well, he had that right. The child was not his or anyone else’s for that matter. Marga wasn’t even pregnant. But what had she hoped to gain by faking it? Sooner or later, she’d be expected to give birth, and the ball of stuffing under the blouse wouldn’t pass muster. She couldn’t even pretend to have a miscarriage when she was so far along—even in this day and age, she’d be expected to produce a fetus, wouldn’t she?

Emotions poured off the other woman as Meaghan stared in disbelief. Desperation was the strongest and it hit Meaghan with a sickly sweet blow, bringing with it the perfect picture of the woman’s intentions. She’d known Brion was in love with Colleen and had contrived this pregnancy to bind him to her. A part of Meaghan almost understood the actions of the hopeless woman, but how could she be so deceitful? If it was love Marga felt for Brion, Meaghan might have even sympathized. But that wasn’t the emotion oozing from her now. There was no love inside her for Brion—quite the opposite. She
hated
him. Meaghan’s intuition told her that her hatred stemmed from Marga’s inability to make her husband love her. She’d gotten him to the altar, but he’d never cared for her. He’d never heeled to her commands or fallen prey to her manipulations.

Until now. Only her pregnancy had pulled him from a brink she’d seen in the distance. Marga must have known how he felt about Colleen, and she’d acted in desperation to keep him.

All of it, Meaghan got in a rush of vivid and rank emotion.

“But what did you think would happen when it was time to give birth?” Meaghan blurted without meaning to, unable to move past the simple logistics of the matter.

Marga opened her mouth, closed it. Opened it again. And then she covered her face with her hands and began to sob.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” she moaned into her palms. “To love someone so much that you’d do anything for him. To know he will never be yours.”

“You don’t love him, though. You hate him,” Meaghan said. Again, she hadn’t meant to speak, but the force of Marga’s emotions acted like a trigger, and she couldn’t keep her tongue silent.

“I did. Once,” Marga spat, lifting her burning gaze and staring at Meaghan with outrage that contorted her features.

Meaghan said nothing to that. What could she say? Cry me a river? Try falling in love with an evil Druid if you want to see how much love sucks?

The word
love
stuck in her mind, and for a moment, it blotted out the sobs of the prone woman at her feet. It was the second time she’d found it hovering there. Was that what she felt for Áedán? Was it love?

Had it ever been anything less?

The feelings deep within her were rich and fertile, consuming and obsessive. She felt him in every step she took. Every move she made. And even as she doubted him, she knew she would stand by him. To the end.

“You don’t know what it’s like to love a man like Brion MacGrath,” Marga went on bitterly.

“I know what it is to love,” Meaghan said softly. “It’s a doomed and violent thing.”

Marga laughed shrilly as tears continued to stream down her face, turning her black liner into inky rivers. “Yes,” she said pitifully.

The silence that fell between them became weighted.

“What will you do now?” Marga demanded. “Run and tell?”

“I don’t know. It’s not my business, but . . . well, what do you imagine is going to happen in the end, Marga? You can’t pull this off. You’ve taken it too far to say you had a miscarriage. You know that? At this stage, there would be a baby—stillborn yes, but a baby all the same.”

“Do not concern yourself with what I will do,” Marga said, rising to her feet and donning her haughty expression. She looked like a hideous clown, with black streaked over her face and red rimming her eyes. But she leveled a deadly gaze at Meaghan.

“It is not your business, as you said. And don’t you dare tell a soul what you saw. You cannot imagine the troubles you will bring on yourself and your cousin if you do.”

“Are you threatening me?” Meaghan asked, pissed.

“Take it as you will. Stay out of my business.”

Meaghan raised her hands, palms up, and shrugged. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t put my foot in that pile for anything.”

Chapter Twenty-six

M
EAGHAN only waited a moment before she continued through the ruins. She could feel the emotions of her grandmother, and she honed in on them like a signal. She felt a driving need to see Colleen and reassure herself that her grandmother was safe and
real.
Not one of the walking dead she’d seen earlier.

She’d send Colleen home, tell her to lock the doors and windows. And then Meaghan would search for Áedán. Each moment away from him escalated the fear inside her that a time bomb ticked away someplace close. She needed to reach it and defuse it before it exploded.

She’d given her heart to Áedán, but she hadn’t told him what she felt. He’d left thinking she distrusted him, and she worried that he might act out of his anger and do something.. . . She stopped herself, refusing to go any further. She would find him before he did anything rash.

She loved him. She would show him just how important he was to her.

She heard the soft weeping before she came upon her grandmother perched on a flat boulder with Niall in her arms. Silently Meaghan moved to her side and sat next to her.

If Colleen was surprised to see Meaghan, she gave no indication of it. She said nothing. Just cried in deep, wrenching sobs that made Meaghan’s eyes water in shared pain. The tears were too raw to be credited to Mickey, and so Meaghan put the few facts she knew together and came up with a different answer. Brion. Marga must have followed Colleen to this desolate point and confronted her about Brion’s continued obsession with her.

“I saw Marga,” Meaghan said at last.

Colleen remained silent for a moment and then said, “So did I.”

“Whatever she said to you, Nana, put it out of your mind. She’s jealous and she has reason to be. But it is not your fault that Brion loves you. I heard you last night. You told him to go home. You turned him away.”

Colleen made a choked sound that was a cross between laughter and crying. There was shame in her and heartbreak that made Meaghan’s eyes sting.

“Is that what you saw, granddaughter? You saw me turn him away? Because isn’t that the opposite of what I wanted to do? I wanted to beg him to hold me. To keep me forever. I wanted to fall on my knees and plead with him to take me away.”

Hurt and longing hung heavy around Colleen. The teeth of Colleen’s regrets bit deep and tore at her heart.

“I love him,” Colleen whispered. “More than air. More than life. But I am trapped in a web of my own weaving.” Colleen sighed. “You tell me when I grow old I will be a woman who’s admired and loved. But if you knew the truth about me, you’d feel differently.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

Colleen shook her head sadly and adjusted her hold on Niall, who lay curled against her, sleeping peacefully. His lips moved compulsively and he made soft cooing sounds as he snuggled, safe in her arms.

“I’ve loved this child since I first held him,” she said.

“I can tell. He loves you back.”

This made Colleen’s lips tilt in a too brief smile.

“When I first came to Ballyfionúir, I was a desperate girl. I came because I have family here—an aunt and uncle. But I’d heard of Brion MacGrath and how he treated the people of his island.”

Meaghan listened without interrupting. Nana had rarely talked about her past.

“From the moment Brion set eyes on me, he began his pursuit. I knew he was married. Who doesn’t know about Marga MacGrath? Some say she’s got royal blood in her and that’s why he wed her, but who knows the truth about the choices a man makes but the man himself? Even then, I wonder if they know themselves.”

Meaghan thought of the tortured look in Áedán’s eyes as he’d made his confessions that morning and had to agree. Men might pretend to rule the world, but inside they were no more sure of themselves than the little boys that often looked out of their eyes.

“Brion would not take no for an answer,” Colleen went on in that sad and resigned voice. She looked so very young and lost. “He said it was love at first sight, and fool that I am, I wanted it to be true. I’d never been loved before, not like that. He was forbidden, but I wanted him like a bird wants to fly. I could not have denied him, even though I tried. I could not conceive
no
when it came to Brion MacGrath
.
He was like a fairy tale come true, and I yearned to be his princess so badly that I pretended what we felt was the real world and the other life, his wife . . . that was the make-believe.”

Her shame blew with the wind, sharp and abrasive. It cut to the bone. Overhead the sky rumbled and quaked, and the air grew damp and cold, making Meaghan shiver.

“Brion treated me to love and kindness. The first I’d felt in far too long.”

Colleen’s drenched eyes begged her to understand, begged her to forgive. Meaghan didn’t need to forgive her, and she understood all too well.

Love is a doomed and violent thing.

“Perhaps it was meant to be, you and Brion,” she offered gently. “There doesn’t seem to be any love lost between him and his wife.”

“No. There is none of that. They married young and hastily, and they’ve had years to regret it. He has anyway. But it was something both of their families wanted. Now their parents are dead and they are still locked in marriage.”

“Was she ever a good wife to him?”

“No, and he was never a good husband to her. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not about condoning what I’ve done or what they’ve done to each other, but two people less suited would be hard to find. She is as cold and conniving as a . . .”

“Snake?” Meaghan offered helpfully.

“Aye. And he’s a big child who needs a woman with a firm hand.” Said in a tone that could not hide her love.

“Oh, Nana. I’m so sorry.”

“Ach. Don’t be. I deserve the lot I’ve been given.”

“Why?”

“I coveted another woman’s husband,” she said, head hung with disgrace. “I took him to my bed.”

“How . . . I mean, Mickey . . . how did you get away with it?”

“It was before Mickey.”

“Oh.” That made sense at least. There was no way the vicious and domineering man she’d married would have given her enough freedom to carry on an affair. He’d have killed her if he’d ever caught her.

Meaghan said, “It takes two, Colleen. You didn’t do it on your own.”

“That is true.” She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. The press of Colleen’s agitation rasped against Meaghan’s overwrought senses. Whatever weighed on her grandmother’s mind was heavy.

At last, she said, “There’s more. I can scarce tell you the rest.”

“I’m not here to judge you, Colleen. My love for you is unconditional. You’ve been an anchor in my life, and you’ve given me your support when I’ve needed it the most. I’ll do no less for you.”

Colleen blinked her eyes, looking overwhelmed by the loyalty she saw in her granddaughter’s face. Meaghan felt every bit of her emotions and shared the gratitude she felt.

“It’s Brion’s child I carry,” she whispered.

For a moment, Meaghan couldn’t process that. And then suddenly the words made sense. “It’s Brion’s baby?”

Miserable, Colleen nodded.

“And he doesn’t know?”

She shook her head. “He thinks it’s Mickey’s. I married Mickey as soon as I learned the truth.”

“Did Mickey know you were already pregnant?”

She nodded. “It was Marga who arranged the marriage.”

Meaghan’s mouth opened and closed for a moment before she managed to sputter,
“What?”

And then Colleen told her the most impossible truth she’d ever heard.

“You know that sometimes I see things.”

Meaghan nodded. “Like a granddaughter who comes from the future?”

Colleen almost smiled. “Aye. It’s a gift—or a curse, depending on the day and the message it gives. Sometimes I can glimpse what is to come. Not always, not even always accurately. But I can see some things looming in the future. I think I must have seen Brion in my dreams long before I saw him in the flesh. I was already half in love with him by the time we came face-to-face.”