“W
hat?” Ceana asked dumbly.
“Marry me.”
She went still. “You know that is impossible.”
“Nonsense.”
“You’re marrying Lady Elizabeth. You can’t just walk away from that.”
Cam slid an arm over her waist, keeping her pressed against him. “I can, and I will.”
“You wouldn’t do that to her,” Ceana said in a quiet voice. “She’d be ruined. Disgraced.”
“I wouldn’t throw her to the lions. I have an idea . . .” His voice faded.
“You’re a dreamer, Cam.” He shrugged lightly, and she sighed. “In any case, talk of Elizabeth is beside the point. You know I cannot marry.”
“No, I don’t.”
Pulling away from him, she rolled onto her back. “Well, it is the truth.”
“Why?”
“It’s just the way of it. MacNab women don’t marry.”
“What nonsense.”
“No,” she said, utterly serious. “It isn’t.”
Lying beside her, staring up at the ceiling as she was, he thrust a hand into his hair. “Do you expect me to simply accept such an obtuse announcement?”
“Aye.”
“Well, I won’t, damn it! I’ve fallen in love with you.”
All the breath whooshed out of her body. She stared helplessly up at the beams crisscrossing the thatched ceiling. God forgive her, but she was in love with him too. A MacNab healer besotted with an Earl of Camdonn. They had to be the two most divergent souls to ever have fallen in love.
There were so many reasons for them to stay apart. Their differing social classes. The requirements he’d have of a spouse—a
countess
. And the thought of her as a countess was laughable even to her. His need to maintain stable political ties with England. His betrothal to Elizabeth and his duty to protect her reputation and future.
Cam, her beloved dreamer, thought to overcome all those obstacles and marry her.
God help her if all of it didn’t make her love him more. She turned to him and studied the sharp planes of his face. Such a beautiful man. A good man. Why did so few see it in him?
He rolled to his side and those deep, compelling eyes fixed on her face. “I want to be with you, beside you, always.”
“No.”
He just stared at her.
“I’m a lowly Highland healer. A commoner. Some call me a witch. Elizabeth brings you the political ties you need. She is a lady. She possesses a dowry. I bring nothing but a sharp tongue and misery to all who profess to love me.”
“You’re wrong.” He spoke quietly. “You bring me happiness. I don’t give a damn about the English. My own home and my own people are all that matter to me now. I’ve the feeling that a connection with you will only improve my reputation.”
Fear squeezed her chest, tightening it, cloaking her heart and pressing in on her from all sides. She wrapped her arms around her body. “I cannot marry you.”
“Why?”
Ceana stared at him. She must tell him before he became so enamored with this idea of marrying her she couldn’t change his mind. She must reveal something she’d never revealed to another soul.
“Because . . . if a MacNab woman agrees to marry any man, that man must die.”
His lip curled. “Is that why MacNabs don’t marry? They’re murderesses?”
“No! That’s not it.” She sucked in a breath. Cam had spent most of his life in England, and it was likely he didn’t understand the veracity of Highland beliefs. Not in the same way she did. He’d probably laugh at her, but she had to make him understand.
“A curse was placed on the women of our family a hundred years ago.”
His brows crept toward his hairline. “A curse?”
“It’s true, Cam. I was the same as you, once. I didn’t believe. But it’s a true curse. It is real; I swear it. And I cannot risk it again. I can’t risk losing—”
He held up his hand. “Shh.” His voice was tender and soothing. “Calm down, Ceana. Tell me more about this curse.”
She gulped in a breath, trying to calm her racing heart. “My great-great-grandmother was a healer, and when she was a young woman, she failed to cure a witch’s lover. When he died, the witch went mad with grief and cursed MacNab women for all time. She pronounced that a MacNab woman shall never marry. If she attempts to mock the curse, the man will die before they are joined.”
Cam listened silently, stroking her hair in a gentle motion as she continued. “From the time I was a wee lass, my mother and grandmother tried to make me understand. They attempted to warn me. They told me their stories again and again.”
“What stories?” Cam asked.
“My grandmother once agreed to marry a man, but he died of an apoplexy the day before their joining. My father made grand promises to my mother to get her into his bed. When she announced to him that she was with child, he promised to marry her, but then he disappeared. To escape from being shackled to her, he tried to cross the mountains in the dead of winter. They found his body in the spring—he’d frozen to death.”
Cam studied her. Understanding had dawned in his expression, giving her some relief, but the most difficult part was yet to come.
“Even with evidence of the authenticity of the curse and the dire warnings of my grandmother and mother, I laughed at them. I rebelled. I”—she blinked hard—“I fell in love.”
Ceana turned back to face the ceiling as the memories surged through her in hot, painful waves. “I was at Aberdeen. I went there after my mother died, and I met a man named Brian Ross.” Dear God, she hadn’t spoken his name aloud in years, and saying it sent a knifing pain through her chest. “Brian was studying medicine at King’s College. He was very kind. He encouraged me to tell him about myself, and instead of mocking me or turning me away, like every other learned man I’d known, he was interested in the theories and techniques passed down to me from my grandmother and mother. In return, I was fascinated by his travels and his exploration of medicines from other peoples. He began to encourage my participation—secretly, of course—in his studies. We became friends . . . then lovers.”
She couldn’t move. She was vaguely aware that she stared at the ceiling of her little cottage in the Glen, but she didn’t see it. All she saw was the whirlwind of those happy, intense, erotic days. Brian, her tall, blond Lowlander. Debating medical theories with him. Studying poison antidotes with him. Spending sweaty, naked nights beside him, loving him. Him loving her—or so she’d thought.
“I’d forgotten all about the curse my mother and grandmother tried so hard to warn me about. I was certain Brian and I would be married. He was a gentleman, but he treated me with an abiding respect. He saw me as an intelligent woman. An equal. And then . . .” She drew in a tenuous breath, trying to keep her voice steady. “I discovered I was with child.”
Cam stiffened beside her, but she’d gone too far to stop now. “I was with child before marriage, just as my mother and grandmother had been. I told Brian about the babe, and he promised we’d marry after Michaelmas.
“I did as he asked. I didn’t see him for weeks. Michaelmas came and went, and still I waited. Finally, when the babe began to show, I went to his house, only to be turned away by his servant. I didn’t know what to do, so I lingered outside, meaning to catch him when he went out. When he finally did emerge he was with another woman. A lady from his own class.” Every word sent the dagger twisting deeper into her heart, increasing the pain until she gasped in every breath. “I ran to intercept them. I held out my hand and introduced myself as Brian’s intended. The woman stared at me, aghast, and Brian . . . He pushed me aside. He told me to go away. He told the woman he’d never seen me before.”
Forcibly, Ceana swallowed down the sob crowding her throat. Her arms had begun to shake. She’d never spoken of this. She’d pushed the memory of it deep inside and tried not to think about those days. She tried not to remember her baby. Her sweet wee baby girl.
“I became obsessed,” she whispered. “I investigated his affairs, spoke to people he knew. It wasn’t long before I discovered that the woman was his new bride. He’d married her two days after Michaelmas.
“One night I went to his house, and I pounded on the door until I had the attention of everyone inside. I didn’t care about the woman—it was best, I thought, if she knew what kind of a man he was. When he appeared from his laboratory to see what the disturbance was, I screamed at him, told him he was a lying worm, that he should rot in hell for leaving me and his child alone. Then I walked away, never intending to see him again.”
Ceana rubbed the moisture from her eyes. “But I came back two days later. Because I was so hurt and lost, and I wanted to apologize. Brian might have deserved it, but his poor, ignorant wife did not. I found . . .” She paused to take a strengthening breath. “As I approached the house, I saw his wife outside speaking to a group of men. I remained out of sight and listened as she told the men I’d killed Brian, that I was a madwoman who’d come to them spewing crazy lies, and I must be his murderer. I slipped away, frightened, and I went to the morgue. I saw him.” She shuddered. “I’m sure he was poisoned. I think it likely, knowing Brian, that he used one of his experimental medicines on himself, and it killed him. But by that time, the authorities intended to arrest me for his murder. I ran. I wanted to come here, to the Glen, to hide and be with my grandmother, but on the second day of my journey . . . I lost the child.”
She lapsed into silence, and Cam spoke, his voice ragged. “What happened?”
She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, trying to stave off the gooseflesh that had broken out over them. “I began to bleed. I gave birth alone in the wood. She was very early. She never took a breath.”
The dam burst, and Ceana let out a low, keening sob. Twin tears trickled down her face. She had hurt—she
still
hurt. She had torn open the wound, and it bled, and she couldn’t stop it.
My baby. My poor innocent child.
It was her fault. She had killed Brian, and she had killed her daughter, all because she’d ignored the wisdom of her mother and grandmother. She’d mocked them, mocked the curse.
She couldn’t let it happen again. She could not—
would not
—be responsible for another person’s demise. Cam’s death would be too much for her to bear. She loved him too much.
Slowly, tentatively, Cam’s arm slipped over her waist. He meant it as a gesture of comfort, and it did comfort her. She sighed as his gentle heat seeped beneath her skin. If only there were no curse. If only he weren’t an earl and she a simple healer. If only he weren’t already betrothed.
If only . . .
She spoke in a low, cracking voice. “I hadn’t realized how much I cared for the child, even after what Brian had done. I was too sick at heart to come here, to listen to my grandmother and her ‘I told you sos,’ so I went to Inverness. I remained there until I received word that she had died.”
“How long were you in Inverness?”
“Four years.”
“Come here, my love.”
Ceana turned to him, squeezing her eyes shut as two more tears trailed down her cheeks. Her voice muffled against his chest, she said, “The curse is real. I cannot agree to marry you. I cannot risk it happening again. If you were to die . . . I couldn’t bear it.”
“Shhh.” Holding her close, he arranged the plaids over her and rubbed smooth hands up and down her back. She’d grown cold as ice, and she shuddered in his arms. Never in a man’s presence had she felt so small, so vulnerable.
“You are brave, Ceana,” he said quietly. “You are intelligent and honorable. I’ve never met a woman as strong as you.”
Burrowed into his chest and shaking with the force of her sobs, she gave a cynical bark of laughter. She’d never felt weaker than at this moment. Remembering her most difficult, frightening days. Reliving her pain. And knowing she’d been stupid enough to fall in love all over again.
“You were unlucky,” Cam said in a low, soft voice. “Your mother and grandmother were unlucky too, devastatingly so. What if I married you right now? Would the curse end?”
“It could never happen.”
“Why not?”
“A marriage between us would never come to pass. You . . . you would die first.” Again her eyes filled with tears, and she clutched his arm, combating the fear that he’d perish this instant for having the audacity to even consider such a thing.
Cam released a frustrated breath. “No, Ceana. I am healthy as an ox, and I’m not going to die. I want to marry you. I want you to bear my children.” His arm tightened around her. “I want to erase that painful time from your memory and fill the remainder of your days with happiness and joy.”
Ceana’s heart broke. No, it exploded, shattered into thousands of sharp, deadly shards. Slowly, she turned her head to look at him. “You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said.”
“I heard every word.”
She shook her head. “No. You weren’t listening. I told you I can’t marry you. I told you why. So why are you doing this?”