You don’t have to sell me on him, Adrienne thought morosely. “I’m sorry, Lydia. I’m very tired. I need to go rest,” she said stiffly, and turned for the door.
As she entered the corridor she could have sworn she heard Lydia laughing softly.
Hawk found Grimm waiting for him in the study, gazing out at the west cliffs through the open doors. He didn’t miss the tiny whiteness at Grimm’s knuckles on the hand that clenched the door frame, or the rigid line of his back.
“So?” Hawk asked impatiently. He would have gone to the Comyn keep to investigate his wife’s past himself, but that would have meant leaving Adrienne alone with the damned smithy. No chance of that. Nor could he have taken her with him, so he’d sent Grimm to uncover what had happened to Janet Comyn.
Grimm turned slowly, kicked out a chair, and sat heavily before the fire.
Hawk sat as well, rested his feet upon the desk, and poured them both a brandy. Grimm accepted it gratefully.
“Well? What did she say?” The Hawk’s grip tightened on his glass as he waited to hear who had done such terrible things to his wife that her mind had retreated into fantasy. The Hawk understood what was wrong with her. He’d seen battle-scarred men who had experienced such horrors that they had reacted in similar fashion. Too many barbaric and bloody losses made some soldiers spin a dream to replace the reality, and in time many came to believe the dream was true. As his wife had done. But, unfortunately, with his wife he had no idea what had caused her painful retreat into such an outlandish fancy that she couldn’t even bear to be called by her real name. And whatever had happened to her had left her totally unwilling to trust any man, but especially him, it seemed.
The Hawk braced himself to listen, to channel his rage when it came so he could wield it as a cool and efficient weapon. He would slay her dragons, and then begin her healing. Her body was growing stronger day by day, and the Hawk knew Lydia’s love had much to do with it. But he wanted his love to heal her deepest wounds. And the only way he could do that was to know and understand what she had suffered.
Grimm swallowed, fidgeted in his chair, tilted it at the sides like a lad, then got up and moved to the hearth to shift restlessly from foot to foot.
“Out with it, man!” The week Grimm had been gone had nearly driven the Hawk crazy imagining what this Ever-hard man must have done. Or even worse, perhaps the Laird Comyn himself was to blame for Adrienne’s pain. Hawk dreaded that possibility, for then it would be clan war. A terrible thing to be sure, but to avenge his wife—he would do anything. “Who is this Ever-hard?” The question had been gnawing at his insides ever since the night he’d first heard the name emerge from her fevered lips.
Grimm sighed. “Nobody knew. Not one person had ever heard of him.”
The Hawk cursed softly. So, the Comyn was keeping secrets, was he? “Talk,” he commanded.
Grimm sighed. “She thinks she’s from the future.”
“I know Adrienne thinks that,” Hawk said impatiently. “I sent you to discover what Lady Comyn had to say.”
“That’s who I meant,” Grimm said flatly. “The Lady Comyn thinks Adrienne is from the future.”
“What?” Hawk’s dark brows winged incredulously. “What are you telling me, Grimm? Are you telling me the Lady Comyn claims Adrienne isn’t her blood daughter?”
“Aye.”
Hawk’s boots hit the floor with a thump as the latent tension charging his veins became a living heat.
“Let me get this straight. Althea Comyn told you that Adrienne is not her daughter?”
“Aye.”
Hawk froze. This was not what he had expected. In all his imaginings he had never once considered that his wife’s fantasy might be shared by her mother. “Then exactly who does Lady Comyn think the lass is? Who the hell have I married?” Hawk yelled.
“She doesn’t know.”
“Does she have any ideas?” Sarcasm laced the Hawk’s question. “Talk to me, man!”
“There’s not much I can tell you, Hawk. And what I know…well, it’s damned odd, the lot of it. It sure as hell wasn’t what I expected. Ah, I heard such tales, Hawk, to test a man’s faith in the natural world. If what they claim is true, hell, I don’t know what a man can believe in anymore.”
“Lady Comyn shares her daughter’s delusions,” Hawk marveled.
“Nay, Hawk, not unless Althea Comyn and about a hundred other people do. Because that’s how many saw her appear out of nowhere. I spoke with dozens, and they all told pretty much the same tale. The clan was sitting at banquet when all of the sudden a lass—Adrienne—appeared on the laird’s lap, literally out of thin air. Some of the maids named her witch, but it was quickly hushed. It seemed the laird considered her a gift from the angels. The Lady Comyn said she saw something fall out of the oddly dressed woman’s hand, and fought through the panic to get it. ’Twas the black queen she’d given me at the wedding, which I gave to you when we returned.”