Enchanted Cottage (Avador Book 3, Books We Love Fantasy Romance) (11 page)

Brendan looked over the crowd.
“Someone hold her now, because I’d like a quiet word with Alana.” They made way for him, many turning their heads as Brendan walked past them.

Apprehension stirred inside Alana as the crowd moved on, Morag held tight in their midst.
She didn’t want to talk to Brendan, had nothing to say to him.

Taking her arm, Brendan led her away from the others, next to the apothecary’s.
“Alana, if the druids find Morag guilty—and I’m sure they will—I’ll be a widower and—“

“
No, Brendan.” She looked at him, this man she had once cared for but knew she could never resurrect her warm feelings for him. “I’ve already decided I’ll not stay in the village. I’ll go on—“

”Go on?”
He looked perplexed. “Go where? And in the name of the Goddess, where have you been all this time?”

She smiled.
“Long story, which I don’t wish to impart now. Perhaps sometime later….” She sighed. “I’m leaving and no need to ask where I’m going. I intend to make a life for myself elsewhere.”

“Ah, Alana, if only, if only
….” His face crumpled with hurt and sorrow. “I’ve always loved you, only you.”

“And perhaps you’ll find another woman to love.
You deserve a fine woman, a good wife. I pray that you will find the right woman soon.” She took a deep breath. “Now I’m going to my house to fetch all of my possessions that I can carry, and I’ll be leaving the village forever.”

“So it’s goodbye?”

“I fear so.”
She touched his arm. “I
do
wish you the best, Brendan. May happiness be yours.” She walked away, head held high, regretful that she had caused him any grief but knowing her departure was for the best. She carried her bag that contained her clothes and wondered how much more she could carry.

A rush of emotions consumed her as she entered her former home.
Layers of dust coated the furniture, and a cockroach scurried across the floor, then another, and another. Spider webs clung to the upper corners.

She considered the good people of Cairn to be honest, so if any of her things were missing, she knew whom to blame
—Morag. She had long suspected that Morag stole from the villagers, for she had seen expensive objects in Morag’s home, items she could never have bought herself. Finding her dresses hanging from wall pegs, she shook the dust from the frocks and placed them in her bag, then gathered toiletries and as many more things as she could carry. Immensely pleased to find the money she’d earned from teaching still in a dresser drawer, she dropped the coins in her dress pocket. That, and the money Colin had given her, plus the money she’d garnered from the sale of her bracelet should last her until she obtained another teaching position. On the spur of the moment, she decided to bequeath the house to Maude Mulligan, a widow who had suffered enough already. She supposed a legal transaction would be necessary, but she’d tend to that later in Moytura.

She stepped out of her house as the crowd was dispersing, the villagers returning to their chores, the farmers returning to their fields.

“You’re leaving us, Alana?” Morna Eaghan called.

Alana turned to face her, recognizing her as one of the women who had chased her from her home.
“I think it’s for the best.” She kept a neutral expression on her face; no point in recriminations.

“But where will you go?
What will you do?”

“Oh, I’ll find something.”
She turned her back on the villagers, these people she had known from childhood, and walked on. Leaving the village behind, she headed back to her cottage in the forest. She would stay there to rest for a day or two, then head for Moytura. Looking up at the sky, she noted the sun as it made its eastward trek. Too late to go to Moytura now.

Retracing her steps, she made the journey back to the forest.
But when she reached the forest and the place where her cottage had stood, she found both the clearing and the cottage gone.

Chapter
Twelve

After resigning his commission from the Elegian army in Komartis, Colin rode south, headed for the forest where he had met Alana and where he had spent so many happy days, despite his feverish illness.
He bypassed Ulaidh, riding far out around the city, closer to the border with Fomoria. Since the trip took several days, he spent the night at an inn in Luchra, then other inns on his route.

Starting out again the following morning, he took note of the landmarks and hamlets he passed, fearful of missing the path that led through this end of the forest.
He welcomed a light breeze that brought relief from the heat of early summer. Endless fields boasted summer crops, tall corn stalks, kale, lettuce, and endive. He caught the sweet aroma of peaches, the fruit ripe and ready for picking. Here and there, hamlets and villages appeared, soon gone as he galloped past. Other travelers rode in both directions, stirring up dust from the road.

Riding the Royal North-South Road, he wanted to sing with joy, as if he’d been granted everything wonderful in life.
Alana, it has been but a short while since I last saw you, yet I’ve missed you as though we’ve been separated for years
. How he loved her, could scarcely wait to see her again.

A magnificent oak stood at the entrance to the forest, and there he was!
Soon, soon, he would see Alana again. Wild interlocking grapevines overhead hindered his vision, giving the woods the appearance of eternal gloom. He stopped and waited to give his eyes several minutes to adjust to the darkness. Then he pressed on deeper into the woods. He kept his horse to a slow trot, riding this familiar road that brought him closer to his loved one. Worry clouded his thoughts, about how his father would greet Alana, if she agreed to join her life with his. Too late, he regretted that he hadn’t told his father about Alana. He recognized that even if she agreed to marry him, he must proceed slowly. After careful thought, which he should have indulged in before leaving Komartis, the answer came to him. He would woo her as a lover should court his sweetheart, and at the same time, prepare his father to accept her.
Once again, you’re getting ahead of yourself. You don’t know if she cares for you.

Farther into the woods, he looked for the clearing.
Where was it? Where was the cottage? He rode his horse from right to left, covering the ground where he’d first seen the clearing and the cottage. His frantic eyes covered every tree and bush, as though the house would suddenly appear. Knowing how easy it would be to become lost in the vast woodland, he stopped to take stock of his situation. He was on the right path, that he knew. He recognized the trees, the oaks and maples, the lone weeping willow. The scent of sassafras blew his way; everything appeared as he remembered … but no clearing and no cottage. This must be magic
,
he thought. Nothing else made sense
.

Keen disappointment overcame him, a distress like nothing he’d ever known.
He would never see her again. She was out of his life forever. He didn’t know how he could go on living without her. He recalled her sweet voice, her lustrous auburn tresses, the lilac fragrance that clung to her, as much a part of her as her mouth or blue eyes. If she were with him now, he would kiss every blemish on her face and pray to the Goddess that Talmora would cure her of the curse and make her as lovely as she surely must have been.

The horse neighed, bringing him back to reality.
He patted the mare’s shoulder. “I’ll wager you’re thirsty. Let’s hope the river is still here,” he said in a vain attempt at humor. He walked the horse down the rocky path, hearing the familiar roar of the river. He stopped by a boulder on the shore and dismounted, leaving the horse to drink her fill and munch on the grass. He stared off to the distant Orn Mountains, the low-lying clouds that shrouded their peaks.

“Cairn.”

“What?”
He spun around to see the old man, still clad in his brown robe, the same man who had once lectured him. “Well, old man, you have a habit of surprising people. Now, what did you say?”

“Cairn, her village.
She returned to Cairn recently. I can’t keep track of the days. One day is much like another. When I last spoke with her, that’s where she told me she would go.”

Struggling with impatience to search for Alana and happier beyond measure, Colin absorbed the man’s words. “Where is Cairn?
Never heard of it before.” His pulsed quickened, his breath catching as he waited for the old man to tell him.

The old man shrugged.
“How should I know? Many hamlets and villages in these parts. You will have to ask around to discover the location. Can’t be far from here, for she set out to walk to her village.”

“Ah, thank you!
I can’t tell you how much—“ But he was speaking to empty air.

Colin paced back and forth, silently urging his horse to finish drinking and munching on the grass, so he could be on his way.
Soon enough, the horse raised his head and turned his way. He mounted again and followed the path out of the woods.

Afraid to press his luck, to suffer an accident with the horse, he held the mare to a walk, through the dense expanse of oaks and maples, of earthberry bushes and forest fern.
Countless minutes later, he emerged from the woods and reached the Royal North Road. After a short ride, he entered a hamlet, praying that someone there could tell him how to find Cairn. He walked the horse to a well in the center of the hamlet, where several women had gathered.

Luck was with him.
“Oh, Cairn,” an older woman said, “a few miles to the west. Used to be a hamlet but it’s grown over the years.”

“How many miles?”

“Don’t know. Keep ridin’ until you see a pile of stones at the entrance to the village. Sacred stones, ya know. That’s how the village got its name.”

Thanking her, he left the hamlet and headed west.
Soon enough, he spied a tall pile of stones. He trotted past the blacksmith’s, the rows of cottages on both sides of the narrow dirt road. He stopped at the village well, which seemed to be a popular meeting place, no matter where he went.

“This is Cairn?” he asked the women, just to make sure.
Old women and young had gathered here, their ragged clothes and bare feet evidence of their poverty.

“Right, sir.”

Relief flooded him, a rush of happiness.
Any minute now, he would see her, talk to her, hold her in his arms.

They looked him up and down, as though gauging his station in life by the manner of his dress and the breed of his horse.

“Alana Cullain, where does she live?”

“You’re out of luck, sir.
She was here a few days ago but she left.”

Disappointment crushed him.
After all this riding, his hope to see her again. And now, she was gone. “Where did she go, do you know?”

The women exchanged puzzled glances, then looked up at him.
“Dunno. She used to teach reading and ‘rithmetic, so I guess she went on somewhere else, mebbe Moytura.”

A second woman nodded.
“Yeah, she musta went to Moytura.”

Ah, no!
Sheer willpower enabled him to maintain a neutral face, but inside his heart and soul cried for the woman he loved.

With an aching heart, he rode on.
How could he bear it, to have missed her by only a few days? If only he had reached Cairn sooner, if only he had told her how much he loved her when he had the chance. But ‘if onlys’ wouldn’t bring her back to him. He would never see her again, never see her again.

So back to Ulaidh, a journey that would take several days.
That evening, he stopped by a tavern, then rode on early next morning, a day’s ride to Moytura. Senseless to hope he would see Alana there, assuming she had gone on to Moytura. In a city of thousands, what hope did he have of finding her? Still, the city was along his way, so he decided to spend the night at the Snow Leopard, one of the better inns in the city. First leaving his horse at the city stable, he strode on to the inn, a short walk.

Inside the Snow Leopard, he ignored the other patrons as he ate his dinner of beef stew and barley bread, warm from the oven.
He looked up whenever the door to the inn opened, as if he would see Alana enter.
Fool! What makes you think you would see her here, in a city of thousands?

He left Moytura early the next morning and reached Ulaidh two days later.
He should be happy to arrive home, to spend time with his father, to look over the familiar fields, rich with summer crops. But all he could think of was Alana and the sharp heartache of never seeing her again, the realization that he would spend the rest of his life without her.

Weary after days of riding, crushed by his great loss, he wanted only to forget everything else. Yet he knew he must go on with living, knew his father depended on him.

After stabling his horse, he strode on inside and headed for his father’s study.
The familiar room, with its rows of books, blue brocade draperies, and his father’s oaken desk, brought back so many memories and made him glad to be home, despite his heartache.