Chapter 14
It wason the third day of Ryder’s relentless search for Meredith’s attacker that her father’s health started to fail.
In retrospect, it should have been obvious that something was amiss, Meredith reflected, as she sat by his bedside, his frail hand clasped in her. Never in the best of health, the elderly man had faced so many trials over the past few weeks that it was a miracle he’d remained standing. The worries about money, followed by the loss of his home, and then the attack on his two daughters… it was no wonder he had taken to his bed.
“Here, drink some of this, Pa,” Meredith begged, raising a bowl of cook’s broth to her father’s pale lips. “It’ll make ye feel better.”
The old man did as she asked, but, after just a few sips, he fell back against his pillows, clearly exhausted by the effort to remain upright for long enough to eat. Meredith replaced the bowl on the table by the bed, her eyes never leaving his pale face.
Please, Lord, not him, she prayed silently. Please don’t take him now. I can’t lose him, too.
A small sob escaped her throat, despite her best efforts to suppress it, and she was grateful when the door of the bedchamber opened a moment later, admitting Melissa, who had come to take her place.
“Ye should get some rest,” her sister said, placing a hand on Meredith’s shoulder. “We’ve a long night ahead.”
Melissa appeared to have grown older in the days that followed the kidnap attempt. It was as if all of the events of the last few weeks had caught up with her at once, and, annoying though her sister could be, Meredith had found herself wishing more than once that she could have the old Melissa back, inane chatter and all.
It’s not fair, she thought, as she closed the chamber door softly and went in search of Ryder, who was due back soon. She should not have to deal with this at such a young age. Not after the loss of her home, too, and all she’s ever known. None of us should be facing this, in fact. I was so happy that day after the wedding — but a few days happiness was all I got before everything came crumbling down, castle walls and all.
She walked quickly down the stairs, trying not to feel annoyed by the constant presence of the guard on her heels. True to his word, Ryder had instructed the man not to leave Meredith’s side, and the servant had obeyed his master’s words to the letter, no doubt fearing the consequences if he did not. She just wished his presence actually made her feel safer — or that Ryder would give up his so-far fruitless search for her assailant and accept that she was safer with him by her side rather than out on the moors day after day. They all were.
“Ryder!”
She arrived at the foot of the stairs just in time to meet Ryder on the way up, his shoulders slumped in defeat. Another’s day’s search had ended without a trace of the man he was looking for, Meredith assumed.
“I wasnae expecting ye for another hour or more!” she said, noticing the dark shadows that ringed his eyes and the hollows that had started to appear under his cheekbones. “Come, we’ll go straight to the kitchen, and I’ll ask cook to make ye something hearty to eat. Ye look like ye could be doing with it!”
“Maybe later, lass,” Ryder answered, his voice firm. “I want to go and see yer faither first. How is he? Did he manage to eat something?”
Meredith simply shook her head, not wanting to meet him in the eye. When Ryder hadn’t been out on his search, he’d been spending much of his time by her father’s bedside, much to her surprise, talking to the old man in a low voice that Meredith couldn’t quite decipher.
It’s strange how quickly things can change, she found herself thinking yet again. For good as well as for bad. She would never have believed that the stiff, distrusting man who had arrived at her parents’ castle to escort her to his home was the same man who now spent every spare moment comforting her elderly father in what she felt sure must be his final days. Then again, she would not have believed that those final days would come around so soon, either. Life was filled with surprises, it was true, and not all of them welcome ones.
“He dinnae want anything, Ryder,” she said now, finally meeting his eye. “He hasn’t eaten for two days now. The physician says… he says…”
But it was no use. The words on the tip of her tongue wouldn’t come, she just could not bring herself to speak them aloud and make them real, so she was grateful when Ryder reached for her, pulling her into a warm embrace that told her there was no need for words between them. He understood only too well.
“It’s alright, lass,” he murmured into her hair. “It’s alright. I’m here for ye.”
“Are ye, though?” Meredith countered, pulling back just enough to look him in the eye. “Will ye really be here for me, Ryder, or will ye be out with Colby, searching endlessly for someone that willnae be found?”
Her eyes blazed. She had not intended to speak so harshly, but now that the words were out, she found herself unwilling to take them back and deny the truth of them. She was no longer afraid of the shadowy figure who had terrified her by the loch that day, not because the threat had disappeared, but simply because her father’s condition had given her far more important things to worry about. She couldn’t face those worries alone, she knew, as she looked into her husband’s eye.
“I ken ye mean well, Ryder,” she said, her voice softer, as she reached up to stroke the hair back from his forehead. “I ken ye just want to protect me — to protect us all, and I love ye for it. But I need ye here now. D’ye hear me? I cannae do this on my own, Ryder. Please tell me ye’ll give up this search — for now, at least? Even if the man does come back now, what harm can I possibly come to with ye by my side to protect me?”
Ryder nodded, his arms still wrapped firmly around her. He had done the best he could — he knew that as well as she did. Not only had he brought in the very best physicians to tend to her father as soon as the man’s health had started to fail, but he had also done everything in his power to try to track down the man who had attacked her and bring him to justice, riding out for long hours every day with Colby and his men, until they’d covered every square inch of the land surrounding the castle, and as far beyond it as had been possible.
All he wanted was for her to be safe. But as he held her in his arms, feeling her shoulders shake as she sobbed into his shoulder, he knew that what she needed to feel safe was not a husband out trying to vanquish an unseen enemy, but one who would stay with her, right here in their home, as she watched her beloved father attempt to fight an enemy that came from within.
That was the husband she needed — and so that was the husband she would have.
“Come,” he said now, gently wiping the tears from her cheeks. “We’ll have nay more tears. I’m here now, and I willnae be going anywhere. I promise ye, lass.”
Then he looped one arm around her waist and gently led her back upstairs to her father’s chamber.
* * *
The room was stuffy in spite of the cold December air, but the physicians grouped around Meredith’s father’s bed would not allow them to open the curtains to allow the air to circulate — it would not do to allow the patient to become too cold, they had said.
Ryder watched from the corner of the room, a small frown on his face. These men were supposed to be some of the finest physicians he’d been able to call to him at such short notice, but so far they’d made very little difference — if any at all — to the old man in the bed, who seemed to grow frailer by the hour.
Ryder clenched his fists, trying not to let his anger show. He was not used to the type of problems that could not be solved. In his world, there was always a solution, whether it be the fist, the sword, or the purse. In this case, he had opted for the latter, paying over the odds to get his father-in-law the best treatment money could buy, but he was starting to think it had all been for nothing, and his anger at this fact surprised even him.
It was not that he was unused to death, far from it, in fact. If anything, Ryder had seen so much death in his life that he had thought himself inured to it. He had not cried at the death of his mother or even of his sister. He’d simply set out to get vengeance for it — and vengeance he had had, even though it had been at the price of killing his own father.
Needless to say, he had not cried at the death of his father, either. He had felt no guilt, no remorse. The old man had deserved what he’d got. He’d killed Ryder’s sister, and he’d have killed Ryder too, had he but had the chance. It was as simple as that. Ryder had done what he had to do, and he’d do it all over again if he had to, making the necessary choices and not flinching at the consequences.
This, however, was different. Not only because this was a death he knew would hurt the person he loved most in the world, but because, as he now realized, it would hurt him, too. A few weeks ago, he had thought Meredith was the only person who had ever loved him and the only person he loved in return. Since he’d found himself so deeply embedded in her family, however, he’d come to feel differently.
What Meredith’s parents had shown him, he now knew was not simply gratitude or even duty. No, their warmth was unfeigned, their loyalty sincere. They had treated him, in other words, as a son, and the injustice of finding this kind of family, only for it to be so quickly torn away from him, was just too much to bear.
Casting a quick look across the room to where Meredith sat between her mother and sister, with Felix hovering awkwardly behind them, Ryder quickly rose and left the room. “Some air,” he told the guard at the door of the chamber. “Tell my wife I needed to get some air if she asks.”
* * *
Back inside the room, Meredith was so preoccupied with her own thoughts that she didn’t even notice him leave. Over the last hour or so, her father’s breathing had become shallower and harder to detect — in fact, several times, she had started forward in a panic, thinking it had stopped altogether and that the time she had been dreading had come, as it surely must.
Now, however, it came in a loud rattle, which seemed to fill the room with its ominous sound, and, seeing the two physicians by the bed exchange a worried glance, she moved to the bedside, where her mother was already crouched, holding her father’s hand. Taking the other hand in hers, Meredith was shocked anew by how frail and insubstantial it felt. How could the man who had swung her above his head when she was a child and raced through the long stone corridors of the castle, chasing her and her siblings, have come to this?
A loud sob from Melissa, standing behind her, interrupted her thoughts, and she glanced quickly around the room, noticing Ryder’s absence for the first time.
“My husband,” she said, turning quickly to the nurse who stood at the end of the bed. “Fetch my husband, and don’t delay!”
* * *