Page 10 of Moon Craving

had ended up kidnapped and wed to his rival, the laird of the Balmoral clan.

When Abigail had learned of this situation, she had assumed that would be the end

of it. Scotland's king should be happy one of his Highland lairds had taken an English

wife. Naive as that thought might have been, she was certain she had been right.

According to the king's letter, Abigail's planned upcoming marriage to the original

Highland laird was the result of Sybil's petition for redress, not the Scottish king's. Her

mother had petitioned her king, knowing the outcome would be that her deaf daughter

would be given in marriage to a stranger in a foreign land.

Abigail put every bit of loathing she felt at her mother's perfidy in her glare. "I was

looking for the truth; something difficult to come by in your company."

Sybil dismissed the insult with a sneer. "You have no business in here."

"By your action, you believe I have no place in this keep at all."

A silent stare answered her accusation, but it spoke more loudly than words could

have. Sybil wanted Abigail gone. Pain tore through her, the years of rejection coming

together in one moment to pierce her heart with a mortal blow.

"When were you going to tell me?" Abigail asked, making no effort to modulate her

voice.

"When I felt it necessary," Sybil replied with dismissive venom.

"At the altar? When I stood before a priest to say vows?"

Her mother's expression was all the answer Abigail needed. Sybil had had no

intention of preparing Abigail for the wedding that was to take place across the Scottish

border. Abigail didn't think anything could hurt worse than the betrayal she found between

the lines of the king's missive. She had been wrong.

Knowing not only that had Sybil arranged for this marriage, but that she intended

Abigail to go into it not only deaf, but blind as well, destroyed the last vestiges of hope of

her mother's love to which she had stubbornly clung all this time.

"How could you be so cruel?" How could any mother set her daughter up so foully?

"It is not cruel to secure your future."

Abigail didn't believe the benevolent justification for a second. "There is no security

in subterfuge."