Chapter Thirteen
Lisle now knew there was such a thing as hell.
It wasn’t buried deep in the bowels of the earth.
It wasn’t the black underbelly of a mythical place called heaven.
It wasn’t full of devils and fire and condemnation and smoke.
It was in every raindrop that hit her with a stinging blow, every shallow breath she kept taking, despite wishing them done with, and it was in the burning sensation right in her breast.
It was the choking pressure of the green and gold ribbon tie at her chin, holding the Monteith cloak to her body, and making her accept it.
Lisle reached up and pulled on one end of her tie, making it a surreptitious movement.
The cloak slid off her shoulders with the same stealthy motion, and came to rest on Blizzom’s flank before it fell off with the motion of his step, and landed somewhere on the rocky path they were following.
She didn’t look back and Monteith didn’t notice it, only because he wasn’t noticing anything about her.
The rain had a chill to each drop now that her back and shoulders were uncovered. It stung like little needles, and Lisle tried to concentrate on that. Rain hadn’t had such an effect before. It usually felt fresh and vital. And cleansing.
He’d called her filthy. Her. His wife…or was she even that anymore?
He’d said to trust nothing. He should have been more specific.
He should have said to not trust him. The stab of what might be anger, but felt a lot more like hurt, raced through her, dismaying and disgusting her.
She had no choice but to face why, too. The dismay and disgust belonged to her and she had to own every bit of it, because if she’d stayed with hating him, she wouldn’t care what he thought of her, what he was doing with her, or what he said about her.
A hoof slipped, sending a rock down the side of the pathway, where it continued its descent, gathering more of them as it fell, until the sound of so many rocks and boulders and chips of stone landing in the gully beneath them echoed back up to them, loud even in the rain.
Lisle listened for the end of the rock slide noise, watched the pathway in front of him as they descended the same one the Highland Regiment had been climbing, and did her best not to watch the man causing all of it.
He’d called her filthy, inbred, and barbaric.
Her mind replayed his words, and the way he’d said them.
The effect was a stiffening of her spine, and put a dryness to her eyes that negated the rainfall filling them, making the burn intensify more with each moment she prolonged blessing her own eyes with a blinking motion.
He’d called her filthy.
Lisle stared straight ahead and saw nothing.
She knew the incline straightened out from the decreased slant of being atop Blizzom’s back.
She heard the change in ground cover, but saw none of it.
She knew he turned back then, meeting her eyes for the briefest of moments, and then he was turning forward again, and yet she saw none of that, either.
All she saw was hate, making her eyes burn with it, and it was colored with red—the color of hell. It made the wash of rain no longer feel clean and fresh, but more like it contained brimstone and smoke.
“Here. Eat.”
He had pulled Blizzom’s rein, or slowed Torment’s stride, to bring him level with her.
Lisle heard his words and didn’t move her head.
She ignored him, although from the corner of her vision, she knew what he was doing.
The rain wasn’t slackening, but he must no longer care about the effects of it on his bread and meat and cheese, and other foodstuff that Widow MacIlvray had packed for them.
He was fishing about in the basket tied to the side of his saddle, and then he was holding something out to her.
“I’m na’—” Lisle stopped the slurred word, and made herself consciously change it. “I mean, I’m not hungry,” she finished.
“I dinna’ ask if you were.”
Lisle closed her eyes, making them burn worse somehow, at his use of the Scot slang. She shuddered through a breath she’d die before she admitted to.
“Then, doona’—” She stopped again, and forced herself to ask it with perfect Sassenach dialect. “I mean, do not offer it.”
“Lisle—”
“Doona’ speak with me, Monteith! Na’ now. I mean…not now.”
“You have to eat. Here.”
“Why?”
“Because a body canna’ exist without sustenance.”
“A body can exist without such bounty. I ate this morn. I do not need more. I have just spent a year proving thus.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Eat your own meal, my lord. I repeat. I am na’—not hungry.”
“Neither am I,” he replied, although he was filling his mouth, chewing, and swallowing at the end of the words.
“Then why do you eat?”
“Because that’s the business I am in,” he replied.
Lisle tipped her head and looked at him, although her eyes burned worse, and her head started throbbing at the motion. He was filling his mouth again, chewing again, and it looked like he was forcing each swallow when he’d finished.
She went back to looking straight forward.
“My business requires force, power, strength, stamina, and health. Mine. Every day, more of it each day. I can’t afford to slacken and sicken. A body does na’ get to such a state by starving it.”
“I dinna’—did not ask,” she said finally.
“I know.”
She tried ignoring him again. It didn’t work. She knew he ate another bite before he spoke again.
“What happened to your cloak?” he asked.
“I determined that I nae—I mean…no longer need it.”
“Will you cease that?”
“What?” she asked.
“Forcing Sassenach words through your lips.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because it is na’ you.”
“I would ask you what you feel is me, my lord, but as I have already listened to it, I doona’—I mean, do not feel the need to hear it again.”
“Lisle.”
“Doona’ say my name! Never again! You ken?”
“Why?”
“Because I was named for a Celt goddess, and you have just vilified everything I value in that. You are na’—I mean—not worthy of having the name on your lips or your tongue.”
He didn’t answer. He simply took another large, vicious-looking bite of his bread, chewed it, and then lifted his chin for the swallowing motion it required.
From the corner of her eye, it looked like it scraped his throat as he swallowed.
Lisle sneered slightly. She only hoped it scoured him all the way down into his belly.
He tore another bite off and watched her as he chewed it. Lisle wasn’t looking; she didn’t wish to. She knew he was looking because she felt his stare.
“You canna’ ignore me forever,” he said.
“I can do whatever I wish,” she replied.
He sighed heavily. “You see nothing, know nothing, and sit in judgment on the whole. I doona’ ken why I bother talking to you now.”
“If it’s any comfort, neither do I,” Lisle replied.
“If I explain, I tear it apart. If I stay silent, I am hated.”
“You doona’ have to stay silent to be hated, my lord. I hate you just fine with or without your words. Trust me.”
That got her a larger sigh. Lisle tightened her fingers on the pommel, and thanked God for making the rain as disguising as it was.
“I dinna’ mean any of that…none of that,” he said.
“I prefer brutal honesty, my lord. I always did.”
“I know. That’s why everything has to go as it is.”
“Canna’ you simply eat your meal and leave me be?”
“’Tis na’ palatable,” he replied.
“Then why do you still eat it?”
“I already told you. ’Tis the business I am in.”
Lisle turned to him, hoping the rain blurred him, and yet knowing it wouldn’t.
He was still the most handsome man she’d ever seen.
And now that she knew he’d do whatever it took to keep that physique as strong, muscled, and filled with as much stamina as he could, even eating an unpalatable meal, it was worse.
He was also the most insidiously evil, beautiful man she’d ever seen.
“I doona’ care to hear anything further about what business you are in, my lord.”
“As my wife, you have to address me by my given name…at least, some of the time.”
“I am na’ your wife. I heard as much. I may be inbred and stupid, but I am not deaf. Never was.”
He swore, and tore another bite from his bread. The stone look was back on every bit of his features, but it was tempered by something new, something intent and tormented. Lisle watched him chew in silence, and wondered what it was. He swallowed, tensing his cheeks with the motion.
“If you refer to my first wife, Shera, let me assure you, she presents no impediment to our marriage. None.”
“Shera would probably na’…I mean not agree, monsieur.” Lisle said the last part of her words in perfect French, and watched him look at her. There wasn’t a bit of surprise on him anywhere to hear it.
“She’s na’ in a position to agree or disagree.”
“She has my sympathy.”
“She does na’ need it. She’s gone,” he replied.
“That must have been uncomfortable for you,” Lisle replied in her perfect French. She should have been surprised when he understood every word, but she wasn’t.
“I dinna’ ask for her hand.”
“As I have already heard. She was probably part of the business contract that you and your partner arranged. She has my sympathy…and my thanks.”
“Thanks?”
“For freeing me from you. Nae man can have two wives, Lord Monteith. Such a thing makes a man a bigamist. Even up here, in the barbaric Highlands, such a thing is still frowned upon. Always was.”
There was silence for a bit as he shoved the last of his bread roll into his mouth and ate it. Lisle watched him and forced herself to ignore the twinge deep within her as he pursed his lips once he’d finished.
“The MacHughs will find life uncomfortable without their gold.”
Lisle sucked in the shock, and hoped he didn’t see it. “Are you threatening me?” she asked.
“Oh, I never threaten,” came the reply. “’Tis too time-consuming for my taste. I like the word negotiation much, much better.”