Chapter 12
Ruaridh had always known that something was up with her. It was there in that look in her eyes whenever he mentioned their wedding.
His bride was afraid.
The problem was that he could not pinpoint the source of her fear.
A part of him had ascribed it to the trauma of almost getting married to the useless, spineless coward that Lord Westall was.
He understood that living around men who were cowards with no sense of responsibility could make a lady wary of getting tied permanently to one.
He had sensed that fear in her, so he had done everything in his power to convince her that he was nothing like her father and Lord Westall. He had sought to make her comfortable, rejoicing when she had formed a friendship of sorts with his daughter.
He had thought that the bonds she had created here would be strong enough to convince her to put down roots here and marry him, but it seemed he had thought wrong, and she was bound more tightly to her English roots than she would ever be to her Scottish ones.
Several times, she had expressed her desire to go back to England and help her father navigate the scandal that he had brought upon himself, but that wish was born of her altruistic nature rather than having anything to do with wanting to go back home.
Ruaridh knew that, and he was not ready to let her go and offer herself as a sacrificial lamb to salvage whatever was left of her family’s reputation, but it seemed that while he might be able to get a horse to the stream, he definitely could not force it to drink, and the last thing he would ever do was coerce a women to marry him even if his chest ached at the thought of losing her.
“Ye want to return to England?” he asked quietly, thankful that his voice did not betray the pain he felt.
“No, I don’t want to. Not anymore,” she sighed. “Father can solve his own problems. He has always done so. He does not need my help. Not really.”
“If ye have nay plan to return home, then why will ye nae marry me?” he followed up, confused.
“I do want to marry you,” she said in a small voice, studiously avoiding his gaze. “I just don’t think I am ready to.”
She did not trust him. Despite the weeks they had spent together, she had not come to see him as someone she could entrust her life to, and he did not blame her. He would not trust himself either if he were her.
The proof was there in his past, how he had totally overlooked the signs that his wife was weak, too weak to carry a child to term.
Mary had always complained of headaches and periodic weakness right from the start of their marriage.
He had believed the healer when he had said that it was simple weakness resulting from strenuous work.
Of course, Ruaridh had believed him, because Mary was definitely a hard worker who had made sure to get involved in the running of the castle despite his warnings to rest.
She had tried. Of course, she had tried to rest. But unfortunately, she was not one to sit idle. Her restless energy drove her to her feet, a trait he saw was now reflected in their daughter.
Mary had kept running the castle until the moment she went into labor. After calmly informing the women around her to send him, she climbed the stairs herself and lay on the bed in her room.
By the time the women fetched him, the midwife was already there, conducting the labor, and he was asked to wait below stairs. Those few hours were the most painful in his existence, so when he heard the sound of a child’s cry, he thanked the good Lord for the end of that ordeal.
The midwife then came out with a solemn look.
“Ye have a lass, me Laird,” she said, causing a smile to split his lips in joy, eager to see the gift that the heavens and his good wife had granted him.
But something in her expression gave him pause.
“Me wife?” he asked.
She stared at him quietly before shaking her head.
That simple gesture turned his world on its head.
He could not remember how he flew up the stairs. All he could remember was opening the door to find Mary lying on her bed, her skin pale.
Blood. There was so much of it. The air was thick with the stench of it.
He fell to his knees beside her bed and took her hand in his own.
“Please daenae go,” he whispered urgently, hating the helplessness in his voice.
“I daenae plan to,” she said with a tired smile, squeezing his hand in consolation.
He held onto her hand, warming it with his own, whispering a bunch of nonsense to her in the hope of keeping her awake while the maids cleaned her up and dribbled concoctions down her throat.
Sometime later, he had fallen asleep and woke with a start to see her looking down at him with a gentle smile. He had never been so grateful. The good Lord had spared her life and saved her from his selfishness.
Or so he had thought until the following year, when she thought to travel to see a relative of hers in England.
He should have insisted on bringing his men along.
Instead, he had listened to her entreaties to leave them behind and take just the coachman, since it was simply a journey to see her family.
He should have known better that a journey of that length hardly went hitch-free.
He should have known that even traveling between clans came with its own danger, but he had allowed her to lull him into a false sense of safety, trusting implicitly in his fighting skills, which had later proved to be his undoing.
When those men had accosted them and requested that they hand over their valuables, he should have done so, especially knowing that he carried precious cargo.
Instead, the order had elicited resistance, and he had overestimated his swiftness because in the next moment, all he heard was the sound of a gunshot, and he had instinctively braced for impact that he never felt.
When he looked beside him, it was to find his wife splayed across the seat, a hole in her chest that was bleeding, her eyes open and glazed over.
She was dead.
Because of him.
In the next moment, a terrible rage had come over him, driving him to kill those men and remove their scum from the face of the earth, but even when they lay dead at his feet, he still did not feel better. It did not change anything.
His wife was dead.
His daughter was now motherless at such a tender age.
Passing a hand over her eyes, he closed her eyelids. He wished he could as easily erase the memory of her lifeless eyes from his mind, but it would remain with him, taunting him with the trust that he had broken.
He laid her down on the bench, then went to find the coachman, a young lad named Alan.
He had sustained a serious injury in his leg, but he was still alive, even though a tad delirious, and he was going to live if Ruaridh had anything to say about it.
He bound his wound, then helped him into the carriage and started the journey back home.
When he arrived, he was dry-eyed, even when Grannie Ava screamed in sorrow, even when Logan and one of the other clansmen brought Mary’s decomposing body out for burial. He was numb until the moment her coffin was lowered into the grave.
Then the guilt returned with a vengeance, wicked whispers reminding him that he was the one who was supposed to be lying in that coffin, not sweet, beautiful Mary, who had to be buried with none of her family members present because of the haste.
He was on the verge of doing something drastic when he heard a gurgling laugh from beside him. It was Keira in her swaddle, giggling with a finger between her lips, looking up at him with so much innocence that it was almost as if she had cloaked him in it.
In that moment, he was no longer the sinful man who deserved to die. He was simply the guardian who was entrusted with her care to ensure that she held onto that innocence for as long as she could.
So in the next few years, he threw himself into that task, ensuring that Keira was happy and well-fed, protected from all the ugly things the outside world had to offer.
He was almost sure he had succeeded, especially with the men he had entrusted with guarding her and keeping her safe. But even with all those layers of protection, somehow his daughter had found herself in the woods at the borders, vulnerable enough for Lord Westall to kidnap.
Fate was at it again, reminding him that no matter how hard he tried, he could never become worthy of trust.
So he had fought tooth and nail to get her back, and while she returned unscathed physically, he did not want to think about the mental trauma her kidnapping might have caused. The damage was already done, one that he could never know the extent of or could correct. So he tried to live with it.
And now he wanted to marry Violet, a Sassenach, even though a few in his clan probably held grudges against her simply because her people had spawned the thieves that had turned him into a widower and his child motherless.
She was right to be scared. He could not tell her to trust him.
He did not trust himself. While he pledged to protect her with his life, he was also aware that he might not be able to protect her from everything.
It was a risk she had to take, and he could not force her to take such a risk lightly simply because he was unwilling to let her go.
“Ye ken ye daenae have to marry me if ye daenae want to,” he reminded her quietly.
“I want to. I just…” she trailed off, tugging on her braid and twirling the edge around her finger.
“Do ye nae like me?” he asked.
Even before she gave an answer, he already knew the truth.
Of course, she liked him, or at least she lusted after his body, just as he lusted after hers. Right from the first day they met, he had recognized the spark between them, and he had caught her staring at him one too many times when she thought no one was looking.
Their passion had flared out of control when he took her into his arms and kissed her.
He had burned with lust, suffering under the almost uncontrollable need to make love to her there beside the loch with no care for who might see them.
She had bewitched him with her kiss, binding her to him, until all he could think about was her and what he would finally have the freedom to do to her body when they were married.
That was why it seemed he was rushing the marriage. If he waited any longer, he might die from the need that coursed through his blood whenever she was present. Or he would give in to the dishonorable urge to ruin her and bind her to him by destroying her reputation.
Since his honor was totally against the latter, he had to opt for the former.
He had not wanted to use the passion between them to force her hand, but it seemed that was the only weapon he had left in his arsenal. So he approached her, watching as her pupils dilated with desire, tension rising between them.
“Ye ken ye want me. Ye daenae need to deny it,” he whispered in her ear after cornering her against the wall, relishing the shudder that went through her.
He felt his control slipping as he inhaled the intoxicating scent that urged him to divest her of her clothes and find the source and drink from it until he was sated. It would be so easy to ravish her here in the darkness, where no one would think to find them.
But he wanted to marry her, to touch her in the full light of day, when he could fully appreciate every curve of her body and worship it as it was due. Making love to her should be an art and not cheap copulation in the dark.
“You know I do,” she said in a whisper that did things to his insides. “But it is not enough to make a marriage.”
“We would make it enough,” he purred against her ear, nipping at the shell, enjoying how she trembled in his arms.
His eyes locked onto her lips, and she licked them, coaxing a helpless groan from him.
It would be so easy to take her lips and give them both the kiss they both craved. Except he suspected that if they started this, they would not be able to stop until they brought it to its natural conclusion, and they ended up in a sated heap on the floor.
He respected her enough not to do that. Not yet.