Chapter Twenty-Four
Cullen watched Lowri go inside the cottage.
Relief at seeing that she was home and safe barely took the edge off his blinding rage.
The thought of her body cleaving to Butcher’s, her long legs wrapped around his back, her soft mouth pressed to his, made Cullen want to retch. He stormed into the cottage.
Briony leapt up with a broad smile for him. Lowri would not meet his eye, which just confirmed his worst fears. He took Lowri’s hand. ‘I need a word, outside,’ he said, jerking his head towards the door.
Lowri shook free his hand and stomped outside ahead of him, marching down the path to the coast. Cullen followed in impotent anger, words sticking in this throat, until they were halfway to the sea.
The day was glorious, with gentle sunshine and a soft breeze tickling the long grass and wildflowers, but he was dead inside, as if his jealousy had burned his heart out.
There was no point in delaying. Over the distant crash of waves, he said, ‘We have to talk about Donnan.’
‘There’s nought to say. You deceived me, and now I have no reason to stay here or lie with you to get a bairn.’
‘A bairn was not the only reason you lay with me, lass.’
‘Don’t flatter yourself. That lass you rescued might fall for your chivalrous act, but I won’t. You are a liar, Cullen Macaulay. You were in this scheme of your father’s from the start.’
He took hold of her. ‘No. My father duped us both. I thought you were in danger, those lads too. I knew nought of it. I swear on my life, Lowri.’
‘Let go of me.’ She struggled, but he held on. ‘Calm down and think, lass. I am not the villain here.’
‘I don’t believe you. And I am going home to Fellscarp on the next ship, whether you like it or not.’
‘I don’t like it. You are never leaving me. Wherever you go, I will hunt you down and drag you back. You are my wife, and you will remain with me.’
‘I was never your wife. I was a fool you dragged into bed whenever the urge took you.’
‘I don’t recall much dragging, lass. You were as willing as I.’
‘Well, not any more. And I won’t let you treat me like your whore.’
Cullen shook Lowri hard. ‘I never treated you like that, and you know it.’ He shook her again. ‘You know it, lass,’ he gasped.
Lowri slapped him hard enough to bruise, and he let go. Her face twisted with revulsion. ‘What about that wreck? I saw your hand in it, in that murder on the beach.’
‘Saw my hand? Tell me what you think I did.’
‘You lit the fires to lure the ship onto the rocks.’
‘Did Butcher tell you that when you climbed into his bed today?’
Lowri’s mouth fell open, and a blush spread over her cheeks and down her chest. The guilt on her face made Cullen dig his fingernails so deeply into his palms that he almost drew blood. Did she look like that after that bastard had her – wide-eyed, pink-faced?
‘Go on, deny it, Lowri,’ he growled.
‘I cannot deny that I went to him to get the truth.’
‘And did you find it, or did you just find the end of Butcher’s cock?’
She gasped at the coarseness of his words, but his anger had made him cruel. And Lowri did not answer his question.
‘Is it true, Lowri?’ he cried. ‘Tell me. I will not hurt you or seek retribution. I just need to know. Did you lie with him?’
To his horror, tears filled her eyes, spilling down her cheeks. Lowri never cried or showed weakness to him. So she must have done the unthinkable. Cullen’s heart was full of needles, throbbing with pain. He struggled to hang onto the good part of his character.
‘I would not blame you if you did, Lowri. He is richer than I, and more handsome, or so the lasses say. He would probably get you home, and he would relish taking you away from me.’
The world seemed to stop until Lowri spoke in a choked whisper. ‘I went there to do it, to betray you as you betrayed me with Donnan, but I could not.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’ll no more be Butcher’s whore than yours. And it’s not as if you care, either way.’
She turned to flee from him, but Cullen caught her arm.
‘You know, I care. I have always cared, and more so with every passing day. I swear on my life, I did not set those fires or have a part in that monstrosity on the beach. And I knew nothing of Donnan’s betrayal.
Please, Lowri, can we not forgive each other’s faults and make the best of it? ’
‘I’m not the forgiving type, and I do not trust you. I never will.’
She tugged her arm free and ran towards the sea.
Cullen stood with his head down, as if in a trance, as all the fight seeped out of him.
He had lost Lowri. Had she ever been his?
Not by right. Not by affection. His life stretched before him – a path of endless loneliness, without purpose, as it had been before she crashed into his world.
Was he to follow and catch her? Force her to care for him, or let her go to another. He flinched when a hand came to his back.
‘Are you alright?’ said Briony.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I heard a quarrel, raised voices, so I followed. Forgive me. I did not mean to overhear.’
‘Creeping up on a quarrel and not declaring yourself means you did,’ he said.
Briony’s face was all innocence – concern knitting her smooth, pale brows, hurt in her blue eyes at his harsh words.
‘I do not mean to intrude on your life, and I shall soon be gone. But you rescued me, and I owe you my life, and I would see you happy, Cullen. You are a fine, brave man, and she does not see how lucky she is to have you.’
‘Do not judge me so well on so short an acquaintance.’
She gave a little laugh. ‘How can I not judge you well, when I am alive this day because of you? I have been here but a day, yet it is clear that woman does not make you happy.’
That woman? Why would she not name Lowri, who had been kind since he had brought Briony home in his arms?
‘You don’t know her, or anything about us,’ he said.
Briony stepped closer, and he fought the urge to step back when she stroked her fingers down his arm. ‘Come back to the cottage and sit by the fire with me. It will comfort you.’
Briony was so beautiful, dazzling, in fact. Everything about her drew a man into wanting her. Yet Cullen itched to be away from her cloying sweetness, grovelling flattery, and, finally, it dawned on him, her insincerity. She unsettled him, and it was not due to lust at her loveliness.
She put her hands on his cheeks, stood on tiptoe and stared up at him.
Her kingfisher eyes, so bright and innocent.
Then her mouth met his in a soft, urgent kiss.
It was so unexpected that he froze for an instant.
But when Briony’s tongue slid against his, Cullen took her wrists and forced her back from him.
The lass couldn’t have looked more hurt if he’d slapped her. ‘Forgive me,’ she sobbed. ‘I just wanted to thank you? Did I do wrong?’
‘Aye, for I am a married man.’
She blinked fat tears away, and they rolled down her cheeks, burning now under a fierce blush. ‘Oh, please, forgive me. Do not tell your wife, or she will cast me out.’
‘I will not, and she would not do that.’ Lowri was more likely to cast him out than Briony, given her current mood.
‘I am not myself, you see,’ cried the lass. ‘The wreck and the horror of what I saw, it has gone into my head, and I can’t get it out.’ Her hand came to his arm. ‘I am so very afraid, Cullen, and with no one to comfort me.’
She fell against his chest, little hands in fists, clutching on to him. Cullen peeled her off. ‘Give me the name of the man you are to wed, and where he bides, and I will send word to Cork as soon as may be, so that he can come and fetch you. Now I must go.’
‘Where?’ she howled.
‘In search of my wife. And her name is Lowri, by the way.’
***
Cullen caught up with Lowri. She stood in a field of long grass just at the point where the ground sank down to a brook gurgling headlong to the sea.
Wildflowers studded the meadow with colour – yellows, blues and pinks.
He could not have named them if he tried, for there was only Lowri, holding his mind hostage.
She had on her drab grey dress. He had torn it off her many times already because he could not help himself.
Something about its simplicity brought out her wild, dark beauty.
He ached to have her. The sun turned her black hair shiny as jet as it wafted around her shoulders and against her face.
She turned to him, even though he did not shout her name.
It was as if she sensed his presence, like a wild animal would.
Her eyes were wet, thick black lashes sticking together and making her unbearably bonnie and vulnerable.
‘I should be on a ship, heading home to Fellscarp. I want to go and leave you behind, but I can’t,’ she blurted out, shaking her head, her hands in fists. Her eyes blazed against his with longing and an admission of weakness, and Cullen’s heart swelled to bursting in his chest.
He reached her in an instant. His mouth melted into hers in a desperate kiss. Cullen poured all his longing, need and desire into it. Lowri moaned and clung to him.
‘I’m a fool,’ she gasped.
‘We are both fools,’ he murmured as he pushed her down into the long grass, crushing the pretty flowers. A few fumbled moments had him inside her to his hilt. She was slick and ripe and eager, and he could barely hold himself back. But he did.
Cullen made love to Lowri under the sun, with the smell of crushed green grass around them and the hum of bees hovering over the meadow.
He stared into her eyes as he rocked inside her slowly, lovingly.
‘I am your master,’ he gasped. ‘Not Butcher, not my father, not Donnan or Rory or your brother. You are mine, Lowri, and you’ll never have another man but me, do you hear? ’
When he stopped moving inside her, she nodded.
‘And in return, you have my heart and my loyalty, always. I swear on this earth, this grass, these trees, while I lie inside you, that I did not betray you, and I never shall.’
Lowri tightened around him, moaning his name and digging her fingers into his back, his hair, his neck. Cullen was consumed by her as he reached a shattering release.
‘My love,’ he cried, and he meant it.