Chapter 26
26
A rthur seemed to be waiting for Neil when he arrived at his castle. No guards were there to disarm him, nor did Arthur seem to care that he had company.
The whole place was eerily quiet, despite how quickly Neil was moving through the space. He found Arthur in the main hall, slouched in his chair and lazily picking at the meat on his plate. Sipping on his wine, he chewed as if he didn’t have a single care in the world.
Arthur didn’t bother standing up to greet him. “Neil! Me friend! To what do I owe this intrusive pleasure?”
His friend, he called him.
“What right do ye have to call me that after what yer men have done?” Neil demanded, cutting right to the heart of the matter.
Arthur affected an innocent look that Neil would have believed had he not known him as well as he did. Not only was it exaggerated, but it was almost insulting.
“Why? What do ye mean? I’ve done nothing that I can recall… but everything is a little bit fuzzy at the moment. Why do ye nae remind me what ye are accusin’ me of?”
“Dinnae take me for a fool,” Neil retorted, his voice rising despite his attempts to keep his temper in check.
He didn’t think this was going to go well, and he wasn’t opposed to getting his hands dirty either.
“Och, but Laird MacTristan, ye are a fool. A blind, pathetic fool,” Arthur sneered from his table.
And he was right. Neil had been a blind fool. He hadn’t wanted to think that his friend and ally would do something like that to him. But no more. After witnessing the covetous way Arthur had eyed Ceana at the feast the other night, Neil couldn’t deny that the pieces fell right into place.
His hand moved to the pommel of his sword, and he knew that Arthur was tracking it. “Why did ye do it?”
Arthur shrugged. “Why nae?”
There was no telling if he meant what he said, or if he was just looking to rile Neil. Either way, it was working.
Neil could feel the precarious hold he had on his anger starting to thin and stretch. He didn’t know how long he would be able to keep his composure if he was being honest with himself. There was far too much at risk.
“Why did ye bother stickin’ around? Why bother pretendin’ to want to uphold our alliance if this was the plan that ye had all along?”
“It wasnae,” Arthur sighed, finishing off his wine and slamming the goblet back down on the table. “It wasnae always the plan, but I just didnae ken why I should play nice any longer.”
“Play nice?” Neil was outraged, his hands trembling with the urge to strike him. “Ye think that destroyin’ lives and reputations would… cure ye of yer boredom?”
“And it did.” Arthur chuckled. “Hungry? There’s plenty to go around. Though I suppose I could say the same thing about yer first wife… maybe even yer current wife if I have a mind to it.”
Neil’s lip curled, a growl that was more beastly than human rumbling in his chest.
“Which one do ye like better? I am very curious to ken which cunny ye prefer? Hm? Would ye like to ken me answer?” Arthur sneered. “Would ye like to ken how it all started? What Jessica truly thought of ye?”
Neil knew that Arthur hadn’t so much as touched Ceana. The history that he had with Jessica might speak for itself, but Ceana would have told him. He knew that she wouldn’t have allowed such a thing. Unless Arthur was saying that he took her by force—in which case, Neil was going to make him suffer for a very, very long time before he allowed him to beg for death.
Arthur moved forward as if he were a shark circling chum-filled waters. “I was there first, ye ken? Since we were bairns, she had always loved me—she would have done anything for me.”
The look on his face, the pure smugness and satisfaction, was nearly enough to make Neil’s stomach churn. He couldn’t stand it. His lip curled, but Arthur was nowhere near done.
“She always attended those feasts that our parents liked to drag us to, and every time she would beg me to marry her. Imagine her disappointment when her parents married her off to ye instead of me. Och, how she cried… Nae just that night, but so many nights after that. It was only right that I comforted her…”
Arthur took a few steps toward him, but the table was still between them. Neil wanted to warn him off, but he couldn’t seem to force himself to speak.
“Ye dinnae deserve either of them, ye ken? I shouldnae be surprised that both of them needed a real man. I guess ye must be a huge disappointment.”
No. He was wrong. He was just trying to rile him up. Neil knew that Arthur hadn’t touched Ceana. She wouldn’t do that to him.
“Did ye even care about them at all? Have ye nay shame?”
It was pointless to try and find humanity in Arthur. Even standing here in front of him, Neil could see that everything he had thought he had known about their friendship for the last eight years was nothing but a lie.
This man was a stranger to him.
“Hm. Which one? The maither or the daughter?” Arthur taunted.
That was all the answer Neil needed.
Arthur didn’t even respect both of them enough to refer to them by their names. He knew that he had sired Jeanie, and yet he spoke about her so crassly. There was no affection for her in his heart, and from the look on his face, Neil was starting to think that the man didn’t have any affection for anybody at all in his twisted, black heart.
“Why act on it now?”
To his knowledge, Arthur had no desire to sire a child. They both knew that he needed an heir, but Jeanie couldn’t be that, even if he did try to claim her. He would have to take her over Neil’s dead body. So how did this suit him? Causing strife within Neil’s clan?
“Well, honestly, I was just so tired of people respectin’ and lookin’ up to the man who was raisin’ me bastard. A man who dared to threaten me.” Arthur shrugged. “I suppose I just dinnae care for people who are so clearly beneath me tellin’ me what to do.”
“What the devil are ye talkin’ about?” Neil hissed.
He was tired of this back and forth—he just wanted answers. Perhaps it was stupid to even attempt to find some reason or logic in any of this when Arthur was clearly a madman.
“Ye shouldnae have warned me off that little wench. I could have easily had her in me bed, satisfied her in ways that she could have never dreamed of.” Arthur pushed the table out of his way, the wooden legs scraping angrily across the stone floor as he started to slowly walk toward Neil, his hand moving to his sword. “She’s such a bonny, little thing, ye ken. I see why ye like her. Perhaps I’ll put another baby in her, too, and ye can raise another one of me bastards. I will say, she’s got more fire in her than yer first wife, but I think I’d enjoy tamin’ her… send her back to ye when I’m finished with her.”
Neil drew his sword before he even realized that he had done it. Anger fueled by pure hatred surged up inside him. He didn’t recognize this beast standing before him. As far as he was concerned, Arthur was nothing more than another pig waiting for slaughter.
“I didnae come here to kill ye.”
It was the truth—or at least it was until he heard Arthur speak.
Arthur laughed. “Kill me? As if ye could! Ye are raisin’ me child, after all. Suppose little Jeanie would want to meet me now?”
“She’s nae and never will be yers.”
“And ye care why? It’s nae as if ye like her any more than I do. Perhaps when she’s older, I can find proper?—”
Neil swung his fist at the man’s jaw, throwing his whole body weight behind the punch. The crack of bone seemed to echo through the Great Hall as Arthur staggered backward.
But the fact that he wasn’t knocked out cold from such a blow said a lot. Neil knew well how often that happened whenever he punched a man.
“Bit of a sore spot, hm?” Arthur laughed, spitting blood on the floor and standing tall once more. He drew his sword, his eyes narrowing into slits as he moved into position. “I suppose, if ye think that she’s yers in the same way that ye think yer wife belongs only to ye… and yer braither… and that old man—Ferguson, is it nae?” he drawled, implying that Ceana had been passed around the village.
Talking was getting them nowhere.
His muscles still burning from his extensive training this morning, Neil sprung into action. He couldn’t allow anyone to talk like that about his wife and live to see another day.
Metal clanged against metal. Arthur’s enraged shouts echoed off the walls as the two warriors dueled.
Arthur had always been fast—he hadn’t become Laird through lineage only. But neither had Neil. He was larger and agile on his feet, and unlike Arthur, whose movements started to become sloppy in his rage and desperation, he was fighting with a very specific purpose in mind.
He didn’t know how long it went on, but his sword arm felt like it would fall off by the time Arthur started to tire, the drink in his system seeming to catch up to him. Eventually, he was presented with an opportunity—a window of opening—and his sword struck true.
The blade pierced through Arthur’s chest and came out the other side. A wet, gurgling noise of surprise was the only sound he made before his sword fell from his hand. Arthur sagged forward, lifting his hand and bracing it against Neil’s shoulder, staring deeply into his eyes. But there wasn’t so much as a shred of remorse as the light started to leave his eyes. No, only surprise that he had somehow deluded himself into thinking that he was beyond death’s reach.
No man was.
After Arthur had taken his last, long, rattling breath, Neil pulled his sword back, letting him fall unceremoniously to the floor.
Footsteps sounded behind him, and he heard swords being drawn as he wiped the blood from his blade and slowly turned to face Arthur’s man-at-arms.
“Ye deserve a better laird.” The man-at-arms seemed unsure whether he should attempt to avenge his Laird or stand aside. “Ye can make peace when ye find him. But if anyone dares to stop me on me way out, they’ll meet the same fate as yer Laird.”
Sure enough, not a single soul stood in Neil’s way as he left the castle. The few servants that he passed darted to the side, plastering themselves against the walls.
There would be a huge mess to clean up after what he had just done, but there was an even more pressing matter that he needed to attend to first.
The entire journey home, Neil had been rehearsing what to say to Ceana by way of apology. No doubt she was going to attempt to throw him out on his arse, and perhaps he deserved that a little bit. But he did know that it needed to be done. She had every right to be angry with him for the way he had spoken to her.
He couldn’t even remember the last time he had felt the need to apologize to someone for anything at all.
He was weary and exhausted by the time he reached the castle, and he lumbered inside. He could have easily collapsed onto a comfortable chair in front of a warm fireplace, but if he was incredibly lucky, perhaps Ceana would join him after he had apologized to her properly.
She was right. She had always been right. He should have trusted her. He should have told her what was going on from the beginning, but he had been so afraid of anybody finding out about Jeanie’s true lineage, so worried that it would go wrong or somehow would backfire on her.
For so long, his daughter was all he had. He loved her dearly, even if he wasn’t the best at showing his emotions.
He knocked on Ceana’s door, not in the least bit surprised that it was closed.
“Wife?” he called, expecting to be ignored, and he was. “I need to talk to ye.”
He reached for the doorknob, surprised that it turned without resistance, and walked inside. He was the Laird, and this was his castle, after all. She could yell and scream all she liked, but they were going to have this conversation face to face, not through a door.
But she wasn’t in her room.
It didn’t look like she had been in her room in quite some time if he were being honest.
He moved toward her bed, noting that the trinkets he used to see on her bedside table—like her father’s pocket watch and a comb that her brother had carved out of some wood—were no longer there. A strange feeling coiled in his gut.
She hadn’t left him, had she? Certainly not. They had taken vows, and while he had been terribly bullheaded about the whole thing, she was a trustworthy woman.
He sat on her bed, and a folded piece of paper shifted beside him, sliding down to his thigh. Curious, he picked it up and unfolded it, wondering if it was another letter from his brother.
If there’s a son, I’ll bring him to you in due time.
His heart sank to his stomach. Every part of him felt cold and heavy as he read and re-read the note so many times that the words blurred together. It didn’t make sense…
“She didnae leave forever… did she, Faither?” a small voice asked from the doorway.
Neil quickly crumpled the letter in his fist, hiding the evidence that Ceana had indeed left them for good. How was he supposed to tell Jeanie something like that?
His daughter walked into the room slowly, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy from crying. She fidgeted with her oddly clean skirt. There were no grass stains or smudges on it. Not a single hair on her head was out of place.
He had never seen his daughter look so presentable in her life. He had thought that it was what he wanted, but if he was being honest with himself, it was more than a little unsettling.
“Nay,” he replied, guilt gnawing at him. “She didnae leave forever, and yer faither is goin’ to bring her back.”
Jeanie’s chin wobbled, and she ran across the room and threw herself into his arms, her own wrapped around his neck so tightly that it was almost hard to breathe for a moment.
“I was so afraid when she left! I didnae ken how to stop her! I thought if I was good, she might come back. I’ve been a proper lady all day, Faither. I swear that I have!”
Slowly, Neil returned the hug, patting her back comfortingly as he nodded. “I ken that ye did, lass. She’ll be back soon, I promise ye that.”
As she pulled away, she wiped her tears quickly. “I like hugs, Faither.”
Neil’s heart swelled. “Then I shall hug ye more often.”
“And… I dinnae really like chess, but ye do, so…”
Neil grinned. He knew in his heart that it didn’t matter even if Jeanie was just an urchin on the street—she was meant to be his daughter. He might not always know how to show it, but he loved her.
“Jeanie, we can do the things ye enjoy, all right?”
Jeanie cracked a smile. “And ye promise that ye’re nae mad at me?”
Neil shook his head. “I promise that I’m nae mad at ye.”
“Good!” Jeanie hopped off his lap and placed her hands on her hips as she looked at him sternly. “Now, go and get Ceana back, so we can watch the stars together!”