Chapter 17 #2
Not an answer, although she supposed in a way it was. He handed her a skin of water and a bit of dried oatcake, which she chewed slowly as he moved about the cave. She was hungry, and the oatcake barely made a dent; she hadn’t eaten since they’d left early this morning. A lifetime ago.
Gradually, her breathing returned to normal, and her body began to feel the effects of the cold, damp night air, making her all the more grateful for the fire that Patrick had started to build.
He’d arranged some rocks near the back of the cave in a circle and laid the branches on top. After gathering some moss in a ball, he started to peel the outer layer of bark off a piece of birch with his dirk, then proceeded to crush it.
“What are you doing?”
“The wood and moss are too damp to catch a spark from my flint, but there is oil in this bark that ignites readily.”
And after a few strikes of the flint, she heard the distinct snap and popping of oil as the bark caught flame in the pile of moss. He blew on it until a flame appeared, and then carefully moved it to the pile of wood. Minutes later, a fire crackled to life.
She studied his handsome face in the flickering light—the hard angles of his cheekbones, the square of his jaw, the straight line of his nose.
Her heart clenched as his face merged with another. She couldn’t ignore it any longer.
“You’re one of them,” she choked. “You’re a …” She could barely get out the words, the name fell so distastefully from her tongue. “MacGregor.” An outlaw, a scourge, an enemy to her clan.
She could tell by the way his shoulders stiffened that he didn’t like her tone.
He turned slowly to face her, his expression a mask of angry pride.
“If you’ll remember, I’m no longer allowed to use that name.
” His gaze pierced her. “But, aye, I was born Patrick MacGregor, eldest son to Ewin the Tutor.”
She gave a strangled cry. The crushing weight in her chest was unbearable. Having the truth confirmed was a brutal shock, her suspicions notwithstanding.
A MacGregor. He was a MacGregor. He’d tricked and deceived her. But why?
Her heart pounded. She didn’t know whether she could withstand the truth, but she had to hear it all—every ugly, hateful bit of it.
Her eyes didn’t leave his face, looking for some sign of emotion in that steely facade. Tell me it’s not what I think. “And the man who attacked me? The man who wants to kill me?”
His mouth was pulled into a grim line and the pulse at his neck began to tic, but he did not flinch from her gaze. She braced herself for the worst. It came.
“My brother.”
A choking sob tore from the depths of her shattered heart with wrenching pain that dwarfed any that had come before.
That vile, brutish man was his brother. She could only stare at him mutely as the ramifications tossed around wildly in her head.
Of the first time she’d seen the MacGregor scourge. Of the first time she’d seen Patrick.
Her eyes burned with unshed tears, with the burgeoning realization that she’d been used. “Your appearing on the road that day was not a coincidence.”
A flicker of regret passed over his face. She’d penetrated the implacable facade, but it was too late. “Nay, it wasn’t a coincidence, though no one was supposed to be hurt.”
Her chin quivered uncontrollably. “I’m to believe that? MacGregors are hardly known for their compassion and gentlemanly manner.”
He ignored the barb, although his eyes flared. “As you no doubt realized by what you saw today, my brother and I are not exactly seeing eye-to-eye on things.”
If she didn’t feel as though she were dying inside, she would have laughed at the understatement. “You mean he wants to kill me and you don’t?”
He grimaced. “Something like that. But I never thought he would take it this far. Gregor is hot-tempered and can be difficult to rein in, but he’s always been loyal.”
She stared at him, seeing him for the first time. Seeing things she’d never seen before. The strength and toughness had always been there, but now she saw the hard-edged ruthlessness. “God, I don’t even know you.”
He strode over and pulled her to her feet, forcing her to look at him. “I’m the same man I was before. The same man you said you loved.”
How dare he throw that back in her face! Force her to see what a complete fool she’d been. “I loved Patrick Murray, not a ruthless outlaw. I loved a man who doesn’t exist.”
His jaw clenched. “I’m the same man. You know everything about me that is important.”
“What? That you are an outlaw and a thief? A murderer—”
“Don’t,” he growled, his face taut with anger. “I’m no saint, but I’ve never taken the life of another not in battle.”
“So what happened at Glenfruin, the murder of forty innocent boys, was acceptable because it happened during a battle?”
Her barb was well aimed; he stiffened. “Do not believe everything you hear, Elizabeth. Though my clan has taken the blame for that act, the killing of those boys was done not by a MacGregor, but by a rogue MacDonald. Our fight was with the Colquhouns—a battle that was fought at the urging of your cousin. Though the wily Argyll may claim otherwise.”
His accusation took her aback. Lizzie knew there was no love lost between her cousin and the Colquhouns, but she could not believe her cousin was so devious as to use the MacGregors to do his dirty work and then hunt them down for doing it.
And the killing of those schoolboys was only one of the atrocities leveled at the heads of the MacGregors.
She thought of his brother. Of her dead guardsmen.
“Are you suggesting that your clan’s reputation is not well deserved? ”
“Some of my kinsmen are wild and unruly, but could not the same be said of some of yours? Aye, I’ve stolen, but to keep my clan from perishing from starvation or the elements. Is that any different from the land your clan has stolen from me?”
Was that what this was about? Revenge?
Unable to hold them back any longer, she let the hot tears roll down her cheeks. “Why? Why me?” she choked, gazing up at him as if there could possibly be an answer that would make a difference, when they both knew there wasn’t.
Patrick had never imagined that it would be like this. He hated hurting her. Hated making her cry. He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss away her tears, but he forced himself not to move. She didn’t want his comfort right now, she wanted an explanation. The truth. He owed her that, at least.
He met her gaze. “The Campbells stole my family’s land. I sought to get it back.”
“Land?” she said dazedly. “What land?”
“Near Loch Earn. Argyll has recently made it part of your dowry.”
The blood drained from her face. She gazed at him in horror, all her emotions, all her heartbreak, revealed clearly in her eyes. She looked so fragile and vulnerable—like a kitten who’d just been kicked. By him.
He reached for her, but she twisted away. The rejection burned in his chest.
“So you used me for my land? For some petty revenge on my cousin and brothers?”
His anger sparked to hear her so casually dismiss the desperate situation of his clan.
“I assure you, there is nothing petty in the enmity between our clans.” He had plenty of cause for revenge.
But not on Lizzie. “Initially I sought you out for your land, but that is not the only reason I wanted to marry you.” He stepped toward her, the burning in his leg excruciating, halting when she retreated from him as if afraid.
Of me. The burning in his leg crept up to his chest. “I care for you, lass,” he said softly.
“You deceived me,” she shot back at him, anger breaking through the sheen of tears. Her eyes glittered like sapphires. Perhaps there was more wildcat in her than kitten. “Why would I believe anything you say?”
“Because it’s the truth.”
“Truth? What about you is true? Not your name, not your purpose …” Her voice fell off and she looked at him with renewed horror. “Dear God … your wife and child?”
He met her gaze unflinchingly. “I have never been married.”
She gasped and covered her mouth with her fingertips. “How could you lie about something like that? Was rescuing me from fake brigands not enough—did you have to invent a dead wife and child to earn my sympathy?”
He didn’t shy from the scorn that he knew was deserved. “I needed a reason to explain our presence on the road. One that you would not question.”
“Congratulations,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “It was a brilliant plan. And successful, too. I fell right into your trap. Were you chosen for your handsome face or for your skills at seduction?”
“Damn it, Lizzie, it wasn’t like that.” But a small part of him cringed. He never wanted her to learn of their prior meeting or that he’d thought her an easy mark—susceptible to seduction. Now that he knew her, he understood how much it would hurt her.
“It wasn’t? I’m surprised you even bothered with seduction at all. Why not just abduct me and force me to marry you? It seems more in keeping with the methods of your crude, bloodthirsty clansmen.”
He bit back the flare of anger at her derisiveness—some of which he knew was deserved. “ ’Tis not my way. I’d not want an unwilling wife. A forced marriage would be easily set aside.”
“And you wanted the land.” He could hear the unevenness of her breathing as she grappled with the implications. “You wanted me to fall in love with you.” The hollowness in her voice cut him to the quick. “God, I’m such a fool.”
He knew what he had done was unforgivable. He knew how she’d been hurt by Montgomery and thought he’d done the same thing. But what had happened between them was different.