Chapter 11
For the first time since he had known her, Magnus saw the fire in his phoenix’s eyes die. The second her eyes fell on her father, it was as though all the fight left her.
Magnus would not have previously described himself as the protective sort—he liked his own company and was not accustomed to coming to the defense of others, but he believed he would have run the man through if he had tried to take Leah from him at that moment.
“You are ruined!” the Earl thundered. “Your reputation, your life—everything. No man will want you now. I shall have to bribe half of the ton to forget this ill-advised sojourn.”
His gnarly hand was reaching toward Leah as he advanced on her, and Magnus felt a jolt of pure rage on her behalf. This was the man who would marry her off to the highest bidder without a thought for the life she would lead.
“Nothing I do matters as long as I uphold my family name.”
Leah’s words from the carriage echoed in his mind, and he hurriedly stepped in front of her.
The Englishman, whose fingers had been about to grip her upper arm, came to a halt, staring up at him with a practiced expression of outrage and indignation, his brow furrowed, his lips curled, his chest puffed out like a peacock’s. It must have taken him years to perfect it.
“Get out of my way this instant. Heaven only knows what depravities you have subjected my only daughter to while she has been under your roof.”
His bluster soon died, however, as Magnus took a menacing step forward.
“Papa, Laird MacWatt has done nothing of the sort!” Leah protested. “I am quite well. I merely needed a place to—”
“You will be silent. I have never been so ashamed of anyone in my life. I expected better of you, girl.” Lord Burton stepped back as Magnus growled at him. “Someone remove this ogre from my sight this instant. I shall not be threatened, when all I wish to do is protect my daughter.”
He leaned around Magnus to fix his steely gaze on Leah again and scoffed as she backed away.
“You would do well to remember your place. Anything that comes down upon you will be from your own doing. We must merely hope that your misconduct has not reached England yet. I should never have allowed you to come to Scotland. The Marquess of Wellton will have to be persuaded to marry you, however compromised you may be.”
Magnus was unfamiliar with the name, but he could tell from Leah’s expression alone that her father’s choice repulsed her.
“Papa, he is older than you!” she exclaimed, her hands coming up to her stomach as they began rubbing in a circular motion, a sign of her distress that Magnus knew well.
“He is richer than me, too,” her father sneered. “You would do well to remember such things when you are a pariah. It is all very well waiting for love when one is living in the gutter, and no one in the world wants you.”
Magnus advanced on him, cold rage settling within him as he imagined ripping the man limb from limb right there in the corridor. Yet, Burton was not to be cowed by anyone. He stood up to his full height, fixing his withering gaze on Magnus before he finished his tirade.
“As for you, I should expect that Laird MacIrvin can see me satisfied for the offense you have caused to me and my house!”
He stepped back just as Magnus heard the familiar scraping of steel as MacIrvin unsheathed his sword.
Magnus reached for his own sword on instinct, settling into a familiar stance as he looked at his assailant. It was almost a relief. Fighting was easy—far easier, in fact, than the things he was feeling for Leah.
Although he would have preferred not to harm MacIrvin, he would defend his honor—he had done nothing wrong.
MacIrvin advanced on him, his expression determined but unsure. Their alliance hung in the balance as it was, without being pitted against one another by a man unfamiliar with their customs.
Magnus gripped the handle of his blade. He was about to pull it free when a great cry went up behind him.
“No!” Leah ran forward, her tiny frame dwarfed by almost every man there, yet she stood her ground, her arms outstretched in front of her.
She was protecting him, Magnus realized with a rush of affection. Her arms were held out at either side of her small body, her wrinkled dress whispering over the cobbled floor as she ran in front of him, her expression one of righteous indignation.
Something about this tiny woman coming to his aid sent a wave of happiness through him. He could not stop a small smile from forming across his lips.
As Leah came to stand in front of him, MacIrvin and Magnus looked at one another, a silent conversation passing between them.
Magnus could tell that neither of them wanted to fight.
Not only would it cause all kinds of problems between the clans, but he was reluctant to shed any blood in his halls for what was, in truth, an English matter.
MacIrvin slowly lowered his sword. It appeared they were all at a stalemate.
After a few seconds of frozen uncertainty, MacIrvin dropped his sword completely, and Magnus sheathed his as well.
Lord Burton’s eyes flicked between them incessantly as Leah took a step forward.
“My father is right,” she said simply, looking back at Magnus with an almost apologetic expression.
The tall woman at the head of the corridor stepped forward, her mouth open as though to refute that statement, but Leah held up a hand.
“It is alright, Katie. I am to blame. I was the one who chose to hide from my father and come here.” She turned to Burton, her chin held high. “Laird MacWatt was kind enough to indulge me but purely because he had no choice in the matter. He has done nothing wrong.”
That last statement was also aimed at MacIrvin, and Leah jutted her chin, daring him to argue the point.
MacIrvin raised his eyes to the heavens as though her fiery temper was something he had encountered before and placed his sword back in the sheath at his belt.
“That is as may be,” her father protested, waving his finger in front of Magnus’s face again.
“But no one will believe you were here alone for days on end with nothing having occurred between you. A lady’s honor is at stake!
Scandal, slander, infamy. That is what awaits you in the halls of polite society. ”
As he said the words ‘polite society,’ he glanced about the castle as though he were as far from that world as was possible.
Magnus counted slowly to ten, slowing his breathing and reminding himself that he was not permitted to slice the man in two, no matter how much Leah might thank him for his service.
“I assume you are going to marry my daughter to save her from ruin?”
Magnus’s head snapped around to look at the Earl. The man’s face was mottled with sweat, his nostrils flaring in indignation, but his gaze was determined and resolute.
Magnus stared at him, feeling dread coil in his gut at the very idea of what he was suggesting.
He looked at MacIrvin, who seemed just as shocked as he was.
Briefly, the two lairds met each other’s gazes, and Magnus could see sympathy in MacIrvin’s expression. Perhaps he knew of Magnus’s past, perhaps he did not, but they both knew this was no way for a man to take a wife.
“My house is one of honor,” the Earl continued, his fingers clenching and unclenching at his sides as his eyes flicked incessantly from Leah to Magnus and back again. “I shall not have my daughter’s stupidity besmirch my good name.”
He smirked at Leah, who crossed her arms over her chest and glowered at him—the fiery phoenix rising slowly from the ashes.
Magnus felt a grey fog falling over his mind at the thought of taking a wife again.
The idea was not as foreign as it might have been a few years ago. He had at least acknowledged the needs of the council, and in recent weeks, he had considered the possibility of remarrying perhaps in two or three years.
But he had no desire to marry now and certainly not to trap this firebrand into a cursed existence with him. He would not be the reason that her light dimmed.
He thought of Elizabeth and the time they had shared.
It had been happy, for what it was worth, but he had never loved her.
Their marriage had been one of duty and necessity.
They had lived together contentedly enough, but the intense, burning desire he felt for Leah was an entirely new experience for him.
She was everything in the world he wanted but could never hope to deserve.
He could not imagine taking her as his wife under these circumstances. He knew that their marriage would always be overshadowed by the series of events that had brought them together.
Magnus unlocked the part of his mind that had long since been shut away and brought the image of Elizabeth’s face before him. What would she think of this? She being the most cursed of all. It was his fault that she was dead, of that he knew, and he would not allow another to suffer the same fate.
“Well?” Lord Burton pressed. “Will you protect my daughter’s honor?”
As her father asked the question, Leah turned back to Magnus, looking up into his eye, her own eyes wide with shock and despair.
It’s alright, lass, I shall nae imprison ye. Nae for anythin’ in the world.
“Nay,” Magnus replied, as though the word were a curse. He watched Leah’s eyes turn cold. “I willnae marry her.”