Chapter Twelve #2
‘I’m sorry.’
She almost felt that he meant it, but he was a good liar. ‘She was a gentle soul. I think if she had lived, we would have given her a very difficult time. My sisters especially. They are a bit more...free.’
‘Than you?’ He took a journal off the shelf and flipped through it.
She’d held that journal just moments before.
It looked diminished in his large hands.
From here she could see the scars along his knuckles and in the tender crook of his thumb, and knew he’d earned them.
He was a warrior now, but at one time he’d had to train, at one time he’d made mistakes.
‘I’m free.’
‘Apparently, because here you are instead of in Hamish’s rooms.’
Here was one of her mistakes. Forgetting the passing of time in this room, allowing Rory to find her. She was married and it was conceivable he would search for her. The other mistake was walking further in the room and allowing Rory access to the information.
‘I told you why I was here.’
‘You’re not organising. You’re searching for a cure.’
She wouldn’t lie to him, but that didn’t mean she would tell him the truth. Last night proved that he didn’t trust her. She’d never been more vulnerable in her life. She said she’d help him, gave a vow before God, and he’d...hurt her. ‘I said I would help your friend.’
‘But you didn’t come here when he was struck down, only when you thought McCrieff’s Chief needed help.’
She would grant some allowances for their differences, the fact they were strangers, but never this.
‘Don’t you dare accuse me of such a thing.
It was you who demanded we wed immediately.
You who barred me from reaching your friend.
Since that time, I’ve done everything I can for him.
This clan has continued to stay by your friend’s side to care for him as well. I’m here to find a cure for them both.’
‘Both?’ he said, a note to his voice. ‘So you, too, believe Hamish suffers from what Paiden does.’
She was unused to politics, to subterfuge. Everything she said felt as though it was cloaked in lies. On the surface, her husband should know everything, but he’d shown he did not trust.
Could she blame him? His friend could be dying. Still, with last night unresolved between them, she would not expose herself or her clan again. ‘Hamish has been ill for many seasons.’
‘But it has worsened overnight?’
‘What are you accusing me of, Lochmore? Shouldn’t all of this have been discussed before we said our vows?’
‘We’re not married,’ he said.
She couldn’t hide the flinch as his cutting words struck right where she had stewed all day, but she did turn her back so she didn’t have to see the simmering rage in his eyes boring into her.
She’d placed some trust when she married Rory, even more trust when she’d lain beneath him.
Now this? ‘If you’ve said your piece; you should go. I have work to do here.’
Silence, but she refused to turn again to see if he left or stayed. She did have work to do; kneeling again on the cold floor, she attacked another stack of papers.
Rory bit back a curse. He’d been manipulated since he was a baby. As the son of Lochmore’s Chief, he’d been shuffled and positioned to take over the Clan’s interests. Over the years, he’d suspected he wasn’t even his father’s son, which meant he was more manipulated and controlled than anyone knew.
With no way to earn his right on Lochmore’s lands and under Lochmore’s rule, he’d come here to secure his future, to gain some respect from his Chief and clan.
If he wasn’t a chief’s son, then he could earn the right to rule.
A gamble to be sure, but there was enough incentive here to make it worthwhile.
Except he was being directed and controlled again.
What made it worse was he hadn’t known how far or gravely until his conversation with Frederick.
If McCrieffs themselves were divided, there was no solution to the problem between McCrieffs and Lochmores. He’d married believing there could be a chance for some future, but there wasn’t.
Lies everywhere. Even his wife lied to him. She told him she couldn’t leave Hamish’s room. Yet here she was, telling him she did it to organise mouldy parchments. That was another lie.
Some of the records she’d disturbed were certainly on gardening, and herbal combinations, but some were documents that usually were in churches. Lineage on families, births, deaths, acquisitions.
Her purpose in this room wasn’t for organising, but to find information and not only on herbs. Controlled again. Would nothing be his own? Yet he didn’t feel the same wrenching frustration towards her as he did towards her father, or his own father for that matter.
It was because of that moment in the courtyard.
It had skewed everything he’d done since then.
Her beauty, her intelligence more tempting than the control of McCrieff land.
Then he’d touched her, kissed her, held her to him while his body burned.
To accomplish what he needed to, to unveil truths, to help his friend, he had refused to take her in their marriage bed.
But he wanted to. No, more than that, it was something beyond need...a longing. Here, with her vibrant hair half-bound, half not, her cream gown covered in dust and wrinkled beyond repair, she was as much a siren to him now as she had been in the courtyard.
More so because her pride would not tolerate his behaviour. And rightly so. He’d been heartless last night, cruel today.
How was she to be understanding, if they had no understanding between them? Yet how could he risk his friend’s life, even if they could resolve what was between them? Someone had intentionally harmed his friend and it appeared also the McCrieffs’ Chief.
His eyes scanned the room for answers, found nothing but dust motes floating in the dim light provided by the three lit torches. The room was filled with precious scattered paper and damp air, as if this room refused to let go of winter though spring showed its abundance everywhere else.
Ailsa was like spring to him. Danger surrounding him in that courtyard and he’d not been able take his eyes off her fiery locks. Dining at his enemy’s table and he’d kept trying to catch her green gaze like some lovesick fool.
Last night, he’d demanded she take off her gown, to gain some control, but he wasn’t in control, hadn’t been since he undid her laces. Rory shut down those thoughts as he had all day. His body was still drawn tight with need and desire. Touching her only made him want more of his wife.
She was his wife. His future uncertain, but this...?
Since he arrived the division between clans made a division within himself. From one moment to the next his thoughts and actions changed, but since the courtyard Ailsa had been a constant.
Impossible possibilities here, but she, somehow, was a certainty within him.
Something righted itself inside him as the full resolution of his wants became clear.
He wanted this wife. With a marriage not forced on him and one not full of secrets and accusations.
But he’d hurt her—maybe now he needed to make some amends.
Not everything, but a compromise so that there could be some peace between them.
‘I could help you,’ he offered.
Ailsa tied a scroll and picked up another one. ‘You’d get in the way.’
True. He didn’t like it though. ‘I could organise—’
‘Haven’t you done enough, Lochmore? You need to leave.’
Rory stepped over the paper and watched Ailsa tense. He hated his large and clumsy body in places like these. When he reached the other side, he leaned against the wall. She kept her head down, her shoulders hunched. Did she think he’d harm her?
‘I did meet with your father.’
Ailsa hesitated, before she shuffled more papers.
‘I know of the divide now.’
Ailsa’s head snapped up. ‘Divide?’
She had to know. ‘Between Hamish and your father.’
She opened her mouth, closed it. Opened again. ‘You guessed.’
‘He told me...but it wouldn’t be hard to guess. My family has had dealings with Hamish. He’s never been the type to allow Lochmores free rein on his land and invite them to dine.’
‘Or offer the Tanist’s daughter for marriage?’
He looked at her pointedly. ‘Oh, he would, if it meant getting the Tanist’s only issue out of the way. How long have you known?’
‘Their differences? All my life. As to the marriage, you were there when I first knew of that.’
‘You’re a terrible liar.’
She jerked. ‘Me a liar? You’re the one who gave his vows before God and then didn’t keep them.’
A stillness overcame him. An understanding. ‘You’re afraid. Why?’
Startled green eyes met his before she looked away again. ‘What would I have to be afraid of?’
‘You’re not merely here for the cure, you’re here to discover the poisoner. The documents aren’t only on healing tinctures.’
Her eyes swept the room and the sudden tension left her body.
It immediately alerted him. She was a terrible liar, but now he wondered if he had truly discovered the lie.
It was his turn to search the room, but he could think of no other reason for her presence here.
Why she looked at lineage documents as well as healers’ recipes.
‘You understand the difficulty of it,’ he said. ‘Who would want to murder a Lochmore and a McCrieff?’
‘I’m here for exactly what I said I was...to find the cure and I’m also organising the room. And if you are thinking of blaming my father, you met with him today. You know what kind of man he is.’
‘I know what kind of man he is and I can’t rule him out. He has reason to kill Hamish.’
‘My father is loyal and wouldn’t harm his Chief!’
‘Despite their differences?’ he asked.
‘They’ve always differed in opinions.’
‘And always differed in power. But your father has some now.’
‘Killing Hamish wouldn’t serve the clan, nor would harming the Lochmores.’
‘Harming the Lochmores would always serve the McCrieffs.’
‘Not with our marriage, which was suggested by a McCrieff. My father will not harm you or yours.’