Arabella harumphed at that, but went on her way, leaving me alone with the laird and the man he had given me to.
For Arabella’s sake, I’d kept the tears from my eyes, but now wetness gathered on my lashes. “Have you met the girl you’re going to marry?” I asked, too weak to lift my head from the pillow, but trying to muster the strength to accept it. I was a mistress either way. Men kept wives and mistresses both. Whether I was Ian’s mistress or the laird’s mistress or a harlot for any man in the castle, there would always be wives to contend with.
The laird brought my hand to his lips. “Lass, I told you in my own way, I would be as faithful to you as a husband. You must know that. I was never going to marry the Donald girl and—”
“He wasn’t, ye ken,” Ian broke
in, his eyes still on the loch. “He was going to make me kill him, instead.”
I gasped at this.
“That wasna precisely the plan, Ian,” the laird snapped.
“Near enough, though,” Ian replied, grinding his teeth. “Whether I was the one to run the sword through your guts or let someone else do it, the end is the same. So, I’ll have you know the truth, Heather. He was—”
“Was never going to marry the Donald girl!” the laird shouted, then calmed himself when he saw me startle, wincing at the pain. “And thanks to Ian, I won’t have to marry the MacLennan girl either.”
I glanced at the window, curiosity swirling in my chest. “Thanks to Ian?”
Ian rolled his neck, as if it pained him. “I’m the laird’s kinsman. I have holdings of my own. Some women—not you, of course—would find me to be a catch. I have offered myself as a groom in the laird’s stead, and if it be acceptable to the MacLennans, the laird will release me from my vow of fealty and I will swear it to the MacLennan, instead.”
Oh, the hurt I felt for Ian in that moment. It left me nearly breathless. He wanted to be released from his vow to the laird; he wanted to get away from us both. He felt betrayed and wronged and abandoned, and yet, he still wished to do this one last service to his chieftain. And to me.
“So you see, lass,” the laird said, kissing my palm softly. “I will not have a wife. Only you. If you will still have me…and I realize this may be no easy answer for you. I don’t know that you can forgive me. I should not blame you if you hated me to the marrow of your bones. But you are alive, and safe, and that is more than I could have asked for only a few days ago.”
As my heart swelled with his words, Ian turned, his cheeks puffing in anger. “More than you could’ve asked for? No. You could’ve asked. You could’ve asked me. ‘Look after her, Ian. Love her as I do.’ And I’d have done it or died in the trying. You could’ve asked, but you didn’t. You asked it of her. You trusted her. But never me. No matter what we’ve shared. Battles. Strategies. Pleasures of the flesh. You’ve never trusted me when I have proved nothing but worthy of your trust. Let that be on your head.”
The laird was a proud man—more afraid to let his men see him in a moment of weakness than he was afraid of death. But his head drooped in acceptance of this chastisement, and he pressed his lips together. “You’re right. You’re exactly right. And I’m sorry for it, Ian.”
There was a moment when, in the bunched up silence, I thought there might be a reconciliation. But then Ian let out a long breath and strode to the door. “Sorry isn’t good enough.”
“Ian!” I called after him.
“Don’t waste your strength, lass,” Ian said, with a shake of his head. “You two love each other. You have no feelings for me whatsoever. Even if you did, it’s my fault you were stabbed. All because of a little maidservant whose name I couldn’t have told you two weeks ago. I never even noticed her and yet she she nearly killed us all for an unrequited love. I could almost pity Brenna. So I don’t wish to dwell upon the humiliation of what’s passed between the three of us lest I go as mad as Brenna and find my own end on the stones below the castle walls.”
“You’re nothing like Brenna,” I insisted, squeezing the laird’s hand to reassure him as I added, “And of course I have feelings for you. It is only that—”
“You’re his woman, not mine,” Ian finished for me.
“I am my own woman,” I said, deciding the thing in that very moment. I would not be given anymore. I might give, but I had proved myself to my laird. Now he would have to prove himself to me. “I’m sorry, but I am.”
“I’m not sorry for it,” Ian said.
And with that, he slammed out the door.
“Brooding bastard,” the laird muttered, as if he were one to talk.
Very softly, I murmured, “Do you not see that you tore his heart out?”
The laird swallowed, hard. “I suppose after your time together you see him more clearly than I do. Is it Ian that you want, then, or perhaps you’re done with us both?”
What did I want?
“You broke my heart, John.” My voice cracked on his name and tears spilled from my lashes. “I surrendered everything to you. I gave you my body, my shame, and my obedience. I trusted myself to you, body and soul, and you broke me.”
“Yes,” he admitted, his voice thick with emotion. “You must think me a monster, but I broke myself, too, if it’s any consolation. I will never be able to tell you how I suffered to send you away. Even if I could, you shouldn’t care. I can say only in defense of myself that it was all done for love. It was because I feared you would rather die with me than live for me.”
“I would have, that’s true,” I confessed, angry that my heart, for all its cracks, still insisted upon it. “I would, still. Yet, if there is a child in me I would want her to know a better life than living always at the whim of a man who can discard her mother.”