Never Love a Highlander (McCabe Trilogy 3)

“I am unsure what warranted such affection from my wife, but do tell me so that I may do it again in the future,” he said lightly.

She squeezed him and kissed the hollow of his neck. Then she toyed idly with his hair, suddenly possessed to want to know more of her husband.

“What is it you write in your scrolls?”

He drew away, seemingly surprised by the question. He looked faintly … embarrassed, and she wondered if she hadn’t been better served to not spoil the intimate moment between them.

“My thoughts,” he finally said. “It helps me make better sense of them when I write them down.”

“So it’s like an accounting of your day?”

“In a manner of speaking. I find I express myself better with written words. I haven’t an eloquent tongue and I don’t like to speak overmuch.”

“Nay. Surely you jest,” she teased.

He smacked her playfully on the arse. “ ’Tis something I’ve done since I learned to read and write when I was a young lad. My father was a learned man and he taught his sons. He thought it an important skill. He oft said that intelligence served a warrior better than a sword.”

“He sounded like a wise man.”

“He was,” Caelen said quietly. “He was a great laird, beloved by his clan.”

Rionna looked into her husband’s eyes and knew that demons from his past gnawed at him this night. She sorely regretted making him think of his father, for ’twas impossible to separate his death and Elsepeth’s betrayal. But at the same time, she wanted to know more and perhaps ease her husband’s burden.

“Tell me of Elsepeth,” she urged.

Caelen stiffened and his expression darkened. “ ’Tis nothing to speak of.”

“I would disagree. She’s made you hard. She’s taken something that should be rightfully mine.”

Caelen looked at her in confusion. “What is it you speak of?”

She touched his cheek. “Your heart. You cannot ever give it fully to me because she still occupies it.”

“Nay,” he swiftly denied.

“Aye,” she argued. “You hardened the part of your heart that you offered to her. When she betrayed you, you locked that part away, never to open it again. She’s trapped there. She has what is rightfully mine and I want it, husband. I’m no longer content to wait.”

He looked incredulously at her. “You make unreasonable demands, wife.”

Rionna huffed impatiently. “ ’Tis unreasonable to want the whole of my husband’s heart? Would you accept that part of my heart belonged to another man and you could never touch it?”

He scowled at that. “You’re making too much of it, Rionna. Elsepeth is part of my past. You are my future. The two have nothing to do with each other.”

“Then tell me of her,” Rionna challenged. “If she poses no threat, then ’tis nothing to speak of her.”

Caelen sighed and ran his hand through his hair in frustration. He rolled to his back and stared up at the ceiling. Rionna remained still, waiting as he grappled with his irritation.

“I was a fool.”

Rionna didn’t respond as she watched the emotion play out over her husband’s face. She didn’t believe for a minute he still harbored tender feelings for Elsepeth, but his past was still very much alive in his heart and mind. ’Twas like a poison he’d yet to purge from his system.

She could still see the naked pain in his eyes and his regret at all that had transpired so many years ago.

“She was a few years older than I and she had more experience. I was but a young lad and she was my first … She was my first lover. I fancied myself in love with her. I had our future all mapped out. I intended to marry her, though I had nothing in the way to offer a wife. I was the third son of a laird. We weren’t a poor clan then but we were never rich either. ’Twas my intention to go to her cousin, Duncan Cameron, and ask for her hand in marriage.”

Rionna grimaced, for even though she knew the tale, or the crux of it, the inevitable path still made her cringe.

“My father sent me, Ewan, and Alaric to barter with a neighboring clan. While we were gone, Elsepeth drugged the men and opened the gates so Cameron’s soldiers could sneak into the keep in the dead of night. ’Twas a bloodbath. Our clan was sorely outnumbered and ’twas the truth we were not as well trained then as we are now. We didn’t stand a chance.

“When my brothers and I returned, we found our father dead. Ewan’s young wife had been raped and her throat cut. Only his son survived because he was hidden by women in the keep.

“The remaining members of our clan told me of Elsepeth’s involvement, but my shame doesn’t end there.”

Rionna’s brows drew together. “What happened then?”

“I didn’t believe them,” he said in disgust. “I was presented solid evidence that my head knew had to be true but my heart told me she couldn’t have possibly betrayed me. I searched her out, determined to hear her explanation from her own lips. I was sure there had been some mistake.”

Rionna winced and blew out her breath. This part of the story she hadn’t heard before.

“When I confronted her, she laughed. She didn’t try to make up a lie. She laughed to my face and when I turned away, she drew a knife and plunged it into my back.”

“The scar above your side,” Rionna whispered.

“Aye. ’Tis not a mark I wear with pride. ’Tis a reminder of how I allowed a woman I cared for to destroy my clan.”