“Please, Lennox, don’t look at me.” Wriggling her shoulders she attempted to break free.
Lennox gritted his teeth and forced her flat to the ground, rolling her onto her side so that he could properly examine her back.
Chloris whimpered and covered her face with her hands, but he had to know.
With one hand he held her in place, with the other he pulled her laces completely undone. The fabric eased apart and he tugged down her shift to expose her skin fully as far as the top of her corset, disclosing a tracery of raised welts.
Lennox swallowed down the shock he felt. She’d hidden herself very cleverly all through their time together. He realized that now. Hiding her shame, keeping the secret. Tracing the scars with his fingers he attempted to hold back his anger when he felt pain there. It was as if he’d been thrashed, not her. It pumped into his fingertips, and it was not just this beating, but more. The anger he felt in response to the images that flared in his mind would not be kept in check—images of Chloris, and images from his childhood, pictures of his mother being stoned.
Chloris flinched at his touch on the raised skin.
That made his anger worsen. Forcing back the images of his own mother, lying on the ground stoned and bloody, frustration bit into him, his ire rising all the while. He voiced his opinion. “You wish to fall pregnant to a man who does this you?”
Her head lifted and she stared over her shoulder at him, dismayed.
“Answer me!” His indignation was making him unreasonable. He could see that fact reflected in her eyes, but he couldn’t help being angry.
“It will not happen again,” she snapped, “if I fall pregnant.”
Lennox cursed aloud. “If you believe that then you are a fool.”
Chloris recoiled in astonishment. It was she who looked angry now, the shame that had marked her expression quickly changing as she pulled her clothing into place, covering the scars she had so cleverly concealed during their relationship. “What do you know of me and my situation?”
Lennox felt that old anger and frustration, that which was born of powerlessness, the mood that turned into white heat in his veins. He saw the men who stoned his mother almost to her last breath, then hauled her bloodied body upright so that she could take the final steps to the gallows where she would be hanged and burned. He’d cursed them all, until they bound and gagged him, but he had never forgotten the looks on their faces. Their fear twisted into glee, that ugly thing that turned them to animals. It disgusted him. “A man who does that to a woman will never change. There will be another cause for him to beat you, another day.”
Fear flitted through her eyes as she considered his words, but she shook her head. “No, it is his anger at my barren state that is at the root of his black moods.”
He resisted the urge to growl. She was too trusting, and he knew that too well for he had preyed on it, too. Annoyed at himself for forcing her to consider what was likely the truth of the situation, he reached out for her, moving to comfort her. The urge to remove her from her current situation was growing larger by the minute and he could scarcely trust himself, so unruly was his desire for her. It was in that moment that he knew with certainty that she was his destined lover, and the realization that he was irrevocably bound to Chloris shocked him to the marrow.
But she was rising to her feet and backing away. “If you have done what I paid you to do, then it will end.” Tears shone in her eyes, and she trembled. “Your ritual, it had better work.”
Lennox’s thoughts were in chaos as he realized just how desperate she was. This was why she had come to him. He’d thought it her own desire for a child, but it was fear of her own husband that had put her in this position—fear that had forced her to be brave and venture to Somerled—and that was not right. He could not allow her to go back there. Rising to his feet he went after her. “It will, but my magic will not protect you if you go back to Edinburgh.”
Striding over, he attempted to hold her. More than ever, he wanted to claim this woman as his own. He could not bear to think of her sacrificing herself to a man who would do that to her.
Chloris tore her arm from his grip. “You have said enough. You have shamed me, and now you have put me in fear of my situation in Edinburgh. Yet you are no saint, for you are a seducer of many women.” She glared at him. “I know that I’m not the only one, for I am not the fool that you apparently think I am. This has been a pretty diversion for you. I know that you wanted more than your fee in return for your magic, and you took it.”
Lennox reeled. Her words hit him harder than he could have imagined. “Chloris—”
“No, you will not charm me with your magic or your clever ways now.” She held his gaze. “I just pray that you are as good a witch as you are a seducer.” With that final remark, she lifted her skirts and ran through the trees, back to her mount.
Turning away, Lennox gripped a low hanging bough, forcing himself to stay there, not to go after her in anger. He was no longer in control of himself in thought or deed. Closing his eyes, he drew strength from the old oak, from the rising sap and the fertile ground beneath his feet—the things he was sure of, the tenets of nature that he clung to in faith when he felt madness beginning to descend on him.
A single shard of clarity shot through the chaos that reigned in him. He would not, could not, let her go back to Edinburgh. Even if she refused his protection, Lennox knew he had to make her see and understand that.
And as much as Lennox hated Tamhas Keavey, he suspected she was safer there under her cousin’s roof.
Somehow, that only made his bitterness grow.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Chloris’s mood was so inflamed that she ran through the forest to her horse as fast as her feet would carry her, not caring if her gown ripped when it caught on the brambles or whether her boots and stockings became stained with mud. When she mounted she urged her horse to a gallop, her blood pumping, regret filling her.
Why had she allowed herself to drift into this situation with him? It was a risk in every respect and yet she had ignored the voice in her mind that had warned her. The answer was of course a simple one. Lennox had seduced her, thoroughly, and because her passion for him had grown beyond bounds she could not resist. Foolish woman, she chastised herself, and rode without concern for safety, covering the ground fast.
When she saw Torquil House on the horizon, however, she drew up and turned her mount away. Instead she rode in the direction of Saint Andrews.
It was not a conscious decision, but as she battled with her inner turmoil she soon found herself on the familiar streets where she had spent her childhood years. It was the need to address her substance, to feel that she belonged somewhere—even if that time had come and gone—that guided her from the depth of her emotional chaos.