With a series of awkward pats, the young man leaned his cheek atop her head and rocked her back and forth. He soothed, “I vow, it’ll be all right, Mairi.”
Nay, she wanted to shout. Naught would ever be all right again.
Clinging to him, she wept harder. For once, she’d no notion of how to mend the mess she’d created. And to think, she’d chastised him for his deceit with the pass when she had essentially done the same by never speaking of Patrick since her arrival.
Aaron had offered her love and marriage—both of which she desired more than anything else—and she’d tossed everything aside in a heartbeat with the unintentional deception.
Truly, she’d not meant to deceive him in the slightest, but she had chosen to not broach the subject of Patrick either. Why would she? ’Twas not as if she planned to wed the MacEwan laird, in truth, in the first place. Why had she not simply kept her blasted gob shut?
Duty, for Christ’s sake.
Godforsaken duty bound her to end the agreement with Patrick before she could accept Aaron. There was no love lost between her and MacEwan, but she owed her brother’s longtime friend the respect and decency of an explanation.
Mayhap, if she spoke to Aaron and clarified the situation. ’Twas desperation that drove her to accept Patrick. A harrowing fear of ending up utterly alone. By God, ’twas not as if Aaron had made an effort to reach her in over a year. Which made her wonder if he ever planned to.
She slumped in Connor’s enveloping arms. What was the point of explaining? There was naught she could say to the man that would force him listen. He outright loathed her at present, and ’twas not a damned thing she could do to change his mind.
By the time her tears had ceased, her eyes had nearly swollen shut and her head pounded as if someone hammered away inside her skull. Through it all, Connor held her awkwardly, patting her back like a bairn and letting her blubber all over the front of his tunic.
Mairi raised her throbbing head but dared not meet Connor’s probing gaze. The next instant, she found a scrap of linen thrust in her face. She’d no notion where he’d pulled the cloth from, but she accepted with a faint nod and blew her stuffy nose.
“What happened, Mairi?” He angled his head in a bid to scan her features. “Did he hurt you? You can tell me.”
Just when she thought her tears had dried up, more pushed from her eyes. Saints, she realized how things must look to Connor.
“Nay.” Wiping her nose, she shook her head. “At least, not how you imagine.”
Shifting to face her, he propped his bent knee on the bed between them. “Well, what? Come on, Mairi. Speak, for heaven’s sake. ’Tis torturous not knowing.”
She confessed in a bare whisper, “He asked me to marry him.”
Sweet Mother, his query had caught her wholly unaware. She’d longed to hear the very words from him, but she never anticipated he would actually speak them.
The determination in his loving features flashed in her mind, impaling her through the chest over again. He’d never looked happier than in that single moment until she muttered the words that swept the legs out from under him. His entire demeanor had shifted into a coldness that left her shivering.
Connor’s brow wrinkled in bemusement. “I do not follow. I thought…do you not wish to marry him?”
Mairi hung her head while the burden of shame weighed on her shoulders. “I told him of MacEwan.”
Air pushed from Connor’s lungs, stirring the hair atop her head. “Hell, Mairi.”
Hell, indeed. ’Twas where she currently resided.
His fingers settled over her clasped hands in her lap. “He’s sending a messenger to your brother.”
Could she truly blame Aaron?
Her omission of facts had deeply wounded him, nearly as much as she’d wounded herself. Mayhap, ’twas for the best. The thought of remaining in his home with his people any longer than necessary soured her churning stomach. She could not bear to witness his features twisting with scorn when he looked upon her.
Nay, she yearned for the refuge of home with her kin. ’Twas the sole place she might begin to recover and mend her cracked, bruised heart. Her lingering presence would only serve to deepen the visceral wounds for both of them.
She met Connor’s dark stare. “I wish to return home.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
AARON THREW OPEN the door to his solar, sending the planks of wood slamming against the stone wall. The clamor startled Ash from her sleep near the hearth. The cat sprang from her bed and flew across the chamber, past his feet, in a flash of gray fur.
’Twas just as well. He was scarcely in the mood to offer a scrap of affection to any living creature at the present time. He hurled the door closed with enough force to take the damned thing off the hinges. The entire keep could crumble around his ears and he would not give a damn.
He stalked across the chamber to his chair, dropping his boots on the floor at his feet. Snatching his tunic from his shoulder, he yanked the material over his head with a series of jerks. ’Twas astounding he’d not torn the fabric asunder. Christ, he could still feel her scorching touch on his blasted skin, the memory taunting him.
Rage threatened to reduce him to smoldering embers, but he grasped hold of the emotion with an iron grip, desperate to shove aside the hurt pummeling him on all fronts. Restless with unspent anger, he itched to destroy something—anything—that might ease a modicum of his distress.
Christ, he wanted to smash everything within sight to bits and pieces—just as Mairi had done to his heart. Her deception cut too deep, demeaning his admission of love. The betrayal polluted any of the hopeful goodness he’d embraced that morn and the prior eve, reminding him why ’twas folly to believe Mairi might’ve ever truly belonged to him.
He would never acquire the wealth or means of MacEwan. Nor the looks, for that matter. Apparently, she’d realized the same when she agreed to wed the sodding bastard.
His anger kindled, Aaron prowled to the opposite end of the chamber and snatched a hand axe from one of the tabletops. Giving in to the incessant, frenzied urge gnawing at him, he lifted the tool and brought the sharpened edge down with a bellow of rage, hacking a deep groove in the aged oak. He struck the thick wood timbers with repeated, splitting blows, eager to rend the damned thing in two. When the wretched piece of wood remained intact, impervious to his efforts, his frustration bubbled over.
He growled in outrage and lashed out, kicking the heavy wooden table over with a thunderous, clattering crash. Hurling the axe across the chamber, the tool skittered over the stone floor with a jarring, ringing scrape. As he heaved from his useless exertions, he staggered to his chair and slumped down, sagging on the edge of his seat.
And still, the damning revelation she’d agreed to wed MacEwan continued to reel through his scrambled, chaotic mind. Mayhap, it would for the rest of his life, an echoed bitterness that would torment him until he was dead and buried.
Propping his elbows on his knees, he lowered his head in his hands. As soon as he closed his eyes, an image of Mairi’s comely features and raven tresses burned bright in his traitorous mind. He’d never be free of her. The sight of her, her touch, her scent, the damned sweetness of her smile—everything about the woman would never leave his wretched head. Like a shadowy wraith, she would linger in his mind forever, reminding him of what he could never have.
Forever. After everything, how laughable the word seemed. He’d spoken the vow in earnest but, apparently, the oath meant naught to her.
By the Saints, why had he trusted her without the slightest bit of hesitation? By her actions and words, he truly believed she loved him as much as he loved her. He’d laid every single part of himself bare, hitching his hopes and dreams on her. Little good it had done. He might as well have slashed open his chest and handed her the horrid organ beating inside to trample.
Did she have any intention of returning to him at all?
Why? If she were to wed another, why share his be
d?
The knock he awaited rang out over the thrumming pulse in his ears.
“Enter,” he barked out.
Niall stepped inside, his demeanor guarded and cautious. The man’s steely gaze locked on Aaron. “Connor said you wish to send word to MacGregor.”
For the love of God, why did the notion twist his roiling stomach into painful knots? Agitation prodded him to move, anything to shake off his beckoning unease. Leaping to his feet, he stalked from one end of the solar to the other, wearing a path in the stone floor with his senseless pacing.
Inside his head, the barest hint of a whisper implored him to reconsider, to abandon his course entirely. But damn it, he could not bring himself to do so. Not with the piercing ache in his chest. His decision was resolute.
“Do it.”
“Aaron—”
“The sooner she’s gone, the better.”
Niall shifted from foot to foot. He asked with a note of hesitancy, “Are you certain that’s what you wish?”
Is that what he wished? To think he’d fully intended to face her brother’s wrath, hazarding his own life in the process, for the sheer sake of claiming her as his wife. What a fool he’d been, babbling on and on as he’d tried to console her. All the while, she’d promised herself to another.
“Aye, damn it,” he snarled. “Go. Now.”
With a deep frown creasing his features, Niall opened his mouth to argue but refrained. Instead, he answered with a terse nod. He reached for the door the same moment Connor burst through the entrance, smacking into the large man’s frame.
Niall steadied Connor with a firm hand to his shoulder. “Have a care, lad.”
“Sorry,” Connor muttered and moved around Niall’s bulk, his gaze darting to Aaron. “Do not send for MacGregor yet. Please, you must wait, Aaron.”
There was not a thing in the world his brother could say would sway him from his direction at that point. His mind was set. There was no recalling the damage that had been done.
Pausing in his pacing long enough to spear Connor with a glance, he quirked a brow. “Why?”
Swallowing with an audible gulp, the lad shifted closer, his imploring gaze beseeching Aaron. “You know as well as I do that she does not love MacEwan. You must know she never planned to wed him, in truth.”
The information stilled Aaron in his tracks. As his mind toiled to digest the words, he narrowed his gaze on his younger brother. A fresh wave of anger pushed through his stiff body. The muscles in his arms stretched taut against the sleeves of his shirt as he flexed his hands into fists.
Between clenched teeth, he managed to spit out, “You knew?”
Connor’s dark eyes sprang wide with alarm, the truth echoing in his cautious retreat backward, further away from Aaron’s grasp. His mouth flapped opened and closed thrice before he found the words to string together a garbled explanation.
“Aye, I knew. But how the devil could I tell you? I knew how you’d react. Just as you are now.”
That disclosure was another blow. Aaron barely controlled his strained composure. “How long?”
His brother waved his arm as if to explain. “I found out when I visited one of the neighboring clans. ’Tis why I brought her here. I thought—”
“How damned long have you known?” he demanded in a furious roar.
“Three months,” Connor muttered.
Shaking his head, Aaron could not believe his blasted ears. Three godforsaken months his brother had known the truth? Three damned months since she agreed to wed MacEwan?
“Why?” he bellowed. “Why did you bring her here?”
Emotion sifted too close to the surface, the swamping influx nearly strangling him.
Connor lifted a hand toward him. “Please, Aaron. I simply wished to unite you with her. The two of you belong together.”
First, Mairi had deceived him. Now, his own damned brother.
His threadbare patience snapped, the fissure spreading wide apart. He took a menacing step toward Connor, but Niall promptly sprang into action. Snagging the collar of Connor’s tunic, Niall shoved the young man behind his back, pushing him toward the door. Holding Aaron’s gaze, he moved in between the two of them. The big man used his body as an effective barrier to prevent Aaron from throttling a measure of sense into his foolhardy brother.
Niall warned, “Do not do anything you shall later regret.”
Regret? Aaron almost bellowed in disbelief. Had he not weathered a lifetime wading in a sea of regret? Why the devil should any more trouble him? Mayhap, the grief would finally surge over his head and swallow him whole into its depths for good.
For the love of God, he could not bear another moment.
“Get out!” His shout resounded from the stone walls.
“Allow me to explain. Please,” Connor pleaded as Niall grabbed the young man’s arm. “You cannot send her away.”
Like hell he could not. He was done with the lot of them and their feeble excuses.
“Get him out of my damned sight,” he growled at Niall. “And send the messenger posthaste. I expect to see Macgregor’s scarred visage darken my doorstep two days hence.”
Nodding his acceptance, Niall backed toward the entrance and hauled Connor outside the chamber with him. At last, the door closed after them, leaving Aaron alone in miserable silence.
Heartsick and his head pounding from his outrage, he dragged his feet to the chair and threw himself in the seat. He dropped his head against the wood back with a sound thwack and expelled a harsh breath. What began as the single best day of his life promptly turned into a wretched nightmare he could not seem to rouse from.
As determined as MacGregor was, he would waste no time fetching his sister. Aaron gave the man a day and half at the most and then, Mairi would step out of his life once and for all. Truth be told, Aaron was unsure whether to cheer or cry.
Chapter Twenty-Four
’TWAS PAST HIGH noon the following day when Connor finally gathered enough courage to knock on Mairi’s chamber door. Once her soft voice bade him enter, he poked his head inside. He found her seated on the edge of bed, her forlorn features trained on the burning hearth across the room.
She’d donned the same clothing she’d arrived in a fortnight ago. Only now, she appeared far more fragile than the day he’d taken her from her home. Lines of exhaustion and distress creased her pale countenance. Dark circles hung beneath her dulled eyes. The sparkling fire within the woman had been extinguished and naught but ashes remained. Her red-rimmed gaze met his and she proffered a wan smile that tore at his heart.
Since Niall dispatched the messenger early the previous morn, Mairi had hardly spoken a handful of words nor had she eaten a bite of the fare that he, Kate, and Gertie brought from the kitchens. She’d remained in the solitude of his brother’s bedchamber, eagerly counting the moments until MacGregor rescued her from her misery. Not that Connor blamed her.
Saints, was love always such a complicated mess?
He swallowed past the swell of guilt and sorrow clogged in his throat. He never should’ve brought her there. From her grieving stare to her tear-stained cheeks, he was just as responsible for her pain as his brother, if not more. His own ridiculous naivety and far-fetched reasoning had led him astray. Somehow, he’d believed love an insurmountable match for any measure of obstacle. Alas, he’d sorely misjudged the situation between Mairi and his brother, and the pair’s stubborn reticence.
With a great deal of reluctance, he managed to find his tongue. “Niall spotted MacGregor and his men’s approach from the top of the bluff.”
Wordlessly, she nodded and rose to her feet to cross the chamber.
“Shall I come back for you once your brother arrives?” he suggested, unwilling for her to leave.
Saints, he partly wished to lock her away in the chamber to prevent her from departing their lives altogether. Once she left them, he feared the lass would take the best part of his brother with her.
“Nay, I shall wait in the
hall so that I might bid my farewells to the clan.” Her strained smile pummeled at his defenses.
He gripped her shoulders. Despite her thick, winter mantle, her frame was slight beneath his palms. “I cannot express the amount of sorrow I feel for my actions, Mairi. Had I never brought you here…” He shook his head in disgust. “I suspect that we shall never cross paths again, but I hope you can forgive me. I’ve come to think of you as a sister.”
“I do not lay any blame on your shoulders. Your heart was in the right place, Connor. I know that.” With a hand flat on his chest, she lifted on her tiptoes and placed a kiss on his cheek. “I count myself fortunate to have spent this time getting better acquainted with you. And, I think of you as a brother as well. No matter what happens in the future, promise me you shall never lose your sweetness.”
She reached inside her mantle and produced a sealed missive. At his raised brows, she explained, “Kate found parchment and ink at my request last eve.”
Frowning at the letter, she hesitated a moment before passing it over to him. “Please, will you see that he gets this?” As Connor accepted the missive, she hastened to add, “Not right away, though. Wait until you think he’s ready.”
Connor agreed with a nod and tucked the letter safely away in his cloak. A deep sadness settled in his chest. Overcome with feeling for the bold, spirited woman he’d come to consider kin, he hauled her close and crushed her against his frame in a restricting hug that no doubt wrung the air from her lungs.
“I shall miss you, Mairi.”
“I’ll miss you, too.” She patted his back. “Do not forget me.”
Stepping away from her, he ducked his head and swiftly swiped at the bit of moisture gathering in his eyes. Snorting, he forced a grin. “I do not think I could forget you if I tried. Nor, should I wish to.”
Connor flourished his arm which she readily accepted, settling her hand over his forearm. He counted each step as they strode down the corridor to the landing in sobering silence. As they drew near the front doors, he scrambled for a reason for her to stay, but to no avail. ’Twas not his place to ask her to remain.
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