She paused in her reel to take a sip of her tea and brandish the message in front of her like a sword. “See! Do you see? Isn't it glorious? My sister won the battle over her hellion of a mother-in-law at last, at long, long last.”
The earl ventured a question carefully. “Didn’t the old bat keel over several years back? I distinctly recall being dragged there for the funeral." He looked at Peter who'd missed the trip, the lucky duck. "'Twas an odd occasion. Heather and Carrick fought back tears while I caught Violet and Bonnie sharing a champagne toast in the butler’s pantry."
Vi huffed, “Well yes, John she did die a while back but what has that to do with anything?”
“So your Sister finally defeated her dead mother-in-law?”
“Yes, isn’t it wonderful?” Violet beamed at her husband in reward for his understanding.
John remained silent and cast waiting glances at his son. An avowed rake in training, twenty-two year old Peter had little patience for anything other than learning to be good at the game. If it didn’t involve getting under a woman’s dress, or wouldn’t help him get under a woman’s dress, Peter didn’t consider it worthy of a great deal of his time.
“What the bloody hell are you babbling on about, Mum?” As if on cue, the young man demanded in exasperation. He appeared a little puzzled by his father’s look of approval at his disrespectful inquiry.
“Well it’s perfectly clear isn’t it, sweetheart?” Violet demanded, looking at her husband for confirmation. Her husband did something he spent a fair amount of time doing, he smiled and nodded.
“Heather. Bonnie finally won her daughter.” Vi still danced around the table, pausing every few steps to brandish the message.
“Heather,” Peter recalled, “the bluestocking who wears sacks and granny bonnets all the time?”
“Yes. She’s coming to stay with us. We’re going to launch her in society.” Violet’s eyes sparkled, as she began girding herself for the challenge.
Peter suffered a coughing fit as a swallow of tea went down the wrong way. “What do you mean by the use of the word “we” Mother? You’re the great manager. There should be no need for Father or me to be involved at all, should there? I'm not exactly known for my attention to dowdy females.”
“Well of course you will be involved, son. We will need your father’s name, influence and presence and we will need you to squire her about to her first few balls and such. Just until she begins attracting beaus. Then you might have to serve as chaperone a time or two of course.”
“Attracting beaus? Heather?”
“Yes. She’s going to be a sensation.”
Peter excused himself from the table, and his father asked where he was going.
“To the Club to get drunk,” he said plainly.
John pushed back his chair. “I believe I will join you.”
Vi watched the pair flee with an indulgent expression. She knew they both thought her daft. Men, she thought despairingly, the poor dears tended to be so bloody linear and so damnably literal. They lacked imagination enough to look past what was to see what could be, what would be. So they imagined themselves charged with wrangling some soon-to-be former friend into dancing with their sack wearing, bonnet bobbing charge.
Vi knew the girl’s potential firsthand. While in Scotland, one day the ladies happened upon a little loch during a walk. They all stripped to chemises and went in for a swim. Without the bonnet and the sacks, Heather's promise emerged. Oh, not a promise of beauty. The tepid term described the English ideal of a prim and proper miss, like Richford’s get, Lady Jane Seaton. That vapid, blue-eyed, blonde-haired filly would no doubt reign as this season’s diamond. No, Heather would never be that traditional. As surely as a rose typified English beauty an orchid exemplified Heather's. The lasses striking allure would be extraordinary and outlandish. The young bloods wanted stodgy and proper only in the parlor. They'd take one look at the orchid and imagine her between their sheets. Given Heather's lineage, the price of getting her in bed would be a wedding ring. Vi would wager next season's clothing allowance that the scamps would queue up to pay that price.
******
As Violet happily planned her niece’s transformation and debut, and as Heather and Bonnie spent the trip to London getting to know each other all over again, Nial woke up in the same shape he had each afternoon since Heather fled the castle. Pissed off, hung over, despondent and eager to hit something, he growled at the early afternoon sunshine streaming through the window before he patted his hand around the mattress.
“Damn,” he said when he felt the wet spot.
He didn’t remember the dream from last night, because he very deliberately drank enough whiskey to erase any memory of the nightly horror show. He didn’t remember it from last night but the wet spot told him the tribulation took him anyway. What good did whiskey do when the images never left him?
In the new version of the nightmare he gazed through shrubbery to spy on Heather, reduced to peeping his need to see her even if only secretly. Across the hedge, Heather lay naked in the arms of a man whose face he could never see. Each time, each night, he tried to force himself to walk away. Each time, each night, his will faltered before the exotic feast of her breasts and the delicate pink flesh between her thighs covered by the wild spectrum of brown curls. So he watched her writhe and flush in passion and grow more and more aroused while the bloody thief touched and stroked, fondled and planted himself within the wench who belonged to him and only him.
Throbbing with desire that raged far beyond any physical craving, needing to join with her and willing to do it any way he could, he'd flip up his kilt and take himself in hand. He tugged and pulled and stroked himself as he gazed upon his love's need tended by some lucky bastard. As she reached her summit, she moaned, “Ohhh yes, my husband.”
The word would make Nial scream in horror. Then the naked man would stride over to the hedge and pull it back to display him standing and stroking the tarse too close to eruption to halt the explosion. So he'd come in helpless streams of ecstasy while Heather and her bloody husband pointed and laughed.
Drunk or sober, exhausted or fresh from a day of leisure, he endured the bloody torment every night.
Disgusted with himself and life in general, he rang the bell.
His squire entered gingerly, carrying a tray. “Was last night any better, sir?”
“Hell no. The same. Just the same,” Nial grouched as he flipped back the covers and strode unsteadily over to the side table where the squire sat the decanter and glass.
“Sir,” the young lad’s voice barely exceeded a whisper, “perhaps you need some food. Let me fetch some bread and cheese at least. This,” he said gesturing to the glass in his laird’s hand, “is no way to begin a day, laird.”
Pulling on his kilt, Nial looked up, bearing the expression that showed how badly he wanted to hit something. He growled his reply. “No. Get out. Now.”
“Yes sir, yes sir,” the squire said, escaping on running feet.
Not able to bear being in the same room as the sheets that bore the proof of his disgrace, Nial threw on his kilt and stalked out the door. As he passed the bedchamber two doors from his own, he wondered again where Calum had gotten to. He hadn’t seen the man since the night his future ended and no one else had either. He went outside to train with his warriors, and winced in acknowledgment of their dismay at his arrival. These days, the men he trained frequently bore cuts and bruises from his unintentional brutality. He had to hit something, and his warriors were available. His eyes landed on Blake, a stalwart soul who'd appeared today bearing two black eyes and he paused. No, he couldn't put them through it this morn. They hadn't healed from the string of yesterdays. Anyway, they weren't responsible for his idiocy. Why didn't he turn on himself?
Since he couldn't train, he’d just end up at the hidden loch again. He trudged towards it, conscious of the warriors flashing happy smiles at each other. He arrived, remembering that the last time he ended up
here he broke down and cried like a woman. Thankfully, no one saw him. His former refuge had become his altar of despair. He sat on his hill and remembered Heather in the loch. He recalled her beauty and her grace and his innate knowledge that she was his destiny. He felt the press of her body at the fair and his immediate arousal at her touch. He saw her tending little Fergus and perfectly at home supping with the staff who barely spoke to him these days.
He was on their side. He couldn’t stand himself either. Some amorist he turned out to be. She'd been right in front of him and he hadn’t seen her. He felt the connection with her, fought his unwilling arousal at her touch and disregarded all of it as unimportant. Now he missed her company, her smiles, their conversations and debates, their long walks in the garden. He hadn’t been able to make himself go back there at all since that night. Her absence dug a gaping hole that ate away his soul.
His elaborate scheme to keep her friendship while chasing after some fantasy had been idiotic. His stubborn refusal to let the elders back him into a corner had been partially responsible. Mostly though, his greed and cowardice cost him his world. Yes, he argued with the inner voice that howled at such terms. What else could you call a man who wouldn't just sit down and be honest with a friend? What else could you call a fool so damned determined to have it all? Today Heather must hate him almost as much as he hated himself.
Bloody hell, he fell in love with her long before he recognized her as his fate. He loved the woman within almost from the instant they met but his gigantic ego refused to let him contemplate marriage to "Heather the hag." He should have been man enough to acknowledge that he loved the lass who dwelt in her soul, society and appearances be damned.
How would she look at him today? Might some smidgen of her emotion for him still survive? He hadn’t been able to face her, but now he saw that he had to try because he had to know. He deserved anything she said but he couldn't just let her slip away. Likely, her father would have him killed but that was better than trying to go on alone. Without Heather nothing lay ahead but an empty road meandering aimlessly to nowhere. The path to the future, whatever future he had left, led through Castle MacIver.
With purpose in his steps for the first time in weeks, he strode towards his horse. He would ride to the MacIvers and find a way to see Heather. His resolution firm, he made haste and good time getting to their castle. When the butler opened the door, looked at him and said, “Oh dear,” he knew he faced a battle.
“I’ve come to see Heather,” he said firmly, as he placed a foot in the door to keep the man from slamming it in his face. He grimaced when the door collided with his foot.
“Sir, please don’t ask me to tell Laird Carrick of ye’re presence here. I promise he’ll not take it well.”
“Then don’t tell him. I want to see Heather,” Nial issued the demand firmly, his face as determined as his tone.
“Lady Heather isn't here,” the little man said as his eyes darted again to the door and the foot. "If you'll kindly remove yourself from our ..."
Maclee picked the poor fellow up by his shirtfront and felt him quiver, but Nial wasn't in a merciful mood. This time his demand was a physical threat, “I think you are lying. Get Heather down here or tell me which room she is in and I’ll go to her.”
“He’s not lying, Laird Maclee,” said a harsh voice and he looked up to see Carrick. He heard a deliberate cough, and saw that six MacIver warriors surrounded him from the rear. It spoke volumes of his preoccupation that he hadn’t heard the men approach.
Even though the other man’s hatred blared at him, Nial would not be deterred from his purpose. It was the only purpose left to him. "Then where is she? I want to speak with her.”
“Why? Do you want her to watch you dance the reels o’bogie with another woman? Wasn’t it enough that she saw the man she was foolish enough to love bare-assed and buried to the hilt in that witch? You need her watching to get it up these days, boy?” Carrick advanced with blood in his eyes. Nial saw the menace and knew he was surrounded, but he couldn’t retreat. He had nowhere left to go.
He opened his mouth to respond with typical Maclee bravado, but glimpsed a trace of sorrow and something else in the other man’s eyes that made him do the thing that a Maclee almost never did. He thought before he opened his mouth again. When he did speak, he made the drastic decision to approach the other laird with total honesty.
“Answer me, boy,” Carrick demanded as one of his men pushed Nial forward into the castle and another planted a solid fist in his stomach. After doubling over, he finally caught his breath and managed to stand upright.
He looked at the MacIver, disregarded the presence of the clan warriors who would spread the tale far and wide and said, “I can’t get it up at all these days, sir.”
"What?" Carrick shouted the question and held up his hand, halting the punch his warrior had drawn back to deliver. Maclee stood with his hands by his sides, making no effort to defend himself or to fight back. Carrick looked deeply into the lad’s eyes. Nial made no effort to hide his expression, and long moments passed as the MacIver evaluated the proud Laird of the Clan Maclee. "It appears that you're less fond of Nial these days than me, which I'd have thought impossible. It seems that you've even wised up enough to regret your pitiful lapse in judgment. You look sorry. In fact, you look downright desperate."
Nial knew he looked all of that and more. He made no effort to mask any of it - his self-loathing, his despair or his sorrow. Hell, he didn't even try to hide the love shining from his eyes. He did make an effort to halt his most dangerous delusion but he just couldn't screen out that faint flicker of hope.
“Let him go,” MacIver ordered abruptly, and turned to motion young Maclee into his study. He closed the door and sat at his desk. Then he evaluated the leader of the most powerful clan on the Isle who sat across from him with his soul in his eyes and his heart on his sleeve.
“So, lad, tell me why I should disregard the grave insult you dealt my daughter and my entire clan and tell you anything about where she is?” Carrick asked, thumping his fingers on the desk. He whispered the rest of the words behind the hand he used to screen his smile. "Actually, I expected you a lot sooner."
Nial watched the fingers thump the desktop as the tiny hope he'd clung to shrank a little more. The question was one he didn’t think he could answer – at least not in any way that would satisfy the other man. Hope was the hardest to abandon, he thought as he gazed at the laird who would soon order his warriors to either beat Nial senseless and leave him half dead on the steps of Kilcuillin, or to outright kill him. Nial preferred the latter, because he couldn’t go on without Heather.
The MacIver said nothing more. He thumped and watched and waited.
“I think you should have me killed, sir.”
"Killed?" Carrick repeated the word like he expected a denial. He got an affirmative nod instead. "I should birth a blood feud that would destroy Skye for what reason?"
“Because I deserve it. Because I want it.”
“You want me to have you killed?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Again, I ask, why?”
The MacIver wanted to know why and the answer shamed him so Nial bounded up to pace the room, ending at the window. He faced the glass rather than the other man as he tried to compose himself, but his cowardice appalled him so he spun around to look Carrick in the eyes.
“Because Heather loved me and I thought her only a friend. Too stupid or blind to see her beauty, I even proved myself to be so shallow that I thought nothing of the glorious soul that I knew, damn it, I bloody well knew resided within those abominable sacks. I saw her intelligence, her caring and her charm. All of it made me treasure every moment we spent together and long for more and still I wrote her off as only a friend. I hurt her badly and she didn’t deserve it and she will never want to see me again.” Nial clenched his eyes, fighting the tears that threatened to fall. “Mostly, because Heather is the one woman I am fated to love and
I don’t want to, no, I can’t go on without her. So yes, sir, I came here to your doorstep so you could kill me and at least save me the disgrace of dying by my own hand.”
Carrick was silent for so long that Nial didn’t think he would speak again. Finally, the MacIver reached towards some correspondence lying on his desk. "My young friend, don't ever forget that while love and hate may be on opposite sides, they share the same coin." Then he picked up the letter on top of the stack and raised a single brow as he handed it to Nial whose hand shook so badly the white paper waved in the air like a flag of surrender. His legs threatened to buckle when he read her name in the first sentence of the letter to Carrick from Bonnie.
Dear Sweetheart:
Heather and I have been in London for several weeks now, and you would be amazed at the transformation of our daughter. She is a changed woman, and the exotic beauty that we knew full well was there has now bloomed. It is such a joy to see it at long last.
My sister put it well in describing it this way – she is like an orchid in a garden of roses. The young English nobles are unexpectedly fond of orchids, and Heather has been virtually besieged by suitors. They crowd the parlor every afternoon and bring her flowers and write her poetry.
John has had several requests for her hand, but as of yet she favors none of them enough to give her consent, and you know I won’t have her forced. I have promised to let her choose, so I have asked that John not pass along any of the offers until one meets Heather’s approval.
I have new hope on that score. Last night at a ball at his house, Viscount Badgerton persuaded her to take a short walk in the garden. Peter chaperoned, but reported later that he was a few minutes behind them and interrupted quite a passionate kiss in the garden.
We may end up with an English son-in-law, but at least it won’t be that Maclee scoundrel.
All my love,
Bonnie.
When he read the last paragraph, he screamed “No.” He crumpled the letter into a ball that he threw on the floor and kicked on his way to the door. As he reached the door, Nial realized that Carrick might very well be furious at the destruction of his wife’s letter.
A Faerie Fated Forever Page 8
