“What did he do to them?”
“Fired them.” Lachlan chuckled again, shaking his head slowly. “He flew into this rage like ye’ve never seen. He screamed, he cursed them to hell an’ back, and then threw them out the door. He even accused them o’ killin’ his wife. See, when he told the story, the staff didnae fetch a healer to help her when she got sick, and by the time he called fer one, she was already as good as dead.”
Lachlan paused, cocking his head to one side to look at Maura, as though he was trying to gauge how well she was handling this story and this new side to Malcolm that had previously been so well hidden from her. “What do ye think really happened?”
Maura did not want to answer him. Even though she had been the one to demand this tale from him, she could not shake the feeling that she would not enjoy the way it ended. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I’ll tell ye.” Lachlan tipped back the glass before slamming it back down much harder than necessary. Those three drinks in such quick succession were starting to show their effects on his face now—his cheeks were flushed pink, his eyes were wild with passion, and when he moved, it seemed as though his limbs were heavier and harder to control. “He lied about it all. The staff saw how sick the wee lass was after the bairn was born and tried to send for a healer, but Campbell stopped them. Said that it was God’s will, and whatever happened to the poor girl was his judgment. An’ then, only when they were all certain there was nae a thing that could be done for the girl, that’s when he sent for the healers.”
Lachlan sat back in his seat, his weight causing it to rock a little. “When he knew she was already as good as dead, that’s when he called for them. An’ then, when she was dead and buried with her wee one, he turned the story on them. Threw them out into the streets like the cold bastard he is and told anyone who’d listen that they killed his beautiful young bride and bairn.”
Maura sat there in silence as he rambled, clearly affected by the alcohol in his system. She did not understand how this story was related to his family’s death in the famine, but when Lachlan poured himself another measure of whiskey, she realized he was not yet finished.
“When ma sister came home to us, she was a different person. She hardly spoke about what she saw for a long time. An’ then, when she told us what happened at that house—the truth—she broke down in tears.” His voice shook a little at the memory, and Maura’s heart ached for him. She reached across the table as if to lay her hand over his but then thought better of it. Her hand dropped onto the table between them, but Lachlan did not seem to notice it.
“He never paid her final sum ‘fore he fired her. It was a tiny amount that he owed, but ma sister begged me not to go to him and demand it. For her, I stayed away. But then when the famine came, and we couldnae put food on our own table, I couldnae stay away any longer. I went to him and demanded the money she was owed. I told him that he’d be killin’ ma sister and our family if he turned me away.”
“But he did it anyway,” Maura finished for him, her voice barely above a whisper.
Lachlan nodded slowly, staring down at the table in front of him as he blinked rapidly.
“Aye,” he said, his voice thick with unshed tears. “That he did. The bastard looked me in the eye and told me tha’ since ma sister was no longer in his employ, she was no longer his responsibility.”
Maura could not find the words to respond to that. She had nothing to say besides a few empty words about how sorry she was for his tragedy. Lachlan did not want nor need that, though, and she was well aware of this, so instead, she simply drank. The whiskey burned her throat all the way to her stomach again, but it felt good as it went down. It was a distraction from what she’d just heard.
“Ah’m nae tellin’ ye this t’scare ye,” Lachlan said. The anger that had laced his every word when he’d told Maura about the ordeal with Malcolm Campbell was gone now. Instead, as he looked her in the eye and spoke, the softness she remembered from the bothy had returned.
“Ah’m tellin’ ye this because ah don’t want the same thing t’happen to ye.”
Lachlan leaned forward in his chair and placed his hand over Maura’s atop the kitchen table. Once more, Maura was reminded of just how much bigger than her he was; his hand engulfed hers completely, and although he likely could have crushed the bones if he wished to, his touch was tender. The rough pad of his thumb ran over her delicate skin, back and forth rhythmically, and then he spoke once more.
“Ah care for ye, Maura. An’ ah couldnae bear it if that same fate befell ye. Malcolm Campbell is nae the man ye should take as yer husband.”
Maura looked down at their clasped hands on the table and frowned. “What if ah havenae got a choice?”
Lachlan could not answer that question. It was something that had been plaguing his thoughts for some time now—the worry that perhaps all of this was for nothing. Perhaps, no matter what he did or said, Maura would still have to marry Malcolm.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
The silence that followed his words was pointed and heavy, as though there was more he wanted to say but could not bring himself to. Eventually, he drew back and sighed. His hand slipped away from hers, and Maura found herself missing the touch of his skin almost immediately. Even the feeling of his hand on hers made her feel more at ease, like he was a shield against the rest of the world.
“Ah’ve kept ye up too long, Maura,” he said quietly, gathering up their glasses. “Best ye get yerself to bed.”
13
The conversation Maura had with Lachlan did very little to settle her worries about accepting the proposal. In fact, it only added to her worries. When she went to bed that night, she dreamed of a faceless woman in a wedding dress begging Maura for her help, and somewhere in the distance, she had heard the weak cries of an infant. She’d woken up in a cold sweat and had struggled to sleep properly since.
Despite that horrible dream, the reality for Maura had sunk in. She had looked for any other available escape route to get her out of the situation she now found herself in, but she had reached the end of the road, it seemed. The only path in front of her was to accept the proposal offered to her by Malcolm.
She agreed to meet him for a walk along the loch at noon the next Saturday. It was a beautiful day, and it seemed almost as though the sun had some kind of medicinal properties to it. When Maura was getting herself ready to talk to Malcolm, she watched as her mother got out of bed, got herself dressed, and made the choice to leave the Inn for the first time in weeks.
While Maura headed to her noon meeting with Malcolm, Edna decided to take her two youngest children for a walk in the nearby forest. The two parties went their separate ways as they left the Inn; one went for a family walk in the forest, the other went to seal her own fate.
As she walked towards the loch, Maura could not help the feeling that this was Judgement Day. It truly felt like she was being judged and punished by the gods above for some kind of great sin, and as penance, she was taking her final free steps towards Malcolm.
This wasn’t what she wanted at all. Even if Lachlan had not told her the whole tale of Malcolm’s first poor doomed wife, Maura would have hated this choice. This marriage of convenience—a marriage to save her family from poverty and to produce an heir to take over his businesses—was not the marriage she wanted. Nor did she truly believe that it was the marriage that Malcolm wanted, deep down.
As Maura approached the loch and saw Malcolm standing there with his hands behind his back, she was struck with the sudden realization that these steps would be some of her last free steps. When she married into the Campbell family, the freedom she had taken for granted would be gone. There would be no more early morning walks alone. There would be no more chances to disappear into the hills to think when things became too much. She would essentially be a prisoner in her own home.
With those less than romantic thoughts in her mind, Maura approached Malcolm and bowed her head respectfully. “Mr. Ca
mpbell.”
“Miss Kelly.” He mirrored her movement. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
This was it. This was the moment that she gave up on her dreams of finding a husband she truly loved. Maura took a deep breath to steady her nerves and tried to swallow the sickness deep in her stomach.
“The...proposal, sir,” she began, faltering for a moment. “I accept, gladly.”
Maura had spent more time than she readily cared to admit thinking of her future wedding and of her husband-to-be. She had spent far too much time daydreaming about what he would be like or the way that he would look at her with total devotion and adoration, and now when it came to the reality of the situation, it could not possibly be more different.
She may as well have read him an obituary for all he seemed to care. Rather than taking her hands in his and clasping them tightly the way she had hoped he would, he simply nodded.
“Good,” was all he said.
Good? Maura thought indignantly. Was that all she was worth to him? A measly “good” and nothing more?
Insulted by his muted response, she pushed a little further. “Are ye not happy, sir?”
Malcolm seemed to consider this but then shook his head slowly. “Ah’ve waited weeks to hear ye say those words to me. I’m just glad the wait is over, an’ now I can prepare the wedding for us.”
Maura was taken aback by his demeanor. It seemed as though, for all intents and purposes, he was simply sat in a business meeting with his colleagues to discuss the budget for the upcoming year. It certainly did not seem as though he had just become a betrothed man.
“Well, ma’am,” he said, bowing his head a little. “If that’ll be all, ah’ll be on ma way.”
And with that, he turned and walked away, leaving Maura to stand there by the loch all on her own. Angry tears of hurt and frustration pricked at the corners of her eyes, but she blinked them away fiercely.
No, she decided. This is not the time to cry. I cannae let maself cry over the man before he even weds me.
So instead of breaking down into a million pieces over Malcolm, Maura steeled herself. It was going to be a long road to marrying Malcolm, she told herself. She couldn’t allow herself to cry at the first obstacle in her way.
Rather than crying by the loch, Maura took a deep breath in, turned on her heel, and headed back to the Inn.
14
Thankfully, the Inn was empty when Maura arrived back home from her walk with Malcolm, so there was no one about to chide her when she headed straight for the whiskey and poured herself a glass. Even the smell of it seemed to burn her nose and throat, and when she downed the glass in one gulp, she was left coughing and sputtering at the sensation, but when that faded, she was glad for it.
The burning gave way to a fuzzy warmth through her body, and that, in turn, gave way to a numbness in her fingertips. But still, even that was not enough to stop her from thinking about Malcolm and the proposal.
As she sank down at the kitchen table—in the same seat Lachlan had taken when he had revealed the whole story about his past—she poured herself another glass. She tipped it back as quickly as the first, and as this one melted into the pit of her stomach, she slowly began to feel the effects. Her head felt light—almost empty—and she all but forgot about Malcolm and just how indifferent he had seemed towards her.
That is enough, she decided. That was all she wanted—to stop thinking about Malcolm, to stop seeing his expression, to stop hearing his muted response to her when she had accepted the proposal. She knew this was not a marriage of love, and she never had at any point had any false expectations that it would suddenly become that, but even so, it hurt her so deeply to feel this way. To feel like she was nothing more than a piece of meat to be sold at the market.
She had no romantic notions of Malcolm, and she knew he would never be the husband she had dreamed of as a young girl. But despite that, there had been a small part of her that had still hoped for something from his proposal. She had, at the very least, hoped that he would be excited to marry her, even just a little happy by the prospect.
But no, instead, he was flat. There was no joy in his reaction, no light behind his eyes. She had wanted him to smile at her warmly. She had wanted him to take her hand in his. She had wanted tenderness from him.
Maura had wanted him to be like Lachlan.
She realized with a start that the only man who had ever done any of those things for her was Lachlan. The only man who had ever taken her hand as gently as if it were made of glass had been Lachlan. The only man who had ever smiled at her with a warmth that would have made the sun envious was Lachlan. The only man who had ever shown her that tenderness that she was craving so dearly…
Lachlan.
Maura was so caught up in her thoughts that she did not hear heavy booted footsteps enter the kitchen. In fact, Lachlan’s presence went unnoticed for almost a full minute before he coughed, making her jump in surprise.
“Lachlan!” she cried out, shocked by his sudden appearance. “When did you…I didnae hear you come in.”
“Clearly.” He picked up the empty glass and gave it an experimental sniff, shooting her a knowing smile. “How many o’ these have ye had?”
“Only two wee ones.”
“Ah, well, that’s fine then.” Lachlan picked up the bottle, poured himself a glass, and drank it in one go. Maura watched as he winced through the burn before setting the glass back down. “Would ah be right in sayin’ ye accepted Campbell’s proposal?”
“How’d ye guess?” she asked quietly, frowning down at the kitchen table as if it were somehow to blame for the predicament she now found herself in. Lachlan smiled gently at her tone and came to lean against the kitchen table.
“How do ye feel?”
“How do ye think ah feel?” she asked, looking down at her hands. “Ah’m t’marry a man who doesnae love me, nor hardly know me. Ah’m bein’ traded like fresh cattle at the market. How would ye feel?”
“Like ah needed a drink,” he admitted.
They fell into silence at his words. Maura could not bring herself to admit the real reason she felt so awful about the proposal. She wanted so desperately to tell him that she was falling for him in the way she had only dreamed she would ever fall for a man, but when she tried to speak, her mouth was dry from nerves.
There was no point in that confession anyway, she realized. All it would bring was more pain to both of them. A marriage could never happen between them even if both Maura and Lachlan wished for it. Now she was betrothed to Malcolm. She would wed him and bear his children, and only time would tell if she would meet the same fate as his first wife.
Almost as if he could sense the battle that was raging in her mind, Lachlan leaned forward and placed two fingers directly under her chin, tilting it up so she was looking him in the eye.
“What do ye want, Maura?” he asked quietly.
She knew what she wanted. It was the only thing she had wanted for weeks. It was what she craved every night as she slept. It was what crept into her dreams, permeating her every thought. Until now, she had never dared to say it out loud—not even when she was alone. But now she had no care for being cautious.
“Ye,” she said bluntly, looking up at him with an unwavering gaze. “I want ye.”
His eyes flickered over her features for a few moments, as though he was searching for some sign of hesitation, some indication that her heart was not in this all the way. With no sign of that, he felt more than happy to push ahead. He bent to her height and pressed his lips to hers, savoring the taste of her kiss that he had been craving for so long now.
She was sweet against his lips, like the most tempting treat at the market—one he knew he could neither afford nor deserved. Nonetheless, he gathered her up into his arms, holding her tightly. It was selfish, and he knew that. She was a betrothed woman now, and not his to claim, but he did not care.
“I want ye,” he whispered. “All of ye.”
The sound
of those words sent shockwaves through Maura. She had never felt so desired before in all her life, nor had she ever desired another like this. She wanted him to take her right there. She wanted to be his, to wholly and completely belong to him.
She wanted him to bed her.
“Please,” she whispered, sliding her fingers into the soft auburn locks that fell down to his shoulders. “That’s all I want.”
The urge to simply take her there on the table of her kitchen was almost overwhelming to him, but Lachlan stopped himself before he did so. It would have been so easy to simply push up Maura’s skirts and have her all to himself right there, but he did not want this to be how it happened between the two of them. He had thought about this moment for so long while lying awake late at night, and now he had the chance to act on his desires, so he did not want to do something that either of them would end up regretting.
Rather than acting on those rough, shameless, and desperate desires, Lachlan stopped himself. He gathered Maura up in his arms as though she weighed nothing at all to him and took her up the narrow staircase to his room.
It was dark inside, save for the light streaming in through the tiny window, so they were mostly in shadow as they stood there together, simply enjoying what they had wanted from the other for so long.
He handled her as though she was made of glass, almost like he was terrified that she might have broken in his grasp if he was not gentle enough with her. The touch of his hand was featherlight over the soft skin of her arms as he helped to disrobe her. When he brushed her hair back from her face to see her better, it was with the kind of tenderness she had never expected to see or feel from another person.
Their clothes pooled into a pile of fabric in the middle of the room, discarded and forgotten. They would both collect their things again later, but for now, they had no care for what happened to them. All they cared about was each other.
Lachlan left kisses along the same path he had taken during the night they had spent in the bothy. He found that same spot that made her gasp and writhe beneath him in the junction of her shoulder and her throat and pressed kiss after kiss there.
Highlander's Tempting Stranger: A Steamy Scottish Medieval Historical Romance Page 9
