At the Highlander's Mercy (21 page)

W
ith his men behind him, Rob led Jocelyn towards the gates.

When Connor arrived this morn, Rob understood why Duncan was delaying—either he knew or suspected that Connor would not stand back and let anyone handle it for him. In a way, though the danger was high, he would finally speak to Connor for the first time in more than four years. If he had doubted it, Connor’s voice yelling out his name over his wall confirmed it.

Dougal held the lady in place behind Rob and Rob nodded for one of the wooden-gate doors to be opened. With guards in position to both defend it and ready to close it immediately if the need arose, Rob walked forwards and found Connor standing on the other side of it.

‘Laird Matheson,’ he said in the booming voice that spread fear and terror in those who opposed him, ‘you have something of mine.’

Rob nodded and Dougal walked Jocelyn forwards. Connor drew his sword, but Rob only placed his hand on his, leaving it in the scabbard for now. Both of them cursed him under their breaths as they passed him. Connor reached out and grabbed Jocelyn, pulling her roughly to him and kissing her before they spoke in whispers. A moment later, Jocelyn sent him a dark glare and walked into the throng of MacLerie warriors.

‘And my daughter,’ Connor called out once more. When Rob did not react, the Beast of the Highlands continued. ‘I will put this keep to the torch and tear it down stone by stone if you do not return my daughter now.’ He advanced a few paces until he stood but inches from the entrance—outside the wall but not by much.

Try as he might, when confronted by the man who was more father to him than his own had been and while he looked at the man who had had as much a hand in destroying Lilidh’s spirit and life as he himself had, Rob could not stop himself. Although he’d sworn that his clan’s needs came first, his need for vengeance or absolution sparked the anger in his blood
and he could not simply acquiesce to his mentor now. He stepped closer and spoke in a lower voice so that none would hear it but Connor.

‘I think not. For if you harm one Matheson this day, your beloved daughter will discover your part in what played out four years ago.’

A bleak expression entered Connor’s eyes and was gone in a second. ‘You have not told her?’ he asked.

‘I will let her think what she might, as long as you pay the gold as demanded and leave.’

‘Gold?’ Connor laughed. ‘So this is more about your greediness and less about your honour, as I suspected.’ Rob’s hand tightened on the pommel of his sword and he fought not to pull it free and strike.

‘And there is one more condition,’ Rob added.

‘Another?’ Connor asked. ‘I am not certain you are in a position to make any more demands.’

‘I am. I hold your daughter and you want her kept in ignorance of the way you forced me to disavow her. You do not want her to know that you demanded I humiliate her so that there was no hope of a future together. You do not want Jocelyn to know either. And they will unless
you seem to find an
honourable
way to end this now.’

When Connor let out a breath, he looked much older than Rob had ever realised. And more vulnerable. ‘You will seek no retribution against my clan for this incident. When you leave, when Lilidh leaves, it is over between us.’

Somehow Rob knew he would accept. Under it all, this beast of a man loved his wife and his daughter and would give anything to protect them. And if it was from the truth of his failings or from the truth of his past actions in this matter, Connor would do it. Rob began to walk away, intending to get Lilidh himself, when Connor delivered a blow as only he could.

‘I have a condition as well, Matheson.’

The air thick with foreboding, Rob faced Lilidh’s father and waited to hear it.

‘You must end it completely with her. As you did before. I will not have her pining away, thinking something will come of this.’

Rob closed his eyes for a moment, trying to ignore the screaming in his heart and soul. If he was going to be laird here, if he was going to be worthy enough to be chief and command the respect and loyalty of his kin, then he must be loyal to them. If he did as Connor demanded,
his clan would be left unmolested and able to ally themselves elsewhere. If he did not, Connor would return and destroy them later.

If he was going to be the leader he must be, he had to let her go completely.

Again.

Turning away, he began walking back to the keep. Dougal followed him, whispering furiously, but Rob waved him off. He walked through the silent hall and the kitchens to the chamber where she waited for him. Opening the door, he prepared to do something he’d regret until his last breath to the woman he loved.

‘Lilidh, your father waits for you at the gates,’ he said. ‘Your things are already there.’

She began shaking her head at him. ‘Rob, let me speak to him. This can be worked out. You were willing to handfast with me and I am certain he will accept—’

‘It is over, Lilidh. Now, come with me.’

He did not wait for her to argue more, he simply took her by the arm and led her out. He kept the pace a quick one so that she would have to concentrate on her path and her leg and not be able to continue to argue with him. A cowardly thing to do, but it was a kindness compared to what he must do next.

They crossed the yard and made their way to
the gate where Connor yet stood, unmoved in the time since Rob left him there. Only his eyes betrayed any emotion when he caught sight of Lilidh approaching. Steeling himself for what he must do, he released her arm a few paces from the gate.

‘Rob. Father. We should speak in private,’ Lilidh began.

‘There is no need for that now, Lilidh. Your father will take you home now,’ he said.

‘But, Rob, we have—’ He knew she would reveal the vows, so he interrupted her and began his descent into the hell his life would be.

‘We have spent memorable hours together, my sweet. I will miss having you to warm my bed,’ he said, adding a coarse laugh to his words. ‘I was happy to oblige a widow’s need for such things, but nothing else can exist for us. Your father understands I accepted what you offered me, but now I must wed as my clan directs. Tyra has waited long enough.’

She gasped and began to sway. ‘Rob, you said—’

‘Well, Laird MacLerie,’ he called out as he pushed her towards Connor, ‘you have your daughter. Where is the gold?’

Lilidh stumbled the few steps until she reached her father. He pulled her close and
whispered something to her that Rob could not hear. Then he called to one of his soldiers, who carried a chest forwards. Connor took the chest and tossed it at Rob’s feet.

‘Your gold, Laird Matheson.’

Rob stood frozen as the sound of Lilidh’s soft cries echoed across the yard. Connor led her to the centre of his men and Rob ordered the gates closed. He could not speak to anyone right now or he would begin to beg for her forgiveness and her love, so he climbed the steps to the top of the wall and watched the MacLeries begin to leave.

Three hours later, when the midday sun reached high overhead, they were gone.

At the evening meal that night, one he did not eat, the elders toasted the way he’d handled the MacLerie laird, they toasted their good will and they toasted him as a worthy son to the late laird.

But Rob had never felt more unworthy than he did now—for he had failed once more to stand up as a man to Connor MacLerie. And he’d hurt Lilidh more deeply than she deserved.

How she got home, she never knew, for one minute she stood in Keppoch Keep thinking
of ways to convince her father to accept her vows with Rob and the next she lay in the same chamber where she had slept before her marriage. Lilidh remembered bits and pieces of the journey, but very little after Rob humiliated her again with his easy dismissal of their time together. Of their love.

Her siblings and cousins visited her to welcome her home throughout the next week. Her father occasionally informed her of letters from the MacGregors, asking after her and about her recovery from the unfortunate incident. Other than that, she could not face him. Twice she’d been a fool to believe Rob’s word and twice he’d humiliated her in front of her father.

Even when she found him watching her expectantly, she could not speak to him. Her mother spent time with her and never mentioned Rob or the time that she’d been at Keppoch …

Or the passion they shared. Or the love that he swore and then disavowed.

Or the way he’d made her feel whole once and again.

Shaking off her despondency was difficult because he returned to her in her dreams and
she woke sobbing in despair or shuddering in pleasure as her body and soul remembered every moment of it. Lilidh became a master of deception in those next weeks—deceiving herself and others that it had mattered not to her.

She spent her days reading or sewing and ignoring the devastation in her heart. She spent her nights dreaming of being back in his arms.

To get away from some of the pitying glances, she began spending time in the village with her cousin Ciara, who was awaiting the birth of her second child. Since she could no longer travel with her father on the laird’s business, Ciara did any work in her home, one built by Ciara’s husband, Tavis.

Ciara was intelligent and had a similar sense of humour as Lilidh had, so it was a wonderful diversion to spend days with her. And it was a chance comment by Ciara, about two weeks after Lilidh’s return to Lairig Dubh, that made her realise her courses had not come.

And that she was carrying Rob’s bairn.

R
ob had spent the weeks after Lilidh’s departure picking up the pieces of his life and moving on. His respite from the reality he must face was over, as was any hope of ever correcting his past errors in judgement or behaviour.

Now that the elders supported him, Rob had had Symon released, but still watched. Without a conflict or danger expected from the MacLeries, Rob had begun to discuss a formal treaty with the MacKenzies. The large, powerful clan had much to offer their smaller one, he had told himself for the thousandth time. It did not lessen the disloyalty he felt as he discussed the matter and planned to move forwards on it.

Because so much of his life had been tied to the MacLeries, he still had to struggle to let
go of the desire to be part of them. Not that he could. Not with what he had done to Lilidh again. So he lived this farce until one night when he finally came to his senses, but nearly lost his head.

Rob heard his name being whispered and roused from his sleep to it. Tyra knelt next to him in his bed with a long, dangerous blade at his throat.

‘I am tired of dealing with fools, Rob,’ she said. The dagger shook in her hand as she leaned in towards him. ‘You have interfered for the last time.’ He tried to sit up, but she pushed the lethal tip into the skin of his neck.

Looking at her now, he realised he was looking into the face of madness.

‘How have I interfered, Tyra? Tell me so we can come to some accommodation.’ That seemed to calm her agitation somewhat, so he continued. ‘What do you want me to do?’ He held up his hands and began to edge away from her.

‘You were supposed to die. You were supposed to die,’ she repeated, almost in a chant. ‘Why did you have to return at all? Why did you not die?’ Many things fell into place in that moment, including his failure to realise that Tyra was behind Symon’s strange actions.

‘Tyra,’ he said softly, glancing towards the door and hoping someone had seen her coming here. ‘Let me get dressed and we can figure this all out.’ Once he was out of the bed, he could take the dagger, but not now in this position. All it would take would be a slight press and he’d bleed to death.

‘Symon should be laird. I can control him,’ she said, nodding her head. ‘I did control him until you interfered.’

‘Why not call Symon and we can all speak about this matter?’ he offered. With her leaning over as she was, any sudden move on his part would send her in a downward motion—blade first.

‘I already summoned him. You will be dead when he gets here, but I’ll make certain he is blamed for it. Then both of you are out of my way.’

Holy Christ! Symon must have outlived his usefulness to her, too. He had to keep her talking until he could make a move.

‘What will you do then, Tyra? Surely you must have a plan?’ He tried to let his body relax next to her, hoping she would lean back away a bit.

‘With the new treaty signed and our alliance
with the MacKenzies in place, I will marry Gavin as we have always planned.’

‘Marry Gavin?’ he asked. He knew Gavin and he knew that Gavin was betrothed to an heiress from Sutherland. They might already be married.

‘We have planned it for years. My father began talks with his father long ago. With your death, the betrothal you tried to arrange for us is gone and I am free to marry him.’

Rob saw a flicker of movement behind her and realised someone else was in the bedchamber with them. Deciding it was time, he glanced directly over her shoulder.

‘Symon,’ he said, without knowing who it was there. As he’d hoped, it distracted her enough that he could push and the person behind her could pull her before she could cut his throat.

It was Symon indeed and he pushed his sister to the floor and grabbed the dagger from her hands as she screamed. Then he turned the blade in his palm and aimed it once more at Rob.

Out of the girdle pan and into the flames below?
he wondered.

Then Symon flipped the dagger and held it out to him, grip first. Rob got out of the bed and
called for guards. When he got back, Symon had pulled Tyra to her feet. She’d quieted somewhat, but her whispered murmurings disturbed him. Seeing Symon through new eyes, Rob realised he’d been misdirected to suspect him by his mad sister and her irrational plans.

‘Take her down to the storage room and keep her there until we figure this out,’ he said. ‘I will get one of the women to stay with her this night.’

‘I will stay with her, Rob,’ Symon said. ‘I think we need to talk, Symon.’ The guards arrived and escorted them both away.

With the crisis averted and the real villain exposed, it still took days and weeks to sort things out. Only a thorough search of Tyra’s belongings, both those in plain sight and those they were able to find hidden away, revealed the extent of her dangerous delusions. Rob was lucky that he and Lilidh had not been killed as she’d planned. Listening to her nearly incoherent ramblings and rantings made it clear that his father and Aileen had been victims of her deranged violence. Her father might have been, as well.

Symon and he came to terms. Though a hotheaded pain in the arse, Rob was glad he had
not been involved in Tyra’s plans after all. The elders seemed pleased with that, as well, and he was welcomed to the council when he returned from taking Tyra to a cousin who was the abbess at a convent. She would be confined there and not able to hurt anyone else.

And, after he exchanged some messages with Gavin MacKenzie, Rob felt certain that the man had played no part in this other than to have treated a young woman kindly. Tyra’s twisted mind had ascribed all kinds of things to that kindness, even forging letters that turned Gavin into her co-conspirator, in her mind.

Two months after Lilidh left him, his life was back to what it had been before Symon brought her here and the clan was safe. Things had never looked more promising for the Clan Matheson. Or so empty for its laird.

Rob was standing on the battlements in front of the ruined tower when Dougal brought him the letter.

Jocelyn MacLerie had written him once more.

‘I am just tired, Mother,’ Lilidh explained. ‘I’m afraid I walked too much yesterday and my leg is suffering for it.’

Her mother grew suspicious, she knew, but Lilidh just could not speak to her about her condition yet. After she missed her courses once, she waited for their return. Now, she’d missed twice and, along with other signs and symptoms, she knew there was no mistake—she was pregnant.

And though she’d not confided in Ciara, she knew her cousin had guessed the truth, as well.

‘We will have visitors coming in a few days, Lilidh,’ her mother said. ‘The Murrays from Perth,’ she explained. James Murray’s wife, Elizabeth, was a MacLerie and had grown up as friends with Ciara and Lilidh. After their shocking elopement at the time of Ciara and Tavis’s marriage, Elizabeth and James visited several times a year.

‘It will be good to see Elizabeth,’ Lilidh admitted. ‘I was not here for her last visit.’

Her marriage to Iain had just taken place and she’d left for his lands before the Murrays arrived. Elizabeth could not travel sooner and missed her wedding because of the impending birth of their first child.

Jocelyn emptied the solar with a simple nod of her head and Lilidh found herself dreading the coming minutes. There was no way to avoid it, and, if she was being honest with herself,
Lilidh would have admitted she needed her mother’s counsel.

‘So, do you plan to tell Rob you carry his child or not?’ her mother asked.

‘Do I?’

‘Well, the lovely green shade of your skin in the morning nearly matches your eyes and you have been seeking your rest every day after the noon meal.’ Her mother’s eyes narrowed then and Lilidh prepared for the worst. ‘And your monthly courses have gone missing since your return here. Since you mentioned in your letter that you carried no heir for Iain, that means …’ Her mother didn’t finish the rest—there was no need.

‘No, I do not,’ she finally said in reply to the first question.

‘It is his child, Lilidh. He should know.’ Her mother came over to her and knelt down before her. ‘What will you do?’

‘I do not know,’ she whispered. ‘Father will be furious.’ Her biggest fear.

‘You could go to stay with Elizabeth until the bairn is born.’ Lilidh met her mother’s eyes.
And return after the birth … alone
was the unspoken part.

‘One choice, yes,’ she said.

‘We could arrange a marriage,’ her mother
offered another. ‘Many families clamour to align themselves with the MacLeries.’

And would not look too closely at her condition coming to the marriage
, also unspoken.

‘Another choice.’

‘If you are certain there is nothing between you and Rob?’ Her mother was relentless when she wanted to know something.

Lilidh pushed out of her chair and walked to the window that overlooked the yard. Watching those who lived in Lairig Dubh go about their day, she shrugged, finally letting the anger she’d felt escape.

‘Why would I want him, Mother?’ She clenched her hands into fists as it spilled out. ‘He humiliated me, not once, but twice, before my family and his. I know he did not plan my kidnapping and he made no promises about a life together, but he did not hesitate to accept my—’

‘Love?’ her mother offered.

‘Favours. Advice. Help,’ she finished instead. ‘He swore that he’d been young and stupid the first time. He said it was not about my … scars. And then he did it again.’ The tears overflowed her eyes and trickled down her face. She brushed them away before looking at her mother. ‘He did it again.’

‘That is more than you’ve said about him since you returned with us.’

‘It hurts, Mother. It hurts.’ Her mother opened her arms and wrapped Lilidh in a hug.

‘Of course it does. Loving someone is not easy.’

She would have argued, but why? She could not deny she loved him—loved him in spite of everything—but that did not mean she would act the fool in this and beg him. Handfasting aside, he did not deserve to know about this bairn. Her hand moved across her still-flat belly.

‘I think you should speak to your father soon about this, Lilidh. He should learn of it from you and not through rumours, as he will if you delay.’

‘I know,’ she said, nodding. ‘I have other questions to ask him, about something Rob said, but I just cannot bring myself to do it.’

‘What about Rob?’ her mother asked. ‘Mayhap I can help you? He was my foster son, too.’

‘Ah, yes,’ she said, laughing softly then. ‘You were in charge of teaching him correct manners.’ She knew her mother remembered her encounter and comment to Rob about remembering his manners and losing his wits. ‘There is something that happened, between him and
Father, that he would not speak of. I suspect Father will not, either.’

‘Why not ask him?’ her father said from behind them. How could so large a man be so quiet when he wanted to sneak up on someone? He kissed her on the forehead and rubbed her back. ‘What is it you wish to know?’

Did she dare? Did she want to know the truth, no matter what? Yes, she did.

‘What happened when Rob came to you for permission to marry me?’ she asked.

Her mother gasped and turned to her father. ‘Connor? Pray tell me he did not!’ Her tall, dangerous father wore a sheepish expression now and Lilidh knew she would find out the truth. ‘Rob asked for her hand?’

‘Aye, he did.’ Her father looked from her to her mother and back again. ‘I said no.’

‘When? You never told me he had,’ her mother asked now. When her father hesitated, her mother grabbed his arm and tugged on it. Deciding that her mother could wring more truth from him than she could, Lilidh waited silently for it to be revealed.

‘He came to me after I’d heard talk of what you two were doing together. Running wild, being seen together too much, then he was overheard boasting about …’ He paused and met
her gaze then. ‘Enjoying your favours, Lilidh. He boasted of what the two of you did together.’

‘We were pledged!’ she cried out.

‘Pledged? I gave permission for no such thing. He overstepped the boundaries I set for him.’ He crossed his arms across his massive chest and glared at her. ‘He was too low for you to consider as a match.’

‘Because he is a bastard?’ she challenged.

‘Because he is unworthy of you!’ he yelled back. His words surprised her, partly because of the word but more so because of the vehemence.

‘Unworthy? He came to you as a foster son and you accepted him. You trained him as a warrior and as a man. He would not take my honour, Father, before our marriage. I offered, he refused! Then he came to you, seeking the honourable way.’

‘And when I refused it, he left.’

‘He did not simply leave, Connor,’ her mother said softly. ‘Please tell me you had nothing to do with the manner in which he … broke from Lilidh.’

No words were needed, for the guilt was written boldly across his face. Lilidh gasped, feeling sick and faint. ‘You made him do that?

How? Why?’

‘I challenged him. I told him he had disobeyed me and my orders. I’d told him you were no bitch for him to sniff after. But he disobeyed me and broke our bond.’ His voice quieted then for the rest of it. ‘I told him it would be war if he did not break things cleanly and completely with you. In a way that would guarantee you would not want anything to do with him again.’

‘Oh, dear God in Heaven!’ her mother cried.

‘And he did it, did he not? If he had been worthy of you, he would have told me to go to hell and claimed you. But he didn’t.’

‘Connor, he was just a boy.’

‘Old enough to be involved with my daughter,’ he said.

‘He would never have stood up to you. Your men fear you. He was too young.’ Even she could hear the sadness in her mother’s voice. Sadness and disappointment, not in Rob, but in her father. Lilidh understood she was witnessing something between them she’d never seen before.

‘He had another chance and, once more, he did not choose you, Lilidh. He chose his clan and my gold instead of you,’ he explained. ‘He is still not worthy of you.’

Her stomach rolled then and she knew she
was going to be sick. Whether the bairn or the facts she’d just learned, it mattered not the cause. Without a word, she raced from the solar and sought her chambers.