Claimed by the Highlander (34 page)

As for his unlikely marriage—it was a clever ruse and means of escape, nothing more. Angus was confident that time would soon prove him right.

“What about your wife?” Gordon carefully asked. “If you truly want peace here, sir, you cannot keep her locked up. Her clan won’t take kindly to it. How long will you hold her prisoner?”

Angus opened his eyes and gazed toward the South Tower, where Gwendolen was being held. Where was her heart at this moment? he wondered with a wretched pang of dread. Had she indeed done the worst and tried to poison him so that her brother could be a duke? If she had, he would have no choice but to divorce her and take custody of their child.

Or was there some other end to all of this? Had she spoken the truth when she claimed she did not know the wine was poisoned?

All he knew was that he had to proceed with caution, for he wanted, more than anything, to believe her. But how would he ever know for sure? If he spoke to her now, he might take one look into her wounded eyes and believe anything she said, for he loved her still. There was no denying it. He knew, however, better than anyone, that love had a way of clouding one’s judgment.

He regarded Gordon MacEwen with sober eyes and resheathed his sword. “I don’t know yet,” he said. “I believe I will need to think on it a while.”

Chapter Thirty

Gwendolen wiped the tears from her cheeks, gathered her skirts in her fists, and rose to her feet. She was thankful at least that she had been taken to the South Tower prison and not the dungeon in the West Tower, which was damp and infested with rats. Here, she at least had a shuttered window and a chair to sit upon, and the floor was planked with dry wood that had been swept clean recently.

None of that helped to lift her spirits, however, for here she stood, powerless to save her brother from the steely blade of her husband’s wrath. Nor could she explain herself to Angus and make him understand that she had not betrayed him. At least not intentionally. There was no one who could confirm her story. Her mother was gone from the castle, and nothing had worked out as she’d hoped.

At least not yet.

She moved to the chair and sat down, folded her hands together on her lap, and did her best not to think about the dark and bitter hatred that had burned in her husband’s eyes when she faced him in the crowd just now. No matter what happened, she could not lose hope. If there was justice in the world, he would learn the truth and forgive her for all that had gone wrong. And if he could not, perhaps she would need to consider the possibility that the love they shared had never been real in the first place.

She looked down at her hands on her lap and fought hard against the sickening wave of anguish in her belly.

There was still hope, she told herself. This was not over yet.

Gwendolen rose from the chair and went to the window, and kept her eyes fixed on the horizon.

*   *   *

Angus sank down into the hot tub in his chamber and rinsed the grime from his aching body. It had been a grueling two days, traveling through dark glens and dense forests with the Moncrieffe army, and an even more grueling morning, breaking down the gates of his own home, not long after he had just rebuilt them.

He had faced his brother-in-law and come very close to killing him, but he’d chosen to spare him and was still reeling over that decision. Six months ago, he wouldn’t have given it a second thought. He simply would have rid Kinloch of the enemy. Love for a woman would have played no part in it.

But he was not the same man, and indeed, he did love a woman—even though it was possible that she had deceived him and colluded in the attempt to have him executed.

She had told him it was a lie—that she had been used and had not known the wine was poisoned. Did he believe it?

He wanted to. There was nothing in this world he wanted more than to feel the way he had felt with her before Murdoch’s arrival. In his wife’s arms, he had experienced some sort of rhapsody and had begun to believe that he was not cursed or destined for hell. He had never known such joy was possible, or that he could feel such pleasure with a woman.

But not just any woman. His wife.

He leaned his head back over the rim of the tub and closed his eyes, knowing that he was going to have to see her very soon. He needed to know the truth. He needed to look into her eyes and determine what was real.

A short time later, with his hair still wet from the bath, he stood in the South Tower, outside the door to the prison, watching the guard raise the iron bar. The door creaked open and he stepped inside.

Gwendolen faced him from the opposite side of the room, her hands at her sides.

He had come here intending to remain objective, but the moment he saw her, he felt a jolt. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and he desired her—even when he knew he should be wary. All he wanted to do was drag her to his bed and prove that she belonged to him and could be conquered like everything else inside these walls.

Another, less familiar part of him, however, wanted to get down on his knees and beg her to swear that she had always been faithful, and that she loved him, despite the fact that he was her brother’s enemy.

“Did you kill my brother?” she quickly asked.

The breath sailed out of his lungs, as a harsher reality came crashing down. “Nay.”

“Did someone else kill him then?”

“Nay, he still lives. I placed him in the dungeon.”

Was that all that mattered to her?

The intensity in her eyes relaxed slightly, and she seemed to breathe for the first time since he’d entered the prison cell.

“I am relieved,” she said. “I realize, of course, that you had every right to fight him to the death after what he did to you. So if your answer had been different, I could not have blamed you. But I am pleased. Thank you for sparing him. I am…” She paused and her gaze dropped to the floor.

“You are what, lass?”

Say it, dammit! Say again that you were innocent in all of this! That you never stopped caring for me. And look me in the eye when you say it!

But she continued to look at the floor. “I am grateful.”

“Grateful?” He moved closer to her as his blood began to simmer. “Is that all? Do you have nothing else to say? You gave me poisoned wine, and I’m lucky to be alive. I should be beating you to a pulp right now. It’s what most husbands would do in my position.” He hesitated a moment, then began to pace back and forth in front of her. “You said in the bailey that you didn’t know it was poisoned, and that they were using you. Is that true? And if you tell me it is, how can I ever know for sure?”

At last she looked up and regarded him with eyes as wide as saucers. All the color had drained out of her face. Her lips were parted. Her chest was heaving.

“You’ll just have to trust me,” she plainly said.

“
Trust
you?” He was finding it difficult to think straight. His emotions were rising up like an ocean tide and he wanted to hit something. Or walk out and never come back.

“Aye.” She shrugged, as if to suggest there was no other answer.

“You think it’s that simple?”

“Aye. You follow your heart, Angus. I know you never believed you had one when you first came here, but I know that you do. I may not want my brother dead, but my loyalty lies with
you.
It always has. I knew nothing of this plot. It was my mother who orchestrated it, and she kept me in the dark the entire time. And Lord knows, it was easy for her to do. I was so infatuated with you, my head was in the clouds.”

“As was mine,” he said. “And I paid dearly for it.”

They stared at each other until he couldn’t take it any longer. He was filled with such rage and frustration over the confusing mix of emotions flooding through him. On one hand, he wished he’d never met this woman—for she had knocked him onto his back. He had lost the steely edge of himself that made him an effective warrior. He had been set up and caught off guard by his enemies, and lost his castle as a result.

On the other hand, he was desperate to know if he could simply trust Gwendolen, with no hard proof, just her word. He certainly wanted to, and he thought he’d be able to recognize the truth—or perhaps the deceit—in her eyes, but it was not that simple, and he was afraid to trust his heart.

All he knew was what he yearned for—which was to hold her in his arms and claim her again. To force everything to bend to his will.

That was the kind of man he was, he supposed. He took what he wanted by force. He always had. It was how he had won her in the first place, wasn’t it?

Wasn’t it
?

Unable to think anymore, he closed the distance between them and pressed his mouth to hers in a fierce kiss that roused his body and lit a fire in his loins. He wanted to bed her now, to possess and conquer her, and yet there was still a part of him that ached and pined for what they’d had before, when politics and deception had had no part in it, when everything had been tender and joyful.

“Oh, Angus,” she sighed. “Do you believe me now? Do you believe that I played no part in this?”

No, he wasn’t ready to believe it. Not yet. But in this sweltering instant, all he cared about was holding her. He had been away from her too long, and he needed her now. For some reason, he needed this, and only this.

He pushed her up against the wall and cupped her breast in his hand while he kissed her hungrily. She slid a hand down over his tartan and lifted his kilt, then massaged his privates with her warm, roving hands.

“Make love to me,” she whispered, as she kissed his throat and chest.

Of course, he wanted to, but he wasn’t thinking with his head or his heart. He was completely, mindlessly seduced by desire, and was secretly hoping that sex would give him the answer he required.

Then all at once, his hands were cupping her shoulders and he was taking a disconcerted step back. “Nay,” he said.

“Why not?” She looked stricken.

“Because I still don’t know for sure, lass, and this won’t help.”

A rush of anger skirted across her face. Or maybe it was disappointment.

“If it’s solid, irrefutable proof that you need,” she said, “you may have it soon enough.”

“How?”

Her passions cooled as she moved away from him. “Because
I
was the one who freed Lachlan from his prison cell. I instructed my mother to write a note about an elopement. I told her exactly what to say, then I sent them both to Fort William to inform Colonel Worthington of my brother’s traitorous activities with Spain. When your cousin returns, he will attest to that. And incidentally, the English army could arrive at any moment to arrest Murdoch and restore Kinloch to you—our proper laird.”

Angus regarded her with surprise in the midday light. “You betrayed your brother?”

And why had she waited until this moment to tell him?

She turned her back on him. “I prefer not to think of it that way. I want to believe that I did the right thing, because I was faithful to
you,
my husband, and the Union of Great Britain. Another rebellion against England could only end badly, I am sure of it. Besides, after what Murdoch tried to do to you…” She paused and steadied her voice. “But I thought you would have more faith in me, Angus. That you would return and believe me when I told you that I had nothing to do with Murdoch’s plan. How could you truly believe that I would do such a thing to you? That I would poison you? My own husband?”

He stepped forward to touch her, but she held up a hand. “Please, don’t. Just go, and come back when—and
if
—you find the proof that you require in order to trust me.”

Perhaps he should have argued with her and convinced her that he needed no other proof, that her word was enough, but for some reason, it had not been. If she had not offered him this evidence of her devotion, he would still be as doubtful as he was when he first walked in.

He wished he felt differently, but he supposed he was too jaded to take such a leap of faith. He had been wronged and injured many times in his life. He had even betrayed his closest friend, so he knew how easy it was to deceive someone. It was not so easy, therefore, to trust that it would not happen to him again. He had certainly earned it.

He turned to leave, but she stopped him. “Wait. What will you do with my brother?”

He paused. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“Will you have him executed?”

Angus inclined his head and studied her expression carefully. “Perhaps I will follow your example and turn him over to the English.”

She relaxed her shoulders slightly. “I know that what he did to you was wrong, but as I said before, he is my brother, and I don’t want him to die. For that reason, I have written a formal plea to Colonel Worthington to be lenient with his sentencing, in exchange for my testimony against him. I’ve promised written evidence of Murdoch’s activities in Spain.”

“And you’d trust the English to let him live, once they convict him of treason?”

Her shoulders rose and fell with a heavy sigh. “Perhaps I am more willing to trust a person’s word, once given. You taught me that once. Remember?”