Highland Soldiers: The Betrayal (7 page)

“No,” he said. “When I saw you earlier, I was reminded.” His face nearly masked his emotions, but his fierce eyes betrayed him. He was as miserable as she.

“Reminded of what?” she asked, fearing the answer.

“Of how much we have lost.” He clenched his jaw.

“Aye.” Whatever else she might have said was caught in her throat.

“By your choice,” said Duncan. His bitter glance pierced her. “I’ll not deny my mother the company, for she loves you like a daughter.” He stopped and swallowed. He shook his head, but could not speak until he looked away. “But dinnae come here to see me again. Ever.” He turned and walked to the byre.

Jenny followed him. Inside the byre, Duncan busied himself to avoid her. When he could take no more, he stopped in his tracks with his back to her. “Why will you not go?”

“I cannot.”

His stance softened, but he would not turn to face her.

A year’s worth of longing and sorrow rushed to the surface. “Please, look at me, Duncan.”

“Why?”

“So I can tell you I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” A bitter laugh trailed off. “I am, too.” He did, at last, turn with a blistering look.

Jenny flinched. “I had to do it for you.”

“Did you, now? For me?” His eyes darted about as though searching for something.

Jenny mistook the quiet that followed for calm, until he turned his searing gaze to her and said, “I have despised you for months.”

His words struck their target, but she could not blame him. He had every reason to hate her. She said softly, “I love you.”

Without even a glance, he said, “I have seen love. For months, I watched Callum’s Mari and saw what love was, and I knew then that I did not have it. She loved him with a strength few men possess. And the more that I saw her, the more I knew that your love was false.”

“Not false. I loved you.”

“Once. But your love was weak. Worse–it was cruel.”

“No. Dinnae say that.”

“It was. Mari nearly lost Callum, but she never wavered an instant.”

“Mari? What has Callum’s Mari got to do with us?” Jenny stopped, stunned by the answer that came to her mind. “You loved her.” She peered into his eyes. “You love her yet.”

“Och! You’re a fool! Can you not see that I love–” Duncan paused to measure his words. “That I…loved Mari’s devotion to Callum, and the way that she cared for him–for us all. She was kind and good. Her heart was his, and it always will be.”

“And what of your heart?”

“My heart? Before or after you pledged yourself to Tavish?”

“Why can I not make you understand?”

“You cannae make me do anything, Jenny, including not love you.”

Her heart pounded as she whispered, “And I love you.”

When he spoke, his deep voice was unnaturally calm. “Go home to your man.”

“He’s not my man.”

“But he is. You are promised to him as you once were to me.”

Jenny shut her eyes. A tear slipped free from her lashes. He reached out and touched her moist cheek with his thumb. If that had been an impulse or kindness, then holding his hand there was not.

“Jenny.” His voice was fraught with both longing and anger.

Jenny leaned into the warmth of the palm of his hand where it lay on her cheek. Her lips parted at the base of his thumb. With that touch, Duncan flinched and pulled her to him. The kiss that came next was impulsive and greedy. She molded her body to his. It would not be enough.

His lips brushed hers as he murmured, “I hate you,” and kissed her again.

Jenny clung to him as he clutched her against his hard body and caught the force of their weight with his hand as they slammed against the stall. Her breath quickened as Duncan yanked her skirts up by the handful and hoisted her legs up to circle his waist.

Jenny’s hands ran freely over his powerful back and hard muscles. She could not reach him with words, but she would with her body. She had longed for the feel of his skin against hers. She would have him, no matter the cost, for her love had gone past reason or restraint. What once was shared joy now was anguish, but they were no longer apart. And so there, against the byre stall, they took what they could have of each other in desperate thrusts and forced exhalations until their bodies were spent. But their hearts would not be assuaged.

*

Afterward, they were still. Duncan held her against him, as the sound of their breathing grew quiet.

“I love you,” she said in a breathless whisper. “I’ve always loved you.”

Duncan’s voice faltered. “But you will marry him.” He set her down and let go.

“I dinnae want to. I never did.” Cold silence hung between them. Jenny peered into his eyes. “My father arranged it.”

He scoffed as he pulled his trews on and fastened them. “Do you think I dinnae know that? But you went along with it, when you should have said something.”

“What was there to say?”

“No!” Duncan lowered his voice, but his anger still burned. “You could have said no.”

“He left me no choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

“Is there? And what should I have done with you gone–set off on my own to search for you somewhere in the lowlands? And if I found you, what then?”

Softly, he said, “Then I would have married you.”

“Och, Duncan, if you could know how I’ve dreamt of just that, but my father said–”

“I dinnae care what he said!” He pounded his fist on a plank of the stall, and it cracked. Duncan cursed and walked to the door and stared into the gloaming. “What does it matter?” He turned, eyes burning. “You’d rather lose me than stand up to him.”

“No, that’s not true.” She took a step toward him, but he bristled. She stayed an arm’s distance away.

Duncan ran his fingers through his hair. “This was a mistake.”

Jenny took a sharp breath and stepped toward him. “No, dinnae say that.”

“Stay away.”

When she gingerly slipped her arm into his, he removed it and turned to her, gripping her shoulders. With a glance toward the stall, he said, “I wish that had never happened.”

“No.” It was a small, mournful sound.

“Don’t you see? Nothing’s changed.”

“Not our love. That has never changed.”

Duncan’s eyes flared. “What of it? What do you want from me, Jenny?”

“I want you. I want us.”

“We’ve lost us. You threw us away.”

“Duncan, please.” She reached out.

He took hold of her wrist with a warrior’s grip.

Jenny tried to twist her hand loose. “My father told me I must, or–”

“And you are an obedient child,” Duncan said with disdain. “You’re too weak to honor our promise. No, Jenny. As long as you are betrothed, I’ll not see you.”

“You can’t mean that.” She searched his eyes, but found no love there.

“Dinnae touch me again.” He released her with a force that threw her off balance. She staggered back a few steps to regain it. Raw pain broke through his words. “You think you can marry him and live in your grand house, then come back to me now and then when you’re lonely?”

“No! I want what we had.”

Duncan’s wrath flared. “This is not what we had. We’re two people clutching at mist.”

“No, we’re more than that.”

“‘Tis not enough.”

“Duncan, I love you.”

“Your love is like you. It is weak and of no use to me.”

Jenny could not react.

“Go home to your father and lie in the bed he has told you to make for yourself.”

He left her in the byre, while the sound of his long strides echoed in her ears.

Jenny sat in the kirk the next morning, eyes dry and swollen. She had cried herself to exhaustion. Rather than finding her way back to Duncan, she had driven him further away. If it was weakness that drove her once more to his arms, she did not regret it. It would be her last memory of him, to remind her that once he had loved her. She wondered now, even if he had given her chance to tell him the truth, would it have made any difference? Even as his rage left no room for forgiveness, Jenny’s love was as boundless as the sorrow it brought her. What a great price to pay, only to wind up apart.

Here she was in the kirk. On one side was her family, on the other, Tavish and his parents–all happy, but Jenny. They had what they wanted.

The priest smiled at her as he called the banns for the first of three times before the wedding would take place. “If any of you know cause or just impediment why these persons should not be joined together in Holy Matrimony, ye are to declare it. This is for the first time of asking.”

“Say something, Duncan,” wished Jenny. She only looked back at him once. Dark eyes pierced her, but she could not react. All eyes were on her.

The priest finished, and the room seemed to sway like the deck of a ship. She was hot, and the air was too close.

Jenny turned to her parents. Her father may as well have been stone, for his eyes were as hard. She turned the other way to find Tavish peering at her with concern. Jenny put her hand to her temple in a failed effort to avoid his scrutiny.

When Mass ended, Tavish seemed to talk with everyone present. Jenny could not breathe. The damp stones in the walls seemed to thicken the air until panic rose within her. When Tavish turned to greet someone new, Jenny slipped away and rushed outside, where she came face-to-face with Duncan.

The heavy kirk doors opened. They glanced over to see people filtering outside. Duncan turned to leave, but Jenny reached out and put her hand on his forearm to stop him. “I did it for you. I had to–for your parents.”

“What are you saying?”

She was making no sense, and she knew it. She had spoken on impulse. “I cannae do this.”

Tavish emerged from the church and spied Jenny just as she withdrew her hand from Duncan’s arm. Someone stopped Tavish to talk, but he kept a sharp eye on Jenny. There was so little time.

“Duncan, I cannae talk now. I wanted to tell you the truth last evening, but...” His eyes darkened at the memory. For the first time, his gaze settled on hers. Only hours before, they had been one in body and spirit. Their eyes locked until Tavish’s voice carried to them.

Jenny glanced toward Tavish and then lowered her eyes and her voice. “I owe you the truth. Please meet me later.”

“Dinnae play games with me, Jenny. I’m in no mood.”

“Please, Duncan.”

Duncan walked away just as Tavish strode over to clasp Jenny’s hand. It was an act of possession, but the gesture was wasted on Duncan. He had already turned his back and joined his mother to escort her home, and he did not look back.

*

After dinner, Jenny complained of a headache and retreated to her room, leaving Tavish to play chess with her father. Minutes later, the cook glanced up to see Jenny at the foot of the stairs. She held a finger up to her lips. With a sharp eye toward the inside hall door, the cook shook her head, but turned away to continue her chores in tacit approval as Jenny slipped out through the back door.

When she was safely out of view, she began to have doubts. Was she letting desire outweigh her reason? She certainly had when she threw herself at him the day before. There was no other way to describe it. But for all it had cost her, that moment in his arms was worth the world to her. Pressed against his strong chest, she had breathed in his scent, and melted into his embrace. When he held her, she felt close to the place in his soul where no one else could be. In that moment, they had not forgotten their wounds, but their need for each other was greater.

The price for that moment was to be pierced by the words she would never forget.

“Your love is like you. It is weak and of no use to me.”

*

A thick mist rolled in and brought with it the scent of fresh rain. As Duncan rode down the path toward the woods, a dark form crossed before him in the mist. He reined in his horse just in time to avoid her. He quickly dismounted and grabbed hold of Jenny’s shoulders. “Did you nae hear me coming?”

“I thought you saw me.”

“Are you daft? Look about you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Never mind, lass. ‘Tis my fault. I was riding too fast.”

“I wasnae sure if you’d come,” Jenny said as they walked into the woods.

“Nor was I,” he said grimly as he tethered his horse to a sturdy branch. “Out with it, lass. What would you tell me?”

“It’s about your parents.”

Duncan shot a sharp questioning look at her.

Jenny met his eyes squarely. “After you left for the fighting, Tavish and his parents came visiting.”

“Aye, he came later. I only remember because, when he caught up to us, he was boasting about his betrothal. We were all congratulating him. Then he said it was you, and I wanted to shove his words back down his throat and his face with it.”

His eyes narrowed with fresh anger as he recalled it. Jenny put a gentle hand to his shoulder, but he shrugged it off so violently that she took a step back.

Duncan tamped down his emotions.

“I refused,” Jenny said.

“Well you did a poor job of it.” He looked over his shoulder.

“I said no to my father. Do you know how hard that was for me?”

“I know that you’re scared of him. You have been since you were a wee girl. But God’s wounds, Jenny, you’re a woman full grown. And you’d already promised yourself to me.”

“I know, but–”

“No, Jenny! We both made a promise! And one of us kept it.” He turned away, keeping his anger in check. After a long pause, his breathing grew steady and calm.

Jenny said, “My father said he would evict your parents.”

Duncan whipped about to face her. It could not be true.

She went on. “If I dinnae agree to wed Tavish, he would have evicted them.”

“He could not have. Everyone would have despised him.”

“But he would have done, just the same.”

“So you agreed to the marriage–”

“For you. And for your parents.”

Jenny’s words gripped his heart. “But why was he so keen on Tavish for you that he’d do such a thing?”

“Such things are done all the time.”

“And he forced you to keep silent.” Duncan thought of the pain she had suffered for more than a year. Jenny had done it for him. In return he had scorned her. All the while, she had carried this secret.