Claimed by the Highlander (26 page)

He despised himself suddenly for such selfish thoughts, when he should be thinking only of his wife’s grief. She had just been told that her brother was dead.

Angus went to her. He wanted to take her into his arms—it seemed the right thing to do—but she held up a hand, indicating that she had no intention of weeping or collapsing, at least not here.

Onora, on the other hand, dropped to her knees, let out a gut-wrenching sob, and wept into her hands.

Lachlan knelt down and held her close, while Gwendolen stared into Angus’s eyes.

“Take me out of here,” she said. “Take me beyond the gates of Kinloch.”

Somehow, he understood exactly what she needed, so he reached for her hand and led her out.

*   *   *

A light rain began to fall shortly after they crossed the drawbridge and galloped toward the forest, but Gwendolen did not wish to turn around. “Don’t stop,” she said as she raised the hood of her cloak. “Keep riding.”

Her arms tightened around his waist, and he urged his mount forward, but slowed to a trot when they entered the woods, where they were sheltered from the rain.

When they emerged a short time later, out of the brush at the edge of the river, he felt the cold drops pelt his cheeks and wondered if this particular destination had been the wisest choice.

He walked the horse upriver to the waterfall. Angus looked up at it and realized why he had come here so often in the past, in particular, as a lad, in the years after the death of his mother. He had come to drown out the sound of his own thoughts. The noise of the water rushing headlong over the rocks and plunging into the eddying pool below was deafening in his ears, and the chilly mist that rose up from the raging waters had a numbing effect on his body.

Gwendolen swung off the horse and strode to a rocky perch that overlooked the foaming pool below. Angus tethered his horse to a tree branch and joined her on the outcropping. The violence of the cascading water churned up a breeze that blew the damp, ebony locks of her hair. She pushed her hood away from her face and breathed in the fresh scent of the water and the pines surrounding them.

“I’ve been here before,” she said, shouting over the din of the falls. “Murdoch showed me this place not long after Father claimed this territory as his own. Did you know that? Is that why you chose it?”

“Nay. I chose it because I used to come here as a lad after my mother died. I’ve not been here for many years, but I always suspected something would bring me back one day.”

Gwendolen looked up at the ashen sky, which mingled with the rising mist. Her face was wet from the weather, and her full lips glistened with moisture. “And here we are, mourning the loss of another loved one. Perhaps you have some gifts of sight as well, Angus, but you are not aware of them. Perhaps we all do.”

“I have no such gifts.” He touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Otherwise I would have seen you entering into my life. I would have had more hope earlier for some kind of a future.”

She gazed at him wistfully. “I saw you coming into
my
life. The night before you invaded, I dreamed of a lion breaking down my bedchamber door and growling at me. Then he tore my room apart before my very eyes.”

Angus felt his brow pucker. “You did not tell me this before. Is that why you hated me with such passion, and feared my touch?”

“No, I hated you because you were my enemy and you killed my clansmen. In my dream, I spoke softly to that lion, and soon grew to love him. Perhaps that’s why I resisted you so desperately. I didn’t
want
to love you.”

Angus studied the flecks of silver in her brown eyes. “So you tamed the lion in your dream.”

“Aye, and he was gentle after that, but I continued to fear him. I still do. He is a lion after all.”

More than anything, Angus wanted to protect Gwendolen from harm or discomfort, and for that reason he felt compelled to warn her against loving him—for he was not sure he could ever be the man she wanted him to be. He was trying, but he was certain that the violence in his nature would always persist.

“You should continue to fear that beast,” he said. “A lion has sharp teeth.”

“And a mighty roar.” Abruptly, she turned and stepped into his arms, knocking him off balance. “Angus, my brother is dead, and I am ashamed.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Ashamed? Why?”

She was not the one who had ordered his death, and if Murdoch had not been lying on his deathbed when Gerard arrived in Paris, he might be just as dead today from a knife in the belly.

“I cursed my brother for not returning to us sooner,” she explained. “I cursed him before God. What kind of a sister am I? What if this is my punishment for such wicked thoughts?”

Angus could not fathom such a thing—that God would choose to punish Gwendolen. If anyone deserved to be punished, it was not she.

“I was so angry with him,” she continued, “for not coming home when Father died. I blamed him for the defeat of the MacEwens after you broke through the gates. I prayed that he would somehow see what had occurred on that day and suffer a lifetime of remorse for his selfish desires to better himself with education and culture, while we were here, fighting to defend his birthright.”

Angus kissed her on the forehead and held her close. “Do not blame yourself, lass. You had good reason to be angry with him. You felt abandoned.”

“But it was not his fault,” she said. “He was ill, and he was not able to return home, even if he wanted to.”

“But you knew nothing of that. His death is not your fault. You did nothing wrong.”

“Then why do I feel so wretched?”

“Because your brother is dead,” he replied. “There is no escaping the grief.”

She stepped back and looked into his eyes. “You said you came here after your mother died. You have never spoken of her to me, except that one time in the chapel, when you said she was a saint.”

“Aye. At least, that’s how I remember her.”

“How old were you when she died?”

“Four.”

She watched him closely, waiting for him to offer something more, but he did not like to speak of his mother.

“What happened to her?” she asked.

He looked at the waterfall. The sound of it filled his head with noise, made him feel as if he did not exist. But he
did
. There was blood running through his veins, and sensation in his heart. There was no escaping either of those things, but he found he did not want to escape them. He had wanted to for most of his life, but not now.

“I know what guilt is,” he said, looking down at her again, “because my mother was killed at Glencoe.”

Glencoe
 … where dozens of MacDonalds had been massacred because their chief failed to sign an oath of allegiance to the English Crown. Glencoe was not Angus’s home, but it had been his mother’s, before she married his father.

“She threw me into a trunk to hide me from the enemy,” he explained, “then she was marched out into the snow and shot dead.”

“You were at the Glencoe massacre?” she said with concern. “I had no idea.”

He shrugged. “It was a long time ago.” Though he still remembered with astounding clarity how he had climbed out of the trunk and seen his mother’s dead body, and her blood staining the snow. He would never forget it.

“I am so sorry,” she said.

Neither of them spoke for a moment. They simply stood on the rocks and watched the water in the basin below as it rushed and swirled.

“Is that why you have always been so fearless,” she asked, “and ready to sacrifice yourself in battle? Because of what happened to your mother?”

“I suppose. For a long time I lived only for the kill, and most who knew me would probably say there was revenge in it. Especially against the English.”

She nodded with understanding, then tilted her head to the side. “Did you tell Raonaid about your mother?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“Because she told me that I didn’t really know you. She suggested that she knew you better.” She dropped her gaze. “It bothered me.”

Angus sat down on the cold ground. “I did not tell her, lass. She saw it in her visions. That’s what convinced me that she was a true mystic and not just a mad witch. But it didn’t mean anything. I didn’t
choose
to confide in her.”

“But you did trust her with private information about yourself,” Gwendolen said. “I wish you could talk to me like that.”

“I just did.”

A hint of melancholy colored her expression, and she sat down beside him. “Perhaps all we need is time to get to know each other better. There are so many things I want to know about you, Angus.”

But would they ever have enough time to learn all there was to know? he wondered. Did anyone ever have enough time? Life was fragile and unpredictable, and he could not seem to push Raonaid’s prophecy from his mind.

Gwendolen laid a hand on his arm. “I don’t want there to be any secrets between us.”

He covered her hand with his own and pondered the unexpected feelings he had for her, as well as the nature of this place. He had come here as a lad, always alone, never finding the peace and contentment he longed for, but always searching for it.

He felt it now, with Gwendolen expressing her grief and regrets—and her foolish petty jealousies.

On top of that, she was carrying his child. There was something very profound about that. It changed everything. It changed how he felt about the world and his purpose in it, as both a warrior and a common man.

All his life, he had believed himself to be disposable. Unessential. All he ever did was chase the sort of death that would bestow honor upon him—and perhaps drag a few vile redcoats down into the hot, fiery flames of hell. But everything was different now.

“I must confess something to you,” he said, wrapping his fingers around Gwendolen’s tiny hand.

“I’m listening.”

He paused. “You should not feel guilty about your brother. Thoughts are one thing, but actions are another. Give all your guilt to me. I will shoulder it for you.”

“Why?”

His blue eyes clung to hers as he braced himself for her reaction to his next confession. “Because I sent men with orders to kill your brother if he did not accept me as Laird of Kinloch.” He bowed his head. “I am not proud of it, because I would never want to see you hurt, but Kinloch is my home. I couldn’t risk losing it again.” He swallowed hard. “So you see, I am no better than the English officers who ordered the massacre at Glencoe. I am a brutal and heartless man. I am like that lion in your dream, and you should be wary of me. Always.”

She pulled her hand away. “When did you order this?”

“The night of the invasion,” he replied. “At the triumphal feast.”

She swallowed uneasily. “Why didn’t you tell me? You let me hope that my brother would return.”

“I had hoped he would return as well. If he had agreed to accept me as laird, I would have treated him like a brother. But if not…”

“You would have had him executed.”

“Aye.”

She rose and walked to the edge of the rocks, where she stood for quite some time with her back to him.

He deserved her loathing, he knew it, and he wondered what had ever compelled him to confess his actions when he had just escaped the responsibility for her brother’s death. It had been God’s will in the end, and yet he had put himself forward to undertake the blame and the heat of her censure.

Gwendolen faced him. “I do not believe he would have pledged loyalty to you. I know my brother. He is ambitious, and he would not have accepted your offer of land and position. He would have come with an army, and he would have killed you if you did not kill him first.”

Angus did not speak. He merely waited for her to express all her thoughts and feelings on the matter.

She strode closer and sat down again. “Raonaid suggested that if Murdoch came here, I would choose him over you, and that you would die because of my betrayal.” She looked down at her hands in her lap. “I told her that I would never be disloyal to you, but I must now confess something as well.” She met his gaze directly. “I was not absolutely certain of that commitment. I had doubts. Terrible doubts. I was afraid that if I was forced to choose, I would do whatever I must to save his life, for he was my own flesh and blood. So I must forgive you for the order you gave on the day you claimed me as your bride-to-be. You did what any chief would do to protect his clan and castle. By the same token, I will ask that you forgive me also for any hint of disloyalty that may have existed in my heart before today, even after I promised my fidelity on our wedding day.” She took hold of his hand. “I cannot condemn you or hate you, Angus, and I believe that God has intervened to prevent such a dispute between us. My brother is dead through no action of yours. Neither you, nor I, were forced to choose one over the other and betray our marriage vows. I believe that we have just been liberated from any treachery that might have occurred, had my brother lived. It was God’s will. Just as it was God’s will to provide Kinloch with an heir with the blood of both the MacDonalds and MacEwens running in his veins.”