Ian's Rose: Book One of The Mackintoshes and McLarens (6 page)

Resting her fingertips on her hips, she shook her head. “We be married now, Ian. I believe it be perfectly acceptable fer me to see you naked.” Though she might not be able to hang on to her anger or frustration, especially if he got close enough for her to reach out and touch him. Mayhap ’twas safer for him to remain where he was.

“Why did ye break our troth?” she asked. Her tone was demanding, insistent.

“I told ye why.”

She took in a deep breath, hoping it would quash some of her ire. It didn’t. “Nay, ye have no’ told me why. All ye said was ye could no’ marry me. Ye never bothered with the
why
of it. I demand to ken
why.
”

She watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down, could see clearly that he was looking for either the courage to speak or the words.

“Why?” she asked once again, but not with as much anger in her tone.

“Ye deserve better than me, Rose,” he told her.

“Of course I do, ye eejit! But for reasons I can no’ explain, I do no’ want better.”

He began to slowly swim back to the bank. He stood upright, the water barely covering his nether regions. “I am goin’ to ask our marriage be set aside, Rose. ’Tis fer yer own good.”

If he’d been close enough to strangle, she would have. Aye, she knew he was bigger and stronger than she, but she still would have liked the opportunity to try. All the hurt she thought she’d set aside came back in one painful beat of her heart.

“Do ye remember nothin’ from last night?” she asked, her voice cracking.

He needn’t answer. From his expression, he could not remember a thing that had transpired. ’Twas probably a good thing for her that he didn’t. For if he did, he’d probably be so angry with her he would be tempted to strangle the life right out of her.

“Ye said ye loved me, Ian. Ye said ye regretted breaking our troth. Ye begged fer a second chance. Begged fer me fergiveness.” She choked back tears, refusing to shed them lest he see how hurt she truly was. “Ye begged me to marry ye that verra moment. Insisted upon it, fer ye could no’ bear to live another minute without me by yer side. Ye would no’ quit yer shoutin’ until Frederick woke yer father to marry us.”

That much was true. It had happened just as she described. However, she left out the part where he passed out before his father arrived. She had helped Frederick pour his drunken carcass into his bed. But when she had tried to leave, he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her down next to him. “
Gradh mo Chroi,”
he had whispered into her ear.
Love of me heart, do no’ leave me.

How many times had her mother told her that a man sometimes needed the aid of strong drink before he could say what was truly in his heart? Rose hadn’t believed it until last night. Now she was left feeling very much the fool.

“I liked ye better when ye were in yer cups. At least then ye spoke what ye really felt.”

She had allowed him to make a fool out of her, something she had sworn she would not allow the first time she’d ever met him. That seemed a lifetime ago, that moment when she first saw the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Adonis. Regret, frustration and humiliation took over now. Scooping up his plaid, she left him in the loch and stomped away.

“Rose!” Ian called out. “Bring back me plaid!”

“Ye can go to hell, Ian Mackintosh! And ye can go there as naked as the day ye were born!”

* * *

H
e couldn’t rightly blame
her for being angry with him. However he
could
and did blame her for leaving him naked in the frigid loch. “Rose!” he called out again. “Bring back me plaid. Now!”

Too hurt and angry, she ignored him and continued back to the keep.

“How dare she?” he ground out as he pounded his fists into the water.

Anger bubbled upward from his stomach. Could she not see he was doing her a favor by putting her aside? ’Twas the merciful thing to do, considering he had nothing to offer her as a husband. She was far too stubborn for her own good. He knew he’d hurt her, but at the moment, his male pride got in the way of any sort of common sense.

If she hoped to humiliate him by leaving him in the loch without so much as a leaf to cover himself with, she was sorely mistaken. Not once in his entire life had he even been tempted to hit a woman. But now? He was sorely tempted to find her and take her over his knee.

“Bloody hell,” he growled out. A moment later, he was out of the water and heading back to the keep.

* * *

E
very pebble
, every mud puddle, and every crude remark made by his clansmen as he exploded through the courtyard and into the keep only fueled his already burning anger. An older woman was spreading fresh rushes on the gathering room floor when he stormed in. “Och, Ian!” she giggled. “Ye seem to have fergotten to cover yerself, lad!”

His face was already purple with rage, so she did not notice how it burned with humiliation.

“I do no’ mind though!” she said with a smile. “But ye might want to cover yerself fer the sake of the children.” Tugging a small drying cloth from her belt, she tossed it to him. He caught it with one hand and used it to cover himself.

“Where. Is. Rose?” His words were clipped, heated.

“I believe she went above stairs, lad.”

Ignoring the whistles and comments as they pertained to his bare arse, he took the stairs two at a time. He went first to her room, threw open the door, but ’twas empty.

He spun around to head back to his room, when he saw her at the end of the hall. Her eyes widened in surprise first, before he caught a fleeting glimpse at her fear.

“Woman!” he shouted.

With nowhere to run, she turned around and went back into his chamber. He was at the door before she could bar it. Pushing through, out of breath and furious, he stood in the doorway and glowered at her. “Did ye find it amusin’ to leave me in the loch without so much as a leaf to cover me nakedness?”

Slowly, she backed away, looking more fearful as the moments passed.

“I asked ye a question,” he said as he took a step forward.

She cleared her throat before answering. “’Tis no more than ye deserved, ye pigheaded lout!”

He quirked a brow at her insult. “Just because ye be me wife does no’ mean ye can do as ye please. It does no’ give ye the right to leave me naked, to force me to walk all through the keep without a stitch of clothing. It also does no’ allow ye to insult me.”

Even if he had not spoken a word, she would have been able to tell just how angry he was. His eyes pinned her in place, the vein on the side of his neck pulsed and throbbed. He was standing over her now, his hands clenched into fists at his side. At the moment, she was unable to determine if he planned on hitting her. Believing they were married, he might just believe ’twas his right to do so.

Mustering courage, she pushed her fear aside, fully prepared to admit they were not.

“As me wife, Rose McLaren, ye shall show me the respect I deserve as yer husband. Do no’ ever tempt me patience like this again, or else I’ll give way to me anger and give ye the spankin’ I be certain ye deserve.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Ye would no’ dare!”

“Because we be newly married, I will nay give in to the temptation to do just that. But mark me word, ye’ll no’ be so lucky next time.”

“Next time?” she scoffed at the idea. “I thought ye were setting me aside? I thought ye wanted out of this marriage?”

Her questions stopped him dead in his tracks. ’Twas as if he had forgotten what he’d said earlier. “I fear the beatin’ Frederick gave ye last night did more damage than I previously thought,” she told him. “One minute ye can no’ stand the sight of me and want to cast me aside, the next ye speak as if ye think we’ll be married a good long while.”

He turned away from her, clenching and unclenching his hands. He had no desire to admit she had a valid point. He’d been so furious that he had forgotten he wanted to end the marriage.

* * *

“
I
am
no good fer ye, Rose,” he told her pointedly. “I can no’ give ye the things a woman wants, like beautiful dresses, fancy slippers and baubles. Hell, I can no’ even give ye a decent home.”

She stared at him in stunned silence.
So that was what all this was about?
She had never been more thoroughly convinced he was an idiot.

“Ye deserve far better than me.”

He was an exasperating man. “Of course I do!” she replied. “Every one kens that.”

He had no good response. Instead, he stood next to the cold hearth with his head hanging low.

“So
ye
decided to break our troth, to set me aside, because ye can no’ give me things I never asked fer?” she demanded with a shake of her head. “Ye be just as addled as Frederick said ye were. Ye’re also quite selfish. And a coward.”

His head shot up so rapidly she was surprised he didn’t snap his neck.

“Aye, I said it.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Instead of takin’ it as a challenge, ye surrendered. Instead of doin’ what most men do — work verra hard to make a happy and safe home fer their wives, work hard to give them what they can — ye took the coward’s way out by surrenderin’.” She shook her head in disgust. “Nay, ye be no’ the man I thought ye were, and all the things I heard about ye must be lies.”

“What things?” he dared to ask.

She gave him a casual shrug of her shoulders. “That ye have stared into the face of death and no’ even flinched. That ye be a brave and powerful warrior who never backs down from a fight or a challenge.”

She was poking at his male pride and his ire began to show. “Those things are all true.”

She shrugged her shoulders again. “I’ve also heard ye be a fine lover, that ye can please a woman until her toes curl and her eyes cross. But I fear that is probably no’ true either. And I fear we’ll never find out, since ye’re settin’ me aside.”

The space between them disappeared in two long strides. He leaned down to look her directly in the eye. “Believe me when I say that if I were to take ye to me bed, ye’d be more than just
pleased.
Ye’d be thoroughly and most assuredly loved until ye could no’ walk.”

With a raised brow, she challenged him. “Prove it.”