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By the time Ian staggered into our bedchamber, some time after one in the morning, I’d both gathered my wits, having formed a semblance of a plan, and worked myself into an emotional frenzy. He closed the door, leaving the room in complete darkness, as I stepped from behind the screen, pistol leveled at his chest.
“Don’t move.”
He startled and swore an oath but did as I said. “What are you about, Katie? It’s black as the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat in here.”
Katie again. “Light the lamp.” I spoke through clenched teeth.
He took a step, then hesitated. “Are you alone?” He sounded wary, fearful.
Not for himself, but for me. His concern didn’t sway my determination. In other circumstances I might have felt guilt at having worried him. But the emotions raging through me now were about as far from guilt as one might be. “No one else is here. Do as I say.”
His tension expelled in a long breath. “You might have lit a candle yourself instead of scaring a man half to death.”
You think that was frightening? Perhaps when he saw the expression on my face and that I’d a pistol pointed at him, he might begin to appreciate the gravity of the situation.
My ears followed him as he stumbled about the room, muttering in Gaelic.
“You weren’t there for the first footing,” he said, sounding hurt, of all things.
“I was tending Lydia. You brought me a bairn to care for, remember?”
“Aye. And has it softened your heart toward me? Not a whit.”
If he only knew. Until this afternoon my heart had been steadily progressing toward forfeit to him. After five months of struggle against that very thing, I’d been perilously close to giving in.
Light flared, followed by a soft glow emanating from the corner of the room. Ian put the cover on the lamp, then turned to face me. His lips parted as his gaze came to rest on the barrel of the gun.
“Where did you get that?” He eyed the pistol with a wariness that bordered on respect. “Whatever this is about, seems you’ve thought it through.” He took a step toward me.
“Stay back,” I warned, even as I moved to accommodate his nearness.
“I wasn’t planning to attempt a New Year’s kiss, if that’s what has you riled.” He gave a derisive laugh. “You didn’t even allow me one dance tonight.”
“You weren’t lacking partners.”
“No,” he agreed. “Only the right one.” His eye hadn’t left the pistol. “Somehow I doubt jealousy is the reason for your sudden desire to shoot me. You’re angry about this afternoon. I wanted to explain, but I’d no sooner found Bridget than there was an accident at the well. I had to—”
“Remove your breeks.” What he’d told me this afternoon was only the beginning of all that had me distressed.
Instead of hurrying to comply, the tension slid from Ian’s face. A lazy grin replaced it as he took a confident step toward me. “There’s no need for weapons. If you’re wanting more from our marriage, you need only ask.”
“We are not married.” Are we? I didn’t know what— or even who— we were anymore. Who the man I’d spent the last five months with really was.
“A conversation like this does give a man hope,” Ian drawled.
“Take. Them. Off.” I moved my finger over the trigger, careful not to touch it. I’d no idea if the pistol actually worked or was even loaded. But he didn’t know that. I angled the gun lower, toward his leg. “Show me the scar on your thigh where I shot you.”
This stopped him for a second. Fleeting surprise and then concern flashed in his eye and sobered his expression. “Wanting to check your aim before you give it another try?”
“That depends.”
“On what?” he asked, advancing another step. I held my ground, though just barely.
“On what I see.” I sucked in a breath. “On who you really are.”
“Who I—” The lines of worry returned to his face, lingered briefly, then transformed into a look and sigh that sounded part weary resignation, part relief. “Ah.” He removed his belt and tossed it aside on the bed. Next he untucked his shirt. I noted gratefully that it fell to mid thigh. I would be spared seeing more than necessary.
He leaned forward as if to remove a boot, then lunged at me instead, knocking the pistol from my hand. Before my scream had fully formed, Ian had my arms pinned behind me.
“If it were Brann here instead of me, he’d have taken your weapon and used it on you by now. In the future if you plan to shoot someone, best go through with it right off.” He released me as suddenly as he’d grabbed me, and I stumbled forward, only just catching the edge of the bed with my hands and avoiding a fall. Hot tears of humiliation and anger flooded my eyes.
I’d lost my weapon, but I was still ready to fight. Face burning, fists clenched at my sides, I whirled to face Ian. “I hate you.”
“So you’ve said before. No doubt you’ll mean it before the night is through.” He retrieved the pistol and examined it.
“I mean it now. You lied to me.”
“Next time you hold a man at gunpoint make certain the gun is loaded as well.” He tossed it on the bed, then moved to stand before me, close enough that I could strike him if I wished. “That was the last lesson you’ll ever receive from me as Ian MacDonald.” His lip wobbled slightly, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “There is no scar on my leg.” He pushed his sleeve up and turned his arm over, palm up. “Only this.”
My focus riveted to the thin white line descending below his newer scars. Even in the room’s low light, it was plainly visible. I hadn’t really believed it before, certain my tired eyes had been playing tricks on me. I couldn’t quite trust it now. I felt as I had in the kirkyard, only worse, and sank against the bed, clutching the post for support. Collin? “Why?” Why would you be so cruel?
Instead of answering right away he removed the patch from his face, revealing an eye that seemed whole and functioning, with only a slightly puckered, pink scar along the top lid.
“Regardless of what happens in the next hours, I shall not miss this.” He tossed the patch on the bedside table behind him. “Once my eyelid healed, I kept the patch off a great deal of the day when I was outside, but it seemed you found my other scars revolting enough, so I kept this one covered when I was around you.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that.”
Was this one of his actions that had led to others believing me an unkind wife? Frigid, Bridget had said I was called. Just wait. I was feeling positively glacial right now, and the evening had just begun.
With the patch removed, gone was the pirate I had been starting to love. Yet it didn’t feel as if the man I had loved was returned. I had neither. I searched this stranger’s eyes, Collin’s eyes, for some explanation, some reason I could not possibly fathom, for his elaborate and prolonged deception. Why had he hurt me so? Why lead me to believe he had died? Why masquerade as his brother?
“God knows you’ve every reason to hate me,” he said. “And I’m about to give you more. But one thing I tell you first, and swear under heaven it is truth. I acted as I did for your safety. I meant to save your life, and I did. And I would do it again thrice. I’ve made a muck of things since, but in the end, if it allowed you to live, I stand by my decision.”
My chest still heaved with anger, while grief— equal to that I had felt when I’d believed him dead— poured over me, a deluge of lost trust, tainted memories, and a betrayal so deep I’d no hope of ever recovering from it. I struggled just to breathe but wanted to scream. My pulse pounded in my ears, wild and erratic, and my head spun so that I could barely remain upright, reminding me of when the pain of my injuries had been so great I had lost consciousness. Would that I might do so now and then wake to find this had all been some sort of terrible, lingering nightmare.
“You don’t look well. Come sit.” He offered his hand.
I leaned away. “Don’t touch me.” Ever again.
“Come seat yourself then,” he said, unfazed, as if he had expected my rejection. “It is apt to be a long night.”
It had already been a long day and night, but I followed him to the set of chairs at the foot of the bed and waited as he laid the fire. I tried but could not put a name to the emotions crashing over me, submerging me repeatedly with their relentless pounding, much like the painting I had started, of a tempest at sea. If I did not make some sense of my erratic feelings soon and find my footing, I’d no doubt I would drown.
He finished at the fire and took the chair opposite mine. “At least there was an easier way to answer your question— one that didn’t require removal of my clothing.”
We agreed on that. I could be grateful we were not having this discussion with him sitting here, half-naked.
“What if we had—” Been intimate before. I couldn’t say it. “I would have seen your leg.”
He held his hands up as he shrugged. “You would have known the truth that much sooner.”
“So this is my fault?”
“No. Of course not, Katie. The blame is mine.” He turned his hands over in front of him, studying their many scars. “It was fortunate a little of the old skin was left as proof of my identity. I was starting to forget, myself. Also fortunate my hands mended so well. Mary is a fine healer.”
“Does she know?”
“Who I am?” Collin shook his head. “Only Alistair does, and I imagine Mary will tell him he’s off his head, when he tries to explain the truth. Mhairi is aware of my identity as well,” he added quickly. “Since the night of Lydia’s birth.”
“You trusted Alistair and Mhairi, but not me?” I was jumping ahead with my accusations, still not knowing why Ian— Collin— had even constructed this lie to begin with.
“It was not a matter of trust.” Collin leaned forward, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. “Telling Alistair became necessary. Mhairi found out quite by accident. She, too, noticed my scar. ”
That explained the hostility I’d felt from her the past several weeks. I hated that she’d recognized Collin before I had, and that she knew him well enough that his scar was familiar. The scar he gained protecting me.
“My deception began as a means to rescue you from Brann, and then to keep you safe a while longer,” Collin said.
“And then?” Was longer the rest of my life?
“I did mean to tell you today, in case that matters,” Collin said. “I started to. I tried.”
“Why should I believe you? I found out.” I pointed to my chest. “First in the kirkyard, and then when I noticed your scar as you danced.”
“In the kirkyard?” His brow wrinkled. “I’m the one who told you it wasn’t Collin in that grave. ” He gave a shake of exasperation. “I was careless in leaving my bandages off tonight, but I think a part of me hoped you might notice when we were dancing, or later when I raised my glass for the first toast of the year.”
“You believed this conversation would go better if I’d a bit of ale in me and was surrounded by a hundred people?” It was going worse by the minute, Collin digging himself deeper in the proverbial grave. Which wasn’t a good analogy at all but brought forth the memory of when I had believed him in a grave— forever. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I fought to maintain some semblance of control. I hate him. I love him. I can’t. Ever again.
“Just get on with it,” I demanded. “Before it is morning and Lydia is returned.”
“I did not think it would go better downstairs,” Collin said. “I believed only that if you noticed my scar it might be a way to begin to tell you the truth. I’ve tried a dozen times before, and always my efforts were thwarted, or my courage failed. The night of Lydia’s birth I decided to give it up altogether. To remain Ian, your pirate.” Collin rubbed the scar over his eye. “I thought having you tolerate me as Ian was better than not having you at all. I feared this very thing— that telling you the truth would ruin any chance we had to return to who we once were.”
He was right, on both counts. I had begun to care for him as Ian. I had come to the place where I felt that was better than loneliness. Better than this. For a few brief seconds I wondered what would have happened if I didn’t know the truth but had continued on in contented— if not blissful— ignorance. That was no longer possible and hadn’t been, since the crippling moment in the kirkyard when I had heard Collin’s name.
There was still that matter to discuss as well— why that other man was in that grave, and who was on that ship. Those questions had set this entire chain of events in motion and had far greater implications yet. But even those would have to wait until later.
“Supposing you were going to tell me, what changed your mind to that course— after all this time?”
“You.” Collin turned his head to me. “I couldn’t be in a room with you without wanting to call you Katie, to claim you as mine and take you in my arms. Neither could I be near you and not feel stricken with guilt for my dishonesty and the torment I had caused. It was destroying me a day, an hour, a minute at a time. I decided that at the New Year I would make a new start— or try to anyway.”
“Try, then,” I said. “I agree to listen at least.” Understanding and forgiveness remained to be seen.
“I thank you for that.” Collin straightened in his chair. “I will tell you everything from the beginning, from the moment I left you the night of Liusaidh’s fire.” He took a drink from the glass on the table, braced his hands on his knees, and began.
“The English walked us nearly until dark that first day, herding us along like animals. Every step was a step farther away from you. Your screams still echoed in my ears. I thought of nothing else all day but how I would escape and return to you. At nightfall they made camp. The prisoners were all tied to trees— except the women, who were expected to cook the meal.”
“They wouldn’t attempt escape on their own?” I would have.
“You wouldn’t have,” Collin said, as if he’d read my mind, “if it meant leaving Lydia behind.”
“Oh,” I said softly. That possibility brought fresh tears. “They couldn’t leave or their children would be killed.”
“Aye.” Collin nodded solemnly. “Very effective method of containment— and all else the soldiers wished,” he added bitterly. “There is little a mother will not do for her child.”
Or a father for his son. I thought of Collin’s father. “How did you escape?”
“The English had searched me right off and found the dirk in my boot. But they are lazy, and they did not think to look in the other boot as well. I’d a shorter knife there, the one I use for carving— one given to me by your grandfather long ago.”
Our eyes met for a brief moment before I looked away. But I had seen what he was thinking, and he likely knew my thoughts as well. Grandfather had not given him that knife merely for carving. He had known that one day Collin would need it.
“I’d helped an old man to walk throughout the day, allowing him to lean on me, when he would have been whipped— or perhaps shot— by the soldiers. He’d a daughter with him, and she came to me at the night to bring me a bit of water and bread. I convinced her to fetch my knife and cut me loose. She did. Before I left I had to tie her up, with a gag as well, so come morning the soldiers would not suspect that she had helped me.”
“Why didn’t you set her and the others free?” It was a fine story of escape, but I could not help thinking of those left behind.
“I had asked, did she want to come with me, but she would not leave her father, and we could not take him, slow as he was. As for bringing the others— none of us would have made it away.” Collin’s face pinched, and he shook his head, looking aggrieved. “I did feel badly leaving them. But it was to you I’d sworn my oath, you I had pledged to protect and had failed. Nothing weighed stronger than returning to you.”
“That was the first day. You didn’t return for almost three weeks.”
“The longest three weeks of my life.” Collin chanced another look my direction. I answered it with one I hoped was closed. I was intrigued by his story, that was all.
“I returned the way we’d come, walking the entire night through, staying clear of the roads, lest the soldiers came searching for me. I had nothing, save my knife. They’d given me little to eat or drink the whole of the day before. At sun up I could go no farther but found an old foxhole and curled up in it, covering myself with leaves. It was a fitful sleep, for I heard your screams in my mind, and then I heard the soldiers in the woods around me. It seems the coin they’d given Brann was a pittance compared to the price I’d fetch as a servant in the Colonies, and they were not about to let their income be lost.”
“Fourteen years of labor ought to be worth something,” I muttered, my ties to the English and soldiering leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
“Aye. It is— to the English, anyway. They came too close. I left my hiding place and ran farther into the woods. A particular brutish soldier took to cutting through the brambles with his newest toy— a claymore confiscated from one of the other prisoner’s homes. The soldier was close. I heard him thrashing about, but I did not think he saw me. I ran on, ducking between bushes and around trees. Until I came around one, lost my footing, and my head met the side of his claymore. I fell as it struck, off the edge of a precipice, into a deep ravine.”
I gave a start, almost feeling the fall myself. Oh, Collin. I started to reach for him but stopped myself just in time. “Go on,” I said in a choked voice.
“It was dark and freezing when I woke again. My head hurt something fierce, and I felt faint with the loss of blood. But I was blessedly alone and had landed on my side, my head literally stuck in the mud. The fall kept me from the Redcoats and stopped up my wound— though I cannot recommend mud as a treatment in general.” Collin grimaced.
“I wrapped my shirt around my head tightly then trudged on, walking in a cold stream to both keep myself awake and to cover my scent. I found a dead fish and ate it raw.” A corner of Collin’s mouth lifted as he glanced at me.
“Dead fish aren’t so bad after all?” He had teased me terribly once, on our journey through the Highlands, when I had speared a fish, only to discover it had been dead for some time. Remembering that morning together, and thinking of him alone and bleeding with naught but a raw, dead fish to eat, softened my heart a little more.
“They are bad,” he confirmed. “I ought to have chosen starving. The next day I heaved out my guts— and the fish’s too.”
“Ugh.” I clutched my stomach, feeling ill myself.
“Somehow I survived that and kept going.”
“Somehow?” I didn’t want him leaving any detail out. I wanted to know everything that had transpired. It was the only way I might come to a proper conclusion.
“Because I had to,” Collin amended. “Every step brought me closer to you. Every minute longer I was gone gave Brann more time to hurt you. I was close to the Campbell keep. But I’d no idea what I might do when I arrived— no weapon, save a wee knife. No strength to speak of. Going there as I was would have provided Brann the perfect opportunity to kill me— before your very eyes. As much as I wanted to charge in and save you, I couldn’t.”
“You went home instead,” I guessed, remembering the clan map showing the border we shared with MacDonalds.
“I started to.” Collin rose from his chair and began pacing in front of the fireplace. For months I’d believed it a habit of both brothers, when really he had been here, right before my eyes. Why hadn’t I seen it? What kind of wife does not know her own husband? One who had been married all of three weeks, perhaps.
“I’d not yet reached home when I discovered that my clan was coming to me— or to confront the Campbells. They were camped on the border of our lands, and Ian had wasted no time preparing them as if for war— men, women, and children. He’d armed them with everything he could think of— wooden swords, tines formed from antlers, pitchforks— a broomstick.” Collin gave a short laugh. “I might have found it amusing, except that it was rather brilliant. By use of disguise and props, Ian intended to make it appear the MacDonalds were greater in number and decently armed. When I realized what he had accomplished in so short a time, I saw him for the leader he could be— if only his motives were well aimed.”
Collin stopped his pacing to roll his neck and shoulders. I sensed this was not a tale easily related. But so far, I did not doubt the truth of it.
“I’d not made myself known to Ian or the MacDonalds yet. I wasn’t certain how they would receive me, and I needed time to plan what I might say to persuade them from their course. If not, there could be both bloodshed and repercussions. I had to persuade them— all of them, but especially Ian— to help me.
“I lingered far enough away from their camp not to spook the horses, but not so far as to have them out of my sight. About an hour after most had gone to bed, there was a commotion. I’d dozed off and woke to see Ian and Niall in a heated argument on the rise above the camp, parallel to my hiding place and only a short distance away. I crept closer and overheard them arguing over what to do when they arrived on the morrow. Niall wished to seek me out straight away and kill me. But Ian—” Collin brought a fist to his mouth and bowed his head.
I remembered another moment I had seen him thus, when speaking of his brother— when I had believed him to be Ian, speaking of Collin.
I ached for him— ached to go to him but couldn’t. Not yet. Not ever? I reminded myself that I was angry. Furious with him. He had lied to and hurt me. All things that should not have been difficult to remember. Yet I was struggling to remember already and wanted nothing more in this moment than to stand and wrap my arms around him. Instead, I slid my traitorous hands beneath my legs. We had much more territory to cover.
Collin regained his composure and continued. “Ian said he would not kill me, and he forbade Niall or anyone else from it, stating that he would personally see to it they suffered a gruesome death if they even attempted as much. Niall argued that if Ian was to have any chance as laird, I needed to be dead. Elsewise, the people would not follow him. ‘Let them follow whom they will,’ Ian said. ‘I’ll not kill my brother.’”
“He seemed keen enough to do it before,” I said.
“So we believed.” Collin favored me with another smile. How I had missed those— and him. He seemed different already, less formal and guarded, more comfortable in my presence, already transforming in the past hour from the man I had believed myself handfast to, into the husband I had loved.
“You’ve one thing in common with my brother,” he said.
Before tonight I would have said we had much more than that, like the shared love for the child bequeathed to us. “Which is?”
“You are both good at bluffing.”
It took me a second to understand what Collin meant. “That night in the clearing, Ian’s gun was empty too?”
“Aye.” Collin took his chair again, angling his body toward me. “It was all show for Niall, to appease him. Ian did want to send you back to England. He was against our marriage. But murder had never been his plan.”
“But at the river—”
“He meant to scare you. That was his first idea, to frighten you enough that you’d ask to go home. Ian knew I’d take you if you asked it of me.”
“He held a knife to my throat.” I was the one standing now, bearing down on Collin. “He pushed me in. I nearly drowned.”
“He wasn’t expecting anyone to come upon you so sudden. He became spooked and lost his head.”
“I nearly lost mine and everything else that night. I don’t believe it.” I crossed my arms and turned away from Collin. “How did you find all this out, anyway? You couldn’t have learned so much listening to that one conversation.”
“I didn’t learn any of it then. Only that my brother did not mean me harm from that point on. Which was enough that when Niall rose up and tried to kill Ian, I did what I must. I flung my knife into his back then ran forward and bashed his head with a rock.”
I shuddered. Violence. Always. Would Scotland ever know another way?
I faced Collin again. “You didn’t kill him.”
“I believed I had. We rolled his body down the opposite side of the hill and left it.
“No wonder you were surprised when he showed up here.”
“Surprised. Angry. Frightened for you. I’d no choice but to finish what I’d started and kill him that night. But I was wrong in acting out of anger.” Collin expelled a breath, as if letting that same rage go once more. He took his glass from the table and lifted it to his mouth before discovering it was empty.
“I had learned, by then, all the harm Niall had done Ian. It was Niall who convinced Ian that both my father and I had abandoned him on purpose. Niall had twisted my words and actions, to make it seem as if I hated my brother. All that and more, leading Ian away to a depth of misery and toward hell itself— when he had practically been there so long already, during his years with the Munros— and yet Ian had still refused any attempt to take my life. When I saved his, Ian realized Niall had been wrong. About many things.”
I let all of this settle for a minute while Collin left to find us drinks and something to eat. All-night revelations apparently made for great hunger and thirst, as I was experiencing a considerable amount of both. A good sign? When we had started this conversation I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to eat or drink or do much of anything ever again. Utter devastation seemed too light a description for what I’d felt when Collin had pushed back his sleeve. Enough that I had wanted to curl in a ball and never move again.
Two hours in, and I was doing all right. Breathing without pain, anyway. As of yet we had skirted the main topic, the actuality of what had happened to cause Collin’s deceit. But I believed him so far and felt more open to empathy than I would have said possible when we began.
I sat once more and brought my hands to my head, pounding for some time now with an incessant ache— all the crying, no doubt. No wonder I was thirsty. Since leaving the hall I’d probably shed enough tears to fill a small bucket.
There would undoubtedly be more before the night was through.
Is he worth it?
At the kirkyard just hearing Collin’s name and the possibility that he was alive sent my heart soaring with hope, though I’d believed an ocean and months or even years separated us.
What was so different now? Five months of deception, heartbreak, and mistrust made up the chasm between us. I hung my head back and sighed.
Crossing an ocean might have been easier.