Chapter 4
Dazed and numb, Sandra tried to snuggle deeper into the warmth of her bed. She reached for the woolen quilt that was coarse yet familiar to her from childhood, but instead, her hand grasped a fistful of luxurious velvet, the likes of which she had felt only once before.
Her eyes flew wide open and shock coursed through her when she saw the familiar surroundings. Every wall, every corner, every window in the room had haunted her dreams for the past two nights. Now those dreams had become real and she remembered just how real the man had been who ruined her wedding and brought her here with the promise of completing his husbandly task. Had she fainted? She did not remember how she traveled here or who had put her in this bed. She looked under the coverings. Thank God they had put her in fully clothed.
Her already racing heart beat even faster from that thought. A flash of heat jolted her like a powerful strike of lightning, just as it had the first time she lay on this bed under him. She had wanted everything he was offering then, and truthfully, even marrying Mangus would not have stopped her from dreaming about that encounter over and over. So why was being hand-fasted to him so upsetting to her?
Sandra yanked the plush quilting over her head and fell back in frustration. She needed time to sort this whole mess out, but there was nowhere she could turn without being reminded of her own dishonorable part in the destruction of a possible peace.
Sounds outside the door brought her out from under her protective hiding place with perked ears. When she heard distinct voices out in the hall, she squeezed her eyes shut to make it appear as if she were still sleeping. If it was him, she needed more time to get under control and prepare for the things her aunt had warned her of, especially since her new husband was an honorless man who seemed to delight in ruining her life.
"What did ya do, kill the poor thin'?" asked a woman in a thick Scottish burr. From her tone and pitch, it sounded like the same woman who had invited her into the manor to escape the storm the other night. The kindly woman had not yet entered the room, but Sandra could hear her voice as clearly as if she had.
"I did not kill her, I married her. I would never harm a golden hair on that bonnie lass's head." The reply back was a man's rumbling voice that sent shivers of longing down Sandra's spine each time she heard it. It was deep, and it was Scottish to the bone, but more than the sound of it were the words he had spoken to her in that very voice that made her heat with renewed shame. It was Lex.
"You what?" the woman shrieked in disbelief. "You were only supposed ta bring her back here so that the arrangement could be made for us to be together. What fool bug crawled into your head to make ya marry her?"
"She was about to marry that Mangus who is but a twig to a true man's branch. And besides, it was Lex MacLachlan's desire to marry her, and his desire to become their chieftain. Ya know there is no way I could change what a man truly desires in his heart. Controlling a body and speaking some well-placed words is all I really did." His tone was mockingly sarcastic, as if the woman's displeasure over his new marriage was completely unwarranted.
Sandra still did not know who this woman was to Lex MacLachlan, but obviously she had not been expecting him to bring a bride home tonight.
"One MacLachlan or another," the woman huffed with an air of superiority. "What does it matter which she weds? She would still have ended up in this manor and in that bed."
"Well, at least married to this one she will not be killed in her wedding chamber by a lying MacEwen." His tone had changed, and Sandra could tell his hatred was roused by the mention of one word, MacEwen.
"I would have never been stabbed and neither would you, had you just let me out of the bedchamber to talk with my kin. Ya carried me away screamin' and kicking to your room. What father would not come to rescue a daughter from the likes of you?"
"And if you had just let me finish my manly duties faster, we would not be here right now. We should be laughing and rollin' to the high heavens as man and wife, but instead I have to chase this wee one down and marry her."
Sandra knew it. The conniver had been up to no good all along. He had been married before and still kept the woman around. Somehow she had to use this information to get out of her hand-fast.
She strained to hear their voices through the blanket around her ears, but nothing. There was silence out in the hall and Sandra could just imagine why. How could the two lovers possibly talk with their mouths joined together in a feverish kiss? The mere image made her thigh muscles stiffen in anger. Why did he stop her wedding to Mangus if he already had a woman in his life? Did he come only to stop the union of their clans?
She was about to go out into the hall and enlighten them about her own dislike of the situation when she heard a growling voice. It was Lex MacLachlan's cold demeanor, a side that he seemed to reserve just for insulting Sandra. He sounded angry and disgusted at the same time, and his sudden English accent was as harsh to her ears as a frosty wind whipping over her bonnetless head.
"She is in here," he said with a cold command to someone.
Sandra shut her eyes quickly when she heard the outer latch release on the huge wooden door.
"She has been like that since..." his words trailed off and were finished by another voice Sandra had never heard before.
“Since you stole her from her wedding and threw her in your own bed.” It was a woman speaking their Gaelic tongue, but about as poorly as Lex and with that same foreign English twist to their beautiful words.
“Something came over me. A sickness, or a drug maybe. I spoke and moved without knowing why. But this is just the kind of treachery I told you we could expect from the MacEwen clan.”
"Oh, Lexxie, you could have done worse but I do not think ya could have done any better. And just a darlin’ of a thing. She is clean, and ripe for the nesting." The woman must have chosen the wrong words, Sandra thought. She had obviously not mastered her new language completely. "She be so small though, like a real Scottish fairy. I have heard they lurk in these woods, using their sweet lips to steal their nourishment from men who sleep with their trews on the loose." A hand rough from years of work yet warm with a soft comforting stroked across Sandra's forehead. Like a child playing with her first doll, the woman arranged Sandra's curls around her face, neatly tucking a few strands behind her ears. Sandra remained motionless. "Is that where you captured this beauty from, Lexxie, caught in yurr lacings, lickin' her lips?" The woman's hearty laugh shook even the stiff padding of straw and feathers in the bed. If the drastic dipping of the mattress where she sat was any indication, she was a woman as hearty as her laugh.
Sandra had been wrong. This woman knew well what words she chose and the way she mixed their uses. Sandra had never heard a woman talk so boldly of such things before, especially not to a man, not even her Auntie Bess, the boldest woman she knew.
"She is no fairy from the woods." Lex's brisk English voice stated the facts with no room for compromise. “But trickery is definitely in her blood.”
"Fairy or not, you have to be admittin' she is a pleasure for a man's eyes. In my business she could have brought in a good team of plow horses for a night's roll."
The silence in the room was the first hint of Lex's opinion of her. She desperately wanted to open her eyes to see what expression was on his face. With slow, deliberate words he finally spoke. "Aye, she is a rare beauty, indeed."
Did she hear him correctly? Was there more than one English-accented man in the room? Cold shock quickly settled into a warm delight as her mind accepted his compliment. It was almost as if she could feel the satisfaction in his voice, as well as the heat of his stormy eyes caressing her like his hands had done before.
"Not the MacEwen you were expecting ta' find, is she?"
"My job to the king will not be deterred by the softness of her skin. She is still a MacEwen."
"Then yurr still goin' through with it?"
"I have given my word, to my king and to my father. This hand-fast is merely another MacEwen trap I have come prepared for. The only thing they want is a MacLachlan heir in that belly of hers. They just do not realize yet who is tricking whom.""Awfully small to be carrying any child you might sire, Lexxie. I always told ya to pick yourself a kettle large enough for your mutton when you decided on the matter."
"She is not my wife, and she will not be mothering my children." His tone was sharp and succinct, again leaving no question as to his true feelings toward her. His words and tone continued to conflict with each other. Why had he asked for her hand and humiliated her in front of her family if he did not want this union either? Something else was going on here and he seemed to need her to fulfill it.
"That is not what I be hearin' from the crowd gathered down in your hall. That clan of yours says the act already be done. It takes but one drop of your honey to water a woman's garden and make it sprout its abundance." The woman's strong hand came to rest on Sandra's belly with a gentle pat, and her jesting tone had yet to falter under Lex's stern discourse.
"Then I am safe in stating that she will not be a noose around my neck for long, because not one drop did she get. No MacEwen woman will ever stir my blood to that point. I have no wife and soon I will be rid of that clan down there as well." Sandra could hear the gnawing anger underlying his every word, eating away bite by bite at the thin control he was barely sustaining when he was anywhere near her. He departed the room even closer to that edge of fury than when he arrived. His boots struck the wooden floorboards like powerful axe blows attempting to reduce to timber in seconds that which nature had taken decades to nurture. Sandra watched the hearty woman follow behind him at a more leisurely pace, swaying her hips from side to side in the most provocative manner and giving one last pleased chuckle as she closed the door.
Sandra's soft leather slippers were about to touch the floor and take her exploring around the room when she heard voices nearing again. It seemed being unconscious was gaining her more insight into Lex MacLachlan's plan for her than asking outright. She slipped back under the velvet covering and yanked it up to her chin again.
"I would be a fool to say that lassie would not stir me to spillin'. Just look at her." Sandra heard Lex's caressing burr rumble through the closed door as if he were in the room again humming the words directly into her ear. Was he out there right now contemplating it? And how did he so easily slip from that cold English accent to the warm honey burr of her Scottish home?
"Don't you be lookin' at her and talkin' of spillin' your seed to me," came the familiar Scottish voice of his female companion he had spoken to earlier. The woman's jealous tone said Lex would not be coming anywhere near Sandra...ever. Could it be possible that Lex and the woman who was just in the room disguised their voices only in front of her? Was this part of their English trick?
"Don’t you be lookin' at me with those devil eyes of yours, my love. When the body of Lex MacLachlan makes fine love to you, I swear you won't be mindin' it a bit."
She had not been mistaken. It was Lex. Sandra's stomach rolled at the image of Lex's nude body pushing hard against the expansive pockets of flesh on the older woman. She heard their lover's laughs as if they were close enough to be in the bed with her. Her indignation reached its boiling point. No man was going to shame her so blatantly by taking his release right outside her door while still hand-fasted to her. If she had to wait for her dream of peace and suffer through this hand-fast for her part in that night of dishonor, then he was going to suffer right along with her.
Sandra whipped the bed coverings aside and swung her feet to the ground, intent on marching through that door this time and catching the two conspirators in their lusty embrace. She froze when she heard the woman speak.
"Look. She is awake."
Sandra spun around and wildly searched the room for the face to go along with those words. Even though the daylight coming through the one glass window was fading fast, she knew her vision was not failing her. She was the only one in the room, but obviously not the only one who could see into the room.
"Where are you?" Sandra asked with an accusing eye lingering on every possible crack and hole in the walls that might allow a view of her.
She ran to the wardrobe and pulled back the thick tapestry curtain covering the entrance, obviously another luxury brought from England by the manor's new lord. The only thing hiding in there were Lex's neat piles of tailored surcoats and shirts in an ornate trunk, with one lone tartan hanging irreverently from a splinter of wood peeled back from one of the support beams in the stone wall.
"Now look what you have done. She has heard you. I told you to stay off those loose boards in the floor." The woman reprimanded him as if their voices alone were not loud enough to give their presence away.
"I can hear you and I know you can see me," Sandra said, slowly backing away from the wardrobe, then cautiously looking around the room from a point in its center. With her hands firmly planted on her hips, she scrunched her lips up into a tight line and narrowed her eyes as well.
"She has the ears of a hare, my dear," said the woman with another one of her infuriating laughs. "I can see we will have to take more care with our little visits to this particular room. Maybe you would care to join me in my woman's quarters for now. We can share some private time there and prepare you for your marriage bed." Another shrill laugh and then the scurrying of feet. One set slippered and the other set booted, boots that sounded suspiciously like the ones that had just marched out of the room on her husband's feet.
They had only been married for the day, but it was time this new MacLachlan clearly understood what being hand-fasted to the daughter of the MacEwen entailed.
Sandra charged to the door and threw it open. The sound of the wooden door crashing against the stone wall reverberated down the empty hall. Her show of force would have definitely made her dislike of the situation known this time, but again she was too late to catch even a glimpse of them. The two had already disappeared into another chamber. Most likely they were half undressed by now and using the plump woman's cushioning backside instead of their feet for support.
So intently was she staring down the hallway, listening for any sound that might give away their hiding place, that she jumped like a hungry fish when Lex's booming voice roared up the stairs from behind her. He was angry again, a state he always seemed to be in when he let that English accent slip out in his speech, but if he was down there in the hall, at least he was not having a fine time with that robust woman as she had thought.
Taking small quiet steps over to the railing of the stairs, she peered down to verify to her pounding heart that it was indeed the man she had married down there, and not another trick of voices. Sure enough, she saw his tall frame pacing back and forth in front of all the clan members who had accompanied him from the wedding. His hands came up more than once to slick over the top of his hair down to the tie at his nape where it was braided the rest of the way. His hands finally stopped over his corded neck to fasten in a tight clasp at the finely trimmed collar of his quilted tunic. Even from her high staircase hiding place, she could see a vein pulsing in his neck and the muscles of his jaw tightening then relaxing, as if he were trying to decide whether or not to end the suffering of a mortally injured comrade.
"She has to go. I cannot keep her as my wife," he finally said more as an oath to himself than mere conversation with his clansmen.
The scraggly remains of the MacLachlan clan silently looked on with uncertainty as their new chieftain cursed under his breath at himself, as if he were a madman. It seemed this was not at all what they expected from the handsome stranger when he charmed them with his warm Scottish burr and a promise of a wealthy future under his care.
Sandra knew what to expect from him, though. She had overheard enough of his heated conversation with his lover to know that the fact that he wanted to decline her hand was not an insult to her, but a blessing. The sooner she was released from this hand-fast, the sooner she could marry Mangus and reaffirm the peace her indiscretion with this stranger had nearly destroyed.
***
Lex looked over the mottled clan who had straggled into his hall and made themselves comfortable on the floor and benches near the hearth fire. All twenty or so of them wore a tartan plaid of some fashion, but not all of them were wearing the same weave. Most of the men wore the colors of Clan MacLachlan, the bold green and black barely distinguishable under the dirt and mud they were obviously afraid to wash off for fear the garments would shred in their hands. The concealing folds of their pleated kilts hid most of the tears and holes that had not been mended, but from the abundance of hairy legs he saw silhouetted through the thin fabric, he guessed no looms had been weaving in this clan for quite some time. The women's freshly made skirts were from the plaid pattern that matched Sandra's, the MacEwen weave, the only tartan he knew she would ever consider wearing. The bright of the red and blue woolen stripes ran in perfect symmetry the length of the garment. A finer fabric could not have been found in even the richest markets of London. It was no wonder the MacEwens garnished such wealth from their looms.
They did not look starved enough for a clan who had gone begging to their enemy for help, but neither were they hearty. From the dark looks of distrust that were being shot his way, it seemed they would much rather grovel for the MacEwens’ scraps than ask for his hospitality.
"Have you eaten today?" Lex finally asked after inspecting the odd lot in silence for some time.
A young man with dark hair and leaf-green eyes boldly rose from his squatting position on the floor and faced Lex with shoulders squared. "We were to eat at the feast for the wedding, but followed ya here instead." It was not an acceptance of help, but a proud way of stating that they were indeed hungry and in need of food.
Lex sized up the young man with one quick glance, making sure no expression of pity or judgment crossed his face. "Corkie, make up a meal for...twenty."
His bellowed order was quickly answered by the heavy shuffling feet of his saucy companion. She huffed a complaint but moved along slowly to do his bidding anyway. He cringed in anticipation of what was about to come from her mouth. Even though he was now the one who supplied her with a place to sleep and food for her belly, she still ordered him around like the tavern bucket slopper she had hired twenty years ago.
She brought her robust wealth to a stop right next to him. Her hands wedged into the folds over her hips that dimpled in where her slim waist used to be, and her calculating eyes that summed up everything in relation to the jingle of coin scanned over the gathering as Lex had seen her do a thousand times before. "I cannot be stuffing the likes of this rabble for more than a day on the piss-pot of supplies ya brought along."
"They are not staying longer than tonight." Lex watched the exchange of questioning looks that the women turned on their menfolk. A pretty young thing who stood alone from the others pulled her little girl into the folds of her fresh new MacEwen skirt, as if to protect her from the sting of his words. "Have you no homes to return to?" he asked, throwing back at them their own expressions of doubt.
The young man who so resembled Lex in his own youth again spoke up for them all as if he were responsible for their care in the absence of any real leader. "Most all our homes were burnt down in the feud." He paused just long enough to glance toward the lone woman huddling her child, then continued on. "The MacEwen was going to let us stay in his castle until after winter, then help us rebuild with his own monies."
"He burned your homes and then invited you to stay in his castle?" Lex was sickened to think that this was what had become of his clan. Did they not see what the MacEwen was doing to them? Driving them to their knees in the dead of winter. Forcing them to rely on him for shelter, food, and even his name. This was exactly what the MacEwens had wanted for decades, and exactly what his father had fought against. The MacEwens almost had everything they wanted, but now he was there, and things were going to change.
The youth's long slender hands that promised to someday hold the same strength as Lex's clenched into tight fists on either side of his threadbare kilt. His flushed face and averted eyes reminded Lex of a man making a confession against his will.
"The MacEwen's not ta blame for the burnings. It was the doings of our own kin." The young man darted only one shame-filled glance at Lex from under his dark lashes, then turned his eyes to the floor to inspect the drying mud caked to the fur of his home-styled foot coverings.
"Maybe you should tell me the whole story from the beginning," Lex said in a voice of calm that did not match the tension burning in his neck. This was only supposed to be a quick trip to bag a Highland chief for the king of England, and then back to London for his reward...justice. Now he had a wife in his bed, a clan with no homes looking to him for food, and no promise from the MacEwen to travel to London.
"I am Rory," the lad finally said, introducing himself with an uplifted chin and an extended arm. Lex clasped onto his arm and gave him a firm shake that introduced his authority without words. Their eyes met in a shake of introductions as well and Lex again saw himself all those years ago, before his father banished him to a life without his family, without anyone. Lex had lost the useless feeling of belonging a long time ago, but it was clear that Rory still held a pride in his heart for his clan above all things.
Rory broke their eye contact first and motioned to the surrounding crowd with his hand to release the unnerving lock of their arms as well. "What you see left here of Clan MacLachlan are those who survived the feud. Angus left no heir and warring broke out when my uncle, Ranold, was chosen to take his place as chieftain of the manor. Me brother, Thomas, seemed to think it was his by right of blood, but the elders were not convinced of Thomas's ability to lead us." Rory looked down at the mud on his hide-wrapped feet again and kicked away one of the bigger clumps. "It started when Ranold burned down me brother’s home, killin' his wife and bairn as they slept in his arms." Lex saw Rory's chin tremble ever so slightly from the fresh pain of his remembered loss, but that was all the emotion the steely youth exposed. Already he was on the same path that Lex had followed with his feelings. Freezing that which hurt too much to feel. "Together with Mangus and some others, we attacked Ranold in this very place, but he was not here. He was out burnin' down the rest of our homes, bringin' the women back to the manor with him as hostages." Rory shook off what was apparently a hated memory to recall. "The bastard got what he deserved. I would gladly go beggin' to a MacEwen before I followed a man who cared for his clan like the droppings of a mule under his foot."
Every head in the room was nodding in agreement, except for one. The protective young mother was crying with her head facing the ground. She had to be Ranold's widow. Her uncertain glances toward the others told Lex that the tears she cried did not flow out of sorrow over her loss, but pain from her rejection. Again, as had been happening since he arrived, he felt what they were feeling. He hurt with anger and pain he thought he had shed when he threw his tartan into that mud-hole years ago. This clan had practically destroyed themselves just to determine who would hold a title Lex did not want, and to live in a manor that was a drafty rock heap compared to his dwellings in England. What must they be thinking of him, a stranger just back from England with more wealth than they had ever imagined, and sending his clan back to the MacEwen.
Lex chose his words carefully but made sure every member of this struggling clan understood his intentions. "You may all stay the night in my hall, but I did not come here to be your chieftain. Best you do as you planned before I arrived. I came only for the MacEwen."
No one would look at him. They shot glances at one another with downcast faces of dejection and shakes of their heads. Not even Rory gave him more than a frown before he too looked away.
It was the patter of tiny feet that broke the intense silence, swift tiny feet that were headed his way and were too petite to belong to Corkie.
"If you wanted them to do as they planned before you arrived, maybe you should have controlled yourself at my wedding, or should I say our wedding." The owner of those delicate little feet padded to a halt and roared at him as if she were defending a litter of kittens from the hunting hounds. His new wife had obviously woken up.
He could not help but let a smile tug up one corner of his lips. She was so precious and so small, yet so full of fire. Her defiant look held a threat, but her slender frame did not back it up. He took a step toward her and let his shadow block out the light of the fire completely from her face. She did not take a step back, but her body leaned in that direction. "You are right," he said in an emotionless calm.
Her feathery soft golden brows furrowed over the center of her perfect nose. Her lashes swept down over her eyes in two quick blinks. "Then you admit you acted like no gentleman when you spoke those untruths?"
He raised one of his own dark brows in silent applause for her quick use of his own words to her benefit. If she picked up on his mocking admiration, she made no show of it in her own angelic features. From his experiences in the King's court, Lex knew exactly how to deal with a beautiful woman who used more than her body to get what she wanted.
"I said nothing about untruths," he answered, giving her a sideways grin and a slow shake of his head. She crossed her arms and flared her dainty nostrils as if she wanted to hear no more, but still he continued on. "But I admit that I did not show up with the intent to marry a wife or become a chieftain."
"Then maybe you should not have fallen on your knees before me professing your love."
His feeling of superiority and control flickered for a moment as he again faced the same question that had plagued him since he returned with her draped across his arms. His hands instinctively came up and slicked back his hair again, pulling his head back with it as he closed his eyes. "I did not mean anything I said," he got out with much effort. He knew better than to look a woman straight in the eyes when he said something like that, so he just kept his eyes aimed at the soot-darkened rafter beams. "I did not mean anything that has happened between us. I was not myself when it occurred and I think you know why. I believe the best thing for us to do now is to go about our lives as if none of this ever happened."
He waited for the cries and sobs of indignation, maybe even a small fist or two pounding on his stomach, but her reaction was one the women in London had not prepared him for.
Her arms came up and locked around his chest with the speed and hold of a whip. He pried her off of him with both hands pushing back on her shoulders. What he saw when he looked down at his attacker was even more frightening. Upon her soft angelic face was perched the most beautiful smile he had ever been blessed with, and he knew in that instant she held a power over him stronger than any adversary ever had.
He had just told this woman he did not want her as his wife after mistakenly lying on top of her when she was naked, and she was acting as if he had freed her from captivity in the earth's darkest pit. If this was not what she wanted, why had she set up this whole ruse to trap him in the first place?
"If I tell my father the truth about how you accidentally fell on me when helping me from the bath, you will agree, will you not?"
Her eyes sparkled with such delight. It was easy to see why they had dubbed her the charm of their clan when they first saw her one blue eye and one green eye, shimmering together in harmony like the sea meeting the forest. He wanted to smile back at her with a devastating smile of his own, one he knew would always end an evening his way, and he would have too, if she had been any other woman, any other beautiful lass without the name MacEwen.
"I will not deny what you say unless it falsely accuses me of wrongdoing." He spoke without responding to her charm, but it was not easy.
"Oh, God bless you and grant you many happinesses for your generosity this day," she said as she reached up with her two small hands and cupped his face with their warmth. She pulled him quickly down to her and placed a kiss on his lips that felt exactly like the image she portrayed, soft, sweet, and pure. "I will make my father understand, and I will find Mangus as well," she finished with the excitement of a woman welcoming an imported cloth vendor.
"You actually want to marry him?" Lex voiced his disbelief out loud, something he never would have done if his senses had not been stunned by the lingering tingle of her tender lips. His thumbs tingled too as he stroked the sliver of silky skin on her shoulder that peeked out where her tartan had slipped down.
Luckily she seemed not at all aware of his motions or emotions when she pulled away from him and wrapped herself fully back in the protection of her woolen tartan. "Of course I will marry Mangus...happily." She gave him another flash of her joyous smile and then turned to Rory. "I will make things right again with my father, and then I will return to bring all of you home with me where you belong. Do not worry, we will be together soon enough." She spoke to Rory with a great caring and tenderness in her voice, and then placed what looked like an even sweeter kiss on both of Rory's cheeks.
Lex felt a wild rage pound through his body like a battle stallion crushing its way over a sea of combatants with no other instinct but to kill. He should be ecstatic that the treasured MacEwen Charm was going home and would soon be relieving him of the rest of these people as well. But the only feeling he was experiencing was jealous rage. Not only was she happy about not having to marry him, she was sharing her bountiful charms with his so-called relatives, and was willingly going to marry another who was but half the man he was.
He reached out and grasped her by the arm, forcing her to face him with her smile instead of Rory. He was about to tell her just what he thought of her flitting around from man to man like a bee gathering pollen, but one look into her twinkling eyes and his words were lost again. The magic of her genuineness was a stronger weapon on a man than the sword strapped to his side.
"Do not look so worried," she said tenderly. Her hand came to rest over his on her arm with a caressing stroke of reassurance. "My father will not deny my wishes once he knows the truth. He would deny me nothing."
Her words freed Lex from his befuddled state of emotion like a key turning in the lock of a treasure chest. He had something she wanted and she had the power to convince her father to give him what he wanted. If this worked out, he would be home in his royal manor in London before he saw a Scottish snowflake fall. Beauty and kindness aside, she was the one destined to bring about his downfall if he did not crush her first.
"I would be more than glad to vouch for your word if you would but mention my offer to your father again. I would rather like to have the matter of separate charters for our lands settled so that I can return to my life in London."
"It really was kind of you to come all this way to make such a noble gesture of good faith. I am sure it will be looked upon by all as a binding sign of unity between our two clans. Soon our children will be safe on either side of the stream separating our lands, and it is your generosity that has made it possible, sir."
Her words made him feel richer in silver than Judas himself. She was touting him up to be their great savior in front of all these people with their smiling hopeful faces, when in reality his generosity would only be a gain for his purse and England.
Justice. That is what he would win, for himself and his clan.
He inhaled deeply and refilled his sagging resolve with a shovel full of hatred he had been heaping up for twenty years. No one in his clan had cared if he lived or died, if he was hungry or lonely, or where he would find shelter in the snow. None of them would search for him if he were to disappear tomorrow as he had all those years ago. "You should wait until morning before you return home," he finally said, his emotions all safely tucked back away where they had been before this sprite of a woman pulled at them with her honey-dipped fingers and bright smile.
"I can leave now and have word back to you by morning," she said, just as cheery as ever, not aware in the least of the multitude of feelings crashing through him and twisting like a double-edged battle axe in his chest.
He quickly closed off all the openings of his old wounds and held up his protection against any new ones. "It is getting dark already. You should have an escort," he said. With less care than if picking a hound for a hunt, he turned to Rory with a nod of his head, but Rory just gave him a questioning look in response.
"I will be fine, but thank you for the concern," she said to him with one more reassuring stroke of her petal-soft fingers over the back of his hand. "No one will hurt me out here. I am Sandra MacEwen, daughter of the MacEwen." She made her statement with such pride and confidence that Lex felt no reason to challenge her decision.
Who was he to say what was acceptable for a lady up in these wilds. He did not consider himself a Highlander any longer, but neither was he an Englishman. He had always wondered what that kind of belonging and pride would feel like, and judging from the regal way little Sandra MacEwen strolled from the hall, all eyes watching her graceful departure, he knew it was a feeling to treasure.
He swallowed down the coarse grain of guilt that managed to escape his heart. She had only a short time left to treasure her feelings. This would be her last journey home to visit her papa. Her own actions were about to end her father's free life and their very clan name forever.