Chapter 14
The mouth-watering aroma of the spit-roasted pheasant and venison tempted every member of the clan closer and closer to the tables as the feast the women had prepared was brought out from the cooking area. Sandra sampled a little of each of the dishes before they were served. The bread was soft, the yams were perfectly sweetened, and the meat was piled on a platter to a heaping point with its juices soaking into the hard crusts of bread that she had neatly arranged around the edges of the tray. After cleaning up from her bloody encounter with Lex, the other women had helped clean the deer and she had spent the rest of the afternoon mindlessly cutting and cleaning anything Corkie put before her. Now that their feast was ready, her stomach had no desire for food and her mind had nothing to distract it any longer.
She knew she should be pleased that she and Lex had come to an understanding with each other. They had each put forth their required terms for the remaining time they would share together...including one very important restraint they both agreed on full-heartedly, that there would be no more shared intimate moments. It was just a matter of making it through the next couple of weeks without having another reckless encounter like that. Sandra knew one more mistake with Lex could cost her the peace of the clans. She was willing to abide by his terms if he adhered to hers.
With a deep, steadying breath she walked out into the hall and took her seat next to Lex. He did not look over at her. He did not even acknowledge she was there at all. It was better this way, she told herself. Cold indifference from him would get her through this sentence much easier. That was how the whole dinner went. No looks, no talking, at least between them.
"Ya had to be there to believe it. No one could've done it but the MacLachlan." Rory raised his tin mug of ale in a toast as everyone was finishing up their meal with satisfied grins and smacking lips.
"To the MacLachlan," another man at the end of the table shouted out. "He can lay any doe low with his long bow." Many eyes darted to Sandra when the reference to does was made. It was plain that it included much more than female red deer.
Sandra demurely raised her cup and accepted the roundabout compliment for Lex. "I can attest to that," she said with a smile that was intended to complete the picture for those who were having any confusion with the duality of the toast.
The rest of the table raised their mugs and added their roars of laughter to the toast. Lex had not had much to drink, but Sandra could see a difference glowing on his face that had not been there earlier. It was pride, and he did not know how to react to it.
Slowly, he stood up from his seat at the head of the table and quieted the group down with his hands. His embarrassed grin was something that would not go away, though. "I think a great debt of thanks is owed to our sweet women for the delicious meal they created from our dead animals. And a special thanks to Corkie for the candied tubers that only she can make so perfectly."
The crowd raised their cups again, with the men taking the opportunity to personally thank some of their women with more than just a toast.
"You are thankin' the wrong cook," Corkie stood up and shouted at Lex. "Them sweet treats be the sole work of that sweet treat at your side. She made them special for you. And ruined her pretty hands in the process, I might add."
Sandra had been pleased enough that Lex enjoyed her tubers. She wished Corkie had never brought it up and caused another uncomfortable scene. She pulled her hands from the table quickly and folded them on her lap out of sight.
"What is this about your hands?" Lex asked, his smile gone once again. At least this time the rest of the gathering was too occupied in their own reveling that no one was paying them any attention.
"The ground was harder than I thought and they grew numb. I did not even feel them until it was too late." She answered him without really meeting his eyes. Her hands remained where they were under the table.
"Too late for what?" he asked, putting down his goblet to lean on the table and look over at her lap. "Let me see them." It was an order, not a request, and Sandra was left with no choice but to fling her damaged hands on the table for his scrutiny. He just stood there and looked at the red chapped skin as his nostrils flared. They really looked worse than they felt from the multitude of tiny abrasions that would be gone in a day or two. "I thought I said no one was to dig tubers in my home. There is plenty to eat without you mutilating yourself like this for a shriveled root." He was angry again, but he completely surprised her when he gently picked up one of her hands and turned it over to look at the cuts on her palms. "Why?" he asked in a voice too soft to match his masculine form.
"Corkie said they were your favorite and I had to prepare enough for everyone here or it would not be a real treat."
"Never again. Not while you are my wife. If I want tubers I will dig them up with my own hands." He replaced her hand on the table as gently as he had picked it up. Somehow she felt one step closer to really being a wife, really being cared for. "If you all would excuse me, I will retire for the night."
Lex backed away from the table and headed toward the stairs. Sandra listened to his first couple of footsteps on the floor, trying to judge when he was clearly out of the hall and the evening was over. But the sounds stopped only three strides away. She wanted to turn and look but she did not want to seem interested in what he was doing or where he was going. The other people at the table seemed to be very interested in their chieftain, though. They kept looking from where he stood behind her back to her at the table.
"Are you coming, Sandra?" His voice held more warmth than she had ever heard before. It was followed by some encouraging calls from the women around her.
"If you would all excuse me," she said politely as she got up from the table to join him. She tried to look as calm as possible, not so much for the clan but in front of Lex. She did not want to make a deal out of every encounter they had, or every effort he made to be a perfect husband. It was best that they all thought this was natural even though it felt so very unsettling inside her own belly.
When she turned to face Lex, she saw he had been standing there with his hand held out to her. She placed hers lightly on his and he took it, holding it ever so delicately as to not hurt her damaged skin. Together, hand in hand, they walked up the stairs and retired into the chieftain’s chamber for the night as any newly hand-fasted couple would.
"I did this for them," Lex said to her solemnly once they were safely behind closed doors.
"Of course."
"I would like to thank you, though, for the delicious candied tubers. You should not have, but they were the best part of my meal."
She felt a warm flush run through her again as she looked up into his appreciative eyes and he took her chapped hands in both of his and gently stroked them with his thumbs. “You are welcome” was about to come out of her mouth, but someone else spoke out instead.
"He did it for the clan, my arse," Iain boomed out right in her ear.
"Iain!" she scolded him as she pulled her hands free to cover her ears from his shouts.
Lex took a stiff step away from her and she saw his mask of ice fall into place. "My name is Lex MacLachlan. You would do well to remember the name of the man you retire with each night."
"But he was here. I swear," she tried to explain to him. Her hand reached out to touch his arm, but he pulled back even farther.
"I thought we were past all that foolishness."
"Is he calling me foolish?" Iain shouted in her ear again. "I will show him more foolishness than his bear of a father ever did."
"What are you going to do?" she asked into the room frantically, looking for any signs of Iain's next move. The poker by the fire fell to the floor with a clang and spun in circles until it came to an abrupt stop, pointed right at Lex.
"I am going to give you some time alone to ready yourself for the night, then I will be back." Lex started to open the door without even a thought to the poker that was moving slowly across the floor behind him.
"Better yet," Iain said. "I can drop a torch on his fancy stitched clothes out in the hallway."
"No, you will not!" she shouted and slammed the door. "I mean...what is the point?" she tried to cover her overreaction. "We have seen all there is to see of each other."
"It is not your modesty but my sanity that I am concerned about."
"I promise I will not bother you with my ghost stories again. I willnot say another word if you like." She was talking to Lex but keeping her eyes on the poker.
Lex suddenly took her by the arms and lifted her until only her toes were touching the floor. Her face was level with his and she felt his hot breath blow enticingly over her lips as he spoke right into them. "What you do to me has nothing to do with talking."
Sandra was shocked by his words. She could feel the depth of their meaning in the way he held her, tight but tender, in the way he was looking at her, like a man truly not in control of his desires. She wanted to stretch out her lips and taste more of him than just his sweet hot breath. It would be so easy too. But what would he think? That she was just tricking him into another night with her that he would not give on his own?
No. She would not start anything like that ever again. He was not going to have the chance to call her a witch. "I will change behind the wardrobe curtain then," she finally whispered out. He looked so close to kissing her she just closed her eyes and waited for his lips. Her feet hit the floor before any lips ever reached her.
"I will undress out here." He walked away from her to the bed where he sat down and started to work his boots loose without looking back at her once.
"And I was about to forgive him for your sake, lassie," Iain said with a disappointed tone that completely summed up her own feelings.
"I will be in the wardrobe if you want to talk to me," she said for Iain's benefit.
"I will be out here beatin' some sense into my kin," Iain answered her as the metal poker spun around again on the wooden floorboards. This time Lex looked over at it as if noticing it for the first time.
"Oh no you will not," Derrdra's voice called out. "In here right now, Iain MacLachlan, or you will be sleepin' with that piece of metal between yurr own legs when our weddin' celebration is over tonight."
Sandra smiled as she pulled the curtain closed behind her. "Thank you, Derrdra," she whispered behind the curtain. "And thank you too, Iain, for wanting to protect me, but I will deal with Lex myself. It is best that we keep our distance, actually."
"Just wanted to help ya, sweetness," Iain said apologetically.
"I know," Sandra said as she unbuckled the leather belt at her waist and let her tartan fall loose around her. She removed the large length of plaid as she had every night since she was old enough to do it herself, and neatly folded it up. Her blouse followed and then her woolen stockings. Even though the rest of the manor was drafty and cold, this one room was extremely comfortable, even with all her clothes off. She dug down into one of her trunks that had finally arrived this afternoon with the rest of her things from Castle MacEwen. When her hand felt the soft cotton fabric of her nightdress she pulled up with a tug.
"You cannot expect to win him in that, Sandra dear," Derrdra said with a tisk, tisk of her tongue. Wherever she was, she could see the oversized cut of the garment as well as the long sleeves and high neck.
"I do not want to win him. I want him to go away and have everything the way it was before he showed up."
"It is much too late to get back what you have already lost," Derrdra added as if Sandra did not already regret that loss enough.
"I just do not want to lose anymore," she said as she widened the laces at the neckline of the nightgown so she could step into it.
"Those thin ties and folds of fabric will not protect your heart if he wants it," Derrdra continued against all Sandra's prayers that she would stop bringing up valid points.
"Well he does not want it, and I am not offering it. I am saving at least that much for Mangus."
"You really think you can love Mangus after you have been with a man like Lex?"
"I know I can," Sandra said with determination, as if she were fighting her own conscience. "I care for Mangus very deeply already. He is kind and gentle."
"Back on the other side of that curtain, Iain. I swear I will take that poker to you myself." Derrdra's voice moved away from Sandra and suddenly the curtains behind her were open.
Sandra turned from her bent-over position with one leg in her nightgown just in time to see Lex staring in at her with one boot halfway off his foot and a hot, barely-controlled gaze in his eyes. A fire-hot blush flooded over her from her kneecaps to her scalp. He had seen her less covered than this before, but his look made it seem very different this time. A slight edge of fear shivered down her spine. For an instant she was not sure if she could stop him from taking whatever he wanted from her. That one look had about melted her resolve again. It was the same pull she had felt when she faced him over the deer, and she had barely escaped falling into his embrace then. What would happen now that they were about to share a chamber together for the night?
She quickly tugged the curtain completely closed, then grabbed her wool stockings and tugged them back on, then her blouse, and over all that she pulled up her long nightdress. "That ought to take care of it," she said as she slid back the curtain and stepped out into the room in her bulging layered attire.
Lex's boots were off, but he had yet to remove any of his other clothes. From the tangled mess of cord dangling conspicuously from his hands, it looked as if he were tying knots in his leggings instead of removing them. She averted her eyes from his midriff when he snapped his head up and glared at her.
"I just need the jar of salve I put over here this afternoon," she said to let him know she was coming out, but he did not look up at her again. He just continued to knot up his laces with great effort.
Sandra walked as far around him as she could to get to the other side of the room where she had set up a small dressing table with her things. She found the jar she needed and began to rub the healing salve into her chapped hands in silence, studying every small scrape and nick in her hands as if they could foretell the future, anything to avoid the uncomfortable silence in the room.
"That smells very familiar."
She turned around to see Lex with his hands in fists on his laces and his eyes fixed not on her face, but much lower. She darted a glance down and was horrified to see that in her rush to layer herself in clothing, she had forgotten to tighten the laces of her tunic or her blouse. She wanted desperately to yank them closed, but she did not dare. Not in front of him as if she was frightened.
"Wrapped up or not, he will take what he wants," came Derrdra's warning tone, just when Sandra had thought she was alone with Lex.
The jar of salve slid from her greasy hands when she heard Derrdra's voice. It hit the edge of the wooden dressing table and knocked her hairbrush and cake of soap to the floor. She fell to her knees to gather them up.
"Splendid maneuver, my dear," Derrdra commented with a rapid clap of applause. "This position is even more enticing than the untied gown by itself."
Sandra tucked her chin in slowly to be inconspicuous as she looked down and realized just what Derrdra meant. She was on all fours on the floor and her breasts were hanging forward with their full weight, threatening to fall free of her garment at any moment. She quickly slapped a hand over her laces to cover them and sat up on her knees. She felt the greasy salve slide over the portion of her breasts that she concealed with her hand. Pulling it away now would make matters even worse, but what choice did she have? She did not want him to think her actions had anything to do with him.
She took a deep breath and patted her chest with the tips of her fingers as if feeling her temperature. "Is it a bit warm in here to you?" she asked. As quickly as she had brought her hand up to cover herself, she let it drop back down to her side as if she had never been trying to conceal anything.
Lex looked her straight in the eye, and then with an agonizing slowness, his gaze traveled down her neck and came to rest on the glistening curves of her breasts she had just exposed and salved.
"I see how the layering ploy is supposed to work in with your planned seduction, but slathering yourself in oils is a bit much even for a fool like me to fall for." He turned away as if the sight of her bored him now that he had solved his puzzle.
"What do you mean p...ploy...seduction...?" she sputtered in disbelief.
He did not answer her immediately. Instead, he flopped down on the bed and made his head comfortable by stuffing two sizable down pillows under it. He looked so smug and sure of himself lying there with his knees dangling over the edge of the bed and his feet playfully flipping up and down. "Your plan is as simple as you are, MacEwen. But did you really think to seduce me into sleeping with you by rubbing herbs and lard on yourself?"
"I have no desire to sleep with you tonight or any night!" Her fury was beyond anything the arrogant louse had baited her into yet. How dare he assume such a ridiculous thing.
"Desire," he said with a forced laugh from deep in his throat. "I doubt you can separate your own desires from what you are required to do for your father's sake."
She knew she had to stay in control. She knew the truth. His words were lies, lies he created in his own mind because his male pride could not fathom the possibility that she was not attracted to him in the least. "Do tell me how much of my ploy you have uncovered," she said.
"Where should I start?" He rubbed the black stubble on his chin and looked to the ceiling as if searching for the answers in the soot-encrusted beams. The coarse sound of his fingers raking over his whiskers grated on her composure. Her hands curled into fists and the remaining salve squished out between her fingers in thin, oily ribbons. "Being the simple-minded fool that you all think I am, I have only been able to glean that your father sent you here that first night to seduce me once he learned the true heir to the MacLachlan clan still lived. When your first ridiculous attempt failed, he had someone intoxicate me with an herb or something that made me say and do things against my will, thus our hand-fast." Sandra stiffened and was about to scream “liar” at him when he shot up from his reclining position on the bed and closed the distance between them first. His forward lean stopped him merely inches from her face. "I am not quite through yet," he said in a menacing tone. Her mouth snapped closed from sheer surprise. "The only thing you MacEwens have ever desired was the complete subjugation of the MacLachlans into your clan. When murder did not kill our bloodline you stooped to ghost stories and herbs...and finally this," he said as he motioned toward her with his palms uplifted.
The heat of the room, her layered clothes, and her fuming anger brought her blood to a roiling boil. With a stiff spine that showed her defiance as well as her glistening breasts he had just so snidely dismissed, she boldly leaned toward him. "I know what desire is, and I know what the truth is. You, unfortunately, have denied yourself of both for too long and it is beginning to wear you down to an ugly shell of the man you could be." His smug smile faded. Good. He was as mad as her now. She had finally broken through his shield to a tender spot.
"You know nothing about me, and I will repeat it again for your beginner's ears, you know nothing about your own desires." She was about to snap back that she desired Mangus above all men and desired only his touch, but Lex's hot touch stopped her. Actually, it froze her. He stood up and his hands came out and wrapped around her waist almost completely. His fingers were strong and tightening with her every startled breath. "I know what I truly desire," he said with a deadly glint in his eyes, "...do you?" One pull of his strong arms and the front of her body was forced against his. His thighs pushed up hard against her and his lips came down on hers in a demanding and forceful kiss, if it could be called a kiss at all. It was as if he were trying to evoke from her his desired response. Did not he know he was going about it all wrong?
With a slow softness she had learned to use in all her dealings with the temperamental MacLachlan pride, she turned her head ever so slightly until their lips were more perfectly fitted for kissing. Then, against the forceful pressure of his demanding mouth, she slowly opened her lips and welcomed his kiss. The change in him was immediate.
His hands relaxed their grip yet pulled her in closer with a slight nudging of his fingertips on her spine. The tension in his thighs shifted from side to side in a slight rocking motion that was inviting her to stay. And oh, his kiss. It changed from demanding desire to eliciting it with the expertise he had shown her on their first night together. How amazing it was to feel his actual desire come out in full force, and all because of her. Was this what he needed to open up? Just a tender kiss from someone promising to be gentle with his fragile heart?
Their kiss slowed even further to a languishing tasting of lips and tongues. In this area of the body they were equals in strength and she matched his strokes lick for lick, kiss for kiss.
Her controlled thoughts floated away from her as she let herself go and fell weightlessly against him. The hardness of him was a surprisingly welcome cushion to rest upon. Her hands, no longer needing to push away from him, massaged their way up through his hair until the leather tie at the back of his head fell to the bed behind them. It was marvelous. Long, silky, thick. She ran her fingers up his scalp, enjoying the sensation it created not only on her fingertips, but much deeper inside her belly. She felt so free and wild to dare such a thing with a man like him, Lex MacLachlan. When her hands reached the top, her arms cradled around behind his head and brought him in closer to her, holding him there as if she alone could control his raging passion.
A sudden loss of warmth, of closeness. A flash of green. He pulled back from her embrace with a look in his eyes like he had just been deceived into trading his clan's armorial lands for a lame plow horse.
Throwing her to his side as if she were a rabid animal he had to dispatch from his body, he took a step away from her and stroked a slow hand over his wet mouth, thinking, recalling, tasting. "I thought we had agreed there would not be a fourth time," he said as if she had broken the rules of their hand-fast alone.
"And there will not be for us," she answered with a coolness she did not feel inside her belly. Her inner thighs were aching with an unsatisfied yearning they had only just learned to need since he had entered her life. She met his accusing glare with a warm smile, one she could honestly say came from within her. Honesty and kindness was obviously the way to deal with Lex if she wanted their remaining time together to be civil. "You were right. I was lying." She looked down at her folded hands in front of her to avoid his hot gaze for an instant.
One black brow shot up in question. "Did I hear you correctly?" he asked as he casually pulled his shirt loose from his leggings to hide his body's reaction to their closeness. "You are actually admitting to your scheme of seduction?"
"No," she said with the same regretful smile still curving her lips sweetly. "I lied about not desiring you tonight and any other."
He made no response. He had no snide retort for her truthful confession. His eyes scanned over her once more with a decision-making calculation, then he pretended interest in the flickering hearth pit as if he might change his mind about a fourth time if he let more than his mind decide the issue. She was quite amazed that her truthful desire for him had him at a loss for words.
"Is there anything you would like to admit to me?" she asked in a non-threatening tone that suggested he should be honest with her since she had been with him.
"No. This changes nothing. There still will be no next-time for you." He did not look away from his tedious chore of counting each and every red coal in the fire by touching it with the metal fire poker he gripped in his fist.
How infuriating he could be. She had been open and honest and he still withheld his inner feelings from her. "Oh, there will be a fourth time, and a fifth, and a sixth," she said with a sureness that made him turn and meet her challenge. "It just unfortunately will not be with you. It will sadly be with Mangus, my future husband."
His deep, ugly laugh rang out from what she knew now was a hurting soul. It was a laugh she was beginning to realize came out only when he was lying to himself. She wondered if he even knew how blatant it was. "Only a MacEwen could stand here in my bedroom, proclaiming to desire me for nights not yet past, and in the same breath swear to share those nights happily with another man as her husband. Do you feel no guilt for your deceits?"
"I am the only one being honest in this room, and I have no reason to feel guilt for desiring your strong touch and enjoying the sweetness of your kisses." Her words affected him noticeably. He inhaled deeply through his flared nostrils, but he did not look away from her this time. It was as if he could not. "I feel new and alive inside," she said clenching her fists to her chest to try to express her inner excitement. "I have never felt like this before with a man, and I thank you for showing me the true meaning of desire...even if you do not feel it too. You cannot take that away from me. I will have it inside me for the rest of my life, even after you have gone." She paused to give him one more chance to confess. Nothing. She continued on, but along a different line of thought. True, but different. "You seem to have confused the meaning yourself."
"I know what I desire," he stated flatly.
"Do you?" She looked at him with a sad heart and gently touched her hand to her tender mouth in remembrance of their passionate kiss and watched him relive it along with her. Again, he inhaled deeply as if more air would cleanse the actions from his mind. "But there is a difference between desire, love, and commitment. Two you cannot give me…and Mangus can, and the first you cannot even admit to."
Silence again, an overlong silence that was accompanied by a steady stare and an emotionless face. Was he going to finally admit it?
"And you are willing to live the rest of your life without desire for this man?"
"I never said I did not desire him. I have yet to share private time with him the way I have with you."
"And you think you will get that time with him if you seduce me into making love to you night after night until you are with my child and your father has his shackles around the throat of the MacLachlan heir?" His words grew harsher as he went on. Their honest sharing had faded away completely into ridiculous accusations again.
Sandra fought back in her father's name and for the honor of her clan. "No one wants you to remain here and destroy what we have already arranged between our clans, least of all my father."
"Of course not. He thought that murdering my brother had solved all his problems. But once I returned he had no choice but to cover his hate-filled crime by making me look welcome...as long as I was somehow tied to his clan, that is."
"My father is no murderer, and you alone are responsible for being tied to the MacEwens. No one made you lie on top of me and brand me with that buckle," she said, pointing an accusing finger at the dull silver clasp at his waist. "And no one forced you down on your knee to beg for my hand after you announced your deed to all."
She heard Iain clear his throat somewhere in the room as if to get her attention. "That might not be the whole truth of it," he said with a high-pitched tone of guilt in his voice.
"What do you mean it is not the truth?" she asked into the open room.
Lex answered before Iain could. "It is customary for me to call you a liar before you ask me that question."
"I was talking to Iain."
"Ah, well, finally my ghostly kinsman has come to my aid." He raised his arms up high above his head as if invoking the good Lord himself. "Enlighten her, Iain. Tell her the entire ugly truth."
Sandra remained in control. She no longer cared if Lex believed in Iain and Derrdra or not, she just wanted her answer from Iain. When he finally did speak to her again, she was barely able to keep her lips tightly sealed as he explained his role in the whole disaster. When he finished, her vision suddenly refocused in the room and she realized she was looking at Lex but had not even seen him the whole time.
"Well? Did he fill you in completely?" he asked sarcastically as he looked around the room as if trying to locate Iain.
"Yes," she said with little emotion. “And Derrdra too.” Everything she had thought had happened because of desire on Lex’s part had actually been started by Iain. And Derrdra had been controlling her body and words during that first meeting as well. She had said the raw desire was Sandra’s alone, but not the actions, she would never have let things go that far. This changed everything, his feelings, her feelings. Knowing that, she saw a different man before her now. She had let herself believe that Lex was capable of caring, of opening up to the right person, but now she knew he would never let himself show her or anyone even a glimpse of what was really inside his heart. No matter what she knew now, it really did not change what had happened last night between them…and only them…several times. "He said you had no part in the matters that led up to our hand-fast, that you would never have declared those things to me in such a way had he not intervened. He apologizes."
Lex threw his head back and laughed. "He apologizes? Is that the best story you could come up with after standing there like a doe shot in the head with an arrow and still on her feet?" He went to the bed and yanked the top green cover from it with two quick jerks. "If he thinks of anything else he would like to say to me, I will be down the hall...in whatever vacant hole I can find." The door swung open. His bare foot slapped down hard on the floorboards in the hall and stopped. He gathered up the folds of the velvet quilt into his arms to clear the slam he was sure to give the door.
"Stop," she blurted out, unable to think of anything else to keep him from leaving. "We have an agreement."
"Aye, we do. When you cease with your ghost stories and seductions I will keep my end of the bargain too."
He turned to leave. He was really going to disgrace her by storming from their chamber without a thought to who might hear their quarrel. She searched the room for help, and thankfully Iain saw her dilemma and spoke to her. "Iain wants to know if he should enlighten me on your plan as well?"
He stopped his gathering but did not turn around. "You do not know me well enough to conjure up that story." He started to pull the door closed, but this time with much less sureness, as if he were waiting to hear her response.
"You loved your brother very much," she repeated Iain's words.
"Most brothers do." He waited.
"You shared something special between the two of you...a pact of some sort."
The door reopened a little further and he turned and looked at her. She knew from the quick twist of his head and the accusing look in his eyes that Iain was right.
"Show me a clan where there are no blood pacts between every male member and I will show you a dead clan. It is the only way to survive in this God-forsaken land." His hand held tight to the edge of the wooden door, looking as if he might slam it in her face at any moment if it was not for his own strength holding him back.
"Your blood pact was to kill your father should he ever do harm to your mother." Sandra wished she had listened closely to Iain's words before she rushed ahead to repeat them. A white pallor dropped over Lex's face. He stepped back into the room and quietly shut the door behind him.
"I would have, if not for..." Lex trailed off as soon as he realized what he was admitting and to whom.
"How could a boy so young fight his own father?" she comforted as she reached out toward him instinctively with a caring touch, the way she would to any person in the kind of pain she saw in his eyes.
His shoulders jerked out of her reach just as her hands were about to touch them. "I will not be tricked again. I have only one plan to follow and that is to see to it that the laws of the King of England and Scotland are upheld. You might think you know all the filthy secrets of this clan from your prying and meddling, but you are always so careful not to dig too deep for fear of what you might really find out about your own clan." The door opened again and this time he did not bother to collect the quilt into his arms. With the same hard tug he gave it to strip it from the bed, he flung the trailing material out into the hallway.
"It was not the fact that your brother loved a MacEwen that got him killed." Her words stopped him again just as the last corner of velvet was about to be crushed between the snapping jaws of the door and its frame.
"A MacLachlan falling in love with a MacEwen will never come to pass no matter how hard you might wish it." He leveled her with a glare that was more of a threat than an expression of emotion. "Best you be careful what lies you spread about the honor of my family. My patience grows thin where your clan is concerned."
"And best you go again to the place you cannot forget, the one that haunts your dreams, and this time see the truth with your eyes open. Iain says you have been hiding behind that old rowan oak for too long." His look of surprise said he wanted to come back and question her again, but his body still took him in the opposite direction.
One last glare and the door finally received its long-awaited slam. His lip had curled. One eye had slightly narrowed. But nothing could disguise the fear, hurt, and pain she saw masked behind that parting scowl. She felt like she had just witnessed an argument between two other people and she had not been involved at all. But as the ache grew in her throat, she knew she was the only one he would hold responsible for the pain he was feeling now. Running after him and forcing her comfort on him was her first choice, her basest instinct. "Lex, come back," she said as she pulled on the door latch to follow him. But the door would not open more than a crack. It was not locked, it was Iain.
"It has to be, sweetie," Iain said in his fatherly tone. She felt a warm grasp around her shoulder pull her away from the door.
"Why cannot he just let the past go? He would have made this clan a fine chieftain." Sandra slowly walked back to the huge empty bed and sank into the remaining blankets with a huge empty feeling inside her heart as well.
"Sometimes you have to dwell in the past to realize the beauty of the future ahead of ya." Sandra felt the bed sink down next to her as the edge of the soft woolen blanket was tucked under her chin by unseen caring hands. "The truth will be rough for him to wash down with even a barrel of ale once he learns the MacLachlan brother he has lived only to avenge is your brother as well."
Her sleepy eyes flew open and she searched for someone to question. "What do you mean my brother?" she asked almost desperately, images flying through her mind of what she had done with Lex already and the profound difference Iain's words made on them. A sudden gust of wind forced her to close her eyes and raise her hand as a shield. It whirled around her, swirling her hair over her face and flaming the embers of the fire into a roar.
Then there was silence. They were gone.