It was becoming an interesting battle with his wife. This fight for who might break first when it came to giving in to the need between them. A need he knew was mutual.
He could see it in the pitch of her breathing, the way she looked at him. The way her eyes shone bright when they sparred. Which was often.
It was a strange thing, though, to have cut off physical contact. For all of their desire had to find relief in their conversation and that had sharpened something inside him in new and fascinating ways.
He found her vexing still, of course. But it surprised him how much he enjoyed dodging her barbs at the door between their rooms. If he could not have satisfaction in her arms, he at least enjoyed her wit.
‘Not tonight, I have developed a sensitivity to arrogance.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘It must be difficult being so near to yourself then.’
‘I sally forth.’
And another night…
‘Tonight I have important needlepointing to finish.’
‘Lass, I think we could accomplish your needlepointing and marital duties.’
‘Lachlan, my fears of where the needle might end up… I am thinking only of you.’
Of course, this was amusing, but beneath it all…she was hurt and he could see it. He also didn’t know how to heal the wound.
Now though, he had found out she was planning a party. A party.
Rona, the head housekeeper, informed him of this with great umbrage. ‘She has also been going out into the village with regularity,’ she said.
Anger that felt particularly sharp-edged lodged itself in his chest. Penny? In the village? With no protection?
‘And what do they think of her there?’ he asked.
‘She’s an outsider,’ the woman said. ‘But the people are grateful for bread.’
He was…in awe of her. He had been focused on exerting his authority. It was important that the people knew that he was here to rule. His father had shirked his duties and Lachlan would do no such thing. In his mind, a leader had a steady, iron hand.
But he had not considered this. Basic needs and comfort. These gestures of care.
‘And what is my outsider bride planning exactly?’
‘She claims it will bring a sense of…goodwill.’
‘Does she now.’
He walked away from Rona and made his way up the stairs to their rooms.
He opened the door to Penny’s bedchamber. He did not knock.
When he opened the door, she gasped, and her little maid drew back along with her.
‘What is this I hear about you planning a celebration?’
‘It seems only logical,’ she fired back at him as if she had not just recoiled at the sight of him.
‘Go,’ he said, addressing the maid.
She scuttled out of the room, her head low, closing the door behind her.
‘Are you going to draw your sword and hold it against my throat?’ She had a bit more frost to her tone than she often did when they sparred.
‘When have I ever threatened you, lass?’
She looked away. ‘You haven’t. But I have heard rumours about you terrorising the villagers.’
‘I defended your honour. The man spoke against you.’
It did not matter if he was barred from her bed. She was his wife.
‘I know,’ she said softly. ‘I went to visit the household. I spoke to his wife.’
‘Foolish,’ Lachlan said, that sharp-edged fear he’d felt earlier expanding inside him. ‘You put yourself in danger.’
She had no idea the resentment, the anger that existed here. She had no idea of any of it. She had tripped out about the village like an unsteady lamb who had no idea predators might be near.
She was planning a party as if a merry time might heal deep scars in an evening.
‘I was never in danger,’ she said.
She had no idea. ‘That you believe this is exactly why you are no longer permitted to wander the grounds.’
‘And how will you stop me?’
‘I am not above locking you in here, lass.’
‘And I’m certain that I would find a way to escape.’
‘You do not understand what you’re playing with. These people do not all trust me and they will not all trust you. Some of them may see to use you against me. This is not your clan. These are not your people.’
‘It is the life I have been given,’ she retorted fiercely. ‘I will not stand down. Not again. I have lived quietly for far too long. Was it not enough that I paid my father’s debt with my body?’
‘Not as often as you might.’
‘Will you take it, then?’
It was a challenge. She was facing him down, daring him to be the beast that his father was.
He knew well that his father would have thought nothing of it and he would’ve beaten her for her insolence.
And he knew how that ended.
With a woman stepping out a tower window, down to the rocks below. To her demise. He would never crush Penny in such a way. That large, unnamed thing that lived inside him, that roared to life when she was near…
It would not allow it.
He would never hurt her.
And if anyone ever tried to harm his bride… It would be the end of them.
‘I can take what I need elsewhere. I do not need to force myself on an unwilling woman. There are many that are more than willing.’
She tilted her chin up. ‘Good.’
She refused to show him any sort of deference. And she made his body feel like not quite his own. It enraged him.
‘Men tremble before me,’ he said. ‘Do you have any idea how many bodies I left littered on battlefields in France?’
‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘But are you saying you would kill me? Because I don’t believe that. You could have done that as soon as we got into Scotland.’
‘I’ve no wish to kill you.’
‘A relief. You also have no wish to be a beloved leader to your people, do you?’
‘Love is not the goal. Loyalty—that, I think you will find, is of greater importance.’
‘They don’t trust you.’
‘Due to you, in part.’
‘And I was a decision you made. In anger, I imagine. So, unless you decide to make a public spectacle of me, execute me in the courtyard, I expect I have work to do to prove to them that I am not simply evidence that you’re like your father. Don’t get angry with me for trying to fix what you might have broken with your revenge.’
He had nothing to say to that and was in a rage that she had struck him dumb. She had been a focus of his revenge. Repayment for years spent in England.
And she was correct. His marriage to her had only created more suspicion among the people.
‘Tell me about your party,’ he said.
‘A celebration,’ she said. ‘Invite the other clans. Invite the people from the village. Fling open the doors. Food. So much food. Music, dancing. Make them happy. Yes, people want to know they are safe. They want to know that they have a leader who can protect them. No one who looks at you could be in any doubt that you could. That you could defend against any army. But life here has been bleak.’ She let out a long, slow breath. ‘And I know what it is to live a bleak life you cannot see any hope of having change.’
‘You speak of your time with your father.’
‘Yes. But my time here also if you don’t allow me to find a place. And I believe that this will help. It is not enough to come in swinging a sword and making proclamations. There is pain here. They are wounded. The fields are scarred. So are their hearts. I’ve seen them. I’ve been talking to them.’
‘I know,’ he said.
‘It is not enough to rule by making your subjects afraid of you.’
‘I don’t want them afraid. I want them to give me their respect. My father did nothing to earn it.’
‘Terror is terror either way. You must show them something more.’
‘I am not in need of the advice of a woman.’
Not even that caused her to back down. If anything, she bristled. ‘You are. Very clearly you are. You are incapable of fixing this yourself. Rage at me if you want, but you know I’m right.’
He would admit no such thing. These sorts of things, this…this softness that she was talking about was outside his experience. He had never had a moment of softness. Not in his life.
He fought against images. Images of a woman long dead. Of babies who smelled sweet and felt so fragile, and died far too quickly.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said.
‘That’s okay. You don’t have to understand. But you could trust me on this.’
‘And why would you know anything about this?’
‘Because, as I said, I know what it is to live bleak. A moment of happiness can heal so many things. Just a glimmer of hope. An evening to dance, to have a full belly. Think of what it was like when you were at war. What would you have given for those things?’
He felt as if she had turned a key that was in a lock somewhere inside him. An understanding flooded him.
‘It has been war here,’ he said. ‘Without violence, but no different.’
‘Yes,’ she said, the look of relief on her face doing something to that vulnerable place inside him that she had just discovered.
‘If you see to the planning of this, then it will happen. I will… I will trust you.’
‘Thank you.’
He moved towards her, but she shrank back. Rage filled him. He had the strongest desire to pull her against him anyway. To ignore her fear. Her reluctance.
But his father felt far too close to the surface of his veins and he’d meant what he said. There were many women who would have him. He’d no need to slake himself with her fear.
He did not know why it was different here. He didn’t know why she had given herself to him willingly on the road, but in the castle she acted as if the idea disgusted her.
Perhaps she was afraid for her life, then?
He gritted his teeth. ‘I don’t want to be troubled with the details of this.’
‘You have my word.’
‘Good. At least there is some use for you.’
And with that, he left her as abruptly as he had come into the room. He raged down the hall, all the way out of the castle. He knew where he could find a lightskirt. That had, of course, been one of the first things his men had made sure to inform him of.
He could make merry with her. Give her that moment of hope that his wife was so entranced with.
But he thought of the way Penny had looked at him before she had shrunk back. When she had looked at him with hope that he might not disappoint her. That he might understand her. Do what she felt was right.
And he knew he was in no fit state to be with a woman.
‘William,’ he said, finding his man lounging in the courtyard. ‘Pick up your sword.’
What he could not work out in the bedroom, he would work out on a created battlefield.
* * *
After a few hours of steel hitting steel, he felt exhausted.
But his desire was still not satisfied. There was only so much that talking could fix.
And he might feel a sense of pride that his wife had thought of dealing with the clan in a softer way…but he did not like having to participate in…levity.
Still, he would allow her to have her way here.
For whatever she thought, he had no wish to crush her. None at all.
If anything gave him hope for his grim soul, it might well be that.