“Eve, Ididnalie to you.”
She shot to her feet and threw the mug to the flagstones where it exploded. “I told you I had no wish to bear children! I told you, MacKerrick!”
“And I told you the truth,” he shot back. “’Tis unlikely you will conceive!” He jerked at his belt, fastening it. “’Twas your first time and—look at yourself, lass! Thin as a whip and just come away from illness.” He ignored her flinch. “When did you last have your season?”
Eve’s face blossomed red. “I don’t know!” She seemed to think for a moment. “Shortly before gaining Scotland, I suppose.”
Her answer troubled Conall, but he tried not to let his alarm show. He spread his arms. “Well, there you are, then. You’re nae having a season—no bairn. Satisfied?”
Eve wrapped the cloak more securely and crouched once more to begin picking up the shards of the ruined mug. Alinor appeared from the far end of the hut, butting her elbow, but Eve pushed the wolf aside.
“Alinor, back—you’ll have a sliver.” Her mouth pressed into a stingy line before she addressed Conall once more, in a low voice, as if charging him with a despicable act. “You only wanted my body.”
“I did want your body, aye. And you wanted mine, by your own confession. This wasna forced upon you, Eve, so doona play the victim with me.”
She gaped at him, but said nothing, tossing pieces of the mug into a nearby bucket. “Disgusting,” she mumbled, then rose to stand. “Like savages.”
But Conall was not about to let her get away with further debasing what had occurred between them. He circled the fire pit and seized her elbow through the cloak.
“’Twas nae disgusting, and I’ll thank you to keep your haughty English disdain out of our bed,” he said through clenched teeth. “You are my wife now, Eve. I am your husband. What we did was sacred. ’Tis right that you enjoyed it.”
“I forgot myself,” Eve explained coolly. “’Twill not happen again.” She tried to pull away.
Conall pulled her fully into his arms against her struggle. “It will. And soon, have I any say about it.”
“Let go of me.”
“Not until you tell me why,” Conall demanded, not wanting to admit to himself how her demeanor hurt him. He’d tried so hard to make the evening a happy one for her, perhaps at first to ease his own conscience, but not entirely. “Why are you so against a bairn, Eve? Is it because of your mother? The maidens at the priory? Surely you know that not every birthing ends in tragedy.” He leaned to the side to try to look at her face. “Lass, the way you are with Alinor, with Bonnie, with amouse, for the love of Christ…”
He felt her surrender in his embrace as if he’d deflated her anger with his simple words.
“I grew up knowing I killed my own mother.I ended her life, MacKerrick. Her death was a terrible blow to my father, who loved her more than his own breath.”
“Your da blamed you, did he?”
Eve sniffed and shook her head. “Of course not. He raised me himself and we did love each other true. Indeed, I held no love for any person greater than that for my father. It pained me that he never remarried. He simply had no wish for any woman save my mother, although I know that as I grew older, he became quite lonely.”
Conall was touched by the tale of Eve’s past more than he could tell her, but he felt he needed to reassure her somehow. It hurt him to see her so distressed. And ’twas the only way for her to be at ease with what Conall had planned for their future—and the future of the MacKerrick town.
“Your da loved youboth, Eve. He wouldna have traded your life for your mother’s.” Conall noticed that he reached up to touch his necklace while he spoke, as if needing to validate his own words.
Eve shrugged. “’Twas why I joined the order—my mother made Papa promise it before she died. He said she’d wanted to protect me.”
Conall’s respect for Eve’s dead sire increased. “It must have been difficult to send his only companion from him.”
She grew still, her head pressing against his chest. “And for what? The priory was no haven. The monks were cruel, money-hungry. The maids we took in—most of them little more than girls, really—ill and poor and ignorant. The ones that did survive childbirth were then turned back out with a child to feed and nowhere to go. Oft times, I think ’twas more merciful for the ones who died. I found no comfort there, and could give none to those who sought it. So my father’s sacrifice was for naught. I will never forgive myself for leaving him.”
“But was not your home attacked and your father killed while you were away? Eve, your motherdidprotect you—your da, too. They saved your life by letting you go.”
Conall was disturbed by Eve’s shrug and twisted mouth. He grasped her shoulders so that she was forced to look at him.
“They sent you to me, Eve. For me. You doona see?” He looked around the hut pointedly. “You came to this place to find me, to find Alinor. To be my wife. Now, ’tismyduty to protect you.”
Her chin dimpled an instant before she began to weep. Conall pulled her head back to his chest and held her closely, letting her cry.
His eyes found the great black wolf sitting in the shadows near the door, eyes glistening, pinning Conall accusingly. Bonnie lay meekly near her feet.
Wasn’t there an old fable of a sheep lying down with a wolf?
