…and then she’d lowered the boom on him with this dreadful news. He thought he’d had an idea of who she really was, and he’d believed himself capable of falling in love with her.
She had shattered that with her revelations about her past.
“Would you have preferred she continue tae lie to you?” Bryan inquired reasonably. “She could well have, you know.”
“She only told me because I would have learned of it eventually somehow.”
Bryan laughed. “How? Through scrying, perhaps? You are a good man, Alex, and a capable leader, but you are not all-knowing. Again, I say she could have kept her secret. Instead, she chose tae reveal her true self to you. She took rather a tremendous risk because she didnae wish tae deceive you. Does that count for nothing?”
“It is all far more trouble than it is worth, so far as I’m concerned,” Alex grunted. “This was meant to be an arrangement of convenience, no more. We were merely marrying for the good of our clans. That should have remained our understanding. ‘Twas far less complicated when that was the case. But once feelings got involved…” He sighed wearily.
“Then again, feelings were not involved in your previous betrothal,” Bryan pointed out. “Perhaps your failing this time…if it can be said that you had one,” he added quickly, seeing the ire rise within Alex, “...is that you have been too wary to commit your emotions tae this courtship. You have kept a distance between you and Isla, even as things have improved between you.”
“Aye, and it’s a bloody good thing that I have,” Alex retorted, “or my pain and bewilderment in the wake of this disclosure would have been tenfold.”
Bryan leaned against the wall and folded his arms, raising an eyebrow.
“What?” Alex exploded, fed up with his captain’s smugness.
“I do believe this is the first time in all the years I’ve known you that you have admitted to feeling any pain whatsoever,” he replied mildly. “If this lass is important enough tae you taeprovoke such a reaction… mayhap you ought to reconsider your feelings for her, eh?”
“Leave me be,” Alex grumbled.
Bryan shrugged. “Very well. If you wish tae be alone with your misery, so be it. If you have chosen tae continue the betrothal, then that will ensure more formidable legions for me tae lead into battle in defense of our clan, should things ever come tae that. And for that, I’m grateful.” He paused, then added, “I only wish that your heart might find some peace in the process. And for what it’s worth, Alex, there’s nae part of me whatsoever that truly believes you care this deeply about the lady’s past.”
“The lady’s ‘past?’” Alex balked. “As though you’re referring tae some minor embarrassment, and not…”
“Is the fact that she’s no maiden really enough tae make you consider tossing the entire betrothal aside?” Bryan challenged. “Nay, dinnae answer that, but this one instead: Does it even truly have any effect upon your feelings for her? For youdohave them, anyone can see it.”
“How can I ever truly call her mine, when she was with another first?” Alex retorted hotly.
“The same way you can wield a sword that’s been in the hands of another, or ride a steed that was previously loved and cared for by someone else,” Bryan told him flatly. “The past doesn’t matter. Only the present… whether it feels right for it to beyours now, whether it will serve you well in all that lies ahead. For a sword may still cut, a horse may still run, and a lass may still love you and give herself tae you in all the ways that count.” He shrugged. “But in the end, ‘tis for you alone tae say.”
Having said his piece, the captain strolled out of the room, whistling quietly to himself.
Alex stood and kicked his chair across the room in frustration. Finding that this did nothing to dissipate his rage,he chose to stride over to the window and look down at the Oliphant lands which sprawled below.
He’d seen the view from this room many times before since he’d been a child. But now that the study was his—not his father’s, not promised to his older brother, Duncan, when the firstborn was ready to assume lairdship, but Alex’s alone—it all looked so very different to him. Every tiny speck that moved from place to place down there was a life he was personally responsible for. Every home, every tavern, every place of worship… all were teeming with people who depended upon him for their safety and welfare.
He owed it to all of them to make this marriage work.
Bryan was wrong. All other concerns were secondary, all emotional impulses frivolous by comparison.
But would he be able to trust in his desire for her, and let it take him where it needed to? Such things had never been his strong suit before, and now the thought of surrendering to them like a man allowing a strong river current to carry him away gave him pause. Too much was riding on this for him to let himself try only to fail.
And in the end, hadn’t that been the very fear that had punctuated his rule over the clan ever since his father stepped aside? That if success were not assured in any given endeavor, then the attempt itself ought not be bothered with, lest he prove himself inadequate before his own peop—and Douglas as well?
If he could let himself go in this unfamiliar and potentially emotionally hazardous direction, a more unsettling thought troubled him:
Would she be able to make him happy, given his strict need for perfection in all things?
Would that very need prevent him from ever being happy either?
These thoughts chased him down whichever corridor he strode, and continued to circle his head in every room he tried to find solace in, like a flock of anxious vultures swooping and waiting to settle upon something doomed.
15
Isla remained in her chamber, dejected and despondent, for the rest of the morning and well into the afternoon. Both Lily and Moira were turned away when they came to check on her, and both fretted that they would be blamed if Isla became malnourished and her health took a bad turn as a result.
