“Tell me ye dinna feel something for me, lass.” When she would have replied, he shook his head. “Dinna lie to me and use that excuse about a man and his whore. I am asking ye now, man to woman, is there nothing else between us but the passion we share in yer bed?”
She was more practiced at lying than she was at giving a voice to the truth. A whore lied about what she felt. About what she wanted. About what she thought. It protected her and allowed her to retain something of her own self when others used her body for their purposes.
She’d lived those lies and meant those lies, but now, looking at this man, she was tempted not to.
Experience and cold, hard practicality won out.
“My bed, Iain? We have fucked on the floor, against the wall and the door and out in the grass behind the cottage.” She forced a whore’s smile onto her face then. “We have shared so much passion and pleasure. Is that what ye mean?” His face grew red and she could feel his anger pouring off him in waves.
“I have surprised ye, I ken. I think there is more here, more between us, no matter yer words now.” He walked away and Robena clenched her hands into fists, fighting the need to call out to him. “I want ye to think on this while I am at the keep these next days.”
Robena looked away then, not able to watch him, and the loud slamming of the door spoke of his departure. She stood there in the silence, trying to accept that this was her life. No matter his kind words or his bold offer, there could be nothing more than pleasure and desire between them.
She did not move for a long time, battling her own heart’s desire to run after him. The need to follow him pushed her a few stumbling steps toward the door, but she fell to her knees rather than allow herself to weaken in her resolve.
She would never accept his offer, for it would put him in a terrible situation between his kin and his duties to his clan. She would never be accepted by any of them, and it would take no time at all before he blamed her for that.
The laugh that escaped her was a sad one. For just one single moment then, she allowed herself to think he meant it, that itcould be possible. It took little time at all to ken that no matter how Rob had managed to smooth things out for her in the past, this was not possible.
Robena climbed to her feet then and walked to the pallet. She stared at it, remembering everything that they shared. Nay, he was correct, there was something more between them. And it was something that would make her refuse his offer and keep them as they were and should be—a man and his whore.
More than that could simply never be.
She loved him too much to ever allow it.
Iain satat the table and watched the festivities with a blind eye. All around him people ate and drank. The food tasted like dirt in his mouth. The wine, the laird’s finest he’d been told, could have been cow’s piss for all he cared.
He went through the expected motions of meeting and greeting Struan’s visitors and being pleasant to his still-present cousin. Rob watched him and Iain knew his friend could not figure out the cause of his aloofness. But Iain did not wish to talk of it to anyone.
He’d misjudged Robena and misjudged her badly.
Now he’d scared her. He’d read the fear in her eyes—like a wild animal caught in the snare and searching for a way, any way, to escape. He did not fool himself into believing her words about not caring for him outside of their bedplay. But, like a trapped creature, she had struck out and tried to keep him at a distance.
“Ye are deep in thought, my friend,” Rob said as he leaned over from Iain’s right. “What did ye do wrong?”
“Why do ye blame me?” he asked.
“Come now, Iain. Ye were married long enough to ken that it is always our fault, no matter what was done or not done. No matter what we said or did not say.”
“I am so glad that ye learned that in only five years of marriage, husband.” Anice leaned past Rob and smiled. Placing her hand on Rob’s, she continued, “’Twill make the next decade or two so much easier for me.” Rob leaned his head back and laughed.
Good God, but they were in love. It hurt Iain to watch it playing out so clearly before him.
“So, again, I ask ye—what did ye do?”
Iain took another mouthful of the wine, finishing the cup, and held it up for a servant to fill once more. ’Twas his fourth? Nay, fifth cup. But what difference did it make? No matter how much he drank, he could not rid himself of the memory of the haunted expression in her eyes when he’d left. He put the cup down, knowing it would not help him.
“Anice.” He leaned forward and looked past Rob to the man’s wife. “Would ye send someone to look in on Robena on the morrow?” He’d been back here for two days now, and he’d wanted nothing so much as to return to the village. But Struan had put obstacles and requests in his way that made certain he had not left the keep.
“On the morrow?” Anice asked, glancing at her husband first and then at him. “Is aught wrong?” When Rob turned now to him and shrugged, Iain knew he would have to tell her.
“I asked her to marry me.”
Anice gasped so hard she sucked in a large amount of air and then choked on it. Iain watched as the coughing fit went on for several moments before she was able to stop.
“Ye what?” She yelled the question so loudly that everyone at table and below stopped and stared. His own mouth was probably agape, too. She stood then, forcing him and all the menpresent to stand, as she pointed towards the chamber above. “I would speak with ye in my solar,” she said.
Pushing back, she left the table, not waiting on either Rob or Iain to follow. She just knew they would. Glancing around as he waited on Rob, he saw sympathy in varying levels in the gazes of the men who watched. He may have staggered a step or two before Rob took hold of his arm and led him up the stairs and into Anice’s chamber. The lady, who only came up to her husband’s chest, sat in her chair, tapping her foot on the stone floor.
