“You give your word?”
“I have said so,” he said on another exasperated breath. “Ye question my honor when ye doubt me this way.” He stood with his hands on his hips, looking every inch the warrior. His words, his very stance, were now a challenge to her. Could she accept his offer even though there were more uncertainties thanguarantees? Did she have another alternative that would save her life and keep her son with her?
Nay. They both knew this was the only choice she had.
“Aye, Robert. I will have you to husband.”
He grunted at her acceptance, turned from her, and walked away in the direction of the stream. She was not sure what she had expected his reaction to be, but this was not it. A part of her thought he might use one of those occasional kisses to seal their agreement and she had felt a tingle of anticipation move through her. Obviously, he had not thought the same thing.
She stood now in the silence of the night alone and listened to the sounds of him moving through the bushes in the distance. Anice knew somehow that he was not coming back soon and decided to wait for him within. The food on the table still waited and now she found she had an appetite. Tearing off a piece of the roasted pigeon, she bit into it and savored the cold yet flavorful meat. She wondered if he would return to join her in this meal.
He cursedhimself all the way to the stream. He truly was a fool a thousand times over for agreeing not to... have her. He burned inside out with the need to touch her, taste her, fill her, and now he had given his word that he would not? He smacked his head with his hand and cursed his foolishness out loud this time.
“A bloody buffoon! How could I have been so god-awful stupid to agree?”
He reached the water and almost walked right into its rushing current. ’Twould serve him right to end the night in its icy depths. And mayhap it could help the constant state of arousal he’d lived with since she found him on the road. A lot of good it would do him now; he’d just promised not to touch her. Her pale face with its look of haunted vulnerability had led to his downfall. He’d taken one look at her and knew the problem.
Now he would have to live with his promise. And he knew deep within that this was only the start of the trouble hefaced now that she had consented to marry him. Once the vows were taken, they would go to Dunbarton and then back to Dunnedin and Struan’s wrath. Well, at least he had some information that he could use to stop Struan’s protests. For Robert had recognized Dunbarton’s new fletcher that morning. One look at the man and Robert realized that the arrow-maker and Sandy’s death were connected. A few well-placed questions and Robert knew the truth of the link between Struan and his son’s demise.
That would be enough to stop Struan. For how long, he did not know. He would take the time to build a marriage, one that Anice could hopefully find some measure of happiness in. But, the question he could not answer was why he was doing it. Yes, he did love Anice in his own way and he wanted to protect her.
It was the origins of his feelings that led him to guilt. He did not know, he could not say, how much of what he felt was for her or for the sense of triumph over his brother it brought him. It was not the noblest of beginnings, but he promised himself that she would never know by word or deed that any part of him wanted her simply to best Sandy. He could also not deny that part of him wanted her for the position it brought him to within the hierarchy of the clan. For as her husband, he would be guardian of the next laird and in place should something befall either Struan or Craig.
Without even being recognized by Struan as his son, Robert would gain all that he desired by marrying Anice. And, since the MacKendimens still chose their chieftain by the selection of the elders and not the primogeniture that the lowlanders and Sassenachs favored, he had time to demonstrate the skills and abilities he had honed over the years as castellan for the MacKillops. Struan was old and Craig was very, very young and many things could happen to an old man or a bairn in the years between one or the other being laird.
He knelt beside the rushing rivulet and splashed the cold waters on his face and arms. Scooping some in his hands to drink, he felt the rumblings in his belly and realized that he never had eaten the meal he’d brought back with him. Robert trotted back to the croft and entered quietly, not wanting todisturb the sleeping babe or Anice if she’d retired for the night. He saw her bending over and picking something up from the floor next to her pallet.
“I forgot about the food. Have ye eaten?”
She gasped and straightened before him, keeping her hand hidden in the folds of her skirt. “Aye, Robert. I waited but you did not return.”
“’Tis well that ye went on wi’out me, Anice. What is left?”
“I did not eat much, really,” she said, pointing to the food still remaining on the table. One candle still burned to light his way around the cottage. “There are still two of the pigeons and most of the bread and cheese.”
He noticed that she slipped her hand into her pocket then out again empty. What did she hide from him? He walked to the table and sat, pulling the food closer to him.
“Ye should get some rest now, Anice. Tomorrow promises to be a trying day for ye.”
“I could not sleep without hearing from you about your plan. Is there a priest to marry us? Does the MacKillop know what you are doing?”
“I spoke at length with Faither Cleirach today and he will hear our vows.”
“Without banns?”
“Aye,” he said as he tore some bread and cheese off the loaves. “And wi’out witnesses.”
“Robert, how can that be? No priest would do this.” She stood nearer to him and her voice was filled with the beginnings of panic.
“A priest of the old church will.” Father Cleirach practiced the ways of the older Celtic church. A small but faithful following still worshiped at his stone church in the woods outside Dunbarton. The good father had confirmed just what Ada had told him—’twas his duty to care for his brother’s widow and her child. He urged him to follow the way of the Bible and shelter Anice from those who would harm her. If the cleric had been surprised to hear his story, he never showed it.
“There is one here? I did not know any still lived in this area.” She walked over, took the refuse away from the table,and threw it in the hearth.
“Aye. He haes lived here all his life and Duncan respects him and his ways.” He sensed there was something she wanted to ask. “What is it, Anice? What do ye hesitate to say?”
She took a few shaky breaths in and out before she spoke. “Did you tell him...? Does he know...? About my trying to...?” She could say no more, but he watched her rub the inside of her wrists as though they itched or hurt.
“I didna share yer sin with him, Anice. ’Tis yers to hold wi’in or confess.”
