Munro called out his name then, the sound of it loud enough for them to hear. She startled and looked at him.
‘I beg you to give me a chance to explain,’ he said, taking hold of her hand.
Munro’s call drew her attention once more and she walked out of the bedchamber towards the door. Before he could reach her, the door slammed open and Munro burst in. Dougal was right behind him, but Aidan waved him off.
‘I must speak with you, Catriona,’ Munro said.
‘Munro,’ she said, standing at Aidan’s side now, ‘I know how upset you are about me moving here and Aidan and my...’ He could tell she did not know what to call what existed between them. ‘But I love him, Munro. Your father is gone and I—’
‘Do you know how he died, Catriona?’ Munro asked in a harsh tone. Both of them carried wounds from their fight and both still bled. Munro must have continued struggling with Dougal for he was out of breath.
‘Do not do this, Munro. If not for the friends we were, then for her,’ Aidan pleaded with the man. The last time her world had collapsed, he was there to pick up the pieces and help her regain a life of her own. This time...who would do that?
Catriona looked at the two men, facing off now just as much as they had in the road a short time ago. She knew that the blood of young men ran hot and fights were commonplace among the laird’s strong warriors, but what had happened between these two was more personal. Sighing, she should have realised it was inevitable that they come to blows at some point over what Munro thought had happened.
‘Aye, Munro, I know how he died. His horse went lame and threw him on his journey back here from his assignment.’
‘Ask him how my father was sent on that assignment. Go ahead, ask him!’ Munro demanded. She jumped at the ferociousness of his tone. Looking to Aidan, she was shocked by the sad resignation in his gaze.
‘Aidan? What is he talking about?’ she asked, turning to the man she loved and whose bairn now grew within her. There was barely a pause and no chance for Aidan to answer when Munro said the words that would shock her to her soul.
‘He did it, Catriona. He asked his father to send your husband away so he could seduce you without a care. He sent my father away and to his death just to be able to rut between your thighs.’
If not his coarse words, his tone condemned her again of unfaithfulness to Gowan. She wanted to defend herself, but if what he said was true, then Aidan...Aidan....
‘You planned it all along? Did you?’ She looked at him, but he would not meet her eyes. ‘Did you?’ she screamed at him then.
He said nothing then and she threw herself at him, pounding her fists against his chest and crying out. His silence said more than any words he could say would. He took her by the shoulders and held her back a bit.
‘Cat, let me explain,’ he whispered.
‘Just tell me...is it true? Did you send Gowan away to...seduce me?’ She held her breath, hoping, praying, wishing he would deny it to her face, but he smiled that sad smile that always made her want to take his worry and pain away. Now, it damned him. ‘Is it true, Aidan?’ she cried out.
‘Aye, Cat. I told my father to send him away.’
Though she heard the words, she could not take them and all they meant in. Her mind rejected it all and showed her images of the two of them since she became Aidan’s leman...his whore. And all at the cost of a good man’s life.
For a moment this morning, after sharing her news—her news!—with Muireall, she’d begun to accept the idea of remaining here and raising her child, his child, there in the place where he’d grown up, around his kith and kin. But all of that crumbled as did all her hopes and dreams as the ground on which they were built were washed away by the treachery of his act.
‘Get out.’
Neither man moved, so she shouted it. ‘Get out now!’
She pushed Aidan towards the door, moving him only because he allowed it. ‘Get out. Get out,’ she repeated over and over again, only knowing she must rid herself of him and Munro, who was right all along. Unable to face her part in the sin, she needed them gone.
Neither one resisted or refused her then. When she reached the door, she noticed Rurik’s son standing there with an expression of shock that must have resembled her own. She slammed the door and was left alone in the house Aidan had given her and now she understood his actions better.
He’d sent her husband off to be able to seduce her without interference.
He’d sent Gowan to what would become his death.
He’d paid her blood money to ease his guilt.
He’d made her his whore and she’d loved every moment of it.
God forgive her, she’d accepted it all and never looked at the real cost of it.
For the longest time, she stood there, in the centre of the room, unable to move, unable to think really, unable to put all the pieces in this terrible puzzle together. Then, the silence was broken by a knock on the door. Still unable to do anything, she began to tremble as his voice spoke from the other side of it.
