Bryce gave Maren a sheepish look. ‘Do you despise me now?’
‘Well, you never said you were perfect. And there is the small matter of those redcoats we killed. There is blood on my hands too, Bryce.’
‘They don’t count, for it was in self-defence, lass.’
She came up to him and took his face in her hands. ‘I am glad I know it all, Bryce. And I do not judge you for any of it.’
He let out a breath he had been holding. ‘We must learn to trust each other if we are to be together, lass.’
‘And are we to be together? Is that what you want still, after Durness, my brute of a father and all his ills?’
‘I love you, lass,’ said Bryce. ‘So I have no choice, do I? We should go to a priest to get us wed as soon as may be.’
‘Amid all our troubles, and with your father getting wed?’
‘Aye, let’s beat him to the altar just to vex him, shall we?’
‘We would have to keep it a secret from folk. They already think us wed.’
‘Aye, if you say so. What say you, Maren? Will you accept me as your husband with all my many and grievous faults?’
She smiled and brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes. ‘I suppose I can think about it,’ she said before sashaying off through the orchard with a flirtatious glance over her shoulder.
‘Would you leave a man hanging with no real answer, you witch?’ he shouted after her.
‘Take me to bed, Bryce Cullan, and convince me of your merits as a husband, and then you might get your answer.’
Bryce smiled and ran to catch up.
Chapter Thirty-One
Maren stared out at purple storm clouds rolling in over the hills. These last weeks with Bryce had been calm and full of joy. They laughed and shared confidences and hopes, bringing them as close as two people can be. It was a strange feeling to have your heart beat solely for another, to put them first above all other desires and needs. But Maren easily fell into loving Bryce and found that once her heart was opened, she had a bottomless well of love to give.
She was content, save for looking over her shoulder in case Drayton’s boy might slip out of every shadow she passed. But the boy had not come, which was a good thing, surely? By now, her father would have returned to Inverness and sniffed out his prey.
She banished such bleak thoughts from her mind and turned to happier ones. In the weeks following their return from Durness, Maren had attended two weddings. The first was Jasper’s. He made a dashing groom to Clara’s beautiful, shy bride, and there was much pomp and feasting at Penhallion. A gloating Fergal McMullan imbibed far too much ale and whisky and had to be dunked in the horse trough to sober him up when he passed out whilst relieving himself in the yard, much to Clara’s chagrin. Bryce found it all highly amusing.
‘My father can congratulate himself on having new relations of such grace and refinement,’ he had scoffed.
‘Well, Clara makes a most becoming bride, and she looks spectacular in that bridal gown,’ Maren had conceded.
‘Not as spectacular as you,’ he had said. ‘And she should, for my father paid enough for her.’
‘What do you mean?’ she had replied.
‘He cleared Fergal’s many massive debts. Aye, my father bought himself a mare and a wife. I almost feel sorry for the lass.’
‘You should not,’ said Maren. Men were such fools sometimes. ‘I think your father cares for Clara, and she for him.’
‘Surely not? He is too old.’
‘I think she cares for him, and they will be content together. No matter how delicate Clara seems, I am sure she would never do anything she did not want to. I mean, she made her mind up about not wanting you, didn’t she?’
Bryce had feigned offence. ‘You wound me, lass. I was always a great catch.’
‘Then how did you end up with a villainous peasant like me?’
‘Because you are a ravishing peasant whose villainy excites me, my love.’ Maren smiled as she remembered how he put a thumb to her bottom lip and slowly traced its outline before planting a kiss on it, which was too lingering and sensual for company. Maren’s face had taken flame, and the look in his eye had turned her legs to jelly. Bryce always had the power to do that. It put her at a disadvantage, that look, for she would always succumb to it. How had she come to a place where a man had such power over her?
