‘Aye, maybe a bit, but it makes you seem less haughty. The clan believes you are so hopelessly in love with me that you cannot help yourself. They think you are desperate to be Lady Strachan.’
‘I am not.’
‘Why not? Do you think I am beneath you, Cecily?’
‘I never said that. It’s just that with all my shortcomings, I don’t know how you would ever bear my company as your wife.’
‘Oh, I like your company well enough, lass. I know that much already,’ he said, glancing at the bed.
She noticed. ‘You are insufferable,’ she spat.
‘Aye, but I need an answer, lass. Marriage is the way out of our troubles. You disappeared at the same time as Edmund Harclaw, which might raise suspicions if he told anyone he was meeting you. But if you pretend it was me you were meeting in secret, and we eloped, then you are clear of suspicion.’
‘Folk know that I shared your bed before marriage, Peyton,’ she hissed. ‘I will seem like the most brazen slattern that ever there was.’
‘Aye, but no one will dare say it if I take you as a wife. And then the Warden can’t hang either of us for murder. I will trust you with our secret, and you will trust me. It’s not so bad, is it?’
She gave him an anguished look. ‘I never feel safe, Peyton. And I cannot trust in you.’
‘Trust in this, lass,’ he said, sweeping her into his arms and kissing her savagely. Cecily whimpered under his mouth, then pushed him away.
‘It is not how I imagined a proposal,’ she said sadly.
‘No. I suppose you want swooning and flowery words, but I can only offer this. I want you, lass. You are beautiful, strong and brave, and no matter what you say or do, I want to bed you. I am not going to stop wanting that any time soon. I swear that I will not forsake you for another. I will protect you with my last breath. This is the only way you can be safe, Cecily.’
She squared her shoulders and looked him in the eye. ‘I cannot keep acting like a child. It was my folly that put Fallstairs and Fellscarp in danger, and I must put it right. If I go home, I will just be married off anyway, to someone old, ugly or brutish.’
‘Aye. And I am young, handsome and vigorous, and a laird.’ He shrugged. ‘Even if that might not last.’
Cecily stared into his eyes. Was she looking for kindness, love or honesty? Did he have any of those qualities in him?
‘Peyton, if I have to do it, I will. It is time to swallow my pride and make a sacrifice for the sake of others.’
She was so earnest he almost burst out laughing. ‘Lass, you could not be more martyred if I tied you to a stake and set fire to you.’
‘I said, yes, didn’t I? Must you mock me for it?’
‘Forgive me.’ He was pathetically happy that she had agreed to be his bride. But Cecily’s words gave him pause. The poor lass was swallowing her pride. Perhaps he had to do the same. A dangerous thought occurred to him.
‘I must go,’ he said.
‘Now, amid all this strife?’ she cried.
Peyton nodded.
‘Where are you going? Don’t I have a right to know now that we are betrothed?’ she said archly.
‘I must think upon a serious matter and get out of temptation’s way.’
‘But that is no answer, and as to temptation, you said that we could be married in name only.’
Peyton put a finger to her lips. ‘I will not lay a hand on you again until you ask me to, lass. I have that much honour in me.’
‘Never mind your honour. Peyton. Do you care for me at all, or is it just lust you feel?’
‘If it was just lust, then there’s other lasses to take care of that,’ he laughed.
That earned him a thump on the arm. ‘Then go and marry them!’ she howled.
