Peyton sighed. ‘Perhaps your vanity led you to believe he lusted after you. I don’t think you can conceive of a man not wanting you, Cecily.’
His words cut her, for she winced, and her hands shook a little. Peyton carried on heaving the axe against the wood, regretting his cruelty. His anger was fading, but he could not find a way back to kindness. The silence was suffocating until Cecily took a step closer.
‘Can you help Rowenna? Get her away from Jasper.’
‘She is at Kransmuir, in his bed, probably already carrying his bairn, if I know anything about Jasper Glendenning. He lives in a stronghold. What do you want me to do?’
‘I don’t know. But I cannot stand by and let my sister suffer.’
‘As you suffer?’
Cecily said nothing, which was a wound in itself.
‘It is done, lass. She is lost. You should start worrying about your own situation, not hers.’
‘Why? Would you cast me off now my family is connected to the Glendennings?’ she asked in a small voice.
Peyton carried on chopping. How could she think him capable of that? ‘I made a promise before God, and I will keep it, lass.’
She chewed her lip and said, ‘Why chop your own firewood if you are a laird?’
‘Why are you asking? Do you want to do it for me?’ he snapped.
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Do you have to spit your anger at me? It was just a question. I will go if you are in a sour temper.’
He held out a hand to her. ‘No. Do not go, lass. I chop the wood so that it keeps me humble. I never want to forget where I came from, and trust me, it was not much. What about you? Do you want to forget Fallstairs?’
Cecily shrugged. ‘My father wanted to sell me to the highest bidder, and my brother only ever stole my things and bullied me.’
‘Yet you said you wanted to go home.’
She sighed. ‘I am beginning to think there is nothing back there for me now that Rowenna has gone. Yet I do not belong here.’
He sneered. ‘You still think yourself too good for Fellscarp?’
Cecily shook her head. ‘No, but I am stranded between my past and my future. Everything is so uncertain. I am surrounded by people who hate me. All I can see before me is misery.’
‘I don’t hate you, Cecily. I just don’t trust you. As to misery, did you hate lying with me? I want the truth.’
She reddened and looked down at her feet. ‘I owe you my life, so…’
Peyton’s stomach twisted in humiliation. ‘Did you let me take you out of gratitude? Is that it?’
‘No,’ she cried.
‘Forgive the bluntness of the question. I know you were innocent, Cecily. But I need to know. I have been telling myself that a laird cannot be timid, worrying about the opinions and feelings of others. But I cannot bear to lie with a woman who cannot bear to lie with me. So tell me. Was it gratitude, and did you hate it?’
She looked at him as the wind blew her hair across her face. ‘I am grateful for what you did, what you have risked for me, but that was not the reason I lay with you. And I did not hate it, though I suppose I should have. Everything happened so fast.’
‘Not that fast, I hope,’ he said, smiling a little, but she did not take his meaning.
‘Peyton, I had no idea what was expected of me.’
‘Nothing was expected, lass. Much was hoped for.’
Cecily frowned. ‘Such as?’
‘Passion, tenderness, affection. I would like you to want me, lass. I need you to enjoy what I do with you abed. But I am trapped in a prison of my own making. I have forced you to stay here. Perhaps you let me lie with you because you are afraid of me and because you have no choice.’
