‘Most of it.’
‘Did you drag me away because you thought I’d tell Maeve what you have done?’
‘I suppose you are talking of our wedding night, and I’ll admit I’m not proud of that night. It was not well done by me. I regret it bitterly. But then neither of us has covered ourselves in glory here, have we, Lowri?’
She could not argue with that, but anger made her reckless. ‘Maeve is so miserable here in this forced marriage. Is that what my life is to be now, an unwanted bride, the object of your contempt?’
‘Who says you are unwanted?’
‘You said you have no need for a wife.’
‘That’s not what I mean, lass.’
Again, he had that hot look in his eyes, and Lowri wanted to slap it out of them.
‘I don’t want you in my bed, Cullen. I did what I had to do, but I did not like it.’
‘That’s because you haven’t been doing it properly. If you’d let me be kind and gentle, it could have been a lot sweeter than it was. But it was done in haste, and reluctantly, by both of us.
Lowri snorted. ‘Reluctantly by you?’
‘Aye. You begged me to do it to save your friends.’ He gestured to his groin. ‘It’s not a soldier to be ordered into battle, you know.’
‘You are disgusting.’ Lowri walked ahead of him, but he called after her. ‘Lass, the sooner you get with child, the sooner your friends go free.’
She stopped dead. ‘So you would go along with Griffin’s awful plan and make me suffer that again. If we have a bairn, I will be tied for you forever.’
‘We are tied, in the eyes of the law and the church. And I have decided that if you get with child and you want to go back home to your brother, then I shall not stop you, nor use the bairn to make you stay. You may take any bairn we have with you.’
‘You would let me do that?’
‘Aye, for I’ll not use an innocent bairn to hurt you, or to fulfil my father’s cruel scheme.’
An awful thought occurred to Lowri. She pictured herself riding through Fellscarp’s gates and standing before her brother with her Macaulay bairn. She imagined the disgrace she would feel, the horror on her brother’s face, and she felt sick.
‘I don’t think I can ever go back home,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘I lied to Peyton. I went against his orders when I went reiving. I married a Macaulay. I lay with a Macaulay, an enemy. Once again, I have weakened him. Word will reach him, Griffinwill make sure of that, and once it does, Peyton will never forgive me for I have beggared his pride before all the other clans in the West March. Folk will snigger behind their hands and gossip about me, and he will have to bear it.’
‘If your brother loves you, he will forgive your folly.’
‘But he should not have to. Don’t you see? I cannot forgive myself. Last year I…oh, I cannot recall it all without shame. I got myself into trouble, and it almost cost my brother his life. I endangered everything he holds dear, everything he has fought for over the years, at great cost.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It doesn’t matter. But I have hurt him so badly that I cannot go back.’
‘Look, I will only go so far in my father’s schemes, and this one has left a bad taste in my mouth.’ Cullen held his hand out to her. ‘If you get with child, I will not try to hold you. Let us have an agreement and shake on it, lass. Come on.’
‘You hate me. I am a Strachan. You owe me nothing, and you can promise nothing. All you can do is lie to me.’
‘I’ll not use a bairn to hold you or threaten you. I swear on my life.’
She could not look at him.
‘Then what are we to do, lass?’ cried Cullen. ‘If you cannot go back, then the only way is forward, with me. What have you got to lose?’
