“Who’s Ian?”
He reached for the bottle, missed it, then promptly forgot about it as he answered, “My best friend, or he was, the bastard. You don’t know him, gel. He’s not worth knowing, so be thankful of that.”
Best friend? She’d never known her father to have any close friends aside from Maurice’s father, Thomas, and theirs had been more of a business relationship. His brusque attitude alienated people easily, keeping them at a distance. So this Ian he must have known a really long time ago. And perhaps he’d even had a more pleasant nature in those days, to allow for things like friendships. It was apparently the death of his true love that had turned him sour on the world, and that had happened before Kimberly was born.
But her curiosity had been satisfied as to why he was drinking. She wasn’t curious about his past. Actually, she was wondering now how she might delicately suggest he go to bed and sleep off the liquor he’d consumed, because she didn’t feel comfortable just leaving him like this.
So to get the same results, she asked, “What did Ian do when he drank too much? Sleep it off?”
He didn’t take the hint. In fact, it was the worst thing she could have said. He went red in the face, giving every indication that one of his temper tantrums was about to begin. And in his present condition, she imagined that could get really ugly.
So Kimberly was already taking a step backward toward the door when he exploded, “What did he do?What did he do?He stole my Ellie, that’s what, and killed her! May he rot in hell when he gets there!”
Good God, she’d never heard this before, only that the woman had been killed by a Scot, in Cecil’s opinion, which was why he hated them all now. But in the opinion of everyone else, it had been an accident. Killed by a Scot…?
“Ian was a Scotsman? You’re saying you were best friends with aScotsman?”
He glared at her. “That was a bloody long time ago, but yes, I was foolish enough to make that mistake in my youth. I’ve never regretted anything more, and will never make the mistake of trusting a Scotsman again, either.”
“I don’t understand. Why would he steal her, if he was your friend?”
“Because he loved her, too. And he kept it a bloody secret, didn’t tell me until after she was dead. I wanted to kill him, I really did. I should have killed him. Always regretted that I didn’t.”
Kimberly had never heard exactly what had happened, just bits and pieces at different times, usually whenever her father was especially angry at her mother and throwing it up to her, that she’d been his second choice. She wondered if he’d tell her now?
“How did she die?” she asked carefully.
“Because Ian MacFearson was drunk, that’s how! He never would have had the nerve to run off with her if he’d been sober. And he stole her in the small hours of the night and sped with her across the border. She fell off her horse; died instantly. To this day, I don’t doubt that she jumped off deliberately, because she couldn’t bear to be dishonored by that blackguard. He claimed it was an accident, that her horse stumbled into a chuckhole and broke its leg, throwing her.” Cecil snorted. “Damned liar, just trying to place the blame other than where it belonged.”
“If he—loved her too, how did he take her death? He must have been as devastated as you were.”
“He blamed me, no doubt. Why else would he have wanted revenge?”
“Revenge?”
“Yes. I still needed a wife. Saw no reason to wait, since I didn’t think I’d ever love again. So I picked your mother. And Ian bided his time, waiting until we were engaged, then he set out to seduce Melissa into falling in love with him. He wanted me to know what it felt like, to love a woman who loves someone else. That was his revenge, because Ellie loved me, she didn’t love him. And it worked. I don’t doubt Melissa loved him till the day she died.”
Could that possibly be true? Kimberly had suspected there had been no love between her parents, knew there’d been no closeness, at least that she’d ever witnessed. They simply lived in the same house, went to the same functions together, but rarely spoke to each other. Through all those years, could her mother really have loved another man?
And then Cecil laughed, an ugly sound, and added somewhat smugly, “But the joke was on him, because I didn’t love her. I only married her because I needed a wife, and I didn’t care who. He moved back to Scotland, though, before I could tell him his efforts had been wasted. And I had the last laugh, because he didn’t even know he’d left you behind, the fool.”
Kimberly went very still, her breath suspended. “What do you mean, he left me behind?”
Cecil blinked, seemed surprised by her question. But then he shrugged, saying, “You’re going your own way, foolish enough to marry that Highlander. So there’s no reason for you not to know the truth now.”
“Whattruth?”
“You ain’t mine, gel. You’re all over his, same eyes, same hair, same mouth—same smile. I despise that smile of yours, you know, the way it reminds me of him. And anyway, your mother admitted it, took pride in admitting it, by God. But I called you mine. There was nothing else to do, after all. And I didn’t really care. Didn’t expect to be having an heir off her anyway, since I wouldn’t touch her, knowing she loved Ian. Couldn’t divorce her, much as I’d have liked to later. The scandal, you know. So I was stuck with her—and you.”
Kimberly slowly shook her head, so shocked she could barely get her next words out. “It’s not true. Mother would have told me.”
Cecil snorted. “When I made her swear she wouldn’t? Don’t be stupid, gel. Her promise was the only thing that kept me from kicking the both of you out and letting the world know about her shame.”
He wasn’t her father. He wasn’t her father. He wasn’t…The refrain kept running through her mind, trying to make sense, and then it really clicked, that this cold tyrant of a man wasn’t related to her at all. And that little knot of guilt that she’d always carried, for not loving him, for actually hating him for most of her life, dissolved suddenly. She almost smiled. Actually, she felt like laughing.
He wasn’t her father and she was—delighted.
And he’d never told anyone—until now. But knowing him as she did, Kimberly doubted that her mother’s promise had kept him silent. It was more likely his desire to not have it publicly known that he’d been cuckolded, she thought cynically.
