“Is he still alive?”
“Who?”
He’d dropped his head back on the chair, closed his eyes. The drink was catching up to him. But she wasn’t about to let her question go unanswered.
“Ian MacFearson. Is he still alive?”
He struggled to get his eyes open again, then squinted them at her. “I sincerely hope not. I hope he’s rotting in hell already.”
“But you don’t know for sure?”
“You think to find him?” He smirked. “He won’t thank you for telling him he’s got a grown bastard daughter. He didn’t love your mother, you fool. He only seduced her because he thought it would hurt me. So why would he want anything to do with you?”
He was undoubtedly right. But if the man was still alive and out there somewhere, she could at least meet him, couldn’t she? She wouldn’t have to tell him that he was her father. She could keep that her secret. But at least she would know what he was like…and eat her heart out if he was nice and decent and everything Cecil Richards wasn’t? To know what she’d missed all these years if she’d had arealfather raise her with loving concern?
She sighed mentally. No, perhaps it was better not to know after all. It was enough, really, just knowing that Cecil wasn’t her father.
Kimberly turned toward the door, but she stopped there, looking back at him, shaking her head. “You ought to get into bed and sleep the drink off. You’ll likely have the decision you want tomorrow and—” She paused, remembering what had brought her there in the first place. “Why were you crying?”
“Crying?” He jerked upright, flushing with vivid color, and went on to grumble, “Crying? More like laughing, thinking of telling that blackguard after he marries you that he’s married himself to a bastard.”
He was lying, and obviously not going to admit that he’d done something so normal as crying. She supposed the drink had made him melancholy about his lost love, but she’d never know for sure—and didn’t really care.
As for his threat, she merely smiled. “Why don’t I save you the trouble, hmmm? Actually, Lachlan will probably be glad to know that I’ve got Scots blood in me.”
44
“She’s written another letter,” Ranald said, dropping the envelope on Lachlan’s bureau.
“Same as the others?” Lachlan asked.
“Aye.”
Lachlan sighed. Nessa had really taken his getting married hard. She’d cried and screamed and pleaded with him not to go to England to find a bride. She’d refused to listen when he tried to explain once again that he wouldn’t be marrying her either way, that it’d be like marrying his own sister, if he had one. She swore that she’d find the money they needed, somehow, and that would change his mind.
And then she’d written to him after he’d been at Sherring Cross for about two weeks, and a good half dozen times since, saying the same thing each time, begging him to come home, saying she’d gotten the money, all they’d need, but not saying how she’d managed to get it.
It was a lie, of course, a desperate measure, because she still thought she loved him, and didn’t want to lose him to another woman. There was no way shecouldhave come up with enough money to support the castle for any length of time. And even if it was true, it wouldn’t have changed his plans. He’d found the woman he wanted. He’d even been willing to marry her when he thought no money would come with her, he wanted her that badly.
So he’d read only that first letter from Nessa, and was so distressed by it, because she simply wouldn’t give up her obsession with him, that he’d told his cousins to read any other letters from her, if she wrote again. Which is what they’d been doing, embarrassing as they found the task.
“Yer no’ going tae answer this one either?” Ranald asked curiously when Lachlan didn’t even spare a glance at the latest letter.
“What’s the point, when we’ll be heading home tomorrow? Mayhap the sight o’ my new wife will finally convince her that I mean what I say.” And then he grumbled, “Faith, nothing else has been able tae.”
“She’ll no’ like it,” Ranald warned.
“I dinna expect she will, but she’ll have tae get used tae it. I willna have dissension in my house.”
“Ye’ll hae nothing but, if I know Nessa,” Ranald predicted with a grin.
“Nay, she’ll accept my Kimber and wish me well—or she can go live wi’ her uncle in the Hebrides.”
That evening, Lachlan began to wonder if Kimberly hadn’t somehow heard about Nessa and the trouble she might cause, she seemed so preoccupied. Her distraction could, of course, be no more than the fact that they were getting married in the morning. Nerves, jitters, or whatever you choose to call it. He was feeling none himself. But women looked at things differently, worried when they didn’t need to, and—he finally asked her.
“What’s wrong, darlin’? And if you tell me you’ve changed your mind, I’ll drag you out o’ here this second and off tae Kregora where we’ll have tae live in sin till you come tae your senses.”
She smiled at him. “That won’t be necessary. I’ve just been thinking, is all.”
