“Yes,” she said, that faint blush of pink beginning to tint her cheeks. There was something undeniably attractive about her when she blushed. Kieran wished he could ignore his baser instincts, but his tenuous grip on his sanity was fading faster and faster now that they were alone together.
“I didn’t want to lie to you – I swear it on my life, Sir Kieran,” she mumbled, after an unbearably awkward silence had stretched between them.
“Just call me Kieran, Lady Stone. I dinnae have any use for formalities.”
“It’s Vivien, then, Kieran. Please, don’t call me Lady Stone. I am not the person that name represents.”
“Aye, if ye insist,” he nodded, his anger rising in his throat again. He barely gave himself a moment to wonder what she had meant by that.
This woman standing before him was not the woman he had met. She was reserved, far too collected, and very much a lady in every way. Worst of all, she was married. Kieran just could not ignore that.
If he could bring himself to be honest with himself, he would have had to admit that the strongest emotion he felt was that of humiliation.
He had humiliated himself by kissing a married woman, by falling for the Sassenach’s lies. He had humiliated himself by dreaming of her every night since that day, letting her infiltrate his every thought during the day.
But worst of all was the shame of knowing that if there was one thing Kieran wished he could regret but could not, it was that kiss.
The kiss that had shaken him to his very foundations.
The kiss that had forever altered what he thought he wanted or needed in a woman.
The kiss that Vivien had returned, willingly, even if she had pretended otherwise; he knew she had wanted it just as much as he had.
Kieran walked over to the window to stand beside Vivien, realizing that there was something that angered him much, much more than her lie did.
Lord Stone.
Her husband.
The man was spitting in Kieran’s face without even being present in the room.
Kieran knew that the lord was in the castle; he had been forced to wait an hour to see him. Only a vindictive, cruel man would do that to a guest to his home. It would not have taken that amount of time for Vivien to ready herself to meet with him; it was a cold and calculated move, made to infuriate Kieran as much as possible.
To add insult to injury, this Lord Stone had sent his wife to meet with Kieran. A woman – not a councilor or someone of standing within his household retinue who could speak for him. No, he had sent Vivien. A woman who had no place in politics, and Kieran would wager, no knowledge of it either.
The more he thought about the situation, the worse it became. He could see the game Lord Stone was playing.
“Are ye sure your husband isnae home?” Kieran asked, trying to keep his voice as light and friendly as possible, “It’s odd that we had tae wait an hour tae see him, only for him, not tae be here?”
Vivien jerked her hands in front of her, looking startled for a brief moment, before replying, “No, Kieran, he is not here. I apologize for the inconvenience of waiting for me – it took time for your message to reach me. The guards were looking for Lord Stone before they realized he was not here.”
It was a perfectly plausible explanation, Kieran thought, but he knew it was nothing more than a lie – even if he could not prove it.
It was one thing to know that he was not welcome in an English castle; it was entirely another to have it be made so blatantly obvious that the man had no respect for Kieran and his clan. Kieran had met many an intolerant person – too many people looked down on him and his people – but he had never been shunned in such a manner. He was used to the cold detachment and poor attempts at civility that anyone else had ever shown him; however bad their acting was, they would at least try to hide it.
“Aye, that sounds like a lot o’ trouble for yer men tae go through tae find ye for me.” Kieran was at a loss. A part of him did not want to prove that Vivien was lying to him again. He did not think he could bear the thought.
Being left in the cold by Englishmen was one thing. But Lord Stone was a completely different matter.
His disdain and intolerance were beyond disgraceful; Kieran could only wonder how Vivien could be married to such a man. She was the exact opposite of her husband. At least, Kieran had thought as much, but he now found that everything he had come to believe about her stood on shaky ground, his image of her ready to topple over at the slightest movement.
“I dinnae believe ye dinnae ken why ye lied tae me,” Kieran could not leave the question unanswered, “I deserve an answer, Sassenach.”
Vivien stared at the floor, not meeting Kieran’s intense gaze.
She inhaled deeply before answering him, “I can’t really fully describe why I did it. I couldn’t risk you knowing who I really am. My husband would not appreciate me traipsing through the countryside on my own, much less being attacked by a boar, only for a Highlander to rescue me.”
Kieran quirked his eyebrow, waiting for her to continue.
