“I make no excuse. I don’t know what came over me, but I apologize and can assure you it will never happen again.”
He stood there so stiffly and awkwardly, something about the situation was so ridiculous, she couldn’t resist saying, “If you don’t know what came over you, how can you be sure it won’t happen again?”
He seemed taken aback by the question and didn’t realize that she hadn’t meant it seriously. “Because it can’t… for obvious reasons.”
“Because you intend to marry my cousin?”
“Aye, among other reasons. Surely you can see...” He seemed unusually lost for words. “You… me… It isn’t possible.”
Surely.It was obvious. As there could be no objection to her family or tocher—she was nearly her cousin’s equal in both—there was only one thing left: her. Obviously she wasn’t dazzling enough for him, and the wife of a great hero had to dazzle.
Suddenly, she didn’t feel like jesting anymore; she just wanted the conversation over. “Of course.” She took a few steps toward the yard. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
“Wait,” he said, stopping her by taking her arm. “I don’t mean to upset you. I just didn’t want you to be confused or jump to any conclusions.”
She turned around slowly, her tone deceptively even. “What kind of conclusions might those be?”
Clearly, he wasn’t prepared for her question as it had him flustered. “You are young and innocent. I was trying to have care for your tender feelings.”
She stared at him incredulously, trying not to laugh, but his arrogance was truly too much to be borne. “My what?”
“It was just a kiss. I know the feelings can be overwhelming and confusing to young ladies and…” He shrugged uncomfortably. “I just don’t want you to read too much into it.”
She couldn’t hold it back this time; she laughed in his face. After one kiss—admittedly a spectacular one—the arrogant swine thought she was half in love with him!
“You need not worry on my account, Sir Thomas.” She dismissed his concerns with a smile. “I’m not likely to read too much into something so little. What happened earlier was nothing more than a reaction to the danger of the situation. It might have happened with anyone.”
“Little?” he growled angrily, clearly not appreciating her cavalier take on things. He’d put himself in the role of the one to do the letting down easily and didn’t like that she wasn’t playing her part. “I don’t know how many times you’ve been kissed, my lady, but nothing about that kiss was little.”
She lifted a brow, lazily, though inside she could feel anger begin to overtake amusement. Did he have any idea how offensive he was being? How he’d just assumed someone like her—someone so obviously out of his realm of spectacular—would be unable to resist his vaunted charms?
Someone needed to knock the arrogant prig down a peg or two. Why shouldn’t she have the pleasure? “Enough times to know the difference between meaningful and meaningless—or to not confuse sentiment with lust.” The hand holding her arm tightened and his expression turned so fierce she almost reconsidered. But he needed to hear this. “I know this might come as a shock to you, my lord, but not every woman whom you kiss is going to fall in love with you—especially me. When I fall in love, it will be with someone who knows how to laugh at himself, who doesn’t mind making a few mistakes, who doesn’t think the world is his personal stage, and who has something meaningful to say beyond what he thinks I want to hear. I want someone who values loyalty”—he seemed to flinch, but it didn’t stop her—“and fidelity, not someone who thinks his manhood lies beneath his belt. But most of all I want someone who is capable of feeling—true feeling—and that, my lord, is not you.”
His face had gone white with anger, which, it turned out, was actually more intimidating than dark. He looked as though he couldn’t decide whether to shake her or pull her into his arms and kiss her.
She blanched. Knowing she couldn’t let that happen—the kiss, not the shake, not if she wanted her words to mean anything—she jerked away. “I think we’ve both said more than enough on the subject. If you will excuse me, I will bid you good night.”
She didn’t give him a chance to respond. She turned and fled into the safety of the darkness, where he wouldn’t be able to see the glistening of tears that she couldn’t explain—even to herself.
CHAPTER FOUR
Dawn came too quickly. It seemed as if Izzie had just fallen asleep when the first piercing rays of sunlight poked through the cracks of the shutters in the small third-floor chamber that she shared with her cousin.
She rolled onto her back and heaved a heavy sigh. She hadn’t had enough sleep to make everything that had happened the evening before seem inconsequential on reflection. She was still embarrassed by her outburst and by her reaction. Despite the fact that she’d meant every word she’d said, somehow Randolph with his assumptions and arrogance had slipped under her defenses. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, he’d hurt her. It was one thing to know they would never suit and another to have it pointed out—by assuming it was obvious.
At least neither of them would be suffering under any illusions now. After what she’d said, he would probably be just as eager to avoid her as she was him.
Careful not to wake her cousin and the maidservant who slept in the mural chamber, Izzie donned her oldest, plainest gown—one of the Cistercian nuns at the hospital would have an old apron she could borrow to put over it—ran a comb through her hair before weaving it in a plait, washed her face, rubbed her teeth with a cloth before rinsing her mouth with her favorite mint and wine mixture, and tiptoed out of the room.
With what she’d offered to help the nuns with at the hospital today, she hardly needed to look her best. She smiled, thinking that the day’s hard labor in the garden would be a good way to keep her mind off of… everything.
Although it was a short walk from the abbey up the high street to the hospital, she found one of her cousin Jamie’s men to escort her. When she’d first gone to stay with her Douglas kin at Blackhouse Tower, she wouldn’t have dreamed of leaving without a handful of men to protect her. But with the passing three months, having heard nothing from Sir Stephen, she’d gradually relaxed her guard and come to the realization that she had overreacted.
The threat she’d sensed that had caused her to flee halfway across Scotland to seek refuge with her powerful cousin—what man in his right mind would challenge the Black Douglas?—had never materialized. Sir Stephen Dunbar hadn’t been waiting behind the next tree or shadowy corridor to what…? Capture her? It seemed so silly now. As if she’d heard too many tales of abducted brides.
But it hadn’t seemed so silly then. Then she’d been terrified of the dashing young knight who at first had swept her off her feet—literally, she recalled, thinking of how he’d insisted on carrying her over every muddy patch of grass on that day they’d walked to the coast—but who had turned into an ogre when she’d learned the truth and refused his offer of marriage.
When Sir Stephen, who’d fostered with her eldest brother, Alexander, arrived at Bonkyll Castle under the pretense of needing to speak to him, she’d been surprised. He should know that Alexander had been away for months fighting for Bruce under their kinsman and her guardian, Walter Stewart, and wasn’t expected home for a few weeks. She’d believed Sir Stephen when he said he must have misunderstood her brother’s intentions.
