He nodded. “Or if one cannot be procured, a divorce. It is not pretty, but it is a solution.”
It would cause a scandal. Her family would be furious. She looked at William. He would be shamed. And Magnus…
William seemed to read her thoughts. “He will never change his mind.” She stilled. “You married me,” he said softly.
Helen’s heart stopped. He was right. Dissolved or nay, Magnus would never be hers. She’d married his best friend. His pride and loyalty to his friend would keep him from her. To his mind, she belonged to William, and that was a line he would not cross. She knew that as well as William did. Mangus was lost to her.
“I’ll return in an hour and expect your answer.” He shut the door softly behind him, leaving her alone to the tumult of her thoughts.
He had to get out of here. It had been hard enough watching the women lead Helen from the Hall, but if Magnus had to watch Gordon leave—or God forbid, be forced to go along with him to witness him sliding into bed with his bride—he was going to kill someone. Probably MacRuairi, who kept looking at him as if he were the biggest fool in all of Christendom, or Kenneth Sutherland, whose knowing smirk told him that he’d guessed exactly how much this was torturing him.
Magnus couldn’t believe she’d actually gone through with it. She’d married someone else. And in another hour—maybe less—she’d be consummating those vows and lying in the arms of another man. Nay, not just another man, the closest friend he’d ever had.
Jesus. The burning in his chest exploded as he made his way out of the Hall, relieving one of the serving maids of a large jug of whisky on the way.
He couldn’t think about it. He’d go mad if he thought about it. It had taken everything he’d had to stand silent witness as she married Gordon, but the mere thought of her readying herself for bed…
Letting down her long, silky hair…
Removing her clothes…
Waiting in bed, those big blue eyes wide with maidenly nervousness…
She should be mine. He swore. The knife of pain bent him over. He took a long swig from the jug and stumbled out into the black, misty night.
He headed for the boathouse, where he and the other members of the Highland Guard without wives were sleeping. He intended to get good and drunk, so they wouldn’t have far to move him when he passed out.
First women, now drink. Today began a bloody new chapter for him. He took another swig. All hail the fallen Saint.
Moonlight filtered through the wooden planks and small window in the large building constructed just beyond the castle gates to house the MacDougall chief’sbirlinns. But since the MacDougall loss at the Battle of Brander a few months ago, it belonged to Bruce.
A few torches had been lit, but Magnus didn’t bother with a brazier. Cold had become his comfort. Like the drink, it kept him numb.
“I feel nothing,” he’d told her. God, how he wished it were true!
A small part of him had thought she wouldn’t be able to do it. That despite what he’d said, she would not bind herself to someone else forever. That she loved him enough to do what was right.
But she didn’t. Not then and not now.
He sat on his pallet, leaning his back against the wall with his legs stretched out in front of him, and drank. He drank to find peace, to reach the mindless oblivion where the torture of his thoughts wouldn’t find him. Instead he found hell. An angry, black hell where the fire of his thoughts raged and burned in the farthest reaches of his soul.
Was it happening right now? Was Gordon taking her in his arms and making love to her? Was he giving her pleasure?
The torture went deeper, became more explicit, until he thought he’d go mad with the images.
How much time had passed, he didn’t know, before the door opened. A man strode in.
When he saw who it was, blood raged through his veins. “Get the hell out of here, Sutherland.”
Despite the slur of drink, there was no mistaking the warning in his voice.
The blasted fool ignored it. He crossed the room with his usual arrogant swagger. “I was wondering where you’d disappeared to. Gordon was looking for you. I think he wanted you to accompany him to the bridal chamber. But he left without you.”
Nothing could have dulled the stab of pain that hit him then. It was happening right now. Oh, Jesus.
The bastard smiled. Magnus’s hand squeezed around the neck of the jug until the blood fled from his knuckles. But he wouldn’t give Sutherland the satisfaction of showing him how well his dagger had stuck. “Is that all you wished to tell me or is there something else?”
Helen’s brother stopped a few feet away from him, looming over him. Despite the obvious intent, Magnus wasn’t threatened. The disadvantage of his position on the floor wouldn’t last long if he didn’t want it to. Sutherland didn’t know just how much danger he was in. This wasn’t the Highland Games. Magnus had three years of war behind him, fighting alongside the best warriors in Scotland. Sutherland had fought with the English.
