And the question of when she was going to see this mysterious man again.
If ever.
5
As soon as she stepped into the main hall, Mary could feel eyes on her. She glanced this way and that. Sure enough, a couple of the servants were talking to one another, covering their mouths with their hands as they eyed her warily.Had her reputation fallen so far in such little time?
Lifting her head high, she tried to gather herself as best she could. She had been called to meet with Arran after what had happened in the village, her brief dalliance with Kiernan enough to stir the rumors that now rushed around her with seemingly endless force. She made her way towards the stairs that led to his study, trying to stem the thudding in her chest as she did so.
She had done nothing wrong, after all. She’d just shared a brief walk with a man. There was nothing dangerous about that, no matter how Arran tried to convince her of his misdeeds. She could hardly believe that someone like Kieran, someone who seemed to drip with such easy, open charm, could contain such darkness.
She reached the door to his study, and hesitated outside it for a moment before she lifted her knuckles and rapped on it. She could not allow her doubt to get the better of her, no matter howeasy it might have been to give in to the mess of emotion rushing through her. She had done little more than take a walk, and she would not be told off by any man, let alone her brother-in-law, for doing something so innocent.
The door opened and on the other side stood Gregory. His face was creased with concern, and she felt a twist of guilt as she realized that she had likely landed him in trouble with Arran. The two of them were close, and she disliked the notion of coming between them in any way.
“Come,” Arran called to her, and she stepped inside, shooting Gregory an apologetic glance as she went. She hoped he knew that she had not done what she had done for the sake of causing trouble between them. She had scarcely thought of where it might take her, what might come of this interaction with Kiernan, but now…
She took herself to Arran’s desk, where he was planted in a heavy chair on the far side. His eyes were impassive as they met hers, his jaw set tight, as though he wished he didn’t have to have this conversation with her.
“You called for me?” she prompted him, and he ran a hand through his hair and sighed. There were dark rings under his eyes, she supposed from the stress of taking care of a newborn, and once again, guilt panged in her as she thought of bringing this ill-called-for trouble to his door.
“Aye, we need to speak,” he replied, nodding to the chair opposite him. “Sit, lass.”
She sank down into the seat as she was told, not wanting to put up any more of a fight than she already had. She wondered if her sister had anything to say on this matter, what she made of everything that she had done. Mary wished she could reach out to her and ask her, but she had been giving Amelia plenty of space, as she recovered from the birth and the first few weeks of her beautiful son’s life.
“Gregory informed me that ye’ve been fraternizing with Kiernan again,” he told her, his voice as even as he could keep it, though she could tell that an anger boiled below the surface. She nodded slowly, not sure if she should admit to it or not.
“Yes, well, we ran into him in town when I went with the men to visit,” she replied, more defensive than she had intended for herself to sound. “And he asked me to come for a walk. I supposed it was better to be polite than to turn him down…”
Arran shook his head, cutting her off.
“Ye’ve no reason to be polite to a man like him,” he muttered, his voice darkening. Curiosity prickled the back of her neck. What was it he had done that was so dark, so monstrous, that nobody seemed able to tell her a single word of it?
He shot a look over at Gregory, and she followed his gaze around, landing on the man behind her. His eyes were lowered, and she could tell he was ashamed for what had happened earlier, the way things had unfolded. She sighed to herself, then turned back to Arran. She supposed she owed him, at least, a chance to speak out on what had truly happened, so she could make sense of the disdain they seemed to carry for this man.
“And why not?” she asked him, raising her eyebrows. “You’ve spoken about how dangerous he is, but you’ve not told me exactly why…”
“Because he wants this land for himself,” Arran snapped back, his voice sharper than she’d ever heard it. She drew back in her seat, surprised by his tone, and he closed his eyes and rubbed his hand over his face.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “There’s a… history between our clan and his. The Frasers and the Aitkens. One that goes back to my father, and to his…”
He fell silent once more. She held her breath. She could hardly stand holding back like this, could hardly contain herself as she tried to make sense of everything that seemed to berushing through his mind. A history that she’d had no access to before, a history that she wanted nothing more than to unlock.
And a history that, whether she liked it or not, may have only sparked her curiosity towards Kiernan.
“What did he do?” she murmured to him, speaking softly, as though barely daring to say it out loud. A darkness flashed across his face, and he lowered his gaze to the desk for a moment.
“His father was a barbarian,” he replied, quietly, slowly, the words leaking from his lips as though he had hoped he would never have to say them out loud again. “He was determined, he’d set his heart on owning the whole of the Highlands. Fae Fort William to Drumnadrochit to Stonehaven, he’d decided that he’d have it all. Every piece. No matter the cost.”
A shiver ran down her spine.
“But aren’t some of those… aren’t those Aitken lands?”
“Aye, they are,” he replied with a nod. “But he paid that little mind. He cut through Lairdships around me, killed men to take their place, claimed more land to his name than he ever should have, and ruled it as a tyrant.”
He paused for a moment, as though remembering all of it. It was clear, from the expression on his face, that it was still just as present as it had ever been, the memory of it.
“And Kiernan, he was little more than his attack dog,” he continued. “He was barely more than a boy when he led his father’s men into the lands around us, when he clashed with the other leaders. Even back then, he was a fearsome warrior, there was naebody who could have contained him in battle.”
