“But now…?”
“His father has long-since passed,” he explained. “And the lands that he claimed have reverted back to those who rightly laid claim to them in the first place. But he never found a way totake our land from us, and I’d wager that he’s trying to do what his father couldnae.”
She stared at him for a moment. It was starting to make sense to her now, why he had been so reticent about letting her get anywhere close to him, why he had done his best to keep her away from this man.
“He thinks if he can get closer to you, he can find a way into this Keep,” he continued, his anger written all over his face. “And I’ve got no intention of allowing that tae happen. Ye need to keep yer distance frae him, or you’ll find yourself in more trouble than a lass like you knows how to deal with.”
Mary rose to her feet sharply. There was something about his words that irritated her. As though she was little more than an annoyance to him, some child that he had to find a way to control and protect. When she was a grown woman. She might not have been married and had a child like Amelia, but that didn’t mean she was some innocent waif wandering through the world with no idea of what she wanted or how to get it.
“Well, thank you for telling me,” she replied, lowering her head slightly. She didn’t want him to think she was angered by his words. She knew, after all, that he was just trying to help.
“Ye’ll keep yer distance from him?” he asked, concerned. “I’d hate to think what he might do to you if?—“
“Yes, I will,” she replied before he could finish what he was saying. “Thank you, Arran.”
Before he could say another word, she made her way to the door once more, her mind reeling with the enormity of everything that he had just told her.
Was it all true? She supposed he would have had no reason to lie to her, not outright, but perhaps he had taken in some of what his own father had told him about the Fraser family and believed it without question. It was hard to believe that a man like Kiernan could have been so brutal, could have torn throughpeople the way that he claimed he had. It made little sense to her, though she should have known better than to question it. People contained hidden multitudes that the outside world could only dream of at a glance.
Like the multitudes she felt she contained, too. The multitudes that Arran seemed intent on pushing down. She was a woman, after all, and a woman with needs and desires and wants that she was sure anyone her age had, too. And those wants… those wants rose to the surface in a way she couldn’t control when she was around Kiernan. No matter what Arran had told her about that man, the desire was impossible to ignore, and she could not just switch it off as easily as snuffing out a candle.
And perhaps… perhaps there was some rebellious part of her that was drawn to this man because of the darkness that Arran claimed he had to him. It was long in his past now, she was sure of it, but she could almost imagine it, how easy it would have been to let that beast that had once existed in him escape once more, what that beast might do to her, given the chance…
But Arran’s words throbbed through her mind as she made her way back to her quarters, her heart thrumming in her chest as she considered them once more. Was it all some kind of game to Kiernan, a game he intended to win by getting into the Aitken Keep once more? Could he have faked the tension that burned between them when they touched, as a tool to fulfill what his father had not been able to?
She flopped down in her bed when she reached her room once more, her face buried in the pillow as she let out a long groan. Her mind was being torn into different directions; her want for him, her need, clashing up against the loyalty she knew she should hold for her family.
Her family. Her family, which had recently expanded beyond just her and her sisters. Now, she had her nephew Robert tothink of, too. Her heart skipped a beat as she imagined the harm that might come to him if she followed the desire that seemed to consume her. If he really was trying to find a way to get close to her, to infiltrate the Aitken clan and find a way to claim their lands, then she would have been leaving open the door for him to hurt her family by pursuing the need inside of her. And she would never have been able to forgive herself if something had happened to them because of what she wanted, because of what she desired. She had never been a selfish woman, but…
But she had been so good for so long now, she had allowed herself to be pulled this way and that by the people around her. She had lived her life in such a way that she had never really followed what she wanted. She had either been doing what her father had commanded of her, or, now, what her sister and Arran seemed to want from her. Was it not natural that she wanted some freedom, a chance to indulge in a desire that would only have benefitted her?
She dozed off as those thoughts spun around her head. By the time she awoke, it was dark outside, and her stomach was grumbling. She glanced around, a little bleary from sleep, and rose from the bed, making her way to the door, to find the Keep quiet—almost eerily quiet. As though the whole place was holding its breath, waiting for her to make a move.
Slipping on her shoes, she stepped out in to the corridor, and made her way to the stairs, intending to head to the kitchen to scavenge what food she could find left over from dinner that evening. She wondered if Amelia had noticed she was missing, and, if she had, if she thought it was to do with the conversation she’d had with Arran earlier that day. Perhaps she thought Mary was angry with her for not standing up for her, or annoyed that she was being told what to do.
Perhaps that was exactly how Mary was feeling.
She moved through the Keep as silently as she could, not wanting to wake anyone, but also not wanting to have to explain why she had hidden up in her room for all that time. If she admitted that she had been thinking about Kiernan, she knew that it would have caused more trouble than it ever had before, and she was loathe to invite such problems into her head when Arran had already warned her away from them.
She reached the kitchen, which was cold where the back door led out to the pantry outside. It was a dark, still night, a heavy weight seeming to rest over the place, as though someone had draped a blanket across the entire Keep.
There was a scattering of food left on the table in the center of the kitchen, and she picked her way towards it, moving slowly for reasons she wasn’t entirely sure of. It was as though she was waiting for something, distinctly aware of every movement she made, and the weight it might have carried if she was not careful.
Then, all at once, she heard it.
“Lass, over here!”
She gasped and spun around, her hand clasped to her chest in a panic. As though she had managed to conjure him with the sheer intensity of the thought she had poured into him the last few hours or so, there he was, standing before her. Kiernan. The man she was supposed to keep her distance from.
The man she seemed unable to stop thinking about.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, her voice hoarse as she glanced around. She was sure that if she stood here to talk to him, someone would emerge from the shadows to catch her in the act, and she detested the idea of being exposed in such a way, especially after what Arran had said to her.
A smile flitted across his face. Oh, that smile. She knew that smile would land her in more trouble than she knew what to do with.
“Come wi’ me,” he told her, holding out his hand to her. She hesitated, pulling back, a part of her screaming to run, to dash back into the Keep and tell everyone that Kiernan Fraser was there, and that she knew not what he wanted from her, but he was trying to get her to run away with him.
Yet, another part of her stood her ground. She locked eyes with him, lifting her chin slightly, mustering up every piece of strength she could.
