“Well, I was just going to bed,” she remarked, as Tavish looked over to see what had drawn her attention. “I wouldnae want to stand in the way of a husband and his… delicate wee wife.”
The words were clearly meant as a jab towards Ailsa, and it took everything she had not to fly for her as she made her way through the door and left. She knew that was what she wanted,for Ailsa to react in such a way that would make her look entirely mad.
If Ailsa were to give her such satisfaction, then she would stand no chance of looking like a reasonable woman in Tavish’ eyes, and that was the last thing she wanted.
Once Riona was gone, she made her way into the study, the air heavy with an icy silence.
“Ye’ve been with her before, haven’t ye?”
She hardly needed confirmation of the fact. The way Riona had spoken to him, the hints she had dropped about their relationship—it was obvious that they had shared more than just camaraderie over the years.
Tavish, thankfully, made no move to deny it. She wasn’t sure she would have been able to stand it if he had forced her to coax the matter from him.
“It is something of the past,” he confirmed, wrapping his hand around a cup of whiskey that sat on his desk.
Her chair was still sitting just a few inches away from him, and Ailsa could only imagine how easy it would have been for her to slip from her seat and into his lap; to pick up where the two of them had left off before the irritation of his wife had stood in the way of such a thing…
She took a deep, shaky breath.
“While I’ve been here, trying to understand ye…” she told him, speaking slowly, picking her words carefully, doing her best not to sound irrational or jealous.
She was sure that any hint of that on her part would be used against her by Riona if it got back to her, and she could not risk giving the woman any more in the way of ammunition against her.
“Ye’ve been sitting, drinking wi’ this woman? What, do ye feel you can be more honest wi’ her than ye can with me?”
“Ailsa, ‘tis not what ye think.”
“Did ye show her what you hide from me?” she demanded.
She didn’t even know if she wanted to hear the answer to that question, wasn’t sure if she would have been able to live with the truth, no matter what it turned out to be.
For so long, it felt like she had been trying to find out what kind of man she had married, only for that girl to come in here and sweet-talk him like it was her second nature.
Had she ever made him laugh like that?
If she had, it had long since faded in comparison to all the times she was sure she had frustrated him…
She snorted at his silence, trying to ignore the tears that were threatening to leak down her face.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” she remarked, shaking her head. “All this time, I’ve been doing what I can to know you, to get ye to see me as yer wife, but ye would rather becavorting with?—”
“Ye have no ken of the man I really am, Ailsa,” he snapped at her, rising to his feet suddenly, casting her to silence in an instant. “And if ye did?—”
“And if I did, what then?” she demanded, challenging him.
She’d had enough of playing the sweet wife, she wanted answers, she wanted the truth. She had no idea which version of him she was meant to take as real; the one who had held her in his arms that night they had given themselves to each other? The one who had slaughtered her would-be attacker without a second thought? The one who had taught her to track, to fight, to ride, and to defend herself against anything that the world might throw at her? Or the one who seemed far more comfortable in the presence of a woman like Riona, a woman who insisted she knew more of him than she ever would?
He stalked towards her, his eyes darkening. Her toes curled against the flagstone floor, but she did not move an inch. She could not let him think that he scared her. That was what he wanted, proof that she would never be able to keep up with himas a wife, that whatever lay beneath the surface was far too much for her to bear.
“Ye would run fer the hills, lass,” he told her, coming to a halt a few yards away from her.
Even at that distance, she could feel the heat crackling in the air between them, her hand tingling as she imagined taking his.
“Ye were to marry Callum,” he reminded her. “That’s the man ye were going to dedicate yer life to before he passed. Someone kind. Someone soft.”
“Ye think that I was ever in love with yer brother?” she retorted. “He was my friend, Tavish, nothing more than that. Our parents would have us married, but that was all there was to it. There was no passion there, no attraction, no?—”
He caught her face in his hand, and she fell silent at once, his thumb skimming roughly over her lip like he was feeling the words as they came out of her mouth.
