A lump rose in her throat. If he had not brought her here to help, then…
“The MacDonalds made a mockery of my father,” he growled. “Accused us of selling them shoddy bricks, spoiled grain, poisoning their people. They made my father look like a monster for mistakes that they made, turned it all on us, made us look to be the villains.”
He shook his head, the venom in his voice speaking to how certain he was that he was only telling her the truth. Her mind darted to the village that had been attacked, the one that she had tried to help Tavish with rebuilding.
Was that part of this, or was Tavish lying to her, making it sound as though they were the victims when they were nothing of the sort?
“What choice did we have to try to reclaim our strength?” he muttered. “My father couldnae live wi’ knowing that our reputation had been so badly hurt. He needed to support our people. We needed more land to farm on, and the closest…”
He gestured around them.
“Just so happened to belong to the very people who had broken the alliance in the first place,” he finished up, spreadinghis arms wide, referring to the very ground on which they stood. “They had taken our reputation from us, they had cost us men and coin and more. It was only right that they were the ones who paid the price.”
Her breath was stuttering now, coming so hard and fast she could not control it. She felt like an animal with its leg in a trap, desperate to wrench free, but with no way to escape, no matter how hard she tried.
“Callum heard of it, of course,” he went on. “And he was the one who tried to stop us. Tried to force us from the lands, even though we had as much right to them as he did. It was the least his clan, or should I say yer new clan, could do, after they had taken everything from us, so we…”
He caught himself, flicking his tongue over his lips, like he was savoring the taste of those words on his tongue.
“So we took everything fae him, too. Took the finest heir that the clan laid claim to.”
“Ye killed him, ye killed Callum,” she whispered.
She could barely stand to get the words out, as if saying them out loud might make them real in ways that she could not contend with.
He nodded, making no effort to hide or deny it.
“Aye, I killed him,” he replied, a smile curling up his lips. “And now, since ye have so graciously offered yerself, I’ll kill ye too, lass. To make that bastard of a husband of yers see how he copes with having everything taken from him, just like his family took fae my father.”
She tried to move away from him, but his grip was firm on her arm, yanking her back towards him. She swallowed hard. She had been so wrong about everything, about Tavish’s protection, his animosity towards Malric. He had been right all along to hate him.
Whatever chance she thought she might have had of making things right had shattered on the cold ground beneath her—and now, the best she could hope for was that she found some way out of this alive. Even if that possibility seemed to slip from her fingers faster than she could cling on to it.
Chapter Nineteen
Tavish grimacedas he made his way towards Ailsa’s chambers, willing himself closer to her, doing everything in his power to convince himself that he was not going to let his pride get the better of him. His wife needed him, perhaps now more than ever, and it was his duty to make amends after the harsh words he had thrown at her earlier that day.
Especially given that his men were due to ride out at dawn, and he did not want to leave anything unspoken between them when that time came.
As he mounted the stairs, he thought back to what she had said to him when she had come to his study. The way her face had been shining with excitement when she had presented him with that letter.
It was clear that she truly thought she had done the right thing, getting in touch with Malric the way she had; behind his back, without his knowledge, likely because she already knew how he would react when she told him. But there was a reason for that; a reason he had hoped against hope that he would be able to keep her from finding out that Malric was dangerous beyond all contention. She would land herself in the middle of trouble if she tried to connect with him.
She was a strong-willed woman, there was no doubt about that. And it was one of the many things he liked about her, or, at least, had liked from a distance for so long. Now that they were married, living with the reality of them was a little different—a little more demanding. However, he’d be damned if he let himself waste his wife’s warmth and passion and care just because he was too angry to deal with it when she came to him searching for acceptance.
His mind drifted, unbidden, back to what his brother had told him when they had both been young.
It’s better to marry for duty than for love,he had warned him.Find a friendly face, someone you can stand to be around, and you’ll be fine.
Callum had been talking about Ailsa, of course, as the two of them had been betrothed when they were both teenagers. And, though Callum clearly cared for her as a friend or a sister, there was no desire between them, nothing that came close to what he felt for her.
He had watched her from afar for so long, the way Callum could make her laugh as they wandered the hills together, Tavish always holding back, worried that overstepping his mark would make him look a fool.
But he had known he wanted her, even then.
Not just some woman who would make a good bride on paper, but a woman who would fill him with the same fiery want that she did; a woman who would ignite parts of him that he could not set alight with anything else.
When he reached the top of the stairs, he came to a halt, his brow furrowing.
