Her throat worked. She glanced away, staring into the embers as if the answer lay there.
“I wanted to make a new start in Ardnacross,” she said at last, voice unsteady. “I swore I’d put ye behind me. But I realize now … I … I can never do that.”
His heart stuttered. He didn’t move. He barely breathed.
Her chin lifted, and she looked at him once more. Anguish shone in her eyes. “I want to hate ye, Ailean. Why don’t I hate ye?”
Pain tightened his chest.
He crossed to the fire and laid the poker down, needing the excuse to move. When he faced her again, his voice was low. “Because life is rarely that simple. I earned yer hate. The fact ye don’t feel it … that’s mercy I don’t deserve.” His throat tightened. “I treated ye callously. And longing for ye the way I do … that’s fitting punishment.”
He wasn’t posturing. The truth of it sat like lead in his bones. “Before I met ye, I danced through life,” he said hoarsely. “Nothing stayed with me. Not even the battles.” His fingers brushed a scar on his arm. “But ye … ye stayed. Ye have changed me.” Their eyes locked, and the air seemed to thin. “And I’m glad.”
He broke off then. The admission left him raw.
“I don’t want a life without ye,” she whispered.
For a heartbeat, the world stopped.
The wind outside vanished. The fire fell silent. There was only her voice echoing in his skull.
“Fiona …” He breathed her name. “Are my feelings returned?”
She swallowed. “They are.”
The force of it hit him square in the chest. He stepped forward slowly, giving her time to pull away. She didn’t. Her fingers were ice-cold in his hands.
“Are ye certain?” he whispered. “Tell me true.”
“I am.”
His pulse roared in his ears. Fear and wonder collided inside him. If he spoke the wrong words, if he fumbled this moment, he might lose her forever. This was the edge of everything. If he did not step forward now, he never would.
Still holding her hand, he sank to one knee before her.
“Fiona Mackinnon,” he said, voice catching, “would ye do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
35: GRANT THIS KNAVE A FAVOR
AILEAN HELD HIS breath as she stared down at him, shock rippling across her features. Whatever she’d expected him to do next, it hadn’t been this. For a heartbeat, she didn’t move. Didn’t speak. And in that suspended silence, he felt utterly exposed.
She could crush him with a word.
“Ye can’t marry the likes of me,” she whispered at last. Her gaze dropped briefly—to her hands, to the rough stones beneath his knees—as if the very floor proved her point.
“Maybe not once, when I was heir to Dounarwyse,” he replied, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Although one of my closest friends threw aside convention. And the world didn’t end for it.”
“Craeg MacLean of Moy,” she murmured.
Aye. The scandal had shaken half the isle. Once, Ailean would have called it folly. Now, he understood it for what it was: love.
“Things are different now, lass … I gave it all up, remember?”
Her brow furrowed. “I still can’t believe ye’d refuse yer father. All that power … all that land.” She gestured around the tower. “This place is humble beside Dounarwyse.”
Something twisted deep in his chest.
“This place iseverything,” he answered gruffly. “It remade me. One stone block at a time. Every wall I raised … every beam I set … taught me who I really am.” He exhaled slowly. “But none of it means a damn thing without ye.”
