The man next to him spoke, dragging Rory’s attention away from the sway of Sybil’s hips as she glided away. “Your wife told us all about your plan.”
What lie had Sybil told them? He should have known she would try to undermine him when she agreed so quickly to come to the hall.
“You’re wise not to act rashly and attack Hector,” the man said, nodding. “Better to proceed with caution.”
“I agree,” another man said. “If our clan is spilling each other’s blood, the MacDonalds will see our division and seize upon our weakness.”
“The MacDonalds are strong,” a third man said. “We MacKenzies must fight as one if we are to push them back to the isles where they belong.”
Rory wondered how Sybil had succeeded in persuading these recalcitrant men that his decision was sound—and even more, why she’d done it.
All evening, men filled Rory’s cup to drink to his good fortune at finding such a bonny and clever wife. They could not see past her beauty and charm to her calculating and deceitful heart. She had fooled them, just as she had fooled him.
He was bleary-eyed with drink when the subject of their toasts slipped out of the hall and up the stairs. Luckily, Rory need not trust his wife to bed her.
“I’ll leave ye now, lads.” He stood up too quickly and had to grip the table to steady himself. “Wouldn’t want to disappoint my bride.”
The men laughed and slapped his back. Rory could hold his whisky better than most, but the circular stairs set his head to spinning.
When he pushed their bedchamber door open, Sybil was sitting on a stool, running a comb through her tumble of midnight hair. She looked up at him with those violet eyes and her full red lips parted, and desire tore through him like an angry storm.
God’s bones, how he wanted her. When he crossed the room in three strides and pulled her to her feet, she looked up at him from under her lashes and her lips curved up at the corners. Good, she did not intend to deny him. He could take her to bed with no pretense that it meant anything more to either of them than lust. Isn’t that what she had said after their first time?
Even drunk as he was, heknew he should wait until after he took her to bed to ask her what he wanted to know. The best course was to take her without a word. And yet he could not stop himself. He had to ask the question that had been burning a hole inside him ever since she confessed to her lies.
“Tell me,wife,” he said, “how many men did ye have before me?”
Sybil slapped his face hard enough to sting.
“How many?” He held her wrist to prevent her from slapping him again.
“How dare ye ask me that?”
When her eyes filled with unshed tears, he stifled a twinge of remorse. Doubtless she could weep false tears as readily as she lied.
“Tell me,” he said between clenched teeth. “Who had ye before I did?”
“Why does a man need to be first?” she said. “Was I yours?”
“Answer me, damn it,” he said. “I’ve a right to know why my bride wasn’t a virgin.”
“I was not a virgin,” she said, glaring up at him, “because I was married.”
“Married!” Rory fell back a step. His heart could not take any more. “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, ye have a husband?”
“Ihada husband,” she said. “We were wed a week when he died.”
Sybil was widowed. He tried to take it in. Well, that would explain why she was over twenty and unmarried. He waited for her to say more, but Sybil’s mouth was clamped shut.
“Is that all ye have to say about it?” he said. “Ye lied to me about being raped. For God’s sake, do ye know what that lie did to me?”
He had been torn apart with rage and misery imagining how her innocence was violently stolen from her. And her tale of rape had made him feel so ashamed for not being gentle with her that first time.
“I spoke the truth when I said ye were the first man I gave myself to freely.” Sybil stared past Rory’s shoulder as she spoke. “My grandfather had toppled a king and ruled our clan for fifty years. I was a pawn and not permitted to refuse the marriage he arranged for me.”
“An arranged marriage is no the same as rape,” Rory bit out.
“To a woman, I assure you, it can feel very much the same.”She brushed past him and went to stand at the window with her back to him.
