She took a step back, and now the tears did spill from her eyes. “Nay, ye’ll let Anders have that honor. That’s why ye came as yer twin, aye? Yer da agreed to the betrothal— in his name?”
He shook his head. What could he say? Anders’ reputation was well known, even by Mariota after the time she spent at Sutherland, and he had to keep up the charade, for all their sakes. “Naught is final. Ye ken I willna allow that to happen.”
She crossed her arms and glared at him. “How do ye think to prevent it, when ye are as tied to Sutherland as I am to MacKay?” She shook her head, her sudden sadness making her shoulders drop. “Yer brother will be a poor substitute for ye,” she said. “And he will ken it. God, how I pity him. What ye have done will break all three of our hearts.” She shook her head, turned, and stalked away.
Stellan stood in the hallway and watched her go, unable to move to find a way forward or backward. He’d made a mess of this. A mess that could quickly become a disaster if he didn’t keep his distance from her. But he’d gotten the answer he came for. He wanted Mariota. She wanted him, not his twin.
But she would soon be betrothed to Anders, and for Stellan, no other lass would do. He spun and beat on the oaken door, oblivious to the damage he did to his fists. The pain in his heart and the fury over what he and Anders had done to Mariota overrode every other sensation.
Mariota,blood still singing, made her way to her chamber and locked the door behind her. She leaned against it, needing the stout oak at her back to support her, pressing her palms into the grain of the wood, fighting to feel something other than the desperate longing within her, the pulse of her blood in hernipples and her core, and the melted butter warmth that filled her lower belly.
Stellan had come to MacKay to be with her for what time they could spend together. Not enough. Not close to time enough.
She was bound for a powerful alliance with Anders, a man she liked but did not love. Or she could have a vastly different future than she’d ever imagined with Stellan, the brother she’d left in the hallway downstairs, the brother who lit her body on fire and made her ache for his touch, his kiss, and more. The brother who’d had that effect on her from the moment he first touched her waist to help her down from her horse while she protected Valkyrie. Anders would be a friend. Stellan, her lover, the man she wanted with her every night, filling the deep ache within her, and waking her every morning with kisses and caresses that proved his need for her. His love.
If she was forced to wed with his twin, she and Stellan would have to live in the torment of not being able to be with each other. Anders would share in their misery. He would know she could never love him the way she loved Stellan. Never desire him the way she desired his twin. It was so unfair. It made her wish Stellan had not come. If she had never truly known what his touch, his kiss, would do to her, she might have been able to live her life with his brother, content, if not deliriously happy.
Did Stellan love her? Could he?
Stellan would be as conflicted as she now was. He’d all but told her how torn being with her made him. His oath to his clan was even tighter than hers. He was a male heir, the expected heir. She? She had been responsible for her twin brother’s death— or so her father believed. She was not the heir her father expected or wanted. She was the one he blamed for the loss of his son. No wonder he hated her so. No wonder he didn’t protect her from Alber.
Then why had he bothered to take an army to Sutherland to fetch her back? Why did he even want her to stay here if he didn’t want her to be laird? What would he have done if she hadn’t run away from her clan?
She pushed away from the door and paced to the window. From it, she could see the mews and the stable, both symbols to her of freedom. How different would she feel if she looked out on the ocean or the smithy or… she shook her head.
Stellan Sutherland had her head spinning, her emotions in a tangle and her body still thrumming with unmet needs. He owed her a way to fix this. And she would get it from him if it was the last thing she did in this life.
Frustratedby his situation with Mariota, and with Mariota’s rejection by her father, Stellan went to speak to him again, something he’d meant to do before now. It might not be his wisest move to confront the man when his own blood still roared in his veins, but some things called for passion. Calm reason seemed not to have worked. So he’d do this now and do what he could to steer the MacKay to a better outcome for his daughter. As he stalked down the hall, he pondered how to protect her without insulting the laird. He wished again Anders was here. None of this would have happened. He would never know how much he wanted and needed Mariota. His twin would be the kind of leader who could improve the lives of the people at MacKay. And for this confrontation, Anders’ diplomatic skills would likely prove much more successful in making the laird see sense.
And he knew every bit of that was pure bollocks.
MacKay welcomed him into the solar. If the man knew what Stellan and Mariota had been doing only a few minutes before, Stellan was certain his welcome would have been different. Frostier. More dangerous. Then again, he was about to beard this lion in his den. That could be the most dangerous thing he’d done since he arrived.
“What can I do for ye, Anders?” The MacKay gestured Stellan to a seat and leaned back in his own, hands loosely clasped over his belly.
“I’m here to appeal to ye again about Alber. He remains a threat to yer daughter.”
MacKay snorted. “She’s an emotional lass. He’s a rough man. A warrior. But he willna actually harm her.”
Was her father being deliberately obtuse? “He already has. I dinna ken why ye discount the danger he presents.” Stellan held up a hand to forestall MacKay. “He threatened her and he put his hands on her. Have ye forgotten I told ye the last time he got her alone, he tried to smother her? Mayhap she didna admit to ye that he has also attempted to ruin her. Ye ken he nearly killed the hunting hawk, Valkyrie.”
“After he was attacked.”
“Nay. Before.” And why was MacKay focused on what he’d said about Valkyrie and not about the threats to Mariota? “Ye must accept the threat is real and banish Alber.”
MacKay straightened up in his chair, stood, and planted his fists on the desktop. “’Tis my decision to make.”
Damn, he had taken offense, just as Stellan had feared. “Of course it is,” Stellan told him. “I wouldna suggest otherwise. But I dinna think ye have been told the full extent of Alber’s harassment of yer daughter. Yer heir. I urge ye to take it seriously.” Did MacKay not realize how Alber’s actions could be perceived? As an insult and challenge to his laird, so public and ongoing that Stellan judged the clan must consider theirlaird weak, since he let it go on. Stellan had sense enough not to compound the challenge MacKay faced by telling him what he was thinking. But the man should have figured that out on his own and done something about it. For his sake and his daughter’s. And his clan’s.
MacKay resumed his seat. “’Tis nay so simple as that.”
“With a betrothal pending, nay, ’tisna. If Alber thinks she will soon wed a warrior able to defend her better than anyone yet has, what do you think he’s likely to do?” Stellan took a breath. He’d almost said her husband would be able to defend her better than her father ever had, but had caught himself just in time. “For some reason, he covets her birthright. He wants to be laird, any way he can.”
MacKay frowned, giving Stellan hope than his words were penetrating the thick shield the man kept around his thoughts and feelings. What would it take to get through to him?
“Mariota had nay reason to lie while at Sutherland about what happened to her,” Stellan said, pushing his argument. “And nay reason to lie to her father and laird.”
MacKay’s nod spurred Stellan on. “Ye should be working together. As my brother and the Sutherland do.” Asheand his father did, he almost said, but saved himself from the gaffe.
