“If I decide? I have nay say in this. The laird gave the choice to ye.”
“I willna make a decision like that without ye. It affects ye as much— or more —than it does me. I willna treat ye as yer da often does.” He hesitated. “There’s more. Alber was outside the door and may have overheard my men and I discussing when and how to leave. Whether to take ye with us or nay. And it became apparent they’ve kenned all along which twin I am. If Alber heard any of that, he will use it to make even more trouble.”
She crossed her arms and began to pace, taking short, sharp steps, but only three or four, in one direction, twisting about and returning before twisting about and repeating her steps again. “I could kill ye for what ye have done,” she said, though her voice lacked conviction. “Am I to assume the real Anders is at Sutherland impersonating ye?”
“He is.”
“He has the easier role to play. Ye were never very good at capturing his humor or the way he flirts with every lass in sight. I dismissed it as the result of being here, in another clan, unsure of yer welcome, yer position here. I couldna have been more wrong.”
Stellan wanted to give that the laugh it deserved, but knew if he did, she would never forgive him.
“I have lied to ye—” And how many times would he have to apologize for those lies? Would she even give him the chance? He’d drop to his knees before her if he thought it would soften the anger toward him that he could see in her flashing eyes.
“I ken it. I even understand it. I dinna have to like it.” She crossed her arms, making Stellan lament that they weren’t wrapped around him. “I must consider what to do.”
“Can I help ye?”
“I think ye have done quite enough,” she said, turned, and without looking at him, stomped back to the gate and inside the bailey.
Stellan wasn’t so upset as to leave her to Alber’s tender mercies if she ran into him there, so he hurried after her in time to see her open the door to the keep and enter.
His men were in the great hall. They would stay with her and stand guard outside her chamber door, if that was where she went. Unless— was she going back to her father? To refuse any offer of marriage Stellan might make? Or to ask for his banishment? Stellan hurried inside, didn’t see her, so went next to the solar door. It was open and the laird was working at his desk. Stellan moved on, preferring not to be seen. His men were missing, so that told him where she’d gone. To her chamber to think. Or to sulk or to vent her fury in private.
He’d ruined his chances with her. He might as well saddle his horse and ride for home right now. But hope held him in place. She hadn’t said no. Would she ever say yes?
CHAPTER 17
Mariota couldn’t believe how the fates had conspired to befuddle and confuse her, but how well they’d resolved her dilemma—or most of it—in the end. She’d been torn, fearing she felt for Anders what she’d felt for Stellan, but it was Stellan all along who weakened her knees, whose kiss drove her to madness, whose touch made her desperate for more. Not his twin.Stellan, the man she’d been attracted to since he put a hand on her boot and gazed up at her when she rode, half-asleep, into his camp. Stellan, who’d helped her down from her horse, his broad hands spanning her waist and heating her blood while at the same time, melting her heart with the care he showed both her and Valkyrie. Stellan, who risked the ire of both their fathers to be with her, to protect her from Alber, by impersonating his twin. She shook her head. She should have recalled sooner the stories she heard at Sutherland about how when the twins were younger, they often switched places and identities with each other.
But now she had a decision to make. She didn’t have to waste more time wishing for a different life. She could grab it with both hands, or she would have to remain here and wait for the realAnders to arrive to be betrothed to her. She pounded her fist into her other palm. The wrong twin.
Or she could spend the time grooming her father for the decision she’d been torn about making, but which now seemed simple and necessary. She knew she would be out of her depth as laird. The time she’d filled in for him while he recovered from his injury showed her that. Once her father was gone, it would be even worse. He hadn’t been much help to her, but he was here and she could pry answers from him, at least some of the time. Later, when she truly became laird? Nay. She would try to do her best, but the clan would be safer with another person as laird, especially if the trouble between Domnhall and the Earl of Mar continued and spread north. She’d known before she overheard her father talking to his councilor, James, that if the council wanted him to name atanist, support for her as a wartime laird was weak.
But who would she recommend to replace her? If she was in a position to do so, who would she name to carry the burden of MacKay? The only person she trusted completely was Seamus. Though MacKay blood ran in his veins, he was not a close cousin to her father or her. But he was a well-respected warrior, chief of the night guards, and well liked. Her gut told her abdicating in his favor would be a good decision. Perhaps the best she would ever make as laird.
Knowing she’d been falling for Stellan all along made the idea of relinquishing her heritage in Seamus’ favor more attractive to her. She could marry the man she wanted, the man who made her blood sing, and help him at Sutherland when he became laird there.
Perhaps she was being selfish. Anders was fully capable of helping her if she married him and remained here, but their situation was not the same. What she felt for him did not approach the way she needed Stellan, and it never would.Anders felt to her like her brother, not a man she would lie with and bear his children. Nothing more than the love they shared for Stellan would ever exist between them.
Stellan knewhe had to leave. He couldn’t delay much longer or MacKay would have them before the priest, still thinking he was Anders. Or Alber would expose him. Even if that complication didn’t exist, Sutherland had called him home. If Stellan didn’t return with due haste, his father would send men here to rival the army that MacKay had taken to Sutherland’s walls to retrieve Mariota.
But he couldn’t leave without her. He wanted to take her with him. Needed to take her with him. Would she agree? He had no doubt she wanted to. But would her sense of duty demand that she remain to support her father and someday replace him?
He found Mariota working in the clan’s summer garden, pulling weeds and from the look of it, working off some anger or frustration. One of his men stood nearby, staying out of her way but on guard. Stellan waved him off, then said, “Mariota, is Cook going to be unhappy with ye?”
Mariota looked up from the rich soil between her fingers, then back down at the pile of limp greens laid out in the dirt, already drying out in the sun. “Aye, I think she might. I wasna paying attention to what I was doing.”
“What if we put them back where ye found them?”
“We can try, I suppose.” She looked dubious, but shrugged and picked up a green shoot, made a hole in the loose soil and patted it in.
Stellan knelt by her and did the same. Before long, they had repaired the damage Mariota had done, assuming the insultedplants managed to survive. From the looks of some of them, he wasn’t optimistic.
“I think ye may still be on yer cook’s bad side,” he said with a smile, “but I can save ye. Come home with me.”
The hope on Mariota’s face tugged at Stellan’s heart, so badly did he want to give it to her.
“I would like nothing better,” she told him. “But how?”
