Her words shocked James with their candor, but not nearly as much as the look she gave him after. She sat straight up, her eyes wide with fear.
“I will do it,” she told him. “Please dinnae mistake me, I will gladly sacrifice myself for my people. It is nae that. It is just that nae matter what I do, they will always hate me. They will always remember me as a traitor who got what she deserved rather than a lass who ran because she was terrified.”
“Ye were scared?” James asked, unable to stop the question from falling out of his mouth.
“Of course I was. Rumors about Baron Dudley had made their way into the Great Hall for years. I kent well that many believed he killed his first wife. Some said that he then hunted down the last woman who scorned him and slaughtered her entire clan. I have come to ken that this particular rumor is true. To think that such a man has Laura captive makes me regret every second of freedom I once cherished.”
It dawned on James then that he truly had no idea just who this woman was, sitting beside him. They had spent nearly a week together and hardly spoke a word because he had been too stubborn to consider the possibility that she could be anything other than selfish. He needed her to keep talking, he needed to know more about who she was and how these last three years had changed her.
“How did ye find out the rumors were true?”
“The clan ye took me from, the Kincaids, are the ones the Baron attacked. My friends, Aila and Sorcha and I rescued some children from a load of thieves. We needed a place to hideout as one of the lads, Arran, was sick. He was the son of the woman who scorned Baron Dudley. How he survived the attacks was nothing short of miraculous. And then to think he spent so manyyears on his own.” She shook her head. “Anyways, he brought us back to his castle, claiming nay one would be there. He was right. The entire place was in shambles.”
“It did nae look that way to me. From what I could see, the entire clan was having some sort of feast.”
Taryn smiled softly, her fingers smoothing one of the few clean spots of her dress. For the first time, he noticed the pretty shade of pink and how well it suited her coloring. She would have been absolutely radiant in it, dancing under candlelight.
“That’s just it, Lachlan, the Kincaid heir, escaped from prison and made his way home only a few days after we arrived. He and Aila went off in search of a healer for Arran. She came back with the woman while Lachlan hunted down the man who betrayed his clan. He made it back just in time with some allies to save the three of us from having to fight off an entire squad of English soldiers.”
“And the feast?” James asked, in awe that Taryn didn’t balk in the face of fighting against the English.
“Aila and Lachlan fell in love somewhere along the way. The night ye found me, we were celebrating their marriage and the start of the Kincaid Clan anew.”
A wistful look crossed Taryn’s face then. James tried to picture it, the makeshift family with two other fighting women, a couple of orphaned children, and the remnants of a once great clan. He didn’t understand it, but it was clear from the way Taryn spoke that she loved these people very much. They had become her family.
“I ken that ye have nay reason to believe me,” she said, interrupting his thoughts. “But I swear I will do as I am told. I will wait here until Baron Dudley summons me. I will nae run from him or my responsibilities any longer. Whatever he demands to free Laura, I will do it. I will do my verra best to bea good, pleasing wife to him. I will nae make him angry if that is what it takes to protect this clan.”
James looked down, unable to meet her eyes. It no longer seemed fair to him that the entirety of the clan’s safety be put on her shoulders, on the condition that she marry a heinous man, nonetheless.
“But I must ask that ye promise me something in return.”
She reached out a hand, no longer tinged with blue, and rested it on his shoulder until he looked up at her.
“Anything,” he found himself saying.
“Ye must protect my family.”
James scrunched his face in confusion, not understanding why Laird McGregor and her parents would need protecting.
“Aila and Lachlan and Sorcha will likely come for me. If I ken anything about them, it is that they are already on their way. If they show up here, and I suspect someone will, ye must convince them that I went to Baron Dudley of my own free will. Ye must make them believe that this is what I wanted.”
“What am I to tell them about ye disappearing the night I took ye?”
He had to force himself to say the last part of his question, guilt setting in.
“Tell them that I wanted to go, that ye came and got me so that I would nae make the journey alone. Tell them that I did nae want to worry them or give them the chance to talk me out of it. I dinnae care what ye tell them. Say what ye have to, ye just have to convince them that I am here because I chose to be.”
“I will do what I can,” he promised.
Partially wanting to appease her, and partly because he thought it wise to stop anyone from going against an English Lord, James didn’t hesitate in his agreement. Two women, some children, and a fractured clan would be no match against Baron Dudley, not if the McGregor Clan was any indication.
He had heard of the Kincaid Clan before. They were known throughout the Highlands for their warhorses. Though he had only seen one of the magnificent animals before, he knew the clan had been a hearty one. When they had been attacked, word had reached the McGregors too late to do anything about it.
This was the first he had thought of them in years. It was surprising to know that any of them had managed to survive, and even more surprising that they were willing to fight against the man who had destroyed everything once before.
“Nay, James. Ye must swear to me that ye will stop them from doing anything foolish or rash. They cannae attack Baron Dudley or my uncle.” Her voice strained with concern. “Lachlan and Aila have been working tirelessly to rebuild the clan. They have spent the last six months undoing some of the damage that Baron Dudley did to his homeland. I would never be able to live with myself if the Kincaids were attacked again, if they lost everything again because of me. I am nae worth it.”
This time, James couldn’t stop from showing his surprise. For years, he had been convinced that Taryn was an entitled, selfish girl who thought only of herself. Yet, the woman he saw now was none of those things. She was half freezing, caked in rotten food, and sentenced to a life of misery but thought only of others. She was pleading with him for the sake of the ones she called her family, telling him that her life was nothing compared to theirs.
