18
THE CHOICE OF PATHS
He changed his mind. James changed his mind about me.
The same thoughts echoed in Taryn’s mind, distracting her from the dank cell she sat in once again. She had still been so caught up in their kiss that she hadn’t heard Eowin locking the cell door behind her. All she knew was that James had come for her. He had wanted to save her.
She had meant it when she told him that the clan’s vitriol stung, but not nearly as much as his own hatred of her had. Knowing that he had changed his mind about her, had realized that she wasn’t the villain she had been made out to be, gave her a glimmer of hope that if given enough time, the rest of the clan could come around to the same idea.
There had been exactly two times in her life when Taryn had acted with radical boldness. The first was when she had let Laura talk her into escaping in the middle of the night to get out of marrying Baron Dudley. The second was kissing James. She could only hope that she wasn’t going to regret the latter as much as she did the former. If she had the chance to see James again, and she prayed she would, she would try to tell him again how sorry she was for destroying his family. She would tell himhow grateful she was that he found her, even if it meant her life. She was grateful that he had given her the chance to love someone, to truly love someone.
“I cannae remember the last time I was down here. It is in desperate need of a good cleaning. I suppose the stench is part of the punishment of being thrown in a cell, though.”
The Laird’s voice reverberated off the stone walls, pulling Taryn abruptly out of her thoughts. She rose from the cot and straightened her shoulders. There was no telling why he was down here or what exactly he wanted from her, but she wasn’t going to let him see her as weak or feeble.
“I never thought I would find ye down here, Taryn. Ye were always so obedient, so loyal.”
She bristled at his words, hating that she had always been a malleable puppet in her uncle’s mind.
“I made the mistake of believing that my parents would do what was best for me. I did nae ken any better until it was nearly too late.”
“Yer parents understand duty. I had hoped they would have passed that lesson onto ye.”
Though he wore a smile as he spoke, it was grim and did not meet his eyes. A forced kindness, meant to fool her into thinking that he truly cared about her. But there was something more there too. A tiredness that reached to the core of his soul, one that he wore in the forward curve of his shoulders and the folded lines in his forehead.
Laird McGregor let out a long, deep sigh as he looked her up and down. She knew she was an absolute mess, having gone the better part of a fortnight without a bath or a brush. Her gown, once a beautiful creation that had sparkled in the candlelight of Aila’s wedding, was faded and tattered, stained with evidence of her travels.
“I wish that I had been granted an heir. I cannae tell ye how much I have pined for one these long years,” he spoke, clearly not expecting her to reply. “A child of my own, that I may have taught duty and responsibility to. Someone who would have been a great help to me in times past carrying the burden of being a Laird.”
Taryn eyed her uncle, seeing him, for the first time, not as the Laird or even as her uncle, but as a man whose life had been marred by the grief of losing his wife in childbirth. And of loving her too much to ever remarry. Such loss had weakened him, stealing his veal for life.
“If I had been granted a son, a man whom I could leave this clan to, perhaps I would have been willing to fight the Englishman. I would have had a reason to stand up to his greed. I would have wanted to protect these lands to have something to pass down my lineage. But all I was given was a niece.”
She winced. Her entire life she had been told that she wasn’t what everyone had wanted with sidelong glances and disappointed looks. But to hear it put so overtly was as painful as if he had reached through the bars and struck her across the face.
“I suppose one might point out that yer father is my acting heir. However, he is old, as am I. Neither of us born fighters. Neither of us young enough to have the stamina for war. We thought, we made concessions for this, though. Yer marriage was supposed to have given us the allyship we needed to ensure the future of the clan.”
He looked at her, as if waiting for an apology. She didn’t offer one.
“I have heard from my advisors. Some say that I should never have agreed to the betrothal to an Englishman in the first place. Others say that the blame lies at yer feet for running from yer duty.”
Tipping her chin into the air just a little higher, Taryn kept her mouth shut, unwilling to relieve her uncle of the guilt he was feeling.
“‘Tis nae matter to discuss ‘should haves’ and ‘would haves.’ What matters is that we are here now. It is an impossible situation—sacrifice my heir for the sake of the clan, or sacrifice my clan for the sake of my heir. What would ye have me do, Taryn?”
Hung in the air between them was her uncle’s clear attempt at getting her to agree to her own execution. He wanted her forgiveness for what he had already decided to do, that was clear enough. He ventured into the dungeons to lay the blame at her feet so that he might wipe his hands clean of her. She would not give him the clemency to do so.
She had long since come to terms with the fact that her parents would give her over to save themselves. They had made that clear years ago when she had first been offered to the Baron. It struck her a little differently, knowing that now it wasn’t simply her hand in marriage but her very life that they were willing to trade, but it wasn’t truly all that out of character for her family.
Her parents and her uncle might have been kin by blood, but they would never be her real family. That title belonged to Aila and Sorcha. The children, of course, were certainly part of that. Arran, Elsie, and Christopher had especially stolen her heart. And now that Aila had married Lachlan, she supposed that he was officially one of the family too. Even the other Kincaids, with all their warmth and affection, had taken Taryn in and made her feel as though she belonged. She had been wanted, and not just for the part she could play in clan politics.
“Fine. Say nothing,” the Laird bristled. “Just ken that I gave ye a chance to do the right thing.”
As she watched him go, she drew in a shaky breath, trying to steady herself. She thought of Aila’s determination to keep those children safe and of Sorcha’s bravery, no matter the foe she faced. Taryn knew that they would never have betrayed her this way. She knew that they, acting as her true family, would never have asked her to give herself up. They would have found a way to face the Baron together.
Alone once more, Taryn sank back onto her cot with a heavy sigh. There was no telling what her uncle was going to do. Or rather, how quickly he would follow through with the decision he had already made. With James gone and her friends so far away, despair threatened to cave in on Taryn. She didn’t know what was to come, but she knew that no matter what, it could not be anything good.
James racedthrough yet another village, sweat trailing down his face despite the cold. He was grateful that his stop in the local tavern had proven successful.
