Page 136 of Wicked Highland Heroes

“Fate is for fools.”

Erroll released a sigh. “I understand duty. You taught me well.”

“Do you plan to live the rest of your life for duty alone?”

“What else is there?” A wife, love…children?

“Children,” his father said, as if reading his mind.

“You certainly had your share.” Four children with Erroll’s mother alone. “Lust is a powerful motivation.” Little had he realized just how powerful a motivation.

“Lust?” His father grunted in disgust. “A fleeting passion.”

Erroll raised his brows. “You seem to have maintained that passion with my mother.”

His father scowled. “I am not so old. Why should you be surprised?”

Why was he surprised? “Most husbands grow tired of their wives after so many years of marriage.”

“Most men have good reason.”

Erroll looked sharply at his father. “But you do not?”

“Did you think I don’t know your mother is a remarkable woman?”

Something niggled in the back of Erroll’s brain. “But that doesn’t change the fact that she is not Moira MacLean.”

His father halted and for the first time in his life Erroll saw him nonplussed. “By God, no, she is not, and why should she be?”

“Perhaps it is merely the fact she is English, then?” Erroll asked.

“English?” his father repeated in a cold voice. “I did my best to see to it you understood things from both sides of the border. God knows, after The Forty-Five Rebellion, Scotland and England were as far apart as Cain and Abel. I had hoped your generation would be the one to bridge the chasm. Where did I go wrong? When did you decide the English way was better than Scottish life?”

Erroll stared. “You misunderstand me, sir. I do not think England any better than Scotland. In fact—” he broke off.

His father’s gaze turned shrewd. “In fact what?”

An epiphany hit Erroll and he felt like Saul on the road to Damascus. “You wish to bridge the chasm between the Scots and English?”

“The Scots, yes, but even more so, the Highlanders.”

“In Manchester you chastised me for not marrying a Scottish woman. You said I cinched the English noose more tightly around our necks.”

“Yes,” his father replied. “I might want to bridge the gap, but that doesn’t mean we deny who we are.”

“You never told me any of this,” Erroll said.

“What is there to tell? You had to see the world yourself, decide for yourself. Surely, it was obvious.”

“Was your marriage to my mother your way of trying to bridge that gap?”

“King George commanded the marriage. You know that.”

“And you know your duty,” Erroll murmured. He thought of the way Eve made him feel, the way he wanted her so badly it hurt, and recalled the look in his father’s eyes three nights ago at the party. Erroll imagined that same look in his eyes when he looked at Eve. He loved her.

Erroll felt as if a fist had been driven into his gut. He loved her—but believed she didn’t love him, just like—Erroll stared at his father. “It isn’t the fact your wife is English that separates you, but that you do not believe she loves you.”

To Erroll’s shock, pain registered on his father’s face. “She knew her duty and married me.”