Page 19 of Highland Prince of Darkness

Chapter Eight

The door of a spare room that wasn’t too far from the great hall closed behind them. May could still hear the music faintly through the door, but she was too focused on the situation at hand and the anger she felt to do something about it.

“How dare ye!” May raised her voice as she turned around to glare at Iain.

“How dare I?” Iain scoffed, and shook his head, “How dare ye for dancing with another man like that. Why would ye even accept an offer like that?”

May was furious and she couldn’t believe that Iain was the one that was angry about the situation.

“I accepted because it would have been incredibly rude and unwise to not accept. The viscount was being nothing but friendly and kind to me, he was just complimenting me on the match that I have found myself in.”

Iain shook his head and chuckled darkly as though his point was incredibly obvious.

“I dinnae think that’s what happened. I dinnae want ye with other men when ye’re to be married to me.”

May’s eyes widened at his words. He was being completely unreasonable as it hadn’t been as though she had done anything more than dance with the man.

“We are not yet married, and so ye cannae tell me what to dae,” May countered with narrowed eyes. Anger was burning in her gut like a fire that had no chance of being put out. “After all, as ye said yesterday, we are but strangers and in this marriage for the convenience of our clans.”

“I dinnae care if we are strangers or nae, ye’re going to be my wife, and so ye’ll dae as I say,” Iain fired back in spite of her words.

“Ye cannae say that when ye pretend that even my touch repels ye. That is nae how any husband should act and it is certainly nae how I expect ye to act, especially after all that we have been through together.”

“Dae ye nae think that I act that way because of all that we have been through?” Iain countered, “I once told ye that there was nobody that would love ye as I did, and I was right. Nobody will love ye like that, not even me.”

May tried not to let the words sting, she winced and breathed through the tears that were starting to form.

“Ye cannae just try and control me like this, I will fight back every step of the way so that I can make sure ye dinnae get the satisfaction of doing this!” May didn’t care how loud she was, she was sure that servants were crowded at the door, listening in so that they would have something interesting to talk about in the morning. If they were to be the next laird and lady of a clan, they were going to have a very difficult task of hiding their dislike for one another with so many people watching and listening.

“I am the man here, I will be yer husband and so I will tell ye what to dae. Ye’ll obey and be a good wife to me, I dinnae see why ye cannae follow these rules,” Iain snapped back at her.

“Because ye’re harsh and cruel. But ye ken that I could have loved ye with my whole heart if ye hadn’t been so harsh with yer words. So nay, I will nae listen to yer commands.”

“Not even the one about other men not touching ye?” Iain asked with a darkening expression.

May looked at how his fists were clenched tightly, his knuckles almost as white as the sleeves of his cotton shirt. She shuddered as she thought about what she had gotten herself into, aggravating someone that is known for their violent and fearsome reputation.

“It was only one dance,” May continued to defend herself, although she knew that it was a foolish idea to do so.

Iain turned away from her and ran a hand through his dark hair, the candles in the room flickered in the wake of his movements. The music was starting to die down as one song ended and another was on the cusp of starting. May could hear footsteps in the hallway and knew that someone must have heard their argument.

“Why could we just nae start again?” May asked, her shoulders sagging in defeat. She felt incredibly flustered by the entire evening, and the heat of the room was starting to rush to her head.

Her hand instinctively went to her wrist, which was still slightly sore from the grip that Iain had used to usher her out of the room. May started to wonder in the silence whether her father or Bruce had seen Iain be so rough with her. However, she assumed that if they had, one of them would have at least knocked on the door to see what was going on inside.

“We cannae just ‘start again,’ May,” Iain said with a mocking chuckle, “I have been through too much, I have thought of yer betrayal for too many years to just begin again. If ye had just come with me, then we wouldn’t be in this castle arguing about yer mistakes.”

“My mistakes?” May scoffed, “If I hadn’t stayed behind, we wouldn’t be in this castle at all. I had to stay behind for my father, ye can see how sick he is, and he would have already been dead if I had left him too.”

“Ye dinnae ken that. I would have provided for us, I would have fought for us,” Iain shouted back at her, but it was clear that they had differing opinions on the matter.

“We would be exiled from our families, I would have never been able to see my father again,” May was quick to counter him.

“And I thought that I was walking away and facing the prospect of never seeing ye again!” Iain’s voice was booming. It bounced off the walls and reverberated loudly in May’s ears, yet she tried to hide the way that it made her wince.

“I could nae abandon my family. It was so soon after losing my mother and brother, ye ken that, I could nae leave my father like that. It would have broken him.”

May knew that she was admitting that she had to choose between Iain and her clan, but it was all in the past and there was no changing her decision. She shook her head as she realized that there was no point in continuing the conversation with Iain. They weren’t going to reach any kind of agreement that evening and they were just shouting for the sake of it at that point.