Page 45 of A Kilted Marriage of Convenience

CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE

Aidan left the stables as quickly as he could, doing his best not to turn back and steal a look at Ciara. He had been too heartbroken to look at her after she had finally told the truth.

How long had she been planning to keep it a secret? How long had she planned to manipulate me and lie to me? Until we were married?

He was hurt. He hated the fact that he was hurt. Worse, Ciara had seen him hurt and broken. This was his fault for letting his guard down, God be damned! He had been so vulnerable, sleeping beside her and foolishly waking up feeling safe. It had all been a lie. He could already tell his sleepwalking would be back with a vengeance that night, and for many more to come.

Aidan wondered why she wept so bitterly. What was he supposed to make of it? He thought he had been fooled long enough; not even her tears would fool him anymore.

If she had any good conscience left in her, she would probably be confessing her sins to his sister, who had gotten angry with him at the mere sight of her tears. She had been quick to point fingers and blame him. She was his sister, and yet she had not bothered to find out what had happened before accusing him.

He entered the castle and headed straight for his study, where the room was blessedly empty. He moved to the drink press behind the desk and grabbed a bottle of whiskey and a glass from a tray beside it. He settled heavily into the chair, pouring himself a drink, and he took it all in one swallow. He hissed as the hot spirits burned through his insides, and he poured himself one more and turned the contents down his gullet in one motion.

He poured himself a third glass, and this time he decided to take a respectful sip instead. He sighed deeply, closing his eyes, as the liquor was working its magic inside him, running rampant like fire.

Aidan had one job, and that was to distract himself from everything. Yet he was failing spectacularly. He could not understand how everything had gone so badly so quickly. He had woken up happy, excited, and rested—betrothed. It had only taken that blasted letter from Laird MacNeil to destroy his happiness.

It occurred to him how ironic the situation was. He had not had the purest of intentions when he had found out that he had saved Keir MacNeil’s daughter. His immediate reaction to finding her in his grasp was to kidnap her as a tool to hurt her father. That plan had completely turned on its head when he had started developing feelings for her, however…

Now he realized that his prisoner was actually on the run from the man whom he believed he was hurting by holding her ransom. He had set out to hurt MacNeil by getting married to Ciara, but by a cruel twist of fate, he discovered the plan was hers after all. All he had earned from his scheming and plotting was a heartache, and a gaping hole in his world.

The MacNeils sure ken how to hit me where it hurts the most.

He swirled the rest of the whiskey in his glass, then tossed it down his throat with one gulp. He wanted to smash the glass against the wall. He wanted to yell. He wanted… to see her.

A knock took him by surprise, but Aidan ignored it, staring absently at the wall.

“I ken ye are in there, Aidan,” Lillie’s voice came through the door. “I am coming in.”

Lillie burst into the room before Aidan could protest. She glanced toward the half-empty bottle in his hand, and sighed in disappointment, shutting the door softly behind her.

“What dae ye want, Lillie? I would really love to be by myself right now. Or have ye come to accuse me further?”

His sister ignored the dig, walking around the desk to stand beside him.

Lillie placed a hand on his shoulder, still quiet.

“I remember being locked up in Laird MacNeil’s dungeons,” his sister finally said. She sat on the side of the desk facing Aidan. “I remember how he would always talk to me about his plans to marry me off to Laird Morrison. He would always laugh about how devastated ye would be when ye found out about it. He never hid the fact that he was selling me off, and he got a kick out of letting me ken there was naething I could dae to change my fate.”

Lillie paused long enough for Aidan to look up at her.

“Ciara saved me from that fate, brother. If she hadnae broken me out of the dungeons, delivering me to ye and Darragh, I would have been married off by now. Aye, that is what Laird MacNeil saw me as: an item for sale to pay off his debts. The moment Ciara chose to set me loose was the same moment she sold her own self. To appease Morrison, Keir MacNeil offered up his own daughter. His only bairn, in exchange for me. Ciara was only running away from the same fate she saved me from. Sadly, there was nae one to save her as she had saved me.”

She grabbed one of his hands, and he averted his eyes to the bottle.

“I ken ye are hurt, brother. I ken ye feel betrayed and used. However, I ken also that Ciara loves ye deeply. She made mistakes, aye. Yer dream of marriage all started for the wrong reasons, but she only did what she could to survive. Dinnae cast her away for fighting for her life! We owe too much to her. We may never be able to repay our debt, but we can start here. Start now.”

The silence stretched on as his sister finished talking. The only sound came when Lillie dragged the bottle across the table and poured herself a glass. Aidan closed his eyes, turning her words over in his mind, for he knew that there was some sense to all she had said.

“I find it worrisome that ye dinnae care about how this affects me,” Aidan spat at his sister, turning sharply toward her. “Ye have completely refused to consider my feelings about Ciara’s actions. Why would ye treat yer own brother as a heartless monster, whilst consoling the daughter of the pig who abducted ye? I have listened to ye ramble about Ciara, and I ask ye: what about me? Have ye nae concern for me, Lillie? It’s nae only the betrothal. She lied. And nae only me, she deceived us all.”

Aidan said the last part forcefully, walking toward Lillie, who had shot up in alarm at his tone.

“Ye?” Lillie challenged with a raised voice, getting upset. “What about ye, Aidan? Ye sit here in the dark, moping and drinking yerself to oblivion. Ye are quick to talk about how she betrayed ye. Dinnae be in a rush to forget how she came to be under this roof! It isnae as if ye had the purest of intentions at the beginning. She was just a tool for ye to hurt Keir MacNeil.”

“Aye,” Aidan countered, “I admit that my intentions werenae all pure when I found out who she was. However, I had been honest about it from the start.”

“And dae ye believe,” Lillie asked, stabbing his chest with her index finger, “that there is a world of difference between the two? Daes that make it better?”