Page 21 of Bound to a Scot (Sins in a Kilt #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

C ecilia sat across the table from Emmy and Maddox was to her left as they ate their morning meal. Her father was not present, which she was thankful for. He was such a heavy, domineering presence and she never felt like she could relax around him. She had spent most of her life trying to please him. Trying to earn his approval. But nothing she did ever seemed good enough. He always found some fault or flaw in her. He always found some reason to dismiss and disregard her, to devalue and diminish her.

For most of her life, it had hurt Cecilia deeply. She had gone through her days chasing his approval and growing frustrated and increasingly despondent that she couldn’t attain it. Eventually though, she had stopped letting it cause her pain. It happened around the time she began to flower into womanhood, and she realized that her father saw her as little more than a commodity to be used to barter. A trinket to be dangled in front of an array of strange, sometimes terrible men, to get himself a better deal on something he wanted.

Maddox was the first man he’d paraded her in front of who seemed to be decent. He seemed to have a good heart. And unlike the other men her father had introduced her to, he didn’t seem too keen on immediately bedding her. He didn’t look at her with lust in his eyes or like he already had a list of carnal degradations he couldn’t wait to inflict upon her. Unlike those other men, he seemed to be genuinely kind.

And, he seemed as reticent to marry her as she was to marry him. She was glad for that. Maddox was the best of the lot and she had no doubt he would treat her well. But she didn’t want to marry. She was too young, and she wasn’t ready for marriage. More than that, she did not love Maddox. Perhaps it was foolish, but Cecilia wanted to marry the sort of man who inspired the kinds of feelings of love the poets wrote about. The kind of love that filled her heart with unfettered joy and made her smile every day upon waking.

She knew it was na?ve. She was old enough to know how the world worked and knew that women usually did not have the option to marry for love. She knew her worth to her father was based on the return her virtue would bring him. She hated it. Hated that her value was determined by how much land or power he could accrue from the men who bargained for her. But she was realistic enough to know that that was what being a woman meant.

Emmy’s peal of laughter snapped Cecilia out of her thoughts. Her face was red, tears of mirth in her eyes, and she was letting out the sort of laugh Cecilia had seldom heard. It was boisterous and loud. Curious, Cecilia turned and studied Emmy for a moment.

“What’s so funny then?” she asked.

Emmy wiped the tears from her cheeks and tried to rein in her laughter. Maddox’s eyes sparkled and the smile on his face was wide. Cecilia had been so caught up in her own thoughts, she hadn’t heard what had set off Emmy’s fit of laughter.

“Oh, ‘tis naethin’,” Emmy said. “Just Maddox bein’ silly.”

“’Twas nae,” he said.

The laughter tapered off, but Cecilia didn’t miss the look and silent bit of communication the two of them shared. Cecilia was often quiet, and most people tended to overlook her for it. But one thing Cecilia did was watch. She was observant. She saw much more than other people and her intuitive nature allowed her to ferret out those things they thought they were keeping secret. By being almost invisible to other people, it let her see most everything.

For instance, she had seen a change in Emmy’s behavior toward Maddox. When he’d initially arrived at Castle Macfie, she had been cool and distant with him. She’d remained aloof, almost haughty. She had seemed to take great pains to avoid being in the same room with the man. Her father had to threaten and cajole her stepmother to even attend some of the evening meals with them. And when she did, Cecilia could feel the wall of ice between the two. It was strange. Overall, though, her stepmother hadn’t seemed to think much of Laird MacLachlan. Not at first anyway.

Then things between them had seemed to deteriorate even more. Cecilia had noticed it after Maddox had fought with Lorn in the sparring yard. They hadn’t known she was watching from a window, but Cecilia had been drawn by the clashing steel. She knew she shouldn’t have spied on them, but she was curious. She had watched Maddox get the better of Lorn and Emmy scream at him because of it. Cecilia had never seen Emmy so angry before. And in the days that followed the fight, they both seemed to be taking even greater pains to avoid each other.

But something had clearly changed. Far from being unable to stand the sight of each other, that evening they were laughing and carrying on like old friends. She had only seen Emmy laugh like that around Lorn. The sudden change was confusing. Cecilia didn’t understand how they had gone from arguing heatedly with each other to laughing along like they were the best of friends.

“Ye two seem tae be gettin’ on well,” Cecilia said.

Emmy gave her a half-shrug. “We’re goin’ tae be family soon enough, so best fer everybody if we all try tae get on.”

“I suppose so,” Cecilia said.

She sat back in her chair and just watched them. They reined in their laughter and spoke about trivial things, but Cecilia did not miss the meaningful glances that passed between them. Emmy’s cheeks glowed and her eyes sparkled in a way she’d never seen before. And for his part, Maddox was much the same. When he looked at her stepmother, she saw him look the way she’d imagined the man she would eventually marry would look at her.

And that’s when she understood what was happening. Any lingering animosity between them had dissipated like the morning fog, replaced by something that, to Cecilia, looked a lot like warmth and affection. When her father was gone and they didn’t think anybody was watching, there was a familiarity and a flirtatiousness between them.

The problem, she thought, was that if she noticed it, eventually her father was going to notice it too. And she knew her father well enough to know he wouldn’t take that sort of thing lightly. He would see it as a betrayal. And if he believed she was being, or had been, unfaithful to him, he would punish her. Harshly. She thought he’d also probably kill Maddox for the affair, whether it was real or simply a product of his imagination. Cecilia knew when his anger was aroused, he could act rashly, viciously. And oftentimes, without thinking. If he believed something to be true, there was no talking him out of it. In his mind, an accusation was often damning and all the evidence he needed to exact his vengeance upon whoever he perceived had wronged him.

Knowing all that, watching the subtle but meaningful looks passing between Maddox and Emmy, worried Cecilia. Her father would surely see it sooner or later. She wondered if she should say something to them, or at least to Emmaline. To warn them that she could see what was going on between them and that they had to be more discreet about it. To tell them she could see that something between them was blossoming, and that they had to curtail it.

On the other hand, though, there was a small piece of her that wanted to encourage them to explore whatever it was that was developing between them. Perhaps it was na?ve, but she thought if they fell in love, they would find some way to get her father to set Emmy aside so Maddox could be with her, and they wouldn’t have to go through with a marriage neither of the three of them wanted. Cecilia didn’t think it was an option, but it was the one spark of hope she was clinging to.

She sat back and watched them. They were treading dangerous ground, but for the first time, she saw a glimmer of genuine happiness in Emmy’s face and that made her happy. Emmy wasn’t her mother, but she was the closest thing to one she had ever had. She treated Cecilia like she was her own and loved her the way a mother should love her child.

Cecilia only ever wanted Emmy to be happy. But she feared the price she would pay if her father found out.