Page 47 of Kilgannon #1

“The stableboy told me when I went looking for ye there. I felt a right fool when he told me my wife had left before dawn. I thought ye’d headed for London on yer own.”

“Obviously not.”

“No, ye came here!” he shouted. “Of all places, ye came here! Are ye trying to make me go mad, Mary? What are ye doing?”

I felt my anger rise to meet his. “What am I doing? I’mtrying to keep my own sanity, Alex. I’mtrying to sort out the fact that I married a man I thought I knew and discovered I’ve married a stranger with values I don’t share.”

“And what values are they that we dinna share? Ye think it fine that a murdering bastard go free so it doesna disturb anyone’s day? That crimes go unpunished so that my sons dinna see the natural effect of filthy behavior?”

“No, but I think a man who holds the power over life and death has a moral responsibility to be better than vindictive.”

“Vindictive! Vindictive! Mo Dia, Mary, ye’ve not seen me vindictive yet.

” He swirled around in a circle and drew his sword as he turned back to me.

Brandishing it above his head, he threw me a glare and I closed my eyes.

I was too paralyzed to think, too numb to consciously consider that he was going to hit me, but I must have thought that at some level, for when I heard the sounds of his rage and the blows striking the wood, I opened my eyes in surprise.

Alex stormed through the crofthouse, knocking everything still intact apart with his blows, then attacked the crude animal shelter where I had waited out the rain, knocking the supports out from the roof and leaping aside as it clattered to the ground in a fog of dust and splinters.

When there was nothing left to destroy, he slowly returned his sword to his scabbard.

“Feel better now?” I asked coldly.

He shook his head, still panting. “No. No, I dinna feel better. I feel like hell. I dinna want to argue with ye. I just want ye to come home. I’mtired, Mary.”

“As I am, Alex. I didn’t sleep last night. You did. You hanged a man, then slept through the night. ”

blinked, then turned his head to look past me, staring at the sea for so long that I wondered what he could be thinking.

His breath soon quieted and he became very still.

When at last he glanced at me, I saw the unshed tears in his eyes and my heart gave a wrench.

I stretched my hand to him. He looked at my hand and then away.

“Alex,” I said, but he looked out over the water, and the echo of my voice hung between us. I withdrew my hand.

“I’ll take ye home,” he said, meeting my eyes with an icy look. His jaw tightened and he raised his chin.

I shook my head. “I’mnot ready to go back. I’ll stay here for a while longer.”

“I mean I’ll take ye to London.”

It was my turn to stare and blink. He met my look without flinching. “You’d take me to London?” I asked in a little voice.

He nodded. “Aye. I told ye before, Mary. I dinna beg. If ye say this marriage is over, then so be it. It’s over.”

“Just like that.”

“Just like that.”

“I see.”

“I thought ye might. Come, let’s get it done. That way I can be home for the winter readying.”

“One more chore to be done. Take me home, then get ready for the winter.”

“Aye.”

“A winter that you will spend without your English wife.”

“Aye.”

“You can send for Morag.”

“And ye can be with Robert.”

“I will never be with Robert.”

“And I will never send for Morag.”

“But you’d end this marriage without a qualm.”

“I’mnot ending it.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, Mary. Yer ending the marriage. I’mjust taking ye back to yer people. ”

“I never said the marriage is over.”

He gave me a long look, then gestured sharply. “Then what is this, lass? What are we doing? What is this if not ye leaving me?”

“I’mupset, Alex. And I don’t understand.”

“I ken that. But ye left me, Mary. How could ye leave?”

“I’mtroubled because the man I love can condemn a man to death for stealing a few cows and hang him.

And insists our small sons watch. And then sleeps through the night.

I can’t understand how you can be the man I thought I knew and do these things.

I don’t understand you or your people or this strange land.

How could they lust for his death? How could they cheer it?

How can you do this and not be touched by it? How, Alex?”

He shook his head and looked around him, then sat heavily on the boulder I’d used before, his hands falling at his sides. He looked at the ground, then up at me. “Do ye ken where we are, Mary?”

“At an empty crofthouse.”

He nodded. “The only empty crofthouse on Kilgannon lands.”

“So?”

“So, do ye not think it a wee bit strange that no one lives in this spot, that no one would want this grand view every day?”

We both turned to look at the view, the waves crashing below us and the sea stretching before us in undulating shades of blue.

“It’s beautiful here,” I said.

Alex nodded. “Aye. And horrible here. This was Murreal’s sister’s house.

Fiona’s house. She lived here with her husband, Tavis, and her daughter, Nola.

Here in the yard” — he waved his hand at the packed dirt—“here is where it happened. Allen came one night, in the wee hours, with his brothers, planning to steal Tavis’s cattle.

But Tavis heard them and came after them.

It wasna a fair fight, three against one, and it dinna last long.

Allen and his brothers tied Tavis up and made him watch while they dragged Fiona and Nola out and set the house on fire.

” Alex’s voice was savage now. “And then, while Allen made sure Tavis couldna escape, the two older brothers bound Fiona and the girl and took turns raping them. Nola was twelve, Mary.” He glanced at me, then looked out over the water again, his voice lowering to a monotone.

“And when they were finished they took Tavis and set him afire. While Fiona and Nola watched. And then they left.”

He was silent for a long time while I waited, listening to the sound of my heart’s pounding.

“Fiona freed herself,” he continued at last, “and walked to her neighbors’ and they spread the alarm.

Dougall caught the brothers that night herding Tavis’s cattle east. He brought them to Kilgannon.

And then he waited for me.” Alex met my eyes with a long, measuring look.

“I was in England, Mary, looking for ye. I was roaming about, going from London to Mountgarden to Grafton, when Tavis died. If I’d been here, or Angus, they’d never have done it.

But I’d been gone so much-—after the loss of the Diana, and courting ye—that they thought I wasna a threat.

And they were right.” He sighed heavily and looked at his hands.

“I was focusing on the loss of the ship. And the possible loss of ye. And I dinna protect my people.” When I started to protest he waved my words away.

“I have faced it, Mary Rose. I tell myself it couldna be avoided, that they were cruel and greedy men who struck when my back was turned, and sometimes it makes sense to me and I can live with myself. But every time I see Murreal, I think of her sister limping off for help and me hundreds of miles away worrying about money.”

“Or me.”

He nodded and met my glance. “Aye. My own selfish desires.”

“Alex, why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Lass, ye’ve gotten over yer nightmares.

Ye ken, the ones about the men in the coach.

I remembered ye telling me about dreaming of that swine’s hand on yer leg.

” He shook his head. “And I dinna think ye needed to hear this tale. It’s ugly enough to have kent it as a man, and I dinna think ye’d want reminding of having escaped the same fate. ”

“You were protecting me.”

“I was trying to.”

“I see.”

“And, Mary, I was verra willing to forget it myself. I canna think of this spot without guilt.”

“I didn’t know—”

He waved his hand. “I ken,” he said heavily.

“And even just before the trial I thought I’d better explain it to ye, but I dinna want to revisit it.

And then …” He shrugged. “Well, lass, I dinna think on yer reaction during the trial. I was thinking on my boys. And yer right, I was thinking on vengeance.”

“Why did you insist they watch it?”

He sighed. “That’s an ugly tale in itself.

Ye ken how close Thomas’s son Liam and my boys are?

” I nodded. “Well, when I was gone the boys were sleeping over at Thomas and Murreal’s.

And when the runner came to get Murreal and tell her the news, my boys heard it.

And when Thomas and the men went to come here, the boys followed.

So they saw Tavis’s body, and they saw Murreal, beaten and bloody, and Nola the same.

And despite anyone’s best efforts they heard the tale.

” He rubbed his forehead. “So when Allen was caught, I thought they should see the monster dealt with. It’s a kind of circle for them, Mary.

It closes the nightmare. The bad man canna come back and get them.

Both my boys had nightmares, and many’s a night they crawled into my bed telling me that they dreamed someone was chasing them to set them on fire. ”

I thought of Jamie’s nightmare, of the monster man who set people on fire.

Alex raised his chin. “But yer right. I was vindictive. I wasna impartial. I made a mistake when I let Allen go before, and I couldna risk him repeating his brother’s acts. ”

“Why did you let him go earlier?”

“He was seventeen, Mary. His brothers were older than I am, and they kent what they were doing. I kent it was a stupid thing to do, to let someone who’d been part of something like that go free, but I couldna do it.

He’d not raped them nor set Tavis on fire.

He’d only watched. I couldna hang the boy. ”

“Oh, Alex.”

“Aye.”