Page 24 of Marry the Highland Villain (Breaking the Highland Rules #1)

CHAPTER 24

She’s afraid of me.

A hot bath, a hearty meal, and several glasses of whiskey later, the words Brigid had spoken to him still refused to leave his mind. He badly wanted to go back and talk to her again, to try to explain himself. But he’d promised not to approach her until she came to him, and he meant to keep that promise.

He also knew, though the thought cut like a knife, that there was no point in going to her now. She would either cease to be afraid of him at some point, or she would continue to fear and distrust him. There were no words he could say that would alter her thoughts one way or the other, just as there was nothing he could say or do that would erase her memories of her grandfather’s blood—her kinsman’s blood, for all he’d been willing to kill her—on his hands. And nothing he could say or do to counter her mother’s dying words.

Dying words. They were a powerful force. Blessing, curse, command, or advice… it was all the same. The words of the dying held power over those they were spoken to and those they were spoken about.

The words spoken by Brigid’s mother might tear the two of them apart, and there was nothing Conall could do about it. He couldn’t make people stop fearing him, and even if he could find some way to accomplish the task, he wouldn’t do it.

Fear was useful. Fear was what kept his enemies at bay, and he couldn’t sacrifice his clan’s safety for his selfish desires.

He couldn’t erase the memories of what he’d done in anger, or to protect others, and he knew no way to ease the fears of people who’d seen him covered in blood or those whose first impression of him would always be marred by the scar on his face, and the harshness it ingrained into his features.

With a groan, Conall raked a hand through his damp hair, then forced himself to straighten in his chair. There were many things that needed to be done. He might as well set about taking care of them—he was in no mood for sleeping or reading, and he knew himself well enough to know that drinking himself into a stupor in his current state of mind would have poor results.

He needed to visit Emily and have her tend the wounds Laird Auchter’s sword had inflicted. They weren’t deep, and he didn’t think the blade had been poisoned—his exertions before would have killed him if it had been—but the healer would still scold him if she found out that he’d left them untended, and he had no desire to find himself in his sister-in-law’s bad books, as well as in his wife’s.

He needed to write several letters. One to the council of Clan Auchter, to formally explain the death of their Laird and the circumstances surrounding it. Another letter would need to be sent to those lairds who mediated the Highland Gatherings, and possibly another to Court as well. Most would be unlikely to care about the entire series of events, now that the feud was over, but he might still be called to account for killing a man he’d supposedly agreed to a truce with.

Another letter he would send to the Blackwood sisters, although he did not relish the thought of writing it. He’d gathered from the guard that Oliver had effectively banished them and had them escorted out of the castle at swordpoint. They were owed an explanation and an apology, and although he did not expect forgiveness from them, he would make sure they received an apology—one from him and one from Oliver, whom he would make promise he wouldn’t be so foolish in the future.

The thought of Oliver made him groan again. It was far past time he and his brother sat down and had a proper discussion. He understood his brother’s grief and anger, and he shared them, but the way Oliver expressed them had gone too far into blind foolishness, and Brigid had suffered as a result. Such a thing could not be allowed to happen again.

Conall had tried to give his brother time and space to work through his feelings, but it was clear now that he should have taken Oliver in hand well before now. Whether through a long discussion over a bottle of peat whiskey, or a knock-down brawl in the training yard, they both needed to air their grievances and clear the air once and for all.

They both needed it, loath as Conall was to admit it. Oliver wasn’t the only one who’d lost his senses to grief and anger. Conall, too, had become far too prone to swinging his blade, rather than finding some other way to mend a dispute. The fact that he’d nearly killed his brother in a fit of rage was proof of that. There were times when a sword was what was needed, but even he could admit he’d become a little too comfortable at the thought of shedding blood.

’ Tis nay wonder Brigid is scared of me.

The awareness hurt, almost as much as the knowledge that he had no idea how to ease her fears.

A knock on his door pulled his attention away from his brooding. His stomach lurched with hope, remembering how Brigid had sought him out once before.

This time, however, the person who opened the door in response to his call was Emily, bearing her healer’s bag. Conall sat back, striving to keep his expression as neutral as possible.

Emily smiled in that gentle, knowing way of hers. “Nae who ye were hopin’ to see at yer door, I suppose?”

“I…”

“I ken what happened, Conall,” she said, saving him the trouble of attempting to explain himself. “Oliver told me and asked me to pass along a message.”

Emily stepped forward and set her bag on the desk, then unlaced Conall's shirt and gestured for him to remove it. Conall did as she bade him, too tired and sick at heart to fight.

“What’s the message?” he asked dully.

“That he’s fair sorry for all he did,” Emily said, her hands quick and careful as they moved over his body, examining his wounds before she started to clean them. “He says he didnae mean to cause ye further grief, and he regrets that he hurt ye. He wants to have a long talk with ye tomorrow after he returns from havin’ his own words with Devon.”

Emily’s words were kind, but the healing paste she applied to his wounds stung, and Conall closed his eyes as she applied a second lotion, then carefully wrapped his arm and shoulders in bandages.

“I’ll be waitin’ for him whenever he wishes to speak to me,” he said, once she had finished tending to him.

Emily nodded her agreement as she smoothed the last of the bandages into place, then touched his uninjured shoulder in a comforting gesture.

“The lass will come back to ye, Conall,” she said kindly. “Give her time to think and to sort her feelings, and she’ll come back to yer side.”

“Or run straight to her sisters,” Conall muttered darkly, finally voicing the thought that had been tormenting him the most as he sat here alone—that of Brigid choosing to go back to her family and leave him behind. “Ye ken she has reason enough, especially now that Laird Auchter’s dead. She’ll want them to ken what happened, and, kennin’ her, she’ll want to tell them in person.”

“She also has reason to stay,” Emily pointed out reasonably. “And if ye are patient and kind, and give her the time and space she needs, then ye’ll only give her more reasons to stay.”

“I’m nae sure.”

“Well, I am.” Emily smiled at him. “Trust a woman’s intuition on it, My Laird. She’s a smart lass, and she cares for ye. The fact that she ran to her rooms here, and nae the front gates as soon as she was released from that cell is a good sign. An’ if she doesnae leave within the next day, then ’tis only a matter of time before she comes to ye. Ye’ll see.”

Conall considered her words as he shrugged back into his shirt and vest.

“Do ye truly think so?” he asked, wincing as his injured shoulder made contact with the rough fabric of his vest.

His sister-in-law was right about most things, it was true. He just couldn’t quite bring himself to believe she would be right about this, too.

“Aye. I’m certain of it.” Emily packed away her medicines. “Just give it time.”

Conall took a deep breath and finished his glass of whiskey in a single gulp. He was still tired, and both his body and soul ached, but Emily’s words had given him a measure of peace, and a measure of hope.

“Aye,” he said, looking up at the woman gratefully. “Aye, I’ll give her time.”

Brigid’s sleep was restless, broken by nightmares of the dungeons beneath MacKane Castle and the cruel expression on Laird Auchter’s face the last time she had seen him. The crimson color of his blood seeped into her dreams and dyed everything red, until she woke up with a start, sick and shivering. Even the light of dawn appeared tainted by death.

She couldn’t face the morning meal. Just the thought of it made her stomach roil unpleasantly, and as for the thought of seeing Conall…

She wanted to see him. She wanted to seek the comfort of his strength and the safety of his arms. But doing so felt like ignoring the truth she’d seen at other times.

Conall was dangerous. Not to her, but to anyone who might harm her. Conall might do anything at any time. The safest thing for the denizens of MacKane Castle would be for her to leave at once so that he no longer had reason to act so violently to defend her. And yet, despite that, something stopped her from leaving.

Despite her best efforts, she’d broken her mother’s rule, at least in part. Nothing, though, could change how she felt when she remembered Conall’s defense of her—even against his brother—or the way he’d touched her on their wedding night. The tenderness of his hands and his mouth on hers haunted her dreams, and yet those hands were the same ones that had killed four men on her behalf—one of them her own kin.

That should enrage and terrify her, she knew, but it didn’t. She’d seen enough of Laird Auchter in that one brief encounter to know he’d been a danger far more perilous and twisted than any rage Conall might experience.

Conall had his anger, but Auchter had been coldly cruel, without even the brief glimmers of honor that Brigid recalled seeing in her father’s men, or the warmth that filled her memories of Magnus Blackwood.

My mother loved my father, despite his temper, his occupation, and his flaws. She remained with him, and with us. She didnae have to—nay one would have questioned it had she fled from him. But she stayed.

If she could love him and stay with him, then why did she tell me never to follow her example? Why would she do that? And what should I follow? My mother’s words or her actions?

She wished she could ask Lily, or Valerie, or even Megan, what they thought of the matter. But they were gone. She could write a letter, but that would take some time to reach her sisters, and the reply would take even longer. She wasn’t sure she could bear to wait that long.

She wished she dared send a messenger asking them to come back, but she wasn’t sure they would do so, even if Conall agreed to let them. Her sisters were cautious—far more than she was—and the manner in which Oliver had banished them from the castle would stay in their minds for a long time to come. They’d want assurances of their safety if they were to consider coming back, and Brigid was in no position to give them that.

They needed an apology as well, from Conall and Oliver, but Brigid had no idea if either of the MacKane men would write such a letter. Her father never would have, even if he’d been in the wrong. Would Conall be the same?

The conundrum occupied her mind for the rest of the day. Brigid ate her meals in her rooms, after a maidservant brought them up with Emily’s instructions to eat something, lest she make herself ill. She slept some more, read a little, and spent most of her time looking out her window at the gardens.

More than once, she considered going to Conall to speak to him, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do so. Her feelings were tangled like a ball of yarn a kitten had played with, and she didn’t want to cause either of them more pain by speaking the wrong words.

That evening, she wrote a letter to her sisters and gave it to the maidservant who came with her evening meal to give to a messenger. In it, she told them she was all safe, and that matters between herself and Oliver had been resolved. She also told them that Laird Auchter was dead—and by her husband’s hand.

Brigid went to bed that night and woke up the next morning missing Conall’s warmth as fiercely as she had the morning after her wedding.

It was almost absurd that she was in this position. They were in the same castle, after all. They walked the same halls and breathed the same air, and yet she felt as if there were an ocean between them—some vast and impassable gulf that she had no idea how to bridge.

The second day she spent going through the bags and cases of her things that her sisters had brought with them. She’d had little inclination to touch them until now, but she took some comfort in rediscovering the dresses Valerie had sewed for her, and the medicines Lily had made—including the scented headache remedy she loved the most—and the leather goods Megan had crafted for her, including her sturdy winter boots.

At the very bottom of the case, she found her journals. Brigid lifted them, running her hands over the spines.

Her father had brought home the first few, for her mother. Her mother had shared them with her when she’d first shown an interest in drawing and writing—an interest her sisters didn’t share outside of Lily’s interest in noting plants, and Valerie’s occasional drawings and patterns for clothing. But the last few journals, the ones she’d had after father and mother had died had been far harder to come by.

Valerie had bargained for the paper. Megan had shaped, tooled, and stitched the hide for the bindings. And Lily had trimmed the paper. A new book of blank pages for every year, given to her on her birthday, and another for a Yuletide gift.

Inside, there were drawings of flowers, sketches of family and woodland scenes, and pages of stories and dreams. And her favorite, the parts she cherished—even if looking at them made her blush—were the poems she’d written.

Pages upon pages of her attempts at poetry. The ones from her childhood were faltering, clumsy poems, childish and silly. They changed as she grew older, but she’d never stopped writing them. It had become a habit she knew she would never break—a way for her to make sense of the world and her own tangled emotions.

Brigid’s fingers caressed the blank page at the end of her latest journal. So much had happened, and she’d never had any chance to write about it. She’d never been willing to ask for paper and ink, afraid someone would accuse her of treachery, as Oliver so often had.

But Laird Auchter was dead. And she was Conall’s wife, Lady MacKane—even if she’d never felt less like a lady of anything. She’d purchased all those lovely inks, writing implements, and drawing tools at the market on that day that now felt like a lifetime ago. What better use for them than to sort out the tangled thoughts that troubled her so?

Perhaps, just perhaps, if she could write everything down, she could make sense of herself again, the way she’d always been able to in the past? Writing and reading had often helped her understand things, just as walking in the woods—or the gardens—had helped soothe her mind.

Brigid ran her hand over the pristine page once more, then stood and set the journal on her table. She collected the rest of the books to place next to her bed, then went to the door and called for a servant to ask for a glass of warm milk and some extra candles for her desk.