Page 15 of Strachan (Hostage Brides #2)

God save her. What had she done? How could she let Peyton put his hands on her like that? It had been nothing like her encounter with Edmund. Peyton’s restraint had been apparent in his tight muscles, panted breath, and intense gaze into her eyes. Peyton’s touch had been far more pleasurable than Edmund’s groping, so she let it continue when she should not. And he had seen her half-naked. He had put his mouth on her breasts. Even now, Cecily could feel the rasp of his stubble on her flesh, making her cheeks flame, and not just because it was sinful. It had felt marvellous, as if her body was on fire for Peyton, as if she would die if he stopped.

And why shouldn’t she? If everyone thought her a whore, why not behave like one? Now she knew what that meant. Lying with a man was shocking, exciting and painful. Peyton’s kisses, his touch, had been so delicious. Why did he have to invade her body so painfully? She had not stopped him. She had been so overcome by what was occurring that she could not think straight. As she gritted her teeth against the pain when he ripped into her innocence, there had been only one thought in her head.

‘I deserve this.’

Cecily stopped halfway down the stairs and put a hand on the wall to steady herself. She was sore between her legs and sticky, but still, a throb of pleasure came at the thought of Peyton’s hard, muscular body pressing down on her, the thrill of it, the comfort of being held in his strong arms. And her body had been so willing, even as her mind screamed at her to stop, that she would be ruined, shamed.

Was that lovemaking? No, no, no. It was vile and wicked, and she should not have let him. He was a beast who held her prisoner and had his way with her innocence.

Footsteps clattered on the stairs behind her. Peyton was coming. She could not face him, so Cecily determined to hide until she had gathered herself. She rushed down the last few stairs and out to the yard, only to be pulled up by a hand on her arm.

Peyton swung her around to face him. ‘Stop, lass. I would explain. I am sorry.’

‘No. Let go. Please.’

He took hold of her by the arms in a tight grip. ‘There is no need to run from me. I would not willingly hurt you. Come back inside. It is cold out here, lass. We must talk.’

If she went inside, back to that chamber, he would do that thing again. He would hurl her onto her back, and she would be as helpless as an overturned beetle. Cecily struggled to free herself, but suddenly, there came a clattering of hooves, and Peyton glanced across the yard. He took his hands off her as if he was scalded. His mouth fell open.

‘God help me!’ he gasped.

Cecily turned to see a bonnie lass dismount a horse. She was brown-haired, with a sweet, soft face and a buxom figure. The lass stormed up, narrowing her eyes at Peyton and then turned to her.

‘Who the hell are you?’ she demanded of Cecily.

‘And who the hell are you?’ said Cecily, returning fire.

‘I am the woman who was offered marriage by this villainous man, that’s who,’ snapped the woman.

Onlookers began to gather around them.

‘Lorna, what are you doing here?’ said Peyton.

Cecily could only stand there like a fool, mouth agape. So this was the perfect Lorna Gilpin, who had captured Peyton’s heart. No doubt, she had withheld her favours, not letting him use her ill. Cecily squirmed in shame.

‘So this is your mistress,’ spat the lass. ‘When the rumour reached my ears, you had one, I could scarcely believe it, but now I see it is true.’ She eyed Cecily up and down, making her acutely aware of her messy hair and dishevelled dress. ‘I must say, she looks well-used, your whore.’

‘Name me that again, and I will flatten you,’ shouted Cecily.

‘Whore,’ screamed the lass into her face for all to hear.

The insult was all the worse for being true. Cecily launched herself at the lass and knocked her off her feet into the muck of the yard. Lorna Gilpin looked prim and proper, but she was far from it as she tore at Cecily’s hair and kicked and scratched like an enraged cat. Cecily sprang free and got to her feet, and when Lorna stood up, she aimed a kick at her backside, sending her sprawling into the mud again.

She was about to give her a good kicking when strong hands dragged her away.

‘Shame. Let them fight,’ shouted one man, followed by a chorus of ‘ayes’.’

‘That’s enough,’ snarled Peyton.

‘It’s not nearly enough. She called me a whore,’ howled Cecily, struggling to get back to Lorna, who was being helped to her feet by Bertha. Cecily could have sworn the older woman was trying to stifle a laugh. More folk came to see what the fuss was about. Muttering spread about the yard.

‘Go inside,’ Peyton hissed at her. ‘Stop shaming yourself.’

‘No, I will not go. And as to shame, you already did that for me well enough.’

‘Please do as I say, just this once. I beg you. Just go.’

Lorna was not finished. ‘That slut should burn in Hell’s flames for her sins,’ she spat, wiping mud off her bottom.

‘You will not speak of her that way,’ bellowed Peyton.

The lass went very still. ‘Why shouldn’t I? Have I not cause to be aggrieved? How can you come courting me when you have a mistress?’

‘Lorna, this is not the place. Let us go inside and talk.’ He made a grab for her, but she flinched out of his reach.

‘You are a blackguard, Peyton Strachan,’ she shouted.

‘Aye, you’ve made that clear. I am not good enough.’ He dragged Lorna to one side as the stares of Strachan clansmen dug into Cecily. They made no effort to keep their voices down.

‘As I recall, you turned me down, so I am free to find another,’ barked Peyton. ‘You have no claim on me, nor I, on you.’

‘‘My father was listening to every word that passed between us. He arranged the match for me, Peyton. ‘Twas not my doing.’

‘You seemed happy enough with it yesterday.’

Lorna’s words were a knife to Cecily’s ribs. Yesterday? So Peyton had just asked another woman to be his wife, and when she refused, he had taken it out on her. Any humiliation at Edmund’s hands paled compared to what Peyton had just done.

‘Why are you here, Lorna?’ he said.

‘Jealousy, most likely,’ shouted Bertha, who had moved closer to suck up the scandal.

Lorna shot her a look that could kill. Peyton narrowed his eyes at Bertha, and she pursed her lips.

Lorna stomped to her horse and mounted it. ‘I have always been honest about my feelings, but you are a fiend and a liar, Peyton Strachan, for bedding this slattern when you were courting me,’ she shouted so that all could hear.

Peyton shouted back, ‘This lass is no slattern. She is to be my wife.’

Lorna’s mouth fell open, and Cecily’s legs almost buckled.

‘No, I’m not,’ cried Cecily. ‘I’d rather burn in hell’s flames than marry you.’

A smug smile twisted Lorna’s face. ‘Well, it seems this drab is more choosy than she looks,’ she said, turning her horse and galloping out of Fellscarp in a flurry of muddy skirts.

A stunned silence fell over the yard. Peyton glared at his clansmen, his face a frozen mask of anger. For a moment, Cecily could not think or move. Then tears sprang to her eyes, and lest everyone see, she ran as fast as her legs could carry her - away from Peyton, Bertha and all the horrid Strachans and out through the gates of Fellscarp. She hurried towards the water, her muddy skirts sticking to her legs and tears blurring her eyes.

The causeway was clear, but they would soon catch up with her on foot, so there was no escape that way. If she waded out far enough, she could simply sink under the water. Drowning seemed infinitely preferable to spending a moment longer in their company.

***

Peyton uncurled his hands from tight fists, feeling the eyes of Clan Strachan searing into him. It wasn’t nearly as bad as Cecily’s rejection. He felt it in his bones and his soul. He met the eye of the onlookers.

‘What the hell are you all staring at?’ he growled.

‘The sight of two bonnie lasses fighting over you, Laird,’ cried one man.

‘You are a lucky devil,’ shouted another. ‘I’d take the blonde one any day, though she’s not eager to wed, is she? Laughter ensued.

‘Aye. Definitely the blonde. She had the upper hand,’ shouted another, called MacDougall. He came over and thumped a palm onto Peyton’s back. ‘You can have both if you play it well, Laird. What I would give to have two lasses fighting over my favours,’ he said to the assembled company.

‘You can’t even get one,’ shouted Bertha.

‘No, aye, that’s right,’ said MacDougall. ‘But that’s about to change. Come here, Bertha,’ he laughed, chasing her up the steps into the house and pinching her bottom as she shrieked.

Peyton got more pats on the back from the men as they slowly dispersed, grinning and nodding. Everyone in Clan Strachan seemed to approve of the whole debacle, apart from Aila, who sent Peyton a scowl from across the yard.

‘It will be nice to have a wedding at Fellscarp,’ said one of the serving girls with a smile of admiration flung his way.

Aye, it would be nice. Now, he had to convince his reluctant intended that it would be nice. And given what he’d just put Cecily through, how in hell was he supposed to do that? Peyton sighed and followed Cecily’s path out of Fellscarp. She cut a lonely figure at the water’s edge. She glared at him as he approached.

‘Lass, forgive me, for I have done a bad thing this day,’ he said.

‘Never mind. If you ride quickly, you may be able to catch up with Lorna.’

‘She’s not what I want, lass.’

‘That’s not what it looked like.’ Cecily turned her back on him. Her blonde hair blew in the wind.

‘You are so beautiful.’

‘Oh, save your flattery, please.’

‘I mean it. And I caused you great harm, lass. I am willing to marry you this very day so that you are not shamed by my wickedness.’

‘Well, you might be willing, but I am not, and if you think I will endure that mauling again, you are mistaken.’

‘Were you not willing earlier? Every look you gave me said you were.’

‘I didn’t know what I was doing. I was gripped with some madness. You did not give me time to think about it. And you should not have taken advantage of me.’

‘No, I should not. Do you want to know why I did, Cecily?’

‘Not particularly,’ she said, crossing her arms.

Peyton turned her around with a gentle hand on her arm. Her eyes were awash with tears. ‘I lay with you, Cecily, because I could no longer bear it. I have wanted you from the first moment I laid eyes on you in that blue dress in my chamber. I am not sorry that I killed for you because you are the most beautiful woman I ever saw. You are brave and strong, and I have ached for you, lass. And aye, I took you in a fit of madness, but that doesn’t make my desire for you any less sincere or my affection any less real.’

‘Desire and beauty. Do you know what they have brought me? Beauty got me here, under your power. Desire ruins love and honour. It is a curse. I used to think love was the greatest gift in life. It is not. So Peyton Strachan, forgive me if I do not want to be used by you while you pursue another woman.’

‘Why would you even care about other women if I am such a brute, and you don’t want me?’ he said, frustration tainting his words. ‘You always seem to be fighting over me.’

‘I don’t give a fig for you.’

‘It didn’t seem that way just now in my bed.’

Cecily’s face twisted in anguish, and Peyton relented his words. ‘Look, lass, I used to care for Lorna, but not anymore.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because when she turned me down, it stung my pride, aye, but I did not feel it in here,’ he said, placing Cecily’s hand on his heart. ‘Back there in the yard, you cut me when you refused me.’

She gave a bitter laugh. ‘You just fear the mockery of your clan.’

‘I felt my disappointed hopes, lass. I had not thought of it before, but marriage is a means to free you from your predicament.’

‘Free! I would be in bondage in your bed for the rest of my life. How is that free?’

‘Because you will no longer be ruined. I took what was meant for your husband, and I am sorry for it. And surely I can make a better husband than that foul grub Edmund Harclaw. You will be Lady Strachan. We can claim we were meeting in secret, and you eloped with me because your father would have opposed the match. It will lift suspicion from you. Remember, lass, that you ran off the same time Edmund disappeared. Eloping with me will turn that on its head. And as my wife, you will always have my protection.’

‘As you protected me today in that bed?’

Peyton took her face in his hands. ‘I meant to, Cecily. And what I did today started as anger, but it ended up as affection and was the greatest joy of my life.’

He felt raw, as if his skin had been flayed away to reveal his beating heart. He braced for Cecily stomping on it, as Lorna had, but she did not.

‘I cannot believe you care a jot for me,’ she said quietly.

‘You should,’ he said, kissing her quickly and softly. ‘I mean to do right by you, I swear. I will never see you face English justice or be forced to wed an old man for an alliance and wealth. Marry me, Cecily, and you will never have to share my bed if you don’t want to.’

She frowned. ‘You cannot mean that.’

‘I swear it,’ he said, pulling her closer and kissing her again. Peyton no longer cared if she had lied to him about Glendenning. There was only the slip of her warm lips on his, the sweet smell of her hair wafting against his face, and the cawing of gulls over the water.

She pushed him gently away. Her voice held sadness as she said, ‘I must go inside. It is cold, and my clothes are wet.’

‘I will get you a new dress,’ he said.

‘It doesn’t matter what I look like any more,’ she said sadly, walking away.

‘I will come with you.’ He could at least spare her the stares of his clansmen.

‘I don’t want you to.’ Cecily hurried away without another word or look.

Peyton cursed at himself. If only he’d held her in his bed, comforted her in his arms after lying with her, stroked her hair and told Cecily how lovely she was, how strong and joyful she made him feel. But he had let the lass slip his grasp, and now her wounded heart would never trust in his. The most he could hope for was that Cecily would marry him so that he could keep her safe.

He settled on a rock, stared at the water, and let the day wear on despite the cold nipping at his bones. He needed to cool his ardour and think clearly. It was time to be a laird, to be ruthless and take what he wanted.

Hours passed, and still, he did not move as he felt his character shift and harden. It was as if he was frozen between two paths, splitting into two men – one selfish and lustful, the other hopeful yet unworthy, with a longing that ached in his heart. It was not until he heard a faint lowing carried on the wind that he stretched and stood up.

‘Christ in heaven! What devilry is this?’ he muttered.

Twenty head of russet cattle were on the shore opposite Fellscarp, calmly drinking at the water’s edge.