Page 19 of Surrender to the Highlander (The MacLerie Clan #2)

F ive days had passed since Margriet came to his chambers and he’d not seen her since. He followed her to deny her claim about them, but when he found Thorfinn returning to his own chambers, he decided against it. Torn between finally accepting that there could be nothing between them and begging for her to accept the love he had for her, he took her disappearance as her answer.

Now he’d traveled with his father and Thorfinn to their outlying properties near Birsay and learned more about their interests in and ownership of several businesses in Kirkvaw. Their fishing boats made up half of those who fished the waters off the main islands here and their grain counted as more than one third of all grain leaving for Scotland and Norway. Erengisl would remain a very wealthy man on just his income here alone.

Erengisl also introduced him to one of Lady Agnes’s kin who was also kin to Denmark’s king. Lady Ingeborg was lovely and demure and respectful and wealthy and of royal blood—everything that Margriet was not—and he found himself hoping she would wink at him or question something he said or refuse his request, anything but comply with unceasing politeness. After spending a few hours in her company, Rurik knew she would never do anything unseemly, such as disguise herself as a nun or purposely fall into a river because she was too hot. Or follow him when he was in anger’s grasp.

But she would, after all the negotiations were finalized, become his wife and mother to his children. When he thought of it in that way, his life stretched out before him with every possibility of him being bored to death by her, for Ingeborg would be the perfect wife for Erengisl’s son.

Over the next days, Rurik was invited to the homes of a few of the more important merchants and each tried to impress him with their wealth and generosity, gifting him with horses, silver and even a few servants. The most surprising gift was presented one night when he stayed with the merchant who ran two market towns for his father and was in charge of importing cattle and other livestock to the islands.

He would have expected to receive several heads of cattle or some newly butchered pigs or goats, but instead Rurik opened the door to his room just before dawn to find the man’s daughter there, naked but for the ribbons and jewels in her hair. At first he thought her lost or confused or mayhap even drunk, but when he looked out into the corridor, both the merchant and his wife stood waiting expectantly for him to accept her.

Once he thanked them and refused their gift, though not their good wishes, he realized the lesson in it—some would do anything to win the favor of Erengisl and his sons. Even giving their daughters to him for bedplay.

He had never had a problem finding a woman when he had the need or desire when he lived in Scotland, but his change in circumstances brought them out in droves to his door, the corridor outside his door and even into his bed when one enterprising young woman bribed a servant to allow her in. The servant and the woman were dismissed.

He found himself out of sorts with no desire to bed those he initially found appealing. Each time he kissed them or touched them, he found himself comparing them to Margriet and her reactions to his kiss and his touch. Desire fled then and he slept alone.

By far, the most bizarre occurrence happened in Thorfinn’s chambers when he answered his brother’s invitation for the noon meal and instead was met by a serving girl barely ten-and-five who began to undress him while he waited for Thorfinn’s return. When he stopped her from removing his tunic and breeches, she tried to touch him through them. Finally, he held her apart from him and she dropped to the floor, begging him to let her pleasure him or to kill her for she did not want to face her master if he found she disobeyed his orders.

The situation shook him to his core, for never had he threatened any woman into pleasuring him nor harmed any during his amorous adventures, no matter how ardent the loveplay became, and he would not begin now. When he took the girl by the arm and she cried out in pain, Rurik peeled back her tunic and discovered lash marks all over her body. The sight turned his stomach and he took her to Gunnar with orders to keep her safe until he discovered the truth of it.

Thorfinn, it seemed, also took pleasure in demeaning those less powerful and those under his control. Had he expected Rurik to be pleased by the girl’s attentions? Who had whipped her and why? He would investigate more and then have words with Thorfinn, for he was certain their father did not countenance such cruelty to servants.

But before he could speak to Thorfinn, he received a summons to his father’s chambers to share the evening meal. When he arrived, Thorfinn was complaining that he had yet to meet Gunnar’s daughter and asked Erengisl to invite them to the gathering. Apparently Margriet had been ill these last few days and had kept to her father’s rooms. Although Gunnar tried to talk his way out of calling her there, Thorfinn insisted and, with Erengisl’s approval, sent word for her to come.

Something was not right in all this, but Rurik could not reason it out. A short time later, Margriet arrived and Erengisl invited her forward to meet his other son. He’d never seen her so hesitant before and he watched from his seat as Gunnar escorted her to his father. The countess came around the table and took her hand, drawing her closer to his brother.

“I am certain that you are not used to our ways yet after so many years in the convent, Margriet, but we prefer to dine together in good company. I am glad you could join us after feeling poorly these last few days.”

“I thank you for your kindness, lady. I am certain I will become accustomed to the festive meals you offer in your household.”

“Now, come and meet my husband’s older son, Thorfinn.”

As Rurik watched what happened, he swore that time slowed, for everyone moved at a sluggish pace, making it even harder to bear. Margriet’s head jerked back as the countess called his brother over to be introduced and she lost every bit of color in her face. Margriet began to shake her head and back away, stopped only by her father behind her. Then, as his brother reached out to take her hand, she collapsed at Gunnar’s feet.

The chamber erupted into chaos at that point and everyone seemed to move faster now. Gunnar bent over to try to lift Margriet, but Rurik got there first and carried her to a couch at Lady Agnes’s direction. The countess waved everyone back as she dabbed at Margriet’s face with a dampened linen. After a few minutes, Margriet opened her eyes and spoke a name, a name that would damn her.

“Finn?”

Lady Agnes frowned and shook her head. “Do you mean Thorfinn, Margriet?”

Margriet struggled to sit up as she sought the face that had sent her into a faint. Searching one to the next, she found him, standing across the room. “Finn,” she said again, waiting for him to acknowledge her.

“I have not heard that name for some time,” Lord Erengisl said. “It was a pet name used by his mother.” The earl met her gaze and said, “He prefers Thorfinn now.”

He walked over to her, smiling now, and she knew her worries were over. But with his first words, they began anew.

“Sweet Peggy? Is that you?” Finn said, shaking his head as he lifted her chin and looked more closely at her. “Gunnar? I thought you said this was your daughter?”

“Why are you pretending that you do not know me?” she asked, the horror growing within her as she realized he did this apurpose.

“Oh, I knew you, I knew you well,” he said with an expression that told the others that he was as surprised as they were. “I just knew not that you were Gunnar’s daughter.”

Her father took his bait, and she wanted to die inside as he stumbled into this fray without being warned first. “Here now, Lord Thorfinn. You insult my daughter without cause. You are mistaking her for someone else.”

Finn laughed suggestively and shook his head. “She called herself Peggy when she spread her legs for me.”

Margriet did not think, she simply reacted. Jumping up from the couch, she ran at him and slapped him as hard as she could. She never saw the back of his hand as he returned her blow, knocking her off her feet once more.

When Rurik saw her go down again, this time because of Thorfinn’s blow, he leapt over the couch and grabbed his brother by the throat. “Do not lay a hand on her again, Thorfinn.” Tightening his grip, he pressed harder until his brother choked and sputtered, and until his father stepped in and pulled him free of Rurik’s grasp.

“I do not understand how this happened, Father,” Thorfinn gasped. “I met her on Lord Kenneth’s lands when I went to take your trade offer to him and your cousin, Lord Alexander.” Rurik watched as he took a step back, one that placed their father between them and one that protected the weasel’s sorry arse from his reach. “You know how peasants are, offering their favors for a few coins or a trinket. She offered hers—I paid her when I finished.”

Lady Agnes gasped at his crudity and looked to her husband to take control. He turned to find Gunnar sitting ashen-faced at his daughter’s side. Erengisl ordered the room cleared of everyone but the six of them, but Rurik knew that, even now, the news spread through the palace about Gunnar’s daughter. There was no way to stop it, but Rurik needed to try.

“Father, these are serious claims made against Gunnar’s honor. We should wait until Margriet is able to answer questions before allowing Thorfinn to continue to besmirch her reputation.”

Thorfinn did the most unexpected thing then—he laughed long and loud, until tears poured down his cheeks. The display even disturbed Erengisl, who called out to him.

“Thorfinn! Truly this is no time to make light of Rurik’s suggestion. If the things you say are true, Margriet is ruined as well as Gunnar.”

“But, Father, ’tis amusing when a man who used her during their journey would defend the whore’s honor. He even took her on the floor of Old Einar’s house outside Thurso when they stayed there.”

Rurik did not remember covering the distance between them now, but it took three of his father’s guards to wrench him off Thorfinn’s throat and hold him from another attack. Only the sight of Margriet’s bruised face and his father dragging Thorfinn aside and whispering furiously to him stopped Rurik from lunging again.

“Father, call a physician to see to her,” he shouted over the uproar. “She has been ill.” He did not dare reveal the rest of it at that moment, though he did not doubt it would be discovered shortly.

Erengisl pushed Thorfinn into a chair and ordered a guard in front of him. Then he walked to Gunnar’s side, leaned in and spoke to his counselor quietly so that none but those two could hear. Gunnar nodded, accepting whatever his father said, and then Erengisl sent a guard off with a gesture to find the physician.

Lady Agnes, the only one who remained calm during this situation, remained at Margriet’s side until the healer arrived.

“My lord, with your permission and her father’s, I would like to examine her,” the man said. At his father’s nod, two guards picked her up and carried her to one of the smaller alcoves for privacy. A servant who’d accompanied him into the chambers ran out after receiving instructions to bring back certain supplies, no doubt.

Only then did Rurik think about the progress of this debacle and could he see the way Thorfinn orchestrated it. He knew Margriet the first night she’d arrived here, so his surprise and claim to not have known rang false. Unfortunately, his other claims were most likely true. Once more, a wave of warning pulsed through him as he realized that someone was feeding information to Thorfinn about what happened on their journey.

Soon, he heard Margriet stir and heard the healer asking her some questions and he knew that at least she was conscious. And now he waited for the rest of Thorfinn’s manipulations with no way to warn Margriet of what was coming. First the healer called Lady Agnes behind the curtain that separated them and then she bade Gunnar enter as she left.

Rurik knew the news she would share now with her father and did not envy his old friend the shock of it. He only hoped that he was right in his belief that Gunnar would help and not hurt her when all was done and said.

Margriet held the cold cloth against her face, trying to soothe the bruise there from Finn’s blow, but nothing would be able to ease the pain she would deliver to her father now. He allowed Lady Agnes to pass and then came to sit at her side.

“Father,” she whispered, “I beg your forgiveness for shaming you so.”

He reached out and touched her other cheek, pushing her hair back out of her eyes, kind even in the face of her shame.

“It is true then, Margriet? You laid with him as he said?” His voice shook, too, as he asked and she felt the hot burning tears pour from her eyes.

She was tempted to turn away in that moment, but she owed him more than that. “It did not happen as he said, but, yes, Father, I gave my virtue to him.” The despair on his face and the way he ran his hand through his hair tore her heart open in her chest. “I thought myself in love, Father. A sad excuse, but my only one. He promised me marriage, promised me his name and I believed him.”

“But you were in a convent. How did he take your virtue if you were in a convent?”

She tried to explain but it was too hard to form the words and speak them. Her throat was tight and her chest heavy as she attempted to make him understand, but none of that mattered now, for she had failed him and destroyed his honor by her mistake. Finally, she could speak and she told him how she met him.

“I was out with some of the sisters gathering herbs in the forest near the convent and saw him riding past. I’d lived with the holy sisters for ten years and had never really met or talked to any man younger than Iain, our shepherd. I just wanted to talk to him and find out about the world outside the convent, Father. Truly.”

She took his hand in hers and kissed it. “I failed you, Father. I surrendered the only thing I had of value and have ruined you with my mistake.”

His eyes filled with tears, too, and then he took her in his arms and held her. “Ah, my girl, we can find a way out of this.”

She cried harder at his words, for they meant more to her than anything at this moment. But she feared he would not be as forgiving when he discovered the rest. For a daughter ruined like she was could find haven in a convent or even a marriage to someone who would accept her as damaged goods, but the bairn she carried changed all of it, in more ways than she could even think of right now.

And she had yet to tell him. He released her and started to stand when she held him fast. “I fear this is not something easily put aside, Father.” She let him go, but took his hand and placed it on the swelling of her belly. She knew when he understood, for he wore the same expression of horror and betrayal that Rurik had when he discovered the truth.

But that look was nothing compared to the utter disappointment in his gaze when it finally met hers. He stared at her as though she were the worst sort of criminal, guilty of any number of crimes. For so many years, all she longed for was her father’s love and now she had forfeited that by her actions.

“Father, I am…”

He pulled away from her before she could finish and walked out of the alcove, opening the curtain and exposing her to the curious stares of those in Lord Erengisl’s chambers.

“The girl says she carries your child, Lord Thorfinn. What say you to that?”