Page 49 of Taken By the Highland Villain
“Ye ken that’s nae true.” Craig stepped closer. “I ken I’m overstepping, My Laird, but ye have a choice—ye always do. Do ye want to lose her in the end because ye didnae make the effort to convince her to stay?”
Jude’s hand tightened around the glass until it cracked in warning and his knuckles turned white with the strain. Craig’s eyes flickered to the glass, and Jude set it down before it shattered and sprayed whiskey all over the desk and the floor.
“Go.” He motioned for his second-in-command to leave the study, then settled into his chair, his thoughts racing.
His failure to protect Kendra still burned in his mind and heart. The loss of his sister ate at him, and the thought that he might lose someone else precious to him made him feel sick, the way he’d felt before his first battle… and after his first kill.
But if he looked at the situation logically, he would lose Valerie in any case. Yes, he might lose her to bandits, to raiders, to an attack from any one of his many enemies, if he dared let her past his walls and fully into his life and his heart.
But if he did not, he would lose her to Nathan Cullen, or to whoever and wherever she chose to flee next to escape him.
“Do ye want to lose her in the end because ye didnae make the effort to convince her to stay?”
Craig’s words echoed in his mind, the bitter truth of them so evident that a blind man might see it.
I dinnae want to lose her to Laird MacOlley. I dinnae want to lose her at all. But there’s nay way to be sure I can prevent that. Life is far too uncertain, and I cannae stand to promise her my protection when I cannae be sure of delivering it.
But if there is a middle ground… if I can offer her a haven, and a reason to stay longer until she finds someone else or somethin’ that makes her truly happy… Or perhaps she might simply stay as my seamstress. Does there need to be aught else?
Jude took a deep breath. It had to be an arrangement that preserved his honor, Valerie’s safety, but also her independence… and one that he could live with.
He finished his drink, then rose and left the study. Once in his chambers, he searched through the kilts and shirts Valerie hadleft for him until he found the finest of them—the ones meant for special events. He laid them out, then went to the small basin on his side table, positioning it carefully below the small circular mirror on his wall.
Then, for the first time in months, he pulled out the small, slim knife he used for shaving. He lathered soap into his beard, then carefully lifted the blade to the side of his jaw and drew it downward.
The razor-sharp blade slid across the side of his cheek and jaw with almost no resistance, and a swathe of beard fell to the table in front of him. Jude repeated the motion, his movements slow and careful as he followed the lines of his face and throat. First the right side, then the left.
A quarter of an hour later, he shook the blade into the basin and assessed the result in the mirror.
For the first time in over a year, his shaved and beardless face gazed back at him. The lack of hair made his face look thinner, sharper, and years younger, despite the lines of grief and loss that still etched his brow and bracketed his mouth. The difference was… unsettling, reminding him of the man he had been not so long ago.
Still, like the new curtains, it felt lighter… and it felt necessary. Right, as if the man in the mirror was the man he was always meant to be.
Jude went and dressed in his new clothes, then brushed his hair, smoothed his sash, and went to find his wayward seamstress.
The knock on the door startled Valerie from where she was stitching the fabric for the new curtains that would find their way into Jude’s bedroom—or so she hoped. They were elegant and beautiful, the correct length and color, and adorned with the clan’s crest.
She regretted that she’d not be the one to hang them, but she knew she had to leave. The bedroom curtains were the last pieces she needed to finish. After she’d completed the stitching, her work would officially be done.
Despite everything Moira has to say on the matter.
Valerie sighed. The maid had made her feelings on the betrothal, and Valerie’s claims that it was only a ruse, quite plain.
“Och, just a ruse, lass? Have ye nae seen the way the Laird looks at ye?” Moira huffed. “And the way ye look at him when ye’re near him… Och, if that’s a ruse, then I’ll eat a meat pie raw.”
“It doesnae matter what he feels or what I do, Moira. It doesnae mean the betrothal is real or that anything can come of it. That declaration was made on the spur of the moment—and a foolish one at that.” Valerie shook her head. “Please, leave it alone.”
“As ye will, lass. But dinnae forget what I said.” Moira gave her a knowing smile and went about her business, but the conversation lingered in Valerie’s thoughts.
The knock came again—sharp, hard and impatient—dragging her from her recollection.
With a sigh, Valerie set down the fabric and went to open the door.
She was expecting Moira or Craig. She wasn’texpecting to find Jude in full formal dress, his face clean-shaven and his eyes dark with emotion. Nor was she expecting the words that came out of his mouth.
“Is yer dress finished?”
It took her a moment to remember the blue-green silk he’d bought for her. She had begun to shape it into a dress, but it hadn’t been a priority for her, not with all the other work she had to do.