Page 106 of The Scot Beds His Wife
For a moment, they both didn’t breathe, though he was sure she could hear the pounding of his heart against the bare flesh of her back.
She finally inhaled. “I heard something a while back…”
“I’m certain ye’ve heard a great many things about me,” he murmured. “And since I’ve already proven that the rumors of my sexual prowess are all true, am I to assume this is something slanderous?”
“Yes?” She made a sound in her throat both reluctant and frustrated. “But not about you. Not really. I heard that… that Liam killed your father. Do you believe that to be true?”
Not-so-secret family secrets. Gavin grunted. It was time she learned what it was to be tied to Hamish Mackenzie. “I know it to be true,” he answered honestly. “It’s common knowledge, in fact.” There was no reason to ask where she heard the rumor, as it’d persisted among the Mackenzie since the moment Liam had come home from accepting his commission just long enough to gain a wife and lose a father.
“Is that the reason you hate your brother?” Her voice held neither surprise nor censure, merely cautious curiosity.
“That’s part of it. I wanted to do it, myself. Justice isna the only opportunity Liam robbed me of.”
“Is that why… why you had an affair with his wife?”
“Nay. I was with Colleen in spite of my brother, not because of him.”
“You… loved her?”
Here, Gavin paused. Would the truth hurt her? He wondered, because he was startled by the realization that if he heard of her love for another man… A strange ache pierced his chest, followed by flare of possessive fury.
“Aye.” He kept his vow to answer her honestly, but felt compelled to explain in a way he never had before. “We were courting before my father signed a betrothal contract between her and Liam. I often suspected that Hamish did it because he knew I wanted her.”
“Did Liam know you wanted her?”
“He claims not to have done.” Gavin thought back to the horrid night of the wedding. He’d refused to attend the festivities, and when the lights of Ravencroft had dimmed, he’d lain awake brutally tortured by thoughts of his brother with the woman he loved.
“You don’t believe him?” she asked quietly.
“Actually, I think I do,” he said after a time. “Because I doona think he would have married her and fathered two children had he known what I knew.”
“What do you mean?”
“Everyone in Colleen’s household thought she was besotted with a demon, and she was, in a way. Just like we all are. But her demon was nothing more or less than madness. She heard voices, upon occasion, and sometimes it was impossible to break her of certain obsessions. When she was at her worst, she’d convince herself of the strangest things, like that her cook was trying to poison her, or her lady’s maid was a spy.”
“How awful.”
“She’d already confided in me. I’d already seen evidence of her madness, and I told her it didna matter, thatI’d help guide her through the bad days so we could spend the good ones together. Because when she was young, it wasn’t all that serious. When she was lucid, she was beautiful and softhearted and kind. And she loved me, too, as well as she could.”
“Then… why did she agree to marry your brother?” His wife sounded puzzled. “It’s not like this is the Dark Ages, can your father really still sign you away without your consent?”
“According to Colleen, she submitted because both she and her father feared what Hamish would do to their family if she defied his commands.”
“Yet another reason to hate your father.” His wife surprised him by threading her slim fingers through his beneath the water. “Did Liam love her, as well?”
Gavin shook his head, struck by how easy it was to unburden his past. For the first time, the gall of it didn’t choke his throat. “Until Mena, Liam loved nothing so much as the shedding of blood. He married Colleen because he needed a marchioness and an heir, and she was the highest-born lass hereabouts who was anything to look at.”
“Poor Colleen.” Her compassion unstitched him, and he closed his eyes against the strange welling of vivid emotion. “Was Liam cruel to her?”
“Not on purpose, but neither did he ken what to do with her madness. He was gone to war more often than he was home, and his abandonment only caused her distress, though neither of them much desired each other’s company. He thought that making her a mother would help, but it only seemed to exacerbate her condition. For years I did what I could. I spent a great deal of time at Ravencroft with her, but innocently, only to watch her deteriorate. One night, when things were particularly bad, she sent for me and…”
“And you went to her.”
“It was the only night we spent together… in that way. After, I pleaded with her to leave him. To come away with me. I was sure that I could make her better, that our love would somehow withstand my brother’s wrath and the confines of her mind. God, but I was young and eternally daft.”
“She didn’t run away with you.”
“She sent me ahead to prepare, wrote a confession to my brother, and threw herself from the Ravencroft battlements.”
