Page 86 of What a Scot Wants
They sat in silence for a good minute before Niall huffed a mirthless laugh. “A duel with pistols. We’ve certainly become citified, havenae we? Shite, what I wouldnae give to see ye take a claymore to that bastard.”
It would have been Ronan’s preferred method as well. To gut the bastard with a sword would be satisfying; however, it would not have been deemed honorable, not when Ronan’s superior strength would have given him an unfair advantage. Ronan would kill him fairly, with the weapons the man had chosen.
“I willnae lose,” Ronan said. He didn’t care if Calder was a crack shot with a pistol. “But ye should ken that I’m no’ going to marry Imogen.”
The words ripped at him unexpectedly.
Niall set his whisky down and peered at Ronan. “Because of this business with Calder?”
“No’ in the way ye’re thinking,” Ronan replied. “Imogen doesnae want to marry. No’ just me, but any man. She’s made it clear that what happened to her, what Calder did all those years ago, she’ll never be free from the pain of it. She thinks it will stand between us.” He paused, grimacing. “And I fear she’s right.”
It would slowly drive them apart. Ronan had, at first, been furious. Imogen was wrong. It wouldn’t be like that. He could prove to her that her past didn’t matter. She could heal, and he would help. He’d protect her at any cost.
But then at Gentleman Jack’s, with every blow he’d planted on his numerous opponents and the endless well of anger and violence that continued to overflow, Ronan started to comprehend. Imogen had never admitted the truth to anyone before. She’d never allowed herself the opportunity to heal from the damage Calder had caused.
To her, right now, she believed she never would. He understood only too well that she needed time to heal herself, and that he could not do it for her, no matter how much he wanted to. That power was hers alone. And he wouldnottake it from her, not when she’d been stripped of almost everything. Coercing her into a marriage she did not want or wasn’t ready for would make him as bad as Calder.
“I cannae force her to choose me, Niall.”
“So she’s cried off?”
She had not properly ended the betrothal at Kincaid Manor before fleeing the room. And the more Ronan thought about it, the more he knew he couldn’t let her be the one to cry off.Hehad to do it.
“She’d lose everything. The rest of her dowry, her shelter in Edinburgh. Hell, she’s already lost her reputation. If she cries off she’ll only be incurring more damage. Calder will be rotting in a grave somewhere, and so she’ll be safe from him, but there are others, Niall, ye and I ken it. Men who prey on women in dire straits. They’ll crawl out of the woodwork.”
Ronan couldn’t let that happen. Imogen deserved better than that. She’d fought tooth and nail her whole adult life to protect herself from the past. He would never forgive himself if he took that protection away from her.
“Are ye saying thatyeplan to cry off?” Niall stood up and braced himself against the desk. “Ye’ll lose everything ye’ve built for Maclaren. The distillery. The clan’s livelihood. All of it.”
The conversation with Aisla when she’d drawn him aside at the garden party came back to him. She’d shrugged off the potential losses, claiming that it was not who Maclaren was. Not whohewas. At the time, he’d balked at the notion. But now, weighing his reparation payment against Imogen’s, he saw the disproportion of it.
Imogen’s safety, her happiness, was worth more than anything Ronan could hang a price on.
Ronan glanced at his youngest brother. For such a young man, Niall’s strength and fortitude had always awed him. He’d built a business, a way for his clan to survive, using the mines on his lands, and had made himself into a better man. Niall had fought for his estranged wife, and, when it seemed he’d have nothing at all, choosing to let her go, she’d come back to him.
Perhaps Imogen might do the same. He doubted it. Niall and Aisla had years of history. He’d known Imogen for weeks. She’d walled herself off from any man; her defenses were too high. Even for him.
Either way, Ronan knew his clan would not fall into ruin, not if he had anything to say about it. A distillery could be rebuilt. Lands could be re-tilled. He would find a way, and his clan would be stronger for it.
He was Ronan Maclaren. Protector. Defender. Duke.
“I willnae lose everything,” Ronan said hoarsely. “I’ll still be me. I will be the one who has to live with my choices in the end. Yer wife tried to tell me as much recently, and it seems she was right. Aisla is a wise woman, ye ken.”
“Aye, she is.” Niall’s blue eyes speared him.
“Can I ask ye a question?” he asked Niall.
His brother nodded. “Anything.”
“Would ye have given it up? Yer estate, Tarbendale, and yer cairngorm business, if the only thing ye could have in return was Aisla?”
“In a heartbeat.”
He’d do the same. Imogen’s happiness was everything. With the realization, it felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He wouldn’t lose the core of who he was. Those were external trappings. His family would always be there for him.
Maclaren was a place, a lovely place with many wonderful memories, but it wasn’t what madehima Maclaren. Every member of his family had their own marriages and families. Niall had Tarbendale. Sorcha had Montgomery. Finlay and Evan would stay on at Maclaren, if Imogen decided to keep the distillery running. Annis had made her life in the Americas, and Makenna had Duncraigh with Riverley.
Christ, it was liberating. He would build a new life, find a new way for his clan to thrive, allowing Imogen to live hers the way she deserved. Ronan ignored the hollow stab in the pit of his stomach at the thought of walking away from her. Giving her up…when he only wanted to hold on to her forever. See her laugh and smile and swell with his children. Grow old and tell stories of their silly antics when they’d first met.
