Page 59 of Married to the Icy Highlander
Arthur moved forward as if he were a shark circling chum-filled waters. “I was there first, ye ken? Since we were bairns, she had always loved me—she would have done anything for me.”
The look on his face, the pure smugness and satisfaction, was nearly enough to make Neil’s stomach churn. He couldn’t stand it. His lip curled, but Arthur was nowhere near done.
“She always attended those feasts that our parents liked to drag us to, and every time she would beg me to marry her. Imagine her disappointment when her parents married her off to ye instead of me. Och, how she cried… Nae just that night, but so many nights after that. It was only right that I comforted her…”
Arthur took a few steps toward him, but the table was still between them. Neil wanted to warn him off, but he couldn’t seem to force himself to speak.
“Ye dinnae deserve either of them, ye ken? I shouldnae be surprised that both of them needed a real man. I guess ye must be a huge disappointment.”
No. He was wrong. He was just trying to rile him up. Neil knew that Arthur hadn’t touched Ceana. She wouldn’t do that to him.
“Did ye even care about them at all? Have ye nay shame?”
It was pointless to try and find humanity in Arthur. Even standing here in front of him, Neil could see that everything he had thought he had known about their friendship for the last eight years was nothing but a lie.
This man was a stranger to him.
“Hm. Which one? The maither or the daughter?” Arthur taunted.
That was all the answer Neil needed.
Arthur didn’t even respect both of them enough to refer to them by their names. He knew that he had sired Jeanie, and yet he spoke about her so crassly. There was no affection for her in his heart, and from the look on his face, Neil was starting to think that the man didn’t have any affection for anybody at all in his twisted, black heart.
“Why act on it now?”
To his knowledge, Arthur had no desire to sire a child. They both knew that he needed an heir, but Jeanie couldn’t be that, even if he did try to claim her. He would have to take her over Neil’s dead body. So how did this suit him? Causing strife within Neil’s clan?
“Well, honestly, I was just so tired of people respectin’ and lookin’ up to the man who was raisin’ me bastard. A man who dared to threaten me.” Arthur shrugged. “I suppose I just dinnae care for people who are so clearly beneath me tellin’ me what to do.”
“What the devil are ye talkin’ about?” Neil hissed.
He was tired of this back and forth—he just wanted answers. Perhaps it was stupid to even attempt to find some reason or logic in any of this when Arthur was clearly a madman.
“Ye shouldnae have warned me off that little wench. I could have easily had her in me bed, satisfied her in ways that she could have never dreamed of.” Arthur pushed the table out of his way, the wooden legs scraping angrily across the stone floor as he started to slowly walk toward Neil, his hand moving to his sword. “She’s such a bonny, little thing, ye ken. I see why ye like her. Perhaps I’ll put another baby in her, too, and ye can raise another one of me bastards. I will say, she’s got more fire in her than yer first wife, but I think I’d enjoy tamin’ her… send her back to ye when I’m finished with her.”
Neil drew his sword before he even realized that he had done it. Anger fueled by pure hatred surged up inside him. He didn’t recognize this beast standing before him. As far as he was concerned, Arthur was nothing more than another pig waiting for slaughter.
“I didnae come here to kill ye.”
It was the truth—or at least it was until he heard Arthur speak.
Arthur laughed. “Kill me? As if ye could! Ye are raisin’ me child, after all. Suppose little Jeanie would want to meet me now?”
“She’s nae and never will be yers.”
“And ye care why? It’s nae as if ye like her any more than I do. Perhaps when she’s older, I can find proper?—”
Neil swung his fist at the man’s jaw, throwing his whole body weight behind the punch. The crack of bone seemed to echo through the Great Hall as Arthur staggered backward.
But the fact that he wasn’t knocked out cold from such a blow said a lot. Neil knew well how often that happened whenever he punched a man.
“Bit of a sore spot, hm?” Arthur laughed, spitting blood on the floor and standing tall once more. He drew his sword, his eyes narrowing into slits as he moved into position. “I suppose, if ye think that she’s yers in the same way that ye think yer wife belongs only to ye… and yer braither… and that old man—Ferguson, is it nae?” he drawled, implying that Ceana had been passed around the village.
Talking was getting them nowhere.
His muscles still burning from his extensive training this morning, Neil sprung into action. He couldn’t allow anyone to talk like that about his wife and live to see another day.
Metal clanged against metal. Arthur’s enraged shouts echoed off the walls as the two warriors dueled.
