Page 62 of When the Laird Claims
She would have been lying if she had said that she had not been very angry with her father for a long time. But this was a decent first step in the right direction, on the path toward true and lasting forgiveness.
“When we leave here,” she added, “we can discuss how we ought to remedy our… various situations. If we must sell the manor and everything in it, that is what we will do. If we must live in a cottage somewhere, that is what we will do. If we must use my dowry to help with the debts, so be it; I shall never marry, but I shall learn how to keep a house instead, and see to it that Melody, at least, has good fortune in her future.”
Her father frowned. “But what of–”
Theclickof the healer’s shoes on the stone floor silenced him, his pained eyes looking toward the quick-moving woman as she approached. She appeared to have a fresh cup of medicinal tea in her hands after all the pounding and grinding of herbs she had been doing on the opposite side of the room.
“This is for ye, sir,” she announced, putting the cup in Victoria’s father’s unsteady grip. “Drink it all, or it willnae do ye any good. I ken it doesnae taste so nice, but medicine never does if it’s goin’ to actually help.”
Victoria thanked the woman and stepped in to help her father sip the hot, foul-smelling tea. “When do you think he will be healthy enough to travel? We would like to be able to leave as soon as possible.”
For if I stay, I will never have the courage to leave, and I will never be able to fix this for Melody.As much as she wanted to, she could not be selfish, or she would be no better than her father. When it came to her and Arran, they needed to focus on their own respective problems and their own respective families. That meant separating, even if Victoria’s heart hurt at the prospect.
The healer shrugged. “Now that he’s awake… I’d say a couple of days.”
She walked off again, humming a jaunty tune, and disappeared through a door at the other end of the room. The sound of jars and pots clinking followed soon after, while Victoria’s father slowly drank the rest of his tea.
When he was done, he looked at Victoria, his bloodshot eyes searching his daughter’s face. “What about that Laird?” he said thickly. “He might be a little brutish, but it seemed to me as if he truly cared for you.”
She shook her head and would not look at her father. “If he truly cared for me, he would have waited until you were safe. He knew how I felt, and still he… No, my time in Scotland is over. We will depart as soon as you are able.”
To avoid further discussion, she took her leave of her father and headed out of the healer’s quarters. At first, she did not know where to go, thinking of the people and the places she wished to see again before she departed, uncertain of how much time she might actually have for a thorough farewell.
Fresh air. I need fresh air.
Obediently, her feet carried her out of the keep and into the shock of the morning light, retracing the path to the gardens where she had last felt Arran’s touch. A place and a feeling and a man that, when she left, would become nothing more than a once-pleasant dream.
So, it came as something of a surprise when she found the man himself seated on a bench in those very gardens, a bottle of whisky in his hand.
28
The crunch of leaves underfoot snapped Arran’s attention toward the intrusion. He had come out to the gardens to find some peace, not to be disturbed; he had given express instructions to that effect.
“I said I wanted a moment to–” the snarl died in his throat as he saw the pale face and startled blue eyes of the woman he cared for—more deeply than he was willing to admit.
“I will leave you be,” Victoria mumbled, turning. “I did not realize anyone else would be down here.”
Arran shot to his feet and closed the distance between them in an instant, his hand reaching for her upper arm, above the elbow. Even in his urgency, he did not forget the old wounds on her wrists.
“I didnae realize it was ye,” he said, his grip fierce. Anything to prevent her from walking out of his sight again; he had not liked it when she had turned her back on him in the healer’s quarters, and he would not allow it now. Not with so much left unsaid.
She glanced back at him, her gaze flitting to his hand on her. “I suppose you have saved me the trouble of having to find you later,” she said, her tone as cold as her expression. “My father has woken up.”
“That’s good,” Arran said, relief relaxing some of the tension in his muscles that the whisky had not yet eased. “That’s good; I’m glad.”
Since leaving the healer’s quarters, he had prayed to all the gods he could think of, old and new, for her father to survive. It was not merely that he did not want the older man’s death on his conscience, but that he knew that if her father died, she would never be able to forgive him. She would never evenlookat him again.
“I expect that we will leave in a couple of days,” she added, twisting the knife that her cold demeanor had lodged in his heart.
It was not new information, her desire to abandon this corner of Scotland as soon as possible, but the sting of it had not lessened any. In truth, part of him had anticipated that she might come around to the idea of staying once her father was no longer in any danger. With that worry gone, he had hoped that she wouldhave the space in her mind to process the events of the cèilidh and come to understand that hehadacted correctly.
He tightened his grip on the neck of the bottle still in his hand, so he would not tighten his grip on her arm instead. “I’ve said since ye came here, ye’ve been free to go where ye please,” he said, his tone laced with the bitterness of the liquor. “But answer me this: do ye really think I was just usin’ ye, all this time?”
That accusation had lingered the most, stuck in his mind like a thorn too deep to remove.
Victoria said nothing, but her silence said more than an entire speech. She bowed her head, her chin to her chest, and stared at the dew-soaked grass, denying him the decency—or the mercy—of looking at him.
“I’d have kept ye locked up, like that bastard, if I were usin’ ye and nothin’ more,” he continued venomously. “I wouldnae have introduced ye to my sister. Hell, if ye were just a pawn, I wouldnae have made me sister stay in the same keep as the betrothed of the man who took advantage of her. Ye’d have been in a cabin in the woods, under constant guard. Nae just that, but I had my soldiers risk their lives for ye, I fought my council for ye, I risked the safety of my niece for ye. All of that—for what, eh? I can tell ye right now; it wasnae for me.”
