CLAIMED BY A HIGHLANDER (THE DOUGLAS LEGACY Book 2) (35 page)

“Release him, please,” she told the uncle, and he complied.

She took the lad’s hand and led him to Grant’s daughter, who threw her arms around him. The only sound in the room was the lass’s weeping, while the men who had been on the verge of fighting all stared at the three of them.

When the lass finally released the boy, Sybil said something to her. The two women then whispered back and forth, nodding. Then, to Rory’s amazement, Grant’s daughter embraced Sybil like a long-lost sister.

Sybil’s face was drawn as she again approached the high table, where he and the Grant men were all still gaping.

“I’m sure the MacKenzie regrets any offense he may have caused,” she said to the Grants. “Now if you’ll forgive me, I really must retire.”

After a torturous and fruitless discussion with Grant over the boy, Rory climbed the stairs with more trepidation than he ever felt going into battle. He had given Sybil a couple of hours to calm down, so perhaps she had gotten over her anger by now.

After drawing a deep breath, he pushed the door. It did not budge. He put his shoulder to it. She must feel uneasy with outsiders in the castle, for she had barred the door.

“Sybil, it’s me,” he called. “Open up.”

He put his ear to the door and heard a rustle of movement inside. His relief when he heard her slide the bar back did not last long.

Before he could reach for the latch, she flung the door open and stood glaring up at him.

“Sybil, I—”

“Not here in the doorway,” she hissed. “I’ll not be further humiliated by having your feeble excuses overheard by curious servants who are no doubt listening at the bottom of the stairs.”

Clearly, she was not over her anger yet. He was tempted to turn around and give her another hour or two. The hard glint in her eyes suggested that would be another error, so he stepped inside.

She shut the door with more force than needed and spun around to face him. “Ye have a son and heir, and ye didn’t tell me. How could ye keep something so important from me?”

“You didn’t tell me you’d been married—that ye had a husband when ye were supposed to be my contracted bride.”

“I had a dead husband, not a living son,” she said. “For the last fortnight you’ve made me suffer for not telling ye the marriage contract was false. And all the while ye were keeping this from me!”

“’Tis not the same.”

“Aye, ’tis not! The marriage contract was my brother’s deceitful act, not mine,” she said. “Ye could have found out the truth any time ye wanted in the last eight years by showing it to someone or coming to claim me.”

“But you knew the truth, and ye didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t tell because my life was at risk!” she said. “What reason could you have for not telling me about your son?”

“’Tis no simple matter.”

“Everyone knew about him but me,” she said, flinging her arms out. “Your clan, the Grants, probably half the Highlands!”

Rory could not deny it.

“It hasn’t been easy for me to be accepted by your clan when every one of them was against me from the start,” she said. “I’ve tried so hard!”

Oh, Jesu, her eyes were filling with tears. He felt like shite.

“Now you’ve made it nigh on impossible for me by showing your clansmen that ye neither trust nor respect me,” she said. “How am I to overcome that?”

“Ye already have.” He tried to take her hands, but she pulled them away. “They saw how well ye handled our guests and the…situation with the lad.”

“The
situation
?” She swiped angrily at a tear that slid down her cheek. “Ye still haven’t told me why ye kept this from me.”

***

“I don’t believe the lad is mine.”

“Ha!” Sybil could not believe Rory would lie to her now. “Will ye tell me next that ye never bedded the lad’s mother?”

Rory heaved a sigh. “I wasn’t the only one who did.”

“Don’t insult her as well as me.” His answer made her so furious she wanted to throw something at him. “Do ye count us all as fools? The lad looks exactly like you.”

“He—”

“Get out!” she shouted.

Sybil had to make him go before the tears welling in her eyes spilled down her face. Once she started weeping, she feared she would never stop.

She tried to shove him out the door, but it was like pushing on a boulder. She dropped her arms and turned her face away from him. If she looked at him, into the face of the man she had recklessly given her heart to, she would lose control.

“Please, Rory,” she choked out, “just go.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt ye,” he said before the door clicked shut behind him.

She heard each footstep as he walked away, then she collapsed on the bed and wept for the lost dream she should never have believed in.

Suddenly, she remembered the priest and the message from her uncle. She did not have to stay here. There was a ship waiting for her at Inverness.

With shaking hands, she changed into warm clothes for her journey.

CHAPTER 36

Rory’s back ached from sleeping on a bench. Before the other men sleeping in the hall awoke, Rory rose silently and again climbed the stairs to their bedchamber. He prayed that after a night’s rest, Sybil would be less angry. With his heart in his throat, he rapped lightly on the door. Sybil did not answer.

He did not want to wake her, but he longed just to see her, to watch her in her sleep.

When he eased the door open, the room was empty, the bed not slept in. He stepped inside and turned slowly. Her shoes, which she usually left beside the bed, were gone, as was her cloak from the peg by the door.

His heart stopped in his chest. She’d left him.

God help him, was she out there alone? It was not safe for her to leave the castle. Sybil did not know these lands, had no kin or friends to give her help or protection. Yet she had wanted to be away from him so badly that she had gone anyway.

He ran down the steps, crossed the hall filled with snoring MacKenzies and Grants, and hurried to the stables.

“Have ye seen my wife?” he asked the stable lad.

“The lady asked me to saddle a horse for her,” the lad said. “She said you’d follow her soon and that it was a game ye were playing.”

A game?
“When was this?”

“Too early for riding, if ye ask me,” he said. “Sky held no more than a hint of dawn.”

Rory saddled and mounted Curan and headed to the gate, where he learned she’d used the same ruse to persuade the guards to open the gate. Ach, that lass could persuade a river to flow upstream if she set her mind to it.

“Lady Sybil told us she was not going far, and that the laird”—the guard paused and waggled his eyebrows—“would know where to find her.”

Rory closed his eyes. Without actually saying so, Sybil had managed to convince the guards that he and his bride were meeting for an outdoor tryst. If he found her quickly, no one would be the wiser.

“That wife of yours had such a fetching way about her when she said,
Don’t spoil our fun
.” The older guard tilted his head and batted his eyelashes in a ridiculous imitation. “Ach, brought back sweet memories from when the wife and I were newlyweds.”

Christ above
. “How long ago did she leave?”

“The sky was glowing pink with the coming dawn,” the older guard said.

The guard was a damned poet. Rory clenched his jaw to keep from shouting.

“In truth, we didn’t expect ye to keep her waiting.”

“How long has it been?” Rory asked.

“An hour, perhaps more,” the other guard said.

Rory stifled a curse. Sybil was a skilled rider, and she had a good lead on him.

“Keep our secret,” Rory said, and winked. “Not a word of this to anyone.”

He spurred his horse and galloped out the gate.
Please, God, keep her safe until I find her.
Wherever she was and however far she’d gone, he would find her. He had no notion how he would persuade her to come back with him once he did, but one way or another, he would bring her home.

Now that he had driven her away, he knew in his heart the only truth that mattered.

Sybil belonged with him.

When Rory came to the river, the trail split in opposite directions. Ignoring the branch that followed the river inland, he turned Curan east toward the sea, where Sybil could seek a boat to carry her away.

He had ridden no more than a half-mile from the castle when he saw her sitting on a rock by the river with her back to him and her horse grazing nearby. She appeared in no hurry.

Since she did not look as if she had taken a fall and injured herself, Rory dismounted and approached her quietly through the tall grass. He did not want to spook her. Sweat glistened on the horse’s back. She had ridden him hard and farther from the castle, but something had made her turn around. He hoped it was him.

When she looked over her shoulder and saw him, she did not seem surprised. He sat down beside her, careful not to touch her. He felt as if she had a protective layer around her that he should not attempt to breach, at least not yet.

“I was five miles down the trail,” she said, staring at the river. “Ye would never have caught me.”

He did not argue the point, though he most definitely would have found her and brought her home.

“I’m grateful ye decided to turn around.”

“I didn’t do it for you,” she said. “I did it for the boy.”

The boy?
It took him a long moment to realize she meant the Grant lad.

“I remembered my promise that I would be his friend and mind his back among you MacKenzies,” she said. “So I couldn’t leave yet.”

Yet.
The word hit him like a punch in the gut. The fact that she had no place she could go was no comfort.

“Let me explain,” he said.

“’Tis a bit late for that, don’t ye think?” she said. “I believe I understand all I need to know.”

“Ye don’t.”

“Ye have a son, ye refused to wed his mother,” she said, ticking her points off with her fingers, “and now that the poor lass is dead, her family expected ye to make things right through a marriage to her sister.”

“It sounds far worse than it is,” he said. “There’s more to the story, if you’ll only listen.”

“Oh, aye, there’s more,” she said. “I forgot to add that all the while ye were seducing innocent young lasses, ye believed ye were bound to wed me!”

Now she was being ridiculous, but he had the sense to bite his tongue. No man was expected to abstain before the marriage contract was consummated.

“Whether ye listen or no,” he said, “I’m going to tell ye what happened.”

“I can’t stop ye.”

“A few months before we fought at Flodden and I was taken prisoner, my father hosted a gathering of Highland chieftains,” Rory began his tale. “Grant brought his family, including his eldest daughter. I didn’t know at the time that Hector had an eye for the lass and had asked my father to negotiate a marriage between them during the gathering.”

Sybil folded her arms and turned her face away. Still, he knew she was listening.

“The lass was seventeen, beautiful and headstrong. As best I can guess, thinking about it afterward, she met Hector and decided to thwart the marriage plan.”

***

“She wished to wed you instead of Hector?” Sybil’s curiosity got the better of her, and the question slipped out.

“She didn’t wish to wed me,” he said. “She only wanted to use me to ruin the marriage arrangement with Hector.”

“What do ye mean by that?”

“Even as a bairn, I knew Hector had a deep grudge against me, but he kept it well hidden from everyone else while my father was alive,” he said. “Grant’s daughter was an astute and determined lass, and I believe she saw it.”

Despite herself, the thought of Rory as a child being the focus of his uncle’s hatred tugged at her heart. She would not, however, let sympathy for the boy he once was excuse how he had hurt and humiliated her.

“So she forced ye against your will, did she?” Sybil said, letting her voice drip with sarcasm.

“I was fifteen and not likely to say nay when a lass that beautiful told me to meet her in a storage room in the undercroft. I thought she meant for us to steal a few kisses,” Rory said. “I won’t say I was blameless, but when things moved quickly beyond kisses, my wits lagged behind.”

Sybil narrowed her eyes at him. “But it wasn’t just the one time ye met her, was it?”

Rory gave her a how-in-the-hell-did-you-know look and heaved a sigh. “Every time the lass crooked her finger, I went to meet her.”

Of course he did. “I take it her plan to avoid marrying Hector succeeded.”

“She told Hector she’d given her virginity to me,” Rory said. “That was a lie, but all Hector needed to hear was that I’d had her first.”

“What I don’t understand,” she said, “is why your fathers didn’t force you and the lass to wed.”