Claimed by the Highlander (27 page)

Angus’s heart lurched with something remote and forceful and mystifying. He reached out and pulled Gwendolen into his arms. All he wanted to do was hold her, protect her, care for her—and celebrate the fact that their quarrels were behind them now. There were no more secrets. She knew all his sins, and still, she was willing to forgive.

As was he.

He took her face in his hands and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “I am sorry for the loss of your brother. I know you cared for him and imagined that he would be your protector. I would have preferred to give him land and welcome him as a brother, if he had been willing to accept me. This is not what I wanted.”

She nodded and sat back, wiping a tear from her eye. “Thank you. But there is one last thing I must ask of you, Angus. A favor.” She swallowed hard and spoke decisively. “Please send Raonaid away.”

He lowered his hand to his side and sat back.

“I realize that you value her gifts as an oracle, but clearly she was wrong about the future, because I will no longer have any cause to betray you. We do not need her, and I don’t want her here. She was your lover. You must understand. She will only tear us apart. I believe she wants you for herself and means to sabotage our marriage.”

“She wants no such thing,” he told her. “Raonaid is not sentimental. She cares for no one. You are imagining things.”

It was the wrong thing to say. He knew it when he saw the color rush to her cheeks.

“If you think that, then you are blind,” she said defiantly.

He was reminded suddenly of that first day, when she challenged his authority in the Great Hall, and he dragged her to his private chamber to teach her a lesson about defiance and disobedience. But was he willing to treat her that way now? After all they had been through together?

No, he was not. But was she correct about Raonaid? Did his former lover want him back?

Did it even matter in the end?

“I will speak to her,” he said, “and I will send her away, if it will make you happy.”

Gwendolen looked toward the waterfall. “Yes, it will. Can we go home now?”

He rose to his feet and offered his hand, but she kept her gaze lowered as he assisted her onto the horse.

Chapter Twenty-three

Angus found Raonaid in the village alehouse, seated like a proper hostess at a dinner table, at the far end of one of the long planked tables. Laughter and the clatter of plates and pewter tankards filled the air. A few clansmen were crowded around her, singing and clacking their mugs together in a chorus of cheer.

Angus strode the length of the long table and rested his hand on one man’s shoulder. “If you’ll pardon the interruption, I need to borrow this lassie for a minute or two.”

“If you’re looking to have your fortunes read, chief, you best have coins in your sporran! She drives a hard bargain, this one does!”

The others laughed merrily.

“I already know my fortune,” Angus replied, as he held out a hand to Raonaid.

She glanced at it with cool suspicion, then finally let him escort her to the door.

Outside, the rain had stopped, the clouds had moved on, and the sun was shining. Raonaid lifted a hand to shade her eyes. “What time is it?” she asked.

The smell of whisky on her breath wafted to Angus’s nostrils, and yet she showed no signs of drunkenness, for she could hold her liquor as well as any sword-swinging Highlander.

“Have you been in there all day, Raonaid?”

Her piercing blue eyes turned to him, and when she spoke, her voice was melancholy. “Does it really matter to you?”

He regarded her for a prolonged moment in the hazy afternoon light, and recalled a time when they had found pleasure and solace in each other’s arms. She had helped him through a difficult chapter in his life, and he, in turn, had been a friend to her when she had none.

But just as often, they had clashed passionately and fought for days on end. Most arguments ended with Raonaid smashing something.

“Let me help you into the saddle,” he said, crossing to his horse and gathering up the reins.

“I don’t need your help.”

Angus was in no mood to argue, so he waited for her to mount on her own, then swung up behind her. Together, they trotted toward the creek.

The distance was not great, so Angus was surprised when she tilted her head back and fell asleep on his shoulder.

He was careful to walk the horse most of the way over easy terrain. Thankfully they were the only travelers on the bridal path that led him into the forest, where he drank in the fresh scent of the pines and contemplated what he was going to say to Raonaid and how he was going to say it.

When they reached the creek, which flowed deep and still through a quiet green glade, he urged his horse out of the shady forest and shook her awake.

Disoriented and confused, she turned slightly in the saddle. “How long was I asleep?”

“Not long.” Angus dismounted and tethered his horse to a branch, then held his arms out to her.

This time she accepted his assistance and rested her hands on the tops of his shoulders. With a sleepy sigh, she slid gracefully down from the saddle.

“Always so gallant and strong,” she murmured with an appreciative grin as she ran her hands over the width of his chest.

Angus immediately clamped her wrists and held them away.

She regarded him with questioning eyes, as if gauging his true desires and the strength of his devotion to his wife. Then at last, she stepped back and turned toward the water.

“What am I doing here?” she asked.

“You’re an oracle,” he replied. “Did you not see this coming?”

“See what?” she asked over her shoulder. “That you wish for me to leave? Why? Because your pretty MacEwen wife does not approve of my presence here? Is she afraid that I’ll lure you back to my bed?”

He frowned. “Is that your plan, Raonaid?”

She knelt down, picked up a stone, and tossed it into the water. “I haven’t decided yet.”

Angus watched her as she searched for another stone, found one and picked it up. She turned it over in her palm, dropped it onto the ground, then went looking for another.

Moving forward, he too began searching for a certain kind of stone, picked one up and handed it to her. She inspected it carefully, then hauled back and pitched it upstream.

Angus watched her resume her searching and decided it was time to say what must be said. “You cannot stay here, Raonaid. Surely you know that.”

She swung around and exhaled with agitation. “After I came all this way to keep my promise to you? That is all you can say to me?”

She glared at him like a hissing cat, turned around and waded into the creek. He took an anxious step forward to follow—for he never knew what to expect from Raonaid. She was quick-tempered and volatile. It wouldn’t surprise him if she tried to drown herself right then and there.

But she only splashed water on her face and waded out again.

Sitting down on the grassy shore, she tipped her head back and looked up at the sky, basking in the sun. “Why don’t you come over here,” she said, patting the ground beside her, “and lie down with me. There’s no one around to see. You can slide up under my skirts if you like, or I could do that swirling thing with my tongue that you like so much.” When he did not respond, she added, “A few minutes with me might help you see things more clearly.”

He stood behind her, staring at the back of her head. “How so?”

“If you remember what it was like between us in the Hebrides, you might let go of the foolish notion that your wife is your one and only true love. That’s what you think, isn’t it? When you take her to bed, you believe that you are her true love as well, and always will be.”

His gut clenched with annoyance, and he spoke in a low growl. “She is my wife, Raonaid. Mind what comes out of your mouth.”

She smiled up at him deviously. “But I have so many interesting things to say. I still maintain that she will betray you. When her brother returns, she will choose him over you, and you will be dead because of it. The MacEwens will rule here once again, and when you are burning in hell with that rope around your neck, you will wish you had listened to me.”

Angus rested his hand on the hilt of his sword, and watched the shiny water in the creek churn and flow slowly downstream. After a moment of quiet reflection, he sat down in the grass beside her.

“You truly believe that her brother will return, and that she will take steps to make him chief?”

“I know she will,” she replied confidently. “Which is why you should not send me away. If anyone should be banished, it is the wife you claimed by force, who never wanted you in the first place. You were her enemy, Angus. She wanted you dead the very moment you stormed the castle gates.”

He sat forward and looked at her intently. The loose tendrils of her hair hung in graceful curls around her face, but nothing could soften the shrewd, determined vengefulness in her eyes.

“Why did you not tell me about Gwendolen when you first saw my triumph in the stones?” he asked. “You saw everything else—my father’s death, Lachlan’s arrival, and the faithful army he would help me to raise. You described the battle in great detail, as well as the feast that would celebrate my return. But you said nothing of Gwendolen.”

Raonaid shook her head, as if she did not quite understand it herself. “She was never there. It was as if she did not exist.”

A blackbird fluttered suddenly out of a treetop, and they both looked up in surprise. Then Raonaid inched closer. She reached under his kilt and slid a hand up his thigh, and was just about to enter forbidden territory when he grabbed hold of her wrist. “That’s off limits now, Raonaid. Only one woman is allowed under there.”

Her eyes narrowed with frustration. “You’re a fool if you think you’ll be happier with her than you were with me. You should never have come back here. You should have left this place to rot.”

“And stayed with you instead?”

“Aye.”

He saw the unhappiness in her expression, the malevolence and loneliness, and could not bring himself to be harsh, even though he knew she was not what he once believed her to be. She did not know him as well as she thought she did. And she did not see everything.

“Murdoch is dead,” he told her. “He’ll not be returning to reclaim Kinloch.”

Raonaid sat back and stared at him with a wrinkled brow. “Who told you this? Your wife? She’s just trying to divert your attentions, so that you will send me away. She’s afraid you will make me your mistress.”

“Nay, she was not the one who informed me. I was the one who delivered the news to her.”

Raonaid grimaced. “And you believe this is true?”

“Of course I believe it. It was my own man—a trusted and dependable MacDonald—who found Murdoch on his deathbed in France.”

Raonaid stood up and stalked to the river’s edge. “Your wife throws rocks at my visions!” she said. “She makes me doubt what I see!”

Angus rose to his feet and spoke firmly. “That’s because the future is always changing. Everything we do makes a difference from one minute to the next. What existed in the stones when I left Calanais no longer exists now. Gwendolen despised me when I invaded, but her feelings have changed. Her actions would no longer coincide with what you saw in the stones all those weeks ago.”

He realized suddenly that everything had come spilling out of his mouth before he’d truly pondered the truth of it. But there it was.

Raonaid regarded him with a hellish fire in her eyes. She was shocked, and in some ways, affronted, for he had found fault with her special gift—the one thing that set her above the rest of the world. It was what separated her from the common man, and removed the necessity of interaction. It provided her with a reason to live alone.

He moved closer. “You can change your own future, too,” he said.

She was not willing to listen, however. Her mouth twisted wryly. “You’re only sending me away because
she
told you to do it. She’s jealous of me. She fears me.”

“Most people do,” he replied, “and I can hardly blame them.” He turned away. “I’ll take you back to the castle now and provide you with supplies and enough coin to get you anywhere you wish to go. But you must leave in the morning, Raonaid, and never return.”

“You’ll regret this,” she snarled. “One day soon, you’ll wish you had kept me.”

Angus reached for the reins to untie his horse. “It’s time to go.”

“Wait!” Raonaid stalked after him, and the harshness in her voice softened. “Please don’t send me away. At least let me stay in the village. You can come to me secretly whenever you wish. I’ll use the bones and potions in my basket to read your future, and you can use me in bed, however you like.”

“I don’t want to
use
you!” he replied. “You deserve better than that.”

Her eyes clouded over with dismay, and she backed away from him. “Mark my words, that bony wife of yours is going to dirk you in your sleep.”

He untied the horse’s reins. “You’re wrong, and that’s why I want you gone from here. I will not let you poison my head with evil and falsehoods.” He faced her. “Now get on the horse, Raonaid. We’re going back. You’ll leave in the morning.”