The Sinner (13 page)

A
lex was in the stable behind the tavern getting the horses when he heard running footsteps behind him. But it was only the tavern keeper’s daughter, so he put away his dirk. She was a stout lass of seventeen or so, and it took her a moment to get her breath.

“Were ye able to find a clean gown for the wee lass with that coin I gave ye?” he asked.

Alex was relieved that Glynis had insisted on giving the child a bath at the tavern because he never would have attempted it himself. Sorcha was so filthy, however, that he had planned to dunk her in the first loch they came to.

“I found a gown, but that’s not what I’ve come to tell ye,” the young woman said between gasps. “There are royal guards inside asking for ye. I told them we hadn’t seen ye since yesterday, but they won’t leave, and they’re watching the door.”

Damn, they’d come early. The regent was anxious to lock him away again.

“Can ye bring my friends out the back without the guards seeing ye?” he asked. When the young woman gave him an earnest nod, he took her by the shoulders and kissed her cheek. “Thank ye. This is kind of ye.”

The lass blushed almost purple and hurried back inside.

A short time later, Alex and his three female charges rode out the back with the guards none the wiser.

“See how well Sorcha sits on a horse,” Alex said, as he held his daughter in front of him on Rosebud. “She must get that from me—’tis in the blood, ye know.”

Glynis gave him an indulgent smile. She was looking as pretty as could be on Buttercup.

“Relax, Bessie,” Alex told the maid because she was sitting as stiff as poker behind Glynis and holding her in a death grip.

“Ye call this enormous beast with the devil eyes Buttercup?” Bessie asked. “It tried to bite me!”

“Ach, ye are upsetting her.” He reached over and patted Buttercup.

Glynis covered her mouth to stifle a laugh.

“Those are D’Arcy’s men,” Alex said, pointing at the group gathered in front of the palace gate. He wished they were meeting anywhere but here, but he didn’t think the regent’s men would try to take him in front of D’Arcy.

D’Arcy spotted him and rode toward them, his white scarf blowing in the breeze.

“I feared you would not be joining us.” D’Arcy flashed a white-toothed smile at Glynis and Sorcha. “Are these lovely ladies here to see us off?”

“They are traveling with me,” Alex said.

“What a delightful surprise,” D’Arcy said, his gaze lingering on Glynis.

Alex turned to Glynis. “I apologize for speaking in French, but I don’t know if my friend here speaks anything else.”

“Is that Gaelic you are speaking to this lovely lady?” D’Arcy said. “I can’t speak Gaelic, but I know a bit of Scots.”

“She doesn’t,” Alex lied. “Shame, but I fear ye won’t be able to speak to her at all.”

“With women, it is possible to speak with only the eyes,” D’Arcy said, his gaze never leaving her face.

Ach, Frenchmen.

“What did he say?” Glynis asked.

“He wants to know where the privy is,” Alex said. “He needs to take a piss before we leave.”

Glynis’s eyebrows shot up, and she flushed a becoming shade of pink.

“What is the lady’s name?” D’Arcy asked.

“Glynis MacNeil.” Alex begrudged him the information. But since they would be traveling together all the way to the Campbell stronghold of Inveraray, he could not very well keep her name a secret.

“Is she yours?” D’arcy asked.

“Nay, she’s no mine.” Then, for no good reason, he added, “Not precisely.”

Why was he doing this? There could be no better man for Glynis. Lord Antoine d’Arcy was a champion knight who held important titles and lands in France and was closely connected to Scotland’s new regent. In addition, he had the personal virtues of being brave, honest, and conscientious. It was those qualities—rather than that ridiculous white scarf—that had earned D’Arcy the nickname the White Knight.

In fact, D’Arcy was so virtuous as to be a trifle dull. And he was not a Highlander, but the man could not help his birth.

“What has he been doing in Scotland?” Glynis asked.

Alex translated her question and groaned under his breath when he heard D’Arcy’s response.

“D’Arcy designed the new artillery and blockhouse at Dunbar Castle, to secure it in preparation for Albany’s return.” Alex cleared his throat. “And he designed the new artillery works here at Edinburgh Castle as well.”

Ach, being rich and titled was not enough? Must the man be brilliant as well?

“My, that is impressive,” Glynis said, nodding at D’Arcy.

“I suspect he also walks on water.” Alex found his friend’s list of accomplishments rather tedious.

“Your current lady is quite unlike the ones you had in France,” D’Arcy said, drawing Alex’s attention again. “She has a subtle beauty that is far more intriguing.”

“She is not my ‘current lady,’” Alex said between his teeth. He did not want D’Arcy thinking Glynis was that sort.

D’Arcy took his eyes off Glynis long enough to raise his eyebrows at Alex. “Then she is available, no?”

“Not in the way that ye are suggesting,” Alex said. “Shouldn’t ye be gathering your men? ’Tis no getting any earlier.”

“I have an extra mule the maid can ride,” D’Arcy said. “The lady will be more comfortable riding alone.”

When D’Arcy turned his horse to rejoin his men, Alex looked down to find that Sorcha had her face pressed against him. He could have kicked himself for letting his irritation with D’Arcy show. The child was so sensitive to his moods that he would have to be more careful.

“Nothing to worry about, little one,” he said, patting her soft hair. “No one here will harm ye.”

“’Tis fortunate we could join Lord d’Arcy’s group,” Glynis said, as they started off.

“Hmmph.” Alex would have preferred to travel separately, but traveling with D’Arcy’s men would be safer. With three females in his care, Alex had no choice.

As they rode out of the city, Alex tried desperately to think of what he would do with his daughter once they reached Skye. He could give her to his mother to raise—but he feared his parents would fight as much over a grandchild as they had over a son.

For a mile or two, he considered leaving Sorcha with his cousin Ian and his wife, as Sabine had suggested. But those twins were going to be terrors. Having been one himself, Alex could recognize the trait. Nay, that would not do at all.

He looked down at Sorcha, who had fallen asleep against him, and sighed. The deeper truth was that he did not want to give up his daughter. He never would have predicted that he would feel this way, but he did not question it, either. The problem was that he could not raise her alone—a girl needed a mother.

Alex tried mightily, but there was no avoiding the obvious conclusion. To keep his daughter close, he would have to shackle himself to a wife. He had been fooling himself, in any case, to believe he could escape matrimony forever. Neither his parents nor Connor would give him any peace until he stepped off that cliff.

He did not want a wife. But, like it or not, he had a sudden need for one.

The image of Glynis standing in front of rearing horses with a dirk in one hand and a bloody stick in the other came into his mind. She would make a fiercely protective mother. After Sabine’s indifference, that was precisely the kind of mother his daughter needed and deserved.

Múineann gá seift.
Need teaches a plan. He could solve all his problems with one stroke—and the answer was riding right beside him.

Glynis was at the top of Connor’s list of marriage prospects, so Alex could do his duty by his clan and provide a good mother for Sorcha at the same time. And it didn’t hurt that he had this abiding itch to bed the very woman who would suit both purposes so well.

Glynis needed a husband, and he needed a wife. Alex was sure he could work out a sensible arrangement with her.

He turned and gave Glynis a wide smile.

As the saying went, get bait while the tide is out.

What was Alex doing, smiling and winking at her like that, for anyone to see?

“I’d like to sneak off with ye and share a blanket under the stars tonight,” Alex said.

Glynis glanced about her, blushing to her roots. Fortunately, the riders had strung out along the trail so that no one else was within earshot. Bessie appeared to be enjoying herself overmuch, chatting with D’Arcy’s manservant at the back of the group.

“Ye have your daughter with ye,” she hissed.

“I missed ye in my bed last night,” Alex said. “I couldn’t sleep at all.”

“Alex, hush!” she said. “I’m sure ye say that to all your women.”

“Nay, I never tell women I miss them.”

Glynis did not know what to make of that. Despite herself, she was flattered that Alex still wanted her. But then, they had a long journey ahead, and there were no other women, save for Bessie, who had a good twenty years on him.

“What happened between us should not have,” she said, turning to speak to him in a low voice. “And ye know verra well it cannot happen again.”

“Why not?”

What a maddening man. “I only did it because no one would ever find out,” she hissed. “And because I never expected to see ye again.”

“Ye do want to,” Alex said, giving her that smoldering look that made her chest so tight she could hardly draw breath.

His hair brushed his shoulders, and she remembered gripping it in her fingers. And how it felt to have him deep inside her, saying her name over and over.

Aye, she wanted to.

“It doesn’t matter whether I want to or no,” she said. “I cannot, and I will not.”

G
lynis sat with Sorcha on her lap while Alex fed sticks into the fire. After four nights, they had their routine. They ate supper with D’Arcy and his men around the main campfire, and then Alex built them a separate fire several yards away from the others. He had also fashioned a tent from extra blankets for Glynis, Bessie, and Sorcha, to give them privacy from the men. Bessie, who was not accustomed to long days of riding, was already asleep inside it.

The firelight glinted off Alex’s fair hair and the strong lines of his perfect face. Though it was growing chilly, he pushed his sleeves up, revealing his tautly muscled forearms. When he caught her staring at him, he pinned her with a sizzling look. Then he slid his gaze over her from head to toe, with pauses in between, making her feel as if he was running his fingers over her naked skin.

Glynis knew what he wanted because she wanted it, too. Her resistance had worn thin, riding next to him all day and then sleeping a few feet away from him each night. Traveling the same trail made her recall all too clearly how they had spent their nights on their way to Edinburgh.

She would not bring shame upon herself and her family by having an open affair with Alex. But she had come to the conclusion that if there was any way she could have a secret one again, she would. Since that appeared utterly impossible with the child and the maid and twenty men a stone’s throw away, Glynis resolutely focused her attention on Sorcha.

“One, two, three…four,” she repeated in Gaelic, as she held up the child’s fingers. “Five…six…seven…” Glynis felt Alex’s eyes on her and turned to him. “Stop looking at me like that.”

A slow smile spread over his face. “Like I want ye? I can’t help it, Glynis. I do.”

“Watch what ye say,” she whispered. “Ye don’t know how much Gaelic the child understands already.” Despite the fact that Sorcha’s head lay heavy against Glynis’s chest and her eyelids were drifting shut, Glynis continued. “Eight, nine—”

“For God’s sake, Glynis, let the poor child sleep.” Alex scooped Sorcha up in his arms, then he paused and looked down at his daughter with a soft smile. “I’m looking forward to taking her sailing. Ye can see that the Viking blood is strong in her, just as it is in me.”

“Aye,” Glynis said, thinking they made an extraordinary pair with their fair hair shining in the firelight. “And when ye took her in the loch today, she swam like a wee fish.”

Alex laid Sorcha inside the tent next to Bessie. When he returned, he sat close enough to Glynis that his sleeve brushed hers. She stared into the fire and tried to make herself breathe normally.

“I have a proposition for ye,” Alex said.

Glynis’s stomach did a little flip. “A proposition?”

She hoped her voice didn’t sound as stiff and prim to him as it did to her. Did he have to put it to her formally? This would be easier if he sneaked off with her into the darkness, swept her into his arms, and covered her with kisses. But it was like Alex not to let her pretend he had seduced her. Nay, he would make her acknowledge that she chose to sin with him.

“I want to.” She was gripping the skirt of her gown so tightly that her knuckles were white. Could he not just get on with it?

“I haven’t told ye the proposition yet.”

“Must ye always tease me?” Glynis was so embarrassed she could not look at him. “I told ye the answer is aye. But not now—we must wait until we are certain all the men are asleep so no one sees us.”

Alex touched her elbow, sending sparks of heat up her arm.

“I don’t mean to tease ye,” he said in a low voice that reverberated through her. “And I’m not propositioning ye, if that’s what ye think.”

Heat drenched through her. It was ten times—nay, a hundred times—more embarrassing to say aye to a proposition that was not given, than to one that was.

“Wait,” Alex said, holding her arm as she tried to pull away.

She felt hurt, as well as humiliated, and she wanted to be away from him.

“Glynis, listen to me.” She struggled against him, but he held her in a firm grip. “I do want to bed ye.”

This was too mortifying. “Let me go, Alex.”

He turned her face toward him. “Believe me, I do want ye.”

The roughness in his voice and the heat in his eyes made her feel confused and flustered. Did he want her or no?

“Bedding ye is part of what I’m asking ye,” he said, his green eyes intent on hers. “But it’s no the most important part.”

There was something more important to Alex MacDonald than swiving? Now there was a surprise.

“What else do ye want of me?” She could not think with him so close.

Alex released her and cleared his throat. For a man who was usually so at ease, he suddenly seemed uncomfortable in his own skin. All her instincts were on alert, telling her to be wary. Whatever Alex was about to ask her, he surely did not want to.

“Marriage.” Alex said it on an exhale, as if forcing the word out. “That’s what I’m asking.”

“Marriage?” Glynis could not have been more astonished if a dozen fairies had joined them at their campfire.

“Ye will have to take another husband,” Alex said. “Surely ye can see that now?”

She had been trying to reconcile herself to the notion since discovering that her mother’s family was just as adamant as her father was about seeing her remarried. But it was a bitter medicine to swallow.

“As distasteful as it is to me to wed again, I admit that I may have no choice in the end,” she said. “But you, Alex, ye cannot seriously want a wife.”

“My daughter needs a mother,” he said.

Of course, that was what prompted this. Why had she not thought of it at once?

“Why me?” she asked. “There are plenty of women—including chieftains’ daughters—who want a husband.”

“Sorcha warmed to ye from the start,” Alex said. “She’s become attached to ye, and I believe ye have to her as well.”

An unexpected swell of disappointment filled Glynis’s chest.

“You’d be a good mother to her,” he said.

“And that is the reason ye ask me to be your wife?” Her voice was sharper than she intended.

“We get along well enough.” Alex shrugged and gave her his devilish smile. “Especially in bed.”

“So going to bed with ye would be part of my duties, in addition to playing nursemaid?” she snapped. “For how long, Alex?”

When his eyes darted like a trapped animal, Glynis felt as if her heart were being squeezed by a fist.

“Ye heard what I did to my first husband.” She deliberately looked at his crotch. “Are ye no afraid I’ll cut it off?”

Alex threw his head back and laughed. “I do like your spark, Glynis.”

If he could keep things light and easy between them, all would be well—or, at least, well enough. He was determined to raise his daughter in a home without the fights and screaming that he grew up with. From his parents, he’d learned that one strong emotion led too easily to another, that love could turn to hate. And hate lasted far longer.

Magnus Clanranald had made the same mistake that Alex’s father had, embarrassing his wife by being brazen about his other women. There was no need for that. A good husband was sensitive to his wife’s feelings. If Alex could not control his urges, then he’d keep his affairs brief and out of Glynis’s sight.

“I’d always respect ye.” Alex looked into the fire and spoke to her from his heart. “I promise I would never embarrass ye. I would always be discreet.”

Both his parents had told him countless times that it was not in his blood to be content with one woman. But at the moment, at least, all his urges involved Glynis. He would not be satisfied until he had her a hundred different ways. By the saints, he wanted this woman as he’d never wanted another. The last four days and nights had nearly killed him.

He turned, intent on dragging her off into the bushes at last. But he stopped short when he saw that the fire burning in her eyes was not the sort he had been hoping for.

“Oouu!” The sound she emitted as she sprang to her feet made him glad there was no crockery about for her to throw at him. Apparently, promising to be discreet had been the wrong thing to say. He stood up and considered how best to soothe her.

“What woman,” she said, planting her fists on her hips, “could say nay to having such a considerate husband?”

“I don’t want to lie to ye,” he said. “I’ve never tried to be faithful, so I don’t know if I can.”

“Ye are a born romantic, Alexander Bàn MacDonald.”

Good lord, did hardheaded Glynis MacNeil expect love? He’d had no notion she harbored such hopes.

“I thought your first marriage would have cured ye of unreasonable expectations,” he said—and knew at once he had made another a mistake.

“So, I am the unreasonable one?” Her eyes were narrow slits like a wildcat’s ready to strike. “And yet, ye would expect me to mother your daughter, manage your household, and be your bedmate for as long as ye like. And then, when ye tire of having me in your bed, I’m to stand aside while ye have one ‘discreet’ affair after another with every willing woman in the Western Isles?”

Alex shifted from foot to foot. He did not sleep with
every
willing woman, but it seemed best not to mention that just now.

“And because ye are such a handsome, charming man,” she said, spreading her hands out, “I would, of course, agree to this arrangement.”

“Ye are a sensible woman,” he said, though he was having serious doubts about this. “Ye have to marry someone, and I’m no worse than most.”

Not much worse, anyway.

“Besides,” he added, “ye already went to bed with me, so we ought to marry.”

“I presume,” she continued, as though he had not spoken, “that I could have affairs as well, so long as I was
discreet
.”

“Nay.” The word was out of his mouth before he thought it. He would have to kill any man who touched his wife, but he thought better of telling her this. “Suppose ye became pregnant? I’d need to know that the child was mine.”

“Setting aside the fact that I’m verra likely barren,” she said. “You’re saying it would be well and good for me to raise your children by other women, but no the other way around.”

“Aye.” That was the way of the world. Why did she make it sound as if he had invented it? “But I only have the one child.”

“So far.” She folded her arms. “I appreciate that ye blessed me with your kind offer, but I will not marry another philanderer. If I am forced to take another husband, I’ll wed a steady, serious man I can rely on.”

He reached for her hand, but she snatched it away.

“You, Alexander Bàn MacDonald,” she said, poking her finger into his chest, “are the verra last man in all of the Highlands I would want for a husband.”

Sorcha opened her eyes to blackness, and fear rushed through her. When she heard the soft breathing of the women on either side of her, she knew she was not back in the room with the big mice. Still, she wanted to see the stars to be sure.

Taking care not to wake Glynis and Bessie, she crawled out of the tent on her hands and knees. Across the cold campfire, her father sat alone in the dark. He was no more than a black shape, but she knew it was him. And he was sad.

The grass made her feet wet as she walked around the campfire to him.

“Ye couldn’t sleep either?” he asked in a soft voice when she crawled into his lap.

She nodded against his chest and pointed up at the stars.

“A wish?” He always seemed to understand her. She felt him chuckle, and he said, “I suppose it can’t hurt.”

Together they found the brightest star so he could make his wish.

Sorcha didn’t need to make one. Hers had been granted when her father found her.