Time Travel Romances Boxed Set (75 page)

“
Once is once too often, to
a decent man’s way of thinking!” Alasdair angrily leapt to his
feet. “Tell me where I should find this Matthew James Reilly that
he might be taught what is right and proper!”

He glared down at the sorceress in outrage,
his hands on his hips. She looked up at him and slowly smiled, as
though she barely dared to believe his anger on her behalf.

“
You really would, wouldn’t
you?” she asked softly.

Alasdair’s heart twisted that she had been
so poorly used. “Aye. Do you doubt my pledge?”

Morgaine looked at him for a long moment but
did not answer his question. “Sit down,” she urged, “and I’ll tell
you what happened.”

Alasdair did as he was bidden, but his
indignation was not so readily dismissed. He wanted dearly to break
the nose, if not more, of this Matthew, but he fiddled roughly with
the cutlery instead. ’Twas not within him to sit still while his
anger boiled, but he forced himself to do the lady’s bidding.

Morgaine folded herself up on her seat, and
her gaze slipped off to the distance. “Things had been really bad,
but then suddenly they started to get better. He made all sorts of
promises, and although I know now what they were worth, at the
time, I really wanted to believe him. I really wanted my marriage
to work, maybe just on principle.

“
I thought we had reached
the bottom and all those promises, well, they had be believing
everything could be fixed. Where there’s a will, there’s a way and
all that.” She swallowed. “So, I trusted him.”

“
And he lied to you,”
Alasdair interjected savagely.

Morgaine’s expression was full of
disillusionment. “Yes. It seems so obvious now. He kept doing what
he was doing, but he didn’t rage at home anymore. He still ‘worked
late’ and everything, though. I guess I was too stupid to see the
signs.”

“’
Tis not stupidity to
trust someone held within one’s heart.”

Morgaine’s gaze locked with his own, and
Alasdair feared she saw more deeply into his heart than he might
have liked. Her lips parted, as though she would say something,
then she shook her head and concentrated on her interlocked
hands.

“
It was our anniversary.
Two whole years together. And I thought we had weathered the storm,
that things were getting better and that we had a rosy future to
celebrate. I was finishing my degree that year and had an offer for
a full-time job. Everything looked great.”

“
But ’twas not.”

“
No.” Morgaine swallowed.
“I came home early from class, planning to make a great dinner as a
surprise. I had bought a bottle of sparkling non-alcoholic wine and
some flowers.” Her eyes misted with unshed tears. “I think I might
have been singing, probably quite badly.”

Her lips thinned and her voice turned hard.
“I walked in on him humping some woman in our own bed.”

Morgaine plunged on with the telling before
Alasdair could even blink.

“
Well, all hell broke
loose. I dropped the wine, so there was no mystery that I was
there, and it splashed all over the place. The woman ran out
half-naked. Matt started to yell at me for interrupting him, if you
can believe it. And I finally snapped.”

The sorceress flung out her hands. “I
couldn’t believe that he had lied to me like that. I couldn’t
believe that everything I’d hoped for wasn’t going to happen. But I
had to believe it. It was literally laid out right in front of
me.”

Morgaine drew herself up taller. “And so,
for the first time, I told Matt exactly what I thought of him and
what he was doing. He yelled and” - she flushed - “I yelled
back.”

Her gaze flicked to Alasdair. “That was when
he hit me. He punched me in the eye.” She swallowed and frowned.
“It was like time stopped. We stared at each other, both of us
stunned at what he had done. I don’t know how I did it, but I just
turned and walked right out of there. I went straight to a hotel,
hired a lawyer, and never set foot in that place again.”

“
He must have tried to
speak to you.”

Morgaine’s lips set stubbornly. “After what
he had done, there was
nothing
to say.”

“
Aye,” Alasdair
acknowledged and leaned forward to reassure her. He touched her
shoulder, alarmed to find her trembling. “There is no excuse for
striking a woman, whatever tale such a man might concoct. You are
well rid of him and his kind.”

Morgaine’s lips twisted with the bitterness
of what she had borne. She looked up at him, doubtless showing more
vulnerability than she might have liked. Alasdair’s heart
twisted.

“
Aren’t all men of his
kind?” The words were uttered softly, as though her scar demanded
she ask the question, but her eyes were filled with the hope that
Alasdair would prove her wrong.

He captured both her hands in his own.
“Never would I strike a woman or break a pledge.”

“
But you might twist out of
it on a technicality.” Her expression was sad, and Alasdair
suddenly understood the full weight of the damage this Matthew had
wrought. Here was the measure he had to prove himself
beyond.

She propped her chin on her hands, the very
image of disappointment. Alasdair could well sympathize with the
shattering of her dreams, for marriage had fallen short of his own
expectations.

He felt a curious bond with the
sorceress.

“
You leave the inviting to
bed up to me, so that you won’t be the one to actively break your
wedding vows,” she observed quietly. “In the end, it’s all the
same, isn’t it?”

“
Nay, ’tis not at all the
same,” Alasdair declared with resolve.

“
Why note?”

“
Because Fenella is
dead.”

Morgaine blinked.

But Alasdair had no time for her surprise.
He ran a hand through his hair as the guilt flooded through him
anew. He had to tell her how it had been.

“
Yet you must understand,
my lady, Fenella’s death eats at my very soul. Though never I
struck her, her blood stains my hands all the same.” He met the
gaze of the astonished sorceress.

“’
Twas I who killed my
wife, as surely as if I had fitted my hands around her
neck.”

*

Alasdair had killed Fenella?

Surely Morgan had misunderstood!

But the highlander was staring at the floor,
his expression pained. He got to his feet and paced the width of
the room and back, as restless as a caged tiger.

It couldn’t be true. Morgan just knew it.
“What happened?”

“
I wanted a child, much as
you did,” Alasdair confessed hoarsely. “But my lady, I fear I did
not show your foresight in thinking of that child’s
future.”

He shook his head suddenly, frowning down at
his feet. “But let me begin with the first of the tale. I met
Fenella Macdonald first on the day of our nuptials, but I had long
heard repute of her wondrous beauty.”

Alasdair scowled in recollection and
Morgan’s blood ran cold. “Never will I forget the sight of her when
she swept from her sire’s ship. She was blonder than blonde, as
fair as the new snow, with lips as red as blood. Fenella was tall
and straight, slender and supple as a willow. She moved with the
grace of a queen and smiled at all who turned their faces upon
her.”

He swallowed visibly. “She was more
beauteous than any might have warned me. I was stunned she would be
my bride.”

Morgan fought against an irrational wave of
disappointment. Fenella was dead, she reminded herself fiercely,
but couldn’t help thinking that Alasdair’s heart was buried with
her.

It shouldn’t have bothered Morgan, she knew
it.

But it did.

She fought to sound disinterested. “Why was
she?”

Alasdair shot a bright glance Morgan’s way.
“Fenella’s sire took fearsome risk in taking the side of Robert the
Bruce in those days. The MacAulay legacy is a powerful one and the
wily old man saw advantage in having yet more warriors to his
banner. ’Twas the blood of Olaf the Black her sire wanted in the
veins of Fenella’s sons and ’tis that very blood that courses
through mine. My chieftain declared the match fine and my fate was
made.”

Alasdair had kept the word of his chieftain
and put his own plans aside, whatever they might have been. Despite
herself, Morgan felt her sense that he was a man of honor grow.

Alasdair passed a hand over his brow.
“Perhaps all might have been different if the expectations of the
Macdonald had not weighed heavily upon my heart. Nay, that is not
honest enough - ’Twas my own hope for children alone that drove my
insistence.”

“
And Fenella did not want
children?”

Alasdair’s features darkened and he turned
away. His single word was hoarsely uttered. “Nay.”

Morgan watched his hands clench behind his
back, working and gripping each other as though he would fight the
demons that haunted him with his fists. She waited and finally, he
tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling.

“
I insisted,” he confessed
in a low voice. “No doubt more than I should have. And Fenella
conceived. My gran saw bad portent in the scattering of blood from
the sow we slaughtered that fall, but I was jubilant. A child! I
was to be a father!”

He pivoted then and Morgan glimpsed the
flash of pain in his eyes. “But at what price?” he asked so low
that he might have been asking himself.

“
What happened? I thought
you had a son?”

“
Aye, a bonny boy, healthy
from the first. He gave such a bellow when first he drew breath
that the dead stirred in the cemetery three miles
distant.”

A proud smile toyed with Alasdair’s firm
lips as he recalled that day. Morgan’s breath caught as she
imagined this man and the father he would be.

Alasdair suddenly sobered and stared down at
his feet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice caught. “But
Fenella died in the delivering of him.”

That was why he held himself responsible?
Because he had wanted a child? Morgan was on her feet in an
instant, compassion making her rush to reassure him. “But you can’t
blame yourself! You couldn’t have known!”

Alasdair’s glare was fierce. “I
should
have known!”

“
How could you have known?
Was she a delicate woman?”

Alasdair glared at Morgan. “As hale as a
horse was Fenella, nigh as tall as me and strong beyond all. But
’tis no small risk a woman takes in bearing a child. I
knew
this, but could not look beyond my own hopes!”

Before Morgan could argue, Alasdair cast his
hands skyward and stalked across the room. “Fenella is
gone
because of my selfish desire, and I, I have only my guilt to warm
me at night.” He caught his breath and Morgan’s heart ached in
sympathy.

He still loved his wife, with the same
passion he had loved her then. And Alasdair would spend the rest of
his life blaming himself for what he had done.

What would Morgan give to have a man love
her the way Alasdair loved Fenella?

“
What about your son?” she
managed to ask.

Alasdair exhaled raggedly. “I have not seen
him these seven years.”

“
What?”

“
He was but a babe when I
left, a babe with his mother’s eyes.”

A reminder of his lost beloved that would
torment Alasdair every time he looked at the boy. Morgan’s heart
twisted. No wonder he had left the island - he hadn’t been able to
bear to look at his child.

“
Is that why you left
Lewis?” she asked softly.

Alasdair glanced over his shoulder. “I left
Lewis to prove I am the man I know myself to be.”

Morgan frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“
There are those, my lady,
who share your low esteem of men in general, or of me in
particular. After Fenella’s death, many cruel words were aired
regarding the fate she had met in the embrace of the MacAulay clan.
There were tales that I had treated her as this Matthew treated
you. There was talk that I had failed to fulfill my clan’s
obligation to the mighty Macdonalds, and they are quick to take
offense.”

His eyes narrowed dangerously. “But I am not
this manner of man, though indeed I erred in pressing her to bear a
child. The burden of that I will bear for all my days.”

He shook one heavy finger at Morgan. “Never
would I raise a hand towards a woman. And never would I break a vow
granted to another. I followed Robert the Bruce, a man of valor, to
prove that I am of his ilk. I took the cause of Fenella’s sire to
prove to him that I am the man he believed me once to be. I risked
my hide, I left my son, I abandoned my home to prove my clan’s
loyalty to the Macdonald allegiance.”

His determination was a tangible force in
the room. Morgan felt ashamed that she had ever doubted him.

Alasdair eyed Morgan for a moment, then
shook his head slightly. “A man’s word is his bond, my lady.
Already you have witnessed my resolve in this - I repeat my pledge
to not drink whisky in your domain. Your protest against the spirit
is one all too common and I respect your will in this.”

Morgan tried to be nonchalant. “It’s not
that easy, you know. You could be setting yourself up here. I mean,
if you drink a lot, you can’t just stop like that.”

“
Is this the excuse your
Matthew granted you?” Alasdair’s lip curled and he dropped into the
opposite chair once more. “Know this, my lady, I have granted my
word and will keep it, regardless of the cost. Robert the Bruce has
shown that a man has only to believe in a thing to make it so. Do
you know the tale of the spider?”