She felt a flicker of disquiet that she forced away. He would never betray her—even in the name of “right.”
“And they believed you?” she asked.
He gave her a wry smile, the first break in the grim exterior since he’d entered the room. “Aye. I suspect they knew our disagreement had something to do with you, but it seems my reputation comes in handy on occasion. They both knew I would not kill a man in cold blood—I imagine they would have been rather shocked to know how close I’d come to doing just that. But I did have some unexpected help from your former guardian.”
“Sir Hugh?”
He nodded. “Apparently this isn’t the first time Gifford has been accused of putting a knife in someone’s back. He was seen fighting with a Welsh soldier, and when the man later showed up dead—with a knife wound to the back—Gifford was widely thought responsible but no one could prove it.” He paused. “The Welshman reputedly had a very beautiful wife.”
Joan’s mouth pursed with disgust, although she was not surprised. She was glad, however, very glad that Alex was not in trouble because of her.
And Sir Phillip was out of her life forever. She would never again have to see the mocking eyes of the man who’d raped her. Was it so horrible to be relieved?
“Then it’s over?” she asked, not daring to believe it.
He nodded and opened his arms. She rushed into them as she’d been wanting to do since he walked in the door. “Aye, my love, it’s over.”
She allowed herself to be swallowed in his embrace and take all the comfort he offered. His chest was a rock, his arms an anchor, and all that strength and solidity seemed to flow through her. She’d never had to or wanted to rely on anyone like this before, but it was . . . nice. She felt her pulse slow, felt the chill leave her bones, and felt her frayed nerves begin to unwind.
Taking a deep breath, she pulled away and took a step back. If he was holding her while she did this, she might cry. After all Alex had done for her, he deserved to know the truth about the man he’d killed.
Taking his lead from earlier, Joan spoke as matter-of-factly and dispassionately as she could about what had happened. But it wasn’t easy; she’d never spoken of it before to anyone. It was her secret. Her shame. And she wanted to keep it that way. But Alex had a right to know.
“You were right. I was leaving something out. It happened a long time ago, and I’ve forgotten about it.” She stopped. She would not lie to him. Not about this, at least. “Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that I’ve tried not to dwell on it. But there was more to my history with Phillip than I alluded to.”
She dropped her gaze, but telling herself not to be embarrassed, she forced it to meet his again and drew a deep breath. “When I was fifteen, I fancied myself in love with him. I was young and naive and prone to daydreams of handsome golden-haired young knights.” She paused to give him a wry look. “I’d seen one at Roxburgh not that long before who’d made quite an impression on me, and I convinced myself that Phillip—a new squire to my guardian—was the embodiment of every young girl’s fantasy I’d ever had. He played the part well. He was charming, gallant, and doted on me as if I were a princess. I think he was genuinely wooing me for marriage.” She shuddered at the idea. “For a time, that is.”
She thought back to those seemingly happy days and frowned. “There were small signs he was not the man I thought.” She recalled the time she’d walked in on him alone in the stables with a serving girl, whom he’d claimed to not know, and the time he’d come back from the village drunk with a mark on his neck that now she recognized as a love bite. “But I chose not to see them. Just as I chose not to see the subtle changes in his behavior toward me after I was declared a bastard and disinherited.”
She could see the tension growing in Alex, and realized he’d probably guessed the direction this story was heading. But he seemed determined to let her finish. It was one of the things she loved about him; he respected her not just with his words but with his actions. She hoped what she was about to tell him wouldn’t change his opinion of her.
“Go on,” he said encouragingly, but with a definite edge in his voice.
She drew a deep breath. This was the hard part. This was the part where her fantasy had been crushed, stomped on, and shattered—she’d thought forever. “We’d gone off a few times together before. Phillip had snuck a few chaste kisses, but never attempted anything more. He had always been so respectful, I never dreamed . . .” Knowing she was beginning to sound defensive, she stopped and tried again. “I wanted to spend time with him. Alone time. Perhaps it was wrong, but when he asked me to meet him for a private meal down by the loch, I agreed.”
As the memories grew sharper, her pulse wanted to race, but she forced it to steady. “He was very sweet at first, and he seemed to have thought of everything. It was a feast—with my favorite sugared buns and tarts, and wernage. Aye, plenty of the sweetened wine. I must have been more nervous than I realized, because I drank more than I should have.”
Alex broke his silence with a curse. “He wanted you to, damn it. That was no doubt part of the plan.”
Joan smiled wryly. “I know that. But I should have—” She stopped. She couldn’t go back and change anything—her actions or his—no matter how much she wanted. She just didn’t want Alex to think badly of her—or think she was a complete fool. She should have pushed Phillip away the instant he started to kiss her. She wished she had. It wouldn’t have changed what had happened, but it wouldn’t have left her feeling so complicit.
“I welcomed his kiss at first. I didn’t realize . . .” She forced herself to look Alex in the eye. “I didn’t realize he wouldn’t stop when I wanted him to. I told him to stop. I told him I didn’t want this. I tried to fight back—I did!—but he was strong, and at the time, I had no idea how to defend myself. He pinned me down and forced himself between my legs.” She took a deep breath to calm down before saying the words. “He raped me.”
It was strange how such ugliness and so much pain could be boiled down into a couple of short sentences.
Alex hadn’t moved, but she sensed the rage boiling inside him just under the surface, ready to explode.
“But you know the worst part?” she said. “When it was over, he acted like he’d done nothing wrong. Like I’d wanted it, and now I was just crying because I realized I’d given up for free what should have been bought with a wedding ring. For a while, he even made me question what had happened. But he raped me, Alex. I swear to you, I didn’t want—”
Alex stopped her with a roar of fury. “Of course you didn’t! God, do you actually think I would believe otherwise? For pity’s sake, you could have been dancing around like Salome with her veils—or without her veils—and it wouldn’t have mattered. You told him to stop. Whether you were drunk, let him kiss you, or anything else, the moment you wanted it to end it should have. That’s what any man with honor or a damned conscience would do.”
Joan was stunned. She knew that; she just hadn’t known whether he would see it the same way. “I’m not making excuses for him.”
“Good,” he growled angrily. But she knew it wasn’t at her but at the situation. Alex was a fixer. A rescuer by nature. It would be hard for him to hear this and know there was nothing he could do to change it or make it better. But he was making it better. Just by his reaction, he was making it better.
“I don’t want to hide from my mistakes.”
Alex’s jaw tightened. “The way I see it, the only mistake you made was being fifteen. Hell, Joan, we all make mistakes when we are young. That doesn’t mean we deserve to be punished for them with what that bastard did to you.”
“Not everyone would agree with you. Some people would say I got exactly what I deserved for going off with him alone and allowing him to kiss me.”
“Then some people are bloody idiots.”
She smiled. She couldn’t believe it. She’d told him what had happened, and she was actually smiling. She wouldn’t have
thought it possible.
He opened his arms. “Come here, sweetheart.”
An instant later she was in his embrace again, and he was holding her. Comforting her. Hugging her. It was exactly what she needed. Not questions. Not judgment. Not an explosion of male anger. Just calm understanding and acceptance.
Well, maybe not complete calm—he was a man after all. A man who fought with his sword for a living. She knew that inwardly he was seething with rage.
Which is why his next words surprised her.
“I wish I hadn’t killed him.”
She drew back. “Why not?”
His expression turned so dark and menacing he almost reminded her of Lachlan.
“So that I could make him pay for what he did to you. Slowly and painfully.”
He sounded like Lachlan, too. For all his noble knight persona, sometimes it wasn’t hard to imagine Alex in a blackened nasal helm, black leather, and a dark plaid slipping in and out of the mist like a phantom with the rest of the Highland Guard.
She loved both sides of him. The fierce, deadly warrior and the noble knight. But it was his nobility that had renewed her faith in honorable men. His reaction to what had happened tonight only reinforced it.
Gazing up into his fierce, handsome face, she felt her insides squeeze. God, she couldn’t let him go. She had to find a way to get through to him. But how?
For Joan’s sake, Alex was trying to keep a rein on his emotions, but it wasn’t easy, damn it. He wanted to rage at the unfairness, lash out at the people who should have protected her, put his head in his hands and sob for the fifteen-year-old girl who’d been so horrifically betrayed, and kill the man who’d done it to her. As he’d already done that, perhaps he should say kill more painfully.
Had he really chastised Raider for his seemingly endless need for vengeance after the rape of his sister? Alex understood only too well the kind of pain and anger that could cause a man to lose sight of anything else. Every fiber of his being burned for vengeance right now.
Fifteen? Christ. How could anyone do that to a young girl? His heart broke for the loss of innocence. Not her virginity—he didn’t give a shite about that—but at what must have been a cruel awakening to the ugly side of men. She’d already gone through so much in her life; the imprisonment of her mother, the loss of her father. To give her heart to a man, and then to have it so cruelly and brutally betrayed must have been a devastating blow.
He didn’t know what he’d expected when she’d started to talk, but it hadn’t been this. Maybe he should have known. In many ways it explained a lot. Her initial reticence with him, her cynicism, her lack of trust, the seeming indifference to her reputation all made more sense now.
But he’d never felt so damned helpless.
He looked down into her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Joan. Christ, I wish there was more that I could say. I wish I could have been there for you.” Had she gone through it alone? Though he suspected he knew the answer, he asked, “Did you ever tell anyone what happened?”
She shook her head. “At first I was too ashamed, and then later there didn’t seem any purpose. Phillip had been sent away, and my wardship was given to Sir Henry not long after. In truth, I just wanted to forget it had ever happened.” She laughed bitterly. “But it wasn’t that easy. My situation didn’t lend itself to meeting many honorable men.”
Alex’s jaw hardened with understanding. Men would have viewed her as ripe fruit from a low-hanging branch—easy pickings.
Bloody hell, where had Despenser and de Beaumont been? They were her guardians, they should have been protecting her.
“You changed that,” she said. “You restored my faith in honorable men and gave me something I never thought to have: passion. After what Phillip did, I’d never thought I’d let another man touch me like that.”
He was so busy fuming about her guardians’ failure that it took him a moment to realize what she said.
“But you did.”
She paused for a moment as if debating something, and then shook her head.
“But what about Despenser and Fitzgerald?”
She shook her head again. “No matter what it looked like—or what people say—you are the first man I have shared any kind of intimacies with since Phillip raped me.”
Alex was stunned; he didn’t know what to say. He was glad, of course. He’d never wanted to believe she was the wanton her reputation made her out to be. His instincts had been correct. She was more innocent maid than jaded seductress.
But how could Fitzgerald have gotten it so wrong? It wouldn’t be the first time a young man had lied about being with a woman, but the young Irish sea captain hadn’t sounded as if he was lying. How could anyone make that kind of mistake?
His gaze fell on the jug of whisky, and that niggle he’d noticed earlier got louder. A hell of a lot louder. Ever since her cousin had mentioned the “magic powder,” something had bothered him. The night she’d come to his chamber, the first thing she’d done was offer him whisky. Whisky that she’d later tried to stop him from drinking. And after he’d done so, he’d fallen into the sleep of the dead. Nay. He didn’t want to believe it. She wouldn’t have drugged him.
But if she’d done the same to Fitzgerald, it sure as hell would explain his confusion.
He forced his mind from the whisky. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me think you’d been with all those men?”
She dropped her gaze from his. “Because I would have had to explain about Phillip. And I suppose I wanted to see how much I mattered to you. I didn’t think any man who believed what you did would make me an honorable offer, but you proved me wrong.”
It was a good explanation, and he sensed it was the truth. But perhaps not all of it.
Was there another reason she might not want Alex to know the true nature of her relationship with these men? Could it be so that he wouldn’t question what she was doing with them?
What she was doing with them.
He cursed silently. Fitzgerald was second-in-command of the Irish fleet for the Earl of Ulster. He would know the shipping plans. Just like the shipping plans that had made their way to Bruce. But Margaret was the spy . . . wasn’t she? He’d wondered how she’d gotten that kind of information. What if she hadn’t? What if she’d been helping someone else when she took that note to the monk?
“Alex, is something wrong?”
Her question shook him from his reverie. She looked so sweet and innocent, so heartbreakingly vulnerable, he told himself he had to be wrong. She couldn’t have deceived him like that.
He took her in his arms again. “Aye. I want to make it better, but I don’t know how.”
She sighed against him, snuggling in closer. “Just hold me,” she said.
He did as she asked—gladly. Wherever his thoughts led, whatever his suspicions, this was not the time. She needed him, and he would be here for her.
But things had begun to fall into place, and no matter how much he wanted to tell himself it wasn’t true, he knew he had to find out for sure.
Joan wanted nothing more than to stay with Alex all night, but she knew she had to return to her room before Alice sent someone out looking for her. Her cousin might suspect where she was, but Joan didn’t want her to be worried. Alice was self-centered and spoiled, but she wasn’t without some cousinly concern.
Alex escorted her to the door of Alice’s chamber, and asked her again if she was all right. “I’m fine,” she assured him. “Although I’d be better if you decided to climb another tower tonight.”
His mouth crooked in a half-grin and he shook his head. “I think my tower-climbing days are over—at least until you get a bigger window.”
She laughed, and he bid her good night with a tender kiss that was over far too soon.
“Get some rest,” he said, pulling away.
He turned to go, but she called him back. “Alex?”
He looked at her over his shoulder. For a moment, she thought she saw something p
ained in his gaze. “Aye?”
“Thank you.”
He appeared perplexed. “For what?”
“For understanding. For believing me. For not questioning my version of events even with what you thought of my past. It . . .” She paused, emotion tightening her throat. “It means a lot to me.”
“There is nothing you can’t tell me, Joan—nothing. Do you understand? This only works if we tell each other the truth.”
The odd intensity in his voice she attributed to the difficult events of the evening. But he was right. She had to tell him. Lachlan had better answer her missive soon. Maybe she should have sent the bracelet, but she hadn’t wanted to alarm him. She didn’t want to ask Alex to return to the Guard without first clearing the way with what was sure to be one of his biggest hurdles: her stepfather.
As Alex seemed to be waiting for her response, she nodded.
He waited for another moment, almost as if he hoped she was going to say something more. She thought he looked disappointed when he turned to leave.
Frowning, Joan almost called him back. But it was late. Instead, she opened the door and slipped into the darkened room.
Almost immediately, her cousin lifted her head from the pillow sleepily. “You’re back. Good. I feared I would have to send someone to make sure you hadn’t fallen off the ramparts.”
Cousinly concern apparently extinguished, Alice pulled the pillow over her head, rolled over, and went back to sleep.
Joan smiled and crossed the darkened room to her chamber. Someone had kept the small brazier going so she was able to light a candle. After making sure the window had not been disturbed, she started to remove what remained of the pins holding her veil in place. She never removed her bracelet—it was too risky—but she took off the small pearl earrings and matching necklace to put in the wooden box she used to store her jewelry that she kept in her trunk.
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