by Mimi Riser
Oh, God, now what? He wouldn’t meet her eyes. That was something she had seen before. She hadn’t liked it earlier, and it hadn’t improved any with a short aging.
“…But, under the circumstances, I think I’d better set the record straight between us.”
What circumstances? What record? For the first time since she’d been here, things were finally clear in her own mind. What the hell needed straightening?
“You were right about me, I think. I have been a complete cad.”
No! She’d been wrong—she knew that now.
“And I think the only way I can make amends is to… Well, as soon as I can arrange it, I’ll send you back to Philadelphia,” he said, swinging away and out the door.
“But I don’t want to go!”
Damn this manacle… It wouldn’t let her reach him, and he was already in the passage…
“Alan MacAllister, you come back here and finish this!”
His silhouette reappeared in the doorway, and she let out a small sigh of relief. Then nearly choked on it at his words.
“Dear, that’s what I just told you. This is finished. You’re free to go.”
This was finished? This was ridiculous, that’s what it was.
“Of course I’m free. That’s why I’m standing here shackled to the wall.”
“That’s a temporary precaution to keep you safe. You’ll be out of it before you know… And then I’ll put you on the first train heading east.”
It was still ridiculous. Hadn’t he heard her?
She tried it again, speaking as calmly and clearly as she could, considering the lump that threatened to burst her throat. “Alan, haven’t you been listening? I do not want to go.”
Finally… He was finally looking at her. And it didn’t help one blasted little bit. There seemed to be nothing but pity in that look. Pity? Dear God, this wasn’t ridiculous, after all. It was a bleeding nightmare!
“That’s just it, dear. You’re too young to know what you really want,” he said softly. “This ruddy combat—or the reason for it, anyway—has reminded me of that. Locked up here, I’ve been remembering how things were between Heather and myself.”
Oh no, was that it? He’d realized he was still in love with Angus’s daughter? Heaven help her, how could she compete with a memory?
“The fact is, I never should have married Heather. We’d nothing in common save what you referred to as animal attraction—the kind that burns itself out quickly. But we were too young to realize that. Plus, we had Uncle Angus egging us on. He wanted the match to secure the MacAllister rights. There’s one rather touchy clause in our pact with Texas, you see. Our arrangement holds only so long as a direct, legal descendant of the original laird is residing at the castle and acting as clan head. ’Twas the government’s way of hoping some day to end the deal, I suspect—not that it matters at present. The point is there are only two people today who can fill that position. Myself and my father. And he’d no interest in the job even when he was sane.”
“What about Angus? Don’t brothers count?”
“Not when they’re illegitimate, they don’t. My uncle wasn’t supposed to be illegitimate, mind you. ’Twas a wee oversight of my grandfather’s. When Laird Stuart was captured by the Comanche years ago, he fathered my father on one of their women, the sister of a powerful warrior. He married her, too, Highland style, to make her feel better about it. But to make himself feel better when he was eventually ransomed back, he took a MacAllister bride and fathered Angus. Only that marriage wasn’t legal, because he already had a Comanche wife. Bigamy is not a Highland tradition, you understand. I suppose he thought no one would ever find out about his first son, but the truth did come out… Only not till my father was nearly grown.
“They brought him here to the castle and tried to make him stay by marrying him to Molly’s daughter, Rowena. She was a bonny lass, and I think he honestly did love her, but he’d been born and bred Comanche. The MacAllisters got him too late. He couldn’t tolerate life here, so after I was born, he packed up my mother and me and rejoined his tribe. The thing was, though, Rowena had been born and bred MacAllister, and she couldn’t tolerate life with the Comanche. He cared enough for her happiness to let her return to the castle without him, and I spent my childhood split between both worlds. Half my time here and half with my father’s people… Then the year I was fifteen, my mother died. Wild Horse came for her burial, and when he left, I went with him. I didn’t see these walls again till I was eighteen.”
The same age I am now, Tabitha thought, beginning to smell where this might be leading and not finding the odor particularly promising. Still, he was trying to explain himself and that was something, she supposed. Something of a wonder. This was the longest flow of words she had ever heard from him at any one time. Except it seemed as though it might be on the verge of running dry, and that wouldn’t help her any.
“You came back to marry your cousin?” she prompted, trying to re-prime the pump.
It worked, but not quite as she had expected.
“I came back for her wedding, anyway,” Alan said flatly. “Heather was going to marry Geordie.”
“The brewer?” This was a puzzle piece she’d never foreseen. How did this fit in?
“Aye. My father and I had just returned to this land for a visit. Angus was delighted about it—though I didn’t guess why at first: Grandfather Stuart had recently died, and a new resident laird was needed to continue the pact. I thought Angus was just that glad to see me. He’d always been a fond uncle in his own way. ’Twas a bit of a sore spot with my father. Wild Horse hadn’t appreciated Angus trying to make me a good MacAllister, whilst he was trying to make me a good Comanche.”
The feeling had probably been mutual with Angus, Tabitha thought absently. But how had Alan ended up with Heather, if the girl had been engaged to another? Unless… Well, it was a rather romantic notion—forbidden fruit and all that.
“It was a trap, really, Heather’s betrothal to Geordie. Uncle Angus knew she and I’d had a powerful adolescent attraction to each other. He never wanted her to marry Geordie, but the moment I was back on MacAllister land, he consented to the match. To make me jealous, I realized later. Or so I’d not have too much time to consider the consequences. Whichever, it worked. I galloped here the morning of the wedding. Heather took one look at me and never a backward glance at that poor idiot Geordie. She and I exchanged the vows instead… And sealed our own separate dooms by doing so.”
This was becoming ridiculous again. He looked like he’d been breaking his back with guilt over something that wasn’t really his fault. Even worse, he was trying to use this against her—against them—as though the two situations had anything in common.
“Alan, I realize I’m not exactly an expert on this subject, but it seems to me that teenage boys never consider the consequences of…that sort of attraction, no matter how much time they have,” she said, then wished she’d choked on the words before they were out. The expression on his face told her that she had simply given him more fuel for his own argument.
“That’s precisely my point. Young people haven’t enough experience to understand their desires,” he said in that fatherly tone that made her teeth grate. “Tabitha, I’m trying to spare you from falling into the same trap I did.”
Oh, God, that was almost the same thing her mother had spoken years ago. But her mother had been wrong then. And Alan was now.
“Love isn’t a trap! It’s a release,” Tabitha stated definitely, not certain why she was so positive about that, but knowing she was.
“I agree. But physical desires can be a trap.”
That tone again… Now it made her want to grate his teeth—with something like a crowbar. Wasn’t there anything she could say to break through this wall he’d thrown up around himself?
“You said that this was more than physical desire!”
“It is. For me,” he admitted, but in a voice that refused to give in.
; “It is for me, too,” she pleaded, praying the light wasn’t so dim he wouldn’t be able to read the truth in her eyes.
If he read it, he didn’t believe it.
“You can’t be sure of that.”
Just a slight shift in his tone? A hint of anger, cynicism? Bruised ego?
That could be it, she thought as a flash of intuition struck. After all—romantic passion, notwithstanding—a girl who could so easily turn her back on one man to marry another… There was one way to crack that wall and find out, at any rate. But she would have to use the heavy field artillery to do it.
“Well, how am I supposed to be sure? What do you want me to do? Run out and play footsie with a few dozen other men, so I can come back here and say I’ve made enough comparisons to know that you’re the one I want?” she suggested, looking for all the world as though she was seriously considering the idea. “I’m a scientist, remember. I understand the value of experimentation.”
A bit too much gunpowder in the cannon, perhaps?
The wall not only cracked—it almost exploded in her face.
“I may have to keep you locked up, at that—to protect you from yourself!” he growled, lunging across the cell and gripping her upper arms. He caught himself just short of giving her a vicious shake, abruptly dropping his hands and angling away into the deeper shadows, so she couldn’t see his expression. “Maybe if I’d locked up Heather, she’d be alive today,” he said barely audibly. He seemed to be speaking to himself, but Tabitha responded to it, anyway.
“I’m not Heather. I never even thought of a man before you. And if you’ve changed your mind about me, I’ll simply go back to my original plans. You know I’d never intended marrying anyone to begin with. I was expecting to be an old maid.” She spoke softly, forgetting in the quiet trauma of the moment that the old maid option had already been tabled. She didn’t mean it, anyway. But she’d had to tell him something, and he never would have believed what she would really do if he had changed his mind. He knew how she felt about heights.
“I haven’t changed my mind,” he said huskily, turning back to face her. “My mind was certain the instant you landed in my arms.”
“Mine, too. It just took me a little longer to realize it.”
Straining forward as far as the manacle would allow, she stretched out her free hand to him. With a heavy sigh, like a man who had just lost a battle he had never wanted to fight in the first place, Alan reached for it and enclosed her fingers in the warmth of his own.
“I’d like to believe that, dear, but—”
“But, nothing!” She laced her fingers through his when he tried to pull away. “You believed it before I did. You’re the one who kept telling me how I felt. Remember?”
“That was before I knew how young you are.”
“But I’m still the same person. If my feelings were true an hour ago, they’re still true. Why is that so impossible for you to accept? It can’t be because of anything I’ve done. Is it something you’ve remembered about Heather? What is it?” she asked desperately, as he untangled his hand from hers and started stony-faced for the door, signaling the discussion was over.
No it’s not!
“Was Heather unfaithful to you?”
The question halted him in mid-stride, but wasn’t enough to turn him around.
“Tabitha, I’ve no more time for this—”
“Was she? Is that why you can’t trust me?”
That brought him around.
“Good God, no, you’re nothing like her. And it’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just that…”
“You’ve convinced yourself I’m too young to know what I’m doing,” she finished for him.
He didn’t have to answer. His stiff posture, as he turned toward the passage once more, said “Aye” plainly enough.
“Then you’re a bloody hypocrite! You call yourself a Comanche, but I happen to know that Comanche girls usually marry about the age of sixteen. I’m two years older than that, and you still view me as a child! A real Comanche wouldn’t think so. You’re more MacAllister than you care to admit, Laird Alan!” Tabitha shouted after him. And listened with satisfaction to his booted steps returning to the cell.
“For that matter, so am I,” she added, unable to resist a smug grin at the tense figure framed by the doorway.
“More of your surprises?” he asked warily.
“The biggest yet.” Her grin stretched into a smile of shamelessly malicious glee.
Which sent him straight down the passage again.
“Tell me later then. I haven’t the time or energy for any more shocks right now,” he called back.
The taut manacle chain twanged like a heavy iron bowstring as her shock caused her to nearly dislocate a shoulder in lunging forward.
“Alan, wait! I need to tell you this!”
“Later.”
“No, now! Come back here!”
“I’ll return for you as soon as I can.”
“Alan, please, this is important! Alan…”
Throwing back her head, Tabitha screamed bloody murder at the top of her lungs. Well, actually, she screamed “Help” at the top of her lungs, but it probably sounded like bloody murder to Alan. He must have taken the stairs four at a time to arrive back in the cell faster than a lightning flash.
“What kept you so long?” she asked, as he skidded to a stop before her, breathing hard from the charge.
“What the devil’s the matter with you?” he countered, his eyes rapidly scanning the chamber and seeing nothing amiss.
“A rat!” she improvised, realizing he was on the verge of abandoning her once more. “It was huge! And it had fangs and claws and it was foaming at the mouth and it tried to run up my skirt and— There it is!”
Shrieking, she flattened herself against him, whipping her free arm about his waist and latching onto the back of his belt with a death grip.
Straining to peer over his shoulder at where she had gestured, he said irritably, “’Tis only a mouse. Now let go.”
“Well, it looked like a rat to me,” she grumbled into his chest, while discreetly maintaining a steady series of sharp tugs on her manacle. “How can I see what anything is in these shadows? And, by the way, our marriage is legal. I had my father’s consent.”
“Tabitha, let go of m— What consent?”
“Not what. Who. It’s a long story, and I’ve only just discovered it myself, but Dr. Earnshaw is my father,” she explained, clinging to him like a leech with one arm, while the other concentrated its efforts to jar open the manacle in hope that the previous popping of the thing might have weakened its catch. “Since he witnessed our vows and gave his blessing afterward—even though I didn’t realize what he meant at the time—I presume that means I had parental permission, and therefore am your wife. Put that in your peace-pipe and smoke it, Big Chief Know-It-All,” she finished, just as the manacle trick worked and both her arms wrapped around him.
His arms pulled her off her feet and on level with a hot, glittering glare.
“In that case, you’d best hope I’m as MacAllister as you said,” he warned, his voice husky and his breath warm on her face. “Comanche beat their wives for insolence.”
“Are you threatening me, Chief?”
“Would it do any good if I was, Lady MacAllister?”
“Not one blessed bit.” She grinned. Electric chills that had nothing to do with fear tingled up and down her spine. “Your threats have no power over me anymore.”
“I don’t recall that they ever did—not nearly enough, anyway.”
“You’re right. But they have even less now. So you’re stuck with this insolent, paleface squaw whether you like it or not. To get rid of me at this point, you’d have to divorce me. And I’d never agree to that—not even if you hang me off the ramparts again.”
“I hope you honestly mean those words, dear, because to end this union I’d have to drop you off a rampart. Or leap from one myself. The MacAllister code doesn’
t allow for divorce. Our marriages are for life.”
Electric chills froze to ice. “Oh no…”
“Tabitha? What is it? What’s wrong?” His gaze widened in pained confusion, then shuttered down into a closed, cynical stare as she shoved free from his arms and turned toward the window.
“Bloody hell,” he cursed under his breath. “Even Heather didn’t get tired of me this quickly.”
“Don’t be an idiot.” Her mind moving faster than her feet, she paced from the window to the opposite wall and back. “I just need a minute to think.”
“About what? Tabitha—”
“Hush. I’ve almost got it.”
“You’re going to get it, if you don’t—”
“Oh my God, that’s why she was killed.” Stopping short in the center of the cell, she whirled about to face him. “Since you couldn’t divorce, it was the only way he could keep you here and insure the birth of a legal heir to secure the MacAllister pact.”
“What? My father’s never cared if the pact continued or not.”
“I can imagine. But Angus cares very much.”
The amber gaze narrowed across the gloom at her. “If you’re suggesting that—”
“Well, it makes a certain sense, doesn’t it? He must have known how unhappy you were with Heather. He reads you like a book—anyone can see that. Did he know about her…um, indiscretions, too?”
“That’s your second reference to that,” he said tightly. “What makes you so sure she was unfaithful?”
“I’m not. I’m only guessing. Are you telling me now that she wasn’t?”
A hard muscled chest heaved with a harder sigh. “Hell, no. She changed men oftener than most women change their stockings. And Angus was full aware of it—along with everyone else in a twenty-mile radius—since she rarely bothered to hide her…indiscretions, as you so politely put it. He kept calling it youthful high spirits, said she’d outgrow it if I’d take a strap to her. But I…”
“Of course you couldn’t. You’re hardly the wife-beater type,” Tabitha finished for him. “For that matter, neither are Comanche, despite your comment to the contrary,” she added absently.