Questions for a Highlander

by Angeline Fortin

On the beach at dawn, he continued to practice the Qigong and Tai Chi Chuan knowing it was his only hope to regain the life he once knew. Nightmares still haunted his nights, one after another. Whether he was drunk or sober, exhausted or not, they came with a vengeance. After so many sleepless nights, Vin knew he must look affright. His eyes were bloodshot with fatigue and ringed with dark circles. His body ached from tossing and turning but the T’ai Chi Chuan cured that symptom at least. Between his exercise, walking and riding daily, he was quickly regaining his strength and stamina.

  Jason continued to dominate the nightmares. He appeared so often Vin was beginning to feel haunted as if Jason were there in the daylight hours plaguing him as well. Often he expected to turn about and find Jason there silently berating him, not only for failing him, but now also for lusting after Moira.

  Again, Vin tried to find a way to ease the lust in his body. Twice he went into Kirkcaldy, first to a tavern and then to a brothel, determined to find someone, some body to release his torment on. He wanted to. Ever part of him urged him to have it done so he might return to Edinburgh and see Moira once more as the friend she was meant to be.

  Still he could not bring himself to take another no matter how aroused he was. He wanted only Moira, as insane as it was. No other would do. How to reconcile the two was the matter that most beleaguered his waking hours.

  Almost as much as facing her following that humiliating episode. He would have to eventually, Vin knew. As easy as it might be, he couldn’t hide out here at Raven’s Craig forever. He had a life to live, the gift of a second chance. He didn’t mean to waste it over this.

  No, he would go back, render his most sincere apologies for once again ravaging Moira while she slept and then he would have to put as much space between them as he could.

  For both of their sakes.

  “We’ve been wondering where you went.”

  Vin turned to find Richard walking down the beach and let out a sigh of irritation. “I am not an invalid or lunatic, brother, that I must tell my keeper where I go or ask permission to do so.”

  “No, but it is normally a courtesy,” was Richard’s rebuttal. “You had us worried leaving without a word like that. Even James, was concerned.”

  “I wired Francis to tell him where I was.”

  “Yesterday.” Leaving them two other days of worry as they hadn’t known Vin had spent that first day with Jamie. It hadn’t been until the previous day that anyone started to worry. They all knew Vin was having his own troubles fitting back into the family and society. To an extent, Richard could empathize with Vin. Whether he’d seen the worst of it or not, Richard had been there, had been a prisoner as well. Even without details, he could imagine Vin’s pain because it had once been his own. Occasionally, it still was. What a man saw or did during war wasn’t something that just went away. Even the most hardened could sometimes feel the ghosts shadowing their lives. Feel trapped.

  Vin shook his head. “I just had to get away. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

  “I understand how you’re feeling.”

  “Bloody hell, Richard!” Vin ground out feeling that same frustration building in him once more. “Please do not think to placate me again. I’ve already told you that you cannot understand.”

  “Actually, I think in this case I can.” Richard dropped down next to his brother on the sand, pulled his coat around him and stared out over the water. The trouble with Vin, he thought, was that he considered himself alone. Perhaps it was a normal side effect, a circumstance of his solitary years, Richard wasn’t sure, because there had been a time when Richard wanted nothing more than to be left alone to his troubles.

  The worst thing that ever happened to him was that, for a brief time, he had been. He didn’t like to remember those days, but at the same time, he refused to let Vin fall into the darkness that could easily engulf him.

  War did strange things to men, made them feel fears or paranoia they might not otherwise. He too had been subject to some of those feelings when he returned to England but Vin couldn’t go on alone thinking what he was experiencing was so abnormal he must hide himself away from those who cared about him.

  Vin thought that made him weak. Richard personally thought his brother was one of the bravest men he’d ever known. He thought, also, Vin was handling things much better than he ever had.

  Of course, he was also the most stubborn ass of a man Richard had ever met. It was astounding that Vin could face one battle so fiercely and run from another so hastily.

  Naturally, he couldn’t say any of those things to his brother lest he rouse his anger, so instead he offered another perspective on Vin’s troubles. “When I was sent home from Egypt to recover, I wanted to return right away to find you. Francis, of course, insisted that I regain my full strength first. He’d been in London awhile at the time, I think. Avoiding Vanessa and trying to push his divorce petition through Parliament. So I stayed with him there. Better doctors, peaceful recovery, etc. I’m sure he told you all the same when you came home.”

  Richard was sounding so thoughtful in his reminiscing Vin simply nodded and waited for him to continue. “That’s when I first saw Abby again, did you know? I hadn’t seen her since she was about seventeen or so. Before we went to join the guards. Still, I recognized her right away. Sweet little angel hadn’t changed a bit in all that time.” He gave a self-depreciating laugh. “Did you know I thought she was only about fifteen or so at the time? She’s just so tiny, you know? It’s easy to mistake her as a child at first glance and I had always thought of her as such because she’s Jack’s sister, of course. Always thought of her as a sister. Just like Moira, too. Right?”

  Vin shifted uncomfortably. “Naturally.”

  Richard watched Vin slyly out of the corner of his eye noticing Vin’s unease. It seemed, Vin didn’t like this subject any better than speaking about the war. “Hurts, doesn’t it?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Vin said evasively, though he knew clearly now where Richard was heading. An idiot could draw the parallels from his tale.

  “To want what you think you should not,” Richard said simply confirming Vin’s suspicions. “My conscience ate at me wanting Abby as I did. Jack took it all out of my hide when he found out I was sleeping with her. Thought he was going to kill me for certain.”

  Vin said nothing.

  “In truth, I felt good after Jack beat me to a pulp,” was Richard’s next confession. “Made a lot of the guilt go away.”

  Vin could almost feel Richard’s amusement on the whole subject and felt in that moment he would feel pretty good if he beat his brother to a pulp as well. He idly wondered if he was strong enough to take him. “Your point?”

  “Moira doesn’t have a brother here to do that for her and her father is a pretty old man, but the rest of us – uh, those with more brotherly inclinations toward her – would gladly line up to give you the beating of a lifetime if it helps.”

  Silence reigned as Vin ground his teeth in frustration. Bloody hell! Was he that obvious?

  “No one blames you, of course,” Richard went on conversationally. “She’s sought after and not just because of her wealth. Moira is a beautiful woman, very desirable.”

  Vin’s fists clenched.

  “Are you going to deny it?”

  “That I lust after her?” Vin growled.

  “No, brother,” Richard’s astonishment took a moment to get under control. Was that all Vin thought it was? He tsked in a mocking fashion. “That you love her.”

  Vin gaped at his brother even as his head started shaking automatically in denial. “Bloody hell, Richard. I don’t love her! Not unless it is like a sister! She’s my friend. One of the closest I’ve ever had in my life. And I’m ruining that every time I touch her.”

  “Because you want to make love to her.”

  “What I want is to fook her for days on end until I drive this terrible lust from my system,” Vin spat out crudely. “She’s driving me insane with wanting
. But it’s just lust.” But it wasn’t just lust and bodily need, Vin admitted at least to himself. If it were only lust, the very enthusiastic Bess would have done the trick. No, it was Moira he wanted. Moira alone who drive him to this state of near insanity where he had to flee from her before he did something that he’d regret. “I need to leave,” he went on. “I’ll go to England, I think. To King’s Retreat.”

  Richard thought about the estate his mother had grown up on in Essex. It was a fine estate and a large one. Though their grandfather had once raised sheep there, the queen’s steward had reverted to renting out parts of the land to tenant farmers since acquiring it as a property of the Crown when their grandmother had died a few years before. It would take a lot of work for Vin to learn how the estate was now run. Richard thought it would be good for Vin to have a purpose…if that estate wasn’t possibly the most isolated piece of property in southern England. It would be a disaster for Vin to close himself off from not only his family but people in general.

  “I think that would be a big mistake at this point, Vin.”

  “I don’t,” he responded stubbornly. “It’s my responsibility now.”

  “Aye, it is but you can’t lock yourself away from everyone like that,” Richard argued. “You know how that place is. It would be like putting yourself into isolation once more.”

  Though inwardly Vin shuddered at the mental picture Richard presented, he knew that it would have no bearing on his decision. “It needs to be done. The Queen will be expecting it of me.”

  “The Queen can wait!”

  But I cannot, Vin thought. He couldn’t stay in Edinburgh, in Francis’ house with Moira providing a constant temptation. His resolve and determination to keep her at an arm’s length would dissolve the moment she walked past him and the delicious scent of her tickled his senses. He couldn’t take her, would not! His only recourse was to remove himself from that enticement as quickly as possible. Then they could resume the innocent exchange of letters that had given them the friendship they shared for so long.

  Before she came to hate him.

  Before he came to hate himself.

  “I don’t understand you, Vin,” Richard said scowling now. “How can you continue to deny what everyone sees? Lust? Only lust? You cannot be so obtuse to think that is the sum of it. I mean, you were always a dreamer, our whole lives. You lived in your own world. I don’t think you’ve ever truly been aware…I don’t know how to say it. It’s as if you see only what you want. You’ve placed what you feel for Moira in this tidy package called friendship and refuse to see when you open it that it could be so much more.”

  “So now I’m delusional as well?”

  “What’s wrong with loving her?” Richard wanted to know.

  “It’s not what I want, Richard.” Vin ground his teeth, fighting the war within him. They all thought he was obtuse? Why was it no one could see what he needed, what really mattered?

  Friends lasted a lifetime. The caring and loving of another person knowing they felt the same was life sustaining. It provided a companion through good times and bad. A comrade in your darkest hours. Why would he throw all that away for sex? Lovers were naught but a nine-days’ wonder, easily dismissed once the shine was off.

  He didn’t want that to happen with Moira. He valued what he had with her too much.

  Trouble had a way of manifesting itself. Sometimes the best way to avoid the trouble was to avoid the cause.

  “I think you’re afraid to get close to her or anyone. Your world suits you so well, you’re afraid to shake it up. You never liked change.” Richard snapped out the accusations.

  Vin disagreed with that heartily. He was close to any number of people. Moira was just one of them, but had the disadvantage of being the only female. “That’s not it at all! Moira is my friend and I need that from her right now.”

  “Haven’t you ever considered being friends and lovers?” Richard asked. “Why do you continue to think you can’t have both with her?”

  Vin closed his eyes, almost hating Richard in that moment for putting the idea in his head. What if he could have it all? Moira as a friend and a lover? The image caught and Vin couldn’t shake it free. “Yer a bastard for even making me think it, Richard.”

  “I’m the bastard?” Part of Richard wanted to laugh but the other half was put out. “You’re the one pissing on everyone who wants to help you.”

  “Why does everyone feel like I need help? I can take care of my own problems, you know,” Vin gnashed his teeth in frustration. Jumping to his feet, Vin scooped up a handful of pebbles and went to the water’s edge. “I’m sick of every treating me as if I were still in nappies.”

  “Then stop acting like you are!” Richard ran a hand through his hair as he watched his brother violently fling one pebble after another far out into the firth. “It’s frustrating as hell. You think I act the older brother sometimes? That’s because you’ve been so lost to the world that I feel I must. You live in a world of absolutes. Black and white. It strains credulity! Take her, Vin, give in to it!”

  Vin flung the rest of the rocks into the water and turned staring back up at his family’s ancestral castle. Setting aside the negative consequences of acting on his impulses, the temptation his brother offered was almost overwhelming. A part of him wanted to push the carefully erected barrier of friendship with Moira aside and grab her with both hands. The risks in many different areas were daunting to say nothing of the ghosts that still haunted him. How could he give in when the past was very much in his present? “I can’t! Even if I wanted to, I don’t deserve her after what I have done!”

  “What did you do that you think Moira wouldn’t forgive you?” Richard was puzzled by this new argument. Vin had been away for a long time. There was nothing he could have had the opportunity to do here so it had to have been something during those years of solitude. What could he possibly have done?

  However, when Vin’s eyes met his, Richard found them so bleak, so filled with pain that he was taken aback. “What?” he whispered almost dreading the answer now.

  “I killed her brother.”

  “Killed him?”

  “I am the reason he’s dead,” Vin clarified feeling the pain well up in him once more. Again he saw Jason’s ghost in front of him, cursing him. “I am the only reason that he isn’t standing here today instead of me. I might as well have pulled the trigger myself.”

  Chapter 23

  Lust's passion will be served; it demands, it militates, it tyrannizes.

  - Marquis de Sade

  Glenrothes House

  Carlton Terrace

  That Night

  “We can’t go on like this, Vin.”

  Looking up from his suitcase, Vin groaned at the sight of Moira in the doorway. He would always remember her like that, he thought, looking soft, rumpled, and oh-so inviting standing in his chamber wearing only her nightclothes. Her hair fell in a mass of curls down her back and the firelight flickered over her delicate features. Vin threw more clothes into his steamer trunk.

  He had taken the train back to Edinburgh with Richard this afternoon, but all along the way, Vin knew he couldn’t stay. Moira was right. They couldn’t go on as they were, so he was determined to leave. “I know.”

  “What are we going to do about it?”

  If she only knew how inviting those words sounded, she would never speak them again. Vin knew what he truly wanted to do, of course. He wanted to finish what they had started. He wanted to take her with all the passion and lust boiling inside him. He didn’t trust himself with her any longer.

  He wouldn’t, couldn’t. Couldn’t risk losing Moira’s friendship by subjecting her to this infernal lust. Couldn’t face her hate if she knew the truth of Jason’s death. If he embraced this passion as Richard urged him to, it would all be lost. God, he didn’t want her to hate him. Vin just felt he needed to leave and keep his mouth shut in the process. “I’m leaving, Moira. That should solve the problem.”

>   “What?” Moira asked, finally taking in what he was about, the clothes scattered…the open trunk at his feet. He was leaving, running away? Their passionate encounter three days past had given Moira all the encouragement she needed to continue in her determination to have Vin’s love. How was she to push, lure and nudge him into realizing he loved her if he were gone? “You’re leaving? Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To King’s Retreat,” Vin told her curtly. “I need to get away from here.”

  Moira’s mind scrambled to come up with something…anything that would induce him to stay since his determination was palpable, urgent even. “What about your nightmares? You need to be able to rest, Vin.”

  “I will work it out.”

  “But it was working so well here,” Moira argued.

  Vin shot her a look that told her just how well he thought it actually worked. “Aye, I slept well, but obviously I cannot be trusted here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  His brow rose as if questioning that an answer was necessary. “Come, lovey, can’t you see? I cannot stay here. I need to work this madness out of my system before I ruin the friendship we have. If I were to stay, I’d be pouncing on you every time you turned about.”

  That didn’t sound like such a bad thing to Moira at all. Suddenly, lust and love became two separate things. Despite her hopes, she’d always known it was unlikely to have one of those things from Vin, that he would not allow himself to look on her in such a fashion. If she could not have his love, why not take what she could have? She wanted him; Moira knew there was no denying it. That she was wanted from love or what he considered only a physical problem, she no longer cared. She would take what she could get at this point for as long as she could. If she gave him her body, he might stay, might have time to grow to love her. She could keep him with her; hug those dreams of more for as long as he was interested in her. But to say it aloud? To offer herself to him at the risk of rejection? Swallowing back her nerves, Moira whispered, “What if I wanted you to?”