His heart was scarred over and it was carrying him now. This man who understood this concept of justice, but never mercy.
And where was the mercy deserved for a man like him?
It wasn’t Callum that she worried for.
It was Lachlan.
For Lachlan was the one who had to live with all this blood, all this pain. But the man had been at war for ten years and she knew he saw this differently.
‘Go inside,’ he said.
‘No,’ she said.
‘There is no reason to expose you to this. Go inside.’
‘Lachlan…’
And she felt that if it were his duty to rid the world of the man, then she must bear witness to it as his wife.
‘I said leave,’ he said.
Callum was down on the ground, his position that of a man defeated. But then, when he looked up at Lachlan, there was spite in his eyes. ‘It’s that Sassenach that you’ve brought to us. She’s made you soft. For what is a woman for but a man’s cock? If a woman’s going to wander around offering it, why shouldn’t I take it?’
‘She did not offer,’ Lachlan said. ‘Do you deny that?’
‘Since when does it matter?’
‘Since I am Laird.’
‘An Englishwoman’s dog,’ he spat.
Then he moved towards Penny. Penny tried to move back, but Callum had retrieved a sword from the ground and was barrelling towards her.
The rest happened in the space of a breath.
Lachlan moved faster and raised his broadsword. Brought it down in one fluid movement.
Penny looked away, her heart nearly exploding through her chest as she heard the sickening slice of blade through flesh. The sound of the man’s head separating from his shoulders.
Her heart was thundering so hard she could scarcely breathe. Lachlan’s strong arms were around her then, holding her from falling on to the ground. Keeping her from collapse.
‘William,’ he barked. ‘Deal with the body.’
‘Yes, Laird,’ William said.
Penny was shaking, trembling.
‘I told you to go inside,’ Lachlan said. Holding her arm, he propelled her on with him, into the castle.
Her heart was throbbing in her chest, her emotions tangled together. She didn’t know what she felt. She touched his shoulder and he turned to face her when they were inside the great hall.
Blood was splattered over his bare chest, up to his neck. It reminded her then of when he’d come back and found her in the castle after delivering the baby. Stained with the evidence of life. Of what…of what had to happen whether it was easy or good or not.
He had protected her. Saved her.
He had been determined to protect Mary. He had not been intent on executing Callum to prove his strength or might. It had been to put a stop to harm because the man was unrepentant. Saw no sin in his actions.
She was perversely grateful, however, that he had made a move for her. For it made Lachlan’s actions those of a soldier in battle and not an executioner.
‘I would have felt no guilt for it,’ he said, his tone hard.
‘I know,’ she said, her chest squeezing tight. ‘But I would have cared that you’d had to do it. I would have wept for you.’
‘No one weeps for me.’
‘I will.’
‘There is no justice but what you make, lass. The world doesn’t right these injustices. You must do it yourself with steel. My father did not protect this clan. He did not protect his wife. And I… I have seen things end badly. I have no great faith in the world to right its wrongs on its own. Nor do I labour under the delusion that I can always prevent it with my own strength. This, this I could do. Do not waste your sadness on me.’
Something twisted inside her then. And she felt…new. Looking at him, she didn’t worry for his soul, not at that moment, because this was a man who knew his conviction. He was a man who would give his all to protect those who were weaker than himself.
A man who would protect her with everything he was.
He was not a man who would lock her away because she cried. He was not a man who would ever harm the innocent. The vulnerable.
A man with all the strength in the world, all the power, and he would use it justly.
She trusted that. Deep within herself she trusted it.
‘You need to wash,’ she said.
She took his hand in hers and he followed. Which she knew was a choice, because he did not have to be led anywhere by her. ‘The Laird needs to bathe,’ she said.
* * *
With great speed, the staff had seen to preparing the water for him.
It was set out in the centre of their room and she took care in taking his clothes off his body, washing him clean of any blood.
‘Thank you,’ she said softly, as she sat next to the tub. ‘Thank you for protecting us.’
‘’Tis justice,’ he said.
‘You know many men would not see it as such. They would not consider what he’d done a great crime.’
He looked at her. ‘My mother despaired of her life. There was no escape. There was nothing for her. I would not have my people live in such desperation. Men…physically we are stronger than women. Where is the victory in overpowering one who could never fight back? It is a coward who takes joy in oppressing those weaker than himself. If a man wants to fight, if he craves violence, then he should find an opponent who might just as easily kill him.’
‘When you were at war…’
‘The brutality we saw, committed not just on the battlefield. There was a woman…’ He hesitated slightly before pressing on. ‘She was long gone from this world by the time my men found her. I will not tell you what she looked like.’ His voice was rough, laden with the horror of what he’d seen and she could understand, then, why the death of a man who’d committed crimes against a woman would never linger in him for a moment. For this…this ate away at his soul. ‘I have seen a great many atrocities, lass, and very few things are grim enough to cause me to lose sleep. But that… My dreams are haunted by that.’
She moved her hand slowly over his chest, to soothe. He put his hand over hers and she looked down at his scarred knuckles. ‘It is not the bodies of dead men I see in my mind. It will not be Callum’s lifeless body that lingers with me in my dying day. It will be the pain of girls like Mary. Of my mother. Of that nameless woman. It will be the weakness of men who should have been strong. And all the ways in which I was too late to stop it.’
‘But you stopped it,’ Penny said. ‘You did.’
‘The gesture coming a bit too late as we have a sickly girl in the room next to ours, with a bairn that may or may not survive.’
‘He gets stronger every day.’
‘You can never put your trust in these things, lass. Trust me. Now I do not wish to speak of these things any more.’
‘Would you like supper?’ she asked.
‘Aye,’ he said.
There was some great satisfaction in taking care of him this way and she wasn’t certain where it came from.
But maybe it was just that same thing that had driven her to care for wounded creatures. It made her feel as though she mattered.
She might not be able to mete out justice in quite the way Lachlan did. But she was his wife. The Laird’s lady. She was part of the clan. And she felt that, deeply, for the first time. In full support of her husband and the decision he had made today, hard and unyielding though it had been.
It was a statement. And they had come back to the clan under grave circumstances. And it meant that they could not tread lightly. He could not.
Even against his own blood.
She had supper brought up to their room and they ate together. They didn’t need to talk.
But her connection with him felt strong. They didn’t
need to be touching. He didn’t need to be inside her. She didn’t need to chatter endlessly. She could simply sit and be near him.
A revelation.
She felt very suddenly inside herself. In a life that was hers.
A castle that felt like hers.
With a man who felt like hers.
This place was harsh. And it was different than anything she had ever been exposed to. It forced her to be stronger. It forced her to be different.
At the same time, time with Lachlan forced her to be fragile as well. To open up deep, compassionate places within her own heart.
Her interactions with Mary and her baby touched her in that way as well.
For the first time in her life, her world felt big. More than that, she felt powerful within it.
It was a gift, a change that she had never expected.
‘Are you quite ready for bed, my Laird?’
‘Past ready.’
And she went to him gladly.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
There were grumblings among his people. While many supported the action he had taken against Callum, there were factions, even within his own men, who were bitterly angry. They did not think that a woman’s chastity should be prized over the life of a man. Particularly when a woman’s chastity had not even been proven.
He was beginning to feel concern for Mary’s safety. She was ensconced in the castle, and growing healthier by the day. But they would need to find a position for her and he knew it could not be back in the village.
It had become customary for he and Penny to take their late meal alone in their room.
‘Have you spoken to Mary about where she might want to go?’
‘I think she’d like a domestic position somewhere,’ Penny said. The place between her brows pleaded. ‘I’ve written a letter to Lady Beatrice Ashforth. The Duke’s sister.’
‘Yes,’ Lachlan said. ‘The Duke. It has been a while since I’ve heard you speak of him.’
‘It has been a while since I’ve thought of him,’ she said.
He did not know why, but that gripped him with a fierce, possessive pleasure.
‘And what did you ask this friend of yours?’
‘Initially, I had intended to ask her about household positions. If she might be able to provide a reference, or give me names of those who might be willing to hire a girl from Scotland. But then… Instead I asked about school.’
‘School?’
‘She’s young. She could go to a school that might train her, give her an education that she could use to take a position as a governess. She could have more options available to herself than simply being a scullery maid. Perhaps she’ll choose that life. But when I thought she might die the thing that grieved me most was that she didn’t have a chance. She didn’t have a chance at a better life. She didn’t have a chance to know what it was to be loved. To choose anything beyond this… This position she was born into.’
‘That is the life most people must contend with,’ he said softly. ‘Not everyone is spirited off to the Highlands, after a broken engagement to a duke, a duke who would have vastly increased her circumstances. Whichever path you’d taken, your life would have changed. You have experienced extraordinary events.’
‘It does not surprise me that you consider yourself an extraordinary event,’ she said, a sly smile touching her lips.
‘It is the way of things, lass. Most do not escape fate.’
‘You did. A destitute Scottish boy who made his fortune, who survived nearly a decade at war. You’re allowing this clan to escape the fate that your father consigned them to. Shouldn’t Mary have a chance?’
‘You’re forgetting the bairn.’
‘I haven’t forgotten,’ she said softly. ‘But that is… Have you noticed she does not hold him?’
‘I have not noticed the girl or the babe more than necessary.’ It wasn’t true. For he had seen how pale and weak Mary was and had watched her increase in strength, but had also seen that her interest in her child did not grow. The child still did not have a name. Not uncommon, for life was harsh and the chances of a baby dying were great enough that often the naming of them was delayed.
‘I want her to choose. Because she had no choice in any of the things that brought her to where she is. I want her to be able to choose.’
‘Do you expect word from your friend soon?’
She nodded. ‘I hope.’
* * *
Word came early the next day. With Beatrice writing to say that she could find a position for Mary at a school, thanks to the influence and generous donations of her brother.
His wife began to weep.
‘Always caring for wounded birds,’ he said, dashing a tear away from her cheek.
She went immediately to Mary’s room.
‘Mary,’ Penny said. ‘I’ve had a letter from a friend of mine. She’s sister to a duke. In England.’
Mary’s eyes went round. ‘A duke.’
‘Yes. She has found… There is a position available to you at a school in London.’
‘A school? What school would take me? No school wants a fallen woman who can’t read or write…who has a child.’
‘That you cannot read or write is not a concern. We can find you a position in a household with your baby if that is what you wish. But if you don’t want the baby to stay with you…’
The look on the girl’s face was one of such deep, pure emotion Lachlan had to look away. It was anguish, but it was hope.
‘I can’t leave him…’
‘How old are you, lass?’
‘Thirteen,’ she said.
Everything in him turned. He didn’t regret the death of Callum, not in the least. The man was worse than a devil, and he could burn in hell as far as Lachlan was concerned. Burn in hell for touching a child.
‘I had to become a man when I was thirteen,’ he said. ‘When it became clear my father was not one. Eventually, I made my way to England and I made my fortune. You have been forced to a burden you should not have been. But what you do now…it is your choice.’
‘The baby…’
‘He’ll be cared for,’ Penny said.
‘My parents won’t. And, I wouldn’t want him with them, even if they were willing, I wouldn’t want them to have him.’
‘If it was what you wanted,’ Penny said, her tone careful, ‘I would care for him.’
Lachlan took a step back. But Mary’s eyes filled with tears. ‘You would take care of him?’
‘I would.’
‘Would he be yours?’ The girl’s voice was filled with so much hope, it was nearly as sharp as any sword, as gutting as any bullet could have ever been.
‘Only if that’s what you wanted.’
‘I tried to get rid of him,’ Mary said. ‘I felt terribly guilty about that, after he was born and I saw him. But… I can’t take care of him. I don’t know how. And I never imagined that I might be able to go to school. That I might be able to learn something…’
‘You can,’ Penny said. ‘And if you really want, if you work at your studies, you might be able to find work as a governess.’
He could see a whole world of possibility in Mary’s face. ‘Not live in a house full of children like my mother. Not getting beat for the rest of my life by my husband. Learning to…to read and write and to get a real job. In London…’
‘I just want you to be able to choose,’ Penny said.
‘I never knew I could choose. Not anything. I’ve never been able to.’
‘You can now. And whatever it is you choose…’
‘I want to go to school. If he can be taken care of… I don’t know how to do it. I’ve been here, with no work to do, and I don’t know how to soothe him when he cries and I don’t know how to hold him right. And it is not his fault, but his father… Hi
s father hurt me. When I look at him I think of that.’
‘You shouldn’t live that way,’ Penny said.
‘Thank you,’ Mary said.
‘All I want is for you to make the best that you can with that choice,’ Penny said. ‘And don’t look back. Don’t wonder if you made the wrong choice.’
Dread built in his chest. The thought of this tiny, vulnerable child being in his care. Of Penny loving him. Of Penny…
If she lost this bairn, what would it do to her?
Lachlan waited until they left the room to turn to his wife. ‘You do not mean to keep the child?’
‘Why not?’
‘You did not ask me.’
‘You said to me, while we were on the way here from England, that I would likely be able to find myself a baby.’
‘I did not say that.’
‘You did.’
‘If I did, then it was because I was simply thinking you might hold a child on occasion. Not because you were going to take in a foundling.’
‘If your issue with children is your bloodline, then why can’t I have someone else’s baby?’
‘So, is this what it is? You’re offering her this position so that you can take the child?’
She looked stricken. ‘No. How could you ask me that?’
‘It seems to me a reasonable enough question, lass.’
‘I do want the baby. I love him. And I’m much more prepared to take care of him than a girl of thirteen. I have a husband with all the money and power in the realm.’
‘And you did not ask that husband what he might think of it.’
‘It’s a baby. And you made it perfectly clear you want nothing to do with them. But you told me that you were withholding a child from me because you didn’t want to carry on your bloodline.’
‘Do what you will, Penny,’ he said, anger rolling through him. ‘But this is not my responsibility. I have plenty enough to see to without taking on an abandoned child.’
‘He’s not abandoned. She’s making the best choice that she can, for both of them. If you could have seen the desperation on her face when I first spoke to her. She didn’t want this. And even now, it’s clear that she has struggled to bond with him. That she hasn’t. It isn’t fair what she’s been through.’
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