She started, “Hunt, I-I—”
He was all movement then, at her side in an instant. “Are you well?” He placed one hand on her back and his other hand flew to her stomach. Despite the intimacy established between them, she still hissed a breath at the familiar contact.
He appeared oblivious to her reaction. Concern was writ all over his handsome face. “The babe?” His hand shifted on her belly and a surge of memories assailed her. His hands on her, his mouth . . . everywhere. She gave her head a small shake and focused on his words. Now was not the time to feel arousal.
“Were we . . . was I tae rough with you?” His expression twisted to regret. “I’m a right bastard. Forgive me, Clara. I was a selfish brute. Are you in pain? Should I send for someone—?”
“I’m fine.”
His gaze flew back to the bed. “But the blood? I dinna think you are fine. We should call for a physician.”
“No,” she cut in. That was the last thing she wanted. “Please don’t fret.”
His voice lifted. “How can I no’ fret? You’re bleeding. Because of me!” His voice twisted at that last part and she wanted the earth to open up and swallow her. This was bad. Very bad. How had she reached this moment?
She closed her eyes in a long blink and blew out a breath. Opening her eyes again, she said, “It’s not what you think.”
He looked her up and down, alarm still all over his face. “What I think is that you’re losing the babe and I’m tae blame.”
“I’m not pregnant,” she blurted.
He stared, his expression uncomprehending.
She moistened her lips and repeated, “I’m not pregnant.”
He glanced to the bed again and she made a sound in her throat, wishing he would stop looking at it—the evidence of her perfidy.
“Do you mean tae tell me that you lost the babe already? Before we were together?”
It was time for directness. Past time. She took another breath. “No. Understand me now. I was never with child.”
His head whipped back to face her. “What do ye mean never?”
“I was never pregnant.”
His arms fell away and he took a step back as though she were suddenly something dangerous. Something, or rather someone, he dared not stand close to.
“What do ye mean never?” His voice was rougher, thicker . . . his brogue more pronounced as he repeated the question. “Autenberry said . . .”
She moistened suddenly dry lips. “I wanted to tell you before, Hunt, I really did . . .” Her voice faded and she glanced to the bed again. “I wanted you to know before . . . before last night,” she finished with an exhale of heavy breath.
She turned and moved toward the window, but his voice followed her, hard and demanding. “Clara.”
Of course, he wanted answers. He deserved an explanation.
Answers she had meant to give sooner, but here she was.
She turned around and faced him with a bracing breath. “I was never pregnant. I invented the entire thing to escape a betrothal. It was the only way. My betrothed was very . . . determined.” She winced, Rolland’s reddened face flashing before her mind. She shoved the wretched memory aside. “He vowed never to let me go, so I made certain to make myself as undesirable as possible to him so that he would. I let him believe I cuckolded him.” She shrugged as though it were the obvious solution.
Hunt blinked once. It was his only outward reaction. “And he believed you?”
She nodded. “Well. Yes. He was a proud man. He held himself in great esteem.” To put it mildly. “I knew he would not be able to tolerate the slightest chance of disloyalty. He wanted nothing to do with me after that. I was ruined but free of him. It was worth it. I still believe that.”
He swiped a hand angrily through the air. “You’re telling me there is no pregnancy . . . no lover. That”—he pointed to the bed—“that right there . . . is your virgin blood?”
Her face heated at his directness, but she nodded.
“I took you like a well-seasoned woman, but you were, in fact, a maid?”
Mortified, she nodded again.
He dragged both hands through his hair and started pacing a swift line, muttering beneath his breath in Gaelic.
The more he paced, the harder her heart pounded. “Hunt.” She attempted to catch him as he walked and force him to stop and look at her.
He ignored her, continuing with his self-inflicted rant.
“Hunt.” She seized hold of his arm. “It’s not the end of the world.” She gave him a wobbly smile. “Is it?”
He stopped to face her and laughed roughly, brutally. “Oh, it verra well could be. The end of mine at least.”
She shook her head. “No. The curse isn’t real. It’s just—just a fairy tale. Stories folk bandy about. You’ll see.” She smiled and nodded encouragingly.
He went utterly still again and she dropped her hand from his arm, backing up a step, suddenly nervous at the look of him.
“What do you ken of the curse?” he growled.
Too late, she realized her mistake.
Revealing she knew also revealed that she had set out to deceive him, that she had married him knowing they were at counter purposes.
But I meant no harm. I’m only trying to help him.
She clung to that reminder, wishing that Marcus were here so that he might support her through this confrontation with her husband. It was a cowardly thought, but she had never seen Hunt look at her as he was now—as though she was the most treacherous creature on earth and he wanted to be miles away from her.
Even when they had first met amid the brawl at the inn, there had been humor and warmth in his gaze when they sparred words, but now his eyes were chips of ice, and she had no idea what to say or do to thaw them.
“You knew,” he whispered. “You knew and you married me anyway.”
She shook her head. “You cannot believe that this curse is—”
“’Tis true.” He closed his eyes in a long blink, and she felt a stab of alarm at his obvious misery. A niggle of doubt wormed its way inside her . . . which was absurd.
He was mistaken. There was no such thing as a curse. He was merely brought up to believe in such things. She knew better. Soon he would, too.
It was a difficult thing to remember, however, when he opened his eyes to look at her as though she were something he didn’t want near him . . . as though she were a disease, a contagion that had already infected him.
“You think me a fool who believes in nonsense?”
“We are talking about a curse,” she snapped, feeling her temper finally give way.
“Aye, a curse.” He advanced with biting steps. “One that has besieged my family for generations.”
She tossed both hands up in the air. “I cannot argue with ignorance!”
A muscle ticked in his jawline. “Ignorant, am I? I’m surprised you would sink so low to marry such an ignorant man, much less take him between your thighs.”
Her face burned. “I thought I could talk some sense into you.”
“An ignorant oaf like me?” he sneered. “You should no’ have had such high hopes.”
She sucked in a deep breath, praying for patience. “I’m sorry, but put yourself in my shoes . . . does it not seem a small bit of madness to let superstition rule your life?”
He scoffed. “First I’m ignorant, now I’m mad.”
Her temper flared higher. “I will not live my life at the whim of superstition and nonsense and neither should you.”
He towered over her, his body seeming even bigger in his anger. “You make it sound so . . . meaningless.” His gaze glittered with furious emotion. “The curse killed my father and destroyed my family. Superstition and nonsense it is no’.”
She studied this man. He could not be swayed. They may have shared a bed last night, she might have given him her body, but she realized she still had much to learn about him. Except right now she felt the chasm widening between them.
He continued in a voice that had gone cold and rigid, “You are right, though. The curse shall no’ affect my life, because I will no’ let it.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“I will never touch you again. This marriage is name only. As far as I’m concerned we are no’ even married.”
“Hunt,” she breathed. “You cannot mean that.”
He meant it. Staring at his still angry features, she read his resolve etched into the hard lines of his handsome face.
He nodded. “It will no’ be so verra difficult. I am quite accustomed tae restraining myself.” His gaze flickered over her and she had never felt so dismissed. As though what they shared did not amount to much of anything for him. The way he had made her feel, his desire for her, his possessive words. Vanished. All gone. As though it had never been.
He wanted nothing to do with her anymore.
“You are young,” she appealed. “We’ve much life . . . many years left together. They can be good years.”
Earlier, moments ago it seemed, the world had shone so brightly. The future an endless stretch.
She pressed on, “We could have a life together, Hunt. A good life.” She believed that . . . especially after what had transpired between them, after the way she had felt in his arms. He couldn’t mean he didn’t want to have that again? Was it only within her? Did only she look at him and feel the desperate longing? The craving to repeat the closeness, the heady desire?
For a moment she thought he might relent, then his gaze hardened further. “No.” He gave a swift shake of his head. “I can never have that kind of life. My mistake was thinking I could.”
She waved to the bed. “And what about what happened between us? Are we to pretend it never happened?”
He flinched. It was a glimpse of emotion, but it lasted only a moment and then he was all coldness again. “A mistake, aye.”
“Mistake,” she echoed, the single word knifing through her. “If it’s such a mistake, perhaps you should just take me back to my brother.”
He shook his head once, but the motion was no less decisive. “Nay. You are my problem.”
Problem. She was a problem.
That stung, and she didn’t know whether to cry or scream.
“Take me back.” Away from him. Away from this pain and humiliation.
“We said vows. ’Tis done. You should no’ have lied tae me. We are stuck with each other now whether we like it or no’.”
And he clearly did not like it. No. She was a problem. She would never forget that. Never not feel the pain of it.
But she didn’t deserve this. She would own her mistakes, but she still deserved better than this. “And what of you? You lied to me,” she accused, not about to let him behave as though she were the only one at fault for this unhappy situation.
“Me?” Astonishment cracked his stony facade.
“Yes, you.” She stabbed a finger in his direction. “You omitted certain crucial facts. You made no mention of a curse before we married. When were you going to mention that, husband?”
“When it became relevant.”
“And when would that be?”
He hesitated a beat before saying, “After you gave birth I was going to tell you.”
After.
She felt her forehead furrow as that sank in. “Why then?”
He actually looked a little uncomfortable at this. “I would no’ risk the curse once you . . .” His voice faded.
She stared, digesting what he was saying—and what he was not saying. Realization dawned. “You would only come to my bed while I was increasing? You mean to say that for the rest of our marriage you planned to keep yourself from me? That we would be a name-only marriage after I gave birth?”
“Aye.” He nodded. “I would no’ risk getting you with child again.”
“Oh, that’s rich! Did you think I would not mind? That I should be content to live out my life not as a real wife? To bear only one child? What if I wanted more than such a farcical marriage?”
More children. More of a husband.
More of a marriage than that.
“We would have had our time together,” he countered, looking away as though he knew that was an unsatisfactory answer.
He intended to only give her a few months of himself . . . a few months of what a marriage could be.
Now they would not even have that. They would have a name-only union. It was certainly a grim picture of the future, but it was to be hers now. It was all he was offering. Oh, and without children since she wasn’t actually pregnant.
She felt a clawing panic that wasn’t dissimilar to the moment she learned Rolland was not who she thought he was. Familiar in the sense that the life she thought she had chosen . . . was not to be hers.
When that happened before, she had railed against it. She’d rallied and found a way to escape.
The question remained . . . what would she do about it now?
If she did not like her fate, it was up to her to change it. Somehow. Someway. She must.
“What if I want a husband in the truest sense?” she asked, lifting her chin defiantly, knowing a woman asking anything for herself was considered an act of defiance by many.
No matter her station in life, a woman’s lot was straightforward. She went from belonging to her father to being the property of her husband, but she wanted to be more than one man’s property. She would have more.
“Well,” he announced, “we dinna always get what we want in life. I learned that at a verra young age. You might as well ken that lesson now, lass.”
His condescension only angered her. “You’re a coward for letting fear rule you.”
The fury flashed hot in his eyes. “And what sent you running to Scotland? Was it no’ fear driving you with your tail tucked between your skirts, lass?”
Oh! Her palm itched to slap him, but she refrained. She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing he affected her that much.
“At least I tried. At least I attempted to make a life for myself.” With you. “I attempted to start a new life with you.” As he’d offered. Freedom. A choice. She blinked suddenly burning eyes. Do not cry. Do not shed a tear.
“Aye. I tried, tae.” He looked her up and down again in a scathing survey, accusation thick in his brogue. “I thought you were someone else. I was mistaken.”
“We both were mistaken.”
Hugging herself, she looked away, but her gaze caught on the rumpled bed. A bad idea because she was suddenly assailed with memories of how they had occupied it only a short time ago and the bliss she had found in his arms.
“Aye,” he growled, and her gaze swung back at him to find he was staring at the bed, too. Only there was no expression of longing on his face. “I’ve risked much.”
She sucked in a sharp breath, understanding this new direction of his thoughts.
He meant if she was with child as a result of their tryst, he considered his life at end. Over.
She laughed.
She could not help it. It would be the height of irony if they had created a baby through their single coupling. Unlikely, but it would serve the fool man right. Then, eventually, he would learn just how wrong he was. Then he could beg for her forgiveness.
“Ridiculous,” she managed to get out amid her laughter.
Incredulity warred with anger in the blue depths of his gaze. “You laugh?”
She held up both hands, palms out as though guilty—of laughing at any rate. “Nothing to fear,” she mocked. “It’s not likely. I doubt I’m that fertile. Especially if I’m anything like my dear mother. She faced many challenges in this, er . . . area.”
He snorted. “Do no’ think tae tempt me with the possibility that you are barren, Clara.”
She stopped laughing. Oh, the cruel arrogance of him! “Tempt you! Ha! I’ll not beg for you back in my bed.”
Indeed not. He had demolished her pride this morning. She would pick up what scraps of it remained and
keep them safe from him lest he do such a thing again. She had learned her lesson with him. She would not be so vulnerable again.
He shook his head, mockery glinting in his eyes. “The way you sighed so sweetly and melted under my hands? I could have you begging for me between your thighs again.”
Oh! This time she could not stop herself. She slapped him.
His head turned from the force of the blow.
She waited, breath suspended, her palm tingling.
Slowly, he turned to face her again. Her handprint stood out in stark relief, an angry red mark against his flesh. The sight of it pricked her conscience.
She was not given to violence. She was a stranger to herself. A stranger she did not like very much at the moment. She had never struck another living thing and here she was, newly married and striking her husband. What was wrong with her? She really should return to Kilmarkie House.
She stood frozen, braced for anything he might unleash upon her. Certainly it would be his right. She was his wife now. No one would fault him for managing her as he saw fit.
She squared her shoulders and pushed back the fear.
He strode forward and she held her ground, and his gaze, refusing to look away. She’d read that in a book somewhere—how in the event of an attack it was important to hold your ground. She couldn’t remember what manner of animal she had been reading about, but for some reason that bit of advice echoed through her mind right now.
“Such a temper, Clara.” He tsked, reaching up to lightly finger his abused cheek.
“What can I say? You bring out the worst in me, MacLarin.”
One corner of his mouth curled. “No’ always.”
As soon as he said those words, he closed the last inch of space between them. His hand flew forward to slide around the back of her neck. He tugged her forward and she toppled against him, his hardness all at once familiar and unfamiliar.
They had never been like this. Never this close while standing upright. He felt so much bigger like this. Taller. Stronger. More intimidating.
He spoke against her mouth, his warm breath fanning her suddenly trembling lips. “I thought I told you tae call me Hunt.”
This Scot of Mine EPB Page 13