“Ye never answered me question,” Vika said, instead of giving him a reply. “How have ye been?”
Angus’ eyes narrowed at that, hostile and curious at the same time. She wasn’t trying to confuse him, of course, she had no reason to do so. She was simply curious, genuinely curious, to see if her sources had been correct. She was curious to know if Angus was still broken by her actions, by his wife’s and daughter’s deaths, by all the misfortune that he had had to face.
“Fine,” Angus barked. “Is that a good enough answer for ye?”
“I was hoping that ye’d tell me about the lass that ye fell in love with,” she said.
Vika knew that Angus had never fallen in love with Kirsteen. Everyone in the Highlands knew, and that was how she knew that Angus was certainly not referring to his late wife when he told Hamish that he had fallen in love again. There seemed to be someone else in his life, someone that she hadn’t found out about yet, and it irritated her more than she would like to admit.
Angus was never supposed to find love. He was never supposed to be happy. Vika had tried her best to make sure of it, but somehow, he had managed to thrive and find love once more, and her plan had failed.
She was sensing a common pattern when it came to Angus; none of her plans regarding his misery seemed to work, and he somehow kept succeeding in every aspect of his life.
Vika hated him for it. She hated that there was something she had missed. She hated that he was happy, that he had fallen in love with another woman, that he had found purpose despite her efforts to destroy his life after what he had done to her.
She had no delusions; she didn’t deserve happiness. She was irredeemable, and even if she did have a chance to repent, she had no desire to do so.
Angus didn’t deserve happiness either, though. He wasn’t a saint, after all, and what he had done to her—even though it had been a deserving punishment—was nothing short of cruel.
“Why do ye wish to ken about her?” Angus asked.
Vika cocked an eyebrow at that, suddenly interested. It seemed like Angus didn’t want to talk to her about whoever it was that he had fallen in love with, and that intrigued her. What could be the reason, she wondered, other than that perhaps he was afraid she had plotted something for his lover’s demise?
“Dinnae ye wish to tell me?” Vika asked, her hand sliding up Angus’ blade as she approached him. At the same time, he retreated, stepping back once more, and Vika reached for him with her free hand, grabbing his arm to stop him. “What are ye afraid of, Angus? Are ye afraid of me?”
Angus hesitated. Vika could practically see the gears spinning in his mind, and so she didn’t push him. Instead, she waited patiently for him to say something, and she was soon rewarded for it.
“It’s Ishbel,” he informed her. “Yer cousin.”
It was Vika’s turn to take a pause, then, and she blinked in confusion a few times as she looked at Angus. How could it be that he had fallen in love with her cousin? Vika hadn’t even known that Ishbel was in Scotland. Last time she had heard, she was in France, far away from them. Had she returned to Scotland? Had she somehow found her way to Angus, or had he found her first?
The smug look on Angus’ face brought a snarl to Vika’s own. She couldn’t help but admit that she was angry. Had it been anyone else, Vika would have been irked, perhaps, simply because she didn’t want Angus to be happy, but the fact that he had found love in none other than her own cousin hit her differently, a strange way.
It felt more personal. It felt like an insult.
And then, Vika remembered what people would always say about her and Ishbel. She remembered their own mothers claiming that they could have been twins had it not been for the difference in their colors, she remembered everyone being taken aback by their similarities, and how everyone compared them.
Back then, Vika had detested that. She hated to hear people compare the two of them, as she had never wanted to be similar to anyone else, not even her own cousin. When Ishbel had left for France, it had been a day of celebration for her, as she would finally get to be the only one with features like her own, and she wouldn’t have to put up with other people telling them both that they resembled each other.
Now, though, that she knew about Ishbel and Angus, she couldn’t help but laugh, an amused, ringing laugh that echoed around the tent. For the first time in her life, her resemblance to Ishbel—or rather, Ishbel’s resemblance to her, as she always liked to think of herself as nature’s original blueprint—delighted her, because, in her eyes, it could only mean one thing.
Angus had never gotten over her. He had never managed to forget her, and he was trying to find her in her own cousin, searching for any hint of her in her face, her eyes, the way that she spoke.
She was convinced that it was the only reason Angus had fallen in love with her in the first place.
“Ach, Angus . . . dinnae ye see?” she asked. “Everywhere ye look, ye seek me. Ye seek me even in the woman that ye claim ye love, but ye and I both ken the truth. Ye dinnae love her . . . ye love me, and the only reason why ye are with her is that ye willnae allow yerself to be with me instead.”
“Yer delusional,” Angus said, and perhaps if Vika wasn’t so certain that her assumptions were correct, she would have seen the truth in Angus’ words, in his tone, in the way that he sounded so certain, too, that he was right.
Vika had already made up her mind, though, and no matter how much Angus would deny it, she couldn’t help but believe that he still loved her.
The thought made her smile, just a little. She knew that he couldn’t have simply lost all his love for her, and she knew that the love he had once had for her had been real, despite what he had told her and Hamish. She was the love of his life. She was the only woman that he could ever love.
“Am I?” she asked. “Yer the one who is in love with Ishbel, and ye ken what people say about us, do ye nae? I mean . . . ye have eyes yerself, ye can see that we look alike. All me life, people would tell me that we resemble each other, all me life they would compare us, and . . . and I hated it, I truly did. But noo . . . noo it seems . . . it seems funny to me. It seems funny to me, because ye are still after me, in a way, even if ye willnae admit it.”
“I dinnae love ye, Vika,” Angus said, and he sounded tired then, as though it was an argument that he had had before, perhaps even with himself. “It’s true, I thought I loved ye once, to the point where I almost killed me best friend for ye, but that isnae love. It’s an obsession. I was obsessed with ye, I would do anything to make ye happy, but I never truly loved ye. Not in the way that I love Ishbel. And dinnae think for a second that I havenae asked myself why her. I’ve thought about it . . . I ken that ye look alike, but that isnae the reason why I love her. I love her because she is nae like yerself. I love her because she is a kind lass, a lass who would never ask me to kill me best friend.”
The desire to hurt Angus was suddenly back, creeping up to Vika as she listened to him talk about his love for Ishbel. She dropped her hands to her sides, and then she glared at Angus, deciding that she would do anything it took to hurt him as much as she could while she still had the time.
“And yer wife?” she asked. “What about her poor wife, and yer poor child? They’re both lying dead in a tomb, while yer having yer fun with Ishbel. What do ye think that yer wife would say if she saw what ye and Ishbel are up to?”
“Kirsteen is dead,” Angus reminded her. “And dinnae ye dare talk about her. Ishbel is me wife noo, whether ye like that or nae.”
The news that Angus had been married once again, to Ishbel of all people, took Vika by surprise, as many other things had that day. Her eyes widened, and she crossed her arms over her chest, suddenly feeling as though she needed some sort of defense, some sort of shield around her.
“So . . . ye have married her already.” Vika hummed, a hand coming up to scratch at her chin. “And she wanted to marry ye, even though she knew about the rumors?”
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��The rumors?” Angus asked.
“Aye . . . the rumors about Kirsteen, about how ye killed her and yer daughter because ye hate women so much,” she said. “The rumors that ye are nothing but a cruel little man, who couldnae handle the fact that yer child was a daughter.”
“She kens, and she kens they are nae true,” Angus said. “How do ye ken?”
“Och, Angus . . . I was the one who started them.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Angus knew that Vika was a cruel woman. He had known for a long time that she was willing to do anything to cause him misery, and she took great delight in his suffering.
It had never occurred to him, though, that she could have been the one who had started the rumors. Ever since he had placed her in that monastery, he had forced himself to stop thinking about her, and every time he remembered her, he would push that memory back down inside him, where it would never see the light of day again.
Besides, every time that he would suspect her of doing something to inconvenience him or to cause him any trouble, he would tell himself that he was paranoid. He would tell himself that there was nothing Vika could do because he had made sure that she could never hurt him or the people that he loved again.
And yet there she was, hurting him once more. Even after he had pushed her away, even after he had tried his best to ensure that she couldn’t touch him again, she still found ways to ruin his life.
“It was ye?” he repeated. Even though it seemed rather likely—it was Vika, after all, and she was a sly woman—he could hardly believe it. “It was ye that spread such lies about me?”
“Of course it was me,” Vika said. She didn’t seem even slightly apologetic; in fact, it seemed to Angus as though she was enjoying his reaction, his pain. “Did ye think that yer own people would be so cruel as to come up with something so terrible about ye? Nay . . . nay, they believed it, and they spread it, but I was the one who started the rumors, Angus. It wasnae too hard . . . nuns enjoy gossiping, too, ye ken.”
Angus had thought that it was impossible for him to hate Vika any more than he already hated her, but at that moment, he saw red. His fingers tightened around his sword, and he closed his eyes, breathing in deeply through his nose like a wild bull, ready to attack.
Despite his anger, which bubbled up inside him with every passing moment, he couldn’t bring himself to kill Vika. He had honor, and no matter how much a part of him wanted her dead, he wasn’t going to deliver his own justice.
No, he was going to drag her back to Knapdale, where she would have to answer for everything that she had done, and then she would either have to spend the rest of her days in a cell, or she would be sentenced to hang.
As the Laird of his clan, Angus could kill her right then and there, of course, and no one would bat an eye. Even if he took her back to Knapdale, he could still order her execution, but he didn’t consider himself as someone fit to give Vika a punishment, not when he had been so personally affected by everything that she had done.
Even someone like Vika deserved fairness, and Angus decided to remove himself from the situation.
If anything, it would enrage Vika, he thought, as it seemed to him that she wanted nothing more than to provoke him, and the more that he allowed her to provoke him, the more likely it was that he would do something which he would one day regret.
“Why did ye do it?” he asked her. “Why did ye spread such rumors about me?”
He couldn’t quite understand it. He could think of no other reason other than the fact that Vika was angry at him, and that she was deranged to the point that she sought revenge for something that had been a mercy. He could have killed her, back then, or he could have imprisoned her in the castle, but he did no such thing. Instead, he had given her a chance at a different life, no matter how different it was from what Vika was used to, no matter how undesirable she thought it was.
It was a life, and it was a mercy.
Vika had taken that mercy, and she had spat on it, insulting Angus in a way that he could never forget when she had said such vile things about him.
“Because I dinnae want ye to be happy,” Vika told him. “Because ye took everything from me, and I wanted to take everything from ye, too. Because I wanted everyone to hate ye as much as I do. There was no grand scheme, Angus . . . there was no other reason for me to do what I did other than the simple fact that I hate ye with all me heart.”
Angus realized then that there was no point in using sense when talking to Vika. The woman had no sense; she had nothing other than her hatred for everyone that she perceived as responsible for her own misery and misfortune when, in reality, she was the only one responsible for it.
“Ye are nae worth me time, Vika,” he told her in a hiss, as he finally put his sword down. There was no point in pretending that he was going to kill her; he was quite certain that Vika knew he couldn’t do such a thing.
“And yet here ye are, speaking to me,” Vika said. “Admit it, Angus. Ye canna do with me, but ye canna do without me either. Ye married a woman that reminds ye of me. Even if ye didnae marry her for her resemblance to me, it’s still there. Every time ye look at her, ye’ll be reminded of me, of what I did to ye, and in the end, ye’ll hate her. Ye’ll hate her because all ye’ll be able to think about will be me.”
“Ye give yerself too much credit, lass,” Angus said. “Ishbel . . . she is different. What she and I have isnae something that ye can ruin, no matter what rumors ye spread, no matter what ye say or do. What I have with her . . . it’s real.”
Vika didn’t say anything. There was a stretch of silence between them, and Angus couldn’t help but feel rather anxious, rolling back and forth on the balls of his feet as he looked at her.
He didn’t want to give her a chance to escape, and even though he knew that his men were out there, even though he knew that they would stop her if she tried to run, he was eager to apprehend her.
The last thing he wanted was to have Vika escape once more and try to make her plan succeed once more. He didn’t know where she would find another man like Hamish, but there were so many clans in those parts that he was certain she wouldn’t have a problem.
Before he could grab her, though, Vika spoke again, and it sounded like an afterthought that had just come to the front of her mind.
“What about me father?” she asked. “How is he?”
Angus was taken aback by her question, and he hesitated, trying to find the right words to tell her what had happened. He would have thought that Hamish would have told her about the way he had killed her father, or that she could have even been there, with him, hiding in the shadows as Hamish killed everyone in the village.
“Vika . . . yer father is dead,” he told her, plain and simple because he couldn’t find a better way to say it.
He didn’t expect to see what followed. He could have never expected Vika to pull her bottom lip between her teeth, biting down hard on it as a tear rolled down her cheek. He could have never expected that she would care that she would mourn for her father.
Perhaps she did have a piece of her heart left still, Angus thought. Perhaps she still had a little bit of humanity left in her, enough for her father’s death to bring her to tears.
“How did it happen?” she asked. “Were ye there?”
“Aye,” Angus said. “Hamish killed him before he burned down the entire village.”
Much to his surprise, Angus found himself grieving with her. He couldn’t help but feel sorry for Vika, for finding out about her father’s death in such a way. If there was one thing that Angus knew, after all, that was how it felt to lose someone that he loved. It was something that he wouldn’t even wish on his worst enemy.
If he were honest, Angus was surprised that Vika didn’t have anything to do with her father’s death. He would have thought that she would be the one to order the man’s execution, but now it seemed to be all Hamish’s plan.
“Did ye nae ken?” he asked her. “Did Hamish nae tell ye?”<
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“Nay,” Vika said, shaking her head. “Nay, he said that he wasnae there. He never told me about him.”
Another silence stretched between them, then, and the two of them looked at each other for several quiet, tranquil moments. It was almost enough for Angus to forget how much he despised her; it was almost enough to transport him back to a time when he would do anything for her; almost.
Then, Vika spoke again.
“What will ye do with me?” she asked. “Will ye put me back in a cell?”
“Ye werenae in a cell before,” Angus reminded her. “Ye were in a nunnery.”
“Shows how much ye ken about nunneries,” Vika said, a small, humorless smile spreading over her lips. “It was a cell, Angus. It was a prison, only under a different name.”
Angus couldn’t argue with that, not really. After all, he had placed Vika in that monastery so that it would act as a prison for her, and he couldn’t deny that.
Highlander’s Veiled Bride: Scottish Medieval Highlander Romance (Highland Seductresses Book 2) Page 20