“I do not want to hear about it,” Caelis said with deep feeling.
She had no intention of telling him anything about her life that he did not absolutely need to know. “Rest assured, you will not.”
“Marjory is his.”
Shona gave a single jerk of her head in acknowledgment.
“Eadan is mine.”
This time Shona merely stared, refusing to agree with or deny the statement.
“You would deny it?” Caelis accused, though she’d done no such thing.
“You were the one who told me that if I were pregnant then it would have to be by some other man.” Her fingers curled around the edges of the chest, the grip so hard she could feel her heartbeat in them. “Do you not remember?”
“I was angry at having to let you go. I took that fury out on you.” Guilt washed over his chiseled features. “I did not mean it. I was under orders to cease my attentions to you. I knew those words would push you away as nothing else would. Your loyalty and determination were too strong to give in otherwise.”
She did not know what he meant by orders to cease his attentions, though she could guess, but Caelis had been right about his methods. “You succeeded spectacularly in your efforts. I would have been content to live the rest of my days without seeing you again.”
Because she had wished so strongly for that claim to be reality, it came out with all the conviction her heart lacked.
The candle’s glow was not bright, but it illuminated enough of his handsome face to reveal the pain that crossed it and settled in his gentian gaze. “To my great regret.”
“I do not believe you.” Was it a lie if she wanted it to be true?
Again, he seemed surprised…even hurt…by her lack of faith in him.
“Our laird denied my request to mate you.” There was a ring of sincerity to his tone she could not ignore.
More important, the words rang true with the actions of the laird of her former clan. Uven was not a kind, or even just, man. He had his favorites among the clanspeople and they could expect his support and beneficence. Everyone else had had to sacrifice for the treasured few.
Uven’s own daughter often suffered at his hand, not that Caelis had ever believed it. While they’d had a near-idyllic courtship before Caelis rejected her, the one area they never agreed on was the true nature of their laird.
Her lack of loyalty, as he called it, used to infuriate her then beloved warrior to no end.
Because, unlike her family, Caelis had never been shown the ugly side of the MacLeod laird.
“You are one of his favored,” she reminded Caelis.
“I was.”
She didn’t ask what had happened to change that. The very fact he was among the Sinclairs rather than their former clan spoke of a great breach between laird and vassal. And she did remember her former laird’s true ways. Nothing he did would have surprised her.
But some things were less likely than others. “You want me to believe that our laird refused one of his favored?”
“He did not think us a good match. He was adamant that you were not my mate.”
There was that word again, as if they were animals, but it didn’t matter what Caelis called it. Mate, wife or even beloved, none of the titles fit her place in his life. They never had, no matter how much she had once wished to believe otherwise.
“He did not think I was good enough for you.” She’d not understood why the laird had such antipathy toward some of his clan, but the fact could not be denied.
He’d believed Shona’s family beneath his notice and replacing her father as seneschal had only been one of many slights against them.
Caelis did not deny her interpretation of events.
She sighed. “And this is your grand explanation?”
Caelis jerked, his eyes widening and then going narrow as if her reaction surprised him. “I had no choice but to deny you.”
“You had a choice. You could have left the clan when we did.”
“The laird would never have given permission for me to leave.”
“And yet here you are.” Living among another clan but still wearing the colors of the MacLeod.
Perhaps the breach was not as great as she’d first thought. In truth, there might not be any breach at all, no matter what Caelis claimed.
The sense of despondency that gave her made no sense and she chose to ignore it.
“It is complicated.” And he was clearly reluctant to share the nature of that complication.
“You are welcome to spare me the details.”
Again it appeared as if she’d surprised him. “You used to be so curious.”
“The one thing I want to know about you, Caelis—the only thing that matters to me any longer—is if you are going to try to rob me of my son.”
“I will not.”
She wanted to believe him, for her own sake. Wanted to feel relief at the hard promise. Not only could she not trust his promises, however, she didn’t believe it could be that simple.
Caelis had already verbally claimed Eadan. To walk away now would be to impugn his warrior’s honor. He would not do that for her sake, or even their son’s. Of that, she had no doubts.
“Then you have no objection to us traveling on to Balmoral Island as soon as the Sinclair laird gives us his leave to do so?” She didn’t believe it, but she needed to push Caelis into revealing his plans.
“Why Balmoral Island?”
“I have family there.”
“I did not know that.”
She shrugged. Confidences that they had, or had not shared six years ago had no importance today.
“Who is it?”
“My great-grandmother came from the island. Her sister also married and had children. The last I had heard, some still lived from that generation as well as those of my own.”
“You do not know?”
“There has been no direct contact between the two branches of the family in many years, but I am certain my Balmoral kin will welcome my children and me into their clan.” At least, she hoped with great fervency.
Everything she had learned of her grandmother’s clan of origin pointed to a people who put great store by family and loyalty. A clan she could depend on to keep her and her children safe from a greedy Englishman’s desires.
“The Balmoral clan is a good one. I have spent the last year training with a special group of their soldiers.”
That at least explained what he was doing away from MacLeod lands. Though the fact her former laird had sent one of his soldiers to train under another did not meet with overweening arrogance she remembered.
“What are you doing here then?” She knew the Balmoral and Sinclairs were allies, and Caelis staying in the keep on his way southward made sense, but he was more of a long-term guest here.
That seemed clear enough.
“More training with the Sinclairs.”
Things must have changed a great deal since she left her clan behind. “I see.”
He waited for her next question with a patience she did not remember from their past.
“So your plans are to return to the MacLeod clan?” she asked with undisguised hope.
Caelis’s expression turned very serious. “Aye.”
“You will not take my son from me.”
“I told you, I have no intention of separating mother from child.”
“But?” She knew there was a caveat. Why did he have to pretend there was not?
“I cannot live among the Balmoral. I have obligations to my people. I have to return to the MacLeod.”
“What has that to do with me, or my children, for that matter?”