Laird of Lies (His Highland Heart #4)

Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

A s Stellan registered the noise at the door, he pulled away from Mariota. They were not touching when it opened, but the damage may have been done. They should not have been alone like this. And most certainly they should not have been found, both breathing hard and flushed with sensual need. Need that could never be met.

Mariota whirled around, stiffened, then relaxed. “Fionnuala.”

The woman looked like an older kitchen lass to Stellan, but Mariota must have been a favorite of hers because she put her finger over her lips and stepped out of the room, closing the door behind her. Stellan went to it and opened it again, then tilted his head in an “out” gesture to Mariota. She gave him an apologetic smile and left the room. He waited a moment, giving his pounding heart a chance to slow, then followed.

“I be sorry, lass,” the woman said. “I…” She gulped and continued, “I didna mean to interrupt.”

“Ye didna,” Stellan told her, determined to protect Mariota. “We had things to discuss and needed a quiet place for it.”

“Sure and ye did,” the woman answered, her gaze on the floor, then left them in the corridor without explaining what errand had brought her to the storage chamber.

“That canna happen again,” he told Mariota once they were alone. Though his body was telling him he wanted it to— right now. And the pulse beating in Mariota’s throat signaled the same. She wasn’t the only one playing with fire.

“It can if I wish for it to.”

“Nay, it canna, and ye ken fine why.” He ran a hand through his hair and down the back of his neck, praying for the whirlpool to calm that was swirling blood from other parts of his body into his groin. “Now tell me what yer da said. Ye confronted him, aye?” It was the best way he could think of to lower the temperature between them. Recalling the confrontation with her father would surely distract her from the blood singing in her veins. He hoped it would do the same for him.

“There’s naught more to say than I told ye earlier. I ken what ye are trying to do. But ye canna deny what is between us.”

“I must, Mariota. ’Tisna my place— or my wish —to risk ye that way.”

“Nay yer wish? What was that then?” She asked and pointed at the door they’d hidden behind. “For it seemed like ye wished it well enough while we were there.”

“I… things got out of hand, lass.”

She frowned at his words, her brow wrinkled and her lips pressed tightly together. “Did they, Stellan ?” she said. “Or did the lie finally become truth?” Anger blazed in her eyes. Or was it contempt? “Do the men with ye ken who ye really are? Are they meant to protect ye rather than me?”

Mariota’s words stabbed Stellan in the chest, right through his heart. This is what lies wrought, he thought as his blood turned cold, and he deserved it. But he didn’t have to like it.

“Ye ken?” His heart beat hard against the wall of his chest. She desired him, Stellan, enough to know the difference between him and his twin.

“I have for a wee while. I couldna be sure until—” She waved at the door behind them. “Ye and yer twin may look exactly alike, but ye are no’ the same at all, no’ in the way it matters to me.”

She touched his chest with her fingertips, making his breath catch and his heart threaten to beat right out of his chest. How could such a simple touch destroy his restraint?

“Ye are nay the same here,” she said, her gaze on her fingertips. Then she looked up at him with eyes showing moss rings around deep, dark wells. “Ye dinna have the same smile or laugh, and ye dinna have the same heart. Anders’ eyes have never burned into me the way yers do. The way yers are right now. He has never made me crave his touch the way ye make me crave yers. How could I no’ see the difference? It took me a while to believe what I sensed. I was willing to go along with whatever ye two were planning, deceiving my da so ye could come along in Anders’ place, but why did ye have to try to deceive me, too? I always felt something with ye, and naught with yer twin.”

The pressure of her touch forced him to fight his urge to reach for her. He wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms, close a door behind them, bar it this time, and make love to her as his body demanded. As hers, from her beating pulse to the scent of her arousal told him she would welcome. But he couldn’t. He was too relieved that what he’d sensed from Anders had also been true. Friendship, but no attraction with Mariota.

She wanted him. And God knew he wanted her.

“I’m sorry, Mariota. I am. I had to lie. ’Twas the only way to be with ye. To see if these feelings between us were real. I still mean to keep ye safe, nay to be the one to dishonor ye. To ruin ye.”

She took a step back, and now the tears did spill from her eyes. “Nay, ye’ll let Anders have that honor. That’s why ye came as yer twin, aye? Yer da agreed to the betrothal— in his name?”

He shook his head. What could he say? Anders’ reputation was well known, even by Mariota after the time she spent at Sutherland, and he had to keep up the charade, for all their sakes. “Naught is final. Ye ken I willna allow that to happen.”

She crossed her arms and glared at him. “How do ye think to prevent it, when ye are as tied to Sutherland as I am to MacKay?” She shook her head, her sudden sadness making her shoulders drop. “Yer brother will be a poor substitute for ye,” she said. “And he will ken it. God, how I pity him. What ye have done will break all three of our hearts.” She shook her head, turned, and stalked away.

Stellan stood in the hallway and watched her go, unable to move to find a way forward or backward. He’d made a mess of this. A mess that could quickly become a disaster if he didn’t keep his distance from her. But he’d gotten the answer he came for. He wanted Mariota. She wanted him, not his twin.

But she would soon be betrothed to Anders, and for Stellan, no other lass would do. He spun and beat on the oaken door, oblivious to the damage he did to his fists. The pain in his heart and the fury over what he and Anders had done to Mariota overrode every other sensation.

Mariota, blood still singing, made her way to her chamber and locked the door behind her. She leaned against it, needing the stout oak at her back to support her, pressing her palms into the grain of the wood, fighting to feel something other than the desperate longing within her, the pulse of her blood in her nipples and her core, and the melted butter warmth that filled her lower belly.

Stellan had come to MacKay to be with her for what time they could spend together. Not enough. Not close to time enough.

She was bound for a powerful alliance with Anders, a man she liked but did not love. Or she could have a vastly different future than she’d ever imagined with Stellan, the brother she’d left in the hallway downstairs, the brother who lit her body on fire and made her ache for his touch, his kiss, and more. The brother who’d had that effect on her from the moment he first touched her waist to help her down from her horse while she protected Valkyrie. Anders would be a friend. Stellan, her lover, the man she wanted with her every night, filling the deep ache within her, and waking her every morning with kisses and caresses that proved his need for her. His love.

If she was forced to wed with his twin, she and Stellan would have to live in the torment of not being able to be with each other. Anders would share in their misery. He would know she could never love him the way she loved Stellan. Never desire him the way she desired his twin. It was so unfair. It made her wish Stellan had not come. If she had never truly known what his touch, his kiss, would do to her, she might have been able to live her life with his brother, content, if not deliriously happy.

Did Stellan love her? Could he?

Stellan would be as conflicted as she now was. He’d all but told her how torn being with her made him. His oath to his clan was even tighter than hers. He was a male heir, the expected heir. She? She had been responsible for her twin brother’s death— or so her father believed. She was not the heir her father expected or wanted. She was the one he blamed for the loss of his son. No wonder he hated her so. No wonder he didn’t protect her from Alber.

Then why had he bothered to take an army to Sutherland to fetch her back? Why did he even want her to stay here if he didn’t want her to be laird? What would he have done if she hadn’t run away from her clan?

She pushed away from the door and paced to the window. From it, she could see the mews and the stable, both symbols to her of freedom. How different would she feel if she looked out on the ocean or the smithy or… she shook her head.

Stellan Sutherland had her head spinning, her emotions in a tangle and her body still thrumming with unmet needs. He owed her a way to fix this. And she would get it from him if it was the last thing she did in this life.

Frustrated by his situation with Mariota, and with Mariota’s rejection by her father, Stellan went to speak to him again, something he’d meant to do before now. It might not be his wisest move to confront the man when his own blood still roared in his veins, but some things called for passion. Calm reason seemed not to have worked. So he’d do this now and do what he could to steer the MacKay to a better outcome for his daughter. As he stalked down the hall, he pondered how to protect her without insulting the laird. He wished again Anders was here. None of this would have happened. He would never know how much he wanted and needed Mariota. His twin would be the kind of leader who could improve the lives of the people at MacKay. And for this confrontation, Anders’ diplomatic skills would likely prove much more successful in making the laird see sense.

And he knew every bit of that was pure bollocks.

MacKay welcomed him into the solar. If the man knew what Stellan and Mariota had been doing only a few minutes before, Stellan was certain his welcome would have been different. Frostier. More dangerous. Then again, he was about to beard this lion in his den. That could be the most dangerous thing he’d done since he arrived.

“What can I do for ye, Anders?” The MacKay gestured Stellan to a seat and leaned back in his own, hands loosely clasped over his belly.

“I’m here to appeal to ye again about Alber. He remains a threat to yer daughter.”

MacKay snorted. “She’s an emotional lass. He’s a rough man. A warrior. But he willna actually harm her.”

Was her father being deliberately obtuse? “He already has. I dinna ken why ye discount the danger he presents.” Stellan held up a hand to forestall MacKay. “He threatened her and he put his hands on her. Have ye forgotten I told ye the last time he got her alone, he tried to smother her? Mayhap she didna admit to ye that he has also attempted to ruin her. Ye ken he nearly killed the hunting hawk, Valkyrie.”

“After he was attacked.”

“Nay. Before.” And why was MacKay focused on what he’d said about Valkyrie and not about the threats to Mariota? “Ye must accept the threat is real and banish Alber.”

MacKay straightened up in his chair, stood, and planted his fists on the desktop. “’Tis my decision to make.”

Damn, he had taken offense, just as Stellan had feared. “Of course it is,” Stellan told him. “I wouldna suggest otherwise. But I dinna think ye have been told the full extent of Alber’s harassment of yer daughter. Yer heir. I urge ye to take it seriously.” Did MacKay not realize how Alber’s actions could be perceived? As an insult and challenge to his laird, so public and ongoing that Stellan judged the clan must consider their laird weak, since he let it go on. Stellan had sense enough not to compound the challenge MacKay faced by telling him what he was thinking. But the man should have figured that out on his own and done something about it. For his sake and his daughter’s. And his clan’s.

MacKay resumed his seat. “’Tis nay so simple as that.”

“With a betrothal pending, nay, ’tisna. If Alber thinks she will soon wed a warrior able to defend her better than anyone yet has, what do you think he’s likely to do?” Stellan took a breath. He’d almost said her husband would be able to defend her better than her father ever had, but had caught himself just in time. “For some reason, he covets her birthright. He wants to be laird, any way he can.”

MacKay frowned, giving Stellan hope than his words were penetrating the thick shield the man kept around his thoughts and feelings. What would it take to get through to him?

“Mariota had nay reason to lie while at Sutherland about what happened to her,” Stellan said, pushing his argument. “And nay reason to lie to her father and laird.”

MacKay’s nod spurred Stellan on. “Ye should be working together. As my brother and the Sutherland do.” As he and his father did, he almost said, but saved himself from the gaffe.

“In what way?” MacKay seemed genuinely interested.

“Stellan confers with the laird daily, attends all meetings, judgements, and the like. He plans for the clan with our da. Crops, buildings, new crafts, fairs. Da has given over some tasks to him, such as visiting outlying crofts and seeing to their well-being.”

“Only the heir, and nay ye, the spare?”

“I do as well when I can. He uses me in other ways, as well.”

“Interesting. But I canna see a lass riding to outlying crofts…”

“Why no’, with sufficient guard? She wants to learn from ye. For the good of MacKay, she must. She may no’ be able to swing a longsword to go to war for the clan, but she is reputed to be a skilled archer, and can defend MacKay’s walls. And train other lasses to do the same. She could name a war leader to command MacKay warriors in the event they are needed. I have seen how well she has trained Valkyrie. She has values beyond the alliance ye contemplate that perhaps ye havena taken advantage of.”

Someone knocked on the door, forestalling any reply MacKay might have made. He glanced up and called out, “Come.”

Stellan stood, knowing he’d lost MacKay’s attention. “I’ll leave ye to think on what I’ve said,” he told him and left as a man he didn’t know entered. Stellan thought MacKay heard him. Perhaps he would change his thinking about the value of his daughter and heir, and do more to protect her.