Lost Bride Chapter 12

TEN

MATTERS OF HONOR AND DUTY

Lucy stood between Angus and the door. He was dressed in his finest and ready to leave for another evening of drinking and gambling. But Lucy was determined.

He lowered his chin and lifted his eyes with wry boredom. “This is hardly the time.”

“Oh yes, it is. I’ve been trying to speak with you all day.”

He looked down, unable to deny that he’d been avoiding her.

She pulled up straight and lifted her chin. “It’s time you face up to your responsibility. You can’t leave Effie to bear the brunt of this alone.”

Angus looked at her frankly. “She’s been well paid for her trouble.”

“Her trouble?” Lucy rolled her eyes. “Oh, I wish men would have to go through labor. The illegitimacy rate in this century alone would dramatically drop.”

“What?” Angus asked, squinting.

“She’s carrying your heir.”

“Ah, but there’s a difference between a bairn and an heir. An heir is legitimate; that child is not.”

“Then make it so! For once, Angus, do something right.”

A threatening shadow darkened his eyes. “Take care who you order around.”

Her eyes flashed. “Someone needs to tell you, so it may as well be me. Your brother has been running this estate and covering for you for so long, it’s just business as usual for him. And your father, God bless him, has a soft spot for you that has spread to his brain and affected his judgment. Meanwhile, you’re drinking and gambling away your family’s assets, not to mention your life. If you’re determined to destroy your own life, I won’t stop you, but I will not let you do it to Effie, not to mention to Rory.”

Angus leaned back, wide-eyed. “Rory’s a big boy. Aren’t you, Rory?”

Lucy turned around. How long he’d been standing there, she didn’t know. But from the look on his face, long enough.

“Aye. And she’s right.”

Angus stared back at Rory with an unreadable expression then regained his equanimity and grinned with his usual charm. “Well, with that settled, I’m off.” He paused in the doorway and turned. “Maybe Rory could marry the wee bastard’s mother. It wouldn’t be the first time, would it, Rory?” Angus left, closing the door firmly behind him.

Rory’s eyes flashed with rage as he threw open the door and called after his brother. “So you could kill her too?” He sprang forward.

“Rory.” Lucy tried to grab hold of his arm, but he yanked it away.

“Stay out of it.”

Lucy stood in the doorway and watched as Rory caught up with Angus and landed two punches that left Angus on the ground, panting and swiping the back of his hand over his bloodied nose.

“It’s your turn, Angus. And I’ll see that you take it.”

Lucy ran past Angus and caught up with Rory in the stable. “Where are you going?”

“To Effie’s.” He stopped and stared at his horse’s bandaged leg, then told the stable boy, “Saddle Angus’s horse.”

Lucy put herself squarely in front of him so he could not ignore her. “What are you going to do?”

Leaving the boy to saddle the horse, he took hold of her elbow and led her outside. It was starting to rain, so they stood under the eaves. “I’ll bring her back here and see that he marries the girl.”

“Out of spite?” She shook her head. That was not what she’d wanted. Once more, Effie would bear the brunt. Lucy didn’t want to see the girl given a home out of anger, where she would be resented if not reviled.

Rory looked at her with sternness that shocked her. “You started this. It’s too late to complain about how it turns out.”

“What did Angus mean about you marrying her?”

Rory chuckled bitterly.

“You accused him of killing your wife.”

His eyes darkened. “Why can you not leave it alone?”

“I’m too invested.”

“Och, sometimes you speak, and all I hear is rubbish. I dinnae ken you mean. I dinnae ken whether I want to.”

“I mean that if there’s to be anything between us, I need you to be honest with me. What happened to Margery?”

Rory’s jaw tensed, and he looked about as if caged. Then harsh eyes landed on hers. “She died giving birth to Angus’s child.”

Lucy needed a moment to absorb what he’d said, but once he’d begun, there was no stopping him.

“One day, after Angus had discarded her and moved on, she came to me. Desperate. With child. She begged me to talk to Angus. She’d already tried. He insisted he wasn’t the father. She said there’d been no one else, but he called her a liar and sent her away.”

Lucy was too stunned to speak.

“So I married her.”

“Oh, Rory.” Whatever character Angus lacked, Rory had twofold.

“Dinnae look at me like that. I did it because she was with child not because I forgave her. I hated her, but I just didnae hate her enough to send her away.” He shook his head and stared off into the distance. “Then she died having Angus’s baby. I’ll never forgive him for that.”

Rory glanced inside the stable as the groom approached with his saddled horse. “Would you make sure a room is prepared in case I’m able to bring her back here?”

“Of course.”

Rory rode off moments later and was soon at full gallop on his way to Effie’s.

Lucy walked into the house, feeling as though her whole world were crumbling about her and she was to blame, at least partly. She’d brought old pain back to life and stirred up tension between the two brothers. But she had to live with herself, and allowing Effie to be shooed away like some wayward mutt was something she couldn’t let go unaddressed.

She turned her thoughts to more immediate matters. After arranging a room for Effie, she considered Captain Munro. He would need to be told what they had planned. She didn’t have to look far to find him. As she neared the library, she heard Angus and Captain Munro in a quiet but heated discussion. She did an about-face. This was not a good time.

She wasn’t sorry for what she’d said or done. What she’d said had come from the heart. Lucy had been one of those bastards Angus had spoken of with a sneer. She’d seen how hard it had been for her mother to raise her alone. She could only imagine how much harder it would be for Effie.

Lucy walked into her bedroom and closed the door. Why had she come to this time? It certainly hadn’t been by choice. Had her life not already been complicated enough? She went to the window and looked at the shades of green gently draping the hills and the glen. Why, when surrounded by such staggering beauty, must life be so cruel? And for all she knew, a similarly harsh judgment could fall upon her. She was there at the Munros’ will and their mercy. After what she’d said to Angus, he would be within his power to cast her out with or without Rory’s consent.

Rory rode

along the pass through the tall Highland hills to the croft where Effie lived with her father. He thought he had grown too hard for Angus to hurt him again, but then Lucy’s words brought back the way he’d felt on that long-ago day when Margery had come to him, so desperate.

She’d wronged him, and she’d known it, but it hurt to see her like that. In her way, she loved him. He saw it in her eyes through the sadness. But she loved Angus more, and her leftover love seemed to mock him. He couldn’t bear to see it. He wanted to hate her and send her away, but he couldn’t. So he did the right thing by marrying her, but then he punished her by withholding even the smallest bit of comfort or warmth.

When she lay in his arms, dying, he begged for forgiveness. And she gave it to him, but his remorse was too late to help. By the end of the day, she and the baby had been dead, and he may as well have been.

If Angus was repeating the mistakes of his past, then Lucy had forced Rory to remember not only the pain of the past, but the love of the present. Since he’d met Lucy, he felt something he’d given up on: hope. He’d begun to think of a future that wasn’t alone. If she couldn’t get back to her home, he hoped to convince her that her future was there with him.

In the meanwhile, he would bring Effie back to the castle and make sure she was cared for, with or without Angus’s help. The bairn she carried was a Munro, and that child would be properly cared for.

A shot rang out from the hills. Rory looked up to see where it had come from, then drops of blood fell to his hands, and the world went black.