Page 49 of A Forbidden Night with a Scot
“What dae ye fear will happen tae me?” she asked.
Samuel shrugged a shoulder. “Perhaps there will be another attack,” he said. “Perhaps he’ll find a way tae attack us in the water an’ I willnae be able tae save ye.”
“In the water?” Alicia asked with a frown. It was an irrational fear, she knew, since they had no plans to be at sea any time soon, but her fear of bees was irrational, too. It didn’t make it any less real to her, though, and so she knew it was the same for Samuel. Even if the fear itself was irrational, there was no way to avoid being caught up in it.
Samuel hushed her gently and let his eyes fall shut, so Alicia took it as a sign that the conversation was over. She let her own eyes fall shut then and clung onto Samuel, the two of them falling asleep like that, tangled up in each other’s arms.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Across from Samuel, Nerian sat with an amused smile on his lips, swirling a cup of wine in his hands, looking right at home in his arm chair in front of Samuel’s desk, where he spent much of his time. It was a smile Samuel didn’t like seeing at all—in fact, it infuriated him, and that seemed to amuse Nerian even more.
“So, ye bedded her,” Nerian said with a small shrug. “An’ ye have fallen in love. What is so terrible about either o’ these things?”
Samuel shook his head, unable to understand how his friend couldn’t see the severity of the situation. “What about Gavin, Nerian?” he reminded him. “What happens when Gavin finds out? He will find out if I wish tae stop him from givin’ her hand tae MacTavish.”
Nerian shrugged a shoulder. “Perhaps he will be unbothered by it.”
“I sincerely doubt that.”
Samuel had been struggling with this thought all day. Sooner or later, Gavin would recover and it would be time for Samuel to tell him the truth. There was no avoiding it; it was the only way to avoid Alicia’s marriage to Laird MacTavish, and it was also the right thing to do. Neither Alicia nor Gavin deserved to be forced to deal with Samuel’s lies.
And yet the odds were stacked against him. What were the chances Gavin would be unbothered by it as Nerian said? What were the chances he would not only allow this relationship between Samuel and his daughter, but also support it? If their roles were reversed, Samuel knew for certain that he would be apprehensive, at least, if not outright murderous.
“Ye cannae ken if ye dinnae tell him,” Nerian said. “An’ the sooner ye tell him, the better. I doubt he will be as gracious if he finds out ye have been lyin’ tae him fer long.”
“I dinnae wish tae put any undue strain on him,” said Samuel. “He is still weak an’ he has a long recovery ahead o’ him.”
The stress of the revelation would undoubtedly lengthen Gavin’s recovery time, Samuel thought. It was better to wait for his wounds to heal more before he revealed the truth to him, but he couldn’t help but feel that by then, perhaps it would be too late.
Neither the king nor Laird MacTavish had been in contact since their last letter, but they were surely becoming impatient. Though word of Gavin’s injuries had been sent to them both,the more the wedding was delayed, the more displeased they would be. The last thing Samuel wanted was to wait so long to tell Gavin the truth that another order came, this time more pressing than the last.
“He is feelin’ better, though,” said Nerian. “The healer allowed him tae move tae his private chambers, so he can only be recoverin’ well. He doesnae need her constant supervision anymore.”
That much was true, Samuel knew. He had been informed by one of the servants that Gavin had been transferred to private chambers after getting the all clear from the healer, and he had been glad to hear his friend was doing better. Still, he would rather wait—party because he was so afraid of his reaction.
With Gavin’s disapproval came the end of their friendship. If he was opposed to his relationship with Alicia, then he would lose them both.
“I will speak with him,” Samuel promised. “When the time is right.”
The right time never came. Samuel was so busy with clan matters and the possibility of another attack that he hardly had time for anything else besides meetings with his council and personally overseeing the training of his men. He wanted everyone to be prepared in case Colm MacLaine decided toattack the castle itself, which sounded more and more likely with every passing day.
There were rumors of more of MacLaine’s men nearing the borders. Spies, soldiers, messengers, all of them there to scout and report back on what they had found. Some of them had been caught by Samuel’s men, but they were uncooperative, refusing to give up any of MacLaine’s secrets, regardless of how persuasive Samuel’s men could be. No torture seemed to work on them. They would rather die than give Samuel information—at least any information useful to him.
The days passed one after the other, leaving Samuel disoriented and unmoored from time. Every day seemed the same to him, an endless cycle of the same strategies, the same meetings, the same people. Each day, he tried to talk to Gavin and each day, he failed. Each day, he tried to see Alicia, and he could hardly even do that outside of dinners and a few stolen moments between their duties—he with his council and she with her father, taking care of him as he recovered along with Katherine.
Samuel had found himself near Gavin’s door several times in those five days since they had arrived at the castle, and none of those times seemed like the right moment to speak with him—or at least that was what he told himself. The truth was much simpler than that: he simply feared his reaction and was trying to delay being at the receiving end of his wrath, no matter how many excuses he told Nerian about his reluctance to talk to him. The thought that Gavin would see him as a monster from the moment he found out the truth had etched itself in Samuel’s mind and soon, no other option remained. It was the only resulthe could imagine, the only way the conversation about Alicia could end.
It wasn’t all just fear, though. Deep down, he still held onto the guilt, that terrible thought that he was a monster for loving Alicia. No matter how many times anyone reassured him his love for her could only be right, there was a part of him that rejected that idea entirely, a part which insisted he was doing the wrong thing, feeling the wrong thing, and would corrupt Alicia in the end.
A knock on the door of his study pulled Samuel out of his thoughts, and he called for his visitor to enter, expecting it to be a member of his council or one of his soldiers. Instead, Katherine entered the room, her small, elfin face now seemingly permanently twisted into a mask of worry, ever since the attack on her father. Still, as she sat down across from him, she smiled, and the smile was warm and reassuring.
“Katherine,” Samuel said, standing to greet her. It was a surprise to see her there, since she was now spending so much time caring for Gavin. “Is there somethin’ I can dae fer ye?”
“Fer me? Nay,” said Katherine, shaking her head. “But fer ye? Perhaps.”
Cryptic as her words were, Samuel could only frown at them. Before he could ask what she meant, Katherine added, “I ken about ye an’ Alicia. She has told me everythin’.”
This was hardly a surprise. Samuel already knew the sisters shared everything with each other, and he hadn’t expected Alicia to keep it a secret from Katherine. He also hadn’t expected, though, to have Katherine in his study, talking so openly about this. Had Alicia sent her, he wondered? Or had she come on her own?
