Page 157 of Bride of Fire
He tightened his jaw.
“YouknewI couldn’t abide the Highlands,” she spat. “YouknewI was miserable. And yet you did nothing.”
His fist tensed on the hilt of his claymore.
She was right. He’d known for a long while how unhappy she was. He’d hoped that she’d grow to love his home. He’d hoped that having a bairn to care for would make her forget her loneliness.
“’Tisyourfault I fled into the arms of another,” she insisted. “What else was I to do?”
He scowled. He knew he couldn’t be blamed for Alicia’s disloyalty. But was there a kernel of truth in what she was saying? Could he have done more to keep her happy?
Her voice softened with bitterness. “At least I left you the babe.”
That was true. She could have taken his heir with her. It was a sacrifice most mothers couldn’t have borne.
Jenefer, however, didn’t see it that way.
“You mean the babe you threatened to kill?” she snarled.
In an instant, Alicia’s eyes transformed from rueful to furious. “Andyou!You meant to steal his son from him!”
“What?” she exploded.
“You wheedled your way into his household,” Alicia bit out. “You knew if you commanded his heir, you could command his castle.” She peeled her lips back from her teeth and erupted in a mirthless cackle. “Well, the jest is on you. That babe you’re so desperate to protect?” She turned back to Morgan with a whisper that was cruel and full of malice. “’Tisn’t even yours.”
Alicia’s words hit him like the blow of a lance, collapsing his chest and piercing his heart.
It couldn’t be true. Miles had to be his. Morgan loved the wee bairn.
Stunned, he couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe.
Jenefer apparently could. She reared back her fist and plowed it straight into Alicia’s face.
Alicia dropped like a stone.
There was a collective gasp of horror from the clan.
Alicia, not quite struck silent, was reduced to mumbling curses harmlessly into the dust.
Morgan wanted to feel pity for her. Instead, he felt satisfaction as Jenefer shook the pain of impact from her knuckles.
“Don’t listen to her,” Jenefer said. “OfcourseMiles is yours. You know that. She only said that to provoke you.” She stepped toward him, confiding, “I knew he was yours before you ever said a word. Remember? He has your eyes. Your smile. Your air of command.”
That he did. Miles could summon Jenefer to do his bidding with a single wail.
Alicia had heard enough.
She’d been utterly humiliated at the hands of that usurping whore. Irreparably wounded by her arrow. Laid low by her punishing fist.
Now the wicked woman had the gall to malign her to the clan and to her own husband.
Damn the wench! Alicia was mistress here.LadyAlicia mac Giric. And she wasn’t going to put up with any more.
She might be bleeding and battered. She might be reduced to crawling in the dust like a lizard. But she would rise like a dragon.
While the two lovesick doves cooed over her, Alicia blinked to clear the dazed fog from her eyes.
While they murmured sickeningly sweet reassurances at each other, she rooted through the grass with her undamaged hand.
