Page 50 of The Defiance of a Scottish Heart
Sheona shook her head furiously.
“Did he touch you in ways you didn’t like?”
She denied it vigorously again, wondering how to explain exactly what had happened. “Could you explain something to me? I was told that the act … the marriage act … is verra painful. Why do women marry, then?”
“Because they told you wrong. With the right person, the marriage bed is an act of love. It’s an act where each participant shows the other one how much they love them, and from that love comes pleasure, not pain. Now, when forced onto someone who doesn’t want it, it’s extremely painful. It’s called rape.”
She scowled, trying to fit Simone’s words into what she’d learned about the act, but she couldn’t. “I think I should go.” She stood and turned away from Simone.
“Wait, Sheona, please. Why don’t you tell me exactly what you were told and by whom? Or tell me how you learned what you did.”
Stopping to think, Sheona played with the hairs that had come loose from her braid, wondering how to explain exactly what had happened, but then she rejected it.
It would be easier if she said nothing at all.
“My thanks, but I have to go.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Rut
Later that day, Rut went up to the parapets to think on all she’d learned. Something was going on, but she didn’t know exactly what it was. After watching Dermot Rankin sob like a wee bairn, she knew there were more things taking place on the Isle of Mull than she was aware of. The question was how to find out exactly what had happened.
The isle had been in turmoil for most of autumn. So much had happened that it was hard to keep track of everything. Tamsin had been left on an island to die by her evil husband. Thane had saved her and married her. Then some twisted, diabolical person had tried to have bairns stolen away to be sold to more sick souls in Europe. All for coin. The bairns of the clans had been tortured too much: Magni, Rowan, Sylvi, Tora, Sandor, Alana, Astra, John, and the poor lad from Aoineadh Mòr.
Then there was Meg, who’d been kidnapped and forced to care for stolen bairns; Rinaldo, who had killed Sloan’s first betrothed and wished to kill his own brother; and wee Grant, abducted only to prove he had strange powers that even his parents didn’t understand.
But Rut thought the evil force had finally been silenced once Merryn and Tristan MacClane put an arrow through the bastard’s heart. Everyone on the Isle of Mull deserved a rest.
But they weren’t resting at all. Dermot was unsettled, and it was about more than he was admitting. And what the hell did Sheona have going on that she preferred a nunnery to her own clan?
Rut thought to take her usual stool, but she decided to walk the parapets instead. The light breeze made it a lovely day. The sun was out, something they hadn’t seen much of lately. Shestrolled to the front of the curtain wall, glancing about, seeing nothing of interest until she heard her second-born son.
Rut stopped and sat on a ledge to listen, trying not to be seen.
“Taskill, you are looking fine today. Your golden locks are waving just right.” One of the serving lasses, the newer one who Meg had hired, followed him.
Taskill ignored her and kept walking.
A lass from the village called out, “Taskill, will you be coming to the festival on the morrow? I’d love to see you.”
Taskill ignored that one too and kept walking. Rut had to stop herself from yelling over the edge of the wall, “What the hell is wrong with you? Answer them.”
But he didn’t, too wrapped up in his thoughts—or was it intentional? She couldn’t answer that. Her son had always been admired by the lasses once he’d matured, and he loved it, basking in the compliments. Rut was grateful he hadn’t fathered five bairns in the area, for none of the serving lasses had been carrying, even though they were mostly single.
As she pondered this, she couldn’t help but remind herself of her son’s words from the other day. Hadn’t he claimed he never asked for the compliments? That he never encouraged the lasses at all?
And here it was happening in front of her. Both lasses chased after Taskill, still babbling foolishness at him, but he ignored them.
Yet they didn’t stop.
She gave some thought, but before she could contemplate it, her son bellowed, “Leave me be. I didn’t ask you to follow me. Go away!”
Had she been wrong all along?
Jasper appeared out of the stables, and Taskill called out to him, “Where’s Lennox? I need to speak with him.”
That made Rut stand right up.
