Page 99 of The Cruel Highlander's Bride
“I didnae think ye thought so low of me.” He laughed bitterly, staring back at her with an empty expression. It was all too easy to turn the hurt he felt into anger, as he so often did.
“Ye dinnae get to do that,” she shot back. “Ye dinnae get to turn this around on me. I saw ye there. I saw ye walk out with those women who touched ye far more proprietarily than they should have. What do ye expect me to think?”
Anger still roiled within Magnus from everything that happened tonight. His wife, who he had thought believed in him and saw him for who he truly was, apparently thought him nothing more than a philanderer.
Were all her claims about his virtue a lie, then?
“So ye were jealous, is that it?” he hissed.
Ciara scoffed. “What would I possibly have to be jealous about? We arenae anythin’ to each other. I ken that.”
The crack that had opened in his heart snapped wide at that.
We arenae anythin’…
Magnus took a step closer to her, his fists clenching at his sides. He wanted to show her just how wrong she was, to prove that every touch and kiss between them waseverything.
How could she possibly think that?
“Ye dinnae ken anythin’, lass.”
* * *
Ciara did not back down even as Magnus took another angry step towards her. She had made the most logical conclusion based on what she knew at the time. He did not get to make her feel guilty about that, regardless of how her assumption might have stung.
His eyes blazed as he stood a breath away from her. They shone with an emotion so strong that she almost staggered back from it, from him—and that, more than anything, made her pause.
Even as her own anger simmered in her veins, she could see in his eyes there was something more here, something she was missing. She took a deep breath and reminded herself of all they had yet to learn about one another. If there was an explanation for why he was at the brothel, she wanted to hear it.
“Then enlighten me,” she simply replied, still holding his tumultuous gaze.
With a sigh, Magnus ran a hand through his tangled hair. The anger faded from his expression, and he looked back at her, lost. She fought the urge to comfort him, to wrap her arms around his larger body until that expression turned into something happier. But she forced herself to stand her ground and wait.
“Obviously, me faither was the Laird,” he started. “But I didnae ken that until right before I killed him.”
Ciara couldn’t keep the shock from her face entirely, and Magnus shot her a rueful look. She knew he was born out of wedlock, but she assumed he at least knew his lineage…
“Aye, that was a shock, for sure. I didnae grow up in the castle, obviously. But me maither did her best. She found a job that paid her well and offered us a place to stay…”
He looked back at her then, imploring her to understand, but she was still stuck on the first revelation. He had truly never known his father, had not grown up with him, and from everything she’d learned about the man, that was probably for the best. But for her husband to just find out one day about this mantle of leadership hanging around his neck…
Magnus sighed again. “She found work in that brothel. I was raised there,” he finally admitted. “She did what she had to do to provide for us. But she had precious few options after me ‘beloved’ faither kicked her out of the castle, when he grew tired of her. Ye ken, he didnae even remember her when I came back to confront him?”
Ciara stilled. Magnus was raised in the brothel? The revelations were coming so fast that her mind could hardly keep up with them.
“She’s dead now,” he added flatly. “But her best friend, Helen, is still alive, still at the brothel, though she barely works anymore. She’s like a second maither to me. And I grew up with a lot of the other ladies as well—they were me siblings, in a way.”
The women had not touched him like lovers, they’d embraced him like family, and Ciara had only seen the worst.
Her initial assumptions had been rooted in her insecurities and fears, she could see that now. Her hurt over being left behind had once more clouded the evening.
At that moment, uncertainty and doubt had won over, and all her other interactions with him had been pushed to the back of her mind. She couldn’t hold onto the way Magnus looked at her or how he touched her when she had seen their hands on him.
She didn’t begrudge herself for that, though. There was so much Magnus had not told her, all this history that would have made everything far clearer. They were both to blame for what had happened tonight.
Magnus stared into Ciara’s eyes, his expression sincere. “There’s never been anythin’ between me and any of the women at the brothel. I’ve never felt that way towards any of them, and besides, I never wanted them to feel uncomfortable around me. Even knowin’ that, ye are right. I never should have let them touch me in any way after we got married. No one but ye should have that privilege.”
“Magnus…” Ciara started to say. She didn’t want him to never embrace his family again, but he kept going.
