Page 68 of His Secret Highland Bride

It may have been a topic to be discussed in private, but there was no time, and she deserved the truth. She’s always deserved it. But now he was going to do better about providing it, and not just because Tory’s earlier question was still teasing at his thoughts.

Will she leave? He’d certainly given her no reason to stay as of late. “My brother returned with bad news. The MacColls plan to attack us. We may only have a few days before they arrive. They think we took Deirdre and their money.”

Lindsay gasped, but not in the way that he worried she might swoon. This was simply surprise.

“That woman is a menace,” she said angrily.

“Aye, that is a kinder word than I have used.”

“What can I do to help?” Shane noticed she had lowered her voice. Perhaps so her father wouldn’t put her off again. Still, he didn’t want her to feel obligated. This was his mess.

“You have done plenty already. You don’t need to worry.”

He could tell he’d said the wrong thing as soon as the last word left his mouth.

“Have I not proven myself to you? Am I to be the laird’s wife, a fixture at your table to be paraded about in my finery solely to make you proud? Should I put all my efforts on bringing forth a male child so I might finally prove my value and my reason for existence?”

“I, uh—” No words would come, and definitely not the right ones.

She interrupted his stammering when she stood. “Please excuse me. This silly dress is set to suffocate me.”

He rose, but she was already gone and was halfway across the hall. He knew he’d done wrong by her, keeping his identity a secret for far too long and forcing her to live in a tiny cottage with simple gowns and food. But he didn’t think this outburst was his doing. Or at least not completely.

“Women,” the Wallace laird said. “They don’t wish to keep to their purpose. Always wanting more.”

“I don’t know about all women. But that one certainly deserved more from me.”

She surely had deserved the truth. The truth he kept from her was far, far worse than her not revealing her truth to him. He was the laird, and he had failed even before he began.

…

Lindsay couldn’t be bothered with a maid. She tugged at the gown until she could get it loose enough to twist herself out of it. Next, she removed the necklace and tossed it on the dressing table. It wasn’t that she was ungrateful for the things her father had bought her and brought to Cluny for her. It was just that in his mind, that was all she was. A decoration. Good for nothing more than to show his people how generous he was. She and her mother spent every evening looking pretty and saying nothing. And now it seemed her new husband had the same mentality, which really struck her as unlike him. Perhaps she didn’t know him at all.

He didn’t want her help.

When she’d been a simple woman, it had been fine that she helped in the village to make weapons, but now…she was the laird’s wife. That was all. She would no longer be his confidant or the person he shared his worries and concerns with.

This was the very marriage she had wanted to avoid. Except perhaps Shane wasn’t a monster. Though now that she thought back, she realized how much the war chief and Shane looked alike. Because they were brothers. Another wave of irritation washed over her as she tugged on one of her older, more comfortable gowns. The one she’d made, from that other life. That rare bubble of time where it was all so sweet and perfect. Before they knew the truth of it all.

She didn’t answer the first knock at her door—or the second. She didn’t know who it could be, but it didn’t matter, for she didn’t want to see anyone. She shouldn’t have been surprised when her husband opened the door and came in anyway.

“Am I to be called on to do my wifely duty so soon?” she asked as she pulled the jeweled comb from her hair with a yank.

He frowned at her. “I know we didn’t know what seems like the most important part of who we are, but I don’t think that’s true. We did know things. Mayhap, even things no one else knows. And you damn well know I would never force ye to lie with me if you didn’t wish to. Not ever.”

She let out a breath and nodded. “Aye. I know it.” She was so angry it seemed to leak out of every word and breath. “Why have you come?”

“I didn’t doubt you’d be able to handle whatever it is I might say. I only wished to spare you from worrying over something not your responsibility.”

“I am a MacPherson, am I not?”

“Aye. You are.” He paused and then paced in the room before coming back to stand before her. Then he began to speak and didn’t seem able to stop until he’d told her everything about Deirdre stealing from the MacColls and their impending arrival as early as tomorrow.

“As you mentioned, Doran delivered another load of knives today, and not a minute too soon,” he said.

“Do you need me to go to the village tomorrow to see to the people there?” she asked, wanting to do something useful.

When he frowned again, she raised her chin, ready for him to tell her she wasn’t needed, like her father had said so many times when she’d been eager to learn something or help in some way.