The Laird Takes a Bride(84)

Was this the man to whom in the nights she’d given herself, body and soul? Who had brought her to the heights of unimaginable pleasure? And to whom she had, equally, given pleasure?

Hadn’t she?

She thought she had.

It was as if their connection was painfully fragile, ephemeral, like an exquisite flower—whose time was bound to be brief —fading in front of her eyes.

Really, now that she thought about it, not unlike the dream of Logan which also had turned to mist and disappeared.

Fiona blinked. She remembered something else from that night when they had first made love, really made love. Alasdair, calling out in his own dream, as if desperately trying to summon those lost in the loch. And after, she now realized, distracting her from talking about it. And so now, with a hard, desperate edge—half wanting to clutch at him, half wanting to hurt him—she said abruptly, “Who is Mòrag?”

Alasdair’s jaw tightened, but coolly he said, without looking up from his book, “Only ancient history, my dear.”

“Stop calling me that!” she snapped, and with a violence that surprised her, flung her sewing to the floor, scattering pins everywhere. “And answer me!”

“We may be married, but that doesn’t mean I’m obliged to dredge up meaningless anecdotes from my past, simply for the purpose of satisfying your curiosity.”

Fiona reeled back, as if from an actual blow, her body vibrating with rage and frustration. “You—you’re—you’re nothing to me,” she said, nearly choking in her urgent desire to hurt him, to wound him for pushing her away. “I’m so sorry I married you!”

She heard Isobel gasp and glanced over to see both her and Duff looking shocked. With his eyes bugged out like that, he looked like a toad too, Fiona thought meanly. In fact, they both did. She turned her furious glance to Alasdair, who, with a slow deliberateness that seemed only to mock her, closed his book, set it aside, stood up, and said, with that same remote, light, frighteningly courteous voice:

“Nothing. I see. I’m afraid, though, that you’re stuck with me. My apologies for being such a bad bargain.” He bowed slightly. “A most elucidating evening. And now I bid you good night.”

He turned toward the door, and Fiona shrieked, “How dare you walk away from me! Don’t you dare leave this room!”

But he did leave the room, and without pausing, without a backward glance.

And with a vicious gesture she swept her work-box off the sofa, creating an even bigger mess of needles, scissors, thimbles, pins, a wild ugly jumble of thread.

In the heavy silence that seemed to blanket the room like a looming black raincloud, Fiona found herself shaking from head to toe. Good Lord, had that really been her, shrieking like a harpy, flinging things around? What had happened to calm, rational, reserved Fiona? Gone, she thought bitterly, gone like petals dropping from a dead flower. She turned her eyes to Duff, and watched in acrid amusement as he seemed to shrink back a little.

“Do you know who Mòrag is?”

“Was,” he replied, but cautiously, as if fearful she’d start throwing things at him, too. “She was on the boat that went down that day. They said she was young and beautiful. But that’s all I know.”

“Of course she was young and beautiful,” said Fiona, in a hard, bitter voice. “And I’m neither. I’m jealous of a dead woman.”

“Oh, Fiona dear,” Isobel said uneasily.

The minutes ticked by, with agonizing slowness, some ten or fifteen of them, Fiona guessed, and then a servant, William, came in with the tea-tray. Well, here was one small comfort, she thought, he’d come too late for the fireworks. And speaking of fireworks, it occurred to her that it felt as if her entire life had spontaneously combusted, and all she had left was a pile of black ashes.

Nothing seemed to matter anymore.

Carefully William set the tray on the low table before her. Of course there were macaroons. Delicious macaroons. She knew that if she tried to eat one, it would stick in her throat like sawdust.

“Thank you, William,” she said.

“You’re welcome, mistress,” he answered, then crouched down and reached for the jumble of threads.

“No. I’ll do that.”

“Mistress?” He was puzzled.

“I’ll do it. Thank you, William. You may go.”

“Very well, mistress.” He stood, left the room, still looking puzzled.

Isobel approached, moving as one would toward a formerly friendly dog who had just sunk its teeth into someone’s ankle. “Fiona dear, please let me help you.”

“No. I made the mess, and I’ll clean it up. Have a macaroon.” And Fiona laughed without humor. She slid from the sofa to kneel on the soft floral-patterned carpet, where with an awful punctiliousness she began picking at the spools of thread.