CHAPTER 29
“A confession?” Tension pulled Rory’s shoulders tight, clenched his stomach, and made his eye twitch as he waited for Sybil to answer.
“I should have told ye this long before now,” she said. “I did try to tell ye at the very first, but when ye misunderstood me…well, I let it go.”
Rory had always sensed Sybil had a secret, something she was not telling him. Was he finally going to learn what it was? She licked her lips, as she always did when she was nervous.
“Come, lass, it can’t be that bad,” he said, though he suspected it was bad enough because Sybil was not easily rattled. “You’d best tell me and get it over with.”
“Ye had no obligation to wed me and no obligation to protect me,” she said, looking up at him with watery eyes. “In truth, ye had no obligation to me at all.”
“We’ve been through this before.” Was this all she was upset about? “If I had no honor, I could have used the loss of your dowry or found some other excuse to abandon ye. Ye should know me better by now than to believe I could turn my back on my contracted bride when ye were in danger.”
“I was never your contracted bride.” She dropped her gaze to her feet. “There was no marriage contract between us.”
“We had a binding marriage contract.” He had no notion what she was talking about. “Ye saw it yourself.”
“I did see it,” she said. “It was not a valid contract. It was a fraud.”
“Now that I’ve told ye I love ye, ye want out of the marriage?” he said, his voice rising. “Is that why you’re saying this?”
He shoved the bedclothes aside and got out of bed. He paced up and down the room, but it did not help calm the turmoil inside of him.
“Rory, I—”
The words died on her lips when he gripped her arms and leaned over her to look her in the eyes.
“If ye wished to break the contract before we bedded, I would have allowed it,” he said. “But it’s too damned late now.”
“I don’t want out of the marriage.”
“What other reason could ye have to make up this tale now?” he said, flinging his arm out. “I know that is your brother’s signature on the contract. I watched him sign it.”
“One of my brothers did sign it,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “But it was the wrong brother.”
“The wrong brother?” Rory felt numb.
Sybil tried to touch her fingertips to his cheek, but he brushed her hand away.
“It must have been my brother George who lost to ye at cards, because that was George’s signature on the contract,” she said. “Archie is the chieftain and head of my family. Only he had authority to make a binding contract for my marriage.”
Rory stumbled backward as if he had taken a blow. The room faded as his memory took him back to that night in Edinburgh so long ago. He saw it all again as if he was sixteen years old and back in that tavern…the dim, low-beamed room…the maid with the missing teeth who grabbed his arse…the Lowlander merchants who bought him stew and ale in exchange for his tale.
He felt the pain in his leg and his desperation to return home as he followed the tavern maid down the dark hallway. Her sour smell filled his nose as she opened a door a crack to reveal the well-dressed nobles gambling in the back room.
“That one is the new Douglas chieftain, and the one next to him is his brother,” she said, pointing a thick finger at two black-haired nobles who looked about the same age.
“Who have ye brought us, Rosie?”
Rory had assumed, without even realizing he did, that the brother who spoke first and had the largest pile of coins in front of him was the Douglas chieftain.
The other Douglas brother left when Rory joined the table, and Rory never gave him another thought. His attention was fixed on his goal of winning the coin he needed to purchase a horse and sword. The easy charm and wit of the Douglas who stayed to gamble fit the brash young chieftain who had seduced the queen so soon after the king’s death that she still carried her dead husband’s child.
Rory remembered how the candles were pools of wax, marking the hours that drifted by as they played through the night. Though he had done well, he worried that the pile of coins he had won might not be enough. Only he and the Douglas were left in the game now. Rory kept his gaze on the man across the table as he swept the coins from the last hand toward him.
“I can’t leave it like this,” the Douglas said. “One last round?”
Rory nodded. If he doubled the coins he’d already won, he would have enough to buy a sword and a fine horse to get him home. He pushed all he had to the center of the table.
“You’ve won all the money I had with me,” the Douglas said. “Loan me some of it back.”
Rory shook his head.
“Do ye know who I am?”
“You’re the Douglas chieftain who married our widowed queen,” Rory said.
“If ye know that,” the Douglas said with an amused smile, “then ye know I’m good for the loan.”
“What I know,” Rory replied, “is that enforcing payment against a man with your connections would be difficult.”
The Douglas laughed and poured them both another drink. “You’re wise beyond your years.”
Rory could hold his whisky, but they had been playing cards and drinking steadily since his meager supper. His head felt thick, and the whisky no longer dulled the throbbing pain in his leg.
“Come, Highlander, one more hand,” the Douglas said, tilting his head.
“I would if ye had anything left to put on the table.”
Though the Douglas was so wealthy he would not miss the money he’d lost, it was clear he was not accustomed to losing. Tonight, however, luck was with Rory and not the Douglas. It was a damn shame the man had run out of money.
“’Tis late,” Rory said, and stood up. “Thank ye for a fine game.”
“Damn. What else have I got that I could wager?” the Douglas said, patting his tunic. He looked up with a grin and raised his finger. “I know! I’ll give ye one of my sisters.”
Rory blinked. “You’ll wager your sister?”
“Aye, in a marriage contract,” the Douglas said. He turned to one of his companions, who was slumped in a chair, and shook him. “Tell him what a Douglas lass is worth.”
“The dowry of one of his sisters is worth many times the coins you’ve won tonight,” the friend said. “Ask anyone.”
Rory did not want to be bound to a Lowlander lass, no matter how great her dowry. And yet he could not help recalling the time he’d seen the Douglas sisters ride by. The image of the black-haired Douglas lass with laughter in her eyes filled his head, and the question tumbled out of his mouth.
“Which sister?”
“Which one do ye want?” The Douglas’s satisfied smile showed he knew he’d offered an inducement that tempted Rory.
“Sybil.” One of the other girls had called her name, and it had stuck in Rory’s memory like a burr. When he spoke it aloud, it felt like spiced wine on his lips.
“Ye made a good choice, since the two older ones are already wed,” the Douglas said with good humor. “Not that it will matter, as you’ll lose this last game.”
“Ye must think me a fool.” Rory was annoyed with himself for nearly agreeing. “I won’t play for a promise of a marriage contract any more than I’d rely on coin ye don’t have in hand. You’ll wake up sober tomorrow and forget the debt.”
“I’ll write the contract myself right now and sign it.” He pointed to one of his friends. “Give me that letter ye received today. I’ll write the marriage contract on the back.”
The friend produced the parchment, and the Douglas began writing with a fluid hand.
“I, Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, chieftain of the Douglas clan, and guardian of my sister Lady Sybil Elizabeth Douglas, do hereby enter into binding marriage contract on her behalf…”
He read the words out loud as he scrawled them across the page. Rory listened carefully as he named the properties, as well as the silver and jewels that comprised her dowry. When the Douglas was finished, he signed it with a flourish, then slid the parchment across the table.
“You sign here.” He pointed as he handed Rory the quill. “Then my friends will sign as witnesses.”
If Rory won, he could borrow against her dowry for the rest of what he needed to get home. And years from now when they wed, he’d be a wealthy man. He told himself those were the reasons he sat back down at the table.
“If ye win, I’ll give this parchment to ye,” the Douglas said. “If ye lose, I’ll tear it up and take every last one of your coins.”
Rory studied the man. “Why would ye make such a wager?”
“A wild Highlander would suit my sister Sybil, wouldn’t ye say?” he said, turning to his friends, and they all laughed. He turned back to Rory. “But it will never happen because you’ll lose. Fair warning—I always win the last hand.”
Rory should have taken the money he’d already won and left. But he imagined a lass’s shining black hair falling over his chest, and he signed his name, which was all he could write.
For years he had told himself that he agreed to that last, unusual wager for the wealth and powerful connections such a marriage could bring to him and his clan.
Now he saw the truth. He had done it for a chance to spend his days and nights with the bonny black-haired lass with laughter in her eyes.
He had been so damned certain that night that luck was on his side.
But luck, like the lass herself, was fickle.