CHAPTER 35
Rory’s labored breaths filled his ears like an echo of the accusation he saw in Sybil’s eyes. As soon as he heard that the Grants had come to the castle, he turned his horse homeward at a gallop, in the hope that he could speak to her first.
But the time to tell her was long since passed.
One look into his wife’s face, and Rory understood the depths of the error he had made. She only let it show for a moment before a mask of calm shuttered her expression, but the naked pain he saw in that moment pierced his heart like a hot blade in the center of his chest.
Now, the slight tremor of her fingers against the skirt of her gown was all that betrayed the storm of emotions she was hiding. God in heaven, would she ever forgive him?
Grant cleared his throat with growl, reminding Rory that he faced not one, but two disasters.
“Kenneth has reached his eighth birthday, the age at which tradition dictates a child should leave his mother’s clan for his father’s.” Grant clamped a hand on his grandson’s shoulder. “Your son should be raised as a MacKenzie.”
Rory could strangle Grant for forcing the issue now. His timing had nothing to do with tradition and everything to do with Rory’s unexpected rise to clan chieftain.
“Ye shouldn’t have brought the lad,” Rory hissed in a low voice.
Tension flowed among Rory, Grant and Sybil like a surging river on the verge of breaching its banks and drowning them all.
“Nonsense, mo chroí,” Sybil said with a smile on her lips and daggers in her eyes. “I would not have wanted to wait a moment longer to meet your son.”
“He’s no—” Rory started to say but bit his tongue. This was not the time or place, in front of the boy.
Sybil looked down at the lad then, and showed once again just how remarkable she was. Genuine warmth filled her eyes, and she took the lad’s hand and leaned down to speak to him.
“I can see you’re a wee bit worried by all of this, but ye needn’t be,” she said in a soft voice Rory had to strain to hear. “Ye see, I’ve left the comfort of my home and family to come live with these MacKenzies too, so I think you and I are going to become the very best of friends.”
While he and Grant postured, Sybil showed her generosity of spirit by recognizing the lad’s fears. She had as much pride as any of them and more reason to feel affronted. And yet, out of kindness, she welcomed the child into her home and family as if his arrival was a gift she had long hoped for. Rory loved her even more for it, and he knew he did not deserve her.
“What do ye say, Kenneth,” she said, “shall we be friends and mind each other’s backs among these wild MacKenzies?”
After studying her face, the lad gave her a solemn nod.
“I’d wager that a growing young man like you must be hungry after your long ride.”
The lad nodded, more vigorously this time. Sybil straightened and bestowed her smile on the rest of the Grants—but definitely not on Rory.
“Again, welcome to our home,” she told them. “We’d be honored if you would join us for dinner.”
The lad held tightly to Sybil’s hand as she led them up the steps of the keep. Just before the guard opened the door and she swept inside, she gave Rory a look over her shoulder that could have frozen a loch.
***
It was a wonder Rory did not get frostbite sitting between Grant and Sybil. And Grant was the warmer of the two. While Sybil engaged in a lively conversation with everyone else at the table, each attempt he made to converse with her was met with a hmmph or nothing at all. She refused to even look at him.
He wished he could take her upstairs at once and explain everything to her, but relations with the Grants were already at the breaking point without insulting them by leaving the table.
Sybil was all charm and smiles to their uninvited guests, especially Grant’s grandson, whom she had seated on her other side. Placing the lad in an honored position above his uncles at the high table, as if he were Rory’s heir, was not helpful. Rory could not move the lad to a more appropriate seat without creating still more trouble with the Grant chieftain, and she damn well knew it.
“You’ve never been to Castle Leod before?” he heard her ask.
The lad, who had stuffed a large piece of roasted pork in his mouth, shook his head.
“But surely ye must have spent some time with your father?” she said. “Was it at one of the other MacKenzie castles or perhaps at your grandfather’s?”
“Nay,” the lad said around the food in his cheek. When he noticed Rory was watching him, his cheeks turned pink and his gaze dropped to the table.
Though Sybil’s face was turned away from him, Rory could feel her indignation. She was judging him, though she knew nothing of the circumstances.
He had his reasons for not seeing the lad. Good reasons. But he should have told her long before now.
The moment the meal was finished, Sybil stood to leave.
“It was a delight to meet you all, especially Kenneth.” Sybil squeezed the lad’s shoulder, and the two beamed at each other. “Now I’m sure you men have matters ye wish to discuss.”
“We most certainly do,” Grant said, his eyes burning holes into Rory.
Without sparing Rory a glance, she left the table. He watched her straight back as she walked toward the stairs.
The outside doors to the hall banged open, jolting his attention as a young woman burst inside. Her hair was loose and tangled, and her eyes red from weeping.
“Why have ye taken wee Kenneth, Father?” she cried out.
Rory dropped his head onto his arms on the table.
Jesu! This was Grant’s daughter, the lass he was supposed to marry.
***
Sybil stood frozen, transfixed by the young woman’s startling appearance. She looked like a distraught Viking princess, tall and striking and uncontrolled. The violence of her emotions was evident in her red-rimmed eyes, dirt-smudged face, and unruly tangle of blond hair.
“Why are ye here, Daughter,” the Grant chieftain ground out, “and not at home where ye ought to be?”
“As soon as I found out ye took him,” she said between gasps for breath, “I had to come.”
“By all that is holy,” Grant shouted, “tell me, Flora Grant, that ye did not ride all the way here by yourself?”
“I did,” his daughter said.
From the state she was in, she had ridden hard to get here.
“Ye bring shame upon me and our clan.” Her father’s face was growing dangerously purple. “Wait for me outside in the courtyard.”
“I must know why ye brought Kenneth here,” the lass persisted, clenching her hands. “I’ll not let ye leave him here with no one to protect him.”
God help her, was this Kenneth’s mother? And Rory’s lover? Sybil felt faint.
There was talk of a marriage between me and a chieftain’s daughter. The pieces fell together, like blocks of stone. No wonder Grant was angry upon learning that Sybil was Rory’s wife. This lass was the chieftain’s daughter that Rory was meant to marry.
The woman he would have married, if he’d known his marriage contract with Sybil was false.
Sybil had managed to keep her composure through the shock of learning he’d kept the existence of his son and heir from her. But this was too much. And yet she remained at the bottom of the stairs, unable to leave until she heard the rest.
“Why would the lad need protection in the MacKenzie castle?” Rory’s voice was low and dangerous, and his eye twitched. “Are ye suggesting I would harm a bairn?”
“Ye don’t want him,” the lass said, “or ye would have claimed him.”
“I haven’t claimed him,” Rory said between clenched teeth, “because I don’t believe he’s mine.”
How could Rory say that to the mother of his child? And in front of the child, for God’s sake. Sybil’s gaze caught on Kenneth. The poor boy was struggling against one of his uncles, who was preventing him from running to his mother.
“How dare ye insult my dead daughter!” the Grant chieftain roared.
Dead daughter? Sybil had no time to absorb this information.
Swords were about to be drawn. Sybil had to stop this before blood was spilled.
***
Too late, Rory realized that he’d let his temper get away from him and gravely offended his guest. He needed to make amends with the Grants and keep them as allies, not cross swords with their chieftain.
“Stop this at once!” Sybil shouted, drawing everyone’s attention. “Can’t ye see you’re frightening young Kenneth? And if there’s to be a fight, it will not be inside my hall.”
Before they recovered from their shock at her bold words, she crossed the hall to the high table and pointed at Grant’s son, who was holding the lad.
“Release him, please,” she told the uncle, and he complied.
She took the lad’s hand and led him to Grant’s daughter, who threw her arms around him. The only sound in the room was the lass’s weeping, while the men who had been on the verge of fighting all stared at the three of them.
When the lass finally released the boy, Sybil said something to her. The two women then whispered back and forth, nodding. Then, to Rory’s amazement, Grant’s daughter embraced Sybil like a long-lost sister.
Sybil’s face was drawn as she again approached the high table, where he and the Grant men were all still gaping.
“I’m sure the MacKenzie regrets any offense he may have caused,” she said to the Grants. “Now if you’ll forgive me, I really must retire.”
After a torturous and fruitless discussion with Grant over the boy, Rory climbed the stairs with more trepidation than he ever felt going into battle. He had given Sybil a couple of hours to calm down, so perhaps she had gotten over her anger by now.
After drawing a deep breath, he pushed the door. It did not budge. He put his shoulder to it. She must feel uneasy with outsiders in the castle, for she had barred the door.
“Sybil, it’s me,” he called. “Open up.”
He put his ear to the door and heard a rustle of movement inside. His relief when he heard her slide the bar back did not last long.
Before he could reach for the latch, she flung the door open and stood glaring up at him.
“Sybil, I—”
“Not here in the doorway,” she hissed. “I’ll not be further humiliated by having your feeble excuses overheard by curious servants who are no doubt listening at the bottom of the stairs.”
Clearly, she was not over her anger yet. He was tempted to turn around and give her another hour or two. The hard glint in her eyes suggested that would be another error, so he stepped inside.
She shut the door with more force than needed and spun around to face him. “Ye have a son and heir, and ye didn’t tell me. How could ye keep something so important from me?”
“You didn’t tell me you’d been married—that ye had a husband when ye were supposed to be my contracted bride.”
“I had a dead husband, not a living son,” she said. “For the last fortnight you’ve made me suffer for not telling ye the marriage contract was false. And all the while ye were keeping this from me!”
“’Tis not the same.”
“Aye, ’tis not! The marriage contract was my brother’s deceitful act, not mine,” she said. “Ye could have found out the truth any time ye wanted in the last eight years by showing it to someone or coming to claim me.”
“But you knew the truth, and ye didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t tell because my life was at risk!” she said. “What reason could you have for not telling me about your son?”
“’Tis no simple matter.”
“Everyone knew about him but me,” she said, flinging her arms out. “Your clan, the Grants, probably half the Highlands!”
Rory could not deny it.
“It hasn’t been easy for me to be accepted by your clan when every one of them was against me from the start,” she said. “I’ve tried so hard!”
Oh, Jesu, her eyes were filling with tears. He felt like shite.
“Now you’ve made it nigh on impossible for me by showing your clansmen that ye neither trust nor respect me,” she said. “How am I to overcome that?”
“Ye already have.” He tried to take her hands, but she pulled them away. “They saw how well ye handled our guests and the…situation with the lad.”
“The situation?” She swiped angrily at a tear that slid down her cheek. “Ye still haven’t told me why ye kept this from me.”
***
“I don’t believe the lad is mine.”
“Ha!” Sybil could not believe Rory would lie to her now. “Will ye tell me next that ye never bedded the lad’s mother?”
Rory heaved a sigh. “I wasn’t the only one who did.”
“Don’t insult her as well as me.” His answer made her so furious she wanted to throw something at him. “Do ye count us all as fools? The lad looks exactly like you.”
“He—”
“Get out!” she shouted.
Sybil had to make him go before the tears welling in her eyes spilled down her face. Once she started weeping, she feared she would never stop.
She tried to shove him out the door, but it was like pushing on a boulder. She dropped her arms and turned her face away from him. If she looked at him, into the face of the man she had recklessly given her heart to, she would lose control.
“Please, Rory,” she choked out, “just go.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt ye,” he said before the door clicked shut behind him.
She heard each footstep as he walked away, then she collapsed on the bed and wept for the lost dream she should never have believed in.
Suddenly, she remembered the priest and the message from her uncle. She did not have to stay here. There was a ship waiting for her at Inverness.
With shaking hands, she changed into warm clothes for her journey.