The old man looked over, his eyes beady and bloodshot. “Niall. Get over here. Stand in the light, don’t skulk in the shadows.”
“Shadows, eh?” Niall strode over to the window and yanked the curtain fully to the side, allowing the sunlight to stream in.
“Not that much light!” his father growled, then coughed.
“What are you, a vampire? The sun will do you good.”
“It hurts my eyes.”
Niall didn’t give a damn about his eyes. “What do you want to discuss, father?”
“How did the London business go?”
Niall rolled his eyes. “As badly as we expected. No bank will offer a loan without putting up property as collateral.”
“The MacNair lands stay with the MacNair!” his father practically shouted. “We do not carve bits off like a roast lamb. The land is our blood.”
Niall had heard all this before (and in fact believed it. It was probably the one thing he and his father agreed on). He explained, “I did sell the bulk of the jewels and the gold. It took a long time to find buyers willing to pay a reasonable price. If I’d gone to the first pawnbroker, I could have completed the business in half a day. But got only one twentieth the value.”
“How much did you get?”
“Eighteen hundred pounds, more or less. It will sustain the household until spring, barring some new disaster.”
“Huh. You should have got more.” He coughed again, sounding as if a cold had settled in his lungs. “You didn’t sell the sapphire. Already gave it to that little whore?”
Niall’s hand clenched into fists. “Call her that again, and I will turn around and leave here, with the money, and the ring, and my wife. You can enjoy your triumph while slowly starving to death.”
MacNair sneered. “Touchy about her, are you?”
“I’m not touchy about her, I’m merely suggesting that you don’t refer to your own daughter-in-law in a bad light, if only to preserve the family’s name.” Niall knew that his father hated even the littlest smirch on the MacNair reputation.
“Bringing an English chit back with our sapphire on her finger…”
“Mama’s sapphire.”
“My sapphire. Everything in this castle is mine. Your mother merely wore the ring.”
“Yet she paid the price for it.” Niall remembered seeing his mother black-eyed too often, or walking softly to hide a limp. “The women of this family haven’t fared well under your rule, have they?” His own mother, his aunt, even his sister Maeve now, who was slowly losing her light as caring for their father ground her down.
“Watch your mouth, son. You’re under my roof.”
“And I got the funds to patch the roof. You’re welcome, by the way.”
“As if I’d be grateful for your wandering, especially when you drag a wife back.”
“Does that bother you, Father?” Niall asked, suddenly grinning. After all, this was what the whole charade was about. Needling his father, putting him in his place, reminding the elder MacNair that he wasn’t the omnipotent master he imagined he was. “My pretty, blonde, very English wife? Does that vex you?”
“God damn you, you know it does! What the hell were you thinking, boy?"
Niall thought back to the moment he’d first seen Heather, hounded by strangers, and later when she revealed her story, showing her true spirit. “Truly, Father, you wouldn’t understand if I did tell you.”
“Ach, I don’t need details. Short-sighted, always in the moment, never thinking ahead. No strategy, Niall. You should have taken what you wanted from her and then left her to her own devices. Once they’re soiled, women have no more use, save one.”
“Is that what you told Aunt Morag?”
His father inhaled sharply, the enraged breath ending in a choked sound. “Don’t say her name! You know nothing about that.”
“I know she was a good woman. She was kind to us after Mama died. And she fell in love with Simeon Farquhar, one of our most loyal men. I remember how he’d come to the keep to give his reports on the farming, and that he always said hello to Ian and Maeve and Fionnuala and me, even though we were children. And Aunt Morag would come over, and she’d smile like the sun came up whenever she saw him. You didn’t like it though, that she cared for a common farmer. Then all of a sudden he was gone, and she was gone.”
