Several times, she had expressed her desire to go back to England and help her father navigate the scandal that he had brought upon himself, but that wish was born of her altruistic nature rather than having anything to do with wanting to go back home.
Ruaridh knew that, and he was not ready to let her go and offer herself as a sacrificial lamb to salvage whatever was left of her family’s reputation, but it seemed that while he might be able to get a horse to the stream, he definitely could not force it to drink, and the last thing he would ever do was coerce a women to marry him even if his chest ached at the thought of losing her.
“Ye want to return to England?” he asked quietly, thankful that his voice did not betray the pain he felt.
“No, I don’t want to. Not anymore,” she sighed. “Father can solve his own problems. He has always done so. He does not need my help. Not really.”
“If ye have nay plan to return home, then why will ye nae marry me?” he followed up, confused.
“I do want to marry you,” she said in a small voice, studiously avoiding his gaze. “I just don’t think I amreadyto.”
She did not trust him. Despite the weeks they had spent together, she had not come to see him as someone she could entrust her life to, and he did not blame her. He would not trust himself either if he were her.
The proof was there in his past, how he had totally overlooked the signs that his wife was weak, too weak to carry a child to term. Mary had always complained of headaches and periodic weakness right from the start of their marriage. He had believed the healer when he had said that it was simple weakness resulting from strenuous work.
Of course, Ruaridh had believed him, because Mary was definitely a hard worker who had made sure to get involved in the running of the castle despite his warnings to rest.
She had tried. Of course, she had tried to rest. But unfortunately, she was not one to sit idle. Her restless energy drove her to her feet, a trait he saw was now reflected in their daughter.
Mary had kept running the castle until the moment she went into labor. After calmly informing the women around her to send him, she climbed the stairs herself and lay on the bed in her room.
By the time the women fetched him, the midwife was already there, conducting the labor, and he was asked to wait below stairs. Those few hours were the most painful in his existence, so when he heard the sound of a child’s cry, he thanked the good Lord for the end of that ordeal.
The midwife then came out with a solemn look.
“Ye have a lass, me Laird,” she said, causing a smile to split his lips in joy, eager to see the gift that the heavens and his good wife had granted him.
But something in her expression gave him pause.
“Me wife?” he asked.
She stared at him quietly before shaking her head.
That simple gesture turned his world on its head.
He could not remember how he flew up the stairs. All he could remember was opening the door to find Mary lying on her bed, her skin pale.
Blood. There was so much of it. The air was thick with the stench of it.
He fell to his knees beside her bed and took her hand in his own.
“Please daenae go,” he whispered urgently, hating the helplessness in his voice.
“I daenae plan to,” she said with a tired smile, squeezing his hand in consolation.
He held onto her hand, warming it with his own, whispering a bunch of nonsense to her in the hope of keeping her awake while the maids cleaned her up and dribbled concoctions down her throat.
Sometime later, he had fallen asleep and woke with a start to see her looking down at him with a gentle smile. He had never been so grateful. The good Lord had spared her life and saved her from his selfishness.
Or so he had thought until the following year, when she thought to travel to see a relative of hers in England. He should have insisted on bringing his men along. Instead, he had listened to her entreaties to leave them behind and take just the coachman, since it was simply a journey to see her family.
He should have known better that a journey of that length hardly went hitch-free. He should have known that even traveling between clans came with its own danger, but he had allowed her to lull him into a false sense of safety, trusting implicitly in his fighting skills, which had later proved to be his undoing.
When those men had accosted them and requested that they hand over their valuables, he should have done so, especially knowing that he carried precious cargo. Instead, the order had elicited resistance, and he had overestimated his swiftness because in the next moment, all he heard was the sound of a gunshot, and he had instinctively braced for impact that he never felt.
When he looked beside him, it was to find his wife splayed across the seat, a hole in her chest that was bleeding, her eyes open and glazed over.
She was dead.
