“Stop it, Laird McLeod!” Horace cried, trying to hold him back, but in Ruaridh’s rage, he flung the man aside and continued to punch the bastard on the floor.
Only when he felt the man’s jaw crack did he stop.
The bastard moaned. He was not dead; dead men didn’t moan. Ruaridh let his barely conscious body drop to the ground.
As the man jerked, he considered finishing him off. Lord Westall needed a message sent to him. Ruaridh wanted to post hislifeless body across the sea, wrapped in his tartan, but dead men didn’t talk.
“Get up.” He dragged him to his feet. One side of his face was shaved away, and the other side was purple and swollen. His head hung backward. Lord Westall would have trouble recognizing him. “Tell this to yer boss. If he ever comes close to me family or sends anyone to me home again, it will be the last time he breathes, do ye understand me?!”
It was not wise to release him into the night. He could have more men waiting in the dark for his command to attack. Any man with a modicum of wisdom knows not to venture into enemy territory alone.
They were a trek away from the castle, and Ruaridh was without a weapon. Horace could not keep up if he tried to run, and Ruaridh could not leave him behind, regardless of the situation he had put them in. He hoped the man had come alone and had better sense than to attack when he could barely hold his head up.
Ruaridh watched him until he completely disappeared behind a copse.
“I am sorry.” Horace was still on the ground, trembling as though he feared a reckoning.
“We should retreat for now.”
Ruaridh did not wait for a response. He just turned away and walked ahead, shoulders set, pace steady enough that Horace would have to keep up or be left behind. It was the only mercy he could offer. A space to breathe.
The way back felt longer than the way over. The cicadas had quieted, drowned in their homes by the rain. Ruaridh thought it ironic. A storm had come unexpectedly, stolen their shelter, their safety, leaving nothing but cold earth and bare ground, and he was facing the promise of a storm.
He had been just like the bugs—teeming with life, living in blissful obliviousness, unaware of his own looming disaster. Now that he was aware of it, he had to think of the shade he would provide for his people.
Tomorrow, he would have to sit down with the man and find out exactly what Westall knew. The clan might not be safe.
Westall had blatantly rejected Violet, so why would he want to be part of her life again? Men didn’t change their minds without reason, and certainly not Westall. He was too proud for regret, too careful for sentiment. If he was coming forward now, it was for something he could hold, something he could gain. Clan McLeod was his target.
“My Laird!” Horace paused at the door.
Was he now feeling too guilty to enjoy his hospitality?
“Forgive me.” The words came out small, almost swallowed before they reached the air. He said them with his eyes fixed on the pool around his feet. He would catch a cold if he kept up this pathetic theatrics.
Ruaridh could not care for his sincerity. Act or not, the man had proven to be a fool who could endanger everyone around him for personal gain.
He felt for Violet. She had to be raised by this man. No wonder that when he met her, her dreams had been of mundane things that an average person experienced on a whim. Despite all of that, she loved him still. Loved him enough to vouch for his integrity, his honesty.
She had let him into her life, believing that he was going to come around, that he would accept her choices, but he had been scheming to marry her off to a man she did not love, who had called her used and defiled.
How could Horace have been so foolish as to have trusted Westall? How could a father be so uncaring to a woman as fragile and kind as Violet?
Ruaridh turned towards him. He was torn between keeping the man’s betrayal a secret from Violet and letting her find out the truth. It would be better early in their relationship. It would be better if she heard it from her father’s lips.
“I am not the one ye should be apologizing to. Ye put Violet and everyone in me clan in danger, most especially Violet. Ye should come clean to yer daughter and beg for her forgiveness.”
In all of this, all he could think of was Violet. Violet, who loved her father. Violet, who was not yet part of his clan, a clan Westall would massacre just to have his revenge.
The thought stung like a blade in his back from a trusted hand. Every decision Ruaridh had made since she had come into his life had been corrupted by his weakness for her.
He was a failure of a laird, and these petty feelings he was letting distract him were a weakness he could not afford. He needed to return to who he had been before he let pretty distractions corrupt his mind. When he was cold, his senses were sharp.
He would do his duty to Violet and marry her, but he would never allow himself be blinded again by weakening emotions like love.
27
Violet watched Ruaridh over the rim of her cup as he forked his breakfast with an inscrutable harshness, and she thought him absolutely adorable.
