“People act predictably.” He pushed himself away from the table and turned to face her with a frown. “Except for you. You, I don’t understand.”
She smiled. “I think I might be flattered by that.”
He rubbed his injured shoulder and looked away. “They’ll be outside right now trying to decide if they should kill me or obey my mandate. Fraser and some of the others will be arguing that I should be killed in my sleep. He was to marry you, wasn’t he?”
His quick turn of topic and acute perceptions surprised her. “He thought so. How did you know?”
“The way he looked at you.”
“What else did you gather?”
“I know at least a score of the rebels by sight, by tomorrow I shall know their names.”
Callie was dumbfounded. Her uncle who had known these men for years had yet to discern any of the rebels, including the fact that his own nephew was one of them. And yet Sin had managed to do it in a matter of minutes? It was inconceivable. “Are you serious?”
“Aye. Fraser is in with them, no doubt.”
“Think you, he leads them?”
He shook his head. “It’s not in him.”
“But he stood up to you. And I know the others respect him quite a bit.”
“He stood up to me only because of you.” Sin reached out to touch the stray piece of hair on her cheek. The softness of her skin was so soothing and yet his heart ached at what he suspected.
He’d seen the way Fraser had looked to her brother when she had spoken. The look in her brother’s eyes and the way Dermot had glanced at several others.
Dermot was in the thick of all this. Worse, Sin had a suspicion her brother might even be the rebel leader himself.
Aye, now that he thought about it, he held little doubt. It could only be fate that he would be sent here to kill the brother of the only woman he had ever cared for. It was just the type of twisted irony fate would hand him.
It would destroy her to lose her brother because of him.
Callie would hate him forever.
Perhaps that would be for the best. If she hated him, then she would gladly seek out her annulment. She would refuse to stay married to the man who destroyed her brother.
You don’t have to kill him...
It was true. He could just as easily hand him over to Henry’s custody.
Sin’s gut knotted at the thought of it. If he sent Dermot to England...
Images of his childhood tore through him.
“Worthless Scot’s cur. Not even fit to lick my boots.” He could still feel the blows he’d taken, not just from Harold, but from all of the English who had hated his Scot’s blood.
Could he condemn another boy to such a life?
Nay. ‘Twould be much kinder to kill Dermot outright than to leave him to such a fate.
He looked at Callie, trying to memorize her face. If he could have any wish, it would be to love her. To keep her safe from all harm.
But in this, he was powerless. If he didn’t hand Dermot over or kill him, Henry would destroy her entire clan and her in the process of it.
Like so many other times in his life, his hands were tied. This he must do. There was no way around it.
Twelve
