Page 398 of Wicked Highland Heroes

Chapter Twenty

Iain took the stairs two at a time, the recollection of Victoria during dinner driving him to close the distance between them. The smile she had given in response to one of Liam’s comments had captured his attention during the meal. She had incited his lust when she licked the wine from her lips.

He quickened his pace in response to her rushed steps along the corridor, then halted behind her where when she hesitated at the door. He reached past her, shoved open the door and urged her inside. She flinched with the scrape of the door as he closed it. A tide of primitive emotion swept through Iain, thick and hot. It mattered not if she was unable to decide between him and Hockley. She belonged to him.

“Do what you will, my lord,” she blurted. “I have had worse.”

The unexpected image of the beating she expected snapped Iain from the fury that had begun when he learned of her assignation with Edwin. Even desire evaporated as his mind raced with memories of promises to protect her, and the vow—privately made—to show her that she would never again suffer at another man’s hand, least of all his. Iain shook off an uneasy tug to his gut.

“I have no intention of beating you.” he said.

“You might as well. This is no better.” She wrapped her arms around her shoulders as though to ward off a chill in the warm room. “You think yourself better than those men you hold in contempt for mistreating women?”

He stepped toward her, but she shook her head.

“What would you have me say?” he asked.

She blanched as if struck physically. “What did you say when I saw you with Madeline?”

The veracity of the question startled him, but it was the hurt in her eyes that roused a whisper of dread in his soul. “It is not the same.”

“Of course.” She gave a grim nod. “A man’s logic.”

“Nay.”

“But it is. You say I should trust you, that I need not fear you. Yet, with the first rumblings against me, you send me to the gallows a condemned criminal. Aye, you will not beat me—nay, not Iain

MacPherson—you are too civilized for that. But the condemnation is there in your voice, your eyes—” She halted, fighting tears that pooled in her eyes.

Iain grasped her shoulders.

Victoria shoved his arms away. “You think those rebukes hurt any less than the ones I received at Richard’s hand? You condemn me just as Jillian’s clan did her.” She swiped at the tears that slipped past her eyelids. “They were judge, jury, and hangman. How is this any different? Even Jillian was allowed to know who condemned her, but not I.”

“I did not think it of any consequence. You confessed to the meeting.”

“I confessed no such thing.”

Iain narrowed his eyes. “You did not deny meeting him.”

“Aye, we spoke. Surely your spy could tell you that—as well as the fact that he followed me there.” “’Twas not my spy,” Iain responded with heat. “Hockley followed you? By God.” Iain clenched his hands in an effort to keep from grabbing her. “What did he want?”

“He insisted I return home with him. Where I belong.”

Iain stopped cold at the realization that this moment was the first time she wondered if England, along with Edwin Hockley, might indeed be where she belonged.

Victoria stared. “You thought I planned to return with him—and less than a day after we wed? Who told you this lie? Who holds such power over you?”

The question stood between them as wide as any chasm, and Iain realized what the truth would do to her. But to refuse an answer meant sure death for their union. Fool, he cursed. Why hadn’t he seen it? The informer had gone out of her way to set him against his wife and, as Victoria pointed out, with little resistance on his part.

“’Twas Madeline,” he said.

Victoria stared in stunned silence. He stood, unable to move as the distance between them widened with every passing second. All those years he had arrogantly believed that the ghosts haunting his father couldn’t touch him. But they had. It was true. The sins of the father were visited upon the children. Odd, that this realization should bring understanding of his father’s obsession with his mother.

The face of every MacPherson sacrificed in a feud waged to wreak vengeance on God and mankind slammed Iain’s senses. And to think he believed himself above the chaos, thought to avoid his part in his father’s battle. Never would he forget the woman who rocked him when he cried, or sang him to sleep despite the tears she shed. Only a lad of twelve when his mother had died, he had been old enough to understand his father had killed her with his jealous and possessive nature.

The realization brought Iain to his knees before Victoria.

“Nay!” She stepped back, but Iain caught her, pulled her to him, and wrapped his arms around her waist.