Page 46 of Sins of the Highlander

“I’m not. I said I was a husband. My wife died.”

Elspeth stroked Fingal’s head in silence for a moment, then met Rob’s gaze. “D’ye wish to speak of it? Mayhap it will help.”

“Women are ever quick to say such, but words dinna change a damned thing.” He turned away in self-loathing. “We could talk all night, but Fiona will still be dead.”

“I’m sorry for it,” she said softly.

“’Tis no’ your fault, lass.”

Yet he was making her pay for it. He supposed he owed her the truth.

“Did your parents arrange the match?” she asked.

He snorted. As if he’d allow someone else to make that kind of decision for him. “No, my parents are long gone. I’ve been laird since I was sixteen. Fiona was my choice.”

Elspeth sighed. She’d already confessed that her wedding was more a joining of clan interests than two souls. Did she envy Fiona and him their love match?

“Did she bring ye much land and cattle in the marriage?” she asked. “I’m told men value such in a bride.”

He shook his head. “Not an inch of earth or a single hoof.”

“Then why did ye choose her?”

He shrugged. “I married her because she wouldna live with me in sin.”

“Ye can’t fault a woman for that.”

“No. I wouldna fault Fiona for anything. I simply couldna live without her.”

“And yet ye do.”

The waves washed along the hull of the boat, filling the silence. Once he’d have fancied he heard Fiona whispering beneath the sound, but now there was only the shushing of the loch against the wood.

Fiona would never speak to him again.

“What I have now isna life, Elspeth,” Rob finally said. “’Tis but breathing.”

“What—” She stopped herself as if she feared asking something too personal, but because she was a woman, she couldn’t bear not to finish the question. “What was your wife like?”

Rob smiled. He rarely spoke of her, but he suspected he should do it more often. Fiona always lifted the darkness of his heart.

“She was…” He finally found a bard tucked in his soul. “Fiona was sunlight on the water. A warm hearth while the wind roars outside. She was—”

“Tall and willowy,” Elspeth interrupted, straightening her spine. “And she had long red hair.”

“Aye. How did ye know? Did Angus tell ye so?”

She shook her head. “I…guessed.”

“Well, then, since ye brought the matter up, aye, she was lovely. And her beauty ran clear to the bone. She was kindness itself.”

He could still see her in his mind’s eye on the day of their wedding, her cheeks flushed, her green eyes glowing. Then he remembered the last time he saw her, and his chest tightened so he couldn’t draw breath.

Once the dark moment passed, he found that his lungs still craved air. “I didna deserve her,” he said roughly. “Like the water horse and his bride, I damned her on the day I made her mine.”

“What happened?” Elspeth asked so softly, Rob wondered if he heard her only think the question.

“Come Christmas, ’twill be two years past. I married her on the day of our Lord’s birth, and we celebrated Christmastide in roaring fashion,” he said with a melancholy smile. “Then just before Twelfth Night, Fiona wanted to visit some of the outlying crofters with baskets of food, but my friend Hamish had seen a wild boar, a monstrous big fellow, he said, and he wanted me to go after it with him. So I told Fiona the crofters could wait till we had some fresh pork to add to the bounty. But she’d set her heart on going that day.”