Page 58 of Sins of the Highlander

He covered her hand with his. “I’ve got to ask ye now before your mind returns to ye entire.”

“When ye set yourself to be charming, Rob MacLaren, ye do go all out.” She snorted. Evidently he thought her mind faulty, but baring a few gaps in her memory, she felt clearer about everything than ever in her life. “Ask me what ye will.”

His smile faded. “I did ye a grave harm, Elspeth Stewart, when I stole ye from your wedding. I put ye in danger and brought this injury upon ye. Do ye think ye can ever forgive me?”

All that he’d told her about his wife and Lachlan Drummond bubbled to the surface of her mind. She should probably wait to hear her betrothed’s side of the story, but Rob’s was pretty convincing.

And Rob wasn’t the one who shot her with a crossbow. That she remembered very clearly.

“Aye, Rob, I forgive ye. But…” She gnawed her lower lip.

“But what?”

“Even if I pardon ye, I dinna think ye’ll have any peace until ye forgive the one who’s wronged ye.”

A wall slid down behind his eyes. “Forgive Drummond, ye mean?”

“Aye. There are two sides to every tale, and—”

“This is naught but the poison talking. Hepzibah filled ye with evil humors afore she did her work,” he said. “She claims she isna a witch, but I wouldna swear to it. Your mind is no’ yet clear.”

“No, I’ve never been so clear.” She reached out and caught one of his hands. “It’s a truth written in the rocks and trees and the beating of our hearts. Forgive.”

“No.” He shook off her hand. “Ye canna ask it of me. He took so much…”

Elspeth’s heart ached at the enormity of Rob’s loss, but she feared for him as well. For his soul.

“Aye, he did.”

“And his offense wasna only against me.” Rob was pacing now, agitation showing in every muscle and line of his body. “’Twas against Fiona. Tell me ye would forgive one who drove someone ye loved to their death.”

Her shoulders sagged. “I suppose I could.”

“Then ye’re either a saint or a liar.” He glared at her.

“At least ye must forgive yourself,” she said. “Fiona’s death was no’ your fault.”

Rob wouldn’t meet her gaze.

“Bitterness is like death. I see it growing in your heart, Rob, wild as a cankerwort and as hard to root out. Forgive yourself while ye can.”

“I’ll no’ forgive Lachlan Drummond. And I’ll no’ forgive myself for letting it happen. Never!” Rob strode toward the door. “I’d rather roast in hell.”

Chapter 19

Drummond watched his guest shove food around his trencher without eating a bite. After he reported Elspeth had been shot in the failed attempt to recover her on the loch, Drummond convinced Alistair Stewart there was nothing to be gained by following Mad Rob any longer. Once they returned to his stronghold with the sad news, Elspeth’s mother had collapsed, too weak with grief to travel home.

“If I call in my men now,” Stewart said as he chased a bit of root vegetable with a crust of barley bread across his trencher, “I can have three hundred ready to march on Caisteal Dubh by month’s end. How many will ye bring?”

Drummond set down his empty drinking horn. “Ye expect to lay a siege with winter on the wind?”

“We canna arrive at the MacLaren’s seat without a show of force at our backs. The only thing a coward like him understands is strength. There’s no point in going to him with a handful of fingers.”

Lachlan didn’t think there was much point in going to Caisteal Dubh at all. Elspeth was probably dead. Mad Rob had likely already consigned her body to the loch.

“What would you have us do if he refuses to give her back? The Dark Castle has never been taken from without,” Drummond said. “There have been rumors of a secret way in, but no one has ever found it. All we’ll do is shame ourselves before our own men when we must go home empty-handed, or freeze to death camping outside the walls.”

“What other choice do we have? Would ye have us do nothing?”