Page 47 of Highland Storm

After a moment, the king interjected. “Isn’t this what you might expect, Lianae?”

Half nodding, half shaking her head, Lianae was terrified by the fate both she and Keane might now face—all her fault. Either way, it was a travesty. If the king sent her back to William, it would be her end. If he believed her, then Keane would hang—or worse. She thought about his head upon a pike and… and it made her physically ill. She covered her mouth and tried not to gag.

The king fixed her with a narrow eyed glare. “Lianae of Moray, what would you have me do with Keane dún Scoti?”

She did not hear, at first, the name he’d called him. It completely escaped her in her moment of terror.

Accord him honors.

Reward him with riches.

Keane did not deserve his head on a pike!

Tears slipped down Lianae’s cheeks. Her face grew hot. “Your Grace, ’tis the truth, he dinna force me,” she confessed. “I laid with him willingly.”

At least it was partially true.

She had shared his pallet, after all—come to him willingly.

King David eyed the laird of Keppenach once more and then returned his gaze to Lianae. “If I should send in my physician to… tend ye… he would agree that you are no longer… a virgin?”

Lianae’s cheeks heated, but she managed a nod—despite the lie.

“And you say you lay with him willingly?”

She felt as though she would swoon. “Aye, Your Grace.”

The king turned to Cameron. “And what of this, MacKinnon. Is this true?”

“That she carries Keane’s babe? How am I to know this, Your Grace?”

Lianae’s heart tripped painfully as she inspected her thumb—raw now after two days of nervous picking—unable to face the contempt in Cameron’s gaze. He was bound to loathe her by now, and he, above all the rest, would know her for what she was—a liar.

For a long while, Cameron seemed reluctant to reply, but then he did, and he nodded at last. “Aye, they slept together, but I never saw them do aught more than kiss.”

Lianae’s gaze snapped to meet his, surprised by the admission.

More tears brimmed in her eyes at the memory of the sweet kisses she had shared with Keane—tender moments that she would never trade for aught in the world. And Cameron had clearly witnessed at least one of them. The one they’d shared in the pallet on the first morning she’d awoken beside him? Or the one down by the burn when she’d very nearly offered him her virginity? The chaste kiss on the back of her head where he stole her heart? They were all proof of Keane’s good character and will, for despite that she had placed herself boldly in his arms, every time he had pushed her away…

Keane was the first man she had ever known who’d made her heart trip—who treated her so familiarly and yet so gently, without a trace of lechery.

Is this how she should repay him?

The silence in the room was deafening. The king’s fingers returned to abusing the wooden arm of his chair. The sound of his fingers beating the wood grew in intensity until it matched the quickening beat of Lianae’s heart.

Would they hang a man for such as she’d claimed?

Just to be clear, and just to be certain they would not harm Keane, Lianae cleared her throat and said, “I wanted to lie with him.”

And this much was wholly true.

With every fiber of her being.

“What of your intended?” David asked, feeling the need to remind her. “William fitz Duncan.”

Lianae’s heart squeezed painfully at the mention of the Earl’s name. Fear paralyzed her tongue. Her eyes alone must have spoken loudly enough, because the king sighed and swept a hand across the table in disgust. “Very well.” He nodded to the guard who’d brought her into the room. “Escort the Lady Lianae to her chambers.”

Lianae wasn’t a lady; she was a princess, but she didn’t feel like one at the moment. She felt lower than low—a scourge on the face of the earth. A liar. A coward.