Page 55

But he needed to set his anger aside and act rationally. The best thing he could do now was to give her a gracious way out. To set it up so that she could claim it had been her idea to break their engagement.

He looked at her from under his eyebrows.

“I wilna stop seeing her even after we’re marrit.”

The drumstick fell from her hand, the smug expression washed from her face. “What?”

The room fell completely silent, apart from the wind howling outside the slit windows.

Laomann shifted uncomfortably. “Angus…”

Angus ignored the shocked expression on Catrìona’s face. Forgive me, sister… He was exposing her to crude things that her tender ears were nae ready to hear.

“Ye asked,” he said, looking straight at Euphemia. “I’m telling ye. Ye need to ken. I wilna be faithful. I will have a concubine.”

Her eyelashes trembled and hurt crossed her face. Her eyes filled with tears as she wiped her fingers on a cloth.

“Ye’re a bastart, Angus Mackenzie,” she whispered hotly.

He did feel like a cruel bastart, and he hated hurting anyone, even someone like Euphemia, but he needed to resolve this without bloodshed.

“We’ll see about that.” She threw the cloth on the trencher she was eating from and rose. Her hair glistened pure gold, reflecting the light from the fires of the braziers.

“Do ye still want to marry me?” he asked. “Knowing that?”

“I can just have her beheaded,” she rasped.

“Nae. Ye will be my wife, and I wilna allow that on my land. Ye may do that on yer brother’s land with his permission. As yer lord and yer husband, I wilna permit ye to harm anyone. And if ye do, I will throw ye in prison. Understood?”

She gasped and opened her mouth several times in a state he’d never imagined: confused, lost, alarmed.

He held her gaze for a long time, feeling like a cliff standing strong against a raging sea. Finally, her face relaxed, and she straightened her shoulders. Something like a decision passed across her face. She licked her lips.

“Understood,” she said.

William stood, enraged. “What?” he said, glaring at her in indignation.

Hope flickered in Angus’s chest. Hope for freedom. Hope for happiness. Hope to spend time with Lady Rogene and persuade her to stay longer—mayhap even forever? He hadn’t thought of any solutions or planned out their future, but he knew that if he was free from Lady Euphemia, he had a chance to be with Lady Rogene.

Euphemia slowly turned to William and bestowed a freezing glare upon him. “I said, aye,” she said, punctuating every word as if he were a child.

“But what about the rest of the tribute? What about Kintail?” William growled.

“Aye,” Angus said. “What about it? Will ye attack?”

Wearing a cooler expression than a stone statue, she turned to him. If her blue eyes could cut flesh, he’d be dead. “Nae.”

The word released tension in his stomach. He felt lighter, the ground shifting under his feet.

“Truly?” he said.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Truly. I wilna attack. I also wilna marry another cheater.”

He sighed out audibly. Both Laomann and Catrìona stared at him, huge-eyed. Catrìona, he knew, was relieved, only not sure if she could be happy for him just yet.

“I am sorry this didna work as ye wanted it to,” Angus said.

He knew he’d given her a way out that saved her pride, and though he felt like he’d gotten out of this too easily, he didn’t want to question it.