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Her left hand flew up into the air. “And I’m sure he also knows we’ve shared a bed every single night I’ve been here. Coupling could very well mean a babe and he damn well knows that fact.”
“No. He wouldn’t harm ye.” His hands rose to her to calm. “No—not on purpose. That arrow was an accident. Gil doesn’t have it in him to hurt another.”
She took a step closer to him, her stare meeting his eyes not wavering as she leaned in, her words punctuated. “He does.”
Evan shook his head, taking a step back, his words a growl. “Don’t disparage my brother, Juliet.”
She wasn’t about to let him escape her. “I’m not disparaging him, I’m telling you the truth of him. You’re blinded by love, by guilt—I don’t know by what—but you’re blind.”
“I’m not blind. I see very well the reality of what is in front of me.” The thunder in his voice shook the air around her. “And what I see right now is you trying to turn me against my brother.” His glare pinned her. “It won’t work.”
“Not even for your grandfather? You won’t even think of him in all this? He thinks that you’re inheriting everything—that you’re the one that is to bring the legacy of him, of your forefathers forward. You’re lying to him. Lying to the one person you claim to care about the most.” Her eyes closed as her hand splayed across her brow, her head shaking. She opened her eyes to him, her voice soft. “And if that isn’t being blind—hurting the person you love the most for some idiot oath uttered long ago, then I don’t know what is. You’re martyring yourself to misplaced honor.”
“You don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
Her eyes locked onto his. “Enlighten me.”
Silence.
“Exactly.” She exhaled a long sigh. “So let me just do what you’re paying me to do.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“Finish endearing myself to your grandfather so I can go home.”
She turned and left the room, her steps heavy.
{ Chapter 20 }
Evan followed Juliet into the solarium to gather their morning plates. At his grandfather’s request, he and Juliet had fallen into a pattern the last several days, filling their breakfast plates and then bringing them into the library to enjoy their morning meal with the earl.
No matter their argument a half hour ago before they had gone to their rooms to put fresh clothing on, they had walked down the main staircase together, the farce of the besotted betrothed firmly in place for benefit of his grandfather.
A small grace for how Juliet had looked at him in the east tower. Her glare could have melted steel, for how she’d wanted to skewer him for his idiocy.
But she knew nothing about the oath he’d sworn to his brother. What it meant to him. How he’d lived his whole life by it. There was no way for her to understand it.
Following her into the solarium, Evan’s stare centered on the back of the chignon she’d quickly pinned her hair into and he wasn’t ready for her to abruptly stop in front of him. He rammed into the back of her.
His hands immediately flew out, grabbing her and pulling her upright to standing before she stumbled.
He looked up and saw instantly why she’d halted.
His multitude of cousins and six of their wives dotted amongst the mass of them lined the far wall of windows, the shoulders three deep in some places. Gilroy stood at the far end of the line, glaring, his mouth tight, pulled to the side.
And in the center of the line of them, his grandfather stood.
Stood.
Tall, proud, and in his finest kilt and full plaid of green, red and black.
He hadn’t worn those clothes in ten years.
All of them. All of his cousins in their finest.
Juliet half turned, looking over her shoulder at him.
Panic. Sheer panic in her eyes.
