"I beg your pardon, Lochlan MacAllister, you are not my lord and master!"
Nora watched as Catarina started for the door, and Lochlan caught her arm in his hand. "Would you listen to me?"
Catarina childishly covered her ears with her hands and hummed. Loudly.
Lochlan appeared ready to throttle her.
"What are they fighting over now?" she asked her mother.
Her mother shrugged. "They have done nothing but argue since they met. Poor Catarina can"t stand him."
As Catarina stormed outside with Lochlan trailing after her, Nora"s father and Ryan came in.
Ryan appeared completely recovered from his wound.
"Is Ewan better?" Ryan asked.
Nora nodded. She still didn"t want to speak to the ogre.
"Nora," her father said. "Ryan and I have come to an understanding. If Ewan makes an offer for your hand, Ryan will stand aside."
Unexpected joy filled her.
Until she thought better of it.
"And if Ewan doesn"t?" she asked.
Ryan wagged his brows at her. "You"re mine, Nora. To have and to hold until death we do part."
As Ryan spoke those words, she saw Ewan coming into the hall. He paused and looked at them darkly.
If she lived out eternity, Nora would never forget the look on his face as he heard Ryan"s declaration.
She wanted to curse at his timing.
"Ewan?" she asked. "What are you doing up?"
He didn"t speak. He just turned about and started back for the stairs.
Nora rushed to his side.
Ewan handed her the embroidery cloth she"d left in his room. "I thought you might have need of it," he said simply, his voice and eyes empty.
"Let me help you back to bed."
He curled his lips at her. "I don"t need any help. Go back to your betrothed."
"Ewan," she said insistently, "Ryan has agreed to release me if you want me."
He glanced back at Ryan.
"It"s true," Ryan said as he joined them. "I will not stand between the two of you."
Ewan wanted to laugh at those haunting words.
Fate was indeed mocking him.
Instead, he heard the sound of his mother"s shocked gasp as she came into the room and heard words that were almost identical to the ones Kieran had once said in this very same hall.
Take her, Ewan, if she"ll have the likes of you. I willna stand between the two of you. But know that if you leave with her, I will never again call you brother.
He wondered if Ryan was as sincere as Kieran had been when Kieran had spoken those words to him.
Or would Ryan ride home, gather his men, and then start the feud he"d promised?
In his mind"s eye, Ewan saw the death and destruction that had reigned over the MacAllister lands as they fought with the MacDouglases.
Wincing from the pain of the memory of then and the reality of now, he turned away from the face of the only woman he would ever really love.
"She belongs with you, Ryan. I have no need of a wife."
Nora felt as if Ewan had slapped her. Nothing had ever hurt her more than his cold announcement.
"I was wrong about you, Ewan MacAllister," she said, her voice breaking on his name. "You are heartless and mean."
With a dignity she didn"t feel, she lifted her chin and returned to her parents. "I wish to leave."
"Now?" her father asked.
"Aye. I"ll go with you or on my own, but I willna stay in this place another instant."
Ewan couldn"t breathe as he heard her words.
She was leaving him.
You told her to go.
Aye, he had. It was kinder this way.
Why then did he feel as if his stomach and heart were being shredded?
Fight for her, d.a.m.n you, fight!
But he didn"t have it in him. He couldn"t let his clan be torn apart.
Nora"s parents said a quick and embarra.s.sed goodbye to his mother while Nora stalked from the hall without even glancing back at him.
So be it.
He was better off without her.
And yet the thought of returning to his home alone made his blood run cold.
Ewan made his way up the stairs and to his bed. He had barely lain down before his brothers stormed into his room and surrounded his bed.
The three of them appeared angry and ready to battle.
"May I be the one who beats him?" Braden asked.
Ewan frowned at them. "Beats me for what?"
"Stupidity," Sin hissed.
Lochlan thumped Ewan on the arm. Hard.
Ewan grimaced and rubbed the sore spot his brother had caused. "Do that again and I shall rip your hand off."
Lochlan glared furiously at him. "Try it and I"ll have your worthless hide for a rug before my hearth. Now tell me how you can be so foolish as to let her leave?"
Ewan ground his teeth as rage filled him. "What are you, daft? You do remember what happened the last time I took a woman from her betrothed, do you not?"
Lochlan pierced him with a feral glare. "Ryan is not Robby MacDouglas, nor is he Kieran."
Ewan said nothing.
"He"s closed us out again," Braden said disgustedly. "He"ll not hear a word we say."
"Then may I kill him?" Sin asked.
"Nay," Lochlan said, "I want the privilege."
Braden scoffed. "You"re just angry that she took Catarina with her when she left."
Lochlan shoved at Braden. "Leave off that line of taunting. I never want to hear that woman"s name p.r.o.nounced in my presence again."
"Out!"
All four men jumped at the sound of Aisleen MacAllister"s commanding tone. "Leave your brother be, lads. He needs no more pestering from the likes of you."
Reluctantly they withdrew. But the combined looks on their faces warned him loudly that they would be back to pester him more.
"Thank you," Ewan said as silence once again claimed the room.
Then, to his utter shock, his mother came to the bed and smacked him hard across the side of his right hip.
"What was that for?" he asked, unable to believe she had done such a thing.
"I wish you were small enough that I could give you the spanking you deserve."
"Mother, I"m injured."
"Aye, and in the head to boot."
He was aghast at her. She"d never spoken to him in such a manner. "What has possessed you?"
"Anger mostly. I want to know why you let such a fine la.s.s go off with that good-for-nothing. He"ll only make her miserable, and well you know it. I canna believe you would do such a thing. Saints preserve me, but I thought I had raised you up better than this, and now I find out just how wrong I was."
She crossed herself and started praying for his lost and wayward soul.
Ewan gaped at her, unable to believe her and her actions. "Youof all people would have me come between them?"
She broke off mid-prayer to glower at him for a full minute.
Then his mother sighed wearily and sat down on his bed. She sat there for several heartbeats, not moving or speaking.
He couldn"t tell if she was really gathering her thoughts, or getting ready to hit him again.
When she spoke, he leaned away from her just in case her madness should again possess her.
"Ewan," she said as if the weight of the world were upon her, "I have tried all your life to bring happiness to you, and it saddens me that I have failed you so miserably."
"Mother-"
"Nay," she said, holding her hand up as she interrupted him. "Let me say my piece."
A faraway look came over her, as if she were remembering his childhood.
Ewan gave an involuntary shudder. If she remembered too much of his errant childhood, he really would be in trouble.
"Unlike your father and your brothers, I know why you are withdrawn. I"ve always known. Do you think I don"t remember the way you looked when at age four you were too large for me to pick up and carry?
You used to stare at me holding Braden, and I could see the hurt in your eyes."
He opened his mouth to deny it, but she silenced him by placing her hand over his lips.
"I would sit for hours and weep, wis.h.i.+ng that I had been born larger so that I could take you into my arms and carry you about as you wanted. But it was too late. From that day forward, you pushed me and anyone else who would draw you in away from you. It broke my heart that you decided you had no use for me and my hugs."
"That"s not true," he insisted, even though in his heart he knew it was. He"d always been wounded that his brothers seemed to get everything else while he was left on his own.
That was why Kieran had meant so much to him. Their father had taken up with Lochlan to the exclusion of the rest of them. Braden was favored by their mother, and Kieran had always doted on him.
Braden had forever picked at and hara.s.sed Ewan, while Lochlan lost patience with virtually everything he had ever said or done. Kieran alone had taken time to befriend him.
"Aye, it is true," his mother said. "Any time I have ever reached out to embrace you, you have tensed up and immediately moved away."
She stared intently at him. "You don"t tense when Nora touches you, Ewan. When the two of you were in the hall below and you were fighting, I saw the way you looked at her. The need you had in your eyes when she reached for you."
Ewan stared at the wall as her words sank in and the pain of the past and present ran rampant through him.