Highlanders Collection. Ann Lethbridge

a dowry for both you and Marian. We decided to put it together for you, since your sister, our Beitris, inherits lands from her Robertson grandmother.’

      ‘’tis blood money, then, paid for his part in his wife’s, my mother’s, death?’

      ‘I think of it as repayment for all that was lost, Ciara. We existed in poor circumstances when both of us were entitled to more, much more, but could not claim it.’

      ‘To ease his guilty conscience, then,’ she offered.

      ‘To offer help when he could not in the past,’ her mother countered.

      ‘You seem eager to forgive him for his sins, Mother.’

      ‘Ciara, do not let this make you bitter. You were raised in love by us, given every privilege and comfort you needed. I would have refused it at the time, but decided you deserved it, to ensure a happy future.’

      The irony that struck her was that the dowry was the heart of the problem for her. It made her more appealing as a bride to any and all clans who had an unmarried heir and need for gold. Without it, she might have been able to marry someone here, someone …

      Ciara shook her head, trying not to allow that thought to complete itself. If she were honest, she would admit that it also gave her a measure of control that other heiresses did not have. And she did not feel like being generous in her consideration of Iain Robertson’s actions in the past right at this moment.

      ‘I understand,’ she said, accepting that she would not win this argument.

      They kissed her once more and then began to leave.

      ‘I would like to walk a bit and settle this in my mind.’

      ‘I will have a bath ready for you when you get back, Ciara. Once you feel refreshed, things will be clearer to you,’ her mother said. She watched as her mother took her father’s hand and met her gaze. ‘We are here any time you have questions. We will answer what we can.’

      She nodded and closed the door to her chamber. Finding a clean gown in her trunk, she dressed and put on her leather boots. It was a warm day out, so she needed no cloak now. She would walk to the stream and freshen her face before returning. It would give her time to think about all these matters and the changes wrought by them in her life. She waited for her father to return to his duties before going outside and heading to the path next to the cottage.

      And found Tavis watching her.

       Chapter Fifteen

      He’d been there for some time and watched Duncan arrive, James and Elizabeth arrive and leave and then Duncan depart, too. Only then did Ciara open the door and step outside. She looked terrible and calm at the same time. As she lifted her eyes and noticed him, he waited for her to turn away.

      Instead, she offered him a soft smile and a nod.

      ‘James and Elizabeth headed through the village to the keep,’ he said.

      ‘Then we should go in this direction,’ she said. If her attitude should have shocked him, it did not.

      He followed her into the forest and the path that led to the stream that fed the wells here-about. They walked in companionable silence, through the hills, until they reached the banks of it. Ciara walked to the edge and knelt down, dipping her hands in the water and splashing it on her face.

      ‘You just do not cry well, do you, lass?’ he asked, already seeing proof of the answer in her swollen eyes and puffy nose and mouth. He handed her a small square of linen he’d brought along, suspecting she might need one.

      ‘Nay, Tavis,’ she said, accepting it. ‘’tis one thing I do not seem to outgrow.’

      He waited for her to use it and apply cold to her face before speaking to her. He wanted to ask her so many questions, but he sensed that right now she needed the silence he could give her, or she would have followed James and Elizabeth in the opposite direction. When she stopped dabbing the wet linen on her face, he knelt next to her.

      ‘Are you well, then?’

      ‘I think so, Tavis,’ she answered, though her gaze showed no certainty.

      ‘Did you get the answers to your questions?’

      She took in a deep breath and he thought she might begin crying again. But she did not.

      ‘I did.’ She nodded and looked away from him then, staring into the rippling surface of the stream.

      ‘Did it change how Duncan and Marian feel about you or you about them?’ He would not probe further if she did not wish to speak of it.

      ‘I think I love them more now than I did before we talked this morn,’ she said. ‘Far from being unwanted, I was most wanted.’

      ‘’tis well, then,’ he said.

      ‘Will you be at the ceilidh this evening?’ Ciara stood and waited for him.

      He climbed to his feet and shook his head. ‘I have other duties to see to,’ he lied.

      ‘Do you, then?’ He sensed she knew it for the lie it was, but did she have to challenge it?

      ‘Ciara, please,’ he whispered as she stepped nearer to him, though he could not say if he wanted her to stop or to move closer. Hell, he wanted her closer.

      She stopped and stepped away and he wished she had not in the same moment he thanked God above that she had. He could not resist her when she was vulnerable and though she had stopped crying and looked considerably better than when he’d found her, he could feel her need for his support in his heart and soul.

      ‘Forgive me, Tavis, for putting you in this difficult position. I am still undone by what I have learned and need some time to consider the consequences of it all.’

      The thing he could not ignore was that she had followed him and not James. She spoke to him about this matter and not James. Damn it all to hell! Why did she not share such confidences with her betrothed or seek him out for comfort?

      Tavis knew why. He knew, he felt, the connection between them—one born in childhood fancy, nurtured through friendship and exposed during this transition into adulthood. He’d ridiculed it. He’d doubted it. He’d resisted it. He’d even tried to deny it before he was forced to accept it as real.

      Through their journey, he understood it and the challenges that loving her placed in his life and hers. They each had their responsibilities to the clan and their duty was clear: she would marry James and he would leave. This love just made it more difficult.

      The admission he’d just made to himself should have chilled him to his soul; however, denying it any longer was simply not within his power to do. But acting on it was something he would not do.

      ‘Your life has thrown you this way and that for months now and especially these last weeks, Ciara. Give yourself time.’

      A sad smile barely lifted the corners of her mouth. She nodded her head without meeting his gaze. ‘With the harvest approaching and the cattle to be moved and all the tasks of autumn, they want the wedding to be in a week.’

      No time at all and he would lose her forever.

      But he would lose her sooner if he revealed the whole of the reason he feared trying to claim her. In truth, he did not fear being cast out. He could live on his own, even move to a distant cousin’s village in the south, if need be. He did not fear losing everything here: his house, his duties, his friends. He would lose them soon when he moved out of Lairig Dubh for another of Connor’s holdings.

      What he feared most was seeing the disappointment in her eyes and watching her love for him die even as he watched Saraid die because of his foolishness.

      ‘Would it