Page 71 of When the Laird Conquers

“What are you doing here?” she asked, flushed.

Had he read her letters and decided not to write, but to come and see her instead?

His hazel eyes narrowed, his lips pressing into a grim line. “I received an invitation to the betrothal party and thought I would leave at once so that I did not miss it. As such, I arrived a week early.” He cleared his throat. “I saw you in the hallway. I called out to you, but I don’t think you heard me. Clearly, you did not hear me.”

Invitation? Who on earth sent it?

It certainly had not come from her.

Her father surveyed the room and Gordon with an aloofness that she was all too familiar with. He loved her; she did not doubt that, but every time he looked at her, he saw her mother. And now, her sister too.

“If I could just explain—” Agnes began to say, but he interrupted, his gaze fixed on Gordon.

“What do you mean ‘fake’, sir?” His voice carried an edge of threat that she didn’t like one bit. “Do you not intend to marry my daughter? Explain yourself.”

Oh heavens.

The last thing Agnes needed was her father and Gordon getting into a duel over this. After all, she had seen Gordon fight in the training yard and had no doubt that he was an excellent shot. It would be no challenge for him.

“Father, why don’t we take tea downstairs and I can—” she tried again.

“I am not talking to you, dear girl,” her father cut in firmly. “I wish to hear what your supposed betrothed has to say, for this is news to me.”

Gordon puffed out a breath, the streaks and splashes of paint making him look all the more intimidating in the low light, as if those marks were not paint at all.

“I apologize for yer confusion, sir, but this was a mutual agreement,” he replied, his tone polite. “If it’s a surprise to ye, that’s nay mistake of mine.”

Agnes gulped. Maybe she should have been more forthright in her letter to her father, but it was too late to remedy that now.

“I cannae, and willnae marry anyone,” Gordon added, as if for her benefit too. “It’s a vow I made some years ago. But I do mean to protect yer daughter and yer granddaughter from those who wish to harm them. I ken that’s nae what a faither might want to hear, but I cannae be anythin’ but honest.”

Her father seemed to shift through a carousel of emotion, his mouth opening and closing without speaking a word, as if he couldn’t decide what to say or how to respond.

“Is this true?” he asked at last, turning to her.

Agnes nodded. “It is, Father. The ‘betrothal,’ such as it is, is my protection.”

The older man’s brow crumpled, his hunched shoulders slumping further. And in his eyes, Agnes saw something that might have been disappointment, but could just as easily have been sorrow. Either way, he was not happy.

“I’ll leave ye to talk,” Gordon said gently, and left the room before she could beg for the reassurance of his presence.

Standing there in the flickering candlelight, Agnes waited for her father to speak first.

“I do not understand why you would do this,” he began, his voice rough with emotion. “Has what happened to Christine taught you nothing?”

“It is not the same,” Agnes replied, her voice catching. “This is… a ruse. It is not real.”

It pained her to say it, when not so very long ago, she had insisted that it was entirely real. But she didn’t think that would placate her father much.

“You do not know the struggles I have endured, Father,” she continued, sucking in a steadying breath. “You do not know the threat that faces us. I had to do something in order to protect Lizzy, and this is it. If I had not acted, Edwin would have taken her from me and placed her in a convent. Or worse, he might have got rid of her altogether.”

There was nothing a desperate man wouldn’t do to save his own skin, and she had wondered for some time if sending Lizzy to a convent had merely been a euphemism for making her vanish permanently.

“You should have written to me,” her father replied gruffly. “I could have protected you both.”

“I did, Father,” she said, her temper rising. “I wrote to you week after week and heard nothing in reply. I know it is not because you didn’t care, but because you cared too much that you couldn’t bear it. Nevertheless, I had only myself to rely upon… and Aunt Tabitha too. She understood that this was a viable way to keep Lizzy safe.”

I was grieving too! She wanted to scream at him. I was heartbroken beyond measure, but I did not have the luxury of locking myself away from the world! Someone had to step in to look after Lizzy, and it certainly wasn’t you.