Page 89 of Steel & Surrender

“No, not usually,” Brìghde replied, pain rippling across her features. High spots of color had risen to her cheekbones. “But … ye’re also not a man that likes to be beaten. Especially by a woman.”

He exhaled sharply, fighting for control. “Ye’re not listening to me.” His own temper was rising now. It was as if the lass had stuffed wool into her ears and was deaf to everything he said. “I am in earnest. I want ye. I want to be with ye. I know our ranks separate us, but I don’t care. If ye agree to be my wife, I’ll ask my father. I’ll make a case for it. I’ll—”

“Stop,” she cut him off, her voice turning shrill. “Ye’re just making it worse.”

He stared back at her as if she’d just slapped him.

“Ye feel remorse now, don’t ye?” she continued. “Now that ye’ve had yer way with me, yer damn sense of honor means that ye need to do the right thing. Tonight might leave me with bairn, and ye don’t want a bastard arriving, do ye? That wouldn’t please yer father either.”

“Ye’re twisting my words,” he cut back, knowing he should soften his voice but unable to.

All the while, though, his gut had twisted into knots.

This had gone even worse than he could have possibly imagined.

It was his fault. He’d approached it all wrong. He should have told her from the first—or held his tongue forever.

No one would have known. He hadn’t told anyone, not even Davy, about the last item on Alistair’s list. Curse him. He’d ruined everything.

“Was any of it real?” she asked softly.

That hurt him more than anything else she’d said. “Aye,” he managed. “All of it.”

She shook her head. “Let us forget tonight happened.” Brìghde backed up toward the door of the forge. “I’ll visit Hazel Maclean at Moy Castle tomorrow. Word is, she makes tonics for women who don’t wish their womb to quicken. Ye need not worry. This won’t come back to bite ye.”

“Brìghde,” he ground out. “Just stop.”

“No.” She shook her head fiercely, grabbed the door, and hauled it open. “Ye stop, Greig. Stay away from me from now on.”

And then she was gone, disappearing into the darkness, her bare feet whispering on the grass, leaving Greig alone in the forge.

25: SETTING FIRE TO EVERYTHING

GREIG WALKED BACK to the revelry in a daze, barely seeing the faces around him. Setting the lantern down on the perimeter, his gaze surveyed the large crowd that still danced, drank, and talked. The braziers burned merrily, and laughter rang through the night.

But he had never felt less like laughing in his life.

Not even when he’d awoken after taking that wound to his left thigh had he felt such despair.

It sat like an anvil in his gut.

He’d let Brìghde go—he’d had no choice. She’d been too angry. She wouldn’t listen to anything he said.

The lass needed time to calm herself, to think on things.

However, he couldn’t help but fear that the more she pondered what he’d told her, the angrier she’d become.

In telling Brìghde about the last item on Alistair’s list, he hadn’t taken something important into account.

Her pride.

All her life, she’d felt different. An outsider.

He’d seen it in the way she brushed off compliments. In the way she never lingered where other lasses laughed together.

The thought that he had played her like a lyre, that she’d been nothing but a conquest to him, had hurt her—badly.

Greig didn’t know how he was going to put this right.